Wild Justice by Phillip Margolin Page A

a locker at the bus station and placing it in the trunk of his car. If the cooler contained the heart, Grant could not have been the person who harvested it. You ve only got a leeway of four to six hours between removing a heart and transplanting it into the body of the new recipient, and Grant was under constant surveillance. That meant that Grant had a partner. Cardoni, Vasquez said. Possibly. Scofield lit a cigar and took a few puffs. The smoke curled up and spread out until it disappeared. I was one of several officers who followed Grant to a private airfield. We observed Art Prochaska, Martin Breach s lieutenant, place an attachase in Grant s car. Grant spotted us and took off before giving Prochaska the cooler. A few days later his car was discovered at the long-term parking lot at the airport. And now we ve found Grant and the operating room where the organs were harvested, Vasquez said. And since we found Grant here, Scofield added, it s not much of a stretch to say that Grant s partner probably killed him. They walked in silence for a few moments. As they came in sight of the cabin, Vasquez put out his hand to stop McCarthy. I want to ask you a favor, he said. I want Breach, and I want Cardoni. I want to be part of this investigation. It was my case to begin with. I don t want to be cut out. What about it? McCarthy nodded thoughtfully. Let me talk to some people. I ll see what I can do.
    13 Frank Jaffe was an excellent storyteller. Amanda s favorite tale was the account of her miraculous birth, which Frank told her for the first time on her fifth birthday during a visit to Beth Israel cemetery. It was terribly cold that afternoon, but Amanda didn t notice the raw wind or the stark gray and threatening sky, so intense was her concentration on the grave of Samantha Jaffe, born September 3, 1953, died March 10, 1974. The headstone was small because Frank had not been able to afford elegance when he purchased it. The grave lay beneath the swaying leafless branches of an ancient maple tree, third in from a narrow road that roamed through the graveyard. Frank had gazed with sad eyes at the headstone. Then he had looked down on his little girl. Amanda was all that was good in the world and the reason that Frank persevered. In his mid-twenties Frank had been tall and strong, but a single father who worked all day and struggled in law school each night needed more than strength and youth to keep from folding. You were born on March the tenth, Frank had begun, coincidentally the very same day as today, at three-oh-eight in the afternoon, which is almost the time it is now, in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-four. At three-oh-eight in the afternoon? Three-oh-eight on the dot, Frank assured her. Your mother was lying in a wide bed on soft white sheets. . . . How did she look? She was smiling a wonderful smile because she knew you were about to be born, and that smile made her look like an angel the most beautiful of angels. Except, of course, she didn t have wings yet. Did she get wings? Certainly. It was part of the bargain, but the angel and your mother did not make their bargain right away, so your mother had to wait for her wings. When did the angel come? She appeared in the hospital in your mother s room just as you were about to be born. Now, angels are usually invisible, but your mother could see this angel. Only my mother? Only your mother. And that was because she was so like an angel herself. What did the angel say? Samantha, she said, in a voice that sounded like a light rain falling, God is very lonely in heaven and he wants you to visit. Thank God for me, your mother said, but I am about to bring a wonderful baby girl into the world, so I must stay with her. God will be very sad to hear that, the angel replied. It can t be helped, your mother told the angel. My little girl is the most precious little girl in the world, and I love her to bits. I would be very sad myself if I couldn t be with her always. What