Dead Ringer (2 page)

This wasn’t stage fright. Demonstrating tricky surgeries had become second nature to Lucas. And was a well-earned byproduct of an international reputation. Years ago he experienced little shivers of anxiety at the start of a talk or a demonstration, but not anymore. Besides, this feeling was entirely different. It had nothing to do with the immediate future. Rather, he knew—just knew—something bad happened within the past twenty-four hours.

Again, he tried to ignore it and concentrate on today’s tasks.

He had made a career choice years ago. Rather than being good at general neurosurgery, he became outstanding at a few extremely tricky surgeries. His expertise became a double-edged sword; he derived comfort from knowing his chances
of screwing up were low because he had mastered the difficult techniques. The price, of course, was monotony from doing the same cases over and over. Not only that, but the subsequent notoriety forced him to become even more specialized. Initially, he took satisfaction in being referred problems no one else would touch. But he quickly learned the downside: fear. The high-risk cases were also the ones to very quickly and unexpectedly blow up in your face, leaving the malpractice lawyers licking their chops.

Today would be easy because he would be using a cadaver instead of a live person. So why did he feel like something terrible had happened?

Well, there was Laura. As it turned out, this trip couldn’t have come at a worse time in their failing marriage and decision to talk to their separate attorneys. But this was not something he could have foreseen when invited to be the guest lecturer ten months ago. And truthfully, it was sort of nice to escape the tension for a few days.

The harder he tried to identify the cause of the foreboding, the more it danced away, like a familiar word on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it was just his imagination. He hoped so.

For a distraction, he asked Wong, “Your case yesterday, what was it?”

A
FTER THEY BOTH CHANGED
into green scrubs, Wong led Lucas down the hall to the lounge of a classroom. A cozy room of blond wood paneling, industrial beige carpet, and two leather
couches. Eleven scrub-clad surgeons were milling around, chatting animatedly, most of them holding white Styrofoam cups of steaming tea. The drab sameness of hospitals struck Lucas. This could be anyplace in the world—Cincinnati or Calcutta—and he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Well, except for the Chinese characters on the plaques covering a trophy wall.

Wong introduced Lucas to each surgeon, one of whom—an older man with the face of a bulldog—he’d already met. The guy had accompanied Wong to Seattle to watch Lucas in action. Two weeks afterward Lucas received an invitation to be the society’s guest lecturer. Thankfully, Lucas remembered the man’s name before embarrassing himself. Strange how the mind worked. As a premed student he memorized the periodic table, but at parties he forgot a person’s name within seconds of being introduced.

For the next ten minutes Lucas made sure to spend a few moments chitchatting with each participant, all of whom had been trained with English as their second language. Then Wong ushered everyone into the classroom, a large utilitarian corner room smelling of overheated electronics and formaldehyde. The space had been laid out to optimize this type of demonstration and benefitted from natural light from two walls of windows. At the front was a table on a six-inch riser. The remainder of the room was filled with tables, each with two chairs on opposite sides. Suspended from the ceiling above each table were parabolic surgical lamps and two Sony HDTVs. Except for the televisions, this could’ve been one of his old classrooms in med school.

Wong led Lucas to the demonstration table where a blue surgical towel covered a cantaloupe-sized mound on a stainless
steel tray. This, Lucas assumed, was the cadaver head he’d be using. Three boom-mounted HD cameras were aimed at the tray, one on each side with the third directly overhead. Similar cameras were set to monitor four other tables. Wong explained that the cameras would record the demonstration while providing the audience different close-up views of the dissection. Wong then asked Lucas to sign a recording release.

Lucas dropped into the chair and inspected the tray of surgical instruments. Central supply apparently provided the ones he’d requested. Like all surgeons, he had preferences. And like all surgeons, this bordered on superstition. Especially when working under the microscope.

After verifying each camera was sharply focused and recording, Wong nodded for Lucas to begin.

Standing behind the table, Lucas addressed the group. “The first demonstration will be the anterior approach to the clivus.” A tricky way to reach the base of the brain is by cutting through the back of the mouth. “I assume you’ve all read the articles I emailed Dr. Wong?”

They nodded in unison.

“Any questions before I start?”

They glanced at each other, but no one spoke.

“As with any craniotomy, it’s extremely important to plan your incision correctly.” Lucas picked up a Sharpie in one hand and a corner of the towel with the other.

As he withdrew the towel, Lucas said, “We start the incision here,” and looked down at the head. He froze. For three long seconds he was unable to tear his gaze from the gray, bloodless skin. Then he spun away, spewing vomit on the wall and the floor.

L
UCAS CROUCHED ON HIS
haunches, the room swirling around him. He fought to keep the stench of his own vomit from triggering another retch. He wanted to move away from the mess he’d made but wasn’t sure he could stand without passing out.

He felt a firm hand on his shoulder, heard Wong asking, “What’s wrong? Dr. McRae, are you all right?”

Aw, shit …

Another gut spasm hit. He dropped his butt onto the floor, put his head between his knees, and thought,
Glad I’m in scrubs instead of my suit
. In the next instant he realized how inane that last thought was.

“Are you okay?”

Lucas raised a hand, silently asking to stay like this for another few seconds. He sucked a deep breath. The room began to settle down. Something was sticking to his lower lip. He brushed at it with the back of his hand, glanced down, saw his hand covered with partially digested food chunks. The sight triggered another spasm. Thank God for gloves.

He felt stable enough to finally stand and pushed up without looking at the head. Then he was on his feet again, the room back to normal. Carefully, he stripped one glove into the other, forming a ball of latex that he dropped into a nearby
wastebasket. After another breath, he stepped away from the pool of vomit.

The room was stone silent now, every eye on him.

Wong said, “Lucas, speak to me. What’s the matter? Perhaps you should lie down. You’re white as a sheet.”

He realized Wong was holding his left arm, steadying him. For some reason Lucas noticed another man, the only other Caucasian in the room, standing in the doorway, watching.
Where’d he come from?

On shaky legs, hands flat against the black soapstone counter, Lucas sucked down two more deep breaths in an attempt to clear the stench from his airway. “Sorry,” he muttered and started to look down at the decapitated head. But stopped. Not yet.

“Are you all right? Can you continue?”

“One more second.” Lucas raised a hand and glanced at the exit. “Where’s the nearest men’s room?” An then he couldn’t keep the realization at bay any longer. It was Andy. His friend Andy, whose head he was just looking at.

“If you don’t mind, I will accompany you.” Wong led him through the lounge, down a hall to a door with a frosted glass window.

The lavatory was small with barely enough room for both of them. White tile walls, a stall, a urinal, a sink. Bending over the sink, Lucas splashed cold water over his face and lips. With cupped hands, he rinsed his mouth several times to wash away the foul gastric taste and clear the smell from his nose, but there was little he could do to get rid of the burning at the back of his throat.

Straightening up, he checked his face in the mirror, found it clean but more haggard than when shaving earlier. Matter of fact, he looked like shit warmed over.

“What happened? Are you ill?”

Lucas propped his butt against the sink, said “Oh, man,” and patted his face again with a paper towel. He felt calmer now. How could his eyes play such a trick? He’d seen Andy just days ago.

“Should you lie down? Shall I take you to the Casualty Department?”

“No, that’s not necessary. It’s that …” Lucas nodded toward the other room. He couldn’t say the word
head
. “I thought I knew the person. But it can’t be.” What a huge understatement. He and Andy were best friends—that is, if you could manage to be best friends with someone your spouse hated.

Wong stared. “The specimen? You know him?”

The specimen
.
Jesus!

It dawned on him. That was what he’d always thought of it: the specimen. Never someone’s head. But it was. And the one in the other room couldn’t possibly be Andy’s. Then again …

“Surely you must be mistaken,” Wong said incredulously.

“I know. I know. It’s just he looks so much like him.” He shook his head at the thought. Only days ago they’d been at Safeco Field drinking beer, watching the Yankees cream the Mariners, Andy cracking him up with sarcastic wiseass comments that Laura considered juvenile.

He felt more stable now but still shaky. Hopefully, he’d be able to think more clearly. “Tell you what, I can do the demonstration …
I just can’t do it on that particular specimen. Can you have someone exchange it for me, please?”

Wong said, “Absolutely. Give me a minute.”

As Wong left the small lavatory, Lucas removed his cell phone from his pocket and checked. He had a signal so he dialed. Andy’s phone rang through to voice mail. What time was it in Seattle? Evening, maybe? Andy could be out.

“Andy, Lucas. Call me on my cell as soon as you get this.” He rinsed his face again. While he was drying, the door opened and Wong said, “Let’s get you a fresh pair of scrubs before you go back in.”

A
S WONG HERDED EVERYBODY
back to their seats, Lucas slipped on a new pair of gloves. Someone had replaced the surgical towel over the specimen he would use and had cleaned up the mess around the table. The other surgeons sat at their tables, watching curiously, probably wondering what was wrong. Wong didn’t explain.

Then slowly, carefully, Lucas pulled back the saline-soaked towel and this time saw the face of a woman, her hair clipped off but with black roots, relatively young. Lucas asked Wong, “These specimens, are they fresh or preserved?”

“They’re fresh. No formalin.”

Formalin, a saturated solution of formaldehyde, water, and another agent, usually methanol that is perfused through the body to replace blood. The preservative alone can distort tissues. Slightly. But that wasn’t a factor here, and with the blood drained out the color was so … dead.

Lucas sucked a deep breath, looked at his audience and said, “As I started to say …”

“M
R. DITTO WILL SEE YOU NOW
.”

Wendy Elliott realized she’d been too engrossed in planning the interview to notice the woman approach. Now the matronly receptionist was standing directly in front of her, lips pressed into a forced smile, hands clasped primly at the waist. A dead ringer for Mrs. Thatcher, her sixth grade teacher, the one the boys swore had a corncob up her ass.

“Thank you.” Wendy stood, smoothed her navy slacks, picked up her empty can of Diet Coke. She glanced around for a wastebasket. Seeing none, she held on to the can and followed the woman down a beige hall to a solid wood door. No sign or room number. The receptionist knocked softly before opening it and motioning for Wendy to enter. The woman kept a death grip on the doorknob as Wendy passed.

What immediately struck Wendy was the size of the office. On second thought, it wasn’t the size—ten-by-fifteen feet at best—but the unobstructed view over Lake Union to Capitol Hill and downtown Seattle from a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows behind the desk. Tastefully decorated. Expensive. The showstopper was an ultramodern desk made from brushed metal. Aluminum, maybe. German design, she figured. No other designers could come up with something so industrially utilitarian yet so esthetically sensible. An Italian would’ve
incorporated more flair, probably with some black lacquer and a rare, obscure burled African wood. To her, the room’s only flaws were the framed posters, one of a thin-faced dude wearing a sports jersey and two Detroit Tigers posters. Why put sports posters in a room with such a lovely desk?

A man glanced up from behind the desk with a look of surprise, as if he hadn’t heard the knock or been informed. It caused her suspicion meter to set off a silent ping.