He referred to how refusing to breathe can slow the heart rate, causing both the blood pressure and the breath holder to drop like a rock.
"Exactly, Michael," she said, "so let me out of here."
"Okay, but why not let me draw one blood test, just to document no significant chloroform levels?"
She studied him. "But won't it have worn off?"
"If there's not even a trace, then you had no significant exposure. If we do pick up a level, however low, we know approximately what time you inhaled it, and can calculate an estimate of what must have been the maximum concentration in your circulation. Either way, it's more reassuring to know, right?"
Only if it's good news, Earl thought. Still, Michael had a point.
Janet seemed to consider his equation as well. "Okay, but just that one test." She scanned her audience of residents. "And no offense, but you lot are a little too eager with the needles. I'd like Michael to do the honors." She held out her arm like a princess expecting a kiss on the hand.
The corners of his eyes corrugated into even deeper smile lines, and he reached for a tourniquet. "Is everyone agreed that's all we do?" he asked, eyeing the anesthetist and the trio of obstetricians.
They all nodded.
Good old Michael, thorough as always, with just the right touch to get everyone to do his bidding.
"But wait," Stewart said. "She could have liver or renal damage, or both, and there's no telling about the fetus-"
"I'm sure that won't be a factor if there's no significant blood levels of chloroform," Earl said. Then he curtly took Stewart by the elbow and led him away from the stretcher. "What the hell's the matter with you?" Earl whispered once they were out of range for her to hear. He felt furious at the man for his insensitivity. "We all know the risks, especially Janet. She's already worried shitless without you spelling out worst-case scenarios. Are you trying to frighten her to death?"
Stewart's eyebrows shot toward his frizzy black hairline, which no cap in the world was apparently able to contain. His stare grew incredulous, as if he truly didn't understand the fuss. "Hey, no need to take my head off. I'm just trying to be helpful, for fuck's sake." He jerked his arm away from Earl's grip and strode out of the room.
Earl resisted the urge to run after him, not sure he wouldn't throttle the jerk for being so clueless and definitely in no mood to initiate the placating that might avoid a lifetime grudge. It was pointless either way, he decided, fed up with Stewart's petulance at the moment. Besides, nothing could sway that stubborn temperament until it cooled off. He'd deal with Stewart tomorrow. Maybe by then he could also get a clearer story about the business with Wyatt's patients.
"Can I have a word with you, Earl?" Hurst said as he glided up beside him, took his elbow, and led the way to a back corner. The glassy smoothness of the CEO's tone chilled the air. "This insistence of Janet's that whoever dropped the bottle of chloroform knowingly left her in danger," he began, facing away from her. "Can you not persuade her to consider the event only an accident? You and I already agree, everyone is scared enough of SARS. We don't want rumors there may be someone running around maliciously endangering the lives of-"
"My wife is the most cool-headed, most fearless, and least hysterical person I know," Earl interrupted, his tone low and cold, his temper, already primed by Stewart, nearing a boil. He leaned closer to Hurst's ear. "If she says someone knowingly left her in danger, then that's what we're dealing with, understand? That means there won't be any sweep-it-under-the-rug cover-up. What's more, if I find the creep, neither you nor the rest of the staff will need to worry about that person doing more harm anytime soon."
Hurst arched a gray eyebrow at him. "Really, Earl, I would have expected a more balanced, mature response. I suggest you need practice in learning to see the big picture."
Earl switched to Hurst's other ear, as if performing an unconsummated French greeting. "Paul, let's just say I feel about someone trying to hurt Janet the way you do about someone trying to hurt this hospital."
Hurst staggered back a step. "I see," he said, and creased his forehead. "Yes, of course you would-"
"Janet!" Len Gardner barged into the room, one of the strings of his mask trailing out behind him, the whole thing threatening to come undone. "What's this I hear about someone trying to chloroform you near the morgue?"
Hurst visibly stiffened but didn't turn around, remaining outwardly calm with his hands clasped behind his back, the way a host might carry himself upon hearing guests becoming unruly at a cocktail party.
Earl brusquely signaled the pathologist to fasten the ties properly. Goddamn it, he of all people should know better.
"Len," Janet answered. "Just the man I wanted to question. What have you got chloroform down there for, anyway? And who the hell would be carrying a jug of the stuff around?"
"That's what is so weird." Len's authoritative voice began to hush surrounding conversations and command everyone's attention. "We hardly use the stuff anymore, just to make Carnoy's solution to speed up tissue fixation. Even then, no one would ever need the whole jar."
He and Janet continued to speculate about the bizarre sequence of events, all to the rapt attention of the three main gossip groups in St. Paul's: residents, nurses, and doctors.
"You see," Hurst said, pupils boring into Earl's, "this kind of sensationalism won't come to any good." He shook his head in a show of sad disapproval, as if he held Earl personally responsible for the conversation unfolding behind him, and turned to leave.
Only then could Earl see that the long fingers of the surgeon's right hand had curled into a fist.
Tuesday, July 8, 2:30 a.m. Palliative Care, St. Paul's Hospital
Sadie Locke started and sat up.
"Father Jimmy?"
She'd been lying with her eyes closed, waiting for his visit, when she heard the rustle of clothing.
No answer.
A shadow by her door moved.
"Sorry, wrong room," whispered a voice.
The shape retreated to the hallway.
Chapter 9
Tuesday, July 8, 7:05 a.m.
Thick as a fold of flesh on a pachyderm's ass," Thomas Biggs grumbled, his Tennessee twang cutting the gloom like a buzz saw. He squinted upward as gray tendrils engulfed the upper floors of St. Paul's. A fog bank had bulged off Lake Erie to lean on the downtown core.
Earl shivered in the clammy air. Screening at the hospital entrance progressed more slowly than usual, and chatter among the troops remained muted.
They were an army that had woken to the news their lines had once more been breached. Morning broadcasts reported thirty new cases of possible SARS and three more deaths, all of them identified on a ward in a rehabilitation hospital not three blocks away. The zinger that had this crowd so subdued was that the seminal case involved a woman who'd had hip surgery at St. Paul's, and she must have contracted the virus from an unknown carrier on staff here.
At his urging, Janet had agreed to take the day off, though Earl admitted nothing seemed wrong with her. If anything, her ready acceptance to stay home concerned him. It meant she'd been more shaken by what happened than he realized.
"Any idea who the carrier is yet?" Earl asked when it came his turn to be screened.
"No," the nurse answered, her voice having retreated to the high-pitched, thin tones that are a giveaway of taut vocal cords.