Approaching the main desk, Jack was encouraged. He’d planned on having to ask for Dr. Carol Sidoti, but it wasn’t necessary. She happened to be there behind the desk, talking with several of the triage nurses. As soon as she broke off her conversation, he called out, “Dr. Sidoti, I decided to follow your advice and try to have a chat with Ronnie Cavanaugh. Have you seen him this evening?”
“Yes, I have,” Carol said. “I spoke with him minutes ago.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“I believe he went into the ED lounge.” She pointed at an unmarked door behind Jack in the corridor that led into the hospital proper. “Since the pandemic started, he’s been changing into scrubs for his shift.”
After flashing the woman a thumbs-up, Jack headed toward the indicated door. As he pushed into the room, he thought about how much things had changed with emergency medicine since he’d been a resident. Back then it had been called the emergency room and was one large room with curtained-off bays. More important, it had been manned by medical and surgical residents. Now it was called an Emergency Department or ED and was comparatively enormous, divided into separate areas depending on the degree of emergency involved. Emergency medicine had become a specialty in and of itself, composed of highly trained, board-certified emergency medicine doctors, like Carol Sidoti. Residents now merely pitched in to help. In a hospital the size of the MMH, the ED was almost a separate hospital under the same roof, with its own imaging and laboratory facilities as well as overnight beds so patients could be observed for twenty-four hours without having to go through the entire hospital admission process.
In contrast to the surgical lounge, the ED lounge at that time of day was deserted. It also had no windows as it was in the middle of the ED. The furnishings, however, were similar with a couple of nondescript couches, the same variegated mixture of chairs, and a small kitchenette. A flat-screen TV had the evening news on but no sound. In hopes of finding someone, Jack pushed into the men’s locker room and immediately saw a muscular, angular man pulling on a scrub top who he estimated was in his mid-thirties. He was already wearing the scrub pants.
“Ronald Cavanaugh?” Jack questioned.
“None other, but I prefer Ronnie.” He smiled. His voice was a pleasant baritone. To Jack’s ear he had a mild Boston accent.
“Ronnie it is,” Jack said. He eyed the man, who was of equivalent height. To Jack, he looked as Irish as his name suggested with dark brown hair, narrow blue eyes, an upturned nose, high cheekbones, and a prominent, round chin. His complexion was on the pale side and mildly flushed, as if he’d just stepped in from the cold. A small scattering of tiny pockmarks on his cheeks suggested he’d had a bit of acne as a teenager.
Jack introduced himself while handing Ronnie one of his cards. He asked if he could have a moment to talk about Dr. Susan Passero’s death.
“No problem,” Ronnie said after glancing at Jack’s business card. “Provided it doesn’t take too long. My shift starts at seven on the dot, but since I’ve already taken report from the day shift supervisors, I’m golden until then.” He then picked up a mask he’d placed on the bench seat that ran down between the lockers and held it up in the air. “Want me to put on my mask?” he asked cheerfully.
“Not if you are vaccinated and boosted,” Jack said.
“I am indeed,” Ronnie answered. “Of course.”
“Same here,” Jack said, removing his mask as well.
“Where would you like to chat, here or out in the lounge?” While Ronnie spoke, he gestured at the long bench. It was a similar setup as in the surgical locker room.
“Here is fine with me,” Jack said.
The two men straddled the bench, facing each other about six feet apart. Ronnie had gone back to studying Jack’s card.
“You know, your name rings a bell,” Ronnie said. “And now I remember why. I read about you in the Daily News a couple of years ago. You were involved in exposing a pathologist over at NYU who’d murdered his girlfriend. Am I remembering correctly?”
“I played a minor role,” Jack said. “The real hero was a pathology resident.”
“What I particularly remember is that you play pickup basketball and exclusively use your bike to get around the city. Is all that true?”
“Yes,” Jack said simply.
“I played a lot of basketball when I was in the navy,” Ronnie said. “It’s great exercise but tough on the knees.”
“You were in the navy?” Jack asked. He didn’t want to waste time talking about himself.
“Yes, I was and retired as IDC, independent duty corpsman, on a fast-attack nuclear submarine out of Groton, Connecticut,” Ronnie said proudly. “Going into the navy was the best decision of my life. It’s where I got my initial medical training. The service even helped me get my veterans bachelor of science in nursing degree. But getting back to the issue at hand, I have to tell you that in the four years I’ve been here, you are the first medical examiner I’ve met. I’m accustomed to dealing with your field people on all the ME cases. It slips my mind what they call themselves.”
“Medical legal investigators,” Jack said.
“Right!” Ronnie responded. “And I assume you know that last night I talked at length about Dr. Passero’s death with Kevin Strauss. He’s someone I’ve dealt with many times before, mostly on the phone, since it is invariably me as the night nursing supervisor who calls in ME cases. He’s a sharp fellow and certainly knows his stuff.”
“I’m aware that you met with him,” Jack said. “And I have spoken with him about the case. I have to say, he was similarly complimentary about you.”
“We worker bees appreciate each other,” Ronnie said with a laugh and a wave of dismissal. “I’m not looking for compliments. My point here is that I don’t think there is anything I can add to what I told him. I’m sorry if I can’t be more helpful.”
“You might be correct,” Jack agreed. “But we know more now about Dr. Passero’s case than we did last night. A full autopsy has been done, but no evidence of any cardiac pathology was found, meaning we have no cause and mechanism of death as of yet. The heart and the coronary arteries appeared entirely normal on gross inspection. Although histology is still pending, I doubt it is going to shed any light on the situation.”
“Really?” Ronnie questioned. “That’s a shock.” His narrow eyes narrowed further, and his brow creased dramatically. “A completely normal heart? How can that be? I thought for sure it was a heart attack. So did everyone in the ED, especially knowing she had diabetes.”
“We were surprised as well,” Jack said, “which is why I am here.”
“This is totally unexpected,” Ronnie said. “What about a stroke or a channelopathy? We were never able to get a heartbeat, which I think I mentioned to Kevin Strauss.”
“There was no sign of a stroke, and a channelopathy has been preliminarily ruled out,” Jack said. He was impressed. He remembered Carol Sidoti describing Ronnie as clinically astute as well as personable, and Kevin Strauss calling him a sharp dude, and Jack now had to agree on all accounts. It was encouraging and a relief after the not-so-pleasant conversations with the two doctors. Jack was about to continue by asking Ronnie exactly how things unfolded minute by minute in the garage when he held up. Ronnie had momentarily closed his eyes and cradled his head in both hands, letting out a plaintive sigh while massaging his eyes. Respectfully, Jack waited. It was apparent that Ronnie was struggling.