CHAPTER 28
NYPD Lieutenant James Francis Moran pushed open the door of Dr. Benjamin Cook’s waiting area on the fifth floor of Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital. He had come to pick up his wife, Sandra. Six months earlier, she had been diagnosed with Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and had spent the previous night at the hospital undergoing extensive testing.
Moran glanced at the clock on the wall behind the reception counter: 11:30 a.m. He was an hour early for his appointment with Dr. Cook. The doctor had telephoned the night before and asked to speak with Moran alone. The doctor’s ominous vagueness weighed heavily on his mind. Moran took off his topcoat as he neared the dour, stiff-looking receptionist with her hair in a beehive and gave his name.
“You’re early,” the woman said in a flat tone while she continued to watch her computer screen.
Moran winked, “Thought we could spend more time together.” The remark was greeted with a grunt. The lieutenant shrugged his wide shoulders lightly and started to walk toward the waiting area. “You know where to find me.”
When he reached the waiting area, Moran slumped his trim six-foot-three-inch frame into one of the waiting room’s vinyl upholstered chairs and steeled himself for the meeting that lay ahead.
Lacing his fingers and crossing his legs, the cop let his brown eyes float around the room. On an end table next to him was a haphazard pile of reading material: Style; Women; Elle; National Enquirer and others.
Bored, Moran turned his attention to the other people in the waiting room. He began his favorite mental exercise, one he engaged in when riding the subway, or a bus. Or like now, waiting for Dr. Cook. As if,
