Natural Causes (28 page)

She was determined not to add to the earnest technician’s distress by snapping at him. But a pounding, fatigue-and-frustration-driven headache was making her more irritable every second. In fact, although she would not share the information with Chris Hall no matter what, the lost cultures were not the disaster they might have been—at least not yet. Because of BART, she had become nearly paranoid about backing up even the most trivial work. She had sent duplicates of everything to Ken Mulholland, an old friend at the CDC lab in Atlanta. At last check, a week or so ago, he had found nothing.

“I hope the others are as understanding as you are,” Chris said.

“Oh, I’m sure they will be. Do you have the log book of the cultures you were running for me?”

He handed over a standard, cardboard-bound lab notebook, with R. Suarez written on the cover. Rosa opened her briefcase and laid the notebook on top of Connie Hidalgo’s diary. After some Tylenol and a nap, the diary would be her next project.

“Did I mention that I was just beginning to see something in a couple of your bottles?” Chris asked.

“No. No, you didn’t.”

“I marked the specimens with stars in the margin of the log book, so I could check them a little more frequently.
It was nothing definite, mind you; just the slight rattiness of the tissue sheet that we sometimes see during early infection. We see the same sort of changes when the tissue cells themselves are running out of gas. That’s when we know we need to thaw out a new batch.”

“Thank you, Chris. I’ll break the code when I get back to my room and see which specimens were in those bottles.”

“If those cultures
were
starting to grow something—and I really doubt they were—whatever it was would be the slowest-growing virus I’ve ever encountered.”

“It’s probably nothing. I appreciate your telling me, Chris. And also how cooperative you’ve been. I’ll drop a note to Dr. Blankenship and tell him the same thing.”

“Thanks. After this disaster, I’ll need it.”

Rosa fished two Extra-Strength Tylenols from her purse, swallowed them with a drink from one of MCB’s ubiquitous tepid-water bubblers, and left the hospital. The steamy afternoon heat radiating up from the pavement and off the tree trunks reminded her of home. It also reminded her that no one—not her boss, not her children, not her husband—had wanted her to return to Boston. No one except Rosa herself. Now, despite the contamination of the tissue cultures, she sensed that maybe, just maybe, her hard work was beginning to pay off.

A previously unexamined diary and a log book containing possibly positive cultures
. Not much, but certainly more than she had just a few hours ago.

By the time she reached her bed and breakfast, the underarms and neckline of her dress were soaked. She handled the obligatory conversation and progress report to Mrs. Frumanian with even terser responses than usual. Then she trudged up the stairs to her room, grateful that her landlady hadn’t taken the small window fan away.

After changing into shorts and a T-shirt, Rosa
checked the coded cultures Chris Hall had starred. There were two of them—172A and 172B—both grown in fibrocyte cell tissue culture. The code key, which she kept inside one of her textbooks, identified the source of both specimens as serum taken from what little remained of Lisa Grayson’s blood work. Rosa skimmed through the rest of the log book and then called Ken Mulholland in Atlanta. The virologist reported no growth of any of the specimens she had sent, in fibrocytes or any other cell type.
Dead end
.

Rosa put her feet up, closed her eyes, and tried to nap as she had planned. Within minutes she gave up. There would be plenty of time to sleep when this whole affair was over. She set a pen and legal pad on the bed beside her, worked her large spectacles back onto the still-reddened bridge of her nose, and opened Constanza Hidalgo’s diary.

The journal, a five-year record, had entries nearly every day. Some of them were just a few words long. Some were typed pages stapled to the appropriate date. A few of the names were initials only, or some other kind of shorthand. And throughout the pages there were drawings, faces mostly—small sketches that were really quite good.

The entries began on Connie’s seventeenth birthday and ended near her twenty-second. The tone of the first entry made it sound as if a similar volume had preceded this one. Immediately Rosa was immersed in the sad life and painful fantasies of a shy, ill-educated girl, living with a mother who had little time for her and a stepfather who, for years, touched her far too often and much too intimately. As she read along, Rosa vowed to keep the diary from Maria Barahona at all costs. Somehow, Connie had managed to fend off most of Fredy Barahona’s advances. And by her twentieth birthday, there was no further mention of them. If Maria had not learned any of this while Connie was alive, there was no reason she should be exposed to such anguish now.

Visits to various clinics at the Medical Center of Boston were mentioned from time to time. There were, as Maria Barahona had related, occasional sore throats and headaches. There was also one episode of gonorrhea at age eighteen. It was treated in the emergency room, and gotten from someone named T.G. who “lied to me when he said he loved me, but I knew he was lying. Oh well,” Connie had written at the bottom of that entry, “it was fun while it lasted. And beggars can’t be choosers.”

Rosa was again beginning to tire, and was about to set the diary aside when she noticed another mention of a visit to MCB. This one occurred when Connie was nineteen.

Suddenly Rosa was wide awake. Many more visits to the clinic to see Dr. S. followed. Several times there was mention of a diet powder of some kind. And most impressively, there was weight loss. Over just four months, Connie Hidalgo dropped nearly fifty pounds! In all, she lost seventy over about six months, finishing at 108. That remarkable transformation was, in and of itself, impressive. But even more intriguing to Rosa was the realization that the date of Connie’s initial visit with Dr. S., and the ones that followed it, fell within the pages missing from her hospital record. There was nothing beyond the missing pages that connected Connie’s visits to Dr. S.—whoever he was—with her violent death. But
if there was such a connection, Rosa had no doubt she would find it.

She was working her way through the rest of the diary when Ken Mulholland called from Atlanta.

“Rosa, I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said. “You sounded bushed before.”

“I was, Ken, but I’m perking up. Down one minute, up the next. You know how it is with us old ladies.”

“We should all be old like you are. Listen, Rosa, after we talked, I went back and ran a quick spectro on a couple of the specimens you mentioned. One of them—just one—has a funny piece of DNA floating around. My tech is checking it again now. I think it might be viral, but the tissue culture seems clean, and there’s just not enough of the stuff present to tell. Is there any way you can get me some more specimen?”

“From the same patient, maybe,” Rosa said. “But she was sick at the time that serum was obtained, and she’s not sick now.”

“I see.”

“Listen, the best I can do is convalescent serum, so that’s what I’ll try for. But I’m not at all sure I can get that either. The patient in question is suing one of the doctors at this hospital for malpractice. She may not be too anxious to cooperate at this point.”

“What about the other patients with the same problem?”

“They’re both dead.”

“And there are no other cases?”

“Nope,” Rosa said. She hesitated, and then added, “At least not yet there aren’t.”

•  •  •

By the time Matt returned her call, Sarah was home, curled up on the sofa, wearing her most comfortable, torn, unprofessional pair of jeans and working on her second glass of Chardonnay. She had filed reports with hospital security and the police, and left a note for Glenn
Paris, who was away at some sort of meeting. Then she signed out to the resident on call and accepted a ride home from the OB/Gyn unit secretary. The dictation, she decided, could wait.

“Any idea who could have done it?” Matt asked after she had sketched the events of the past few hours.

“Nobody. Everybody. Those three girls have friends and relatives. To say nothing of the everyday, run-of-the-mill nutcakes, who see some thirty-second news clip on TV and become instant crusaders. I’m not a cynic, Matt, but I do know that people can be very ugly.”

“Amen to that. You said you’ve made a decision about the case. Want to tell me over the phone or in person?”

Sarah had hoped the question would be asked and had already decided on her response.

“Would you like to come over here?” she asked. “I enjoy cooking and almost never get to do it anymore. There’s enough stuff here to put some sort of meal together provided you’re not too picky. And you can do your part by keeping me from finishing this bottle of Chardonnay by myself.”

“Deal. I can be there in half an hour. Do you want to give me a hint as to what you’ve decided?”

“I think I can do better than that,” she said. “I can tell you that I’ve decided that I can’t agree to settle this case under any circumstances.”

“You know, Matt, I thought I knew what I had to do when I left you this afternoon,” Sarah said. “Then, the moment I saw what they’d done to my bike, I was sure.”

They sat on her sofa, drinking decaf and eating what remained of a Sara Lee pound cake she had found in the recesses of her freezer. Dinner—mushroom chicken crêpes and some stir-fried vegetables—had gone over reasonably well. Still, she was not nearly as relaxed as she would have liked. The incident at the hospital was one reason, of course. But another was that Matt was the
first man she had been alone with in her place in almost two years.

“Listen, whatever you say is what we’re going to do,” he said.

If he was upset by her decision to go against his recommendation, he hid it well.

“I’m terrified by what might happen in court, Matt,” she went on. “But settling with no actual finding won’t do anything to stop the red-paint people. And I don’t intend to spend my life running from them or being harassed by them. If I’m innocent, they’ve got to know it. And if I’m guilty,
I’ve
got to know it. Believe me, I won’t fall apart, even if the worst happens, even if Willis Grayson gets his wish and I get sent to prison. I believe in a Higher Power, and I believe She has a plan for me. So there you have it.”

“There I have it,” he said. “Well, for what it’s worth, I suspected you would decide to push forward. In fact, after I dropped you off, I started scheduling depositions—beginning as soon as possible with your old pal Ettinger. I can promise you one thing, Mallon is in for a hell of a fight.”

“And I’m glad you’re representing me,” Sarah said.

“There is one problem, though. Something I need your help with.”

“Just name it.”

He stirred uncomfortably. Then suddenly he turned to her and took both her hands in his. “Sarah, we can’t have anything happen between us—at least not until this case is over. I … dammit, I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. You’ve got to stop looking at me like that.”

Sarah locked her fingers in his. His face—his kind, wonderful face—was saying everything she needed to know about what he was feeling for her.

“I’d like to help you out,” she managed, “but I have no control over how I feel or how I look at someone.
Just like you can’t control how you’re looking at me now.”

She ran her tongue slowly over her lips. Matt loosened his collar.

“Hey, I need you to stop doing that before I melt altogether,” he said. “Sarah, listen, I’m working ninety hours a week, I’m lonely as hell, and the truth is, I’m starting to think about you all the time. But if I’m going to continue being your lawyer, this really isn’t a good idea. Lawyers are strongly discouraged from getting romantically involved with clients. It tends to wreak havoc with their professional objectivity. In some states it’s the law now. It may be in Massachusetts before long.”

“I understand.”

“Then you’ll help me out? At least for now? I don’t have a lot of willpower.”

“I’ll think about it. But, Matt, I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself pretty well, and I have no intention of reporting you to the bar no matter what. Besides, what more could a client ask for than to be defended by a lawyer who’s thinking about her all the time?”

“Sarah, I mean it. There are a lot of choices to be made in a case like yours. A lot of decisions. Tonight’s decision you made pretty much on your own. But for others you’ll need an objective, unemotional attorney. If it seems like I’m too wrapped up in you to represent you properly, I’ve got to quit.”

“Wrapped up in me,” she said. “I like the sound of that.… Matt, I’m sorry. Please don’t be upset with me. I understand. Really I do. I’m not trying to cause problems for you. If you need another attorney to help you, then I’m sure you’ll get one. I trust your judgment on that—and mine. My case is important, sure. But take it from someone who’s spent far too much time behind a stethoscope the past few years, so’s this stuff.”

She took his hands in hers. Their eyes met. This time Matt made only the most fleeting attempt to look away. Sarah felt her mouth grow dry. How long had it been
since she had felt like this with a man? Slowly her eyes closed. His hands slid up her arms and drew her toward him. She sensed his head tilt, his lips draw closer. Then her phone began ringing.

Instantly the fragile tension building between them shattered. Matt smiled awkwardly, lowered his hands, and pulled away.

“I have an answering machine,” she said, wishing she could rip the phone from the wall.

“That’s all right. Go ahead and take it,” he replied. “Please. Take it.”