Mercy 6

by David Bajo

  Silva positioned herself much like a mourner would onstage, a daughter flung across the body of a mother. Again the patient reached, her palm nearing Silva’s shoulder, before catching herself and gazing up apologetically at Mendenhall.

  Back in the hallway, Mendenhall relayed the measurements she had taken while Silva recorded them on her tablet. She had taken two photographs with the lab tech’s cell, one from each side, of Silva lying across the patient. She had plumbed the line from waist to floor; then Silva had triangulated that mark with the walls. As they strode to the elevators, Mendenhall stripped off her mask and gloves and tossed them into a trash receptacle.

  Silva spoke as she recorded. “No posturing. One prominent exhale. Relaxed fall.”

  Her tone was punctuated, so Mendenhall did not expect the quizzical look from Silva. She almost appeared sad.

  “Can we do this by phone?” Mendenhall asked.

  Silva shook her head as they neared the elevators. “My texts scroll on an overhead screen as he takes digitals and examines the body. If he taps a line of text, it registers here,” she lifted her tablet,

  “as pursue.”

  “Tell him to take a lateral digital of her upper chest. Center on the lower trachea, right above the bronchus.”

  “I can’t tell him that.”

  “He’ll figure it out.”

  Mendenhall showed her express key. “ICU?”

  Silva nodded as she entered her text to Claiborne. She winced at an immediate reply.

  “What?”

  “I’m fired.”

  The bell chimed, and the elevator doors opened. Two nurses were inside, confused by which floor they had been pulled to. They frowned when they recognized Mendenhall.

  “He’ll know it’s me,” she told Silva as they stepped into the elevator and Mendenhall hijacked it to third floor ICU.

  Seconds later they were free of the scowling nurses. “They’ll all end up in the cafeteria,” said Mendenhall as the doors closed. The ICU hall was empty in the long stretch between the waiting area and the nurses’ station.

  Silva winced at another text, bit her lower lip. Anyone would have thought she was playing a game on the handheld. Anyone would have wanted to join her.

  “And?” asked Mendenhall.

  “He said to ignore you.” Silva started for the nurses’ station.

  “No.” Mendenhall touched her sleeve. “Let’s go to waiting.

  Where Verdasco was found. I’ll get your nurse to come to us. Save you that trip. That round of chatter. You having to submit.”

  Silva went with Mendenhall.

  “How do you know it’s the trachea?”

  “The way she described that breath. Fleming’s little puff. Then forward collapse. That’s trauma right above the bronchus. Extreme trauma. Maybe involving the heart, too. A really hard punch to the middle of the chest or back. Commotio cordis.”

  “That kills boxers?”

  “And schoolkids.”

  “You think that woman punched Fleming?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Not an infection.”

  Mendenhall stopped Silva with a simple elbow touch. They stood midhall, that given privacy in hospitals. Silva squared herself to Mendenhall and raised her chin in a straight manner, not a tilt of skepticism, irritation, or humor. She just waited, open.

  “Look,” said Mendenhall, “that stuff with Fleming’s roomie. I wasn’t trying to counter you or put you in your place. Or get you fired. It’s just more efficient sometimes to be . . . personable. It’s not bedside manner. It’s a form of examination, a safe way of opening up the wound. And I mean that literally. The psychological and emotional wounds start to clot immediately, too soon, screwing up memory, screwing up facts.”

  Silva remained still, her breathing thoughtful, her look searching.

  “Most cases of commotio cordis are caused by projectiles. There was no projectile.”

  “All cases of infection are caused by organisms. There is no organism. No virus, prion, bacterium, viroid, fungus.”

  “So far.”

  “Right.” Mendenhall nodded toward the waiting area. “So far.”

  10.

  Mendenhall and Silva stood above the lounge chair where Verdasco had been found. The waiting area was empty.

  Mendenhall had called Pao Pao and told her what they

  needed from the ICU nurses’ station. She knew what Claiborne must have been thinking as he scanned Fleming’s chest and back.

  Internal trauma with no external signs. That would just intensify Thorpe’s mission, give him evidence for a new infection. They were pushing water. The metaphor depressed her.

  She looked at Silva for some relief. The tech brushed her tablet, reviewing, exchanging. She and Verdasco would have made a beautiful couple.

  “You be Verdasco.”

  “You’re closer to his height,” replied Silva.

  “Lie back. Be him. Use what you know. Before the nurse gets here.”

  Silva reclined in the armchair, leaned her head back, stretched her legs. Mendenhall spotted the nurse heading toward them, hustling down the hall with the fear of Pao Pao in her. She found a car magazine, thought of Verdasco’s delicate fingers and pretty eyes, and switched to a local magazine featuring the city’s symphony.

  She laid this across Silva’s lap.

  “It was more on his chest,” said the tech. She realigned the magazine, then repositioned her arms. She held herself still, throat extended, lips softly closed. Light brown skin, black hair, red lips, pretty death.

  “Eyes open,” said Mendenhall.

  The nurse yelped when she arrived at the scene.

  When they were finished with the positioning and the nurse interview, Mendenhall led Silva toward one of the newest rooms in ICU. Some visitors had returned to the waiting area, coffees in hand.

  “Where are we going?” asked Silva. “I’m finished. I can’t go to Peterson.”

  “We’re not going to Peterson.” They arrived at the open entrance to the little arboretum. Mendenhall looked at her watch. “You still have ten minutes left on your hour. Thanks to me. Come.”

  By the way Silva assessed the room, Mendenhall could tell this was her first visit. The tech registered things with small, exact movements of her head, eyes aimed forward, blinking in between adjustments. The room was a tall hexagon. The entire ceiling was a soft amber light filtered through a lattice. One wall was covered by a smooth waterfall, its receiving fountain bracketed by dwarf palms. Ficus trees stood in the four remaining corners, shading the benches that lined the walls. Two visitors, a couple, sat together.

  They leaned forward, elbows to knees, gazing at the ceramic floor design, a kind of algebraic spiral.

  “Welcome to Mullich’s head,” she said to Silva. “One corner of it anyway. It used to be a chapel.”

  They sat together on one of the unoccupied benches. Ficus shadows fell across Silva’s neck and shoulders as she brushed her tablet. They hadn’t learned much from the nurse who had been summoned to Verdasco by a startled visitor. He had presented a faint, irregular pulse, though Mendenhall wondered about that, coming from a nurse with quivering fingers. But they were able to get the positioning exact, the floor measurements for Mullich.

  Timing was just an estimation, as the visitor had only noticed Verdasco’s glazed eyes when she had glanced up from her magazine.

  “We might be able to verify a closer time,” said Mendenhall, “if we can ever get to that visitor.”

  “Thorpe put her in quarantine,” Silva replied.

  “His bank, you mean.”

  “Why do you always question Thorpe? It’s the right procedure.

  Why is it you against him? What about this hospital? People in this hospital?” Silva brushed something distasteful into her tablet.

  “What about the truth?”

  “Okay. The truth is Thorpe’s a narcissist. The worst kind—a smart one, a do-good one.”

&nb
sp; “You’re no different.” Silva tapped her screen, not looking up.

  Mendenhall clenched her jaw, closed her eyes, and inhaled the smell of the waterfall and potting soil. She really believed that the best thing to do was let everyone go home and take hot showers and watch for symptoms, that the worst thing to do was seal up and mix the hospital’s innards, its illnesses and emotions. This metaphor caused her to shudder. Why, really, were they doing this?

  Silva misread. “Sorry.”

  “No. You’re right.” Mendenhall looked up to the glow of the lattice. “But lucky for you that I am. Lucky for you all.”

  Silva returned to her comfort zone, their comfort zone, the facts on her handheld. “The oddest thing is the set of times we do have. Fleming and Dozier fell within the same five-minute span, somewhere between seven twenty-five and seven thirty. Verdasco and Peterson could fit into that span as well. We haven’t ruled that out.”

  “Verdasco.” Mendenhall massaged her forehead, keeping her fingers from her eyes. She so wanted to press her eyes.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s beautiful, no?”

  “So?”

  “I bet that other visitor looked at him. A lot. Snuck glances.

  Like clockwork. You know? We could figure out the time if we could talk to her. Then it would be points on a line. Two suggests a line. Three determines.”

  “There’s Peterson. They found her in that ventilation room a little after seven thirty. A few minutes before they took her to you.”

  Mendenhall bowed her head and rubbed her neck firmly, tried to create some pain. “Thorpe kept Peterson alive on paper to get her to his wing. He needs a patient. But Peterson was just as dead as the others.”

  Silva probably never looked confused. But her expression was skeptical, one eyebrow lifted, nose angled to her tablet. She looked like she really wanted to go.

  “When you get back to Dr. Claiborne, have him zap Verdasco’s brain stem.” With her finger almost grazing Silva’s neck, Mendenhall drew a line following the angle of the tech’s intricate jaw. “Center there. Tell him that’s what I say.”

  11.

  Mendenhall remained in the arboretum. She wanted to go to fifth floor containment, the Infectious Diseases wing, to interview the captive visitor and to examine Peterson and her chart. She had every right to do these things, and Thorpe would not prevent her. But doing so might bring too much attention, prompt Thorpe to send people down to Claiborne. The tech may have already stirred interest. The interviews and follow-ups were fine; the reenactments and measuring might have crossed lines.

  She pictured again how Silva had cast herself over the patient on Four, how elegant and still she had appeared, how she had drawn the patient toward touching. Thorpe could conceivably have Silva contained—herself as well.

  A polite, professional consultation with Thorpe might prompt similar actions. Thorpe would be gathering the same data, the same confounding results. His conclusion would run counter to hers—containment. Infection had been the first call—her call—

  and thus would be the standing assumption. She felt driven to this room.

  The young couple remained on their bench but were stealing looks at her.

  “What’s happening, Doctor?” the man asked. He had the same expansive eyes and mouth as the woman, their largeness unnerving on him, fetching on her. Brother and sister.

  “It’s just a precaution. I think you’ll be able to leave the hospital soon.”

  “We don’t want to leave. We want our dad to be let in. We’re visiting our mother.”

  “Soon,” said Mendenhall. “I’m sure he’ll get to see her.”

  “She’s dying.”

  Mendenhall bowed her head and tightened her mouth. Protocol discouraged any reaction: the mother was not her patient, not her matter. Legally, condolence was affirmation; reassurance was disagreement.

  “Can you get him in for us?”

  “Who’s her doctor?”

  “He left,” said the sister, one corner of her lips crimping. “He got out.”

  It was easy to imagine the hexagon contracting, the waterfall gaining volume.

  “I’m—we’re all trying to get the hospital open again.”

  In the hall, she hesitated: once toward the elevators, then the waiting area, then the arboretum. She had known it would be a mistake to go into the hall without destination, but she had to get away from the already grieving brother and sister. She couldn’t have the nurses see her like this. She strode to the elevators and inserted her express key. The elevator took a long time arriving, confusing her. And in this bracket of unexpected wait, she felt exposed and weakened.

  When the steel doors opened, there was Mullich. He stood alone, arms crossed, wearing a lab coat. At first she thought he was wearing a stethoscope, posing as a doctor. But it was something else, a scope of some sort, some kind of viewing lens.

  “Doctor,” he said. He stepped out of the elevator and offered its emptiness to her. Cool air rose from the motion of his arm.

  “You were outside.” She stayed with him, letting the doors close.

  She looked up. “You were on the roof.”

  “I’m going to Verdasco’s mark.” He headed toward the waiting area and she followed.

  “You got on the roof.” She hustled to stay astride. “You took my elevator from me and got on the roof. I want your key.”

  “It will be helpful to have you along,” he said, slipstream still fresh.

  12.

  Mullich genuflected over the floor mark and aimed his scope toward the long end of the hall, beyond the arboretum and the nurse’s station. Mendenhall stood beside him. Visitors in the ICU waiting area watched as Mullich repositioned himself to take four measurements with the scope, Mendenhall turning with him, pretending.

  “He never moved, then?” Mullich peered through the scope. On the near wall it cast three red dots, the middle one more pronounced, the two side ones faint.

  “He was already in collapsed position. He went from life to death without moving.”

  “No. He traveled to the ER. To you. From here down to there.”

  “Look,” said Mendenhall, “I kind of see what you’re doing.

  Tracking a pattern. A pattern of . . .” She felt the attention of the waiting-area visitors and caught herself. “A pattern of demise.”

  Mullich took one more reading and stood. The visitors left with worried expressions, back to their loved ones or to the cafeteria.

  “That’s a good way of putting it.” Mullich faced her. “Good enough.”

  Mendenhall shook her head and jabbed a finger toward the scope dangling from his neck. “It’s not. You can’t track death that easily in this place. I pronounced Verdasco dead down in ER. Time of death down there, too.” She raised a fist to show him the cheap running watch on her wrist. “Using this. So what pattern are you tracking? Blood or paper?”

  “Blood.”

  “Then forget ER. Verdasco died here.” She pointed to the floor mark she and Silva had calibrated. “Dozier died on his ladder.

  Fleming died on her roommate’s bed. See, Thorpe’s going to use the paper one. But I don’t care about some nurse’s hopeful fingers taking a pulse that isn’t there, about shoving eyelids closed, about some tired ER doctor pronouncing time of death because some other doctor ran away.”

  Mullich, as Silva had done, recorded information in his pad as Mendenhall spoke, focused on accuracy. She let him finish his entries.

  Mullich stared at his pad. “And Peterson?”

  “My guess is she died in that ventilation room. Right where they found her. But we couldn’t get to Peterson because she’s not mine.

  Not without pissing off . . .” With the heel of her palm, she pushed Mullich’s forehead, forcing his gaze to her. “You. You can get me to Peterson. With that key of yours.”

  “That depends, Dr. Mendenhall.”

  “On what?”

  “On what fight you’re fighti
ng.”

  She narrowed her look.

  “Blood or paper.”

  She gave him an honest answer. There probably was no other kind for him. “I’m still deciding. I’ll decide when I return to Claiborne. So give me Peterson. And that witness Thorpe has up there. That’s your next stop, right? Dozier on Seven, Fleming on Four, Verdasco on Three.”

  “Not quite. I visit the roof in between each.”

  She retracted.

  “For perspective.” He raised his scope.

  “I gave you an honest answer.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I do go up there in between—to maintain and record perspective. But I’m also watching the containment. The shape of the containment. Its growth. I’ll take you. I’ll show you.

  But you have to agree to my conditions.”

  “You sound like Thorpe.”

  “No. I’m not like Thorpe. I’ve designed buildings—redesigned them—for people like Thorpe. But not this place. Not this hospital.

  Not this time around. Not anymore.”

  Stepping onto the roof meant everything to her. She could still smell it on Mullich, imagine its air trapped in the creases of his lab coat. Visitors approached the waiting area, then veered away when they neared Mendenhall and Mullich.

  “What are your conditions?”

  Mullich held up his card key. “Every time this is used, it’s recorded. Yours, too. Thorpe’s as well, and any like it. Anyone can see. That’s how it is. That’s how it must be. Transparent action.”

  She shrugged.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. You have to enter your key, too. Even though it won’t open the doors. It will be recorded.

  Anyone, including Thorpe, gets to see where you go, where you tried to go.”

  “Thorpe won’t play that way.”

  “I don’t care. And I’m not playing.”

  13.

  The roof door rejected her key. A tiny red light above the slot blinked twice. Mullich inserted his key, the light went green, a beep sounded, and the door opened, bypassing containment.

  “Who gets to push the button?” Mendenhall asked. “The one that suddenly changes all the doors? Thorpe? You?”