Jack was pleased to get Laurie’s cases and had admitted he’d sent out an e-mail to all their M.D. colleagues, asking for similar cases, to try to estimate the incidence of alternative medicine- induced deaths in New York City.
“Hey!” Chet called out while giving Jack’s arm a forceful nudge. “What are you having, a psychomotor seizure?”
“Sorry,” Jack said, shaking his head as if waking from a trance. “My mind was someplace else.”
“What did you want to ask me about my VAD case?” Chet asked. He had been waiting for Jack to finish his question.
“Could you possibly get the name or accession number of that case so I can get the details?” Jack said, but he didn’t listen for Chet’s response. His mind was back, remembering that morning when he’d awakened at five-thirty, still in his clothes, still sitting on the living-room couch. On his lap was Trick or Treatment, open midway through the appendix.
The book had solidified his negative feelings about alternative medicine and boosted his interest in the issue. Although there were certain sections of the book that he’d skimmed, for the most part he’d read the entire volume, even underlining certain key passages. Its message surely meshed with his own stance on the subject, and he felt the arguments the authors used to justify their conclusions were clear and unbiased. In fact, Jack felt they had bent over backward to try to make a case for alternative medicine, but in their summary all they could say was that homeopathy provided only a placebo effect; acupuncture, besides placebo, might have an effect on some types of pain and nausea, but it was minor and short-lived; chiropractic, besides placebo, showed some evidence of efficacy in relation to back pain, but conventional treatments were usually equally beneficial and far less expensive; and herbal medicine was mostly placebo, with products of little or no quality control, and for those products with a pharmacological effect, drugs that contained just the active ingredient were decidedly more safe and more efficacious.
Having slept just a couple of hours, Jack thought he’d be exhausted. But, at least initially, that hadn’t been the case. After an exhilarating cold shower and a bite to eat, Jack had cycled to the OCME in near-record time.
As keyed up as he was with newfound knowledge about alternative medicine, Jack immersed himself in his work, signing out several pending cases before grabbing an unwilling Vinnie to start work in the autopsy room. By the time Jack had come by Chet’s office he’d finished three autopsies, which included a shooting at a bar in the East Village and two suicides, one of which Jack found definitely suspicious and about which he’d already put in a call to his buddy, Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano.
“Hey,” Chet called out again. “Anybody home? This is ridiculous. It’s like having a conversation with a zombie. I just told you the name of that VAD case of mine, and you look like you’re back having another petit mal seizure. Didn’t you sleep last night?”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, squeezing his eyes together and then blinking rapidly. “You’re right about me not getting much sleep last night, and I’m running on nervous energy. Tell me again the name!”
“Why so interested?” Chet questioned, writing the name on a piece of notepaper and handing it to Jack.
“I’m looking into alternative medicine in general, and chiropractic VAD in particular. What did you find when you looked into VAD back then?”
“You mean above and beyond the fact that no one wanted to hear about it?”
“You mean besides your chief?”
“When I presented the case on grand rounds, it ignited a kind of debate, with half the audience for and half against chiropractic, and those who were for it were really for it. It was an emotional issue that took me by surprise, especially that my boss was such a fan.”
“You said you’d gathered four or five cases. Do you think you could find their names as well? It would be interesting to unofficially compare the incidence of VAD between New York City and L.A.”
“Finding the name of my own case was relatively easy; finding the others is asking for a miracle. But I’ll check. How are you going to look into it around here?”
“Have you checked your e-mail lately?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“When you do, there’s one from me. I sent an e-mail to all the city MEs, looking for cases. Later this afternoon I’m going to go over to records and see if I can find any there as well.”
Suddenly, Jack’s BlackBerry buzzed. Always concerned it might be Laurie and a crisis at home, he snatched it out of its holster and glanced at the LCD screen. “Uh-oh!” he said. It wasn’t Laurie. It was the chief, Harold Bingham, calling from the front office downstairs.
“What’s up?” Chet asked, noticing Jack’s reaction.
“It’s the chief,” Jack said.
“Is that a problem?”
“I made a site visit yesterday,” Jack confessed. “It was to the chiropractor involved in my case. I wasn’t my usual diplomatic self. In fact, we almost came to blows.”
Chet, who knew Jack better than anyone else in the office, grimaced. “Good luck!”
Jack nodded thanks and clicked to accept the call. Bingham’s no-nonsense secretary, Mrs. Sanford, was on the line. “The chief wants you in his office, now!”
“I heard that,” Chet said, making the sign of the cross. The meaning was simple: Chet was convinced Jack’s situation needed prayer.
Jack pushed away from Chet’s desk. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said sarcastically.
As he walked to the elevator, Jack thought the summons had to be about good old Newhouse, the chiropractor. Jack had fully expected to have to answer for the episode but didn’t think it would happen so quickly. This probably wasn’t due to just a phone call from the irate chiropractor but rather a call from a lawyer. Consequences could be a slap on the wrist — or a drawn-out civil suit.
Stepping out of the elevator, Jack thought that instead of defending himself in front of Bingham, which he knew would be difficult if not impossible, perhaps he should go on the offense.
“You are to go right in,” Mrs. Sanford said, without looking up from her computer. Since she’d done the same thing the last time he’d been called on the carpet ten years previously, he was once again mystified how she’d known it was him.
“Close the door!” Bingham demanded from behind his mammoth wooden desk. The desk was set back below high windows covered with ancient venetian blinds. Calvin Washington, the deputy chief, was sitting at the large library table, with the glass-fronted bookcases behind him. Both men stared at Jack unblinkingly.
“Thanks for calling me down here,” Jack said earnestly, walking directly up to Bingham’s desk and giving it a thump with the bottom of his fist for added emphasis. “The OCME must take a responsible stand on alternative medicine, particularly chiropractic. Yesterday we had a death by bilateral vertebral artery dissection caused by unnecessary cervical manipulation.”
Bingham looked confused by the way Jack took the wind out of his sails. “I’ve taken the lead,” Jack continued, “by forcing myself yesterday to take the time and effort to conduct a site visit to the offending chiropractor to confirm that he performed the cervical manipulation. As you might gather, this was not the easiest task, and I needed to be forceful to get the information.”
Bingham’s blotchy face paled slightly, and his rheumy eyes narrowed while he stared at Jack. Then he removed his glasses to clean them — and to buy himself time. Snappy repartee had never been one of his strengths.