“I got the hard copy here on my desk,” Bart said. “Sorry! I can have someone run them over to 520 within the hour if you’d like. Are you in your office?”
“I am,” Jack said. “Send them over!”
“Any word from Dr. Montgomery yet?” Bart asked.
The innocent question felt like a stab in the back for Jack, who had been actively trying to avoid thinking about Laurie. He had to clear his throat to steady himself mentally. “Not yet, but soon.”
“Give her my best when you speak with her,” Bart said.
“I will,” Jack said. As he hung up the phone, he felt suddenly irritable. He wasn’t angry with Bart but rather angry that Laurie had had the bad luck to inherit the mutated BRCA1 gene. If that hadn’t happened, at that very moment she would have been down in her office taking care of business instead of being on one of the NYU Langone Medical Center’s operating tables.
“Hey partner, wassup?”
Jack looked up to see Chet’s silhouette filling the doorway to the hallway.
“Not much,” Jack said, purposefully avoiding the truth that he was desperately trying not to think about Laurie.
“I wanted to apologize for my flippancy down in the pit,” Chet said.
“It’s already been forgotten,” Jack said with a wave of dismissal.
“Thanks,” Chet said. “Find anything of note on Aria’s autopsy?”
“No, unless you think finding no pulmonary edema on a fentanyl overdose is noteworthy.”
“Since it is found in ninety-six percent of fentanyl overdoses, I’d say it is noteworthy,” Chet said. “Interestingly enough, it was the same on the Jacobsen case. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, Marvin reminded us,” Jack said. “It makes me worry both were killed with one of the extraordinarily potent fentanyl analogues. I think the explanation for the lack of pulmonary edema is that both died so rapidly there wasn’t time for it to develop.”
“That’s an interesting supposition,” Chet said.
“As long as you’re here, let me run something by you,” Jack said. “There’s an interesting association between the Jacobsen, Bryant, and Nichols cases.”
“How so, other than Jacobsen and Nichols being overdoses?” Chet asked.
“There’s a curious tangled web of sorts,” Jack said. “Or at least there might be a tangled web. Jacobsen and Bryant were coworkers and fast friends. Nichols did the Jacobsen autopsy and, according to Laurie, was motivated to find the father of the unexpected fetus. Apparently, Bryant was going to help her but ended up getting hit by a train and dying in the hospital. All this happened over three days.” Jack fell silent, staring at his former office roommate.
Chet shifted his weight. “Are you thinking that there is some underlying connection here?” he said.
“I’m not sure what I’m thinking or asking,” Jack said. “To be honest, I’m uptight about Laurie and her surgery.”
“Oh, right!” Chet said. “I heard that was happening today. How did it go? Is everything okay?”
“The problem is that I haven’t heard boo,” Jack said. “I thought I would have heard from the surgeon by now. The longer I have to wait, the more anxious I become. Of course, I don’t know when the case started. I mean, there might have been a delay as Laurie’s case was scheduled as a to-follow case. In that situation there are frequent delays. Anyway, to keep my mind occupied I’m obsessed with theseautopsies on these three women and a possible association that I’m not seeing. To put it bluntly, I’m wondering if I’m missing something that ties them together.”
“If you want my opinion, I think you’re overthinking,” Chet said. “To me, the associations you mention sound like just a couple of tragic coincidences rather than a conspiracy. As for Laurie’s situation, would you like me to make some calls? I’m relatively certain I could find out what’s happening with her surgery. My experience is that to-follow cases are always delayed because OR schedulers want the patients to wait, not the doctors, if you know what I mean. If I find out for you, you won’t be sitting here stewing.”
“Thanks, but I suppose I could call myself,” Jack said. “But I’m hesitant. Stupidly enough, I’m superstitious about calling whether it’s you or me. I know that sounds crazy, but what can I say.”
Suddenly Jack’s mobile rang loud enough to make him jump. “It’s Laurie’s surgeon,” Jack said to Chet after taking a peek at the screen. Chet flashed a thumbs-up and left. Jack clicked on the call and put the phone to his ear.
“Hello, Doctor,” he said, trying to sound upbeat while crossing his fingers. It was a throwback gesture to his childhood. He’d never met Claudine Cartier but knew of her by reputation. She was one of the busiest general surgeons.
“Hello, Dr. Stapleton,” Claudine said. In his hypersensitive state, she sounded upbeat, which was encouraging. “I wanted to let you know that Laurie is in the PACU and is doing just fine. Everything went well, including the endoscopic oophorectomy.”
“Fabulous,” Jack said. “What was the result of the breast biopsy?”
“The biopsy was positive,” Claudine said. “The preliminary path diagnosis is carcinoma with medullary features. It is not a common tumor, except with patients having the BRCA1 mutation.”
