by Robin Cook
The women had decided it best if they told Carlton the whole story from the egg donation onward. He’d listened with rapt attention and without interrupting until they got to the part where they got jobs at the Wingate with assumed names and disguises.
“Wait a second!” Carlton had asked. He’d looked at Deborah. “Is that why you bleached your hair, and you’re wearing that wild, skimpy dress?”
“I hadn’t thought you’d noticed,” Deborah had said, resulting in a suppressed chortle from Carlton as if not having noticed would have been impossible. At that point Joanna had asked Carlton what he thought of her disguise. To Joanna’s chagrin he’d asked, “What disguise?”
The only part of the whole story that had truly captured Carl-ton’s interest was the egg quandary. When he learned the reputed numbers of eggs involved, his response, like Deborah’s, was to suspect that the Wingate had developed a successful ovarian tissue culture technique along with the ability to maturate extremely immature oocytes. He had told the women that such an advance would be an exciting scientific development.
When the women had revealed that the reason they were there was to get an ultrasound on Joanna for fear she’d been shorn of one of her ovaries, he’d agreed to see what he could do and had made some calls. The fact that he’d not had more of an emotional reaction was a surprise to both women.
“I don’t want to speak out of school,” Deborah said as she and Joanna watched Carlton talking on the phone. “But I’m even gladder now than I was before that you’re not still engaged to that man.”
“You’re not speaking out of school,” Joanna assured her.
Carlton finished his conversation, hung up the phone and started back. As he approached, he flashed a thumbs-up sign. “It’s a go!” he said, reaching the table. He made it a point not to sit down. “That was one of the radiology residents who is on call. She’s arranged to do the ultrasound.”
“When?” Deborah asked.
“Right now!” Carlton said. “The machine’s all fired up and ready to rumble.”
The two women got to their feet and gathered their belongings.
“I’ve never had an ultrasound,” Joanna said. “Is this going to be an ordeal? I’m sure I don’t have to remind either one of you, I hate needles.”
“You’re not going to mind it at all,” Carlton assured her. “There are no needles involved. The worst part is the gel, but that’s only because it’s a bit messy. The good part is that it is water-soluble.”
They crowded into the elevator and rose up to the radiology floor. Carlton held the door to allow them to exit and pointed in the proper direction down the hall. After making a series of turns in the mazelike department, they came to the ultrasound unit. The waiting room was deserted. A janitor with a power buffer was doing the floor.
“Should I wait out here?” Deborah questioned.
“No, not at all,” Carlton said. “The more the merrier.”
He led them back behind the check-in desk into a hall with numerous doors lining both sides. Each door opened into a separate, unoccupied, and darkened ultrasound unit. The women followed Carlton almost to the hall’s end where a light spilled out from one of the side rooms.
Inside, a woman in a short white coat stood up and introduced herself before Carlton could do the honors. Her name was Dr. Shirley Oaks. She had bobbed hair not too dissimilar from Joanna’s both in style and color. In contrast to Carlton she was sympathetic about the potentially missing ovary and said so.
Joanna thanked her but then cast a concerned look at Carlton. She’d urged him to be as discreet as possible.
“I didn’t tell the whole story,” Carlton said in his defense. “But I had to say what we were looking for.”
“Nor do I want to know the whole story,” Shirley said. She patted the ultrasound couch to encourage Joanna to climb onto it. She’d covered it with fresh paper from a roll of paper at the head. “We’ve got to be expeditious about this,” she added. “I’ve got another procedure I was about to do, plus I could get called away for an emergency at any moment.”
Joanna started to comply but Shirley restrained her. “It might make it considerably easier if you slip off your skirt and unbutton your blouse.”
“Sure,” Joanna said.
“I’ll wait outside and give you some privacy,” Carlton said.
“It’s not necessary on my behalf,” Joanna said as she slipped out of her skirt and passed it into Deborah’s waiting hands. “There’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
Joanna climbed up onto the couch and Shirley exposed her lower abdomen by pushing away her shirttails and lowering the top edge of her panties. The three tiny puncture sites from the egg retrieval laparotomy were just barely visible.
“Do these scars appear normal for a laparotomy?” Shirley asked Carlton as she prepared to put on the ultrasound gel.
Carlton bent over and took a closer look. “They sure do. They’re the usual size, and they’ve healed normally.”
“Could an ovary be delivered through such a small incision?” Shirley asked.
“Certainly,” Carlton said. “Young, healthy skin like Joanna’s is surprisingly elastic. It wouldn’t be any problem at all.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Joanna said.
“Of course,” Shirley agreed. She squirted out a generous dollop of the gel onto Joanna’s bare abdomen.
“Ahhh! That’s cold!” Joanna cried.
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Shirley said. “I forgot we usually warm this stuff, or at least the nurses and the technicians do.”
Shirley turned the lights out with a foot pedal and applied the probe to Joanna’s abdomen. The monitor was on an arm, and it was positioned so that everyone could see, including Joanna.
“Okay, there we go!” Shirley said, speaking to herself. “There’s the uterus. It looks good and completely normal.”
Both Joanna and Deborah marveled how anyone could make anything out of the squiggly white lines on a dark background.
“Now we’ll move laterally,” Shirley said. “We can see the ligaments and the tubes and there! There’s the left ovary.”
“I see it,” Carlton said. “It looks normal.”
“Very normal,” Shirley said. “Now let’s move back to the uterus. That’s good! Now to the right.”
Joanna kept watching the screen, hoping to see something she could say she recognized, but in truth she knew little about her inner workings, and she preferred it that way as long as everything functioned normally.
Shirley moved the ultrasound probe around in a tight circle in Joanna’s right lower abdomen. Then she began to press in on it to the point of discomfort.
“Ah,” Joanna complained. “That’s starting to hurt!”
“Just a second more,” Shirley said. Then she stopped and straightened up and looked at Carlton. “Well, as near as I can tell the right ovary is not there.”
“It couldn’t be retroflexed or anything like that?” Carlton asked.
“It’s not there,” Shirley said. “I’d be willing to put money on it.”
“Is it all right if I get up?” Joanna asked.
“Oh, of course,” Shirley said. She gave Joanna some tissues to help wipe up the gel from her abdomen. Shirley lent a hand as well.
Joanna slid off the couch and buttoned her blouse.
“What are the chances that Joanna only had one ovary to begin with?” Deborah asked.
“That’s not a bad question,” Carlton said. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Call one of the gyn residents,” Shirley suggested. “They should know.”
“Good idea,” Carlton said.
“If I can help any more, give me a buzz,” Shirley said. “I’ve got to go.”
The group thanked the radiology resident, who then left. Joanna grabbed her skirt and shook out the wrinkles.
“Come out to the main desk when you are ready,” Carlton said. “I’ll page the gyn resident from out there.” He
stepped out into the corridor and disappeared down the hall.
“Well, our worst fears have been corroborated,” Deborah said. She held Joanna’s arm while Joanna stepped into her skirt.
Now that she was alone with Deborah, Joanna felt a surge of emotion and even suffered some tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. “I don’t know why I’m crying now,” she said with a short, emotional laugh. “I guess it’s just that I’ve had a long, intimate relationship with that ovary, and I didn’t even know she was gone.”
Deborah smiled. “I’m impressed you can find humor in this!”
“As tired as I am, laughing seems easier than crying.”
“Well, I’m mad!” Deborah said. “The nerve of Paul Saunders and Sheila Donaldson and whoever else is in on all this.” Using her fingers to count, she said: “Consider what they are apparently doing: one, stealing ovaries from unsuspecting women; two, cloning themselves to beat the band; three, impregnating poor Nicaraguan women and aborting them for eggs. And that’s only what we suspect! We have to do something about this.”
Joanna adjusted her skirt and her blouse and slipped into her shoes. “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to go home and go to bed. After ten or eleven hours of sleep, maybe I’ll be able to think up something appropriate for the Wingate Clinic.”
“Do you know what I think we should do?” Deborah said.
Joanna picked up her purse. She was in no mood to play Deborah’s game and didn’t respond. Instead she walked out of the room.
Deborah followed. “I’ll tell you what we should do, even if you don’t want to hear it. I think we should go back out there to the Wingate Clinic tonight and see what’s in that egg room. There could very well be incriminating evidence in there. Hell, we might even find your ovary. And if that doesn’t work, we can get you back into the server room and get the research files. At this time of night we won’t have to contend with Randy Porter.”
Joanna stopped and turned around. “That’s the craziest idea I’ve heard in a long time. Why in heaven’s name would we go back out there tonight!”
“Because we can!”
“You must be just as tired as I am. What kind of answer is that?”
“We still have access cards,” Deborah explained. “We left early today, and I’m sure they discovered it, so we’re out of jobs. But knowing bureaucracies, the cards are probably still operative. That will change tomorrow, but I’d be awfully surprised if they didn’t work tonight. And we still have Spencer’s card, and that’s not going to stay good forever, either. My only point is that if we don’t go out there sooner there probably won’t be a later. We’ve got this narrow window of opportunity that we have to take advantage of.”
“I suppose you have a point,” Joanna said wearily. “But we’re both way too tired.” She turned around and continued down the hallway. Deborah followed at her heels, trying to convince her they had a moral responsibility. When they emerged into the waiting area they were still arguing. Carlton had to quiet them so he could hear while he was on the phone.
“What are you women arguing about?” he asked when his call was completed. Joanna and Deborah were glaring at one another.
“She’s trying to talk me into going back to the Wingate Clinic tonight,” Joanna explained. “She wants to break into what she calls the egg room, and she wants me to hack into their research files.”
“Do you ladies want to hear my opinion?” Carlton asked.
“It depends,” Deborah said. “Are you for or are you against?”
“Against.”
“Then we don’t want to hear it,” Deborah said.
“I’d like to hear it,” Joanna said.
“I don’t think you should break the law any more than you already have,” Carlton said. “You’re lucky to have gotten away with what you did. Let professionals take over. Go to the authorities!”
“Like to whom?” Deborah challenged. “The Bookford police? What are they going to do—shoot themselves in the foot? The FBI? We don’t have any evidence there’s any interstate aspect to all this that would justify them getting a search warrant, and I’m sure Saunders and Donaldson have contingency plans if there are any general inquiries. Medical authorities? They’re not going to do anything because they never have. For them infertility clinics are somehow beyond the pale.”
“What did you find out from the gyn resident?” Joanna asked.
“Congenital absence of one ovary is a rare bird,” Carlton said. “She said she’s never seen it, never heard of it, and never read it, but she thought it could happen.”
“They stole your damn ovary!” Deborah rejoined. “The facts are written on the wall. Hell, I’d think you should be the one trying to talk me into going back out there tonight rather than vice versa.”
“That’s because I apparently have significantly more sense than you do.”
Carlton’s pager went off. In the deserted waiting room it sounded louder than it had in the basement cafeteria. He used the phone directly in front on him.
“I don’t think we should to lose this opportunity,” Deborah persisted.
“All right, I’ll be right down!” Carlton said. He hung up. “Sorry to break up this party, but that was the ER. There’s been a pileup on Storrow Drive, and the ambulances are on their way in.”
Carlton accompanied the women down in the elevator while they kept up their debate in forced whispers in deference to the other passengers. They even persisted quarreling all the way down the main corridor to the front door of the hospital.
“This is where I have to leave you two,” Carlton said, interrupting the women and pointing toward the emergency department. Then, looking at Joanna, he said: “Great to see you. And I’m sorry about that ovary.”
“Thank you for arranging the ultrasound,” Joanna said.
“Glad to be able to help. I’ll call you later.”
“Do that,” Joanna said. She smiled and he did the same. Then he waved self-consciously before disappearing through the swinging doors.
Deborah made the gesture she was sticking her finger down her throat to gag.
“Oh, please!” Joanna said. “He’s not that bad.”
“Says who?” Deborah countered. “ ‘Sorry about that ovary’! What a bird-brained, insensitive thing to say! It’s like you lost your pet turtle and not part of your identity as a woman.”
The two women exited the hospital and headed toward the parking garage. Evening had turned into night and the streetlamps had come on. Approaching ambulance sirens could be heard screaming in the distance.
“Doctors see tragedies more poignant than losing an ovary every day,” Joanna said. “He doesn’t see it in the same way you and I do. Besides, you said yourself one ovary will not physically affect me.”
“But you were his fiancée,” Deborah said. “It’s not like you’re just another patient. But, you know what? Just forget it. He’s your problem, not mine. Let’s get back to the issue at hand. I’m going to go out to the Wingate tonight whether you go or not. I can’t do anything about the computer part, but I can get in that egg room, and if there’s incriminating evidence, I’m going to find it.”
“You’re not going out there by yourself!” Joanna ordered.
“Oh, really?” Deborah questioned superciliously. “What are you going to do, let the air out of my tires or lock me in my bedroom? Because you’re going to have to do one or the other.”
“I cannot believe you are this adamant about such a stupid, idiotic, dim-witted idea of yours.”
“Ah . . .” Deborah cooed sarcastically. “I’m getting the impression you’re sensing my commitment! I’m impressed. Such clairvoyance!”
Feeling irritated with one another and the escalating sharpness of their comments, the women lapsed into silence as they climbed to the proper floor in the hospital’s parking garage, found their car, got in, and drove out.
The silence lasted until they were heading up Mount Vernon Street in si
ght of Louisburg Square. Joanna was the first to speak. “What about a compromise?” she said. “Would you be amenable?”
“I’m listening,” Deborah answered.
“I’ll come with you, but we restrict our sleuthing to the egg room or whatever it turns out to be.”
“What if there’s no good evidence in there about what they’re up to?”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
“What’s wrong with going back into the server room if we’re all the way out there?”
“Because I think Randy Porter will have already made changes in his system, which would mean going back into the server room would be a big risk with a low probability of a payoff. He’ll have detected the hack into the secure files from me downloading them, and he’ll figure out how I did it through the server room console. As soon as he does that, he’ll beef up the security for the server room keyboard. I doubt I’d get into the system.”
“Why didn’t you say this earlier?”
“Because I think going out there is idiotic, plain and simple,” Joanna said. “But I’m not going to let you do it alone even if it is idiotic, just like you wouldn’t let me go out there and get a job by myself. So do we have a compromise, or what?”
“All right, we have a compromise,” Deborah said as she eased into a parking slot at the end of the square. She cursed under her breath because the spot was so narrow she knew she and Joanna were going to have a hard time getting out of the car. The problem was a black van parked where she normally did.
“I’m not going to be able to get out of this car,” Joanna said, eyeing the neighboring vehicle less than five inches away.
“I was afraid of that,” Deborah said. She looked over her shoulder and backed out, giving Joanna the chance to exit unencumbered. Then Deborah eased the car back into the slot but even tighter to the passenger-side vehicle. Opening her door against the pesky black van, she was able to squeeze herself out.