Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

"So there were three-point-four more bodies than usual," he muttered, impatient with how absurd statistics could seem at times. He also bet there were other days when the count would be just as high, and sure enough, when he requested a tally, he found that at least a dozen times in the last twelve weeks the morning dead had numbered six or more.

Yet three deaths and two patients slipping into a coma continued to disturb him because of the odds.

If he'd done the multiplication right, out of the hundred patients in palliative care, the chances that this would happen to the five Stewart talked to, all other things being equal, were one in nine trillion.

Which meant someone must have had a hand in their outcome.

But of course all things were never equal with a ward full of cancer patients. These five might have been closer to death than Wyatt thought, and maybe Stewart, in his perpetual readiness to take affront, had been wrong about their near-death accounts being bogus. They could have actually experienced what they reported because each of them really was about to die, and their deterioration was only nature taking its course.

In terms of probability that made far more sense than scenarios suggesting foul Play-He began to feel sheepish about his initial reaction. Perhaps he'd let his imagination get the better of him. Having arrived on the floor convinced that Stewart had been hiding something, and unclear what Wyatt might be up to, if anything, he'd failed to coolly consider all the possibilities. What a dumb-ass medical-student move. He didn't usually jump to conclusions like that. Of course, his already being suspicious of Yablonsky didn't help matters any, having primed him to think the worst.

But he damn well would insist that Stewart level with him about what exactly he'd thought was bogus when he talked with the five patients. And if even a hint turned up that Wyatt had tried to undermine Stewart's or any other researcher's credibility, he'd nail his hide. Whoa, there he went, leaping ahead of himself again. Better yank his urge to be in everybody's business back under control. Otherwise there'd be no end to the nastiness he might find. He'd taken the position of VP, medical to make his job of running ER easier, not to replace it with chasing down hospital shenanigans full-time.

He sat in the stillness of his office and felt the place weigh on him. Eight hundred beds, eight hundred souls, and if he weren't careful, every one of them would land a problem in his lap. And to think that just two days ago Jimmy had accused him of being too little involved with the rest of St. Paul's. Earl wondered if the real danger wasn't that he might get too entangled and be sucked dry. Because when he sensed something wrong, he couldn't let it slide.

But it was one thing to let the workings of an ER consume him. The tenacity that drove him not to quit on a patient took hold when trouble hit. His reflex as an ER physician was to leap on a problem the way he would a bleeder, well before it got out of hand. Yet he took the challenges in stride and inevitably, one way or another, found solutions. It all happened on a scale that never threatened to overpower him.

He leaned back in his chair and regarded the spartan furnishings- a steel-gray standard hospital-issue desk, two simple chrome chairs covered in black Naugahyde for visitors, a solitary potted plant that somehow survived the closed space and poor light from a grime-coated window the size of a cafeteria tray- and chuckled. The hospital CEO had offered him surroundings "much more suitable" to his new position, but he'd declined the upgrade, having always found it an advantage to demand sacrifice and best efforts from people if he himself worked out of an austere setting. The trick now would be to keep his perception of what needed fixing just as free of clutter.

He'd have to compartmentalize like never before, carefully choose his causes, and forget about charging off on wild hunches.

Keep everything at scale.

As for Yablonsky, well, he'd deal with her at death rounds.

Except something about her bothered him. She had definitely been edgy as he looked through those five files. Of course, just being around him could make her nervous, especially if his double-dose theory regarding Matthews was true. Yet..

Another event niggled at him- her reaction to the word cluster the evening before Matthews's death.

In a medical context doctors used it frequently, referring to a grouping of any unusual incidents or diseases, even symptoms and signs. So it had an unpleasant connotation to begin with, but not one that should have upset an experienced nurse. Unless…

He knew one context in which the term cluster carried a resonance that gave him a chill.

He dialed the nursing station and asked for Dr. Biggs. "Hello, Thomas. I wonder if you could go to our teaching files and dig out an article for me. It's one of the epidemiologic chestnuts on CPR in the New England Journal that I present to the residents every year, so you'll probably remember it." A lot of nurses would too, including Monica Yablonsky. The nursing director had asked him to give sessions about it with her staff on several occasions.

"Sure. What's the title?"

" 'Mysterious Clusters of Deaths in Hospitals.'"

Earl hung up and returned to checking discharge statistics for palliative care, going a lot farther back than three months.

Jane Simmons bought the kit at a pharmacy far from her apartment where no one knew her. She needn't have gone to the trouble. The salesgirl didn't so much as look up during the purchase.

In the privacy of her bathroom, she applied the drop of urine and waited.

In one minute she'd know.

Reruns of the last six weeks tumbled through her mind.

She'd missed before. Rather, it had come late a few times, by as much as two weeks. She'd assumed that this time she'd skipped a cycle altogether but that her period would arrive any day now. She'd been so careful to use the foam with her diaphragm and insist he wear a condom. It never occurred to her that they could have messed up. "The problem arrives when you forget," Dr. Graceton had reassured her in recommending the switch after the damn pill kept causing nausea, even after many tries on different types and dosages.

But there had been times in the middle of the night when she woke with him entering her again. God help her, she loved yielding to him in that half-asleep state. Even then she remained aware enough to feel he'd put on protection, and the diaphragm would still be in place from when they'd made love hours earlier, then fallen asleep in each other's arms.

The trouble was she hadn't added more foam.

Thirty seconds.

She looked out the open door at the rest of her apartment. It didn't seem so bright anymore. The paintings she'd chosen for color rather than any specific artist looked drab and cheap, every bit the pathetic imitations they were. Strange how baubles meant to comfort lost their luster when real trouble hit.

Ten seconds.

She felt so stupid sitting there on the tile floor, her future in the hands of a reagent to detect the chemistry of an embryo implanted in her womb. It would be six weeks old now, little more than a ball of cells, but the tissue already beginning to differentiate into what would become brain, heart, and skin. She hugged her knees and began to rock slightly, the way she had as a little girl whenever something worried her.

Such little problems then: homework, what boy would or wouldn't talk to her, exams. Even her worries an hour ago now seemed insignificant: paying bills, what groceries to get. All little stuff. Her only big concern had been what would happen to Dr. G. That still mattered.

Shit, what would he think of her now? And Dr. Graceton. She'd been so kind, taking her on as a new patient- doubtless because Dr. G. had spoken to her.