Natural Causes (54 page)

“Would one of you please page Dr. Blankenship again,” he was saying to the nurses assisting him.

“You can page him all you want,” Sarah cut in, “but I guarantee you he won’t be answering. Not now, not
ever. Annalee, will you let me talk to you, please? It’s very important.”

“They said you tried to hurt me.”

“They were wrong. Will you talk with me?”

“Can you help this pain in my arms and my feet?”

“I can make it go away.”

Huddled to one side of the obstetrics family room, Willis Grayson, Lisa, Matt, and Warren Fezler watched the monitor screen intently. Glenn Paris had installed the video system as part of his overhaul of the OB/Gyn service. The cesarean camera was mounted directly above the operating table. The field it projected now consisted of two pairs of hands—Randall Snyder’s and Sarah’s—and Annalee Ettinger’s smooth, gravid belly.

“Okay, is the blood up and running?” they heard Snyder ask.

“Up and running,” a nurse’s voice replied.

“Signs stable?”

“All systems are go,” said the anesthesiologist.

“Ready, Sarah?”

“Ready.”

Lisa Grayson gave Matt a teasing nudge.

“Okay, then,” Snyder said. “It’s your case, Doctor. I’ll assist.”

“But—”

“Quickly!”

“All right. All right.”

The four viewers watched as Sarah and Randall Snyder vanished from the screen, and then reappeared, having changed places at the table.

Sarah flexed her gloved hands once, then again.

“Okay, everyone, let’s do it,” she said. “Scalpel, please.”

S
ARAH
E
TTINGER
W
EST, MEET YOUR NEW GODMOTHER
.”

Radiant in her hospital bed, Annalee held the infant away from her breast long enough for Sarah to see.

“You make a great kid,” Sarah said. “I’m honored to be her godmother.”

After a beginning that was considerably rockier for mother than daughter, both were now doing fine. As Sarah had predicted, the cesarean section delivery essentially cured Annalee’s DIC. First Lisa, now Annalee. Two cases sectioned, two cases cured. At least they had a place to start in dealing with the virus.

“How many women do you suppose are facing this?” Annalee asked, as if reading her mind.

“People are checking on that now. But I can tell you, it’s going to be a lot. Blankenship just didn’t care. He didn’t care at all. I still don’t understand it.”

“Crazy doesn’t require any understanding. It just is.”

“I guess. Fortunately, it appears your father kept decent records of who received the powder and vitamins.”

“He always was the decent record sort.”

“The product’s been on the market for almost eight months now. That means the first cases of infected women going into labor could happen any time.”

“I can give you the list of people Peter tested the stuff on at the time he gave it to me.”

“Great. That will leave only the rest of Singh’s group from the clinic here—the original set of guinea pigs. With Singh dead, we have to rely on finding Blankenship’s records of his work. I think he must have a list—that’s how he knew right away that the first women who got the powder were starting to get into trouble. If we can’t find his records, we’ll have to rely on publicity to bring them in.”

“And all for money.”

“All for money,” Sarah echoed sadly. “Plus whatever thrill Blankenship got from using his intellect to maneuver and control people.”

“Speaking of which—”

Sarah knew what was coming next.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

“Peter’s still in jail. His lawyer called a little while ago. There’s some sort of hearing scheduled later today. He says that if you came and spoke to the judge, Peter would probably at least be able to post bail and get out. If you don’t tell them that Blankenship admitted killing that man on the boat, Peter might have to stay.”

“A thought that is not entirely unappealing.”

The two women exchanged conspiratorial smiles.

“He’s the grandfather of your godchild, remember.”

“I know, I know. I just wonder how much of a dent this whole thing has made on his cast-iron ego. Blankenship played him like a violin.”

“And Peter went right along with it, no questions asked.”

“All for money,” Sarah said.

“Xanadu was in trouble. I think it was as much pride and ego as profit.”

“Well, I’m going to insist that whatever money we can
retrieve from this whole mess be used to find some sort of definitive cure. And that includes whatever Peter has.”

“I agree.”

“The six-foot four-inch violin. Boy, I’ll bet he really loved the publicity of those damned infomercials.”

“He did that,” Annalee said, lifting Sarah E. West and gently bringing the infant over to her other breast.

“Maybe another week or so in jail might—okay, okay. I’ll give his lawyer a call and see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

Sarah stood to go.

“Annalee, do me one favor, though,” she said.

“Anything.”

Sarah bent down and kissed first mother, then daughter. “Don’t ever let him forget it.”

M
ICHAEL
P
ALMER
, M.D., is the author of
The Society, Fatal, The Patient, Miracle Cure, Critical Judgment, Silent Treatment, Natural Causes, Extreme Measures, Flashback, Side Effects
, and
The Sisterhood
. His books have been translated into thirty languages. He trained in internal medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General Hospitals, spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and is now an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s physician health program.

It was the second straight day of unremitting rain. Nikki Solari hated running in this kind of weather, but today she was considering doing it anyway. It had been more than a week since her roommate and close friend, Kathy Wilson, had stormed from their South Boston flat. A week without so much as a word—to her or to their mutual friends. The police had been surprisingly little help. Nikki had filled out the appropriate forms and brought in some photographs, but so far nothing.

“Miss Solari, try to relax. I’m sure your friend will turn up.”

“It’s
Doctor
Solari, and why are you so sure?”

“That’s the way it is with cases like this. Everyone worries and the missing person just shows up.”

“Well, this missing person is an incredibly talented musician who would never leave her band in the lurch, which she has. She is a wonderfully dependable friend who would never do anything to upset me, which she
has. And she is an extremely compassionate and kind woman who would never say anything abusive to anyone, yet before she disappeared she had become abusive to everyone.”

“Doctor
Solari, tell me something honestly. Were you and Miss Wilson lovers?”

“Oh, Christ …”

Nikki desperately needed to wrest the worry from her brain, if only for a while, and the only ways she had ever been able to do so were running, making music, and performing autopsies.

It was eleven in the morning. One more hour until lunch. She could go out and splash through a few miles then. She stood by the window of her office watching the cars creep down Albany Street past the modern building that was the headquarters of the chief medical examiner and his staff. This was her third year as an associate in ME Josef Keller’s office. She was fascinated by the work and absolutely adored the man. But the past week had been hell. She glanced over at her desk. There were reports to read, dictations to do, and several boxes of slides to review, but the concentration just wasn’t there.

“Hey there, beautiful, you’ve got a case.”

Without waiting for an invitation, Brad Cummings strode into the office. Divorced, with a couple of kids, Cummings was the deputy chief medical examiner. He was athletic, urbane, and, in the eyes of perhaps every woman in the city except Nikki, handsome. She found him smug, self-absorbed, and way too pretty—quite possibly the absolute antithesis of what she was looking for in a man.

“Where’s Dr. Keller?” she asked.

“Away until one. That means I’m the boss until then,
so I get to say who gets what case, and you get this tubber.”

“This what?”

“Sixty-six-year-old guy had a coronary getting into his Jacuzzi, smacked his head on the side, and went for the eternal swim. He’s just eight months post-bypass surgery. I spoke to his doctor, who said he was on
mucho
cardiac meds and undoubtedly had an MI. So he’s really just a “view.” You don’t have to cut on him at all. And that means we have time to go have lunch at that place on Newbury Street I’ve been telling you about.”

“Brad, I don’t want to go out with you.”

“But I thought you broke up with that drip you were dating.”

“Correction, that drip broke up with me. And I’m not interested in starting up with another one.”

“She digs me. I can tell.”

In the best of times Nikki had precious little patience for the man.

“Brad, you have more than enough scalps hanging on your lodgepole without mine. And I’m sure there are plenty more where those came from. We’ll keep getting along fine so long as you keep things on a business or collegial basis. But I promise you, Brad, call me beautiful again, or sweets, or honey, or babe, or anything other than Nikki or Dr. Solari, and I’ll write you up and hand it over to Dr. Keller. Clear?”

“Hey, easy does it.”

Nikki could tell that he stopped himself at the last possible instant from adding “Babe.”

“I’m going to get started on the new case,” she said.

“I told you, this is a straightforward view. No scalpel required, just eyeball him and sign off.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll make that decision after I’ve seen the guy.”

Nikki didn’t add that there wasn’t a chance in the world she would pass on this case regardless of how open and shut it was. Here was the perfect opportunity to get her mind off Kathy for a few hours without getting soaked on the streets of Boston.

“Suit yourself,” Cummings said. “Three days.”

“What?”

“Three days. That’s how long the dude’s been in the water. He’s a little, um, bloated. Sure you don’t want to just view and then skiddoo?”

“Have a good lunch, Brad.”

Nikki changed into scrubs and located the remains of Roger Belanger on the center of three stainless steel tables in Autopsy Suite 1. The daughter of an Italian and an Irishwoman, she could easily trace her thick, black hair and wide (some said sensuous) mouth to her father, and her fair skin, sea-green eyes, slender frame, and caustic wit to her mom. At her father’s urging, she had tried to follow his rather large footsteps into surgery. But after a year of residency, she switched to pathology, realizing that her desire to have a life outside of medicine was precluded by spending most of it in the OR or on rounds. Not once had she regretted her decision.

Belanger was hardly the most unsightly corpse Nikki had ever examined, but neither was he at all pleasant to look at. Overweight and nearly egg bald, he was extremely bloated and discolored, with purplish marbling of his skin. His flaccid limbs were well past rigor mortis. The white scar from his bypass ran the length of his breastbone.

Good-bye for now, Kath
, she thought as she began to
focus in on the details of the body.
I’ll let you back in in two hours
.

“No matter how obvious a case is,” Joe Keller had reminded her on more than one occasion, “no matter how apparently open and shut, you must make no assumptions. Process is everything. If you stick to process, step by step, you will seldom have to explain having missed something.”