Death Rounds (36 page)

I switched on the bedside lamp, found my jacket where I’d dropped it, and fished out the paper with Williams’s number.

Once I’d given it to him, he ordered, “Meet me in my lab!” then hung up without waiting for my reply.

* * * *

Twenty minutes later, at 9:32, I sped onto the grounds of University Hospital. Despite my recent practice at driving fast through waterlogged streets, it took me five minutes longer than what Janet boasted was her usual time to make it in for a delivery. I’d spent the difference at stop lights, fighting the impulse to run the red. While waiting at one intersection, I’d called my answering service. Among the messages that had piled up over the afternoon was a request I call Mr. Reginald Fosse as soon as possible.

Through the tall trees and thinning fall leaves overhead I could see the lights of the massive building and its various wings spread wide and high into the darkness. The floodlights placed around the bases of the great stone walls made each of the sections appear separate and suspended in the mist, almost floating, like a huge cube ensnared in the surrounding branches. It was a wonder Fosse’s fund-raising efforts hadn’t capitalized on the eeriness of the place to turn it into a theme park by night that reverted to a major teaching hospital by day.

I found a parking space beneath the gargoyles. Though it wasn’t raining, the mist was thick enough to leave particles of water on my windshield, and the air was so cold that I could see my breath. Huddled in my overcoat, I hurried from the car toward the entrance. I kept trying to fathom what could have caused such an about-face by Cam. And what had suddenly made him enough of a believer that he’ d gone off in search of what Michael had found in the first place? Whatever had happened, I still didn’t trust Cam and was glad that he’d called Williams to join us.

It was after visiting hours, so security once more made me sign in at their desk. Since it was the evening shift, the guards weren’t the same as on the previous night, but like the others, these two were also decked out in surgical masks. The one checking out my ID said, “Oh, Dr. Garnet, you’ll need us to let you into whichever records department you’ll be requiring.”

“Pardon?” I said, not understanding.

“Your special audit for Dr. Tippet,” he explained, sounding a little puzzled, probably at my own show of surprise. “I presumed that’s why you’re here. We received the memo from Mr. Fosse late this afternoon saying we were to give you whatever access you needed.”

“Oh, right,” I acknowledged. Wouldn’t it be ironic, I thought, if the hard-won access was no longer necessary? “Actually, I was called in to see Dr. Mackie tonight,” I explained. “I’m to meet him in his lab.”

His eyebrows shot up. “So that’s where he rushed off to. Christ, he was on his way out of the hospital around six when he came over to our desk, asked to see our sign-in book. After glancing through it, he ran for the elevators.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Is there a problem? I hope there’s not more people from the hospital with that deadly infection. I heard one of the doctors from here came down with it this morning.” I could hear the fear in his voice. “Could someone carrying that bug have signed in here and exposed us?”

“No, not at all,” I lied. “I’m sure that business is under control by now.” But I was thinking, what would Cam have wanted with the sign-in book? I finished writing
Bacteriology Lab
as my destination and rifled back through a few pages but couldn’t see anything in today’s entries that I could imagine being of interest to him. Shoving the ledger back toward the guard, I figured I’d probably find out what it was in a few minutes from Cam himself. One thing I noted before closing the page was that Williams hadn’t arrived yet.

It wasn’t until I got off the elevator in the first level basement and started down the deserted corridor toward the labs that I realized what I should have thought of earlier.

Perhaps Cam hadn’t gone off searching for what Michael had found after all. What if he had absolutely nothing to show me and had lied about it to bring me here? I slowed my steps and involuntarily looked over my shoulder.

Lighting in the wide hallway in this part of the hospital was bright, and the shiny floor gleamed for as far as I could see. No one was in sight. Apart from the receding noise of the elevator as it returned upstairs, there also wasn’t a sound, and the quiet of the place made me feel uneasy. I stopped walking when I reached Cam’s elaborate sign. Standing beside the words
BIOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATIVE
STUDIES
, I stared ahead into the complex of laboratories where he was waiting for me.

We wouldn’t be entirely alone, I told myself. There would be at least one lab technician on duty for emergencies, perhaps more than one if the caseload upstairs in ER was heavy. Plus Miller should be about somewhere, preparing to go into the asylum; only that minute did I remember he was supposed to have called me.

But staring down the long passageway that led into the labyrinthian series of rooms, I didn’t see a single figure come out of any of the doors or hear anyone talking. Perhaps the technicians were upstairs in ER, I thought, taking bloods. As for Miller, perhaps he was also somewhere else in the hospital, lining up the electricians and plumbers he needed. Or maybe he’d gone ahead to start the search without me. He certainly hadn’t seemed too keen to have me along. In any event, it was possible I’d end up alone with Cam down there after all.

Do I go back upstairs and wait for Williams? What if Cam hadn’t even called him? Telling me he was going to phone him could have been another lie, said to reassure me just enough that I’d agree to come and not be too wary when I went into his lab.

I instinctively moved to press my back against the wall and kept an eye in both directions. The stillness of the place was increasingly oppressive, and I began to feel stirrings of the same panic I’d nearly succumbed to one floor below in the far more claustrophobic confines of the subbasement. I was thinking perhaps I should get the security guard to accompany me when the silence was abruptly broken by the sound of a phone ringing far off in the labs.

Someone calling for a technician, I thought. One of them might be somewhere down here despite the place appearing deserted. I swallowed and began walking toward the persistent trilling.

I passed by the doors to hematology. The lights were on, but no one replied when I poked my head in and called, “Hello!” I only heard the gentle murmur of machines. I got the same result at bacteriology. The sound of the phone continued to come from a room farther down the row of departmental signs. I reminded myself that during evening hours back at St. Paul’s I’d often had to let it ring forever before getting an answer, but nevertheless I felt more than wary as I continued along the corridor. Up ahead was the bacteriology lab.

When I got near, unlike in the other rooms where the lights were on, I could see only blackness on the other side of the glass door. This wasn’t unusual. Unless a life-threatening infection was in process upstairs, no one would be doing cultures or plating Gram stains at this hour. But the ringing phone was clearly behind this door. I turned the knob. It was unlocked.

I pushed it open and looked inside. “Hello?” I said to the darkness, feeling like an idiot—a very scared idiot.

The only sound besides that incessant ringing—much louder now—was the soft hum of the ventilating hoods. I could see the illuminated digital settings for temperature and humidity control above a row of incubators on the counter nearest to me. At the far end of the room was the blue glow of a computer terminal someone had left on. The noise of the phone was coming from near there. The back of the room was black as pitch and nothing at all was visible in those recesses. I felt around the inside wall near the door but couldn’t locate a light switch.

The ringing kept on. Was it Cam, calling to tell me to meet him somewhere else? Or had he been suddenly summoned upstairs for some emergency? My alarm rocketed as I immediately thought of Janet. Maybe he was phoning me about her. I quickly made my way toward the sound of the phone, using the blue light of the distant computer as a beacon. Once I got near the screen, I found the receiver easily enough by the glow. It was a single line and had no indicator lights.

I picked up. “Hello, Dr. Garnet here!” My voice sounded overly loud as I broke the quiet around me.

At the other end of the connection was only silence.

“Hello?” I said again.

Nothing. Then I heard a whisper, a breath more than a voice, but coming through the silence of that open line, the soft words were as distinct as the chill that went through me.

“Look around you!” I heard whoever it was command, followed by a click and the annoying buzz of a dial tone.

I practically dropped the receiver as I turned and got ready to run. I wanted out of there.

But something caught my eye that stopped me cold.

Two words were now blinking on what had been a completely blank computer screen a few seconds ago.

I stared at them.

This time the chill up my back was like a shot of electricity.

They read,
Janet’s Dead.

I screamed.

I would have run to ICU, but my legs felt like water.

The phone. I grabbed the receiver, my hands shaking, and punched in the number I already knew by heart.

“ICU,” answered a nurse coolly.

I felt so nauseous that when I opened my mouth to speak I gagged.

“It’s D-Dr. Garnet!” I managed to stammer. “Has something happened to my wife, Janet?” The effort nearly made me vomit.

“One moment. Doctor,” she said coolly, and put me on hold.

“Oh my God,” I kept saying, feeling the burning liquid rise to the back of my throat. They’ve gone to get a doctor to give me the news, was all I could think.

I heard the phone receiver click. The shapes in the dark room swirled, and I had to support myself with a hand on the counter.

“Hello, Dr. Garnet?” came the woman’s voice I’d heard a few seconds ago. “Janet’s the same, sleeping but coughing, and when she’s awake, her chest is uncomfortable. But she’s certainly stable. Did someone tell you otherwise?”

I couldn’t talk.

“Dr. Garnet?” she asked again.

“Thank God” was all I could manage to say. “Sorry,” I added, and hung up, too rattled to explain. I looked back toward the computer screen, feeling gutted by the impact of those hateful words.

It was blank again.

I ran to a nearby sink and threw up.

Why was Cam doing this to me? was all I could think after I finished heaving. He
must
be insane, bringing me here, then putting me through that kind of terror. But he’d no longer be able to deny it was him. Yet he had to know that, must have wanted to reveal himself as well as traumatize me. Why?

I finished rinsing out my mouth and could think only of getting to Janet, but I saw there were now more words on the screen.

This time I felt like heaving the monitor against the wall. “Fuck your mind games!” I yelled at it, not even wanting to give him the satisfaction of reading them.

But I did.

Look in the microscope, and see how she ‘II die!

“Son of a bitch!” I exploded, reaching for the phone to call security. Maybe they could trace what terminal these messages were coming from or at least be a witness to what I was seeing. I told the guard only that I needed him urgently.

But when I looked back at the screen, it was blank again.

If Cam had appeared in front of me at that moment, I’d have ripped his face off. I started to pace, feeling more enraged by the second yet impotent to do anything. How dare he play with my deepest fears!

Striding back and forth I caught sight of a tiny light from one of the back counters behind the incubators. It was screened from the door, and I hadn’t noticed it when I first arrived.

I immediately knew what it was and felt sick with fear again.

I was looking at the reflector light of a microscope left on, and I was sure it was the next item of this loathsome show-and-tell game.

“Damn you!” I cursed aloud. Once more I wanted to walk away and not submit to his terror by doing exactly what he intended me to do. But once more I succumbed. I made my way through the dark to that tiny light. My eyes were adjusted now, and I could make out the counters enough to maneuver around them. I came up to the binocular eyepiece, leaned over to look through it, and saw what I’d been dreading.

The field was filled with blue-colored cocci in clusters resembling bunches of grapes.

When I looked up, I noticed a petri dish sitting off to one side of the microscope. In the ambient light of the reflector lamp I could make out that the growth medium was abundantly spotted with the gray rings of bacterial colonies. Even though they were covered by a transparent lid, and my mind told me they probably weren’t airborne, I found myself holding my breath and backing away. But not before I’ d read the sticker label applied to the lid that indicated these bugs were growing vigorously in a soup of nutrient well laced with both methicillin and vancomycin.

If that label wasn’t a lie, the petri dish was loaded with the superbug.

All I could think of was Janet, and Len Gardner’s macabre rhyme from Death Rounds: Legionella
prepares the way; staphylococcus ends the day.

“Oh my God.” I moaned. She could be infected with both after all. Her sputum might not be purulent yet simply because it was too early. “No, please no!” I continued to murmur. The unbeatable organism might already be spilling through breaks in the lining of her airways and setting up to destroy her lungs, exactly as the autopsy slides had demonstrated.

I could hardly breathe.

By the time I staggered back to the computer terminal, I found yet another message waiting for me.

You have seen my work.

I’m forced into the open.

The punishers will be punished all at once now.

It’s incubating in fifty who deserve it.

More will follow.

Evacuate the innocents before it’s too late.