Robin Cook - Death Benefit

“What do you want me to say?” George asked. He tried to look Pia in the eye but she avoided it.

“Does it really sound like I’m paranoid? Don’t answer. Whatever, I’m not finished looking into all this as there doesn’t seem to be anyone else doing it.”

“How many times do I have to remind you that this is one of the premier medical centers in the world? Do you really believe you have anything to add? You’re going to flame out, Pia. Is that what you want? Do you have a career death wish?”

Pia thought for a moment. “Maybe.”

“Even if you persist in this self-destructive investigation or whatever you call it, I don’t see what your options are. Springer, Bourse, Spaulding-you’re on a last warning from all of them.”

“I’m not afraid of Spaulding. He took my key, but I still know where Rothman kept his. He was acting like he had something to hide.”

“As I said before, I think this is crazy. Look, if you insist on pursuing it, why don’t you check out the autopsies? There’s probably a simple pathological explanation for Rothman and Yamamoto’s clinical course. Or even a complex explanation, I don’t know. But that’s where you’re going to find the answers, not pissing off everybody in the hospital. The autopsies were probably done today so they could dispose of the bodies because they’re still hot.”

“Hot?” Pia said.

“Yeah, hot, as in contaminated with salmonella,” George said sharply. Sometimes Pia could be a little slow on the uptake. She still looked bemused, as if her mind wasn’t making a connection. “You understand what I’m saying?”

“Like you’d say someone full of virus is ‘hot.’ ”

“Exactly. No Pathology Department wants to keep hot bodies around. I tell you what you should do: Find one of the pathology residents tonight and ask what they know, or what they can find out. You haven’t worn out your welcome in that department yet. Have you?”

“Actually, that’s a good idea. I didn’t think of that.”

“If you want to look into that, I’ll come with you, so you stay within the lines.” George smiled as he said it. He wasn’t reprimanding her, he was joking because he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep her out of trouble if she was determined to get into it. She’d more than proved it.

“But I’m not going back to the lab,” he added. “If you want to do that, you’re on your own. Spaulding is bound to have alerted security. And what does it mean if there’s a sample missing in the freezer? What does that prove? Other than the fact that Spaulding’s not as good at his job as he’d like to think. Which is another thing you knew already.”

“I don’t think Spaulding would alert anyone. He doesn’t have that kind of authority, despite his big talk. But at the moment I’m not thinking about going back to the lab. I think I’ll follow your suggestion and check with Pathology. As I said, I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a good suggestion.”

“Then I’ll tag along. I know, I’d feel guilty if I don’t go and you get carried away again and get yourself kicked out of school.”

“I don’t care one way or the other,” said Pia. She was intrigued. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER NEW YORK CITY MARCH 24, 2011, 8:50 P.M.

The wind blew fiercely down Haven Avenue and into the canyon of 168th Street. Pushed from behind, Pia and George made rapid but chilly progress from the dorm toward the medical center. It was raining, and George struggled with a cheap umbrella until it finally turned inside out for the third time. He stuffed it headfirst into a trash can. Pia strode on, head down, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled tightly over her head.

Once inside the hospital, they descended into the labyrinthine bowels of the nearly century-old building to the morgue. It was malodorous and poorly lit and filled with outdated equipment. The morgue served as a way station for the dead: In simple cases, bodies would be picked up by a funeral home. A van from the OCME, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, would come if there were complicating factors.

Both Pia and George found it difficult to reconcile this run-down, dirty place with the hospital and medical center as they knew it. Some campus buildings were slightly shabby on the outside but pristine and modern within. The morgue was unkempt inside and out, and at this time of the evening seemed to have been deserted by anyone from the realm of the living. Old-fashioned wooden meat-locker-style doors with metal signs proclaiming that only authorized personnel were to be admitted were the order of the day. The only noise in the godforsaken place was a low-grade electrical hum and the drip of water onto cement floor.

Following their noses, they walked into the tiered amphitheater of the abandoned autopsy room, which looked like the set of a horror movie depicting Victorian times. Some of the seats were broken. The pit area, with its two ancient autopsy tables, was being used as storage for a random collection of pipes, old sinks, and discarded toilets. With the constant fight for space in the medical center, George wondered out loud why the area hadn’t been retrofitted.

Finally Pia and George walked into the morgue itself. Arranged along the walls was a series of walk-in coolers. The fifteen or so corpses in the room were on separate gurneys, some covered by sheets, others fully exposed. Still in place on a few of the bodies were the various tubes and wires used to treat and monitor them while they were still alive. A couple of the bodies were clothed, others naked. Most still wore the hospital johnnies they expired in. Mixed in were a couple of long black body bags.

Pia and George were wondering why they couldn’t find anyone working there when the night diener, or mortuary attendant, startled them.

“What do you want?” the man asked. It was obvious he was unhappy at being disturbed. He was perhaps fifty or sixty, small of stature, wearing a stained lab coat. He had a bulbous head too large for his body with a badly maintained comb-over wedged on top. He wore small oval glasses and squinted through them at his uninvited guests. The casting department for the Victorian horror movie had done a good job.

“And how did you get in?” he added before Pia or George could answer his first question.

“We came in that way,” Pia said, indicating their entrance route.

“That’s the back entrance. Visitors are supposed to come in the front. No one ever comes in the back way.”

“We’re here to ask about a couple of autopsies,” George said. “Autopsies that might have been performed down here today. The patients would have been two staff members who died early this morning, Dr. Rothman and Dr. Yamamoto?”

The attendant laughed cynically, as if this was the funniest thing he had heard in ages.

“There hasn’t been an autopsy done down here in fifty years. I never heard of either of those patients. They’re not here, if that’s what you want to know. And if there was an autopsy, it would be done in the anatomy department of the medical school, where they still do them. On account of the teaching. You need to get in touch with the pathology resident on call. And you can go out the front way.” The man pointed in the direction of the usual exit. He then stood there implacably.

George looked at Pia, who didn’t seem in the mood to argue.

“Okay,” George said. “Thanks.”

As Pia and George waited for the elevator to rumble its way down to them, George snuck a look back toward the chamber of horrors.

“Can you believe that guy?”

“I’ve been in some creepy places, but that’s the creepiest.”

“Do you think he ever leaves?” George said.