Sleight of Hand

Part III

The Revenge of the Ottoman Scepter





CHAPTER Forty-Eight

Santoro and Robb got out of the elevator and spotted the nurses’ station. A heavyset brunette was on the phone, reading from a medical chart, when they walked up. The detectives held up their identification and the woman held up her hand as she continued to talk.

“How can I help you?” the nurse asked as soon as she hung up the phone.

“We want to speak to a patient.”

“What’s the patient’s name?”

“Gregor Karpinski.”

The nurse had started to look at a white board with room numbers and patient names, but she stopped.

“Mr. Karpinski passed away last night.”

“He’s dead?” Santoro said.

The nurse nodded.

“How did he die?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t on duty.”

“Is there someone we can speak to?”

“Dr. Raptis was here. Let me see if he’s available.”

Santoro and Robb walked far enough away from the nurse’s station so they could talk without being overheard.

“What do you think?” Robb asked.

“I don’t know. From what I heard, he was in pretty bad shape, stab wounds to the groin, head trauma.”

Before Robb could reply a young man in a white coat walked up to the nurses’ station. He was short and slender, and his long black hair looked as if it had been finger-combed. Santoro guessed he was in his late twenties. The nurse pointed to the detectives. The doctor’s glasses had slipped down his nose and he pushed them up as he walked over.

“Hi, I’m Dave Raptis. Nurse Arlen said you wanted to know about Gregor Karpinski.”

“He is—I guess ‘was’ is more appropriate—a witness in a case we’re investigating,” Santoro said. “We came up here hoping to talk to him, but the nurse told us he died last night.”

“That’s right. He passed away about three in the morning.”

“Was Mr. Karpinski your patient?” Robb asked.

“Dr. Samuels did the surgery. I’d looked in on him a few times since he was admitted.”

“Was his death a surprise?” Robb asked.

“Actually, it was.”

“Why is that?” Santoro asked.

“He died of cardiac arrest.”

“Why was that surprising? I thought he was in pretty bad shape.”

“Oh, he was, but the damage he suffered was to his genitals and head. There was nothing wrong with his heart.”

“Was there anything suspicious about the death? Anything that would make you suspect that he was murdered?”

“Murdered?”

“Mr. Karpinski was a witness in a murder case. His death could benefit some people. Can you think of anything that would help us figure out whether he died from natural or unnatural causes?”

The doctor looked concerned. “Gee, I don’t know. He had died by the time I got to his room. It never occurred to me that he might have been murdered, so I wasn’t looking for anything like that.”

The detectives talked with Dr. Raptis a little longer before they headed for the elevator. Santoro got his cell phone out and speed-dialed the medical examiner’s office while they waited for the car to come. After he spoke to Nick Winters, Santoro called Dana Cutler and told her that another avenue for proving that Charles Benedict had killed Carrie Blair had been closed.