myself a terminal. The periodicals index gave me a few more magazine articles but nothing new. I scanned scientific databases for any technical articles Mate might have published, not expecting anything in view of his lackluster career, but I found two citations: a Chemical Abstracts reference that led me to a thirty-year-old letter to the editor Mate had written in response to an article about polymerization-something about small molecules combining to create large molecules and the potential for better gasoline. Mate disagreed crankily. The author of the article, a professor at MIT, had dismissed Mate's comments as irrelevant. Mate's title, back then, had been assistant research chemist, ITEG Petroleum.
The second reference appeared in MEDLINE, sixteen years old, also a letter, this time in a Swedish pathology journal. Mate had his MD by then, cited his affiliation at Oxford Hill Hospital in Oakland, California. No title. No mention that he was a lowly intern.
The second letter didn't argue with anyone. Titled 'Precise Measurement of Time of Death: A Social Boon,' it began with a quote by Sir Thomas Browne:
'We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.'
Mate went on to bemoan the stigma associated with cellular cessation, and subsequent moral cowardice exhibited by physicians when dealing with parathanatological phenomena. As the ultimate caretakers of body and that fiction known as 'soul,' we must do everything in our power to demystify the process of life termination, utilizing the scientific tools at our disposal to avoid needless prolongation of 'life' that is the fruit of theology-based myths.
In this regard, quantification of precise time of death will be useful in robbing the myth mongers of their fictions and save costs that accrue from the needless employment of so-called heroic measures that create nothing more than respirating corpses.
Along these lines, I have attempted to discern which outward physical manifestations advertise the precise shutoff of vital systems. The central nervous system often continues to fire synaptically well after the heart stops beating and vice versa. Even a high-school biology student can keep a pithed frog's heart beating for a substantial 'postmortem' period through the use of stimulant drugs. Furthermore, brain death is not a discrete event, and this fact leads to confusion and uncertainty.
I have thus looked for other changes, specifically ocular and muscular alterations, that correlate with our best judgment of thanatological progress. I have sat at the bedside of numerous premortem patients, gazing into their eyes and studying minute movements of their faces. Though this research is in the formative stage, I am encouraged by what appears to be a dual manifestation of cardiac and neurological shutoff typified by simultaneous twitchlike movement of the eyes combined with a measurable slackening of the lips. In some patients, I have also discerned an audible noise that appears to manifest sublaryngitically- perhaps the 'death rattle' commonly cited in popular fiction. However, this does not occur in all patients and is best dispensed with in favor of the aforementioned ocular-muscular phenomenon I label the 'lights-out' syndrome. I suggest that this event be studied in great detail for its potential in serving as a simple yet precise indicator of cellular surrender.
Interns back then worked hundred-hour weeks. This intern had found the time to indulge his extracurricular interest. Sitting and staring into the eyes of the dying, trying to capture the precise moment. My hunch about his intentions, confirmed. Early in the game, Mate's obsession had been with the minutiae of death, not the quality of life.
No comments from the Swedish journal editor. I wondered how Mate's side activities had been received at Oxford Hill Hospital.
Leaving the reading room, I found a pay phone in the hallway, got Oakland Information and asked for the number. No listing. Returning to the computers, I looked up the call.
When I pulled up, Milo was standing in front with two men in their late twenties. Both wore gray sport coats and dark slacks and held notepads against their thighs. Both were tall as Milo, each was forty pounds lighter. Neither looked happy.
The man to the left had a puffy face, squashed features and wheat-colored blow-dried hair. The other D-I was dark, balding, bespectacled.
Milo said something to them and they returned inside.
'Your little elves?' I said, when he came over.
'Korn and Demetri. They don't like working for me, and my opinion of them ain't too grand. I put them back on the phones, recontacting families. They whined about scut work-oh this younger generation. Ready for Zoghbie? Let's take my Ferrari, in case we need a police presence.'
He crossed the street to the police lot and I followed in the Seville, waiting till he backed out, then sliding into his parking space. Signs all over said POLICE PERSONNEL ONLY, ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED.
I got in the unmarked and handed him the material I'd printed from the Internet. He put it on the backseat, wedged between two of the file boxes that filled the space. The car smelled of old breakfast. The police radio was stuttering and Milo snapped it off.
'What if?' I said, pointing to the warning signs.
'I'll go your bail.' Stretching his neck to one side, he winced, cleared his throat, pressed down on the gas and sped to Santa Monica Boulevard, then over to the 405 North, toward the Valley. I knew what I had to do and my body responded by tightening up. When we passed the mammoth white boxes that the Getty Museum comprised, I told him about Joanne Doss.
He didn't say anything for a while. Opened his window, spit, rolled it up.
Another minute passed. 'You were waiting for the right moment to inform me?'
'As a matter of fact, I was. Till a few hours ago, I couldn't tell you anything, because even the fact that I'd seen them was confidential. Then Mr. Doss called and asked me to see his daughter and I figured I'd have to bow off Mate. But he wants me to continue.'
'First things first, huh?' His jaw worked.
I kept quiet.
'And if he'd said not to mention it?'
'I'd have bowed off, told you I couldn't explain why.'
Half mile of silence. He stretched his neck again. 'Doss… yeah, local family-the Palisades. Toward the end of the list-the missus was in her early forties.'
'Traveler number forty-eight,' I said.
'You knew her?'
'No, she was already dead when I saw Stacy-the daughter.'
'Mr. Doss is one of those who has not returned our repeated calls.'
'He travels a lot.'
'That so… Anything about him I should worry about?'
'Such as?'
He shrugged. 'You tell me. He said you could blab, right?'
He kept his eyes on the freeway, but I felt surveilled.
'Sorry if this is rubbing you the wrong way,' I said. 'Maybe I should've begged off the case right from the beginning.'
Pause. Long pause, as if he was considering that. Finally, he said, 'Nah, I'm just being a hard-ass. We've all got our rule books… So what was the matter with Mrs. Doss that led her to consult Dr. Mate?'
'She was one of the undiagnosed ones I mentioned. Had been deteriorating for a while. Fatigue, chronic pain, she withdrew socially, took to bed. Gained a hundred pounds.'
He whistled, touched his own gut. 'And no clue as to why all this happened?'
'She saw a lot of doctors, but no formal diagnosis,' I said.
'Maybe a head case?'
'Like I said, I never knew her, Milo.'
He smiled. 'Meaning you're also thinking she might've been a head case… and Mate killed her anyway-'scuse me, assisted her passage. That could irritate a family member, if they didn't think she was really sick.'
He waited.
I said nothing.
'How long after she died did you see the daughter?'
'Three months.'
