Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

Oh, my God!

Now she remembered it from her med school days- when they'd done basic lab experiments on white rats and anesthetized them with chloroform!

Jesus Christ, she thought, her head rapidly growing woozy. What felt like an ice cream headache began to set itself up in her temples.

She tried to stop and turn back but skidded, no longer finding any traction. At first she thought it must be the paper coverings on her shoes, but then noticed the floor glistening in the half-light, covered with fluid. At the same instant particles of glass crunched under her soles. She'd blundered into the middle of the spill.

Like a cartoon character trying to reverse direction, she ended up running on the spot; then, losing her balance, she fell heavily on her hands and knees. She cried out, and her lungs emptied, but she struggled not to breathe in. A stinging pain pierced her palms, and patterns of crimson spread under the latex of her gloves like petals. My hands! she thought, they being as precious to a surgeon as to a pianist. She instinctively flexed her fingers, verifying no tendons were cut, despite feeling about to faint more from trying to hold her breath than breathing in the anesthetic. The sparkling fragments that had sliced into her skin glittered up at her. She'd pull them out later.

Chloroform, like ether, had extreme volatility, vaporized rapidly, and practically poured into the bloodstream when inhaled into the lungs. Which meant if she didn't get out of this puddle, ground zero for the fumes, she'd be sleeping in it. And so would the baby.

She unsteadily got back on her feet, blood now dripping from the perforations in her gloves, and, in a wide stance as if walking on ice, began to teeter back toward the offices she'd just left.

Once there, the fumes wouldn't be too bad. She'd call for help on the phone. Just don't breathe in. Only a few seconds more.

She feared most for the baby. A single exposure to chloroform, if it reached high enough concentrations in his blood, could harm the kidneys and liver.

She felt a wave of nausea.

Oh, God, no. The stuff had definitely hit her circulation. That meant it would be in his.

The floor felt less slippery, and she started to run toward where it should be safe. But it surprised her at how concentrated the fumes still were as they continued to burn her eyes, the inside of her nose, the back of her throat. The guy must have dropped a gallon of the liquid.

Her vision began to dim.

No, she mustn't pass out.

She staggered.

She had to make the nearest door.

The heavy wooden monstrosity seemed to hang at the center of a black funnel. It had an electric lock, like all the doors in pathology. Would her card work?

She fished it out of her pocket, inserted it into the slot, and pulled the stainless-steel handle, which reminded her of the one on her mother's old refrigerator.

It opened.

Cold air flowed over her and she gasped it into her lungs.

The ubiquitous fumes that had followed her down the hall filled her chest as well, and she felt as if she'd inhaled fire.

Her head swam.

She managed a step forward, into the morgue, and marveled at her silver breath while she sank to her knees and slid into darkness.

But she could still hear.

A loud click sounded behind her.

Just like her mother's fridge door when it swung shut.

7:00 p.m.

Earl glanced at his watch and swore. He'd planned to be out of here a half hour ago. But when he returned from Hurst's office, a dozen files awaited him on his desk along with a note from Michael Popovitch.

Can you believe this shit? it had said.

And no, he could not.

In each case a resident had committed what could have been a major error- in all, five missed fractures, three unrecognized pneumonias, four failures to correctly interpret an abnormal electrocardiogram. Fortunately, Michael had caught them all in time.

July jitters. Earl signed off on the twelve incident reports. But in the morning he'd ask Thomas to set up appropriate teaching seminars and patch up the holes in the newcomers' knowledge base.

He reached for the phone and called home, expecting to hear a very impatient Janet wanting him there pronto.

The housekeeper said she hadn't heard from her.

Strange.

"Hi, Daddy," Brendan said when she put him on. "When are you going to be here?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Janet must have gotten stuck in the case room. He dialed the extension, knowing it by heart.

"Sorry, Dr. Garnet. She's not here. Haven't seen her in hours."

He called the operator.

"We've been paging her for the last twenty minutes, Dr. Garnet. One of her patients is expecting her up on the floor."

Very strange.

"Do you want us to have her call you if we reach her?" the operator asked.

"Yes, please."

Now where could she be?

He got up from his chair, stretched, and grabbed his briefcase. Maybe she'd already started to drive home, though he doubted she'd forget a patient.

Nevertheless, he dialed her cellular.

"The person you have dialed is unable to come to the phone-"

He hung up. The recording meant she still had it turned off and probably hadn't left the hospital yet.

Well, no point in them both hanging around here.

He switched the light off and left his office. God, his back and legs felt tired. The burden of being hot and cooped up in double layers of clothing all day while breathing stale air through a mask took its toll physically.

"Any sign of Michael?" he asked, poking his head into the nursing station on his way out. He wanted to thank his astute friend for saving the day twelve times over.

No one had seen him for about an hour.

"Christ, everyone's doing a disappearing act," he muttered.

Earl found him in his office, scowling over what, from a distance, looked like a death certificate. "Hey, Michael, go home. Enough paperwork. Your wife and son are far more important." Donna, a fun lady five years older than he, and Terry, a dynamo kid six months younger than Brendan, were the anchor to this man who could be so obsessed with work. He doted on both of them.

Michael's eyes creased at the corners, the effect of what must have been an attempt to smile, but his morose gaze made a liar out of it. He also not very subtly slid his arm over the top of the paper he'd been filling out.

"Are you okay, Michael?"

"Sure. What's up?"

"You don't look okay."

"Nothing a little more sleep won't cure."

He sounded as convincing as one of their street junkie regulars promising to go straight.

Earl studied him. Michael had steadfastly denied anything was wrong, no matter how often Earl asked. Whatever had been getting him down lately, Michael either kept it to himself or blamed it on the additional stress of the SARS epidemic. Which of course it could be. Except Earl knew his friend would rather have a root canal than admit to a personal problem. Like most doctors, while inviting everyone to bring him their sick and needy, he viewed asking for help as his own defeat.

"Christ, Michael, will you cut the crap and tell me what's wrong?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, Jesus."

"Jesus?"

"Goddamn it, you are one stubborn idiot. Oh, and by the way, thanks for saving the department from the first-year residents, for about the millionth time."

Michael's eyes creased at the corners again, a bit more convincingly this time, and a chuckle rumbled out of his barrel chest. "You're welcome."

"But like they say in the song, 'You got to tell somebody.'"

Michael picked up a book and threatened to throw it at him.

"Okay, okay!" Earl closed the door and hurried out the triage entrance. What could be wrong with Michael? Had he reached his limit to seeing human beings reduced to flesh, blood, and a wet mess? That tipping point crept up on all doctors who worked the pit, one case at a time. Earl had counseled enough former colleagues through it to know. But burnout victims possessed a haunted look, as if they couldn't shut out the images of what they'd witnessed and were consumed by them. Michael had something else, a wariness about him, a watchfulness, as if on the lookout for something. And why would he conceal what he'd been writing on a death certificate?