Isolation Ward

by Joshua Spanogle

  “No.”

  “But they have EIS officers in Berkeley and LA—”

  “They didn’t want to touch it either. Besides, Tim wanted someone familiar with the situation back east.”

  “Oh,” she said, unsatisfied, but letting it lie for now. She opened the door to a small, cluttered office. “My kingdom.” Medical journals and files occupied every available surface. I could have been in Verlach’s office back in Baltimore. What is it, I wondered, that makes all public health docs’ offices look the same?

  “Sorry it’s a mess,” she said, clearing magazines from a chair.

  I said, “Not a reflection of your mind, I hope.”

  “My mind is organized better than the Library of Congress. It’s only my office and my life that are disasters.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Not at all. I’m in perfect Zen harmony with the chaos.” She took a seat behind her desk. “So,” she said, “what’s going on?”

  I gave her the précis, omitting, of course, any negative assessment of my own performance.

  “They booted you, hunh?”

  Shut up, Brooke.

  Brooke, I should mention, was in Atlanta when I did my training the year before. She was in her second year at EIS, stationed at CDC’s home offices, and ran one of the workshops for the new recruits. The training felt like a heady boot camp, five grueling weeks in the heat of a Georgia summer. There was a certain amount of bonding that went on in the ranks of the EIS, and Dr. Michaels and I bonded especially well on more than one occasion. We were, as they say, an item, for a couple of weeks anyway. But Brooke put in for an assignment in California, worked at CDC in Berkeley for a while, then took a public health job with Santa Clara County. Ostensibly, she came out here to follow a fiancé who had just taken a junior faculty position at the university. One might also argue that she wanted to be as far away from me as she could. I should write a book: How to Alienate Women.

  I glanced at my watch. “I need to get into the field, Brooke.”

  “So why did you stop by here?”

  “To show my face, let the Health Department know I arrived safely. Everything’s copacetic with me being here?”

  “I called the state health department in Berkeley. They said hell no; then I went down the line to the guys here. They threw up when they heard you were coming.”

  “Thanks.”

  She smiled softly, like she knew she’d crossed the line. “Everything’s perfect. We’re all glad you’re here. Tim made the calls and— Here.” She handed me a piece of paper. It was a memo extending an invitation to me to follow up on the cases in Baltimore. It consisted of exactly three sentences.

  “We’re glad to have you.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Seriously. It’s good to see you.”

  I scanned her face to see if she was telling the truth, but couldn’t figure it. To work, then. I dug into my folder and pulled out Gladys Thomas’s address. “I have the address of the woman I’m supposed to talk to out here. I have reason to believe she might be in an institution or a home affiliated with the state or county.”

  She concentrated on the paper for a moment. “I think it’s a home on the edge of town. A nice one.”

  “Group home for the mentally handicapped?”

  “Yes, Nathaniel. For the mentally handicapped.”

  “Just making sure. How did you know from this address?”

  She reached to a shelf above her desk and pulled down a red accordion folder stuffed to the gills with paper. “One of my jobs here was to evaluate the effectiveness of health education programs in homeless shelters, group homes, things like that.” She began to leaf through the pages, stopped, pulled out a page, and gave it to me. “Plus, I have a photographic memory. You don’t remember that?”

  “I don’t have a photographic memory, so no, I don’t remember.” The form was a long xeroxed thing with various lines filled in with pen. The address, when I finally found it, matched the one John Myers had given me. Santa Ana Services. “Great, Brooke. Thanks.”

  I jotted down the phone number and name of the place. I handed Brooke her page and stood to leave.

  “You don’t want to call first?”

  “No,” I said, “I think I’ll just drop in. I found it’s better to catch them with their pants down.”

  “The mentally handicapped? Same old Nathaniel, still pursuing the low-hanging fruit.”

  “I did it in Atlanta.” Chalk one up for me and the snappy comeback.

  “Be nice. I was lonely and confused. The humidity made me horny.”

  “I could tell. Listen, I’ll call you with what I find. Thanks.”

  “I’ll come along.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “I know I don’t. I’d like to.”

  I sighed. “Brooke, just lend me a parking permit.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The afternoon commute was in full swing, and it took nearly forty minutes to cross town. Brooke sat in the passenger seat flipping the edge of the parking permit.

  “How does it feel to be back?” she asked.

  “I’m not back. I’m here for two days.”

  “That bad, hunh?”

  “No. I love it here. Who could hate this—” I pointed to the scorching fireball of a sun. “I thought it was supposed to be cooler out here.”

  “It’s a dry heat.”

  I looked at her. She was smiling. “Right,” I said.

  The glorious South Bay, ground zero for all the transgressions, mistakes, rejections, and whatever other depressing acts, impressions, and thoughts I’d had in my life. I looked up at the sky, cast gold by the sun. Another shitty day in paradise.

  Brooke directed me to a residential area in the outer ring of the city. The neighborhood was a nice one, and we drove through a corridor of massive oaks and large Victorian houses. I pulled to the curb in front of Santa Ana Services, though there were no markers or signs to tell us this was the place. Generally, the natives are restless about having group homes in their midst, and advertising the presence of one invites too much attention and the occasional rock through the window.

  “This is it,” Brooke said.

  I double-checked the address. It matched.

  Though the car was parked in a perfectly legal spot, I held out my hand for the dearly won parking permit.

  “You don’t need this,” Brooke said.

  “Habit,” I said. “Besides, it reminds me why I let you come along.”

  I took the laminated card from her and hung it from the rearview mirror.

  A petite woman—early middle age, with a nice, round face—opened the door. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt with a sequined bear on it. Brooke and I introduced ourselves.

  “I hope nothing’s wrong.” She had a slight accent. She introduced herself as Rosalinda Lopez, one of the staffers who worked at Santa Ana.

  I told her we needed to talk to Gladys Thomas.

  “Oh, Gladys. Pobrecita . . .” Rosalinda trailed off. “Is something wrong?”

  “I hope not. To make sure, we need to speak with Ms. Thomas. Just ask her a few questions.”

  As if following a script written by her counterparts in Baltimore, Rosalinda began to get suspicious. “What do you need to ask her?”

  “These are questions for Ms. Thomas. Since they involve medical issues, both what I’m going to ask and what she answers is confidential.”

  “What medical issues? I am a nurse, Doctor, and I know about the health of the residents—”

  “Good. Tell me, is Gladys Thomas sick?”

  Rosalinda paused, as if deciding whether to answer that one. “Not for a while, for six months, maybe.”

  “What was the illness six months ago?”

  “Just a bad cold. She was in bed for—”

  “Is she sexually active?”

  A blush started at Rosalinda’s neck. “No, I wouldn’t think she is.”

  “I need to speak with her, Ms. Lopez
.”

  “And I would like to know why.”

  We faced off for a moment—a little battle of will between Rosalinda and Nathaniel. Eventually, the nurse caved. “Come in. I’ll get her.”

  She led us into a carpeted foyer, which gave out to a hallway flanked by a living room and a small office. I could smell dinner being cooked somewhere in back.

  The place was nice. Really. Not as homey as Open Arms in Baltimore, but comfortable. Kind of like a grandmother’s house, with its ticking clocks and oil paintings of fruit. It even had that musty sweet smell. As in Open Arms, Christian paintings and icons dotted the walls. Say what you want about hard-core Christians, but they sure care for a lot of people the rest of society would just as soon forget.

  “Wait here, please.” Rosalinda pointed to the living room.

  “Again,” I said, “because of the nature of the questions, is there a place I can speak with Gladys in private?”

  “Wait here.” She pointed to the other side of the hallway.

  Brooke and I took our seats in the small office, which must have been the nerve center of Santa Ana: filing cabinets, psychology books, a computer sporting a screen saver that said One Day at a Time in gyrating 3-D letters.

  “You’re being kind of brusque with her, aren’t you?” Brooke asked me.

  “I’ve dealt with these people before.”

  “‘These people’? What does that mean?”

  I didn’t answer, because it probably didn’t mean anything other than that I wanted to get the hell out of there, get back in the car, and get on a plane to the East Coast as fast as I could.

  There was a heavy creaking on the steps.

  Rosalinda and a woman I assumed to be Gladys Thomas stepped to the office doorway. Gladys was taller than Rosalinda, and she tried awkwardly and unsuccessfully to hide behind the shorter woman. Her head drooped and she sort of shuffled this way and that. Very shy, maybe.

  Both Brooke and I stood.

  “Gladys, this is—”

  She’d obviously forgotten our names.

  “I’m Dr. McCormick, and this is Dr. Michaels. We want to ask you a few questions.”

  Gladys didn’t respond, just gave a big, world-weary sigh.

  “Go on, honey. Sit in that chair. Answer the doctors’ questions.” Rosalinda pointed Gladys toward an old cloth-upholstered chair, then took a seat herself. She gave me a look and said, “He won’t bite you, will you, Doctor?”

  “I gave up biting years ago.” I smiled, then realized no one else was smiling. I said, “No, Gladys, I don’t bite. Neither does Dr. Michaels.” I smiled again.

  Reluctantly, Gladys Thomas slouched into the office.

  Gladys was tall, five eleven maybe, which probably accounted for her stoop. I’d put her at twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Dark hair, blue eyes. She was pretty. Very pretty, actually, except for the hunch and the facial slackness. I could see why Douglas Buchanan would have been interested.

  I looked at Rosalinda, hoping she’d get the hint and leave. She didn’t. “You don’t mind if I stay,” she said.

  “Yes—”

  Brooke cut in. “In our experience these interviews go much better without family or friends around. If there’s a problem, we’ll be sure to come get you, Nurse Lopez.”

  Rosalinda glared, then stood. “I’ll be across the hall in the living room if you need me.” Good work, Brooke.

  Gladys Thomas stared at the floor and heaved another sigh. I realized then what had set me off when she walked into the room—the slow, lugubrious movements, the frown. I’d seen a lot of this through my med school rotations and through residency. Simply put, the woman was depressed.

  Gladys Thomas sighed again. God, she really did look miserable.

  She snuck a look at me, and our eyes met.

  “Is something wrong, Gladys?” I asked.

  “Hunh? No.”

  “You seem upset.”

  She fidgeted. “No.”

  I scrawled in my notebook, just lines to act like I was writing. I watched Gladys watch my hand.

  “You know, you can tell us if anything is wrong. We’re doctors. We help people.”

  Gladys said nothing, just frowned and didn’t meet my eyes. Brooke frowned, too, though for different reasons. She said, “It’s okay, honey. You can tell us.”

  Gladys scuffed her feet.

  “Gladys,” I said. “Do you have a telephone? A cellular phone that you carry with you?”

  Her eyes cut to the ground and she said, “No.”

  “Do you have a telephone like this one?” I pulled the phone from my pocket and held it for Gladys to see. She shook her head.

  “Do you know someone named Douglas Buchanan?”

  She looked quickly from the floor to me, then back to the floor.

  “Douglas Buchanan,” I said again.

  “I don’t know him.”

  “I think you might know Douglas.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You left a message on his telephone, Gladys.”

  She began to cry softly.

  “Gladys, how did you know Douglas?” She was quiet except for the weeping. “Gladys, who is Casey?” She turned away from me and brought her knees up into the chair. The chair was too small to hold all of her, so the legs kept slipping out and she kept retracting them.

  “Who is Casey?”

  I glanced at Brooke, who shot me a look. She was getting the same vibe I was: this girl was holding a lot inside.

  “Who is Casey?” I said again.

  Gladys looked quickly at me, then back to the floor.

  “Gladys, that’s good. Look at me. Are Casey and Douglas Buchanan the same person?”

  Nothing.

  “Have you ever been to Baltimore? It’s a city on the East Coast. Gladys, have you ever been there?”

  Nothing.

  I reached into my folder and pulled out the picture of Douglas Buchanan—the big black-and-white reproduction that must have been a copy of a copy of something the Baltimore PD got from Jefferson’s files. I stood and held the photo in front of Gladys.

  “Do you know this person?”

  She looked at the picture for a beat, then snatched it from me. Lightly, she ran her fingers across the glossy paper.

  “That’s Douglas,” I said. “You know him, don’t you?”

  Recovering quickly, she said, “I don’t know him.” But she didn’t hand the picture back.

  “He’s dead. The man in the picture is dead.”

  For Gladys Thomas, this was the bomb drop. My words seemed to stun her; her bottom lip quivered.

  “He died two days ago.” I let that sink in. “He’s dead. Do you know what dead is? He’s gone. He’s never coming back.” I don’t think Gladys was listening to me; she just sat there with her mouth open.

  Brooke touched my arm. “Dr. McCormick—”

  I said again, “He’s dead, Gladys.”

  Something in her eyes flickered, and she pulled the picture to her lips and began to sob. “No!”

  “Yes.”

  Brooke gave me a hard look.

  So I let Gladys sob for a moment, then said, “He was hurt, and we want to find who hurt him. We need your help.”

  Mucus and tears flowed over her face, spattering the picture, which was now pressed to her chest and neck. “I love you. I love you,” she sobbed. “Casey, Casey, Casey.”

  I waited for the sobs to subside. They didn’t. Brooke stood up and put her arms around Gladys, who sank into them; the sobs turned to a wail.

  “Shhhh,” Brooke said. Gladys, still gripping the picture, threw her arms around Brooke. I watched, touched. Some primal female bond cutting across IQ points. Gladys howled.

  The door swung open. “Oh my God,” Rosalinda said. “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “It is certainly not okay.” Another scream ripped from Gladys’s lungs. “You have to leave,” Rosalinda said. “Go. Now. Go!”


  “We need to finish this,” I said as Brooke rocked Gladys, trying to console the inconsolable.

  “You cannot come in here and upset—”

  “Frankly, I can.” I walked to the door of the office. Rosalinda shot a look toward Gladys and Brooke, seemed to size up the situation, and decided to leave her charge in the hands of the nice doctor. She turned toward me.

  I opened the door to the hallway and heard a shuffling of feet moving toward the back of the house. So much for confidentiality.

  After the door to the office was closed, Rosalinda asked, “What?”

  “As I said, I work for the Centers for Disease Control—”

  “I know that—”

  “We believe that Gladys was involved somehow with a man in Baltimore who may have been sick with a disease. A very bad disease. The federal government—me—wouldn’t be involved if we weren’t very concerned about this. We’re worried that he may have transmitted the disease—”

  “What do you mean, she was involved with this man?”

  “Romantically.”

  “Who is he?”

  “All we know is that he was from Pennsylvania, lived in Baltimore, and was murdered this week.”

  “What?” Rosalinda’s face froze, and she said something in Spanish. Then she recovered, and began to shake her head. “Doctor, I don’t care about a murdered man in Baltimore. I care about these girls. And that one in there”—she stabbed her finger toward the office—“she’s never been outside of the Bay Area, much less California. Baltimore?”

  “We don’t know how she’s involved, but we called her from back east, and it sounded as if she knew him.”

  “It could have just been a mistake. You could have had the wrong number—”

  “She’s still clutching the picture of him. Look, Ms. Lopez, this disease is dangerous. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t. Two people are dead from it already. All of the sick people so far have been mentally handicapped, and most have had a connection somehow with this man. We’re worried that Gladys might be sick, and that whatever disease is in Baltimore might be here.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Believe it,” I told her. “What is she so upset about?”