Opening his eyes, Walter took out his wallet and extracted a small piece of paper with a single phone number with a Washington, D.C., area code. It was supposed to be for emergencies only, and he debated if this qualified. Making a sudden decision, he picked up the receiver and dialed.
On the other end, the phone rang a number of times, and Walter wondered what he'd say if he got voice mail. Just when he thought the phone wouldn't be answered, it was. A deep, wary voice said, "What is it?" There was no hello.
"This is Walter Osgood," Walter began, but he was immediately cut off.
"Are you on a landline?"
"I am."
"Hang up and call this number," the voice said. He rattled off a phone number and hung up.
Walter rapidly wrote the number on the edge of an envelope addressed to Simon. He then dialed the number. The same voice immediately answered. "You were not supposed to call me unless there is an emergency. Is that the case?"
"How do I know what constitutes an emergency?" Walter snapped. "As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't now, it will be."
"What is it?"
"A New York City medical examiner by the name of Laurie Montgomery came to the Angels Orthopedic Hospital asking questions."
"Why is that an emergency?"
"She'd autopsied a patient who'd died yesterday from MRSA. She wanted to go into the OR, and had even been up in the engineering spaces."
"So what?"
"That's easy for you to say. I don't like it. The next thing, it could be in the papers."
"What's her name again?"
"Dr. Laurie Montgomery from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. But I'll keep you informed, and you do the same."
The line disconnected. Walter glanced at the receiver as if it could answer his question. Then he lowered it into its cradle. The strangest part was that he didn't even know the man's name.
Walter carefully erased the phone number he'd written on the envelope on Simon's desk before walking out into the lab.
LAURIE'S TAXI WAS now speeding south on Second Avenue toward the OCME and running the lights. But instead of concern about her safety, other than being certain her seat belt was secure, Laurie was obsessed with her surprising visit to Angels Orthopedic Hospital. Nothing had been as she'd expected.
The edifice was far more luxurious than she'd imagined. And the cast of characters had run the gamut from congenial to rude, and the CEO of Angels Healthcare, whom she never expected to meet, was definitely in the latter category. Laurie wondered if the woman would act on her thinly disguised threat to call Bingham. Under New York City law, a medical examiner definitely has the right, while investigating a case, to do what is needed to protect the public, and visiting an OR where there had been eleven infectious deaths over three months would certainly fall into that category.
If anything, the visit had only intensified her urge to talk Jack out of his surgery, at least until the MRSA mystery had been solved. Although Angela Dawson had expressed a remorse for the toll the outbreak had taken on their patients, she seemed just as concerned about the institution itself. It was as if the two were equivalent, which shocked Laurie. She could not believe that under the circumstances, the hospital was continuing to do surgery, that the reduced revenues were on a par with lost lives. The CEO had been introduced to Laurie as a doctor, which Laurie had assumed to be medical doctor, but now she thought it must be Ph.D., not M.D. It just didn't seem possible for her to be otherwise.
She tried to focus on the outbreak, but the contradictions were confusing. Although she knew the airborne spread of staphylococcus was possible, it wasn't common, mainly because staph cannot be aerosolized like anthrax or other airborne bacterial threats. Staphylococcus remains viable for a very short time outside a warm, moist, nutrient-rich environment, and when a few errant molecules did land within someone's nose or mouth, it behaved itself admirably and almost never caused problems. Yet in her series of mostly primary pneumonia, it had to have been airborne, and it had to have been a large dose. But that meant the patients had to have been exposed in the operating room to a relatively large amount of the pathogen. The trouble with that scenario was that the HVAC system was outfitted with HEPA filters that caught viruses a hundred times smaller than bacteria, and even if a few got through, the air in the OR changed every six minutes. On top of that, the patients undergoing general anesthesia never breathed the ambient air. In short, Laurie told herself it was impossible. Her series could not happen either naturally or purposefully.
"We are here at your destination, ma'am," the cabbie said through the Plexiglas divider.
Laurie paid the fare and, still in a semi-trance from the staphylococcus conundrum, climbed from the cab and mounted the steps of the OCME. Once inside, she was surprised to see Marlene, still at her post.
"Aren't you supposed to be off duty at three?" Laurie questioned.
"My relief called in to say she was going to be a few minutes late," Marlene said in her soft southern accent.
Laurie nodded and headed toward the ID room door.
"Excuse me, Dr. Montgomery. I'm supposed to tell you when you come in that Dr. Bingham wants to see you in his office ASAP."
Laurie felt her face flush. Intuitively, she knew that Angela Dawson had to have already called and complained about her visit. With Laurie's long-standing aversion to confrontations with superiors, she was not looking forward to being called on the carpet, if that was what was about to happen. It wasn't that she felt guilty in any way, it was her fear of losing control of her emotions. Such a reflex response had started when she was a preteen and had never entirely gone away. At that time, she had suffered a horrific confrontation with her autocratic father, who had unjustly blamed her for her older brother's death from a drug overdose. Since that awful episode, it was as if her response to confrontation was hardwired and beyond her control. As she approached Bingham's secretary, Mrs. Sanford, she could feel the involved synapses firing and setting herself up for the fall.
"You are to go right in," Mrs. Sanford said.
Laurie glimpsed the secretary's face as she passed by the woman's desk in hopes of getting a hint of what to expect, but Mrs. Sanford seemed to avoid eye contact.
"Shut the door, Dr. Montgomery!" Bingham bellowed from behind his massive and cluttered desk. Laurie did as she was told. The chief's use of such formality suggested the worst.
"Sit down!" he said, equally forcibly.
Laurie sat. She could tell her face was flushed, but she had no idea how obvious it was. She hoped it wasn't. What bothered her the most about her reflex emotionalism was the concern that people would interpret it as a sign of weakness. Laurie knew she was not a weak person. It had taken a while for her to be sure of it, but now that she was sure, it rankled her that she couldn't control behavior that suggested otherwise.
"I'm disappointed in you, Laurie," Bingham said, with a slightly more mellow tone.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Laurie said. Although there was a slight quaver to her voice, she felt encouraged. She'd managed to hold back any embarrassing tears.
"You have been so dependable of late. What's happened?"
"I'm not sure I understand your question."
"I just got off the phone with a Dr. Angela Dawson. She was furious that you showed up unannounced at one of her private hospitals, demanding entry into unauthorized areas. She even threatened to call the mayor's office."
Having overcome her emotions for the time being, Laurie allowed a more appropriate irritation to emerge. In her mind, Bingham should have been commending her resourcefulness and supporting her rather than siding with a businessperson who was obviously more concerned about her institution than her patients.