Invasion (10 page)

Leading the way, Pitt took them back to an examination bay. He lifted the child up onto the table. Her blue eyes were glassy and her skin pale and moist. She was sick enough not to be overconcerned about the ER environment.

“Are you the doctor?” the mother asked. Pitt appeared much too young.

“The clerk,” Pitt announced. Having worked in the
ER long enough and having checked in enough pre-screened patients Pitt was not self-conscious about his status.

“What’s the trouble, sweetheart?” Pitt asked as he wrapped a child’s blood pressure cuff around Sandra’s arm and inflated it.

“I got a spider,” Sandra said.

“She means a bug,” the mother interjected. “She can’t get that straight. It’s the flu or something. It hit her this morning with coughing and sneezing. I tell you, it’s always something with kids.”

The blood pressure was fine. As Pitt undid the cuff he noted a colorful Band-Aid on Sandra’s right palm.

“Looks like you got a booboo too,” Pitt said. He got the body temperature instrument and was about to get a reading.

“A rock bit me in the yard,” Sandra said.

“Sandra, I told you not to fib,” Mrs. Evans said. It was obvious the mother was at the limit of her patience.

“I’m not fibbing,” Sandra said indignantly.

Mrs. Evans made an expression as if to say, “What can I do?”

“Have a lot of rocks bitten you?” Pitt teased. He got a reading. The child had a temperature of 103° Fahrenheit. He wrote it and the blood pressure on the chart.

“Just one,” Sandra said. “A black one.”

“Guess we have to be careful with black rocks,” Pitt said. He then instructed the mother to watch the child carefully until the doctor came in.

Pitt headed back to the desk and slipped the chart into the rack where it would be picked up by the next available
doctor. He was about to go behind the desk when the swinging doors that led to the outside burst open.

“Help me,” cried a man who was carrying a seizing woman. He staggered a few feet into the ER and threatened to collapse himself.

Pitt was the first person to reach the man’s side. Without a second’s hesitation he relieved the man of his burden by taking the woman into his own arms. It was difficult to hold her because she was still locked in the throes of a seizure.

By then Cheryl Watkins had come around from behind the desk along with several of the ER residents. Even Dr. Sheila Miller had dashed out of her office at the cries for help.

“Into the trauma bay,” Dr. Miller commanded.

Without waiting for a gurney, Pitt carried the twitching woman back into the depths of the ER. With the help of Sheila, who’d positioned herself on the other side of the examination table, Pitt put the patient down. As he did so his eyes met Sheila’s for the second time that day. No words were spoken but on this occasion a completely different message was conveyed.

Pitt backed up. Nurses and doctors jumped into the breach. Pitt stood there and watched, wishing he were at a stage in his training where he could participate.

The medical team which Sheila commanded quickly terminated the seizure. But then while they were beginning the evaluation of what caused the seizure, the patient had another, even more violent one.

“Why is she doing this?” the husband moaned. Everyone had forgotten he’d followed the group inside. One
of the nurses went over to him and motioned for him to leave. “She’s got diabetes, but she’s never had a seizure. This shouldn’t be happening. I mean, all she got was a cough. She’s a young woman. Something is wrong, I know it.”

A few minutes after the husband had been led out to the waiting room, Sheila’s head snapped up so she could see the cardiac monitor. A sudden change in the sound of the beats had caught her attention.

“Uh oh,” she said. “Something’s going on here, and I don’t like it.”

The regular heartbeat had become erratic. Before anybody could react, the monitor’s alarm went off. The patient was fibrillating.

“Code red ER!” blared out of the intercom system. More ER doctors flew into the cubicle in response to the cardiac arrest call. Pitt backed up even further so as not to interfere. He found the episode both stimulating and frightening. He wondered if he could ever learn enough to participate capably in such a situation.

The team worked tirelessly but to no avail. Eventually Sheila straightened up and ran her forearm across her sweaty brow.

“OK, that’s it,” she said reluctantly. “We’ve lost her.” For the previous thirty minutes the monitor had traced a monotonous straight line.

The team hung their heads in dejection.

THE OLD SPRING-LOADED SCALE SQUEAKED AS DR. CURTIS
Lapree allowed Charlie Arnold’s liver to slosh into its basin. The needle jumped up the scale.

“Well, that’s normal,” Curtis said.

“Did you expect it to be abnormal?” Jesse Kemper asked. He and Detective Vince Garbon had stopped by to observe the autopsy on the dead University Medical Center housekeeping employee. Both policemen were dressed in disposable contamination suits.

Neither Jesse nor Vince were at all intimidated or sickened by the autopsy. They’d witnessed a hundred or so over the years, especially Jesse, who was eleven years older than Vinnie.

“Nope,” Curtis said. “The liver looked normal, felt normal, so I expected it to weigh normal.”

“Getting any ideas what killed this poor chap?” Jesse asked.

“Nope,” Curtis said. “Looks like it’s going to be just another one of those mysteries.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Jesse said petulantly. “I’m counting on you to tell me if this was a homicide or accident.”

“Calm down, Lieutenant,” Curtis said with a laugh. “I’m just pulling your leg. You should know by now that the dissection part of the autopsy is just the beginning. In this case I expect the microscopic is going to be more important. I mean on gross, I don’t know what to make of the hole in the hand. Look at it!”

Curtis held up Charlie Arnold’s hand. “The damn hole is a perfect circle.”

“Could it be a bullet wound?” Jesse asked.

“You can answer your own question,” Curtis said. “With all the bullet wounds you’ve seen.”

“True, it doesn’t look like a bullet wound,” Jesse said.

“It sure as hell doesn’t,” Curtis said. “It would have
had to be a bullet going the speed of light and hotter than the interior of the sun. Look at how everything got cauterized at the margins. And what happened to the missing tissue and bone? You said there was no blood or tissue at the scene.”

“Nothing,” Jesse said. “I mean no gore. There was melted glass and melted furniture, but no blood and no tissue.”

“What do you mean, melted furniture?” Curtis asked. He wiped his hands on his apron after removing the liver from the scale.

Jesse described the room, to Curtis’s utter fascination. “I’ll be damned,” Curtis said.

“Do you have any ideas?” Jesse asked.

“Sorta,” Curtis admitted. “But you’re not going to like it. I don’t like it either. It’s crazy.”

“Try me,” Jesse said.

“First let me show you something,” Curtis said. He went to a side table and brought back a pair of retractors. Putting them inside the deceased’s upper and lower lips, he exposed the teeth. The dead man assumed a horrid, grimacing expression.

“Oh, gross,” Vinnie said. “You’re going to give me nightmares.”

“Okay, Doc,” Jesse said. “What am I supposed to be looking at other than lousy dental work? Looks like the guy never brushed his teeth.”

“Look at the enamel of the front teeth,” Curtis said.

“I’m looking,” Jesse said. “Looks a little messed up.”

“That’s it,” Curtis said. He withdrew the retractors and returned them to the nearby table.

“Enough of this pussyfootin’ around,” Jesse said. “What’s on your mind?”

“The only thing I can think of that can do that to tooth enamel is acute radiation poisoning,” Curtis said.

Jesse’s face fell.

“I told you you weren’t going to like it,” Curtis said.

“Jesse’s very close to retirement,” Vince said. “It’s not nice to tease him like this.”

“I’m serious,” Curtis said. “It’s the only thing that relates all the findings, like the hole in the hand and the changes in the enamel. Even the cataracts that weren’t seen on his last yearly physical.”

“So what happened to this poor slob?” Jesse asked.

“I know it’s going to sound crazy,” Curtis warned. “But the only way I can relate all the findings so far is to hypothesize that someone dropped a red-hot pellet of plutonium in his hand that burned through and gave him an enormous dose of radiation in the process. I mean a whopping dose.”

“That’s absurd,” Jesse said.

“I told you you weren’t going to like it,” Curtis admitted.

“There was no plutonium at the scene,” Jesse said. “Did you check if the body were radioactive?”

“I did, actually,” Curtis said. “For personal safety concerns.”

“And?”

“It’s not,” Curtis said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be up to my elbows into it.”

Jesse shook his head. “This is getting worse instead of better,” he said. “Plutonium, shit! That would be
some kind of national emergency. Guess I’d better get someone over to that hospital and make sure there’s no hot spots. Can I use a phone?”

“Be my guest,” Curtis said agreeably.

A sudden burst of coughing got everyone’s attention. It was Michael Schonhoff, a mortuary tech, who was over at the sink washing the entrails. The coughing went on for several minutes.

“Jeez, Mike,” Curtis said. “You’re sounding worse. And pardon my expression, but you look like death warmed over.”

“Sorry, Dr. Lapree,” Mike said. “I guess I got the flu. I’ve been trying to ignore it, but now I’m starting to get chills.”

“Clock out early,” Curtis said. “Get yourself home and in bed, take some aspirin, and drink some tea.”

“I want to finish up here,” Mike said. “Then I want to label the specimen bottles.”

“Forget it,” Curtis said. “I’ll have someone else finish up.”

“Okay,” Mike said. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he was happy to be relieved.

8:15
P.M.

“WHAT I KEEP ASKING MYSELF IS WHY WE NEVER COME
down here,” Beau said. “This is beautiful.” He, Cassy, and Pitt were strolling along the pedestrian mall in the city center eating ice cream after a dinner of pasta and white wine.

Five years previously the downtown had looked like a ghost town, with most of the people and restaurants having fled out to suburbia. But like a lot of other American cities, there’d been a reawakening. A few tasteful renovations had started a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now the entire downtown was a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. Crowds milled about, enjoying the spectacle.

“You guys really skipped school today?” Pitt questioned. He was impressed and incredulous.

“Why not,” Beau said. “We went to the planetarium,
the natural history museum, the art museum, and the zoo. We learned a lot, more than if we’d gone to class.”

“That’s an interesting rationalization,” Pitt said. “I hope you get a bunch of questions about the zoo on your next exams.”

“Ah, you’re just jealous,” Beau said, cuffing the top of Pitt’s head.

“Maybe so,” Pitt admitted. He stepped out of Beau’s reach. “I put in thirty hours in the ER since yesterday morning.”

“Thirty hours?” Cassy questioned. “Really?”

“Honest,” Pitt said. He then told them the story of the room where Beau had spent the afternoon and about spilling the coffee on Dr. Sheila Miller, the woman in charge of the entire emergency department.

Both Beau and Cassy were entranced, especially about the condition of the room and the death of the housekeeper. Beau asked the most questions, but Pitt had few answers. “They’re waiting for the autopsy results,” Pitt added. “Everybody’s hoping then there will be some answers. Right now no one has any idea of what happened.”

“Sounds horrid,” Cassy said, making an expression of disgust. “A hole burned through his hand. Gads, I could never be a doctor. No way.”

“I got a question for you, Beau,” Pitt said after they’d walked a few moments in silence. “How did Cassy manage to talk you into this day of culture?”