Authors: Robin Cook
“Are Pap smear specimens saved?” he asked finally.
“I think so. At least for a while, but not here. They're over in the Cytology lab, which operates on bankers' hours. They'll be in in the morning after nine.”
“Thanks,” said Philips, sighing. He wondered if he should try to get into the lab right away. Perhaps if he called Reynolds. He was about to leave when he thought of something else. “When they read Pap smears, is the result in the chart just the classification, or do they describe the pathology?”
“I think so,” said Barnes. “The results are stored on
tape. All you need is the patient's unit number and you can read the report.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Philips. “I know you're busy so I appreciate your time.”
Barnes gave a slight nod of acknowledgment, then put his eyes back to his microscope.
The Pathology computer terminal was separated from the lab by a series of room dividers. Pulling up a chair, Martin sat down in front of the unit. It was similar to the terminal in Radiology with a large TV-like screen directly behind the keyboard. Taking out the list of five patients, Philips keyed in the name Katherine Collins, followed by her unit number and the code for Papanicolaou Smear. There was a pause, then letters appeared on the screen as if someone were typing. First it spelled out Katherine Collins very rapidly, followed by a slight pause. Then the date of the first Pap smear followed by:
Adequate smear, good fixation, and proper staining. Cells show normal maturation and differentiation. Estrogen effect normal: 0/20/80. A few candida organisms seen. Result: negative.
Philips checked the date of the first smear while the machine spelled out the next report. The date corresponded to the first date Philips had written on the list. Looking back up at the computer screen, Philips' disbelieving eyes read that the second Pap smear on Collins was also negative!
Philips cleared the screen and rapidly entered Ellen McCarthy's name, her unit number, and the proper code. He felt his stomach tighten into a knot as the machine began to spell out the information. It was the sameânegative!
As he went back downstairs, Martin felt stunned. In medicine he had learned to believe what he read in charts, especially in regard to laboratory reports. They were the objective data while the symptom of the patients and the impressions of the doctors were the subjective. Philips knew that there was a small chance there could be an error in laboratory tests just as he knew there was a possibility that he could miss or misinterpret something on an X ray. But the low probability of error was a far cry from deliberate falsification. That required some sort of conspiracy, and Philips took it very personally.
Sitting at his desk, Martin cradled his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. His first impulse was to call the hospital authorities, but that meant Stanley Drake, and he decided against it. Drake's response would be to keep it out of the papers, cover it up. The police! Mentally he ran through a hypothetical conversation: “Hello, I'm Dr. Martin Philips and I want to report that something funny is going on at Hobson University Medical Center. Girls get Pap smears that are normal but are entered into the chart as atypical.” Philips shook his head. It sounded too ridiculous. No, he needed more information before the police were involved. Intuitively he felt the radiation was connected even though it didn't make any sense. In fact, radiation might cause an atypical Pap smear and it seemed to Philips that if someone wanted to avoid discovery of the radiation, they might report atypical Paps as normal, but not vice versa.
Philips thought again about the diener. After their abortive meeting the previous evening, Martin had been convinced Werner knew more about Lisa Marino than he'd been willing to disclose. Perhaps one hundred dollars wasn't enough. Maybe Philips should
offer more. After all, the affair was no longer an academic exercise.
Martin realized that trying to successfully confront Werner in the morgue was an impossibility. Surrounded with the dead, Werner was in his element, whereas Martin found the place totally unnerving and he knew he would have to be forceful and demanding if Werner was going to be made to talk. Philips glanced at his watch. It was twenty-five after eleven. Werner obviously worked the evening shift, four to midnight. Impulsively Martin decided he'd follow Werner home and offer him five hundred dollars.
With some trepidation he dialed Denise's number. It rang six times before a sleepy voice answered: “Are you coming over?”
“No,” said Philips evasively. “I'm in the middle of something and I'm going to keep at it.”
“There's a nice warm spot here for you.”
“We'll make up for it this weekend. Sweet dreams.”
Martin got his dark blue ski parka out of his closet and put on the Greek captain's cap he found in the pocket. It was April but the drizzly weather had brought in wind from the northeast and it was chilly.
He left the hospital through the emergency room, leaping from the platform to the puddle-strewn tarmac of the parking area. But instead of walking out to the street, he turned right, round the corner of the main hospital building and headed down a canyon formed by the north face of the Brenner Childrens Hospital. After fifty yards it opened up to the inner courtyard of the Med Center.
The hospital buildings soared up into the misty night like sheer cliffs forming an irregular cement valley. The Med Center had been built in spurts without the benefit of a rational overall plan. This fact was
obvious in the courtyard, where buildings impinged upon the space with chaotic angles and buttresses. Philips recognized the small wing that housed Goldblatt's office, and using that as a landmark, was able to orient himself. It was only about twenty-five yards farther on that he found the unmarked platform that he knew led into the depths of the morgue. The hospital did not like to advertise that it dealt in death, and the bodies were stealthily excreted into the waiting black hearses far from the public eye.
Martin leaned up against the wall and thrust his hands into his pockets. While he waited he tried to review the complicated events he'd experienced since Kenneth Robbins had handed him Lisa Marino's X ray. It hadn't even been two days, yet it seemed like two weeks. The initial excitement that he'd felt seeing the strange radiologic abnormality had now changed to a hollow fear. He almost dreaded to find out what was going on in the hospital. It was like a sickness in his own family. Medicine had been his life. If it weren't for his immediate sense of responsibility about Kristin Lindquist, he wondered if he'd just forget what he knew. Goldblatt's tirade about professional suicide rang in his ears.
Werner emerged on schedule, turning to secure the door behind him. Philips leaned forward and shaded his eyes in the half-light to make sure it really was Werner. He had changed his clothes, and was now wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and tie. To Martin's surprise the diener looked like a successful merchant closing his boutique for the night. His gaunt face, which had appeared evil within the morgue, now gave the man an almost aristocratic cast.
Werner turned and hesitated a moment, stretching out an upturned palm to see if it was raining.
Satisfied, he set off toward the street. In his right hand he carried a black briefcase. Over his flexed arm dangled a tightly clasped umbrella.
Following from a safe distance, Martin noticed Werner had a strange gait. It wasn't a limp; it was more like a hop as if one leg was much stronger than the other. But he moved quickly and at a steady pace.
Martin's hopes that Werner lived close to the hospital were dashed when the man rounded the corner on Broadway and descended the subway stairs. Quickening his step, Philips closed the gap, taking the stairs two at a time. At first he did not see Werner. Apparently the man had had a token. Philips hastily purchased one, and went through the turnstile. The IRT elevator was empty, so Philips jogged down the sloping passage toward the IND platform. As he rounded the corner, he caught sight of Werner's head just disappearing down the stairs to the downtown platform.
Pulling a newspaper out of a waste bin, Philips pretended to read. Werner was only thirty feet away, sitting on one of the molded plastic chairs, engrossed in a book on, of all things, “Opening Chess Moves.” In the pasty white subway light, Philips could better appreciate the man's attire. His suit was dark blue, and Edwardian, cut in at the sides. His closely cropped hair had been freshly brushed; with his high-boned, suntanned cheeks, he looked like a Prussian general. The only thing that marred his appearance was his shoes. They were badly scuffed and in need of polish.
With the hospital shift just changing, the subway platform was crowded with nurses, orderlies, and technicians. When the downtown express thundered into the station, Werner boarded and Philips followed. The diener sat on the train like a statue with
his book in front of him; his deeply set eyes darted back and forth across the pages. His briefcase, clasped between his knees, stood upright on the floor. Philips sat halfway down the car across from a handsome Spanish fellow in a polyester suit.
At each stop, Martin was ready to disembark, but Werner never budged. As they passed Fifty-ninth Street, Philips became concerned. Perhaps Werner was not going directly home. For some reason that possibility had never occurred to Philips. He was relieved when he finally followed the diener off at Forty-second Street. It was now no longer a question of whether Werner was going home or not. Now it was a question of how long was he going to spend wherever he was headed. Philips felt foolish and discouraged when he reached the street.
The night people were out in force. Despite the hour and the damp chill, Forty-second Street was ablaze with its garish sights. The nattily dressed Werner ignored the bizarre and grotesque people who jostled one another in front of the pornographic movie houses and bookstores. He seemed to be accustomed to the world's psychosexual perversions. For Philips it was different. It was as if the alien world willfully impaired his progress, forcing him to twist and turn and even step into the street occasionally to pass clotted groups of humanity while he kept Werner in sight. Ahead he saw Werner abruptly turn and enter an adult bookstore.
Martin stopped outside. He decided he'd give Werner an hour of this nonsense. If the diener did not go back to his apartment within that time, Philips would give up. Waiting, Martin soon discovered he was fair game for a host of solicitors, peddlers, and outright beggars. They were an insistent lot, and to avoid their
entreaties, Philips changed his mind and entered the store.
Just inside, situated in a pulpit-like balcony near the ceiling, sat a lavender-haired, hard-looking woman who peered down at Philips. Her eyes, deeply set above dark circles, wandered over Martin's body as she assessed his suitability for admission. Averting his gaze, embarrassed for anyone to see him in such a location, he walked down the nearest aisle. Werner was not in sight!
A customer pushed past Philips with his arms limply at his sides so that his hands brushed across Philips' backside. It wasn't until the man was already past that Martin realized what had happened. It made him sick, and he almost shouted out, but the last thing he wanted to do was to call attention to himself.
He moved around the shop to make sure Werner couldn't be hidden behind one of the bookshelves or magazine racks. The lavender-haired woman in her crow's nest seemed to follow every movement Philips made, so to appear less suspicious he picked up a magazine, but he discovered it was sealed in plastic wrap and he put it back. On the cover were two men acrobatically coupling.
Suddenly, Werner emerged from a door in the back of the shop and walked past the startled Philips, who quickly turned away to fondle some pornographic video cassettes. But Werner looked neither right nor left. It was as if he were wearing blinders. He was out of the shop in seconds.
Martin delayed as long as he thought he could without losing Werner. He didn't want it too apparent that he was following the man, but as he exited, the woman in the balcony leaned over and
watched him go out the door. She knew he was up to something.
Reaching the street, Philips caught sight of Werner getting into a taxi. Frightened that he might lose him after all his effort, Philips leaped from the curb and frantically waved for a cab. One stopped across the street and Philips dodged the traffic to jump in.
“Follow that Checker cab behind the bus,” said Philips excitedly.
The cabby just looked at him.
“Come on,” insisted Philips.
The man shrugged and put the car in gear. “You some sort of cop?”
Martin didn't answer. He felt the less conversation the better. Werner got out at Fifty-second and Second Avenue; Martin got out about one hundred feet back from the corner and ran up to the end of the block, looking after him. Werner entered a shop three doors away.
Crossing the avenue Martin looked over at the store. It was called “Sexual Aids.” It was very different from the adult bookstore on Forty-second Street with a very conservative exterior. Glancing around, Philips noticed that it was situated among antique shops, fashionable restaurants, and expensive boutiques. Looking up he could tell the apartment buildings were all middle class. It was a good neighborhood.
Werner appeared at the door accompanied by another man who was laughing and had his arm over the diener's shoulder. Werner smiled and shook hands with the man before setting out, walking up Second Avenue. Philips fell in behind him, keeping a safe distance.