the connection. The blood work is the motive.”
Fox walked away from them and to the window. McCaleb followed and stood next to her. The room looked down on Beverly Boulevard. He saw the string of businesses across the street, the mystery bookshop and the deli with the Get Well Soon! sign on the roof. He looked at Fox and it looked as though she was staring at her own reflection in the window.
“I have patients waiting,” she said.
“We need your help.”
“What exactly can I do?”
“I’m not sure. But I think you stand a better chance of getting information out of BOPRA than us.”
“Why don’t you just go to the police? They have the best chance. Why are you involving me?”
“I can’t go to them. Not yet. I go to them and I’m out of it, off the case. Think about what I just told you. I’m a suspect.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I know that. But they won’t. Besides, that doesn’t matter. This is personal. I owe it to Glory Torres and I owe it to Graciela. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines on this one.”
A small bit of silence slipped by.
“Doctor?”
Graciela had come up behind them. They turned to her.
“You have to help. If you don’t, then all of this-everything you do here-means nothing. If you can’t protect the integrity of the system you work in, then you have no system.”
The two women stared at each other for a long moment and then Fox smiled sadly and nodded.
“Go to my office and wait for me,” she said. “I have to see Mr. Koslow and one other patient. It will take me a half hour at the most. After that I’ll come to the office and make the call.”
“Glenn Leopold, please, this is Bonnie Fox calling.”
They were in Fox’s office with the door closed. Fox had the phone speaker on so McCaleb and Graciela could listen. They had waited for her a half hour before she had come in. Her demeanor was different. She was still going to help but McCaleb noticed that she was more agitated than she had appeared when they had gathered in the empty patient room in the north tower. They had gone over a plan McCaleb came up with while waiting, Fox had taken a couple of notes to refer to and then placed the call.
“Bonnie?”
“Hi, Glenn, how are you?”
“I’m fine. What can I do you for? I’ve got about ten minutes before a meeting.”
“This shouldn’t take long. I’ve got a slight problem here, Glenn, and I think you might be able to help me.”
“Tell me.”
“I performed a transplant here February ninth-it was BOPRA file number ninety-eight thirty-six-and a complication has come up. What I’d like to do is speak with the surgeons who performed transplants with the donor’s other organs.”
There was a brief silence before Leopold’s voice came up on the speaker again.
“Uh, let’s see… I mean, this is kind of unusual. What sort of complication are we talking about, Bonnie?”
“Well, I know you have your meeting. To make it as brief as possible, the recipient’s blood group was type AB with CMV negative. The organ we received through BOPRA matched that-according to the protocol. But now-what are we, nine weeks or so post-op-our recipient has developed CMV virus and we are showing rejection in the blood work from the latest biopsy. I am trying to isolate how this has happened.”
More silence.
“Well, I think it would have come up before now if it came in with the heart.”
“That’s true but we weren’t looking for it before. We assumed based on the protocol that there was no CMV. Don’t get me wrong, Glenn, I am not saying it came in with the heart. But I have to find out where it came from and I want to cover everything. Best place to start is with the heart.”
“Are you trying to isolate this, as you say, at the request of attorneys? Because if that’s what you are doing, then I think I need to get my-”
“No, no, Glenn, this is just me. I need to know if the virus came in with the organ or there was-is-a problem right here.”
“Well, what blood did you use?”
“That’s just it, we only used the patient’s own blood. I have the file right here. He stored eight units long before surgery. We only used six.”
“And you are sure you used
Leopold’s voice was now showing some agitation. Fox was looking at McCaleb as she answered and he saw how uncomfortable it was for her to be deceitful with the BOPRA organ coordinator.
“All I can say is that we followed procedures and I personally double-checked the bag labels before surgery. They were his labels. I have to assume it was his blood.”
“What do you want from us, Bonnie?”
“A list. What organ went to what patient, and the attending surgeon I can call.”
“I don’t know. I think maybe I should-”
“Glenn, listen, it is nothing personal, but my patient is having this problem and I need to check this out for myself. I have to be satisfied myself. I will keep it contained, if that’s what you are worried about. No one is talking about lawyers or malpractice. We just need to find out how this happened. For all we know, you are right, it’s a blood mix-up. But I am sure you would agree that the place to start with something like this is with the new tissue that’s been introduced to the patient.”
McCaleb held his breath. They were at the pivotal point. Fox needed to get the names herself. She couldn’t let Leopold say he would check it out himself and get back to her.
“I suppose…”
Leopold trailed off and Fox leaned forward, folded her arms on the desk and put her head down. In the silence McCaleb heard a sound from the phone that he identified as computer keys being tapped. He felt a slight charge as he realized that Leopold was probably calling up the file on his computer.
McCaleb stood up and leaned over the desk and gently tapped Fox on the elbow. She looked up at him and he made a circular motion with his hand, signaling her to keep going.
“Glenn?” she said. “What do you think?”
“I’m looking at it right now… Harvest occurred at Holy Cross… There is nothing here on the donor profile indicating CMV. Nothing. This person was a long-time blood donor. I think it would have come up before if she-”
“That’s probably true but I need to double-check. Even if just for my own peace of mind.”
“I understand.”
More sounds of the computer keyboard being played.
“Let’s see, transportation was… by MedicAir… The liver was transplanted right there with the heart at Cedars. Do you know Dr. Spivak? Daniel Spivak?”
“No.”
McCaleb grabbed a legal pad from his bag and started writing.
“Well, he did that one. Let’s see, the lungs-”
“I’ll call Spivak,” Fox interrupted. “What’s the patient’s name?”
“Um… I’m really going to have to ask you to keep all of this in the strictest confidence, Bonnie.”
“Absolutely.”
“It was a male. J. B. Dickey.”
