“Tarkington was part of the study,” Dr. White said without hesitation, his attitude changing for the better. “And you can tell Amalgamated that iDoc made his life much easier and mine too by fielding many of his questions. I wish more of my patients had it.”
“Did you know that he had a drug-releasing implant?”
“Of course, although it wasn’t for any of the drugs I prescribed. The implant was for his diabetes. He mentioned more than once that it handled his blood sugar levels better than he had been able to. It was one less issue for him to deal with in a very trying time.”
“Thanks for your time. I appreciate your calling back.”
“Glad to be of help. Keep up the good work!”
George ended the call and wondered if Dr. White, while advocating iDoc for his patients, had any idea of the extent to which medicine was about to change. But be that as it may, George was appreciative of the man’s cooperativeness. George now knew for sure that Tarkington, like Kasey, Sal, and Laney, had been part of the iDoc beta test: four known iDoc users with drug implants…
George’s phone rang again almost immediately. It was a call back from Wong’s oncologist, a Dr. Susan Jefferson! George was surprised and pleased that both doctors had gotten back to him so quickly, especially on a holiday. He was also impressed, guessing that both doctors were conscientious about their professional responsibilities in a very emotionally demanding specialty.
George gave him the same story he’d given Dr. White. Dr. Jefferson was equally forthcoming, and confirmed that Wong was part of the iDoc beta test as well. So now George had confirmation that all five deaths in his cohort used iDoc and had implanted drug reservoirs.
George’s suspicions ratcheted upward. While he was still inclined to believe that a glitch was responsible, or that a malicious hacker was involved, a new possibility occurred to him: What if iDoc was intentionally serving as a “death panel”? It would certainly help Amalgamated’s bottom line, either as a company policy, which was an extreme thought, or more likely as the work of a rogue programmer sitting on a lot of Amalgamated stock options. But almost as soon as the idea occurred to George, he dismissed it out of hand. He couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing during the beta test. If someone were thinking of such an awful thing, he’d certainly wait for iDoc to go national before unleashing it.
As George was thinking in this vein, he remembered a few high-profile cases recently in which doctors or nurses had taken it upon themselves to relieve patients of what they thought were to be their final months of painful treatment. Maybe these health care professionals were motivated by nothing other than compassion. On the other side of the coin were those bean-counter professionals who thought about resource allocation, which meant freeing up beds for patients who would be returning to society to lead productive lives rather than having them occupied by people who were terminal. George remembered a case in which a Brazilian doctor had been responsible for the deaths of over three hundred patients.
All these thoughts gave George an unpleasant shiver. It was a scary side to the concept of digitalized medicine and an awful distortion of the idea of the smartphone becoming an ersatz physician. iDoc was undoubtedly going to prove itself a fantastic idea and the wave of the future, and to have it hijacked for whatever reason would be a colossal tragedy. This realization brought George back to the importance of the embedded reservoir in the execution of any kind of death panel. As Sal had apparently sensed, if iDoc was killing people, it had to be done with the help of the reservoir. George felt he needed to focus on that.
Suddenly an idea struck him. It was a crazy idea, but possibly a good one. He remembered that Sal’s funeral service was set for that afternoon. If he could only remember where.
George pulled out his cell and Googled local funeral homes. He only got to the Cs before hitting upon Carter’s Funeral Home. As soon as he saw the name, he remembered it was the one Clarence had mentioned. While he may not have been able to examine Sal’s body in the morgue, he just might be able to do so at the funeral home. Or at least talk to the embalmer. He didn’t know how they might react, but it would be worth a try. Worst case, he would get a chance to pay his respects to Sal.
With sudden resolve, George leaped out of his seat and bolted for the exit, startling two ER residents.
He dashed out into the ER proper, pulling off his white coat as he ran. His first stop was an empty exam room, where he grabbed a pair of surgical gloves just in case. Then he headed for the parking garage.
“George! Hey! Over here!”
George pulled himself to a halt. To his astonishment, Debbie was waving him back.
“I meant to ask you earlier,” she said, “are you up for Whiskey Blue again tonight? I’m thinking of heading over. I’m going to need a break after today. It’s a circus here.”
“I don’t know,” he said, a little out of breath. Her constant switch from hot to cold bewildered him. The last thing he wanted to do was go back to the bar. At the same time he didn’t want to burn any bridges. “I’ll text you when I get home.”
“Where the hell are you going in such a hurry?”
“Believe it or not, I’m heading off to a local funeral home.”
“A funeral home? What on earth for?”
“Sal DeAngelis’s service is today.” He leaned close to Debbie and whispered, “To be honest, since I can’t imagine many people are going to show up, I’m hoping I’ll have the opportunity to inspect the body. I have a new theory about his self-inflicted abdominal wounds. I think there is a good chance that he was trying to remove his drug reservoir. What I’d like to do is find out if he had been successful.”
Debbie eyed him as if she thought he was going off the deep end. “You’re crazy! You have to stop this shit!”
“I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I’m committed. Let me put it this way: I’m beginning to think that ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ when it comes to Amalgamated Healthcare.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Debbie said irritably.
“Amalgamated Healthcare, or at least somebody in the company, might not be as ethical as the Amalgamated front office wants us to believe.”
“Isn’t it a little cliché to blame the health insurance company?” She glanced down, seeing what he had in his hands. “What are you doing with surgical gloves?”
“Just in case.” He waved them at her as he headed for the main entrance.
“In case of what?” she called after him.
“I’ll text you later about tonight,” he said, ignoring the question. A moment later he was in the connector, half power-walking, half jogging on the way to the garage.
33
Clayton was lounging by his pool, enjoying lunch at a table under a yellow-and-white-striped umbrella. He was in the company of a bikini-clad young woman who was twenty-five years of age, while a mister system puffed out sprays of cool vapor to combat the heat. He’d had her over the night before, and although she left in a huff while he was off on his command visit to Debbie Waters’s apartment, Clayton had managed to patch things up that morning.