Critical (39 page)

“What's that for?” Laurie asked, reflexively backing away.

Jack shrugged. “Beats me. I just wanted to touch you because, I guess…” Jack paused, acting suddenly self-conscious. “I guess I think you are terrific.”

“Get out of here, you oaf,” Laurie said, nudging him. Jack's clumsy sentiment threatened to break down Laurie's carefully constructed defenses. In truth, her own emotions were barely under the surface. On the one hand, she wanted to support him through his surgery, as she assumed he could use, as everyone could, but on the other hand, she didn't want to lose him and was furious that he was putting her in such a conflicted state.

Gathering up his crutches and giving Laurie a final smile, Jack left. Laurie stood for a moment, looking at the stacks representing her twenty-five MRSA cases. Quickly leaning out into the hall, she called down to Jack, “Remember to use that antibiotic soap tonight!”

“It's on my list,” Jack yelled back without turning around.

Laurie ducked back into her office. She stood for a moment, recognizing that one of the struggles with having a real relationship with another was to allow the person to be themselves and make some decisions independently, with hopefully enlightened self-interest. What it boiled down to from Laurie's perspective, and the question of whether to have the surgery or not was a good example, was that a real lover had to recognize that there were two centers of the universe.

Pushing what she feared was sophomoric philosophizing out of her mind, Laurie sat back down at her desk. Her eyes flicked back and forth between her microscope and her matrix. Both beckoned. Although she thought the matrix the most promising in the long haul, the diatomlike apparent artifact was the most seductive.

Leaning forward, Laurie put her face to the eyepiece. What she wanted to do was scan the entire slide methodically to see if there were any more of the diatomlike objects.

 

ANGELO PULLED TO
a stop at the same location he and Franco had been when they'd left their stakeout earlier. They were at the curb on First Avenue where it crossed 30th Street. The OCME was just off to the right. Traffic was rush-hour heavy.

Angelo put the van in park and used the emergency brake. “No Range Rover,” he said, making a stab at justifying his behavior at noontime.

“Don't even go there,” Franco said, making himself comfortable. He'd gotten a coffee and a hero at Johnny's, as had Angelo.

“Here come Richie and Freddie,” Angelo said, looking in the rearview mirror and watching the white van pull up within a foot behind them.

Franco didn't answer. He was intent on surveying the area to make sure there were no apparent problems, such as parked police cars or loitering flatfoot patrolmen.

Angelo took a swig from his coffee, then unwrapped his sub. When he was finished, he glanced out the windshield and started.

“The boyfriend!” Angelo called out loud enough to make Franco slosh a dollop of coffee into his crotch. Angelo blindly reached for the small cast-iron bottle of ethylene and a plastic bag.

“Shit!” Franco yelled, straightening his back to lift his butt off the seat.

Angelo ditched the ethylene onto the floor and reached behind his seat for a roll of paper towels without taking his eyes off the OCME's front door.

Franco used a few towels to blot up the coffee from his seat, and a few more to wipe his pants. Only then did he look out the windshield. “Where's Montgomery?”

“I don't know,” Angelo said dejectedly. “Jesus. This woman is such a pain in the ass. Where the hell is she?”

They watched as Jack stood with his arm raised and crutches tucked into his armpits. He had advanced out into the street as far as he dared with the traffic zooming past him.

“This is probably better,” Franco said. “Without the boyfriend interfering, the snatch will be far easier.”

“You're probably right,” Angelo said. “I just hope she didn't leave early.”

“Relax!” Franco countered. “Don't be such a pessimist.”

 

“WOULD YOU LIKE
some more tea?” the waiter asked.

Adam shook his head. He was sitting in the Pierre's oval high-tea room jutting off the main corridor leading to the hotel's Fifth Avenue entrance. When he'd been a preteen, it had been his favorite room in the hotel, with its whimsical murals and, more important, with its afternoon selection of cookies and crumpets. As he turned the page of the Arts section of the
Times
, he felt his BlackBerry vibrate. Taking the mobile device out, he saw that he had an e-mail. Using the appropriate buttons, he opened it. It was short and simple: 63 West 106th.

After signing the check to his room, Adam went up to gather his things. He was encouraged. The timing seemed to be impeccable. Ten minutes later, he was climbing back into the Range Rover. Sensing that the mission would soon be over, he changed the selection on the CD changer from Bach back to Beethoven.

 

LAURIE LEANED WAY
back in her chair, and it squeaked in protest. With the tips of her fingers, she rubbed her eyes. She'd been so intent on staring into the microscope's eyepiece that she'd seemingly failed to blink as often as she should have. Her eyes had a gritty feeling, but the massage was rapidly therapeutic, and after only five seconds of rubbing followed by a series of rapid blinks, she was fine.

Although Laurie still had no idea whatsoever what the scalloped, disc-shaped object was, she'd found two more on the slide. And since all three were mirror images of each other, she felt they could not be artifacts introduced when the slides had been prepared. They were definite objects that had been in David Jeffries's lung at the time of his death.

Laurie's excitement soared. She even allowed herself to fantasize that she'd discovered a new infectious agent that in conjunction with staph made for an exceptionally lethal combination. At that point, she dashed down to histology and confronted Maureen, who was about to lock up for the night. After pleading her cause, Laurie convinced the woman to locate filed pulmonary slides on a handful of the former MRSA cases. After thanking her effusively, Laurie dashed back to her office.

To her delight, she found more of the diatomlike objects, and she noticed that the amounts differed from case to case, with some cases having none. They were extremely rare and consistently unstained, which excused her colleagues from having not seen them. It was at that point that the matrix had provided its first payoff. Although the matrix had not been completed, it had provided a seeming corroboration of the pathogenicity of the discs. The shorter the period between the onset of the individual patient's symptoms and the time of death, the more diatomlike objects Laurie found. Although this discovery hadn't been akin to fulfilling Koch's postulate confirming a microorganism as the source of a particular disease, Laurie felt encouraged. Very encouraged.

With her eyes feeling as though they were back to normal, Laurie grabbed her Rolodex. Obviously, she had to try to identify the scalloped, microscopic objects. A few years earlier, Jack had had a similar situation about a liver cyst, and he'd taken the slide over to the NYU Medical Center and had it looked at by a giant in the field of pathology, Dr. Peter Malovar. Despite being in his nineties and a professor emeritus, he still maintained an office and a reputation of maintaining his encyclopedic mind. The man's life was his work, especially since his wife had died twenty years earlier.

With a shaking hand, Laurie punched the numbers of Malovar's extension into her phone, hoping that the rumors of the long hours the aged pathologist maintained were correct. She kept her fingers crossed as the phone rang once, then twice, and to her delight was picked up at the commencement of the third ring.

Dr. Malovar's voice had a slight but pleasing English accent, a grandfatherlike calmness, and a surprising clarity for a nonagenarian. Laurie told her story in a rapid monologue, tripping over her words at times in her haste. When she finished, there was a pause. For a second, she'd feared that she'd been cut off.

“Well, this is an unexpected treat,” Dr. Malovar said happily. “Offhand, I have no idea what this diatomlike object is but I would love to see it. It sounds perfectly intriguing.”

“Would there be any chance of my bringing it over now?” Laurie questioned.

“I would be delighted,” Dr. Malovar insisted.

“It's not too late? I mean, I don't want to keep you.”

“Nonsense, Dr. Montgomery. I'm here until ten or eleven every evening. I'm at your disposal.”

“Thank you. I'll be over shortly. Is it difficult to find your office?”

Laurie was given explicit instructions before she hung up. She got her coat and hurried out to the elevator. As she boarded, her stomach growled as a visceral reminder that she'd skipped lunch. With Dr. Malovar having assured her he was not about to leave, she pressed the second-floor button. There wasn't much choice in the lunchroom's vending machines, but she trusted she could find something of caloric value, if nothing else.

The lunchroom was a favorite hangout for the support staff, especially during meal hours, and that evening was no exception. It was just after seven, and half of the three-to-eleven shift were present. With its stark concrete walls, the sound level in the room was almost painful for Laurie in contrast to her office's silence. As she stood in front of one of the vending machines, anxiously trying to decide which selection was the least bad for her, she heard her name over the din. Turning, she saw the smiling faces of Jeff Cooper and Pete Molimo. They were the evening shift Health and Hospital Corporation van drivers who went out to fetch the bodies. As with most of the rest of the staff, Laurie had become friendly with them over the years. Laurie and Jack, in contrast to their colleagues, were more apt to visit scenes during the evening and night hours, because they both felt such visits were exceedingly helpful.

The men were enjoying a break in their routine. They had finished their meals, as evidenced by the debris on their table. Except for rush-hour auto accidents, calls of deaths during mealtime were relatively rare and didn't pick up again until after nine. Both had their feet up on the opposing empty chairs at their four-top table.

“Haven't seen you much, Dr. Montgomery,” Jeff said.

“Yeah, where've you been hiding?” Pete added.

Laurie smiled. “Either in my office or in the pit.”

“You're a little late for going home, aren't you?” Pete asked. “Most of the other MEs are out of here before five.”

“I've been working on a special project,” Laurie said. “In fact, I'm not even going home now. I'm heading over to NYU Medical Center.”

“How are you getting over there? I don't know what it's doing now, but it was sprinkling an hour or so ago.”

“I'm walking,” Laurie said. “It's too short for a cab ride.”

“Why don't I run you over?” Pete offered. “We're just sitting here, and I'm tired of talking to this die-hard Boston fan.”

“What if you get a call?” Laurie asked.

“What's the difference. I got a radio.”

It took Laurie two seconds to make up her mind. “Are you ready to go now?”

“You bet,” Pete said, gathering up his trash.

In a lot of ways, it was ludicrous to ride, because the medical center entrance was on the same block as the OCME, and when they backed out of the morgue's receiving dock onto 30th Street, it was not raining. In fact, there was a patch of pale blue-green sky off to the west and moving closer.

“This is rather silly,” Laurie said, as Pete almost immediately turned into the curved driveway at the medical center's entrance several hundred feet down First Avenue. He managed to get up to only about twenty miles per hour. “I'm sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble at all,” Pete assured her. “I was glad to get away from Jeff, the bum. He's so sure the Sox are going to beat the Yankees that he won't shut up about it.”

Laurie hopped out of the van, thanked Pete, and used the microscope slide box she was carrying to wave as she hurried through the revolving door. The center was crowded with visitors, but Laurie quickly left them behind on her way to the academic portion of the institution. Using the elevator, she rose to the sixth floor. As she exited, she noticed that the corridor was as silent as the one outside her own office. Most all doors were closed, and she didn't pass a single person.

She found the renowned doctor in a small, windowless interior space that could have been a storeroom but which the aged man had decorated with all his diplomas, rewards, and honors, all protected in simple, glazed black frames. A very large freestanding bookcase filled with all his favorite pathology tomes, some with tooled leather bindings, dominated one wall. Most of the rest of the room was filled by a large mahogany desk piled high with reprints and legal pads covered with erratic cursive.

He stood up and extended a hand as Laurie entered. She was surprised how much he looked like Einstein, with a cumulus of white hair. His back was kyphotic, as if he were anatomically built to look into a microscope.