“How so?”
“Offer to have it cremated at the world-famous burning ghats of Varanasi and the ashes placed in the Ganges.”
“But that is a privilege reserved for Hindus.”
Rajish made a gesture as if swatting a fly. “Some extra consideration for the Brahmin of the Ghats of Jalore would solve that issue. Perhaps Ms. Hernandez could be tempted. It could be touted as an extra favor to the departed. We could offer it to Mrs. Benfatti as well.”
“I’m not optimistic,” Kashmira said. “Neither strikes me as particularly religious, and being cremated in Varanasi only has true meaning for Hindus. Yet I’ll give it a try. The Hernandez girl herself admitted she might think differently after she’d gotten some sleep. She is exhausted and suffering jet lag. Maybe such a bribe would push her over the edge.”
“We must get these bodies out of that cafeteria cooler,” Rajish emphasized. “Especially with the hospital currently under observation by the International Joint Commission. We can’t afford to fail for such an incidental violation. Meanwhile, I will give Ramesh Srivastava a call back and report we are having a particularly difficult time with the Hernandez woman.”
“I have tried my best with her, I assure you. I’ve been very direct. More so than with any other next of kin.”
“I know you have. The problem is we have limited resources. That’s not the situation with someone like Ramesh Srivastava. He has the weight of the entire Indian bureaucracy behind him. If he so desired, he could even keep the two forensic friends of Ms. Hernandez out of the country.”
“I’ll keep you informed of any changes,” Kashmira said, as she turned to go.
“Please do,” Rajish said, with a brief wave. He used his intercom to ask his secretary to get Mr. Ramesh Srivastava on the line. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He knew how powerful Srivastava was and how he could get Rajish fired with a snap of his fingers.
Chapter 16
October 17, 2007
Wednesday, 3:15 p.m.
New Delhi, India
It had not been a good day for Ramesh Srivastava. Starting the moment he got into his office in the morning, the deputy secretary of state for health had called to tell him that the secretary of state for health was furious about the second CNN International segment being aired concerning India’s nascent medical tourism industry. Then the calls had never stopped. They came from half a dozen joint secretaries of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the president of the Indian Healthcare Federation, and even the secretary of state for tourism, all reminding him that he happened to be presiding over the department of medical tourism when it was experiencing the most negative international PR that it had ever experienced. All the callers also reminded him that they had the power to end his career if he didn’t do something and do it fast. The problem was, he didn’t know what to do. He’d tried to figure out how CNN International was getting the tips, but without success.
“A Mr. Rajish Bhurgava is online at this moment,” Ramesh’s secretary said as Ramesh came through his office door, returning from his three-hour lunch. Ramesh dashed into his inner office and snatched the receiver off the hook. “Have you found the leak?” he demanded straight off.
“Just a moment,” Rajish’s secretary said. “I’ll put Mr. Bhurgava on.”
Ramesh silently cursed as he flopped down in his desk chair. He was a large balding man with watery eyes and deep scars on his cheekbones from adolescent acne. He tapped his fat, impatient fingers on his desk. As soon as Rajish Bhurgava came on the line, Ramesh blurted out the question again and with equal emotion.
“We haven’t,” Rajish admitted. “I’ve spoken yet again at length with the chief of the medical staff. We still believe the most likely culprit is one of the academic doctors who also have admitting privileges here for their relatively few private patients. We know some of them are rabidly against the government’s granting us the incentives and tax breaks it has at the expense of adequately funding the control of communicable diseases in rural areas. What he’s doing now is trying to see if any of the most outspoken ones were here in the hospital both Monday night and last night.”
“What does he say about the deaths themselves?” Ramesh grumbled. “Two in two nights is intolerable. What are you people doing wrong? With CNN beaconing these fatalities around the world seven or eight times a day, you have essentially negated six months of our ad campaign, especially in America, our biggest target.”
“I asked him the same question. He’s entirely baffled. Neither patient had warning symptoms or signs, either from their home doctors or during our admitting tests.”
“Did they have cardiograms here preoperatively?”
“Yes, of course they had cardiograms, and both arrived with clean reports from American cardiologists. Our chief of the medical staff said that even in retrospect there would have been no way to predict what happened. Both surgeries and postoperative courses were without incident.”
“What about the problem with the Hernandez girl? Has that at least been taken care of?”
“I’m afraid not,” Rajish admitted. “She’s not decided on the disposition of the body, and she now has begun talking about possibly wanting an autopsy done.”
“Why?”
“We’re not entirely certain other than her belief that her grandmother’s heart was in fine shape.”
“I don’t want an autopsy,” Ramesh stated categorically. “There’s no way it could help us. If the autopsy were to be clean, they wouldn’t use it to exonerate us because there’s no story, and if the autopsy shows pathology we should have known about, they would crucify us. No, there is to be no autopsy.”
“To complicate things, Ms. Hernandez has apparently contacted a former client of the deceased, and she and her husband, both of whom are forensic pathologists, are on their way and will be in Delhi on Friday.”
“Good grief,” Ramesh said. “Well, if they make formal application for an autopsy, make sure it is taken by one of the magistrates we are accustomed to dealing with.”
“I’ll do my best,” Rajish said. “But perhaps with your connections you might question whether we want them here at all.”
“I would need more warning. Otherwise, they get stopped only at the airport, and that, in and of itself, could cause a media problem if it gets associated with the already notorious private hospital deaths reported by CNN. A free media is such a bore, and they love these gossipy-type stories.”
“There’s one other way that the Hernandez girl is causing mischief. She had seemingly sought out the Benfatti woman this morning and convinced her to delay giving us permission to dispose properly of her husband’s body in the same way she is denying us access to her grandmother’s.”
“No!” Ramesh exclaimed with disbelief.
“I’m afraid so. I’m beginning to think as I hear from my case manager that she is deliberately trying to cause trouble. I’m even beginning to believe she’s starting to become paranoid and hold us accountable, as if we have caused this tragedy deliberately.”
“That’s it, then,” Ramesh said. “We cannot let this go on.”
“Is there something you can do, sir?” Rajish asked hopefully.
“Perhaps,” Ramesh said. “We cannot sit passively and let this woman have free rein until her paranoia is somehow satisfied.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Keep me informed of any and all developments,” Ramesh said.
“Absolutely,” Rajish answered.
Ramesh hung up the receiver and turned to the keyboard at his workstation. Going into his address book, he found the mobile number of Inspector Naresh Prasad of the New Delhi police, who headed up the small, clandestine Industrial Security Unit. Picking the phone receiver back up, he placed the call. Since the men hadn’t spoken in almost six months, they traded some personal information before Ramesh got around to the reason for the call. “We here at the department of medical tourism have a problem that needs your expertise.”