So Plato kept his mouth shut as he followed Cal around the Thorndyke grounds, chatting amiably with dozens of doctors, nurses, and other hospital staffers.
“Plato and Cal Marley,” he heard repeatedly, “an obstetrician and a pathologist. Plato brings them in, and Cal wheels them out.”
Ho, ho, ho.
Worse yet were the inevitable questions. “What made your wife want to become a pathologist?”
“She eats people,” Plato finally replied to Mrs. Cleeford.
The wife of the venerable board chairman patted his hand and nodded sagely. “We all need people, son. She just has to find another outlet — church, social organizations. I’m a member of the Buffalo League Women’s Auxiliary.”
Cal dragged him to the stables before he could comment. A few miles of old Sanchez’ bone-jarring canter brought him back down to earth. He’d never be sarcastic or cynical ever again. He’d eat salads and pine nuts and herbs and sunflower seeds and grass. If only someone would help him off the horse.
“Wasn’t that a glorious ride?” Cal asked, holding Sanchez’ bridle.
Cautiously, Plato lifted one leg from a stirrup. His backbone had been pulverized, ground to a fine powder, then mixed into a heavy concrete. He toppled to the ground.
Shuffling along the path through the woods, Cal stopped suddenly, squeezing his hand. Beads of sweat broke out on her pale forehead. “I don’t feel so good.”
“You don’t look so good, either.” Plato pulled her arm across his shoulder. “Come on. Maybe you should lie down inside.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
She hobbled beside him for a while, then stopped and winced. “God! It’s my stomach, Plato. I’ve never hurt this bad before.”
The hairs on the back of his neck came to attention. A tiny voice in his head spoke: “Acute appendicitis. Perhaps accompanied by peritonitis. In situations like these, time is of the essence.”
He swung a surprised Cal into his arms, thankful for once that she ate chipmunk food. They bounced down the path until he jolted to a halt.
“Plato, dear, you’re sweet,” she gasped. “But I don’t feel that bad. Just put me down, okay?”
He nodded dumbly, slipped her back onto her feet. She turned and gaped at the clearing. Up the hill, the huge form of Rufus Thorndyke blunted the horizon. Several guests were lying down as well — sprawled on the grass or picnic tables or lawn chairs. A few walking wounded rushed from person to person, checking pulses and palpating abdomens. An ambulance keened from the driveway.
The couple’s eyes met.
“Food poisoning,” they whispered in unison. “The crab Louis.”
Plato’s aversion to seafood had been vindicated.
The doors marked intensive CARE UNIT — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL only sighed open like the gate-stones of a crypt. After helping the crab victims into their respective ambulances, Plato had tucked Cal into bed at home. She would page him if she felt worse.
He hobbled into the hospital sanctuary just as the doors closed, nearly dismembering him with their ponderous weight. He paused to catch his breath, still stiff from the afternoon’s glorious ride. While his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he heard the soft, thrusting rhythm of ventilators, the muted mechanical bleeps of monitors, and the low sigh of cool, dry air from invisible outlets.
Intensive care, Plato thought. Where lives are saved or lost and doctors are schooled in cynicism.
“Excuse me, sir, can I please see—” The voice was as harsh and sharp as a splinter beneath a fingernail. A penlight stabbed
Plato’s eyes while a hand frisked his coat for an I.D. badge.
“Oh, it’s you. Marley.” Mrs. Leeman, head nurse of the ICU. Tough, experienced, and brutally competent, her only fault was a bit of night blindness. “Come right in.”
“I came to see Mr. Thorndyke.”
She led him past a row of glass-walled rooms to the nursing station. Deftly, she spun a gleaming carousel of stainless steel and blue vinyl binders. “You were at his party last night?”
“Yeah. But I don’t like crab.” Plato retrieved Thorndyke’s chart and flipped through it. There was nothing unusual about it; he’d half expected a special red binder, stars and stenciled warning labels: “Authorized Personnel Only — Government Clearance GP-10 or Higher!”
Mrs. Leeman showed him to Thorndyke’s cubicle, directly across from the nursing station. The huge man was almost invisible beneath a web of machines, tubes, wires, and cables. Overhead, CRT’s traced the frantic heart rhythm, lowering blood pressure, and measured sighs of mechanical respiration. But one look at the flabby, waxen face told far more than numbers on a screen.
“I don’t believe we’ve met before. Doctor—?”
In the murky shadows, Plato hadn’t noticed the room’s other occupant. Gage, the gastroenterologist. White hair manicured to perfection, navy sports jacket, freshly pressed gray pants, and a sharply knotted tie. Looking at him, you’d never guess it was two A.M.
Plato looked down at his rumpled, coffee-stained lab coat and tennis shoes. Tailoring, he told himself again.
“Plato Marley,” he replied, awkwardly shaking hands across the bed. Glancing down at Thorndyke’s pale form, he wondered: Is someone awake in there, listening, aware?
He hoped not.
“I was at the party last night,” he continued. “I wondered how Mr. Thorndyke was doing. After I got home, I did some thinking. Some of his symptoms seemed a bit unusual. I’d like to talk to you about it.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Gage nodded his head and led the way to a door marked PHYSICIANS’ CONFERENCE ROOM. “You look familiar—”
“I did my residency here several years ago, then did an infertility fellowship in Chicago,” he replied, taking a seat at the table. Blazing fluorescent light bounced painfully from white walls, pearl file cabinets, beige carpeting. Some obscure kidney function calculation was scribbled on the whiteboard. In the corner, a skeleton wearing a top hat browsed through a faded copy of the Wall Street Journal.
“Marley, Marley,” Gage whispered to himself, as though he were turning through a dictionary. “Seems I’ve heard that name before.”
“My wife’s a doctor as well,” Plato said. “One of the hospital pathologists. She’s in forensics. Tecumseh County coroner.”
Gage’s eyebrows blossomed in surprise. “Do they really need a forensic pathologist in TC? How long since there’s been a murder there?”
“A people murder?” Plato shrugged. “Not since Cal took office. But she had a hit and run on a Holstein just last week. We’ve got the body down at the lab. Well, part of it, anyway.”
“Seneca General isn’t exactly a center of academic medicine, either,” the digestive specialist agreed. “But we provide pretty good care here. And this is a good area to raise a family.”
His smile dissolved suddenly. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but Jan Thorndyke is my daughter.” Gage grimaced, raised his voice. “That makes Rufus my son-in-law, though at his age, it’s hard to think of him that way. We were in college together, back east...”
The door burst open suddenly, and a stocky figure in white blew into the room.
“Thanks for calling me, Dr. Gage! Sorry I’m late.” The intern pulled a ragged mop of hair back from her forehead. Panting, she explained, “I got a dump admission from Urology. It took two hours. I got here as soon as I could.”