Michael Palmer - Natural Causes

"I have a friend-a patient, actually-who's a vice president at Blue Note Records. Do you know that company?"

"Only the best jazz production people in the business."

"I can get Taylor's band a recording audition."

"Peter, that would be wonderful."

"After the marriage."

"That's sort of up to-"

"And if my friend says they're good enough, I will back the production of their album."

"I see."

"Provided the two of you and the child choose to make your home here at Xanadu-at least until you are on your feet financially."

"That's a very generous offer."

"Annalee, you are my only child. I want you to have a good life."

"I understand," she said, still surprised and a bit bewildered by his reaction. "I can't say for sure that Taylor will go along with your conditions. But I think he will."

"So do I," Peter said. "And of course, I would like the child to be delivered here at Xanadu. We'll get the finest midwives in the world to attend you."

"Peter, I–I had kind of decided that I wanted to have the baby born in a hospital and delivered by an obstetrician."

"Oh?"

Annalee strongly sensed that her father already knew what was to come next. "I've already been to see one. She's agreed to take me on as a patient."

"She?"

Annalee sighed. "Sarah. Sarah Baldwin. I went to see her at her hospital."

The explosion she expected did not happen.

"I know," Peter said simply.

"What?"

"I saw you in the audience on the evening news. To say you stood out in the crowd would not be doing you justice."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I am saying something. Now that I know what your visit there was all about, I'm saying a great deal. I will not have my grandchild brought into this world in some germ-infested, antiseptic-reeking, mistake-prone hospital. And especially not by Sarah Baldwin."

"But-"

"Annalee, there's a copy of yesterday's Herald and this morning's Globe on the bench over there. Both of them contain stories about Sarah. I assume you haven't read them or heard the news last night. Otherwise, you would surely have mentioned it."

He waited patiently as she scanned the papers.

"Did she put you on those herbs?" he asked.

"Yes. I–I thought that was something you would approve of."

"There is nothing Sarah Baldwin could ever do that I would approve of, except maybe to abandon altogether her destructive efforts to combine medicine and healing."

"But-"

"Annalee, there are some men coming to see me at two o'clock this afternoon. I think you should be present at that meeting."

"Who are they?"

"Two o'clock. My office. And please, not a word to Sarah Baldwin-at least not until you hear what these men have to say. Agreed?"

Annalee studied the pain and anger in her father's face. She knew Sarah had hurt him by leaving. But until now she really hadn't appreciated how much.

"Agreed," she said finally.

July 8

Lydia Pendergast bent at the waist and slowly, ever so slowly, stretched her hands downward toward the floor. To one side of the small examining room, Sarah, chiropractor Zachary Rimmer, and one of the pain unit nurses watched expectantly.

"Down and down she goes," Lydia said, "and where she stops nobody knows."

She was a sprightly woman in her early seventies who had become virtually bedridden by low back pain and stiffness. A number of orthopedists and neurosurgeons had pegged degenerative arthritic spurs as the cause of her disability. They cited the uncertainty of the corrective surgical procedure, as well as her age and the advanced condition of the spurs, as reasons why they could not operate. Finally, one of them had referred her to the MCB pain unit, a multidisciplinary clinic that was rapidly becoming known and respected throughout the Northeast.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital, Sarah had begun volunteering her acupuncture skills at the clinic. She usually managed half a day a week.

Lydia's fingertips touched the tile.

"Ta da," she sang, without straightening out. "Okay, now, Dr. Baldwin. This one's for you."

She shifted her feet slightly, continued down until her palms were flat on the floor, and waited until Sarah snapped a picture with the clinic's ancient Polaroid. Then, to the applause of her small gallery, she straightened up and curtsied.

"God bless you. God bless you all…"

Lydia Pendergast's words were echoing in her mind as Sarah carried her box of acupuncture needles up the stairs to the lockers on Thayer Four. A treatment success; a grateful patient; work to do. The day seemed almost normal-especially when measured against the two that had preceded it. There was still a coolness from many on the hospital staff that Sarah found unpleasant, but certainly not unbearable. And several times, just as she sensed she might be breaking down, someone would say something kind or encouraging. The annoying, persistent, and unconscionably rude press was another problem altogether. She had stopped answering her phone at home and had gotten the hospital operator to screen calls to her carefully.

It wasn't fun. But she knew that like all things, it would pass.

Sarah had opened her locker, and so was partially screened when the elevator doors glided open and Andrew Truscott stepped out. He hurried down the corridor and into 421, one of the sleeping rooms that Sarah frequently used. It was odd that Andrew would be taking a break at this hour, she mused, although it was close enough to lunchtime. Perhaps he was hoping to sleep off a headache or something.

She smiled at the thought.

One headache he would not be needing to sleep off was Sarah's reporting him to Glenn Paris. She had opted not to do so a few hours after their confrontation in Andrew's office, and had told him of her decision the following day. She had not expected him to thank her, and in that regard, she was not disappointed.

"You do whatever you want," he had said testily. "Without proof and with your current status in this hospital, I doubt Paris or anyone else would pay much attention to what you have to say."

Truscott was absolutely right, she knew. She had enough problems without getting into a his-word-against-hers battle with the impeccably proper senior surgical resident. Even so, she would have gone ahead and reported him if she'd thought it would help. If the leaks continued, she would no longer have a choice.

Sarah was about to close her locker when the elevator doors opened again. This time Margie Yates, a pediatric resident, stepped out. Yates, the mother of two, was married to a sweet guy who ran the hospital's social service office. She was bright and attractive, but she was also insecure and a terrible flirt. From behind her locker door, Sarah could not help but watch as Margie straightened her white clinic skirt, checked herself in a compact mirror, knocked softly on the door to room 421, and slipped inside.

Andrew and Margie Yates! Not really that much of a surprise, Sarah decided, as she gently closed her locker door and headed down the nearby stairs. Andrew seldom spoke of his wife or child. And Margie, from time to time, had been linked by rumor to other physicians at MCB. Both had huge egos and massive need for approval. Their tryst, unpleasant as it was to observe, made perfect sense.

Sarah picked up a tuna sandwich, chips, and pineapple juice in the cafeteria, and carried the lunch outside to one of the campus tables. First the admission of betraying his hospital, and now Margie Yates. Over the past few days, Andrew's stock had plummeted. She ate quickly and reentered the hospital through the surgical building. Andrew's name was being called out via the overhead page. He was wanted in room 227 stat. A first-year surgical resident named Bruce Lonegan raced past her and up the stairs toward the second floor.