Robin Cook - Fatal Cure

"Come on now," Angela said. "You can never be sure."

"I don't know about that," David said. "Come on, let's get to bed." As they finished washing he told Angela about his professor's having driven all the way from Boston and that even he had nothing to add.

"Are you any more depressed?" Angela asked.

"About the same," David said. "I woke up at four-fifteen this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I keep thinking there's something I'm missing with these patients; maybe they've picked up some unknown viral disease. But I feel as though my hands are tied. It's so frustrating to have to think about Kelley and CMV every time I order a test or a consult. It's gotten so bad that I even feel like I have to rush through my daily office schedule."

"You mean to see more patients?" Angela asked. They moved from the bathroom into the bedroom.

David nodded. "More pressure from CMV via Kelley," he said. "I hate to admit it, but what it means is that I have to avoid talking with patients and answering their questions. It's not hard because it's easy to bully patients, but I don't like it. I wonder if the patients realize they are being shortchanged. A lot of critical clues for making the right diagnosis come from the kind of spontaneous comments patients make when you spend a little time with them."

"I have a confession to make," Angela said suddenly.

"What are you talking about?" David asked as he got into bed.

"I also did something today I should have spoken to you about before I did it," Angela said.

"What?" he asked.

As Angela slipped under the covers, she told David about going to Rutland and hiring Phil Calhoun to investigate Hodges' murder.

David looked at her, then looked away. He didn't say anything. Angela knew he was angry.

"At least I took your suggestion that it was dangerous for me to investigate it," Angela said. "Now we have a professional doing it."

"What makes this man a professional?" David asked, looking back at Angela.

"He's a retired state policeman."

"I was hoping you were going to be reasonable about this Hodges affair," David said. "Hiring a private investigator is going a little overboard. It's throwing money away."

"It's not throwing money away if it is important to me," Angela said. "And it should be important to you if you expect me to continue living in this house."

David sighed, turned out his bedside light, and rolled away from Angela.

She knew she should have warned him about hiring the investigator. She too sighed as she reached for her light. Maybe she didn't go about it the right way, but she was still confident that hiring Calhoun had been a good idea.

Hardly had the lights been turned out than they heard several loud thumps followed by the sound of Rusty's barking.

Angela turned her light back on and got out of bed. David did the same. They grabbed their robes and stepped into the hall. David turned on the hall light. Rusty was at the top of the stairs, looking down toward the darkened first floor. He was growling ferociously.

"Did you check to see if the front door was locked?" Angela whispered.

"Yes," David said. He walked down the hall and patted Rusty's head. "What is it, big fellow?"

Rusty went down the stairs and began barking at the front door. David followed him. Angela stood at the top of the stairs.

David unlocked the front door.

"Be careful," Angela warned.

"Why don't you slip on one of those Halloween masks," David called up to Angela. "We'll give whoever it is a good scare."

"Stop joking," Angela said. "This isn't funny."

David stepped out onto the porch holding onto Rusty's collar. The dark sky was strewn with stars. A quarter moon provided enough light to see all the way down to the road, but there wasn't anything unusual to be seen.

"Come on, Rusty," David urged as he turned around. As he approached the door he saw a typed note nailed to the muntin. He pulled it off. It read: "Mind your own business. Forget Hodges."

Closing the door and locking it, David climbed the stairs and handed the note to Angela. She followed David into the bedroom.

"I'll take this to the police," Angela said.

"Hell, it could have come from the police," David replied. He climbed back into bed and turned out the light. Angela did the same. Rusty padded back down the hall to rejoin Nikki who'd evidently not stirred.

"Now I'm wide awake," David complained.

"So am I," Angela said.

The jangle of the telephone made them both jump. David answered it on the first ring. Angela turned on the light and watched her husband. His face fell as he listened. Then he hung up the phone.

"Mary Ann Schiller had another seizure and died," he said. "I told you it would happen." He raised a hand to his face and covered his eyes. Angela moved over and put her arms around him. She could tell he was crying silently.

"I wonder if this ever gets easier," he said. He wiped his eyes, then began to get dressed.

Angela accompanied him as far as the back door. After she saw him off, she locked the door behind him, then watched as the Volvo's taillights descended the driveway and disappeared.

Stepping from the mud room into the kitchen, Angela could still see the eerie glow of the luminol in her mind's eye. She shivered. She did not like being in the huge old house at night without David.

At the hospital, David met Mary Ann's husband, Donald, for the first time. Donald, his teenage son Matt, and Mary Ann's parents were in the patients' lounge across from the ICU quietly talking and consoling each other. As with the Kleber family and the Tarlow family, they were appreciative of David's efforts. None of them had a bad word for him or a complaint.

"We had her for longer than Dr. Mieslich estimated," Donald said. His eyes were red and his hair was tousled as if he had been sleeping. "She even got to go back to her job at the library."

David commiserated with the family, telling them what they wanted to hear: she hadn't suffered. But David had to confess his confusion as to the cause of her seizures.

"You didn't expect seizures?" Donald asked.

"Not at all," David said. "Especially since her MRI was normal."

Everyone nodded as if they understood. Then, on the spur of the moment, David went against Kelley's orders and asked the family if they would permit an autopsy. He explained that it might answer a lot of questions.

"I don't know," Donald said. He looked over at his in-laws. They were equally indecisive.

"Why don't you think about it overnight?" David suggested. "We'll keep the body here."

Leaving the ICU, David felt despondent. He didn't go directly home. Instead, he wandered over to the dimly lit second-floor nurses' station. It was a quiet time of the night. Trying to keep his mind on other things, he glanced at Jonathan Eakins' chart. As he was perusing it, one of the night nurses told David that Mr. Eakins was awake, watching TV. David walked down and poked his head in.

"Everything okay?" David asked.

"What a committed doctor," Jonathan said with a smile. "You must live here."

"Is that ticker of yours staying nice and regular?" David asked.

"Like clockwork," Jonathan said. "When do I get to go home?"

"Probably today," David said. "I see they changed your bed."

"Sure did," Jonathan said. "They couldn't seem to fix the old one. Thanks for giving them a nudge. My complaints fell on deaf ears."

"No problem," David said. "See you tomorrow."

David left the hospital and got into his car. He started the engine but didn't put the car in gear. He'd had three unexpected deaths in one week: patients other doctors had been keeping alive and healthy. He couldn't help but question his competence. He wondered if he were meant to be a doctor. Maybe those three patients would still be alive if they'd had another physician.