Part Ninety-Seven
It was early Tuesday afternoon, and Kay was tidying up after a morning of demonstrating various autopsy techniques. This was a pretty dull part of the job, but a necessary one if the next generation of medical examiners, or pathologists as they called them in this country, were to be brought into being. She knew that Zubin was in court this afternoon, and hoped that that ass-hole of a prosecuting barrister wouldn't give him as rough a ride as he'd given her. Kay in her role of expert witness was used to the likes of him, though it had been something of a shock to have to show her gun like that yesterday. But as she wheeled the autopsy tables back into position after cleaning, the phone in the morgue office began to ring.
When she picked it up, Tom's voice greeted her. "Kay, it's Tom Campbell-Gore." "Tom," She replied with a smile. "What can I do for you?" "I'm in theatre and could do with a spare pair of hands. Are you available?" "On my way," Kay told him succinctly. "Where are you?" "Fifth floor, Keller theatre, next door to Darwin." Slamming down the phone, Kay rapidly made her way along the endless corridors and up in the lift to the fifth floor. Following the signs to the Darwin and Keller operating theatres, she pushed her way through the heavy swing doors. "Kay, good to see you," Tom greeted her. "Will's next door with Connie doing a heart and lung transplant, so I've got no registrar. I thought you wouldn't mind a chance to assist." "Are you sure I'm up to the job?" Kay asked, hoping that Tom's faith in her skill would be substantiated. "Of course you are," Tom assured her. "Now, we've got an RTA with chest and abdominal trauma. He's got part of the steering-wheel lodged in his chest, so I need you to hold it still while I cut around it." "Just let me get scrubbed up," Kay replied, also noticing that they weren't alone. When she returned, gloved, gowned and scrubbed, to stand opposite Tom at the top end of the table, her eyes strayed to the two surgeons at the lower end of the table. "Ric, Diane, this is Dr. Kay Scarpetta," Tom introduced them. "Ric Griffin, and Diane Lloyd his registrar." "Good to have you with us," Ric said, glancing over at her. "Zubin's told me a lot about you." "I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or bad," Kay said ruefully, turning her attention to the twisted piece of metal and plastic sticking out of the man's chest. "I take it he wasn't wearing a seatbelt," She said, the disgust and resignation there for all to hear. "No," Tom replied exasperatedly. "Stupid fool. I need to do a thoracotomy in order to determine just how far this thing has gone into his chest. I need you to hold this very, very still, so that it doesn't do even more damage while I'm cutting round it." As Kay did his bidding, holding the piece of steering-wheel with one hand, and handing him various instruments with the other, she took a look at what the other two were doing lower down. Ric was standing next to her, with Diane opposite him next to Tom. Feeling her gaze on him, Ric looked up. "This man also managed to give himself a lot of blunt trauma to the abdomen, rupturing his spleen and tearing the liver." "I take it General surgery is your specialty," Kay said, just making polite conversation. "Absolutely right," Ric said as he extracted a piece of spleen with the forceps. "You can be dealing with breast tumours one day and bowel resections the next." "Variety is the spice of life, isn't that what you're always telling me?" Diane said as she used the suction to remove a lot of freestanding blood from the perritoneal cavity. "I get quite enough variety in cardio thoracics, thank you very much," Tom said dryly. "Yeah, and get to play god at the same time," Ric put in much to Diane's and Kay's amusement. "How do you like working with the living for a change?" Diane asked Kay. "It's an opportunity I wouldn't have missed," Kay said without a flicker. "You can come into my theatre anytime," Tom told her with absolute certainty. "Now that is an offer you can't refuse," Diane teased him. "Where's Ed Keating today?" Ric asked, wondering at the absence of Tom's usual registrar. "He called in sick," Tom replied disgustedly. "Probably with a hangover." "Well, you should know," Ric responded amicably. "Anyway," Tom continued, ignoring Ric's comment. "I think he spent the night with Sr. Williams last night." "Chrissie really does get around, doesn't she," Diane said thoughtfully.
As Tom finished cutting around the piece of steering wheel, Kay removed it and handed it to the theatre nurse. "That might be needed as evidence," Kay said, her usual career slipping easily into place. "We have a true investigator in our midst," Ric commented with a smile. "This isn't just your average investigator," Tom informed him. "Kay is the Chief, Medical examiner of Virginia, no less." "Wow," Diane said, sounding clearly impressed. "Zubin didn't tell us that." "It's not always all it's cracked up to be," Kay said with a sardonic smile. "But I've never wanted to do anything else." "Oh, and I thought that spending time in my theatre might have tempted you back into the fold," Tom drawled, trying to sound disappointed. "Tom," Kay replied with a broad smile. "Spending time in your theatre has been and always will be, if I get the chance to do it again, nothing but a sincere pleasure." "And with Tom," Ric put in dryly. "Flattery will get you anywhere." "Now then, Dr. Chief," Tom teased her. "Would you like to stitch that tear in the left lung for me?" "By all means, Mr. Campbell-Gore," Kay replied, putting extra emphasis on the Mister. Working with her hands inside this living, breathing chest, Kay wondered why she had always been determined to work with the dead and not the living. Anna was right, she was the doctor who sat at the bedside of the dead, but now, here, she was at the bedside of the living. "What thoughts are going through that brain as we speak?" Ric asked Kay, feeling the mental energy coming off her in a wave. Kay briefly glanced up from her needlework. "I was just wondering what I've been missing all these years," She told him thoughtfully. "I've worked with the dead for the greater part of my life. Working with the living again, it's quite, something." Kay's response was undeniably guarded, but all three of them could tell that it was really a very enlightening experience for her.
After they'd finished in theatre, Kay put her emerging idea into action. Ever since she'd discovered that Ric Griffin dealt with breast tumours, she had been vaguely planning what she might say to him concerning George. Now that she knew about George's steadily growing problem, she couldn't just ignore it, no matter how much George might want her to do so. She didn't have to give anyone George's name, but nothing would stop her from at least seeking some advice on George's behalf. Leaving Tom to deal with the patient's relatives, Kay walked through to Keller ward, separated from Darwin by nothing more than a nurses' station, and began looking for Ric's office. "Can I help you?" A nurse enquired of her, whose name badge said Sr. Lisa Fox. "I'm looking for Mr. Griffin's office," Kay told her. "Just down there," Lisa said, pointing down the corridor. "He is in there." Walking to where Lisa had gestured, Kay knocked, the deep, gravelly voice bidding her to come in. When Kay pushed open the door, she found a very cluttered room, containing endless filing cabinets, a well-worn desk and a slightly battered sofa. "Dr. Scarpetta," Ric said, looking up in surprise. "What can I do for you?" "I'm on the hunt for a little advice," She said, coming straight to the point. "Take a seat," Ric invited, gesturing to the sofa. "Would you like some coffee?" "Thank you," Kay replied gratefully. "I suspect we could both do with it after that operation." "Our plastics expert, Carlos Fishola, once said that this place is getting more like Miami everyday," Ric commented dryly. "Miami was where I grew up," Kay told him with a wry smile. "So I can definitely see the resemblance." Putting his head out of his office door, Ric called to Donna and asked her to make two cups of coffee. "What did your last slave die of?" Donna replied with a grin. "The shock when I gave her a pay rise," Ric told her smartly. Closing the door again, he said, "Donna makes the best coffee round here because she comes to work with hangovers so regularly that she lives on the stuff." "I'm glad to see that some things haven't changed since I was in med school," Kay said ruefully. "I think the late nights and the hangover remedies are part of the territory."
When Donna had returned with the coffee and left them to it, Ric said, "So, how can I help?" "I have a friend," Kay said carefully, thinking that George did now fit into that category. "Who has a lump in her breast, but who hasn't yet sought any treatment." "Is this an actual friend," Ric replied knowingly. "Or is this the kind of friend whose existence miraculously disappears when you realise you can trust me." Kay smiled. "No, this is an actual, entirely real friend. If I were the one with the problem, I wouldn't be so stupid as to leave it quite so long. I've far too often had the consequences of such actions on my slab in the morgue to think of doing the same." "Well then," Ric said with professionalism dripping from every syllable. "You need to persuade your friend to come forward. We can't help her if she doesn't." "She's terrified," Kay told him. "And entirely fixated on how she may look if she should be forced to have her breast removed." "Which is entirely natural," Ric said with sympathy. "But the longer she leaves it, the more likely such an outcome is. How old is she?" "I'm not sure, but late forties I think. She is also a smoker, but then so are too many of us who know better, and she has a nice little line in anorexia. She says that she's had the lump since Christmas, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little white lie in there somewhere." "Have you seen it?" Ric asked, making a few notes on this case who didn't yet have a name. "No, I've had no reason to see it. If I was back home in the States, I'd simply take her to a surgeon myself without any problems, but that's not how you do things over here, is it." "No," Ric said thoughtfully. "Patients are always referred by the GP's. It tends to cut down on the time wasters who have more money than sense." "The less people I have to persuade her to talk to about this the better," Kay said succinctly. "Is there any way she could bypass that system?" Steepling his fingers on the pile of papers in front of him, Ric stared up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to unravel this little quandary. "You're a fully licensed doctor," he began contemplatively. "You'd have to be to be able to operate like you did this afternoon. Tell me, would she be an NHS patient or private." "Private, without a doubt," Kay said without hesitation. "Someone like her isn't going to be without medical insurance." "Then that makes things a little easier," Ric said, hitting on the correct course of action. "I'll make her an appointment on my private list, and you can refer her to me." "Is that permitted over here?" "In private medicine, anything is possible," Ric told her cynically. "What I would need you to do, to make it as authentic as possible, is to first examine her, make sure she isn't worrying over nothing, and write me a letter to that effect which she can bring with her when she comes to see me." Picking up the phone, he punched in the number for the private hospital where he and most of his colleagues did a stint every week. Having spoken to one of the nurses in the general surgery department, he arranged an appointment for a week on Thursday, Kay having told him that George wouldn't be able to do anything till that week. "Do we have a name?" Ric asked Kay with a raised eyebrow. "George Channing," Kay told him, feeling that she had finally done something to help, whether or not it would actually be appreciated was a different matter. When Ric had put the phone down and given Kay the appointment time, his door was thrust unceremoniously open to reveal Diane. "Sorry," Diane said apologetically. "I didn't realise you had company. We've got a bowel perforation in theatre." "Oh, the day just gets better and better," Ric said dryly, getting up from behind his desk. "Thank you," Kay said gratefully. "I'll make sure she turns up, even if I have to stay here and drag her there myself."