Jack read the article. It wasn’t long; he was finished before he got back to his room. Somehow the writer had learned that Jack had had run-ins with the same gang in the past. There was an unmistakably scandalous implication. He tossed the paper aside. He was disgusted at the unexpected exposure and was concerned it could hinder his cause. He expected to have a busy day, and he didn’t want interference resulting from this unwanted notoriety.
Jack showered, shaved, and brushed his teeth. He felt a world of difference from when he’d awakened, but he did not feel up to par. He still had a headache and the muscles of his legs were sore. So was his lower back. He couldn’t help but worry that he was having early symptoms of the flu. He didn’t have to remind himself to take his rimantadine.
When Jack arrived at the medical examiner’s office, he had the taxi drop him off at the morgue receiving bay to avoid any members of the press who might be lying in wait.
Jack headed directly upstairs to scheduling. He was worried about what had come in during the night. As he stepped into the room, Vinnie lowered his newspaper.
“Hey, Doc,” Vinnie said, “Guess what? You’re in the morning paper.”
Jack ignored him and went over to where George was working.
“Aren’t you interested?” Vinnie called out. “There’s even picture!”
“I’ve seen it,” Jack said. “It’s not my best side.”
“Tell me what happened,” Vinnie demanded. “Heck, this is like a movie or something. Why’d this guy want to shoot you?”
“It was a case of mistaken identity,” Jack said.
“Aw, no!” Vinnie said. He was disappointed. “You mean he thought you were someone else?”
“Something like that,” Jack said. Then, addressing George, he asked if there had been any more influenza deaths.
“Did someone actually fire a gun at you?” George asked, ignoring Jack’s question. He was as interested as Vinnie. Other people’s disasters hold universal appeal.
“Forty or fifty times,” Jack said. “But luckily it was one of those guns that shoots Ping-Pong balls. Those I wasn’t able to duck bounced off harmlessly.”
“I guess you don’t want to talk about it.” George said.
“That’s perceptive of you, George,” Jack said. “Now, have any influenza deaths come in?”
“Four,” George said.
Jack’s pulse quickened.
“Where are they?” Jack asked.
George tapped one of his stacks. “I’d assign a couple of them to you, but Calvin already called to tell me he wants you to have another paper day. I think he saw the newspaper too. In fact, he didn’t even know if you’d be coming in to work today.”
Jack didn’t respond. With as much as he had to do that day, having another paper day was probably a godsend. Jack opened the charts quickly to read the names. Although he could have guessed their identities, it was still a shock. Kim Spensor, George Haselton, Gloria Hernandez, and a William Pearson, the evening lab tech, had all passed away during the night with acute respiratory distress syndrome. The worry that the influenza strain was virulent was no longer a question; it was now a fact.
These victims had all been healthy, young adults who’d died within twenty-four-plus hours of exposure.
All of Jack’s anxiety came back in a rush. His fear of a major epidemic soared. His only hope was that if he was right about the humidifier being the source, all of these cases represented index cases in that all had been exposed to the infected humidifier. Hence, none of these deaths represented person-to-person transfer, the key element for the kind of epidemic he feared.
Jack rushed from the room, ignoring more questions from Vinnie. Jack didn’t know what he should do first. From what had happened with the plague episode, he thought he should wait to talk to Bingham and have Bingham call the city and state authorities. Yet now that Jack’s worry about a potential epidemic had increased, he hated to let any time pass.
“Dr. Stapleton, you’ve had a lot of calls,” Marjorie Zankowski said.
Marjorie was the night communications operator. “Some left messages on your voice mail, but here’s a list. I was going to take them up to your office, but since you are here…” She pushed a stack of pink phone messages toward Jack. Jack snatched them up and continued on.