“Hot date?” I ask. His frown grows significantly deeper.
“My sister’s in town. She’s supposed to be crashing at my apartment, but if she can’t get in…”
He looks pissed. Everyone is pissed. The patients, security, the nurses, the other doctors. Me. I’m pissed that something so absolutely and categorically unheard of would happen on my very first day back at work. Like I haven’t had enough drama over the past few weeks. “Sorry, Ol. Maybe she can book into a hotel for the night?”
Oliver scoffs at that. “You’ve clearly never met my sister. Hey.” He shoves an elbow into my ribs. “There’s Bochowitz.”
Sure enough, Bochowitz’s half-bald head, complete with wispy tufts of white hair rimming his skull, is visible across the emergency room. His lumbering, slightly off-kilter gait is bringing him straight for us. Bochowitz and I have a bit of a soft spot for one another; he taught me so much when I used to go and visit him down in the very bowels of the hospital, where the morgue is situated. And in return I used to keep him permanently stocked in nicotine replacement patches. If I didn’t bring him the patches, he’d be smoking a pack a day at least. The man’s usually obscenely happy, but today he gives me a grim smile as he reaches us.
He gets right to it. “It’s not a contagion. There was a laceration to the dermis at the back of her neck. That looks like the point of entry. There’s no evidence of any poison in her system whatsoever, but her symptoms before death indicate she was poisoned.”
“So what, it’s vanished from her body?” Oliver asks. He sounds a little disbelieving, like he’s been waiting for it to be Sarin or something really nasty. Something we can all get good and worried about. Dr. Bochowitz exhales impatiently.
“No. I’m saying I haven’t found it yet. It’s something highly sophisticated. Something that’s going to take longer than three hours to detect, Dr. Massey.”
“So we can open up the hospital again, then?”
“We can, but Chief Allison won’t. Not until I can figure out exactly what this is. Apparently it would be bad for relations if we were seen to be releasing patients without ascertaining the exact cause of Nanette’s death.” Most pathologists would refer to a patient as Ms. Richards, or something a little more formal, anyway, but not Bochowitz. She’s been Nannette to him ever since she was wheeled into his morgue. The way he talks to deceased patients used to freak me out just like it freaks everyone else in the hospital out, but I quickly realized that he doesn’t do it because he’s crazy. He does it as a kindness, so that when the bodies of the dead undergo their final, most invasive medical examination, they aren’t left alone with a stranger. They’re left to go through it with a friend. That was the first thing that made me love the man.
“The EMT is recovering,” Bochowitz continues, “so she obviously only came into contact with a negligible amount of the toxin, and that was through direct contact. Those of you who did touch the patient should have a blood test just to be sure, but I’m assuming you would have fallen sick and died by now if you were going to.”
Oliver shoves his hands into his pockets, raising his eyebrows at the mortician. “You’re a ray of sunshine, Bochowitz. Thank you for brightening my day.” He hurries off down the hallway toward the canteen, trying not to look like a man who is terrified of needles and is running from the prospect. Which is exactly what he is.
“I’ll take your blood for you if you like?” Dr. Bochowitz offers.
“Sure.” I follow him into an examination room, my body relaxing now that the threat of imminent death is off the table. Though I tense up pretty quickly when I see the look of concern on Bochwitz’s face. His expression, usually serene and unaffected by much, is drawn into a contemplative frown. He folds his arms across his chest as soon as I’ve sat down.
“What? What is it?”
“Did you get a good look at the girl’s abdomen?”
“What do you mean? I saw the blisters on her ribcage and I raised the alarm.”
“Nannette had something written on her side. I found it when I carried out the autopsy.”
A sinking feeling of dread twists through me. This something that he’s found written on her can’t possibly be good if he’s this stern about it. Dr. Bochowitz retrieves his cell phone from his pocket and tampers with the buttons until he finds what he’s looking for. He holds out the device for me to see and suddenly it feels like my whole stomach is trying to escape my body via my mouth.
Property of Dr. Sloane Romera.