“Come on,” Laurie urged. “I won’t tell anybody.”
Jack looked at Vinnie. Vinnie held up his hands. “My lips are sealed.”
“Well, I’d have to fall back on my original differential I had for Nodelman,” Jack said. “To narrow it down more than that, I have to again go out on thin ice. If it isn’t plague, the nearest infectious disease both pathologically and clinically is tularemia.”
Laurie laughed. “Tularemia in a twenty-eight-year-old postpartum female in Manhattan?” she questioned. “That would be pretty rare, al though not as rare as your diagnosis yesterday of plague. After all, she could have a hobby of rabbit hunting on weekends.”
“I know it’s not very probable,” Jack said. “Once again I’m relying to tally on the pathology and the fact that the test for plague was negative.”
“I’d be willing to bet a quarter,” Laurie said.
“Such a spender!” Jack joked. “Fine! We’ll bet a quarter.”
Laurie returned to her own case. Jack and Vinnie turned their attention back to Susanne Hard. While Vinnie did his tasks, Jack finished the lymphatic dissection he wanted to do, then took the tissue samples he felt appropriate for microscopic study. When the samples were all in the proper preservatives and appropriately labeled, he helped Vinnie suture the corpse.
Leaving the autopsy room, Jack properly dealt with his isolation equipment. After plugging in his rechargeable ventilator battery, he took the elevator up to the third floor to see Agnes Finn. He found her sitting in front of a stack of petri dishes examining bacterial cultures.
“I’ve just finished another infectious case that’s suspected plague,” he told her. “All the samples will be coming up shortly. But there is a problem. The lab over at the Manhattan General claims the patient tested negative. Of course, I want to repeat that, but at the same time I want you to rule out tularemia, and I want it done as quickly as possible.”
“That’s not easy,” she said. “Handling Francisella tularensis is hazardous. It’s very contagious to laboratory workers if it gets into the air. There is a fluorescein antibody stain for tularemia, but we don’t have it.”
“How do you make the diagnosis, then?” Jack asked.
“We have to send any samples out,” she said. “Because of the risk of handling the bacteria the reagents are generally kept only at reference labs where the personnel are accustomed to dealing with the microbe. There is such a lab here in the city.”
“Can you send it right away?” Jack asked.
“We’ll messenger it over as soon as it gets here,” she said. “If I call and put a rush on it, we’ll have a preliminary result in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Perfect,” Jack said. “I’ll be waiting. I’ve got ten dollars and twenty-five cents riding on the outcome.”
Agnes gave Jack a look. He considered explaining, but feared he’d sound even more foolish. Instead he fled upstairs to his office.
13
* * *
THURSDAY, 10:45 A.M., MARCH 21,1996
NEW YORK CITY
“I’m liking it more and more,” Terese said. She straightened up from Colleen’s drawing board. Colleen was showing her tissues that her team had comped up just that morning using the theme they’d discussed the night before.
“The best thing is that the concept is consistent with the Hippocratic oath,” Colleen said. “Particularly the part about never doing harm to anyone. I love it.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t think about it before,” Terese said. “It’s such a natural. It’s almost embarrassing that it took this damn plague epidemic to make us think of it. Did you catch what’s happening on morning TV?”
“Three deaths!” Colleen said. “And several people sick. It’s terrible. In fact, it scares me to death.”
“I had a headache from the wine last night when I woke up this morning,” Terese said. “The first thing that went through my mind was whether I had the plague or not.”
“I thought the same thing,” Colleen said. “I’m glad you admitted it. I was too embarrassed.”
“I hope to hell those guys were right last night,” Terese said. “They seemed pretty damn confident it wasn’t going to be a big problem.”
“Are you worried being around them?” Colleen asked.