Pandemic

25

WEDNESDAY, 3:25 P.M.

The drive from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to the OCME was a relatively straight shot almost due north, using the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The traffic was heavy but moving well, and Jack was able to relax to a degree. He was becoming accustomed to driving the Escalade, despite its size. At least he had good visibility, sitting as high as he was. He literally looked down on regular cars similar to the de rigueur Mercedes he had in his former life.

As he was trying to integrate Wei Zhao’s apparent financial support for Carol Stewart with what he learned that day, he became so engrossed that when his phone rang it made him jump to the point of almost losing control of the car. With a bit of effort, he steadied the steering wheel and then guiltily looked out at the neighboring vehicles, wondering if anyone had noticed his sudden weave. One driver clearly had, because he gave Jack the finger. All Jack could do was mouth the word sorry.

Picking up the phone, he glanced at the caller ID. He expected it to be Laurie again, asking him why he wasn’t back, but it wasn’t Laurie. At least it wasn’t her mobile number. Although he could tell it was an OCME number, he didn’t know whose. Hoping it wasn’t Laurie or her secretary, Jack answered. It wasn’t Laurie. It was Bart Arnold, and he sounded stressed out.

“I’m so glad I got you. Are you still out in New Jersey?”

“No, I’m in Brooklyn, about to enter the Battery Tunnel. What’s up?” Jack felt his own heart rate accelerate after he heard the urgency in Bart’s voice.

“How soon do you think you will be here?” Bart asked.

“Fifteen to twenty minutes, unless FDR Drive is a parking lot. Why?”

“I think we have another one coming over from Bellevue as we speak. I just got off the phone with the ER.”

“What do you mean by ‘another one’?” Jack asked, but sensed he knew the answer.

“Another case just like Carol Stewart,” Bart said excitedly, stumbling over his words.

“Another sudden respiratory death?”

“Yes, and uncannily similar in all respects but without the heart transplant,” Bart said. “Young woman, apparently well dressed and not a druggie type. It even again happened on the subway, if you can believe it. This time it wasn’t the R train from Brooklyn. It was the D train from Brooklyn. I mean, that’s pretty fucking amazing.”

Jack felt a bit of perspiration break out on his forehead as the implications of what he’d just been told occurred to him — namely, that Aretha’s cytopathic effects were probably real and the lack of viruses on electron microscopy probably false. Jack shuddered. From the very moment he’d heard of the first case, he’d been terrified of a new lethal influenza virus running rampant in New York and spreading around the globe. Then, as time passed, first hours and then days, when there hadn’t been another case and the influenza screen was negative, he’d progressively allowed his fears to abate to the point of becoming sidetracked by his stumbling onto a possible violation of the National Organ Transplant Act. As egregious as that might be, it wasn’t nearly as critical as a possible new pandemic.

“What about an ID?” Jack asked. He hoped the case wasn’t an exact replica.

“We are okay in that realm,” Bart said. “We have a name: Helen VanDam, and an address in Bensonhurst. This time the victim was accompanied, and my understanding is that her companion will be in later for a formal identification.”

“Helen?” Jack immediately questioned. In his mind’s eye he immediately saw the name HELEN spelled out in Carol’s tattoo. Could this be the same Helen?

If so, even that was scary by implying an infectious connection.

“I know what you are thinking,” Bart said. “I had the same thought. But yes. It is definitely Helen.”

“Do you know if Bellevue considered it a possible contagious case?”

“I reminded them,” Bart said. “They insisted they had treated it as such from the outset, as did the EMS crew who got the victim off the train. This time it was the subway station at Thirty-fourth Street and Sixth Avenue.”

“That’s close to where Carol Stewart was picked up,” Jack said.

“As I said, the cases are uncannily similar,” Bart repeated.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Jack said.

“You should be arriving about the same time as the body,” Bart said. “It’s coming in a decontaminated body bag. Let me know what you find during the autopsy, and let me know if I can be of any help.”

“Will do,” Jack said. He disconnected. He then immediately pulled up Jennifer Hernandez’s number and made the call. He felt guilty about paying so much attention to his phone while driving, especially after practically having an accident when it had rung. He glanced around at the other drivers. No one seemed to notice, although the highly tinted windows might have played a role in hiding his activities.

The conversation with Jennifer, the current on-call ME, was short and to the point. He merely informed her that another contagion case was coming in from the Bellevue ER that he would handle and do it immediately. She had yet to be informed from Communications but was glad not to have to think about what to do about it.

Next Jack put in a call to Vinnie, whose mobile phone number he also had in his contacts. Although Vinnie was officially off at three, he frequently stayed around, finding things to do and schmoozing with the other mortuary techs coming on for the night shift. Sometimes he stayed as late as five. Although he made it a point to act as if he didn’t care, Vinnie was seriously dedicated to his job, especially after the tight bond had formed between him and Jack.

“Why do I dread getting a call from you when I’m officially off duty,” Vinnie said without so much as a hello.

“I can’t imagine,” Jack said. “But what I can imagine is that you’ve had withdrawal symptoms, since I haven’t been there all day to keep you in line.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Vinnie scoffed.

“Listen, I’m going to make it up to you. I’m on my way in to 520 and will be there shortly. On its way in as we speak is another subway death just like the one we did on Monday. The name is Helen VanDam.”

“Let me guess,” Vinnie groused. “You want to do it right away. Shit! Why can’t you be like everyone else around here? What’s wrong with tomorrow morning?”

“I know you well enough to know you know why,” Jack said.

“Okay, but I have to warn you, I’m still babysitting Carlos Sanchez, so you’ll have to put up with both of us.”

“I heard he wasn’t working out too well,” Jack said.

“The kid’s a jerkoff, has zero initiative, and he’s squeamish as hell. And he’s a worse germaphobe than I am. Why the hell he thought he wanted to be a mortuary tech is a mystery to me. All he does is complain. He’s not going to last.”

“Have you said anything to the chief of staff?” Jack asked.

“Yes, I told Twyla Robinson, for all the good it did me. She thought I wasn’t giving him a chance to prove himself. Personally, I think she doesn’t want to admit she made a mistake in hiring him.”

“If he’s a germaphobe, this case, like the one on Monday, should turn him off enough to quit once we make sure he really understands what it is about. I mean, it terrifies me, and usually I’m relatively nonchalant around contagion.”

“You have a point,” Vinnie said. “He did not like the case you’re talking about.”

“I remember teasing him a bit about Ebola and influenza. We could lay it on a little thicker.”

“It might work,” Vinnie said. “He really hated the moon suit.”

“Okay. With that decided, let’s move on,” Jack said. “I want to handle the case the same way we did the one on Monday. We’ll use the decomposed room along with the moon suits. And take the X-ray and weigh the body without taking it out of the body bag like last time! We’ll again do the photos and fingerprinting in the decomposed room after we get the body out of the body bag. And make sure we have enough viral sample bottles.”

“Okay, boss,” Vinnie said. “And don’t let me down with Carlos.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jack said. “Seems to me I remember you trying to protect him on Monday from my teasing him about losing mortuary techs to contagion from autopsies.”

“Don’t remind me,” Vinnie said. “That was before I knew what a dick he was.”

“Keep an eye out for the body to arrive so you can get right on it,” Jack said. “It’s on its way from Bellevue ER, so it should be there in minutes if it isn’t already. And on my end, I’m happy to report the FDR Drive is moving along so I’ll be there in a flash as well.”

“Got it,” Vinnie said. “See you soon.”

After disconnecting with Vinnie, Jack made a final call to Aretha. “Guess what?” he said when he got her on the line. His voice had an urgency that he didn’t try to hide. “There’s another subway death that sounds exactly like the first one.”

“Wow! That increases the chances that we are dealing with a contagious virus,” Aretha said, even before she heard the details.

“That’s exactly my fear,” Jack said. “I’m heading back to the OCME and will be handling the case immediately. So we’ll have more samples. Will you be available?”

“I was planning on leaving at my normal time, but I’ll stay. I’ll inoculate more tissue cultures tonight. There go my chances for a game this evening.”

“Sorry about that,” Jack said. “But this is important.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Aretha said. “It’s a bit terrifying.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Jack said.

“Oh, by the way,” Aretha added. “In response to your question earlier. I ran another screen on the tissue culture and there is no garden-variety virus present. The cytopathic effects are being caused by a true unknown.”

“Any results from the MPS?” Jack asked.

Aretha laughed. “Identifying an unknown virus is a time-intensive exercise, so no. But you’ll be the first to know. Trust me!”