Cassi replaced Jeoffry’s arm as carefully as if it were still sensate. “Do you happen to know if all the SSD cases were on IVs?” asked Cassi.
“I don’t know, but I can find out,” said Robert. “I have an idea what you’re thinking, and I don’t like it.”
“The other suggestion I have,” said Cassi, “is to collate the supposed physiological mechanisms of death and see if there is any pattern. You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” said Robert. “I can probably do that today. And I’ll get the sections of the vein, but you have to promise to come up and look at them. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Cassi.
As Cassi pressed the elevator button in the corridor outside the pathology department, she was aware she was dreading her upcoming session with Maureen Kavenaugh. Without doubt, Maureen’s depression exacerbated Cassi’s own. The fact that Cassi had reason to be depressed, as Joan had pointed out, did not make the symptoms easier to live with.
Dreading the meeting with Maureen bothered Cassi because it forced her to admit that as a psychiatrist she was going to have to deal with her own value judgments. In other areas of medicine, if you were forced together with a patient you disliked, you concentrated on the pathology and cut the personal contact to a minimum. In psychiatry that was not possible.
Happily, when she entered her office, Maureen still was nowhere to be seen. Cassi knew she was going to have difficulty concentrating on what Maureen had to say because Robert’s decision to have his surgery brought up the issue of her own. She knew Robert was right. After a moment’s indecision, she dialed Thomas’s office.
Unfortunately, he was still in surgery.
“I don’t know when he will be out,” said Doris. “But I know it will be late because he called me and told me to cancel his afternoon office hours.”
Cassi thanked her and hung up. Blankly she stared at her Monet print. Joan’s comment about the “impaired physician” disrupting his appointment schedule flashed into her mind. Then she dismissed the thought. Thomas had obviously canceled his office hours because he was stuck in surgery.
A knock interrupted her thoughts. Maureen’s listless face appeared in the doorway.
“Come in,” said Cassi as cheerfully as she could. She suspected that the next fifty minutes were going to be a good example of the blind leading the blind.
It was Doris, not Thomas, who called Cassi in the middle of the afternoon to say that Dr. Kingsley would meet her at the front entrance to the hospital at six o’clock sharp. She insisted Cassi be on time because of the party that night. Cassi was in the lobby promptly, but when the clock over the information booth showed twenty after six, she worried that she may have gotten the message wrong.
The entrance of the hospital was crowded with waves of people coming and going. The people leaving were primarily employees, and they chattered and laughed, glad to see the workday come to an end. Those arriving were mostly visitors who seemed subdued and intimidated as they lined up in front of the information booth to get directions from the volunteers in their green smocks.
Watching the crowds made time pass, and when Cassi looked back at the clock, it was almost six-thirty. Finally she decided to call Thomas’s office, but as she moved toward the phone, she caught a glimpse of his head above the crowd. He looked as tired as Cassi felt. His face was shadowed, which turned out to be an irregular growth of beard as if he’d not shaved carefully that morning. As he came closer, Cassi could see that his eyes were red-rimmed.
Unsure of her reception, Cassi held her tongue. When she realized that Thomas had no intention of talking or even stopping, she hooked her arm in his and was carried toward the rapidly revolving door.
Outside Cassi was confronted by a mixture of rain and snow, which melted the instant the flakes touched the ground. Hefting her bag onto her shoulder, she shielded her face and stumbled behind Thomas toward the parking garage.
Once inside the garage, he stopped and, finally turning to Cassi, said, “Awful weather.”
“We’re paying for such a nice fall,” said Cassi, encouraged that Thomas did not seem to be in a bad mood. Maybe Patricia would not tell him of the visit to his study.
The engine of the Porsche reverberated like thunder in the garage. As he watched the dials and gauges, Cassi carefully did up her seat belt. It took a conscious effort for her not to tell Thomas to do his, especially given the bad weather, but remembering his previous response, Cassi remained silent.
Whenever it snowed, traffic in Boston slowed to a frustrating stop-and-go mess. As Thomas and Cassi proceeded east on Storrow Drive, it was mostly stop. Although Cassi wanted to talk, she was afraid to break the silence.
“Did you hear from Robert Seibert today?” Thomas finally asked.
Cassi swung her head around. Thomas still had his eyes on the road despite the fact that the car was immobilized in a sea of red taillights. He seemed hypnotized by the rhythmic click-clack of the windshield wipers.
“I did speak to Robert today,” admitted Cassi, surprised at the question. “How did you know?”
“I’d heard that one of George Sherman’s patients had died. Apparently it wasn’t expected, and I wondered if your friend Robert was still interested in that series of his.”
“Absolutely,” said Cassi. “I went up after the autopsy. And when I did, Robert told me how you rescued him at death conference. I think that was very nice of you, Thomas.”
“I wasn’t trying to be nice,” said Thomas. “I was interested in what he had to say. But he was a fool to do what he did, and I still think he should get his butt kicked.”
“I think he did get his butt kicked,” said Cassi.
With a faint smile Thomas took advantage of the thin-ning traffic and goosed his car up the grade to the expressway.
“Was this last death another suspicious one?” he asked as the car accelerated to seventy. He drove with both hands on the wheel, blinking his high beams furiously as he came up behind people traveling more slowly.
“Robert thinks so,” said Cassi, her hands involuntarily gripping each other. Thomas’s driving always scared her. “But he hasn’t done the brain yet. He thinks the patient convulsed prior to death.”
“So it wasn’t like the last case?” asked Thomas.
“No,” said Cassi. “But Robert thinks the situations are related.” Purposely she kept her own role in the discussion secret. “Most of the patients, particularly over the last several years, have died after their acute postoperative course was over. One point that occurred to Robert today was that all the patients may have been on IV when they died. He’s checking on that now. It could be significant.”
“Why? Does Robert think these deaths could be suspicious?” asked Thomas with shock.
“I guess it’s occurred to him,” said Cassi. “After all, there was a case in New Jersey where a series of patients were given something like curare.”
“That’s true, but they all died with the same symptoms.”
“Well,” said Cassi. “I guess Robert feels that he has to consider all possibilities. I know it sounds awful and it certainly accentuates any insecurities Robert has about his own imminent surgery.” Cassi was hoping to shift the topic to her own operation.
“What kind of surgery is Robert going to have?”
“He’s finally having his impacted wisdom teeth removed. Since he had rheumatic heart disease as a child, he has to be treated with prophylactic antibiotics.”
“He’d be a fool not to,” agreed Thomas. “Although he must have suicidal tendencies. That’s the only way I can explain his behavior at that death conference. Cassi, I want you to be sure to stay away from this so-called SSD study, especially if there are going to be ludicrous accusations. With everything else going on, I certainly don’t need that kind of grief.”