“I don’t remember but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had been. Why do you ask?”
Susan bit her lower lip, thinking about what Bellows had just told her.
“Mark, do you know something? These deaths you mentioned could be related to the coma victims.” Susan patted the printout with the back of her hand. “You might have hit on something. What were the names? Can you remember?”
“For Christ’s sake, Susan, you’ve got this thing on the brain. You’re working overtime and you’re starting to have delusions.” Bellows switched to an artificially concerned tone. “Don’t be concerned, though; it happens to the best of us after we’ve stayed up for two or three nights in a row.”
“Mark, I’m serious.”
“I know you’re serious, that’s what worries me. Why don’t you give yourself a break and forget about it for a day or so? Then you can pick it up and be more objective. I tell you what. I’ve got tomorrow night off and with a little luck I can get out of here by seven. How about some dinner? You’ve only been here a day but you have to get away from the hospital as much as I do.”
Bellows hadn’t planned on asking Susan out quite so soon and in such a fashion. But he was pleased because it had come so apparently spontaneously and consequently it would be easy to deal with a refusal if it occurred. It sounded more like an offer to get together than an actual date.
“Dinner’s fine, can’t pass up an offer for a dinner even with an invertebrate. But really, Mark, what were the names of the two deaths today?”
“Crawford and Ferrer. They were patients on Beard 6.”
Susan pursed her lips as she wrote the names down in her notebook. “I’ll have to look into those in the morning. In fact ...” Susan looked at her”
watch “... maybe tonight. If they were going to do an autopsy on these cases, when would it be?”
“Probably tonight or first thing in the morning,” shrugged Bellows.
“Well then I better check tonight.”
Susan refolded her printout.
“Thanks, Mark, old boy; you’ve been a help again.”
“Again?”
“Yeah. Thanks for those articles you Xeroxed for me. You’ll make a good secretary someday.”
“Up yours.”
“Tut, tut. See you tomorrow night. How about the Ritz? I haven’t eaten there for several weeks,” teased Susan, heading for the door.
“Not so fast, Susan. I’ll see you at rounds in the morning at six-thirty.
Remember our deal. I’ll cover for you another day if you come to rounds.”
“Mark, you’ve been such a dear, really. Let’s not louse it up so soon.”
Susan smiled and pulled some of her hair across her face with coquettish exaggeration. “I’ll be up till all hours reading all this material you got for me. I need one more full day. We’ll discuss it further tomorrow night.”
Then she was gone. Again Bellows felt encouraged about Susan as he sipped his coffee. Then he got up. He had plenty of work to do.
Monday, February 23, 8:32 P.M.
The pathology lab was in the basement of the main building. Susan descended the stairs and emerged in the middle of a basement corridor which disappeared into utter darkness to the right and twisted out of view to the left. Stark bare light bulbs glowed from the ceiling at intervals of twenty to thirty feet. The light from each bulb met the light from the next in an uneasy penumbra, causing a strange interplay of shadows from the tangle of pipes along the ceiling. In a vain attempt to provide color to the dim subterranean world, angled stripes of bright orange paint had been painted on the walls.
Directly opposite Susan, partially hidden from view, was an arrow pointing to the left, with the word Pathology stenciled above it. Susan turned down the corridor, her shoes making hollow noises on the concrete floor, competing with the hiss of the steam pipes. The atmosphere was oppressive; the location within the bowels of the hospital was sinisterly appropriate. She was not heading for the pathology lab with any favorable anticipation. As far as Susan was concerned pathology represented the black side of medicine, the specialty that seemed to derive its nourishment from medical failure, death. Arguments about the benefits of biopsies which the pathologists analyzed or the obvious beneficial spinoffs for the living from the autopsies the pathologists performed were all lost on Susan. She had only seen one autopsy done during her course in pathology, and that had been one too many. Life had never seemed quite so fragile nor had death seemed quite so final as when Susan had watched the two overweight pathologists disembowel the body of a recently deceased patient.
The memory of that event slowed Susan’s steps but it did not halt them. She was determined. But she had seemingly been walking for a hundred yards as the corridor twisted first in one direction then in another. She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, wondering if she could have missed the door to the lab. With increased misgivings she continued. At several places, the light bulbs were not functioning and Susan’s shadow would appear in front of her and lengthen. Then as she moved into the sphere of influence of the next functioning light her shadow would pale and disappear.
Finally she faced two swinging doors. The upper portion of each contained opaque windows.
“Unauthorized Entry Forbidden” was lettered boldly across the cracked, frosted glass on each door. Stenciled in peeling gold paint below the window on the right door was “Pathology Laboratory.” Susan hesitated at the door, building up her confidence, wondering what sort of scene to prepare herself for. Cracking the door, she got a glimpse of the interior. A long black stone table dominated the room, running most of its length. Cluttered about on the table were microscopes, slides, slide boxes, chemicals, books, and an array of other equipment. Susan pushed open the door and stepped into the lab. The acrid smell of formaldehyde hung over the room.
The entire wall on the right had shelving from floor to ceiling. With hardly a square inch remaining, the shelves were full of varying sized bottles and jars. Looking more closely, Susan realized that the amorphous colorless mass in the large jar closest to her was an entire human head cut neatly in half, sagitally. Just behind the halved tongue in the wall of the throat was a granular mass. The label on the glass simply said, “Pharyngeal carcinoma, #304-A6 1932.” Susan shuddered and tried to keep herself from glancing at other equally gruesome specimens.
At the far end of the room was another set of swinging doors identical to those from the corridor. From the room beyond, Susan could hear a mixture of voices and metallic sounds. She walked toward the doors as silently as possible, feeling herself an intruder in an alien and potentially hostile environment.
Susan tried to peer through the crack between the doors. Although her visual field was limited she knew immediately that she was looking into the autopsy room. Slowly she began to open the left door.
A loud ringing noise echoed around the room causing Susan to spin around, letting the autopsy room door snap shut behind her. At first she thought that she had tripped some alarm system and she felt the urge to bolt for the door into the corridor. But before she could move, a pathology resident appeared out of another side door.
“Well, hello there,” said the resident to Susan as he walked over to the sink and picked up a distilled water irrigator. He smiled at Susan as he squirted water over a tray of slides he was staining. The color went from deep violet to clear. “Welcome to the path lab. You a med student?”
“Yes.” Susan forced a smile.
“We don’t see many med students this time of day . . « or night. Is there anything special we can do for you?”
“No, not really. I’m just looking around. I’m quite new here,” said Susan putting her hands in the pockets of her white coat, her pulse racing.
“Make yourself at home. There’s coffee in the office here if you’re interested.”
“No thanks,” said Susan walking back along the desk, aimlessly touching some of the slide boxes.
The resident added another amber stain to the tray of slides and reset the timer.
“Actually, maybe you could help me,” said Susan fingering a few slides on the table. “Several patients from Beard 6 expired today. I wondered if they’ve been ... um ...” Susan tried to think of the right word.
“What were the names?” asked the resident wiping his hands. “There’s a post going on right now.”
“Ferrer and Crawford.”
