width aisles. The shelves were filled with medical charts. Each chart bore a black tab. Hundreds of consecutive tabs created wavy, inch-thick black lines that seemed to cut the files in half.
Access was blocked by a waist-high counter. Behind it sat an Asian woman in her forties, reading a tabloid- sized Asian-language newspaper.
Rounded characters-Thai or laotian, I guessed. When she saw me she put it down and smiled as if I were delivering good news.
I asked to see the chart for Charles Lyman Jones Iv The name didn't appear to mean anything to her. She reached under the counter and produced a three-by-five card titled SPI REQUISITION. I filled it out, she took it, said 'Jones,' smiled again, and went into the files.
She looked for a while, walking up and down the aisles, pulling out charts, lifting tabs, consulting the slip. When she returned she was empty-handed.
'Not here, Doctor.'
Any idea where it might be?'
She shrugged. 'Someone take.'
'Someone's already checked it out?'
'Must be, Doctor.'
'Hmm,' I said, wondering who'd be interested in a two-year-old death file. 'This is pretty important-fur research. Is there any way I could talk to that someone?'
She thought for a moment, smiled, and pulled something else out from under the counter. El Producto cigar box. Inside were stacks of SPI requisition forms held together with spring clasps. Five stacks She spread them on the counter. The top slips all bore the signature of pathologists. I read the patients' names, saw no evidence of alphabetization or any other system of classification.
She smiled again, said 'Please,' and returned to her newspaper.
I removed the clasp from the first pile and sifted through the forms.
It soon became obvious that a system did exist. The slips had been classified by date of request, each stack representing a month, each piece of paper placed in daily chronological order. Five stacks because this was May.
No shortcuts-every slip had to be examined. And if Chad Jones's chart had been checked out before January I, the form wouldn't be here at all.
I began reading the names of dead children. Pretending they were just random assemblages of letters.
A moment later I found what I was looking for, in the February stack.
A slip dated February 54 and signed by someone with very poor penmanship. I studied the cramped scrawl, finally deciphered the last name as Herbert. D. Kent Herbert, or maybe it was Dr Kent Herbert.
Other than the signature, the date, and a hospital phone extension, the slip was blank; POSITION/TIME, DEPARTMENT REASON FOR REQUEST hadn't been filled out. I copied the extension and thanked the woman behind the counter.
'Everything okay?' she said.
'Do you have any idea who this is?'
She came over and peered at the form.
'Habert... no. I just work here one month.' Another smile.
'Good hospital,' she said cheerfully.
I began to wonder if she had any idea what she was filing.
'Do you have a hospital directory?'
She looked confused.
