Chapter 21
OCTOBER 17, 2007
WEDNESDAY, 9:05 P.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
Jennifer’s sleep pattern had never been so out of whack. When she’d returned to her room from having dinner with Lucinda Benfatti, she was so tired she’d almost fallen asleep brushing her teeth. But once she’d gotten into bed and turned out the lights, her mind started waking up. Before she knew it, she was anticipating Laurie and Jack’s arrival with great excitement and wondering whether she should have already reserved one of the hotel cars to pick them up. It seemed that ten p.m. to two a.m. was when most of the international flights arrived, so the demand for the hotel’s vehicles was the highest then.
Worried that she might already be out of luck, Jennifer sat up, turned on the light, and called down to the concierge’s desk. Talking with the concierge, she learned something she didn’t know. An airport pickup for Amal Palace guests was complimentary, and a vehicle was already scheduled to pick up Laurie and Jack. Asking if she could join the pickup, the concierge assured her she could, told her when it would be leaving, and promised to let transportation know that she would be going along.
With that job out of the way, Jennifer turned the light off again and wriggled down under the covers. At first she started out on her back with her hands comfortably folded on her chest. But with her mind activated from making the car reservation, she found herself puzzling over whether Laurie and Jack would have more luck dealing with the case manager than she did, and what that would mean in regard to a possible autopsy.
A few minutes later, Jennifer turned on her side while she thought about cyanosis and wondered if Herbert Benfatti had been cyanotic, and how she might find out.
Five minutes later, she was on her stomach thinking about what she should do the following day. She certainly had no intention of hanging around the Queen Victoria Hospital and being badgered all day. She thought she might try to do a bit of sightseeing, even though, as preoccupied as she was, she thought she might find it tedious. She knew herself well enough to know that even in the best of circumstances, she wasn’t much of the sightseeing type as far as old buildings and tombs were concerned. What she did find interesting was people.
At that point she started thinking about how little she knew about India, Indians, and Indian culture.
“Damn!” Jennifer suddenly said to the darkness. Despite her body’s insistence that it was exhausted, her mind was buzzing like a beehive. With frustration Jennifer sat up, turned the bedside lamp on, and got out of bed. In the walk-in closet she located the several Indian guidebooks she’d gotten at LAX, brought them back into the room, and tossed them onto the bed. She then went over to the TV and angled it from pointing at the couch to point at the bed. Leaping back into the bed, she used the remote to tune in CNN International. She then cursed again, realizing she’d forgotten water. Climbing back out of bed and going to the minibar refrigerator, she got herself a bottle of cold mineral water and popped the top. Back in the bed, she puffed the pillows and eased herself against the headboard. Finally comfortable, she cracked one of the guidebooks and turned to the section on Old Delhi.
As the CNN anchors droned on about clever French entrepreneurs dreaming up Disney-themed hotels for Dubai, Jennifer read about the Red Fort built by Mughal emperors. There were lots of facts and figures and names and dates. On the next page there was the description of the largest mosque in India, with equally boring statistics, such as how many people it could hold for Friday services. But then she came upon something that did really interest her: a lengthy description of the renowned bazaar of Old Delhi.
Jennifer was trying to locate the world-famous spice bazaar on the guidebook’s cutaway map when the TV caught her attention. The woman anchor announced, “Following up on the news of two deaths in the heretofore vaunted Indian medical tourism hospitals, there has now been a third only an hour or so ago. Although the first two deaths occurred at the Queen Victoria Hospital in New Delhi, tonight’s tragic death occurred at the Aesculapian Medical Center, also in New Delhi, and involved a healthy, although obese, forty-eight-year-old from Jacksonville, Florida, named David Lucas. He’d undergone stomach-stapling surgery this morning. He is survived by a wife and two children, aged ten and twelve.”
Mesmerized, Jennifer sat up straight.
“Such a tragedy,” the male anchor agreed, “especially with the children involved. Did they say what the cause of death was?”
“They did. It seems that it was some sort of heart attack/stroke combination.”
“It’s awful. People going to India to save a few bucks, and wham, they come home in a box. If I were facing surgery and had to choose between it costing a little less and dying versus spending a bit more and living, there’s no doubt what I’d chose.”
“No question. And apparently a number of other clients are reacting the same way. CNN has been getting a rising blizzard of reports and e-mails of people canceling surgery scheduled to be done in India.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” the male anchor said. “As I said, if it were me, I certainly would.”
When the anchors switched to another subject dealing with Halloween coming up in a mere two weeks, Jennifer lowered the TV’s volume. She was again stumped. Another cardiac death in a private Indian hospital involving a healthy American occurring about the same time postsurgery.
Jennifer looked at the clock and tried to figure out what time it was in Atlanta. She came up with about eleven-thirty in the morning. Impulsively, she grabbed her phone, and by using AT&T directory assistance got herself connected to CNN. After explaining what she was interested in and being switched around from several different departments, she finally got a woman on the line who seemed to know what she was talking about. The woman introduced herself at Jamielynn.
“I just saw a segment on CNN International about a medical tourism death,” Jennifer said. “What I’d like to know is, who—”
“I’m sorry, we don’t divulge anything about our sources,” Jamielynn said, interrupting Jennifer.
“I was afraid of that,” Jennifer said. “But what about the time the story came in. That wouldn’t compromise your source in any way.”
“I suppose not,” Jamielynn agreed. “Let me ask! Hold the line!” Jamielynn was gone for a few minutes before coming back. “I can tell you when it came in but that’s all. It came in at ten-forty-one a.m. EST and was broadcast the first time at eleven-oh-two.”
“Thank you,” Jennifer said. She wrote it down on the pad by the phone. She then called down to the concierge and asked for the phone number of the Aesculapian Medical Center. Once she had it, she dialed it. She had to wait for a number of rings. When it was answered, she asked to be connected to David Lucas’s room.
“I’m sorry, we are not allowed to ring patient rooms after eight.”
“How do family members call after eight?” Jennifer thought she knew but wanted to ask anyway.
“They have the direct-dial number.”
Jennifer hung up without saying good-bye. She felt she was on a roll, and called down to the front desk. She asked if there was a guest in the hotel by the name of Mrs. David Lucas. As she waited, she wondered if she’d be able to muster the courage to call the woman so soon after the event.
“I’m sorry, but we have no Mrs. Lucas registered at the hotel,” the front desk clerk said.
“Are you certain?” Jennifer questioned. She felt an immediate letdown.
The clerk spelled the name and asked if Jennifer had an alternate spelling. Jennifer said no and discouragingly was about to hang up when she thought of something. “I’m here at the Amal Palace Hotel because of the Queen Victoria Hospital. Do other private hospitals put their international patients’ next of kin at other hotels?”
“Yes, they do,” the clerk said. “Even the Queen Victoria does as well if we are fully booked.”
“Can you tell me what hotels I might try?”
“Yes, of course. Any of the other five-star hotels. The Taj Mahal, the Oberoi, the Imperial, the Ashok, and the Grand are the most popular, but the Park and the Hyatt Regency are used as well. It depends on availability. If you’d like to be connected to any of these hotels, the operator will be happy to do it.”
Taking the clerk’s advice, Jennifer called the other hotels in the order in which they had been given. It didn’t
