‘You know what they call this place,’ she sang. ‘And usually, patients don’t get . . .’
‘I don’t care what they usually get.’ I stared hard at her as her demeanor changed.
‘You just calm right down.’ Eyes glinted behind clear plastic, her voice raised.
‘Isn’t she an awful patient? Doctors always are,’ Colonel Fujitsubo said as he strode into the room.
The nurse looked at him, stunned. Then her resentful eyes fixed on me as if she did not believe it could possibly be true.
‘One phone coming up,’ he went on as he carried in a fresh orange suit, which he laid on the foot of the bed. ‘Beth, I guess you’ve been introduced to Dr Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia and consulting forensic pathologist for the FBI?’ To me, he added, ‘Put this on. I’ll be back for you in two minutes.’
The nurse frowned as she picked up my tray. She cleared her throat, embarrassed.
‘You didn’t do a very good job on your eggs,’ she said.
She set the tray in the pass box. I was pulling on the suit.
‘Typically, once you’re in here, they don’t let you out.’ She shut the drawer.
‘This isn’t typical.’ I tied down the hood and turned on my air. ‘The case this morning is mine.’
I could tell she was one of those nurses who resented women doctors, because she preferred to be told what to do by men. Or maybe she had wanted to be a doctor and was told that girls grow up to be nurses and marry doctors. I could only guess. But I remembered when I was in medical school at Johns Hopkins, and one day the head nurse grabbed my arm in the hospital. I’d never forget her hate when she snarled that her son hadn’t gotten in because I had taken his slot.
Fujitsubo was walking back into the room, smiling at me as he handed me a telephone and plugged it into a jack.
‘You got time for one.’ He held up his index finger. ‘Then we got to roll.’
I called Marino.
Bio Level 4 containment was in back of a normal lab, but the difference between the two areas was serious. BL-4 meant scientists doing open war with Ebola, Hantavirus and unknown diseases for which there was no cure. Air was single-pass and negative pressure to prevent highly infectious microorganisms from flowing into any other part of the building. It was checked by HEPA filters before it entered our bodies or the atmosphere, and everything was scalded by steam in autoclaves.
Though autopsies were infrequent, when they were performed it was in an air-locked space nicknamed ‘the Sub,’ behind two massive stainless steel doors with submarine seals. To enter, we had to go in another way, through a maze of change rooms and showers, with only colored lights to indicate which gender was in what. Men were green so I put my light on red and took everything off. I put on fresh sneakers and scrubs.
Steel doors automatically opened and closed as I passed through another air-lock, into the inner change, or hot side room where the heavy gauge blue vinyl suits with built-in feet and pointed hoods hung from hooks on a wall. Sitting on a bench, I pulled one on, zipping it up and securing flaps with what looked like a diagonal Tupperware seal. I worked my feet into rubber boots, then layers of heavy gloves, with outer ones taped to cuffs. I was already beginning to feel hot, doors shutting behind me as other ones of even thicker steel sucked open to let me into the most claustrophobic autopsy room I had ever seen.
I grabbed a yellow line and plugged it into the quick-release coupling at my hip, and rushing air reminded me of a deflating wading pool. Fujitsubo and another doctor were labeling tubes and hosing off the body. In her nakedness, her disease was even more appalling. For the most part, we worked in silence for we had not bothered with communication equipment, and the only way to speak was to crimp our air lines long enough to hear what someone else was saying.