“Can I speak to you for a moment,” Angela called from Paul’s doorway.
He waved her in and leaned back in his swivel chair.
“What’s the autopsy protocol around here?” she asked. “I haven’t seen any done since I got here.”
“That’s an issue you’ll have to discuss with Wadley,” Paul said. “It’s a policy problem. Sorry.”
Reluctantly, Angela went to Wadley’s office.
“What can I do for you, honey?” Wadley said. He smiled a kind of smile Angela had previously seen as paternal but now saw as lewd.
Wincing at being addressed as “honey,” Angela swallowed her pride and asked about the procedure for arranging an autopsy.
“We don’t do autopsies,” Wadley said. “If it’s a medical examiner case, the body goes to Burlington. It costs too much to do autopsies, and the contract with CMV doesn’t include them.”
“What if the family requests it?” Angela asked, knowing this wasn’t precisely true in the Kleber case.
“If they want to shell out eighteen hundred and ninety dollars, then we’ll accommodate them,” Wadley said. “Otherwise, we don’t do it.”
Angela nodded, then left. Instead of getting back to her own work, she walked over to the professional building and went into David’s office. She was appalled by the number of patients waiting to be seen. Every chair in the waiting room was occupied; a few people were even standing in the hall. She caught David as he shuttled between examining rooms. He was clearly frazzled.
“I can’t do an autopsy on Marjorie Kleber.”
“Why not?” David asked.
Angela told him what Wadley had said.
David shook his head with frustration and blew out between pursed lips. “My opinion of this place is going downhill fast,” he said. He then told Angela about Kelley’s opinion of his handling of the Kleber case.
“That’s ridiculous,” Angela said. She was incensed. “You mean he suggested that the consults were unnecessary because the patient died. That’s crazy.”
“What can I tell you?” David said with a shake of his head.
Angela didn’t know what to say. Kelley was beginning to sound dangerously uninformed. Angela would have liked to talk more, but she knew David didn’t have the time. She motioned over her shoulder. “You’ve got an office full of patients out there,” she said. “When do you think you’ll be done?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“How about I take Nikki home and you give me a call when you’re ready to leave. I’ll come back and pick you up.”
“Sounds good,” David said.
“Hang in there, dear,” Angela said. “We’ll talk later.”
Angela went back to the lab, finishing up for the day, collected Nikki, and drove home. Nikki was ecstatic to get out of the hospital. She and Rusty had an exuberant reunion.
David called at seven-fifteen. With Nikki comfortably ensconced in front of the TV, Angela returned to the hospital. She drove slowly. It was raining so hard the wipers had to struggle to keep the windshield clear.
“What a night,” David said as he jumped into the car.
“What a day,” Angela said as she started down the hill toward town. “Especially for you. How are you holding up?”
“I’m managing,” David said. “It was a help to be so busy. I was grateful for the diversion. But now I have to face reality; what am I going to tell Nikki?”
“You’ll just have to tell her the truth,” Angela said.
“That’s easier said than done,” David said. “What if she asks me why she died? The trouble is I don’t know, neither physiologically nor metaphysically.”
“I’ve thought more about what Kelley said,” Angela said. “It seems to me he has a fundamental misunderstanding about the basics of patient care.”
“That’s an understatement,” David said with a short, sarcastic laugh. “The scary part is that he’s in a supervisory position. Bureaucrats like Kelley are intruding into the practice of medicine under the guise of health-care reform. Unfortunately the public has no idea.”
“I had another minor run-in with Wadley today,” Angela said.
“That bastard!” David said. “What did he do now?”
“He called me ‘honey’ a few times,” Angela said. “And he brushed his hand across my backside.”
“God! What an insensitive jerk,” David said.