“Luke, I just work behind a plow. I only see the mule’s hind end. If they tell me to hurry it up, I hurry it up.”
“Did the medical examiner say why the consulate was involved?”
“It’s not all that unusual in cases involving a foreign national. Last night someone from the consulate called Barnesdale when I was in that committee meeting with Henry and his gang of half-wits. He shooed all of us out the door — probably didn’t want us to see him licking the dust off some diplomat’s boots.”
“Wait a minute. Barnesdale sent you out of the room?”
“I wouldn’t read anything into that. The business of the meeting”—Ben cocked a finger and aimed it at Luke—“was done by that point, and Henry was killing time whipping his favorite piñata — your daddy.”
“Something still doesn’t sound right here. I didn’t think the coroner rolled over that easily.”
“They don’t when there’s a possibility of foul play. But look at it from their point of view. This is a Guatemalan citizen who none of us believes was murdered.” Ben picked up a tiny scissors and started scraping under his fingernails. “When there’s a foreign national involved, they generally won’t hold the body unless there’s”—Ben held up his fingers and painted quotation marks in the air—“‘some compelling public necessity.’ That’s coroner-speak for suspected homicide, child abuse, a serious public health risk…that sorta thing.”
“Who signed the death certificate?”
“Until we started this conversation, I guess I figured you had. Probably someone else from the E.R. signed it.”
Luke shook his head. “I was the only Attending there. Would the coroner release the body without a signed death certificate?”
“They sure as hell would not.”
“Do you have the death certificate here?”
“Nope. It’d be with the chart, and we’d have already sent that back to Medical Records.”
“Let me use your phone.”
Luke called Medical Records and asked one of their clerks to bring Josue Chaca’s chart to Ben’s office, all the while trying to calm his anger.
“We still don’t know why this patient died,” Luke said. “Our E.R. staff may have been exposed to a toxin, or an infection. What am I supposed to tell them?”
Ben shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough. I’ll be looking at the slides later today.”
“What slides?”
“Remember? Last night I got a section of rib from the cadaver so we could look at the bone marrow. We sent it over to Oncology Friday night so we could get some quick answers for my good friend, Dr. McKenna.”
“You still have the marrow? It didn’t go back with the body?”
“I’ve already checked. All the tissues are still here.”
“All?”
A conspiratorial smile took shape on Ben’s wide face. “Seems I also snipped a piece of lung tissue while I was getting that rib. Maybe it’ll explain what we saw on the chest X-ray.”
“That Ben Wilson’s a pretty sharp guy.”
Ben appeared to think about that for a second, then nodded.
“So we can settle the question about leukemia?” asked Luke.
“Yep, and we can look at some other possibilities if it turns out this boy didn’t die of leukemia and sepsis. We’ve already sent a piece of the lung for culture. And they’re making some slides of the lung tissue as we speak.”
“I checked the boy’s labs this morning. His amylase and lipase were sky high.”
“Hmmm,” Ben said. “So his pancreas was involved.”
“Sure looks like it.”
The phone rang.
“Wilson here.” Ben grabbed a big chunk of eyebrow and started twirling it. His eyes darted toward Luke. “Thanks.” While setting the phone down, he said, “That was Medical Records. Seems your boy’s chart is checked out to Barnesdale.”
“Barnesdale?”
“That’s what the lady said.”
“Why would he have the chart?”
Ben reached for the phone again. “While you’re thinking about that, I’m gonna see if we can get someone to look at that marrow today.”
After calling the operator and paging the on-call oncologist, Ben reached into the aquarium, uncovered the tarantula’s shallow hideaway, and grabbed Charlotte by either side of her dark brown torso. He turned the spider over, stroked its belly, then held it out toward Luke.
Luke patted himself on the stomach with both hands. “Thanks. I’ve already eaten.”
Ben’s lips curled into a smile as he rubbed the furry creature.
Five minutes later they were on the speakerphone talking to the head of Oncology, Adam Smith. “Already looked at that marrow,” Smith said. “Did it myself, yesterday afternoon. I’m on call this weekend and Henry asked me to do it. Something about the coroner wanting to release the body.”
“Well, I guess that explains why Henry has the chart,” offered Ben.
“It doesn’t explain anything. This wasn’t his patient,” Luke said. “Adam, what did the marrow show?”
“About thirty percent lymphoid blasts, L2 morphology, diminished erythroid cell lines.”
“Would one of you care to translate that for me?” Luke asked.
“It means the boy had A-L–L. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” Ben clarified.
Luke said, “That still doesn’t explain the lung findings, the chest X-ray.”
“What lung findings?” Adam asked.
“A focal bronchopulmonary pattern,” Ben said. “Something was going on in the airways. They lit up like a Christmas tree. But the lung tissue looked almost normal — certainly not enough pathology to explain respiratory failure.”
Luke jumped in: “One more question, Adam. Do you know who signed the death certificate? Was it you?”
“Henry signed it.”
“How do you know that?” Luke asked.
“When I told him about the bone marrow results, he said something about being able to sign off on the death certificate so he could return the body to the family. Sounded like the whole thing was one big headache and he wanted to be done with it.”
“Where the hell does Barnesdale come off signing a death certificate for a patient he knows nothing about?”
“Henry told me he saw the patient in the E.R.”
“He was a bystander, for Christ’s sake! He wasn’t there more than a minute or two.”
After a brief silence, Adam said, “Luke, would you pick up the phone?”
He glanced at Ben, who responded with a beats-me expression.
When Luke picked up the receiver, Adam said, “In case you didn’t know, you made the morning news. There’re two TV news crews in front of the hospital doing stories about that incident in the E.R.”
Luke closed his eyes and brought a hand to his forehead. “How bad?”
“The only good thing I can say is, they didn’t mention you by name. You were — quote—‘an unnamed hospital employee.’ It sounds like they’re still checking their facts. If the story develops legs, it’s not going to help your situation. And word has it that Barnesdale has gone ballistic over this thing. He’s acting strange, even for him.” A moment later he added, “My point is, I certainly wouldn’t make an issue of the death certificate right now.”
When Luke hung up the phone, Ben asked, “What was that about?”
Luke shook his head. “Take a guess.”
“The Erickson thing?” It didn’t come out sounding like a question. “I’ve been meaning to ask you — how is it that you sliced through that big ol’ boy like he was warm butter? I hear that that bubba was enormous.”
Changing the subject, Luke asked, “Do you think the coroner would talk to you about this case?”
Ben placed Charlotte back in the tank. “Yeah. Why?”
“Seems like someone with a lot of juice stepped in. I’d like to know who that was, and why they pushed everyone to move so quickly.”