Robin Cook: Death Benefit

Pia focused. She wasn’t worried about talking to the police-after all, it wouldn’t be the first time. She’d build a wall around what happened at the house and not recount any of it; in all other aspects, she could be truthful. And there were some truths she was still determined that everyone know. There would be no possibility of a cover-up.

Pia walked up to the front desk in the dorm. There were two uniformed cops by the elevator, but Pia hoped that her strange garb and the fact that she’d bunched her hair up under a baseball cap would throw off a casual onlooker. Despite the late hour, students were coming in from studying at the Health Science Center or from a night out. A few others were on their way out, having been called to the hospital for emergencies.

Pia knew the person staffing the front desk and asked him about Will McKinley.

“Pia, is that you?” the young man said. “Cops are looking for you. They said you got kidnapped or something crazy.”

“No, I’m fine. Will-tell me about Will.” Pia gestured with her index finger over her lips to silence the man from calling attention to her presence.

“Oh, man, I heard he got shot in the head, but he survived. He was taken over to the Neurological Institute, and he had surgery. One of the other fourth-years said he’s in Intensive Care.”

Without another word, Pia turned and walked away from the desk and made her way over to Neurosurgical Intensive Care. She saw plenty of cops and security guards, but they were on the lookout for a woman with long black hair, not someone wearing a New York Jets sweatshirt to mid-thigh, soccer socks, and a baseball cap. She looked like a cheerleader.

At the doors of Intensive Care, there were more police. Pia was stopped by the nurses, who eyed her less than appropriate clothes and the bruise on her jawline. Pia explained she was a medical student and flashed her student identification with her finger over her name. She hoped that everyone there had been on duty the whole night and hadn’t seen or heard the news. The head nurse said she wouldn’t let Pia into the intensive care unit, but she paged the resident.

When the resident arrived he looked quizzically at Pia. Still, he was considerate after hearing that she was a medical student interested in the case. He assumed she was a girlfriend of the young man.

“Mr. McKinley is being maintained in an induced coma post-surgery,” the resident, Dr. Hill, said. “He received a gunshot to the head, but the bullet made a complete transit through the frontal lobe. It’s an injury that people have recovered from in the past. But I would emphasize that anyone suffering this kind of injury may not be exactly the same person he was before being shot and having brain surgery.”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Pia said. “I was there when he was shot.”

“So it’s very important that you understand he will be different even if there is a seemingly complete recovery.”

“Different how?”

“It would take too long to go into now. Look up the case of Phineas Gage, from 1848, which involved much more severe trauma to the frontal lobe. It was the first recorded case about how penetrating head trauma can affect personality.”

“Can I see him?”

“I don’t see why not. His family is on the way. You have to wear a gown and so on.”

“Of course.”

Pia went off to don her protective garb.

Only then did Dr. Hill remember something about being on the lookout for a young woman.

In Will McKinley’s room, Pia found George standing by Will’s bed.

“Pia, my God!” George said, and grasped her in an embrace. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”

“I’m fine. I’ll tell you later. Will . . . how is he doing?”

“No one knows. I have to go back and talk to some more cops, but I wanted to see him. I saw the whole thing. I saw him get shot and you taken. I can’t believe he’s alive. And you too. Thank God. What happened?”

George stared at Pia as if she were an apparition, but she turned to look at Will. His breathing was being handled by a machine, there were tangles of wires and tubes enveloping him, and he was surrounded by banks of devices with illuminated readouts. Will’s face looked calm and peaceful and his color was normal. Except for all the medical equipment and the beeping and clicking, he might have simply been sleeping. A nurse hovered nearby. Pia looked around the room and caught her reflection in the unit’s large window. She looked terrible, like something the cat dragged in. She turned her attention back to George.

“George, I’m so sorry I got you into this. Please forgive me,” she said. “If I had listened to you, then this would have turned out differently, I know that.”

“Pia, I feel as terrible as you do about this. I was sleeping while you were waiting for me at the station. I slept through your calls. I should have come to you. It should be me lying there.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Will had no idea what was going on and I didn’t say anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me so there’s a couple of things I want to say while I have the chance.

“I want to say thank you for going out of your way to help me. I don’t really understand why you’d do that for someone without her asking, and without her appreciating what you’re doing. But there are a lot of things I don’t understand.

“I guess the main thing I don’t understand is myself. I think you do know yourself, which is why you’re able to say you love someone, like you did to me. And I’m sorry for not listening then either. I’m jealous that you can do that, and I wonder why I can’t. I think there’s something broken in me or something that was never there, and it’s taken until now for me to see that. For a lot of reasons, I find it very difficult to trust people. As if I need to tell you that…. But I don’t know how to love someone either, or how to accept their love. It’s a big responsibility, being loved, and you should think hard before rejecting someone’s love.

“But you’ve made me want to learn more about myself, to see if I can’t fix that broken part. I think we studied that course together, in first-year psych, the part about people with personality issues who never accept that they’re the ones who are different. So if they’re marching, if they lead with their right foot while everyone else uses their left, they say with unshakable belief that it’s everyone else who’s out of step, not them. I think I’m like that.”

Pia looked around. She hadn’t realized the nurse had left, nor had she seen or heard the man enter the room. He was stocky, in a cap and gown, just like she and George were wearing, over his streetclothes. He was standing at the back of the room as she stood with George by Will’s bed. The man waved his hand as if to say, “Don’t mind me! Go on!”

“I never understood people’s feelings, George. I sneered at people who said they were in love because I never knew what that meant. I don’t know if I can change, and I don’t know if someone can be taught how to love. But I do know I want to try to change.”

Pia reached out and touched George’s cheek with one fingertip.

“Please try to forgive me.”

George closed his eyes.

“Pia, there’s nothing to forgive. I’m just so happy you’re safe.”

Pia stepped back and studied Will’s peaceful face, then turned toward the visitor. She sensed he was there to talk to her.

“Miss, I’m Detective Captain Lou Soldano. You’re Pia Grazdani, I assume?”

“Yes.”

“You have to come with me now.”

“I understand. Do you mind if I use the bathroom first?”

“Of course not,” Lou said.