From the Native American point of view, Josh understood, the battle represented racism, land stealing, and slaughter, no different from that practiced by any oppressive outside power. It was not for nothing that the intruders were called colonials. The ugly story of Washington’s land and Cornstalk’s battle could certainly be seen as the triumph of colonialism in its most vicious form, with the beloved Father of the Country merely a thief with an army, not the hero of liberty, democracy and freedom.
But it took some care to delve into that in the pages of the consciously upbeat River Days special section. Imagine trying to explain presenting differing points of view—not to mention the whole notion of Native American political correctness—to his very traditional advertisers.
Josh was still wrestling with his approach when Allison called to suggest that they grab a late lunch at the diner. Josh hesitated for a half-second but he hadn’t eaten all day. Hunger triumphed over orderly copy flow.
He was just leaving when Furbee brought him a one-page fax. Due diligence on the Paddlewheel Project was being accelerated. No reason given. The fax was from Bella Partners.
He could feel Furbee waiting for an explanation but he said nothing. The Paddlewheel Project was the code word he and the Pennsylvania-based chain had given to the proposed purchase of the News. Bella Partners was lined up to provide the financing. He’d kept the planned sale secret from everyone, Furbee included. Now, for an unstated reason, progress on the deal was speeding up. He felt a twinge—seller’s remorse—that he hadn’t expected.
He stuck the fax in his pocket and, feeling guilty for not being forthright with the loyal Furbee, headed out the door.
Outside, he phoned his contact at the acquiring company but reached only a secretary with a message: Bella was offering him a $250,000 premium if the sale could close within the week. He had no notion of why. The whole idea was mind-blowing, not just the cash. So many details still needed to be taken care of, starting with informing his staff. He’d have to drop everything else and work around the clock. Even then, closing in a week might not be doable.
He was still distracted when he arrived at the diner. Allison waited in a booth. She had already ordered him iced tea and a salad.
“I thought we should take stock of where we are, figure out what’s next.”
Josh tossed his salad with vinaigrette dressing. “Go ahead.”
“Spike needs continued treatment but he’s gone missing. We know Candi Cloninger gave up her tongue stud because we found it at Dunn’s house. But she still may need treatment and she’s skipped, too.”
“Probably along with her boyfriend.”
“I hate just relying on the chief. He’s overwhelmed. Isn’t there something else we can do?”
“Maybe, but that needs to wait a while. I have to figure out what’s going on with . . .” He caught himself. “I got the River Days section, then Katie comes home.”
Allison touched his hand. “I’m up to my neck in alligators, too. But nothing like that. That reminds me.” She shuffled through her purse. “I hate to add to your ‘to do’ list but there’s some issue with your insurance company about Katie’s case. Expect a call from them.”
She handed a note to Josh. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding. Happens all the time.”
Josh sighed. Now he needed to speak with the insurance company and the newspaper’s prospective buyers once he got back to the office.
Furbee handed him a message as he walked in. He recognized the number as the Columbus hospital but not the name—Mrs. Dunlap.
Despite repeated exposure to life’s unpredictability, Josh still worried about things that hadn’t happened yet. He imagined that Pepper had learned he was disobeying doctor’s orders by allowing Katie to go to camp. His heart pounded as he punched the hospital key on his speed dial.
Mrs. Dunlap got right to the point. “We need a credit card before we can accept your daughter.”
He was relieved that Mrs. Dunlap was in finance, not healthcare. “How much?” he asked.
“It should be able to handle a twenty-five thousand dollar charge. MasterCard, Discover, American Express or Visa.”
“You mean a twenty-five hundred.”
“Twenty-five thousand,” Mrs. Dunlap snipped.
“But I’ve got insurance.” He could hear her keyboard clicking. Josh tried to keep his cool.
“You’ve got insurance for amputation and chemotherapy. If you want leg-saving procedures, that’s on you. Twenty-five thousand won’t cover the difference but it’ll get us started. The good news is, you still get the negotiated rate. And you won’t need to spend it if they can’t save the leg. MasterCard, Discover, American Express or Visa?”
Josh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is outrageous!” he protested. “It’s pure greed!”
Josh heard more keyboard clicking. “Mr. Gibbs, it’s not like we haven’t been generous with you. Your wife’s treatment alone cost more than one hundred thousand dollars.”
“How was this decided?” Josh demanded.
“All I know is what it says here.”
Josh was finding it hard to breathe. “Then Mrs. Dunlap,” he managed, “You don’t know shit.”
He heard her gasp just before his hand piece hit the cradle. He dialed Dr. Pepper. Amazingly, the doctor answered.
“There’s been a screw-up,” Josh said, trying to be calm. “They have Katie down for an amputation.”
“I was getting ready to call you. Your health insurance company says they’ll pay for everything—medications, outpatient, rehab—but only if you elect amputation followed by chemo. Surgery, two-terms of chemo and reconstruction of the limb all would involve a very prolonged hospital stay and won’t be covered.”
Josh stood up from his chair. He felt the blood rise up his neck. “On what damn basis?” he yelled into the phone.
“Their position isn’t unreasonable. There are no guarantees that chemo and bone grafts will work. Without amputation, the chance of the cancer returning will always exist. If things don’t go well, you could be looking at chasing this thing around for years. It isn’t that the insurance company is right and you’re wrong. There are no guarantees, only odds.”
“What are the odds of success with a chemo and bone graft, something that would save her leg?”
“Eighty percent, at least for the short-term. Long-term, it’s hard to tell.”
Josh swallowed hard. “Twenty percent failure?”
“The wrong decision could kill her. Amputation is a sure cure. And the cost difference for you is enormous. Chemo followed by a series of bone grafts is something few people could pay for on their own. Any hospital that would undertake the procedure on the underinsured would require the money up-front first.”
Josh didn’t even try to restrain himself. “I want one of those insurance company assholes to come down here and look my daughter in the eye and tell her they want to cut off her leg—because their CEO has decided their shareholders need a better return.”
“We could appeal,” Pepper said. “But I wouldn’t expect—”
“Put away your hacksaw, Pepper. My daughter’s keeping her leg even if I have to pay for it myself.”
He was still reeling when Furbee dropped off a postcard with the address in his own hand-writing.
“Dear Dad,” it read. “Having fun. Camp is cool. Please send a care package. Love, Katie.” A smiley face and a P.S. followed. “Scored three goals.”
He closed his eyes and imagined he had been there to see them, as he had so often before—Katie using a burst of speed to dart through the defense and a head fake to freeze the goalie; Katie employing her height and spring to rise above the defenders and head in a game-winner; Katie taking aim at the top right corner and unleashing a rocket from forty feet out with that incredibly powerful leg. That leg that the insurance company
wanted to dispose of, along with their liability.
He became aware of how much he missed his daughter, how much she was the focus of his life. He felt lost without her.
He looked at his watch. Katie and the other campers would be back in their lodge for “quiet time” before afternoon electives. She had a cell phone for emergencies but, in general, campers were prohibited from using them. Impulsively, he picked up the phone and dialed the camp’s main number. He was switched to the lodge. A counselor located his daughter.
“Hi, Dad. What’s up?”
His spirits lifted immediately. “Hi, sweetheart. I just wanted to hear your voice. How are you?”
“Great. Did you get my postcard?”
“I did. Congratulations on the three goals.”
“Thanks. Could you make sure there are some energy bars in my next care package? My friend Pam ate half the ones I brought with me. Hide them. They don’t like parents sending food.”
Josh smiled. “Will do. How’s your leg?’
“About the same. Maybe a little sore.”
Alarm crept into his gut. “It’s worse?”
“Not really worse. I can play fine.”
She said she had selected pottery as her elective and that the tennis racquet he had insisted she bring had indeed come in handy—when her lodge mates had used it to capture a mouse.
Josh was slightly bothered that she sounded so excited about that evening’s big Sadie Hawkins Day dance and not at all surprised to hear that her account at the camp store needed replenishing.
He felt let down when Katie said she had to leave for pottery but overall, Josh felt relieved. His daughter sounded good.
He was just hanging up when Furbee returned with the rest of the mail.
“Maude,” he said. “I can’t envision her with one leg.”
“Katie’s strong,” she said gently. “She got through the death of her mother. She’ll get through this.”
Katie was a remarkable girl. Perhaps his worries were not so much for Katie herself, but for how others would react to her. Would they regard her with pity? Would they look at her in a wheelchair or with shiny permanent crutches and assume she was mentally handicapped, too? Would someone want her as his wife? Would someone other than her father fully love her?
“She loves soccer with a passion. She’s phenomenal, Maude, a level above everybody out there. Sharon always brought her birth certificates to games because her coach would have to prove Katie wasn’t older than the other kids. Soccer saved her after Sharon died. She lives for it. They can’t take that away from her. Whatever I have to do, she’ll keep that leg.”
“That’s the spirit.” She picked up a business card from the corner of his desk. “Hmm . . . I wonder if there’s anything Congressman Dorn could do?”
Josh recalled Dorn’s vague offer to be of help. Why hadn’t he jumped on it immediately?
His reluctance started with the credo that is hard-wired into every self-respecting newspaper editor: never accept a favor from someone you might have to write about because it will cause your editorial objectivity to be questioned.
Dorn’s offer could be viewed as an attempt to curry favor with a newspaper editor whose editorial endorsement the congressman was seeking. If Josh accepted it and it became known, readers would perceive him as beholden to the congressman. Anything the Winston News ever wrote about Dorn would be viewed skeptically.
But this was his daughter they were talking about. Her life. He could make the argument that Dorn’s offer was simply service to a constituent, something the congressman might have done for any citizen of West Virginia.
This was a case of a bureaucratic, uncaring agency being forced to do the right thing—placing the needs of the patient before those of the stockholders. Should Katie be denied the congressman’s intervention simply because she had the bad luck to have a newspaper editor for a father? This wasn’t favor-seeking, it was justice.
In his mind’s eye, he watched Katie scoring her three goals. He’d already sacrificed his integrity in the minds of some people. If additional questions about his commitment to ethical journalism were the price of saving Katie’s leg, then so be it. He was a short-timer in Winston anyway.
“I’ll think about that,” he said. He took the card from Furbee and put it in his pocket.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Stars still twinkled in the royal blue blanket of the western sky as Allison left her condo. Streetlights dimmed and snapped off in succession as she drove to the clinic calculating the timeline for the umpteenth time.
MediScan had made their regular pickup Monday morning. Given her instructions to make it a rush job, she presumed the lab had placed her first round of swabs in a growth medium Monday night. Forty-eight hours to grow a staph culture meant results by Wednesday night and, she hoped, full reports in the clinic drop box this morning. She was not disappointed.
She flicked on the fluorescent lights, plopped into the chair at Coretha’s desk and opened the padded white envelope. It held a sealed, sterile baggie with Scruggs’s nipple ring, similar bags with the test jewelry from Spike and from Lil’ Bob and five file folders—one each with test results for Faggart, Scruggs, Scruggs’s nipple ring, and each of the two sets of test jewelry.
Faggart’s file was on top. Allison picked it up as if it were a basket hiding a cobra.
The words sprang from the top of the page, spelling out her worst fear: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. MRSA. It was the flesh-eating superbug which had consumed most of Wanda Faggart’s toe. Her worst-case outcome.
Her first obligation was notifying her patients. All would require further treatment. She was in touch with Faggart and Scruggs but she suspected Spike would be difficult to find following his rampage at Darryl’s. Thankfully, she’d suspected MRSA early and had started him on therapy. Pringle and Cloninger had had no good treatment and she had no idea where they were. She’d need to redouble her efforts to find them.
Next was alerting the state and county health departments. Physicians and healthcare facilities statewide would have to be instructed to watch for MRSA outbreaks. Each case would have to be catalogued and its origin identified so the source of the infection could be eliminated. It was a monumental task.
She’d also have to ask for extra help for Winston—more medicine, more lab kits and, at least during the festival, more physicians. She had no doubt MRSA had already infected some people with whom her patients had had close contact, including some who had bought jewelry from Spike. A portion would already be noticing a rash. All would need to be tested and treated. There was no time to waste. MRSA infections could spread exponentially.
She opened Scruggs’s folder. Her plans went out the window. MRSA was not mentioned. Instead, her initial diagnosis had been correct. Scruggs was infected with a routine, highly treatable strain of staphylococcus. The report on Scruggs’s nipple ring said it was positive for the same strain of bacteria infecting its owner. Allison was sure there had to be a mistake.
The reports on the samples of jewelry from Lil’ Bob and Spike deepened the mystery. None tested positive for any form of harmful bacteria, not ordinary staph, not MRSA. The test jewelry was disease-free.
Allison was baffled. If the lab was correct, all of her theories were wrong. She left a note for Coretha to call Faggart in for MRSA treatment and moved to her office where she considered the results again.
She started by listing the unexplained tissue death cases: Pringle. Scruggs. Cloninger. Faggart. Spike. Although Spike’s tissue tests wouldn’t be back for another day, she was confident that he suffered from an infection along with the others. What she didn’t know was whether infection or tissue death had come first.
The fact that two patients worked at the Sternwheeler had initially led her to suspect patient proximity as a factor—her patients had been in contact and developed a
common infection somehow. But now that theory was shot. Scruggs hadn’t been to the Sternwheeler in years. Moreover, he didn’t have the same kind of infection as Faggart. That meant no bug had passed between them.
In addition to having infections, all her tissue death patients wore jewelry in the area of the infection and tissue death. That had led to her second theory—that her patients had been infected through jewelry that had been contaminated with bacteria and that the surrounding tissue had died as a result. But that theory had taken a hit when the jewelry samples she bought from Spike and Lil’ Bob proved to be bacteria-free.
Nothing made sense. Was it possible that the lab was mistaken? She called MediScan as soon as the place opened. After a few botched transfers, she reached the pathologist who had analyzed the samples.
“I don’t understand how this could be,” she said. “I’ve had zero cases of tissue death in four years of practicing here and suddenly I have four or five in a few days. These lab results tell me they’re unrelated but there’s got to be a ground zero for all this.”
“Can’t be. One of the infections is a MRSA strain we see in hospitals. The other is garden-variety staph. That’s assuming the swabs you sent me were good. We have to work with what we get.”
Allison reviewed the procedures she’d followed in collecting the samples. She’d been careful. She was positive there’d been no lapses.
“Darn!” she muttered.
“Why darn? Be happy you’re only looking at one MRSA case and not an epidemic.”
“I suppose so,” Allison said. “But what am I looking at?”
“Two different infections not caused by bacteria on jewelry.”
“But there was staph on the nipple ring from Scruggs.”
“It came from the wound to the ring, not the other way around.”
“So no possible connection between all these cases?”
“Anything’s possible but I’d put my money on coincidence.”
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