Tess Gerritsen: Peggy Sue Got Murdered

It was five o'clock; she could hear the evening morgue attendants laughing in the prep room, enjoying the brief and blessed lull before the madness of nightfall.

M. J. changed into her street clothes, pulled on her coat, and left the building.

She didn't drive home. Instead, she drove to South Lexington, to Hancock General Hospital.

It sat like a fortress in a war zone, its parking lot surrounded by a barbed wire fence, the front entrance overhung by surveillance cameras. The ER clerk was sitting behind glass-bulletproof, M. J. surmised. He spoke through a microphone; the tinny voice coming through the speaker made M. J. think of a McDonald's drive-through. "How can I help you?" he asked.

"I'm Dr. Novak," she said. "ME's office. I want to see a Dr. Michael Dietz. It's about a patient of his."

"I'll page him."

Dr. Dietz emerged a few minutes later, looking like some weary veteran of the trenches. A stethoscope was looped around his neck, and his scrub pants were splattered with blood. "You just caught me," he said. "I was going off shift. You're from the ME?"

"We talked earlier. About that overdose."

"Oh, yeah. He's up in Intensive Care. Geez, I can't remember his name…"

"Can we go up to the Unit?" she asked. "I'd like to look over his chart."

"I guess it's okay. Seeing as you're official and all."

They headed to the elevators. The hospital looked the same as M. J. remembered it, dingy linoleum floors, halls painted a bizarre aqua color, gurneys shoved up against the walls. Through the doorway on the right was the cafeteria, with its echoes of clinking dishes and scraping chairs. On the overhead paging system, a bored voice read out a list of doctors' names and extension numbers. Dr. Dietz moved like a sleepwalker in tennis shoes.

"I see the place hasn't changed any," said M. J.

"Did you used to work here?"

"No. I did my residency over at St. Luke's. But I knew a patient here. A relative."

He laughed. "I'm not sure I'd want any of my relatives here."

"Didn't matter to her. She didn't know where she was, anyway."

They stepped into the staff elevator and crowded in beside nurses and orderlies. Everyone stared straight ahead, as though mesmerized by the changing floor numbers.

"So are you from the city?" asked Dietz.

"A native. And you?"

"Cleveland. I'm going back."

"Don't like it here?"

"Let's put it this way. Compared to this town, Cleveland is the Garden of Eden."

They got off on the third floor and headed into Intensive Care.

The Unit was set up like a giant stable, with stalls marked out by curtains. Only two beds were empty, M. J. noted; not much preparation for an unexpected disaster. And there was a full moon. That was always a harbinger of a busy night.

The patient was in Bed 13. Only comatose patients went into that bed, Dietz said. Why scare some conscious patient? When you're fighting for your life, even dumb superstitions take on frightening significance.

The man's name was Nicos Biagi. He was a husky fellow, about twenty, with biceps and pectorals that had obviously done time in weightlifting salons. There were seven tubes snaking out of various parts of his body-a grim prognostic indicator. He lay utterly flaccid. According to the chart, he was unresponsive to even the most intense of stimuli.

"Twenty-four hours and not a twitch," said the nurse. "Plus, we're having trouble stabilizing his pressure. It goes haywire on us, shoots up, then bottoms out. I'm going crazy, juggling all these meds."

M. J. flipped through the chart, quickly deciphering the hurried notes of the ICU resident. The patient had been found unconscious in his car, parked outside his parents' apartment. He'd been sprawled on the front seat. Beside him on the floor had been his kit: a tourniquet, syringe and needle, spoon, and cigarette lighter. Somehow, during the frantic rush to stabilize the patient and transport him to the ER, the EMTs had lost track of the syringe. They thought the family might have it; the family claimed the EMTs had it. The police said they'd never even seen it. In any event, the blood toxicology screen would provide the answers.

At least, it should.

They'd found out a few things. A 0.13 ethanol level proved the man was legally drunk. Also, he'd been pumped full of steroids-something M. J. could have guessed, judging from those bulging biceps. What the tests hadn't answered was the primary question: Which drug had put him into the coma?

All the usual medical steps had been taken. Despite a treatment of glucose, Narcan, and thiamine, he hadn't awakened. The only therapeutic strategy left was supportive: maintain his blood pressure, breathe for him, keep his heart beating. The rest was up to the patient.

"You have no history at all?" asked M. J. "Nothing about what he shot up? Where he got it from?"

"Not a thing. His parents are in the dark. They had no idea their kid was a junkie. That's probably why he did it in the car. So they wouldn't know about it."

"I've got two women in the morgue. Both with the same biphasic peak on gas chromatography. Like your man."

Dietz sighed. "Terrific. Another wonder drug hits our streets."

"When will your final tox report be done?"

"I don't know. It's been twenty-four hours already. If this is something new, it may take weeks to identify. I tell ya, these pharmaceutical whizzes out there crank out drugs like new shoes. By the time we catch up with the latest fad, they're on to something else."

"You agree, then? That it's something new?"

"Oh, yeah. I've seen it all come down the pike. PCP, tropical ice, fruit loops. This is something different. Something bad . I think the only reason this guy's still alive, and your two women aren't, is that he's a big fella. All that muscle mass. Takes a bigger dose to kill him."

It still might kill him , thought M. J., gazing at the comatose patient.

"If this goes to the media, can I use you as a source?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I think a warning ought to go out on the streets. That there's bad stuff making the rounds."

Dietz didn't answer right away. He just kept looking at Nicos Biagi. "I don't know," he said at last.

"What do you mean, you don't know? It'd just be to voice your opinion. To confirm my statement."

"I don't know," he said again. He was gripping the IV pole. "It's not as if you need me. You've got the authority."

"I could use the backup."

"It's just… the press. I'm not crazy about talking to them."

"Okay, then just let me cite you by name. Would that be okay?"

He sighed. "I guess so. But I'd rather you didn't." Abruptly, he straightened and glanced at his watch. "Look, I have to get going. I'll catch you later."

M. J. watched him walk out of the ICU, his shoulders hunched forward as though his whole body was straining to break into a sprint. What was he afraid of? she wondered. Why wouldn't he talk to the press?

She was on her way out of the ICU when she spotted the Biagis, coming in to visit their son. She guessed at once who they were, just by the grief in their faces. Mrs. Biagi was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and her face was seamed with worry. Mr. Biagi was much older and bald; he looked too numb to be feeling much of anything at the moment. They went to Nicos's bedside, where they stood for a moment in silence. Mrs. Biagi stroked her son's hair and began to sing softly, something in Italian. A lullaby, perhaps.

Then she faltered, dropped her head to her son's chest, and began to cry.

Mr. Biagi didn't say a word.

M. J. walked out of the ICU.

In her haste to leave behind that scene, she took a wrong turn in the hallway. Instead of heading to the elevators, she found herself in a different wing, a part of the hospital she hadn't seen before. White walls and gleaming linoleum told her this was a new addition, constructed only recently. Behind a glass case on the wall were displayed various mementoes of the wing's opening: photographs of hospital officials at the ribbon cutting. Shots of a celebrity black-tie dinner. A bronze plaque, engraved with The Georgina Quantrell Wing. And a newspaper article with the headline: "Cygnus president dedicates multimillion-dollar drug rehab addition." The accompanying photograph showed a sober-faced Adam Quantrell, posing beside the plaque.