Death Benefit

43.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER NEW YORK CITY MARCH 25, 2011, 2:01 P.M.

Pia’s brief sleep was interrupted by George knocking gently on his own door. She woke up with a start and recognized that she was in a room that was not her own. She sat up feeling like she had a hangover. All at once she realized where she was, and the whole previous night’s experience came flooding back. Pia got up from the bed, swayed for a moment, and went to the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s George.” Pia took the chair away from under the door handle. She then hurried into George’s compulsively clean bathroom and checked out her face, wincing when she touched her bruised left jawbone and wincing again when she noticed for the first time that she also had the makings of a good black eye. Reflexively, she closed her uninjured eye to make sure she could see normally. She also examined her cut lip, and then wiped away a bit of blood encrusted in her nostrils. Then she began to fill the sink to wash her face.

“What time is it?” she called through the open door. Her mind was clearing, and the dizziness she’d experienced when first getting off George’s bed had totally disappeared.

“It’s about two, a little after,” said George. “You want something to eat?”

“No! There’s no time. We have to get moving. The longer we wait, the less chance we have of finding anything. As we learned, polonium has a relatively short half-life and you can just wash it off normally, like dirt.”

“So you’re sticking to the polonium idea?” George had half hoped Pia would have cooled to her rather outlandish scenario by the time he got back.

“Absolutely. It fits so well. You agreed it fit, didn’t you?”

“It seems to,” George said. “Provided we can’t think of another reason for the hair loss. But the practicalities seem so daunting. And you’re sure there was hair loss, right?”

“Oh God, yes, George, I’m sure. You saw it yourself.”

George looked at Pia as she emerged from the bathroom. She had an intent expression on her face. It seemed that Pia was pleased with the power of her deductive reasoning, or else with the elegance of the plot to murder her mentor.

“Do you have any idea how hard this must have been to pull off?” she said. “It makes the Kennedy assassination look easy.”

“I think Oswald acted alone.”

“Okay, bad example. This has to be a sizable conspiracy, with a number of people involved. Once we confirm the polonium, I can’t let the authorities spin the story, which they will. I need to make sure my version of the story, which is the truth, gets out.”

“But if there’s proof, the police will protect you.”

“Bullshit. It’s the police I’m most afraid of. Listen, the more I think about it, the more I think it has to have been other researchers or doctors. The science behind it is impressive. I mean, it had to be someone with a medical background who thought all this through. Otherwise, as you said, why not just shoot them?” Pia stopped herself.

“I’m jumping the gun. We’ve got to look for radiation left in the lab. If it’s going to be anyplace, that’s where it will be, I’m sure. We need that Geiger counter. But let’s make a quick detour back to my room. I need to dig out some concealer. The fact that I look like I got run over is going to raise some eyebrows.”

“Let’s make it quick,” George said. “I’ve only managed to wrangle a couple more hours. I have to be back in the Radiology Department for an important lecture at four o’clock.”

Pia and George were able to borrow a Geiger counter from a resident in the department of nuclear medicine with ease. It was an out-of-commission machine awaiting recycling that was actually better at detecting alpha particles than the newer models. With the detector in hand, they hustled over to Rothman’s lab to check for any leftover radiation.

Once at the lab’s outer door they hesitated. “The only person I’d rather not run into is Spaulding,” Pia said. “He’s the only one who might cause us trouble. I never got the impression that any of the other technicians liked me much, but I can’t imagine they would physically stop us.”

“Want me to duck in and ask if he’s around?” George questioned.

“Good idea,” Pia responded.

It took George less than a minute. When he reappeared he said that the secretary told him Arthur Spaulding was taking a late lunch.

“Lucky us,” Pia said. “Let’s do it.”

The pair entered the lab with Pia in the lead. Marsha Langman looked up. Pia said she was just coming by to get some personal items. Marsha shrugged and went back to her work, whatever that was.

Pia made a beeline for the biosafety unit. They quickly donned protective clothing. They were in a hurry and didn’t want to be interrupted. Pia wanted to start in the unit because it was there that Rothman and Yamamoto had spent the entire morning on the fateful day, as well as the day before.

The Geiger counter was a small yellow box about the size of a large flashlight, with a handle on top. Pia held the main instrument in her left hand and ran the sensor, much like a microphone, over the bench surfaces. The machine made a slight crackling sound from background radiation every few seconds. To Pia’s chagrin, they found nothing, even under the hood itself.

As they removed their protective clothing they didn’t talk. Emerging back into the lab, they detoured to Pia’s small office for Marsha’s benefit. Pia had said she was there for some personal items so it was a command performance. As per usual, O’Meary was still there, half up in Pia’s ceiling space. He poked his head down when he heard the students enter.

“Miss Grazdani, you back? My God. What happened to your face?”

Pia said nothing.

“Good news. I found the short after all this time. It was between here and the doctor’s office. We’ll be out of here today. Sorry about the inconvenience.”

Pia ignored him.

“Is that one of those Geiger counters?”

“We did some radioisotope labeling in here,” Pia said. “We’re just checking the place is clean. Which it is.”

“How does that thing work, then?”

“Look it up online. Like I did.”

It made George uncomfortable that Pia was being so short with this guy. As his family was blue-collar, George felt a kinship with people like maintenance workers.

Disappointed at not finding any contamination in the biosafety unit, Pia was beginning to feel a big letdown. Yet there was one other place she wanted to check: Rothman’s office. Besides the biosafety unit and the organ bath unit, that was the only other place where both Rothman and Yamamoto spent any time. The problem was Marsha and her guard-dog mentality. Even with Rothman gone, she suspected Marsha would be Marsha.

As Pia and George returned to the lab proper, Pia was running through her mind possible ways to handle Marsha. Luckily the problem solved itself. Marsha was no longer sitting at her desk. Pia guessed and hoped she’d taken a late lunch like Spaulding.

With Marsha no longer standing guard, Pia and George hustled into Rothman’s inner office. Inside, there had obviously been some packing going on because scattered around were open cardboard boxes half full of books and papers. Pia ran the probe around the desk, the shelving behind the desk, the couch, and the coffee table where Rothman’s guests, usually journalists, would sit and hope that they would be the one to breach Rothman’s famous guard. They were inevitably disappointed. Next they tried Rothman’s private bathroom, which his celebrity status had afforded him; no other lab had a bathroom like this. But the Geiger counter stayed mostly silent except for the background crackle, just like in the biosafety unit.

Pia almost forgot about it but there was one more room-not so much a room as a storage area, where Rothman used to keep supplies scientific and secretarial. The place was stacked with toilet paper and paper towels, cases of beakers and test tubes, reams of paper, and old files. And here also was Rothman’s beloved Nespresso machine. Well, maybe, thought Pia. Just maybe.

There were a few wayward clicks from the Geiger counter next to the coffee and cappuccino maker that made Pia’s pulse pick up speed. Next to the coffeemaker was a dish towel, folded in half and carefully spread out in a small space between the coffeemaker and the coffee fixings themselves. The towel was supporting four white porcelain coffee cups: two espresso size and two regular size. They were sitting upside down. There were a few more clicks as Pia ran the probe over the bottom of the two regular coffee cups. Then she held the counter in her left hand and turned the cups over. She put the probe into one cup, then another. There was definite activity. It wasn’t off the chart but there was more activity in the cups than in the rest of the lab.

“They got Litvinenko with his tea,” Pia said excitedly. “Maybe they used the coffee here. It would explain how they both got hit at the same time and no one else was affected.”

“Doesn’t sound like much radiation. You think it’s significant?”

“It’s not much, but it is registering alpha particles. The cups were probably washed but there’s still something left. Anyway it’s definitely significant. Let’s get out of here.”

Pia took one of the coffee cups and held it gingerly by the handle. She took a padded envelope, slipped the cup inside, and put it in the reusable shopping bag in which she’d brought the Geiger counter.

George and Pia reversed their steps and emerged into the main part of the lab. Unfortunately they were in for a surprise. Marsha had apparently not gone for a late lunch, and Spaulding had returned from his. Both of them, with indignant expressions, blocked their way. Spaulding in particular had his hands on his hips and glared at Pia. “How dare you!” he said haughtily. “I told you not to come back here. And what are you doing with that?” He pointed at the Geiger counter.

Pia motioned for George to follow her. Her intention was not to engage them in conversation. She started to skirt Spaulding, but he grabbed her arm. Protectively, George moved to get in between them.

“It’s all right, George,” Pia said in a calm voice. “Arthur, let go of my arm or I’ll file a complaint with the medical center authorities for sexual harassment.”

Spaulding let go of Pia’s arm. “Whose Geiger counter is that? Does it belong to this lab?” He was sputtering.

“Don’t worry, Arthur, we signed it out from the appropriate department.”

“But what are you using it for in my lab? I demand you tell me.”

“It’s a bullshit detector, Arthur. Oh, look.” Pia held the sensor up to Arthur’s face and it crackled with its background noise. “It appears to be working just fine after all.”

Pia pushed past Spaulding and shot Marsha an indifferent look before leaving the office.