Philips cleared the screen and rapidly entered Ellen McCarthy's name, her unit number, and the proper code. He felt his stomach tighten into a knot as the machine began to spell out the information. It was the same-negative!
As he went back downstairs, Martin felt stunned. In medicine he had learned to believe what he read in charts, especially in regard to laboratory reports. They were the objective data while the symptom of the patients and the impressions of the doctors were the subjective. Philips knew that there was a small chance there could be an error in laboratory tests just as he knew there was a possibility that he could miss or misinterpret something on an X ray. But the low probability of error was a far cry from deliberate falsification. That required some sort of conspiracy, and Philips took it very personally.
Sitting at his desk, Martin cradled his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. His first impulse was to call the hospital authorities, but that meant Stanley Drake, and he decided against it. Drake's response would be to keep it out of the papers, cover it up. The police! Mentally he ran through a hypothetical conversation: "Hello, I'm Dr. Martin Philips and I want to report that something funny is going on at Hobson University Medical Center. Girls get Pap smears that are normal but are entered into the chart as atypical." Philips shook his head. It sounded too ridiculous. No, he needed more information before the police were involved. Intuitively he felt the radiation was connected even though it didn't make any sense. In fact, radiation might cause an atypical Pap smear and it seemed to Philips that if someone wanted to avoid discovery of the radiation, they might report atypical Paps as normal, but not vice versa.
Philips thought again about the diener. After their abortive meeting the previous evening, Martin had been convinced Werner knew more about Lisa Marino than he'd been willing to disclose. Perhaps one hundred dollars wasn't enough. Maybe Philips should offer more. After all, the affair was no longer an academic exercise.
Martin realized that trying to successfully confront Werner in the morgue was an impossibility. Surrounded with the dead, Werner was in his element, whereas Martin found the place totally unnerving and he knew he would have to be forceful and demanding if Werner was going to be made to talk. Philips glanced at his watch. It was twenty-five after eleven. Werner obviously worked the evening shift, four to midnight. Impulsively Martin decided he'd follow Werner home and offer him five hundred dollars.
With some trepidation he dialed Denise's number. It rang six times before a sleepy voice answered: "Are you coming over?"
"No," said Philips evasively. "I'm in the middle of something and I'm going to keep at it."
"There's a nice warm spot here for you."
"We'll make up for it this weekend. Sweet dreams." Martin got his dark blue ski parka out of his closet and put on the Greek captain's cap he found in the pocket. It was April but the drizzly weather had brought in wind from the northeast and it was chilly.
He left the hospital through the emergency room, leaping from the platform to the puddle-strewn tarmac of the parking area. But instead of walking out to the street, he turned right, round the corner of the main hospital building and headed down a canyon formed by the north face of the Brenner Children's Hospital. After fifty yards it opened up to the inner courtyard of the Med Center.
The hospital buildings soared up into the misty night like sheer cliffs forming an irregular cement valley. The Med Center had been built in spurts without the benefit of a rational overall plan. This fact was obvious in the courtyard, where buildings impinged upon the space with chaotic angles and buttresses. Philips recognized the small wing that housed Goldblatt's office, and using that as a landmark, was able to orient himself. It was only about twenty-five yards farther on that he found the unmarked platform that he knew led into the depths of the morgue. The hospital did not like to advertise that it dealt in death, and the bodies were stealthily excreted into the waiting black hearses far from the public eye.
Martin leaned up against the wall and thrust his hands into his pockets. While he waited he tried to review the complicated events he'd experienced since Kenneth Robbins had handed him Lisa Marino's X ray. It hadn't even been two days, yet it seemed like two weeks. The initial excitement that he'd felt seeing the strange radiologic abnormality had now changed to a hollow fear. He almost dreaded to find out what was going on in the hospital. It was like a sickness in his own family. Medicine had been his life. If it weren't for his immediate sense of responsibility about Kristin Lindquist, he wondered if he'd just forget what he knew. Goldblatt's tirade about professional suicide rang in his ears.
Werner emerged on schedule, turning to secure the door behind him. Philips leaned forward and shaded his eyes in the half-light to make sure it really was Werner. He had changed his clothes, and was now wearing a dark suit, white shirt and tie. To Martin's surprise the diener looked like a successful merchant closing his boutique for the night. His gaunt face, which had appeared evil within the morgue, now gave the man an almost aristocratic cast.
Werner turned and hesitated a moment, stretching out an upturned palm to see if it was raining. Satisfied, he set off toward the street. In his right hand he carried a black briefcase. Over his flexed left arm dangled a tightly clasped umbrella.
Following from a safe distance, Martin noticed Werner had a strange gait. It wasn't a limp; it was more like a hop as if one leg was much stronger than the other. But he moved quickly and at a steady pace.
Martin's hopes that Werner lived close to the hospital were dashed when the man rounded the corner on Broadway and descended the subway stairs. Quickening his step, Philips closed the gap, taking the stairs two at a time. At first he did not see Werner. Apparently the man had had a token. Philips hastily purchased one, and went through the turnstile. The IRT elevator was empty, so Philips jogged down the sloping passage toward the IND platform. As he rounded the corner, he caught sight of Werner's head just disappearing down the stairs to the downtown platform.
Pulling a newspaper out of a waste bin, Philips pretended to read. Werner was only thirty feet away, sitting on one of the molded plastic chairs, engrossed in a book on, of all things, "Opening Chess Moves." In the pasty white subway light, Philips could better appreciate the man's attire. His suit was dark blue, and Edwardian, cut in at the sides. His closely cropped hair had been freshly brushed; with his high-boned, suntanned cheeks, he looked like a Prussian general. The only thing that marred his appearance was his shoes. They were badly scuffed and in need of polish.
With the hospital shift just changing, the subway platform was crowded with nurses, orderlies, and technicians. When the downtown express thundered into the station, Werner boarded and Philips followed. The diener sat on the train like a statue with his book in front of him; his deeply set eyes darted back and forth across the pages. His briefcase, clasped between his knees, stood upright on the floor. Philips sat halfway down the car across from a handsome Spanish fellow in a polyester suit.
At each stop, Martin was ready to disembark, but Werner never budged. As they passed Fifty-ninth Street, Philips became concerned. Perhaps Werner was not going directly home. For some reason that possibility had never occurred to Philips. He was relieved when he finally followed the diener off at Forty-second Street. It was now no longer a question of whether Werner was going home or not. Now it was a question of how long was he going to spend wherever he was headed. Philips felt foolish and discouraged when he reached the street.