Michael Palmer - Extreme Measures

Could the similarity between the tracings be Coincidence?

Once, in medical school, when confronted with a confusing set of findings in a patient, he had suggested to a favorite professor that the explanation might be coincidence. The woman patiently allowed him to braid his own noose before turning to the class.

"Your cohort Mr. Najarian has chosen coincidence as his solution to this problem," she said. "I suggest to you all that while coincidence might from time to time exist in diagnostic medicine, the concept is in the main God's way of placating the intellectually lazy.

Eric managed a thin smile at the memory. Never since that day-had he accepted coincidence as an explanation for anything without one hell of a fight.

He took the two charts to his office and locked them in his desk.

As soon as he could break from the E.R he would head for the library to begin the process of becoming an expert on metabolic poisons and deathlike states.

Somewhere there existed an explanation for the findings in the derelict and Loretta Leone- And until there was not a source left in Boston he hadn't tapped, Eric vowed that there was no way he would settle for anything even remotely like coincidence.

Soon after Eric had left for the hospital, Laura floated back to sleep.

She awoke after nine, bewildered and confused to find herself not in her cabana on Little Cayman. Across the room, Verdi was scuffing about beneath his cage cover.

Laura set the cover aside and spent a fruitless five minutes endeavoring to coax the bird into a t'good e bed, morning." Finally, she sat on the edge of the bed, trying to map out some sort of plan for the day ahead.

For the first time since leaving the island she felt restless and ill at ease.

Gradually she began to see that meeting Ericgrowing to care for him and to have him care for her seemed somehow to have blunted her sense of urgency in finding Scott.

Was her commitment that fragile? it frightened and angered her to think that it might not be fear for her brother that had been driving her so, but fear of losing the only real connection she had kept to life beyond the island.

Had her life grown that thin?

She got dressed and walked downtown to the Carisle- the day was cloudless and a little overcast begging for the relief that rain would bring. Several times during her walk she tried without success to spot anyone following her.

Just the notion that somone might constantly be watching was sickening.

The Iranian desk clerk had no new messages.

Laura went up to her room, turned on some talk show, and lay down.

Almost immediately she could feel herself begin to drift off again.

The search for Scott was so much easier with Eric along to help, she reasoned. She could catch up on some sleep, do some shopping, and wait.until tomorrow to see the police.

The thought of another encounter with another bored, condescending officer was not at all appealing. Besides, there was little chance of their helping anyway.

Her eyes closed. and it is our belief as antivivisectionisis," one of the program's guests was saying, "that the medical researchers and animal providers have a lobby going in Washington that is as strong and well-funded as any special interest group…

Laura- forced her eyes open, pushed herself up, and stared at the screen. The speaker droned on, castigating the loss of perspective in the medical world.

"First mice and hamsters, then dogs, then primates, then so-called volunteer prisoners," she was saying. "And where do you suppose all this is heading?

Laura snatched up the phone, dialed Information, and got the number of the anatomy department at the medical school. She was connected with a man named Bishoff, the administrator of the department.

"Mr. Bishoff, thanks for speaking with me," Laura said. "My name is Laura Scott. I'm doing some research for a novel, and I need some information on how med-school anatomy departments acquire the bodies they use for students to dissect."

"You a mystery writer?" The man sounded intrigued.

"That's right."

"Published?"

"No, not yet."

"Oh." Laura could sense the man's interest begin to wane.

"But I'm under contract," she said eagerly.

"Well, then, in that case congratulations are in order. Your first sold novel. You know, I've been planmng, a book myself. A medical mystery.

I haven't quite gotten to the actual writing yet, but I do have a title:

Take Two Aspirins and Call Me in the Morgue.

Catchy, don't you think?"

Laura wished she had decided on some other ploy. "It… has potential," she said.

"Glad you think so. Now then, author to author, what do you want to know?"

"well, Mr. Bishoff, where do you get your bodies?"

"Why, they're donated."

"By whom?"

"By the only person authorized to do so-the deceased."

"Pe-People sign their bodies over in their wills?"

"That's right. They are required to notify us of their desire when they are sound of mind, and to sign a notarized form in triplicate. A copy goes to their records, a copy goes to us, and a copy goes on their will."

"Do the police ever supply you with bodies?"

"Never."

"And you get enough that way?"

"More than enough, actually. We keep them on ice. Say, wouldn't it be great to have a big chase scene that ends up in a body freezer?"

"It would be, Mr. Bishoff, been done already." but I think it may have "Oh, "Tell me," she said, "do you Pay for them?"

"The bodies? Hell no. Only burial fees if the family Wants to use the county's boot hill up on the North Shore."

"You never pay for a body?"

"Absolutely not. We can't make budget as it is.

Does that wreck your plot?"

"It may."

"In that case, I'm sorry."

"One last time, just so I can be sure: There is no way someone can profit from selling bodies to medical schools?"

"Absolutely none."

"Thank you, Mr. Bishoff. You've been very helpfull."

"My pleasure. Now I have one question for you.

"Yes?"

"Do you think I should get an agent before or after I write my book?"

Laura smiled. "I think after might be better, Mr. Bishoff," she said.

She hung up and then dialed the number of the medical examiner Thaddeus Bushnell. A recording told her that the line was out of order.

Ten minutes later she was in a cab headed toward his lower Beacon Hill town house, hoping that in midday she Might find him a bit more sober and easier to talk to.

At the Turn onto Bushnell's street, she spotted the wooden barriers on the sidewalk in front of his place.

The building itself was gutted-a burned-out shell.

The stench of smoke and charred wood hung heavy in the air.

She asked the cabbie to wait and walked to the barriers. A uniformed fire inspector was standing beside what remained of the front doorway.

"What happened?" she asked.

The man stared at her.

"The house burned down," he said, his tone asking: What do you think happened?

"What about Dr. Bushnell?"

Laura sensed ominously that she needn't have bothered asking the question.

"You a friend?"

"I… I knew him."

The man softened. "I'm sorry," he said. "The old guy never made it out."

"I knew he would do this to himself," Laura said.

"Pardon?"

"Dr. Bushnell. I saw him the other night, and he was drinking too much and smoking. I was frightened that something like this might happen to him."

The inspector looked back at the house, and then at Laura.

"You a reporter?" he asked.

"No, why?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm… I'm visiting from the South. Why?"

"Because I'm not supposed to talk to anyone until we've checked on a few more things."

"Please," Laura said, suddenly apprehensive.

"Please tell me what happened. It… it's very important." The man sized her up for a few moments and then said simply, "The fire was set.