Leaving the family ID room, Jack intended to go back downstairs to change into his street clothes, but halfway to the stairwell he remembered his promise to Laurie to see to the police custody case. Instead of goingto the basement, he beelined to the front elevators with the idea of heading up to the sixth floor to see if anyone was still in Toxicology.
As it turned out, Jack was lucky. Peter Letterman, the assistant director, who was an extraordinarily dedicated civil servant, was still in his tiny office despite the time. It was after six. Peter was more than happy to check on the case, and when he did, he reported to Jack that the blood cocaine level was 1.52 mg/l and the cocaine metabolite was 1.84 mg/l.
“These are high,” Jack commented.
“Very high,” Peter said.
“Dr. Montgomery is going to be happy,” Jack said. “The police commissioner has been on her case in trying to prove forceful restraint was necessary. I think this does the trick.”
“No doubt,” Peter said. “The victim was clearly out of his mind and might have died of the cocaine without any help from the arresting police officer.”
“Much obliged,” Jack said. He was pleased to have something positive to give to Laurie to make up for her frustration at his being out in the field all day.
With the toxicology report in hand, Jack went to the back elevator to return to the basement. Before going to the front office to collect Laurie, he’d change into his civvies and check on Vinnie’s progress. He was particularly interested in making sure the samples had gotten over to the Public Health Laboratory.
28
WEDNESDAY, 7:23 P.M.
After Jack stepped out of his apartment building’s front door, he paused on the stoop. From that vantage point he had a reasonably good view of the playground. As per usual, a basketball game was in progress, with the shirts against the skins sweeping up and down the court. Years ago, Jack had bought a bunch of oversized sleeveless red and blue jerseys to distinguish one team from the other, but no one would wear them, preferring the typical shirts-versus-skins, irrespective of the weather and temperature. At that moment it was in the mid- to upper forties.
As he stood there with the pleasant anticipation of rigorous physical activity with friends he cared about, Jack thought about his day. It had been one of the most unique that he could remember. From the cast of characters he’d met out in New Jersey, to the realization that some sort of skulduggery had gone on involving a heart transplantation, to the scary repeat of the subway cytokine death, he was hard put to think of any other day that came close.
The crowning event had been the drive home in the Escalade, with Laurie grousing in the passenger seat. Although she had been pleased to hear about the toxicology results on the police custody case, knowing thecommissioner would be gratified, she was still unhappy with Jack’s fieldwork in New Jersey, especially with his flashing his New York ME badge. After she had talked with Jack that afternoon while he was still in New Jersey, she’d asked counsel if his using his badge was legal. She’d been told under no uncertain terms that it was not. When she’d related this to Jack, his insistence that he was doing it just for efficiency and not to force testimony didn’t assuage her irritation at his penchant for following his own rules.
Worse yet was that they had a marked difference of opinion about the second subway death and what to do about it in the short run. Jack had explained what he had found at autopsy and what he’d learned from John Carver. Although Laurie was in agreement with Jack that having another case did indeed point to a contagious origin, she was still unwaveringly adamant about not raising an alarm with any of the various authorities, such as the Commissioner of Health or the Commissioner of Emergency Management. For his part, Jack felt even more strongly that various agencies should be given some sort of notice in order to at least start the process of what would need to be done in the face of a major, lethal pandemic. He told Laurie that the speed these two patients had died from the time of their initial symptoms and the extent of the lung pathology were simply extraordinary.
“Do we have an actual diagnosis?” Laurie had demanded.
“No, not yet,” Jack admitted. “But we have evidence in tissue culture that a virus pathological to human cells is involved.”
He then went on to describe what he knew of Aretha’s use of a Massive Parallel Sequencing machine and her belief she’d have a diagnosis soon.
“What’s ‘soon’ mean?” Laurie had asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Jack admitted. “To be honest, I’m not even entirely sure how the process works. It’s based on bioinformatics and uses a database called BLAST.”
“All right,” Laurie said. “Tell me this: Are you one hundred and ten percent, absolutely, without any doubt whatsoever certain that these twowomen died of a pathological virus? From what you told me, they hadn’t even seen each other for a month. That’s one long incubation period for a viral respiratory disease.”
As Jack remembered the conversation, he had to smile. He knew he’d made a mistake at that moment because he had paused long enough to make Laurie suspicious that there was something he’d not told her. When she’d forced the issue, he had to admit that people at the Dover Valley Hospital had seen no virus with electron microscopy in the lung exudate following a second autopsy.
“Well, there you go,” Laurie had said. “We are not alerting anyone on such shaky grounds. No way.”
“But that’s like waiting to prepare for a hurricane when the wind has already started to blow,” Jack complained.
But Laurie would hear none of it. Instead, she had subjected Jack to a prolonged lecture about what she had been learning in her role as the chief medical examiner about the realities of the political hierarchy and how it functioned or, in her estimation, malfunctioned. She was particularly concerned about the issue of emergency management.
“To tell you the honest truth,” Laurie said, “I think they have overprepared for a major influenza pandemic. Since 2004 they have had drill after drill and have set up a huge system with a hair trigger. There’s even a computer algorithm called ED Syndromic Surveillance monitoring real-time emergency room pneumonia visits. The thing that scares me is that there are no checks and balances. The reason I know so much about it is that the OCME is part of it. That’s why there are all those refrigerated trailers out in the lot by 421, which would be sent to all the hospitals in the city to try to deal with several hundred deaths a day.”
“I think the authorities have a real reason to be worried,” Jack retorted.
“Of course there is reason to be worried,” Laurie said. “It’s almost inevitable there will be an influenza pandemic with the way pigs and fowl are crammed together in the Far East, with their guts acting like virtual influenza incubators. My concern is the switch being thrown bya false alarm with no system in place to stop it. It will be like a bunch of dominoes lined up. Push the first one over and they all go over.”
“I think you are being overly pessimistic,” Jack responded. “I’m supposed to be the cynic, not you.”
“You haven’t had to endure the meetings I’ve had to endure,” Laurie said. “And if you still think I am being unreasonably pessimistic, remember what happened in Hawaii in January 2018 with the incoming missile debacle. That’s what I’m worried could happen here in New York about an influenza pandemic. It could happen so easily, and it would cause true panic.”
Suddenly Jack’s reverie was interrupted by his hearing his name called out. Looking in the direction of Columbus Avenue, he could see Warren and Flash standing beneath a streetlamp on the opposite side of the street near the entrance of the playground. Warren was carrying his basketball. He brought it every night and preferred it as the game ball, which no one questioned.
