Death Benefit

33.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER NEW YORK CITY MARCH 24, 2011, 4:45 P.M.

For Pia, being in trouble was as natural as breathing in and out. She’d spent most of her life under some kind of probationary supervision undertaken by people who didn’t know her, care to know her, or understand her situation. Long ago, Pia had wondered how it was that she was the one who ended up in front of some panel or other. She never instigated the trouble, she was always reacting to someone older and more powerful trying to take advantage. Somehow that fact got lost in the paperwork. More often than not, it was only she who suffered the inquisition and the punishment that followed. For her, injustice belonged with pain on the same one-way street.

By the time she reached age twelve, Pia had simply stopped questioning the way of the world as it concerned her. This was just how it was and how it was going to be. Over the years she’d come to know how the individuals of influence in her life operated. Dr. Springer was a familiar type. He was fiercely protective of his own reputation and would adopt any position that protected him, even at the expense of reason and fact. Quick to take offense, Springer had no backbone. When Pia pushed back and kept pushing, Springer literally ran away. He went and found someone who did have some fortitude-Dr. Bourse-and he hid behind her. Bourse was a different proposition. She wasn’t afraid, Pia could see that, and she wasn’t willing to take the easy way out and simply dispense with the problem-Pia-which she could have done.

Pia had spent the afternoon anxiously mulling over Springer’s behavior. She’d learned nothing. There was also the fact that no one seemed concerned about the medical issues she was raising, which couldn’t help but fan Pia’s semi-paranoid belief that the medical center, and the Infectious Diseases Department in particular, hadn’t looked after Rothman and Yamamoto properly. And how could anyone prove that some medical center personnel had nothing to do with their getting sick in the first place? Pia was starting to consider the idea that some kind of cover-up might be under way, orchestrated by Dr. Springer.

And Rothman was still emotionally in her head. If she hadn’t let him take such an influential role in her life, she wouldn’t have found herself in her current predicament. If you let people into your life, she thought, you were bound to hurt sooner or later.

A knock on her door jolted Pia out of her agitated state. It was George. Who else?

“What happened with Springer? I was so worried I couldn’t concentrate all day.”

“It was a disaster.”

“I’m sorry. I’m also sorry I didn’t offer to go with you, really I am. You shouldn’t have to do this all by yourself.”

“George, stop saying you’re sorry, please! Besides, I never expected you to come with me. In fact, I never gave it a thought. And after what happened, I’m glad you didn’t come. Springer was a lot angrier at me than he was the first time. He went and fetched the dean to tell me to stop interfering. And he threatened to go to Groekest if I didn’t.”

“So, are you going to?”

“Going to what?”

“Stop interfering.”

“How can I? They’re the ones interfering, covering things up, not me. They’re sitting on something, I’m sure of it.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, that sounds rather paranoid.”

“So be it. And remember, even paranoid people have real enemies.”

“So you got confronted by the dean again?”

“Afraid so.”

“What did she do?”

“Bawled me out big-time. Gave me a lecture about being a troublemaker. Threatened to have me kicked out of school.”

“Shit!” George commented.

Pia checked her watch. “Actually I was just about to go back to Rothman’s lab. I’m just waiting until it’s late enough. I don’t want to run into anyone, especially not the dean.”

“Pia, the last time I looked, the dean isn’t working security. They have a whole staff for that, and they caught us in about five minutes the last time we went to the lab. Bourse made it pretty clear you’re not supposed to go back to the lab. Now she’s spoken to you a second time. Maybe they’re right. You are crazy.”

“I think I have an aptitude for science, George. There are facts here, evidence that doesn’t add up. No scientist is going to just walk away from that.”

“Then tell me this: What are you going to do when you get kicked out of this place? That would make you an ex-scientist. Or not even. More like an ex-almost-qualified scientist. I don’t think there’s a great deal of demand for them in the job market today. You’re going to graduate in a couple of months, if you’re lucky. Yes, Rothman’s death is a bad experience, a terrible one, but you might be compounding it and throwing away a career before it’s even started.”

“Career? Right now I don’t see that I have a career. And I couldn’t live with myself if I gave up now. Do you know if Rothman’s lab is still officially closed?”

“How would I know? Well, I do know it’s closed to you.”

“The epidemiologists must be done by now,” Pia said, ignoring George’s point. “If they’re not still checking the place out, there’s no reason I can’t go. I do have stuff I left in there. The dean was upset that we went in when it was still officially closed. If it’s still officially closed, I won’t go in, I promise, but if it’s not off-limits, I will. At the very least I need to check the contents of that storage freezer in the level-three biosafety unit, which we didn’t get a chance to do last night, remember? I’m one of the few people who knows the code that Spaulding uses in the logbook for the storage freezer. I want to be sure that all the samples that should be in the freezer are in the right place.”

“Who’s Spaulding?”

“The head lab technician. Rothman and Spaulding used to argue about the state of the storage freezer. Rothman thought the freezer was a mess, Spaulding disagreed. Rothman was thinking of sacking him. But that wasn’t unusual-everyone thought they were about to get fired. Spaulding was the only one who pushed back.”

“This is all very interesting and maybe you might find something is amiss in the storage facility. But even if you did, then what? Remember, it’s not Rothman’s lab anymore. All that is history. Unfortunately. And you’re going to be history if you keep doing what you’re doing. And are you really suggesting that the senior lab tech might have had something to do with Rothman’s death? That’s crazy.”

“Actually, I don’t know what I’m thinking. I do have some wild ideas, like these two scientists plotted together to carry off a dual suicide.”

George looked at Pia with consternation.

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding. But there are so many things bouncing around inside my head right now, so many theories, and I can’t rule anything out. Maybe it’s something someone didn’t do rather than what they did do-what do they call that? A sin of omission, not commission. The only thing I know is that something about this whole situation is not right.”

“Of course the whole situation isn’t right, Pia-two people died. That can never be right. But it doesn’t mean there can’t be a simple and logical explanation for why it happened.”

Pia thought for a moment. She considered opening up to George and talking about herself and her state of mind, but that was something she had always been loath to do. That was what she had done with Rothman and look where it had gotten her. She glanced at George’s face. He’d been looking at her the whole time; she had been mostly looking at the floor. He looked less eager than usual and more serious. Pia took a deep breath. She decided she’d at least try.

“I don’t want to think Rothman had anything to do with his own illness. But I’d like to be sure. If he did, it will mean that he let me down. In a real way, he betrayed me. Rothman was very important to me, and it’s hard for me to admit that anyone has such an influence on my life. Now he’s gone, I feel like I’m starting at square one. And I don’t want it to be his fault.”

George nodded, but he was having a very hard time understanding Pia’s reasoning. Even if Rothman accidentally infected himself, why would that mean she should think less of him, that he “betrayed” her?

“It was Rothman’s idea to start the research track of my training, and it was going to be under his direction. Who’s going to do that for me now? I was going to be working in his lab for my Ph.D. Where am I going to go now? Once again I’ve been abandoned.”

George was a little taken aback at what sounded like self-centeredness in the face of Rothman’s and Yamamoto’s deaths. “I’m sure the university will find you another lab,” he said. “They found you another rotation. Will and Lesley are already doing theirs.”

“Maybe they’ll find me one, maybe they won’t.”

George hesitated for a moment. He knew there was a risk Pia would take what he was about to say the wrong way. But he decided to say it anyway. “Pia, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how Rothman could have ‘betrayed’ you, as you put it. He got sick and died. It’s tough for me to understand you sometimes. I don’t think you should insert yourself into this where you don’t have to. If you’re now thinking Rothman’s death wasn’t an accident and that there’s a cover-up going on, I don’t see any other way for this to end but badly.”

“Unless it’s true.”

“You’re talking about murder. Who would want to murder one of the best research teams in the country?”

Turning it over in his mind, George could think of only one reason why someone would be so willing to risk their career without blinking an eye. He knew for sure this line of reasoning was going to get him into trouble. “Look, it’s none of my business, and I’ve never said anything to you that would make you think I was jealous of any other guy, er, getting close to you, but your relationship with Rothman, well . . .”

George was cut off by Pia’s loud laugh.

“Oh, God! Is that why you think I’m caught up in all this? You think I was sleeping with Rothman?”

“No. Well. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. It might explain why you’re so worked up about it. It’s what some people are saying on campus.”

“So I have to be sleeping with a guy to care about how he died? Thanks a lot, George. I did let him get close to me but not like that. Typical male. I’ll say it if it helps: No, there was nothing physical between me and Dr. Rothman. Zip. Believe me, I can tell when a man is interested in me like that, and he wasn’t. He was actually happily married and devoted to his family, despite how asocial he seemed.”

Pia was steamed and George didn’t know what to say. The thought he’d expressed had taken on a life of its own in his mind. But as soon as he had voiced it, he knew it was very unlikely. Now he was just embarrassed he’d even mentioned it.

“All right, that does it, I’m going to the lab,” Pia said. “I really do have stuff there that I need to get. I worked there for more than three and a half years. And don’t worry, if it’s off-limits, I’ll come right back like a good girl.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Then I’ll check out the storage freezer and get my stuff.”

“I’ll walk over to the med center and wait for you in the library.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“After Springer, it’s the least I can do. Really.”

“I guess I can’t stop you.”

George knew that was as close to an invite as he was going to get.