Jack let her carry on until she’d exhausted the subject. After taking a few gulps of her cappuccino, she asked him what he’d been doing.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversation we had Friday night,” he said. “It’s been bothering me.”
“How so?” Terese asked.
“We were being open with each other, but I wasn’t completely forthright,” Jack said. “I’m not accustomed to talking about my problems. The truth is: I didn’t tell you the whole story.”
Terese put her coffee cup down and studied Jack’s face. His dark blue eyes were intense. His face was stubbled; he’d obviously not shaved that day. She thought that under different circumstances Jack could appear intimidating, maybe even scary.
“My wife wasn’t the only person who died,” Jack said haltingly. “I lost my two daughters as well. It was a commuter plane crash.”
Terese swallowed with difficulty. She’d felt a welling of emotion clog her throat. Jack’s story was hardly what she’d expected.
“The problem is, I’ve always felt so damn responsible,” he continued. “If it hadn’t been for me they wouldn’t have been on that plane.”
Terese felt an intense stab of empathy. After a few moments she said: “I wasn’t entirely forthright either. I told you I’d lost my child. What I didn’t say is that it was an unborn child, and at the same time I lost the child, I lost my ability to have any more. To add insult to injury, the man I’d married deserted me.”
For a few emotionally choked minutes neither Jack nor Terese spoke. Finally, Jack broke the silence: “It sounds like we’re trying to outdo each other with our personal tragedies,” he said, managing a smile.
“Just like a couple of depressives,” Terese agreed. “My therapist would love this.”
“Of course, what I’ve told you is for your ears only,” Jack said.
“Don’t be silly,” Terese assured him. “Same goes for you. I haven’t told my story to anyone but my therapist.”
“I haven’t told anybody,” Jack said. “Not even a therapist.”
Feeling a sense of relief from having both bared their innermost secrets, Jack and Terese went on to talk about happier things. Terese, who’d grown up in the city, was shocked to hear how little of the area Jack had visited since he’d been there. She talked about taking him to the Cloisters when spring had truly arrived.
“You’ll love it,” she promised.
“I’ll look forward to it,” Jack said.
23
Jack was irritated at himself. He’d had time to buy a new bike on Saturday, but he’d failed to do so. Consequently, he had to use the subway again to commute to work, although he’d considered jogging. The problem with jogging was that he’d have to have a change of clothes in his office. To give him the option in the future he brought some to work in a small shoulder bag.
Coming in from First Avenue, Jack again entered the medical examiner’s facility through the front entrance. As he passed through the glass door, he was impressed with the number of families waiting in the outer reception area. It was highly unusual for so many people to be there that early. Something must be up, he surmised.
Jack had himself buzzed in. He walked into the scheduling room and saw George Fontworth sitting at the desk Laurie had occupied each morning the previous week.
Jack was sorry Laurie’s week as supervisor was over. George had rotated to the position. He was a short, moderately overweight doctor of whom Jack had a low opinion. He was perfunctory and often missed important findings.
Ignoring George, Jack headed over to Vinnie and pushed down the edge of his newspaper.
“Why are there so many people out in the ID area?” Jack asked.
“Because there’s a minor disaster over at the General,” George said, answering for Vinnie. Vinnie treated Jack to a jaunty but disdainful expression and went back to his paper.
“What kind of disaster?” Jack asked.
George patted the top of a stack of folders. “A whole bunch of meningococcal deaths,” he said. “Could be an epidemic in the making. We’ve got eight so far.”
Jack rushed over to George’s desk and snapped up a folder at random. He opened it and shuffled through its contents until he came to the investigative report. Scanning it quickly, he learned that the patient’s name was Robert Caruso, and that he had been a nurse on the orthopedic floor at the General.
Jack tossed the folder back onto the desk and literally ran through communications to the offices of the PAs. He was relieved to see Janice was still there, putting in overtime as usual.
She looked terrible. The dark circles under her eyes were so distinct, she resembled a battered woman. She put her pen down and leaned back. She shook her head. “I might have to get another job,” she said. “I can’t keep this up. Thank God I have tomorrow and the next day off.”
“What happened?” Jack asked.
“It started on the shift before mine,” Janice said. “The first case was called in around six-thirty. Apparently the patient had died about six P.M.”
“An orthopedic patient?” Jack asked.
“How’d you know?”
“I just saw a folder from an orthopedic nurse,” Jack said.
“Oh, yeah, that was Mr. Caruso,” Janice said with a yawn. She excused herself before continuing. “Anyway, I started getting called shortly after I arrived at eleven. Since then it’s been nonstop. I’ve been back and forth all night. In fact, I just got back here twenty minutes ago. I tell you, this is worse than the the other outbreaks. One of the patients is a nine-year-old girl. What a tragedy.”
“Was she related to the first case?” Jack asked.
“She was a niece,” Janice said.
“Had she been in to visit her uncle?” Jack asked.
“Around noon yesterday,” Janice said. “You don’t think that could have contributed to her death, do you? I mean, that was only about twelve hours before her death.”
“Under certain circumstances meningococcus has a frightful capacity to kill, and kill incredibly swiftly,” Jack said. “In fact, it can kill in just a few hours.”
“Well, the hospital is in a panic.”
“I can imagine,” Jack said. “What was the name of the first case?”
“Carlo Pacini,” Janice said. “But that’s about all I know. He came in on the shift before mine. Steve Mariott handled it.”
“Could I ask a favor?” Jack asked.
“That depends,” Janice said. “I’m awfully tired.”
“Just leave word for Bart that I want you PAs to get all the charts of the index case in each of these outbreaks. Let’s see, that’s Nodelman with the plague, Hard with tularemia, Lagenthorpe with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and Pacini with meningococcus. Do you think that will be a problem?”
“Not at all,” Janice said. “They are all active ME cases.”
Jack stood up and gave Janice a pat on the back. “Maybe you should go over to the clinic on your way home,” he said. “Some chemoprophylaxis might not be a bad idea.”
Janice’s eyes widened. “You think that is necessary?”
“Better safe than sorry,” Jack said. “Anyway, discuss it with one of the infectious disease gurus. They know better than I. There’s even a tetravalent vaccine, but that takes a few days to kick in.”
Jack dashed back to the ID room and asked George for Carlo Pacini’s folder.
“It’s not here,” George said. “Laurie came in early, and when she heard about what was going on, she requested the case. She’s got the folder.”
“Where is she?” Jack asked.
“Up in her office,” Vinnie responded from behind his paper.
Jack hustled up to Laurie’s office. Contrary to the way Jack worked, she liked to go over each folder in her office before doing the autopsy.
“Pretty frightening, I’d say,” Laurie said as soon as she saw Jack.