Robin Cook - Terminal

Janet glanced over at Tim who was still busy on the phone. On a scrap of paper, she wrote down the treatment information. She also wrote down the alpha numeric designator, T- 9872, that was listed as the diagnosis along with the descriptive term: medulloblastoma, multiple.

Using the diagnostic designator, Janet next called up the names of the patients with medulloblastoma who were currently in the hospital. There were a total of five including the three on the fourth floor. The other two were Margaret Demars on the third floor, and Luke Kinsman, an eight-year-old, in the pediatric wings of the fifth floor. Janet wrote down the names.

“Having trouble?” Tim asked over Janet’s shoulder.

“Not at all,” Janet said. She quickly cleared the screen so that Tim wouldn’t see what she’d been up to. She couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion on her very first day.

“I’ve got to enter these lab values,” Tim told her. “It will only take a sec.”

While Tim was absorbed with the computer terminal, Janet scanned the chart rack for Cabot, Martin, or Sharenburg. To her chagrin, none of those charts was there.

Marjorie breezed into the station to get some narcotics from the pharmacy locker. “You’re supposed to be on your coffee break,” she called to Janet.

“I am,” Janet said, holding up her plastic foam cup. She mentally made a note to bring a mug into work. Everyone else had his or her own.

“I’m already impressed with you,” Marjorie teased from inside the pharmacy. “You needn’t work through your break. Kick back, girl, and take a load off your feet.”

Janet smiled and said that she’d be taking that kind of break after she was fully acclimated to the ward’s routine. When Tim was finished with the computer terminal, Janet asked him about the missing charts.

“They’re all down on the second floor,” Tim said. “Cabot’s getting pheresed while Martin and Sharenburg are being biopsied. Naturally the charts are with them.”

“Naturally,” Janet repeated. It seemed tough luck that not one of those charts could have been there when she had the chance to look at them. She began to suspect that the clinical espionage she’d committed herself to might not be quite as easy as she’d thought when she suggested her plan to Sean.

Giving up on the charts for the moment, Janet waited for one of the other shift nurses, Dolores Hodges, to finish up in the pharmacy closet. Once Dolores had headed down the hall, Janet made sure no one was watching before slipping into the tiny room. Each patient had an assigned cubbyhole containing his or her prescribed medications. The drugs had come up from the central pharmacy on the first floor.

Finding Helen’s cubbyhole, Janet quickly scanned the plethora of vials, bottles, and tubes that contained anti-seizure medication, general tranquilizers, anti-nausea pills, and nonnarcotic pain pills. There were no containers designated MB30 °C or MB303C. On the chance that these medications were secured with the narcotics, Janet checked the narcotics locker, but she found only narcotics there.

Next Janet located Louis Martin’s cubbyhole. His was a low one, close to the floor. Janet had to squat down to search through it, but first she had to close the lower half of the Dutch door to make room. As with Helen’s cubby, Janet could find no drug containers with special MB code designations on the label.

“My goodness, you startled me,” Dolores exclaimed. She had returned in haste and had practically tripped headlong over Janet crouched before Louis Martin’s cubbyhole. “I’m so sorry,” Dolores said. “I didn’t think anyone was in here.”

“My fault,” Janet said, feeling herself blush. She was instantly afraid she was giving herself away and that Dolores would wonder what she’d been up to. Yet Dolores showed no signs of being suspicious. Instead, once Janet stepped back and out of the way, she came in to get what she needed. In a moment she was gone.

Janet left the pharmacy closet visibly trembling. This was only her first day and though nothing terrible had happened, she wasn’t sure she had the nerves for the furtive behavior espionage demanded.

When Janet reached Helen Cabot’s room, she paused. The door was propped open by a rubber stopper. Stepping inside, Janet gazed around. She didn’t expect to find any drugs there, but she wanted to check just the same. As she’d expected, there weren’t any.

Having recovered her composure, Janet headed back toward the nurses’ station, passing Gloria D’Amataglio’s room on the way. Taking a moment, Janet stuck her head through the open door. Gloria was sitting up in her armchair with a stainless steel kidney dish clutched in her hand. Her IV was still running.

When they’d chatted the day before Janet had learned that Gloria had gone to Wellesley College just as she herself had. Janet had been in the class a year ahead. After thinking about it overnight, Janet had decided to ask Gloria if she’d known a friend of hers who’d been in Gloria’s class. Getting Gloria’s attention, she posed her question.

“You knew Laura Lowell!” Gloria said with forced enthusiasm. “Amazing! I was great friends with her. I loved her parents.” It was painfully obvious to Janet that Gloria was making an effort to be sociable. Her chemotherapy was no doubt leaving her nauseous.

“I thought you might,” Janet said. “Everybody knew Laura.”

Janet was about to excuse herself and allow Gloria to rest when she heard a rattle behind her. She turned in time to see the housekeeping man appear at the door, then immediately disappear. Fearing her presence had interrupted his schedule, Janet told Gloria she’d stop by later and went out into the hall to tell the housekeeper the room was all his. But the man had disappeared. She looked up and down the corridor. She even checked a couple of the neighboring rooms. It was as if he’d simply vanished into thin air.

Janet headed back to the nurses’ station. Noticing she still had a bit of break time left, she took the elevator down to the second floor in hopes of getting a glimpse at one or more of the missing charts. Helen Cabot was still undergoing pheresis and would be for some time. Her chart was unavailable. Kathleen Sharenburg was undergoing a biopsy at that moment, and her chart was in the radiology office. With Louis Martin, Janet lucked out. His biopsy was scheduled to follow Kathleen Sharenburg’s. Janet discovered him on a gurney in the hallway. He was heavily tranquilized and soundly sleeping. His chart was tucked under the gurney pad.

After checking with a technician and learning that Louis would not be biopsied for at least an hour, Janet took a chance and pulled out his chart. Walking quickly as if leaving the scene of a crime with the evidence in hand, she carried the chart into medical records. It was all she could do not to break into a full sprint. Janet admitted to herself that she was probably the worst person in the world to be involved in this kind of thing. The anxiety she’d felt in the pharmacy locker came back in a flash.

“Of course you can use the copy machine,” one of the medical record librarians told her when she asked. “That’s what it’s here for. Just indicate nursing on the log.”

Janet wondered if this librarian was the mother of the woman in public relations who’d been in Sean’s apartment on the night of her arrival. She’d have to be careful. As she walked over to the copy machine, she glanced over her shoulder. The woman had gone back to the task she’d been doing when Janet had entered, paying no attention to Janet whatsoever.

Janet quickly copied Louis’s entire chart. There were more pages than she would have expected, particularly since he had only been hospitalized for one day. Glancing at some of them, Janet could tell that most of the chart consisted of referral material that had come from Boston Memorial.