'What's in store for her, procedure-wise?'
'More blood tests, a tomographic scan of her gut. It may be necessary, eventually, to open her up surgically-get an actual look at her pancreas. But that's a ways off. Got to get back to Torgeson.
He's reviewing the chart in my office. Turned out to be a nice guy, really casual.'
'Is he reviewing Chad's chart too?'
'I called for it but they couldn't find it.'
'I know,' I said. 'I was looking for it, too-for background.
Someone named D. Kent Herbert pulled it-he worked for Ashmore.'
'Herbert?' she said. 'Never heard of him. Why would Ashmore be wanting the chart when he wasn't even interested the first time?'
'Good question.'
'I'll put a tracer on it. Meantime, let's concentrate on Ms. Cassie's metabolic system.'
We headed for the stairs.
1 said, 'Would hypoglycemia explain the other problemsbreathing difficulties, bloody stools?'
'Not directly, but all the problems could have been symptoms of a generalized infectious process or a rare syndrome. New stuff is always coming at us-every time an enzyme is discovered, we find someone who doesn't have it. Or it could even be an atypical case of something we did test for that just didn't register in her blood for some God-knows-why reason.'
She talked quickly, animatedly. Pleased to be dueling with familiar enemies.
'Do you still want me involved?' I said.
'Of course. Why do you ask?'
'Sounds like you've moved away from Munchausen and think it's genuine.'
'Well,' she said, 'it would be nice for it to be genuine. And treatable. But even if that is the case, we're probably talking chronic disease. So they can use the support, if you don't mind.'
'Not at all.'
'Thanks much.'
Down the stairs. At the next floor I said, 'Could Cindy-or anyone else-have somehow caused the hypoglycemia?'
'Sure, if she gave Cassie a middle-of-the-night shot of insulin. I thought of that right away. But that would have required a lot of expertise with timing and dosage.'
'Lots of practice injections?'
'Using Cassie as a pincushion. Which I can buy, theoretically.
Cindy has plenty of time with Cassie. But given Cassie's reaction to needles, if her mom was sticking her, wouldn't she be freaking out every time she saw her? And I'm the only one she seems to despise.
.
.. Anyway, I never noticed any unusual injection marks when I did the physical.'
Back on the first floor I asked a guard where to find the Personnel office. He looked me over and told me right here, on the first floor.
It turned out to be exactly where I remembered it. Two women sat at typewriters; a third filed papers. The filer came up to me. She was straw-haired and hatchet-faced, in her late fifties. Under her ID was a circular badge that looked homemade, bearing a photo of a big hairy sheepdog. I told her I wanted to send a condolence card to Dr. Laurence Ashmore's widow and asked for his home address.
