Pandemic

27

WEDNESDAY, 5:35 P.M.

Just as the clinical aspects of Carol Stewart and Helen VanDam corresponded, so did the autopsy results. Except for the heart transplant, the autopsies were mirror images of each other, down to the mild signs of inflammation with extravasation of blood in the gallbladder, spleen, and kidneys. Once again, Jack had been reminded of what was seen with hantavirus, even though he knew it wasn’t hantavirus. But most important were the similarities of the extensive lung pathology, indicating that the victim had essentially drowned in her own body fluids and exudate. Both Jack and Vinnie had been impressed to the point of Vinnie joking that it wasn’t a cytokine storm but rather a cytokine cyclone.

When the autopsy was over, Jack stayed and helped Vinnie clean up and disinfect all the sample bottles and the outside of the body bag with hypochlorite. With that done, Jack left Vinnie to deal with getting the body bag into the cooler and contacting janitorial services to clean the room itself. He also tasked Vinnie to get the viral samples over to Aretha at the Public Health Laboratory. In his mind there was no rush. He was about as sure as he could be that whatever the microorganism was, it was the same in both cases.

After hanging up his moon suit in the hazmat locker room and plugging the ventilator into the charger, Jack went into the main locker room to change back into his street clothes. But first he checked his mobile phone and saw there was a recent text message from Rebecca Marshall. It said that John Carver was on his way in to make a formal identification of Helen VanDam. Jack checked the time of the message. It was 5:11. Quickly he called Rebecca to find out the status. He learned that the man was there and had made the identification.

“Is he about to leave?” Jack asked. “As I said, I’d like to talk to him.”

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “We are all done, and I didn’t think I was going to hear from you.”

“Ask him to hold on,” Jack said. “I’ll be right up.”

Instead of changing, Jack grabbed one of the white coats that were available for the MEs to use between cases and pulled it on over his scrubs. A minute later he was in the stairwell. The back elevator that served the basement took forever if the elevator car wasn’t there waiting.

Jack was able to enter the ID area from the back through what used to be Communications before Communications was moved down to 421. The whole area had been greatly expanded over the previous fifteen years, particularly after the identification problems associated with the collapse of the World Trade Center. He found Rebecca Marshall in her cubicle and was told John Carver was waiting for him in the family ID room.

Walking into the family ID room, which was a modestly large space, Jack found the man sitting on a blue couch. He was the only person in the room, the furniture in which consisted of a large, round wooden table with eight wooden chairs in addition to the couch. On the walls were a number of framed posters of the 9/11 disaster with the phrase NEVER FORGET emblazoned across the bottom of each. Jack had wondered for years why the posters were still up. The only explanation he’d come up with was that they would remind grieving families that as bad as they felt, there had been worse times.

As Jack approached, John got to his feet. He was a slightly built, youthful man, probably in his late twenties, with a narrow and handsome face. He was impeccably dressed, wearing a tight-fitting and possibly one-size-too-small blazer. He had a shock of auburn hair with blond highlights that needed to be constantly pushed out of his face or snapped back with a sudden toss of his head. It was painfully apparent from the man’s expression that he had been sorely rattled by the events of the afternoon.

Jack introduced himself and explained that he had done a postmortem examination of Helen VanDam and wanted to ask him a few questions. “I don’t know what you have already told Mrs. Marshall,” Jack added. “So I apologize if there is a certain amount of redundancy.”

“That’s okay,” John said. His voice wavered. It was obvious that Jack had already added to the man’s discomfiture.

Jack gestured toward the table and both men sat. Jack could see that John was trembling.

“I want to personally thank you for making the identification as you did.”

“Thank you,” John said. “I’ve never had to do this before.”

“It’s not easy,” Jack said. “But it is extremely important.”

“I can understand.”

“I want to ask you if you knew Carol Stewart,” Jack said.

“Of course,” John said. “I recently got to know her quite well.”

“Did you know that Carol Stewart had also recently passed away?” Jack asked.

“No, I didn’t,” John admitted with alarm. He took a deep breath and let it out. “When?”

“Monday,” Jack said.

“What did she die of?”

“That’s still to be determined,” Jack said. “Whatever it was, the symptoms and signs were consistent with Helen’s. We are concerned it might be a contagious disease. Strangely enough, both became stricken on the subway.”

“Oh my God, it was terrible,” John confessed. He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head at the memory. “When we got on the subway, Helen was fine. She’d been fine. She hasn’t been sick at all. We were having fun. We were coming into the city to shop. Then, before we crossed to Manhattan, she had a chill and soon started having trouble breathing. I didn’t know what to do. Somebody called the conductor. It was awful.”

Jack paused in his questioning for a moment, trying to figure out how to continue. “I’m sorry,” he said empathetically. “I know this is not easy, but because it might involve a contagious disease, I need to ask some personal questions. From the matching tattoos on both women, I’m assuming they were romantically involved. Is that fair to say?”

“Yes, they were a couple,” John said. “As far as I know, they had been living together for at least a year and at one point were thinking about getting married.”

“What was your relationship with these women?”

“It’s all rather complicated,” John said.

“It might be important for us to know the details,” Jack said.

“For the last three and a half months I’ve been roommates with Helen.”

“And before that?” Jack asked.

“I had been living on and off with a girlfriend in SoHo but mostly off,” John said. “But I’ve known Helen forever. We went to school together in Seattle, and from grammar school all the way through high school we’d been an item. We’d been in touch when we both found out we were here in the city. But then when Carol started getting really sick and was going to have her heart transplant, Helen more or less insisted I move in with her to keep her company and help her get through a difficult period. She thought Carol was going to die.”

“That was three and a half months ago?”

“That’s right,” John said. “I wasn’t getting along all that well with my girlfriend, so I took Helen up on her offer. And then we kinda hit it off remembering old times.”

“You mean you and Helen started an affair?”

“I guess you could say that,” John said. “It was more a reawakening. She was needy, and I was needy, so there you have it. It surprised both of us.”

“What happened when Carol came home?”

“Well, we ended up telling her what was happening. She seemed all right with it because she was limited in what she could do after her operation. Then, when she got better, she even tried to participate. She didn’t want to lose Helen, and I was kind of a package deal by then. And she gave it a good go, but ultimately she told Helen she couldn’t handle it. She actually got pretty angry about it all and moved out a couple months ago to an apartment in Sunset Park.”

“Did you guys see her after she moved?”

“Yeah, for the first month. We made an effort. We hoped she’d change her mind, so we spent lots of evenings at her place. But it was clear it wasn’t going to work.”

“Do you mean neither you nor Helen saw Carol for about a month before she died?” Jack asked.

“That’s right,” John said. “We got into an argument the last evening we spent together. Helen and I got pissed. I mean, we didn’t force her or anything. Carol was acting so bitchy and self-righteous, like she was better than us.”

“To me it sounds like Carol decided she preferred a monogamous relationship,” Jack said, treading carefully.

“Maybe, but I think it was more that by making the attempt, she only grew more sure she wasn’t bisexual,” John said. “I mean, she tried, and there’s nothing wrong with being bi, but I don’t think she liked it. She was a lesbian and just didn’t get turned on by the opposite sex. That’s what I think she realized. But you could be right that she wanted all or nothing with Helen.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “I appreciate your time, and I want to thank you for being so open. I know this has been a difficult day for you.”

“The worst,” John said without hesitation. “Now, let me ask you a question. If this is a contagious disease like you’re saying, do I have to worry about catching it?”

“That is a very good question,” Jack said. “The problem is, we just don’t know. But we have your contact information, so we’ll be in touch if we need to be.”

“Is that it, then?” John asked. “Can I go?”

“One more question,” Jack said. “If it is a contagious disease, we don’t know who gave it to whom. As far as you know, did either woman travel recently outside the U.S.?”

“No. I mean, Helen didn’t for sure. I suppose Carol could have, but I doubt it. She had been so sick and was always going back to see her doctor out in New Jersey someplace. And she wasn’t excited about travel. She thought she’d gotten her heart condition on a business trip to South America.”

“What about pets?”

“No pets,” John said with an expression of disgust. “I won’t live with animals, and both Helen and Carol felt the same way.”

“What about pests, like mice around the apartment. Anything like that?”

“Yuck,” John said. “No way.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Jack said. He pushed back from the table and stood. “If and when we discover what killed your friends and we think your health is at all at risk, we’ll call you.”

Leaving the family ID room, Jack intended to go back downstairs to change into his street clothes, but halfway to the stairwell he remembered his promise to Laurie to see to the police custody case. Instead of going to the basement, he beelined to the front elevators with the idea of heading up to the sixth floor to see if anyone was still in Toxicology.

As it turned out, Jack was lucky. Peter Letterman, the assistant director, who was an extraordinarily dedicated civil servant, was still in his tiny office despite the time. It was after six. Peter was more than happy to check on the case, and when he did, he reported to Jack that the blood cocaine level was 1.52 mg/l and the cocaine metabolite was 1.84 mg/l.

“These are high,” Jack commented.

“Very high,” Peter said.

“Dr. Montgomery is going to be happy,” Jack said. “The police commissioner has been on her case in trying to prove forceful restraint was necessary. I think this does the trick.”

“No doubt,” Peter said. “The victim was clearly out of his mind and might have died of the cocaine without any help from the arresting police officer.”

“Much obliged,” Jack said. He was pleased to have something positive to give to Laurie to make up for her frustration at his being out in the field all day.

With the toxicology report in hand, Jack went to the back elevator to return to the basement. Before going to the front office to collect Laurie, he’d change into his civvies and check on Vinnie’s progress. He was particularly interested in making sure the samples had gotten over to the Public Health Laboratory.