Public Anatomy (21 page)

When robbing a gibbet, timing was important. For both dissector and audience, a fresh body was preferable to one in which organ decay had begun. This made a public anatomy a spur-of-the-moment event, announcement spreading by word of mouth, spectators scrambling for position near a recently erected stage.

Eli tried to imagine the scene. The crowd gathered around Vesalius on makeshift bleachers waiting for the renegade anatomist to make the first cut, demonstrating layers of soft tissue before working inward.
How different the teaching of anatomy is today
, Eli thought. Emphasis is placed on predissected specimens, fixed and mounted in glass for use year after year, or on virtual specimens presented by computer that can be rotated
in a three-dimensional space and viewed at any time. The change in medical school study of anatomy reflected the current direction of medicine as a whole, emphasizing technological intervention rather than hands-on interaction with the patient. Eli was surprised that robotic surgery came to mind so easily, but it fit this theme perfectly. For all its purported advantages, robotic innovation detached the surgeon, the ultimate hands-on practitioner of medicine, from the patient.

In the call room, reclining on the bed, Eli drifted off in a swirling dream of bodies being stolen by robotic machines. Three sharp knocks on his door brought him upright in bed.

“Dr. Branch? Got a patient for you.”

Scenes of sixteenth-century body procurement melded with a bright bedside lamp and an open book across his chest.

“Be right there,” he yelled.

“Your private patient is here to see you.” He heard the nurses snicker, then sneak away.

Private patient?

Eli pulled himself off the bed into the bright hallway. Three nurses waited for him at the central desk and each pointed to bed three, enclosed in a curtain.

For confirmation, Eli pointed. “I’ll take curtain number three,” he said, playing along with the classic game show.

They smiled. “Yes,” the charge nurse said, “I guess you will.”

Eli pulled the curtain open to see a familiar face. And stocking cap.

Tobogganhead.

“Mr. Felts, how are you?”

Eli’s patient sat up straight on the gurney. “Doctor Branch, I am wonderful.”

Voluntarily, he removed his toboggan. The nurse in the room, not Janice, who’d been on duty Eli’s previous call night, stood aghast at the sight of heaped up raw tissue on top of Mr. Felt’s head.

Eli stepped closer for a better look. The top of Tobogganhead’s scalp was blood raw, but clean. Not a maggot in sight.

“Very good, Mr. Felts. You have tended this well.”

“You’re the one killed all the creepy crawlies, Dr. Branch.”

An immediate visual of maggots crawling across the ER floor flashed in Eli’s mind.

“Creepy crawlies?” the nurse asked. She looked nauseated.

Eli waved her off. “Don’t ask.”

Eager to talk, Tobogganhead described the event. “Dr. Branch blew maggots off my head with a WaterPik.”

Nurse Nausea cupped her hand over her mouth.

“We did have a blast,” Eli said. “No pun intended.”

Mr. Felts laughed, replaced the toboggan on his head, and reached into the pocket of his ill-fitting trousers. He produced an expensive-appearing cellular phone, flipped it open, and asked the nurse, “Would you take a picture of me and my doctor?”

As though it was covered in blood, the nurse reluctantly took the phone in two fingers. “Sure,” she said.

Eli put his arm around Tobogganhead; he put his arm around Dr. Branch.

“You two make quite a pair,” she said, moving in closer for the shot. She snapped the picture and handed the phone back with the screen facing them. “There you are.”

Tobogganhead beamed with pride. “Is there anyone you’d like to send it to, doctor? My new phone does e-mail.”

Eli glanced at the picture. “No, let’s not send it to anyone.”

While Tobogganhead held the phone, it rang. An angry rap ringtone. He hit the end button quickly, before another explicit lyric played. “I haven’t figured out how to change that yet.”

Surprised by the ring tone, Eli asked, “Who is calling you?”

Tobogganhead snapped the phone closed. “Wrong number. It’s always the wrong number.”

Cate Canavan and Mary, the self-appointed nurse from the Poplar Avenue Free Clinic, ascended the elevator to the fourth floor of Gates Memorial Hospital. They stopped at the nurse’s desk and asked for the young girl’s room number. The ward clerk pointed to Deanna’s room but told them that the newborn was in the nursery. They decided to go there first.

Cate entered the nursery like she was the pediatrician there to do a newborn exam. She made sure her student ID badge was appropriately displayed and she began to search for their patient.

Mary followed her through the maze of plastic cribs, nice little bundled wads lying in each one. She just couldn’t help herself. She reached out and tickled the pink toes of a sleeping infant.

Cate saw her and whispered, emphatically, “Don’t touch them.”

“I was just—”

“Shhhh.”

They both stopped by the bassinette labeled “Baby Boy Deanna Rogers.” That was the first they were aware of Deanna’s last name.

“He is adorable.”

Mary was correct. The baby had curly black hair and bright eyes. His toes peeked out from under the blanket. Mary reached out to touch them but stopped herself and gasped.

“Somebody put a string on his toe.”

Next to the fifth toe on his left foot was a blue nub, a constricting suture tied at the base.

Cate smiled and tried to calm Mary. “He has an extra digit. They’re tying it off.”

“What?” Mary counted. “Crack baby’s got six toes?”

“It’s okay Mary. The extra toe will slough off and no one will ever know.”

A nurse approached them.

Cate spoke before Mary had the chance.

“I’m a medical student here to take the baby to her mother.”

The nurse glanced at a clock on the wall. “I guess it is time.” She gave Mary a skeptical look. “Make sure you sign the baby out.”

After Cate signed the form, and another nurse checked the baby’s wrist band again, they located Deanna’s room. Mary entered the room first, followed by Cate who carried the baby. Deanna was watching television, as if nothing different had happened in her life. She looked at them, her eyes shifting to the infant, briefly, and then back at the screen.

A nurse followed them into the room and informed Deanna that she was being discharged.

When Cate offered to take the girl home, the nurse left the room.

“Fine,” Deanna said. “Get me out of here.”

Cate and Mary convinced the young mother to hold her baby as they passed the nurse’s station and down the elevator. In the hospital parking lot, Cate pulled a thin blanket over the baby’s face to protect him from the scorching sun. Deanna walked across the asphalt in a daze. She held the baby low, near her waist, keeping him a few inches from her dress, so that he would not touch her.

Mary followed beside Deanna and then moved in front of her. She was afraid the teenage girl would drop the newborn on the pavement.

“Hold the baby close to you.” Mary cradled her arms, rocked them side to side to show her how.

Deanna made a face. “I don’t want it near me.”

Mary went on the offensive. “This is your baby boy. He needs you to mother him.” Mary began to push the infant closer to Deanna.

Cate intervened.

“We’ll help you get the baby home. Then your mother can help you take care of him.”

Deanna stopped. “Mother? What Mother? My mother’s dead.”

Cate said, “I’m sorry. Who do you live with?”

“I stay at my aunt’s house. But she’s not there most of the time.”

The baby started crying. Mary told Deanna, “Rock him real easy. That’ll calm him.”

But Deanna held the baby farther away from her. When Mary reached to help, Deanna said, “Here, you calm him,” and she handed the child to Mary.

“In fact,” Deanna said, after she had taken a few steps back, “You can keep that baby.” She started to cry. “I don’t want him.”

Cate tried to stop her, but the young girl turned and ran across the parking lot.

Then Cate heard singing. Mary had the baby cradled close to her. She sang a lullaby. A rap lullaby, of sorts.

“Hush little baby, don’t you cry. Your mother ran away. Say bye-bye.”

Meg leaned forward in a swivel chair typing on her computer. Eli stood behind her. He had brought her a fresh copy of
The Commercial Appeal
and had it rolled in a tight column in his hand.

Lipsky is right
, he thought.
There has to be some connection between the victims
. Although a social link was possible, a professional relationship seemed more likely.

To search for the connection, Eli chose medical records and personnel files as a starting point. Since these files were electronic, and protected, and Eli no longer had access to the Gates Hospital computer system, he convinced Meg to log on for him.

While they waited for the computer to boot up, Eli’s eyes wandered to Meg’s hair and how it touched the olive-toned skin of her neck.

“You realize I could lose my hospital privileges for doing this.”

Eli did not respond. He took one step back and admired Meg’s arched-back posture, her scrub pants pulled tight.

“They check who accesses records and files. If you don’t have a reason to be there, they can fire you.”

“I know what that’s like,” Eli said, a knee-jerk response to the word
fired
.

Eli imagined if he were sitting there, Meg in his lap. Swiveling, swiveling—

“Eli?”

He placed the newspaper on her desk, put his hands on Meg’s shoulders, and began to knead with his thumbs. She was tense as a board.

“There’s no way they can check every file accessed. Besides, you can blame it on me. Tell them I stole your password.”

Meg drew her shoulders, pulled away from him. “By the way, that surgeon bitch didn’t quite agree with my autopsy findings.”

“You talked to French?”

“Oh, yeah. We had a little postmortem tea party down here yesterday.”

“What do you mean, she didn’t agree?”

“I told her the patient died from an aortic injury. She didn’t like that.”

Eli nodded. “I bet she didn’t.”

Meg handed him the papers. “Take a look at how she signed the death certificate.”

Eli read the three short lines where Liza described the woman’s symptoms and illness.

The third line, reserved for “Immediate Cause of Death,” he read aloud.

“Acute Uterine Hemorrhage.”

Eli looked at Meg. “She’s blaming it on the patient?”

“Damn right she is.”

Eli read the certificate again. He shook his head. “As though she’s not in enough trouble already, now she’s falsifying medical-legal documents.”

“I’ve notified the hospital’s legal department,” Meg said.

“And?”

“Let’s just say they weren’t amused.”

Meg logged on and the University of the Mid-South Medical Center home page covered the screen.

“What now?” she asked.

“We know that the first victim, the nurse anesthetist, worked at Gates Memorial.” Eli said, “Go to the Department of Nursing. See if we can bring up his file.”

Meg shook her head as she typed. “The crap you get me into.”

A brief profile of the murdered anesthetist appeared. There was no picture.

Nursing School: University of Arkansas
Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist program:

University of Arkansas
Years at Mid-South Center: Two

The next line listed his affiliation with a specific type of surgery.

Primary Nurse Anesthetist assignment:
General Surgery and OB/GYN

After Eli read the basic information, he asked, “Is that all?”

“What did you expect, a biography?”

Eli ignored this. “While we’re here, put in the second nurse, Virginia Brewer.”

“Our wrestling fan?”

“Yes.”

After a moment’s delay, a message appeared on the screen.

No File Matches That Name