Michael Palmer - Side Effects

Her hands trembling with anticipation, Kate took the first of the ovarian sections and slid it onto the stage of the microscope. A moment to flex tension from the muscles in her neck, and she leaned forward to begin another journey through the yellow-white light. Forty-five minutes later, the one had become three. Leon Olesky hunched over one set of oculars of the teaching microscope, controlling the focus with his right hand and moving the slide with his left. Across from him, in the seat Kate had occupied, was Tom Engleson. "You know, " Olesky said, "if Stan hadn't called me about your case, the findings on our young woman would have slipped right past us. I mentioned the matter last night at our weekly department conference, but no one responded. An hour later, Dr.

Hickman came to my office. Young Bruce is, perhaps, the brightest of our residents, but at times, I'm afraid, a bit too quick for his own good."

Kate sighed. Olesky's observations described many of the so-called hotshot residents she had worked with over the years. "I'll take methodical over genius any day of the week, " she said. "Both is best,"

Olesky responded, "but that's a rare combination, indeed.

I might mention, though, that it is a combination your mentor feels he is lucky to have found in you."

"Methodical, yes, " Kate allowed, "but I've yet to receive a single membership application from Mensa."

"She's only the best in the hospital, " Tom interjected somewhat impetuously. "Finish telling us about your resident."

Kate withheld reaction to Engleson's enthusiasm, sensing that what she felt was, in equal parts, flattered and embarrassed. "Well, it seems our Dr. Hickman was uncertain about the pathology he was seeing in this woman's ovaries. However, rather than think that the finding might be unique, he assumed, although he won't say so in as many words, that the condition was one he should have known about, and hence one he would look foolish asking for help with. Since the cause of death was unrelated to the ovaries, he chose to describe his findings in the autopsy report and leave it at that."

"No harm done, " Kate said. "Quite the contrary, in fact. This event may be the pinprick Hickman's ego needs so he can reach his full potential as a physician. It will make even more of an impression if, as Dr. Willoughby and now yours truly, suspect, this pathology turns out to be one never before described."

Kate and Tom exchanged excited glances. "How would you explain its showing up in two women in the same city at about the same time?" she asked. The professor's eyes, dark and deeply serious, met first Engleson's and then Kate's. "Considering the outcome of the illness in both individuals, I would suggest that we work diligently to find an answer to that question. At the moment, I have none."

"There must be a connection, " Engleson said. "I hope there is, young man."

Olesky rose from his stool. "And I hope the two of you will be able to find it. I have a class to teach right now at, the medical school. This evening, I leave for meetings in San Diego, and from there, I go to the wedding of my son in New Mexico. My office and our department are at your disposal."

"Thank you, " they said. Olesky replaced his lab coat with a well-worn mackintosh. He shook hands first with Engleson and then with Kate. A final check of his desk and he shambled from the office. Kate waited for the door to click shut. "I'm glad you were able to get here so quickly,

" she said. "Did you have any trouble getting the records people to let you take Beverly's chart out of the hospital?"

"None. I just followed Engleson's first law of chutzpah. The more one looks like he should be doing what he's doing, the less anyone realizes that he shouldn't. I'll have to admit that the crooks with moving vans and uniforms who pick entire houses clean thought of the law before I did, but I was the first one I know to put it in words. Are you okay? I went to find you after the code was over yesterday, but you were gone.

Before I could call, I was rushed to the OR to do an emergency C-section."

"I was okay." She paused. "Actually, I wasn't. It hurt like hell to see her lying there like that. I can't remember the last time I felt so helpless." At the thought, the mention of the word, Arthur Everett's grotesque face flashed in her mind, his reddened eyes bulging with the effort of forcing himself inside her. Yes, I do, she thought. I do remember when. "How about you? " she asked. Engleson shrugged. "I think I'm still numb. It's like I'm afraid that if I let down and acknowledge my feelings about her and what happened, I'll never set foot in a hospital again."

Kate nodded her understanding. "You know, Tom, contrary to popuiar belief, being human doesn't disqualify you from being a doctor. Are you married? " Engleson shook his head. "I think it's hard to face some of the things we have to face and then have no one to talk them out with, to cry on, if necessary, when we get home." She thought about the difficult morning with Jared and smiled inwardly at the irony of her words. "Had you known Beverly outside the hospital?"

"No. I met her when she came into Metro. But I thought about trying to start up a relationship as soon as she His voice grew husky. He cleared his throat. "I understand, " Kate said. "Look, maybe we can talk about our work and our lives in medicine some day soon. Right now, we've got to start looking for some common threads between these women. I'm due back at Metro in, " she checked her watch, "-shoot, I've only got about twenty minutes."

Tom was thumbing through the thin sheaf of papers dealing with Ginger Rittenhouse. "It shouldn't take long to check. They have next to no information here. Ginger Louise Rittenhouse, twenty-eight, elementary school teacher, lived and worked in Cambridge, but she was running along the Boston side of the river when she collapsed. Apparently she lived long enough to get an emergency CAT scan, but not long enough to get to the OR."

"Married?". Kate asked. "No. Single. That's the second time you've asked that question about someone in the last two minutes." He narrowed one eye and fingered his moustache. "You have, perhaps, a marriage fixation?"

Kate smiled. "Let's leave my fixations out of this. At least for the time being, okay? What about family? Place of birth? Next of kin? Did they document any prior medical history?"

"Hey, slow down. We obstetricians are hardly famous for our swift reading ability. No known medical history. Next of kin is a brother in Seattle. Here's his address. You know, world's greatest hospital or not, they take a pretty skimpy history."

"It doesn't look like they had time for much more, " Kate said solemnly.

There had to be a connection, she was thinking. The two cases were at once too remarkable and too similar. Somewhere, the lives of a teacher from Cambridge and a cellist from a suburb on the far side of Boston had crossed. "Wait, " Engleson said. "She had a roommate. It says here on the accident floor sheet. Sandra Tucker. That must be how they found out about her family."

Kate again checked her watch. "Tom, I've got to go. I promised Dr.

Willoughby I'd help out with the post on Bobby Geary. Do you think you could try and get a hold of this Sandra Tucker? See if our woman has seen a doctor recently or had a blood test. Don't teachers need yearly physicals or something?"

"Not the ones I had.. I think their average age was deceased."

"Are you going to call from here? " Engleson thought for a moment and then nodded. "Fine, give me a ring when you get back to Metro. And Tom'?

Thanks for the compliment you paid me before." She reached out and shook his hand, firmly and in a businesslike manner. Then she left. With the pistol-shot crack of bat against ball, thirty thousand heads snapped in horror toward the fence in right center field. "Jesus, Katey, it's gone,