No Cure for Murder (2 page)

Jack thought his interchange with Jacob reflected an interesting phenomenon. They had jumped seamlessly from the somber gloom of death, worse because it was unexpected, to the light-hearted banter of physicians working under the double whammy of stress and disappointment.

Shrinks call humor of this type a defense mechanism. Jack wasn’t so sure. When Jack first experienced this type of humor during his internship, it smacked of indifference, like a doc at the end of a failed code blue, announcing, “Well, that sure made me hungry. Who wants pizza?”

Now that he was part of this brotherhood, Jack understood that anguish endured alone, like pain at night, was always worse. Humor, like the cool strength of gravity that binds our solar system, draws people together by its warmth.

Of all the senior physicians at Brier Hospital, it was only Jacob Weizman’s calm congeniality that allowed Jack to treat the eighty-eight-year-old esteemed physician as he would a contemporary.

Jacob Weizman and his wife Lola were Holocaust survivors. Jacob came to New York City after the Second World War and ran a General Practice for several years before moving to Berkeley.

Jacob graduated from the University of Vienna Medical School two years before Hitler’s invasion of Austria. He accepted a teaching position at that venerable institute, well known for a faculty that included some big names in the history of medicine, including Semmilweis and Billroth, among others. Jacob’s father, a senior officer at the Bank of Vienna, shared his pride in Jacob’s achievements with anyone who’d listen.

The Nazi invasion of Austria began on March 12, 1938. By mid-March, 138,000 Jews came under the control of German troops. The Germans immediately disseminated anti-semitic hate propaganda in newspapers and magazines and destroyed Jewish businesses. In a matter of weeks, they removed all Jewish professors and instructors from Austrian universities. The Nazi SS captured and sent Jacob and his entire family to Auschwitz concentration camp. Jacob was the sole survivor. He never talked about his dark days at Auschwitz, except to recall for his children the icy Saturday, January 27, 1945 when Soviet forces liberated the camp. That day, Jacob and Lola Ophir, another survivor, left together. She was to become his wife of fifty-eight years.

Jack Byrnes had, on occasion, caught a glimpse of the tattooed numbers on Jacob’s forearm, the inky image of a world gone mad and the symbol that cried, “Never Again.”

Jack’s thoughts returned to Shannon. What the hell happened?

Shannon Hogan, age sixty, had been through a horrendous hospital course. She spent three weeks in the ICU recovering from complications of surgery for a bowel obstruction secondary to colon cancer. Jack hated to characterize anyone with cancer as fortunate, but the bowel obstruction had revealed the tumor early, and without evidence of local or distant spread, her prognosis was good. Even someone in this business who sees death on an almost daily basis, never really gets used to it, especially when the end arrives without notice.

Pete lived only four blocks from Brier Hospital. A few minutes of anxiety for Pete, and a moment of mental preparation for both of them.

Ten minutes later, Jacob Weizman walked up to Jack as he was making his final note on Shannon’s chart.

Jack looked up.

While Jacob knew the term degenerative change accurately described the physical affects of aging, the word degenerate, its cognate, had a sardonic appeal for him. Something about the term ‘dirty old man’ made him smile. Hardly the giant at five feet six inches, Jacob couldn’t deny the recent measurements showing that he’d become even more vertically challenged—two more inches gone. He looked a bit like Sigmund Freud with a white beard and a matching full head of hair combed straight back. He wore a cream-colored Harris Tweed sport coat, a matching vest and bow tie.

Ahmad, dark-skinned and heavily bearded, looked Middle Eastern. “Nice to meet you, sir,” said Ahmad with a subtle Palestinian accent. He hesitated a second before accepting Jacob’s extended hand.

Ten minutes later, the door of the elevator opened and a red-faced and anxious Peter Hogan stepped out. As he rushed toward Shannon’s room, Jack moved from the nursing station and stepped in his path. “I’m so sorry, Pete. It’s too late.”

He paled. “Too late? What are you talking about?”

“We tried everything, but she died in her sleep.”

Peter clenched his jaw and reddened. “Died? What the hell are you talking about? She was getting better. She was going home in a few days. We were moving to Mexico...”

Jacob walked up to them. “I’m so sorry, Peter. She was sleeping...she didn’t suffer.”

Pete tried to push past them into her room. Jack held him back for a moment, and then felt Pete sag in his arms. They sat him into a wheelchair. He leaned forward and wept.

After a few minutes, Pete raised his head. “What happened, Jacob?”

“I don’t know. We sure didn’t expect this. Maybe it was a heart attack or a stroke.” Jacob hesitated for a moment. “I’d like to get an autopsy. Then we’ll know.”

“My God. Hasn’t she been through enough? I can’t stand the thought of her being cut open like that.”

Jacob placed his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “It’s not that way. It’s more like surgery.”

Asking a grieving family for permission to perform an autopsy felt like hitting a person when they were down, but Jacob tried to get one on his patients when the cause of death was unclear.

In many ways, the postmortem examination is a character test for physicians and sometimes a Pandora’s Box. Through the autopsy, physicians expose themselves to the revelation of a mistake, a missed critical diagnosis, or the chance that they injured the patient with their treatments.

With Pete standing before them, Jacob slowly pushed the swinging door open and they followed him into his wife’s now dim and silent room.

Ginny Harrison had remade the bed and just pulled the sheet over Shannon’s face.

The white-sheeted body is iconic of death. The image draws immediate attention, the respectful pause, the turned head, and the questioning glance.

Pete stood by her bedside, looking down in silence. After a moment, he stared at Jacob and nodded.

Jacob grasped the top of the sheet. With solemnity, he slid it down to expose Shannon’s face.

Pete stared at the bloodless, lifeless wax figure of what was once his wife, his life. His eyes widened and his legs weakened. He grasped the bed for support.

Jacob held Pete’s shoulders for a moment until he regained control.

Pete placed his hand on Shannon’s cheek. When he touched her cold lifeless skin, he reflexively retracted his hand with the reality of death. He stared at the woman who’d shared his life, then bent over and placed a kiss on her lips.

“Get me the papers to sign, Jacob. I need to know what happened.”

Chapter Three

Jacob Weizman slipped out of Brier Hospital at 8:00 a.m. and walked, head down, toward the parking garage. A few deep breaths and the salty scent of the San Francisco Bay, just three miles to the west, cleared his sleep-deprived head.

When he reached the bright fluorescent entranceway, Angel Hernandez, the night attendant, waved. “Don’t tell me you worked all night, Doc.”

Jacob stared at his 1970 black Volvo 122. He brushed away the light coating of dust blurring his wrinkled image in the mirror-like hood finish and recalled the day he and Lola purchased the car new from the Berkeley showroom floor. Growing old together, he and the Volvo remained sturdy, a bit outdated, but far from useless, he prayed.

Jacob climbed in. He sank in the well-worn driver’s seat, and drove through the ground fog up the steep wet streets to their modest home nestled in the Arlington section of the Berkeley hills.

When he cracked open the front door, the smell of freshly ground coffee and baking blueberry scones set his mouth watering.

Lola bent before the oven, holding the door ajar and checking on her creations. The kitchen table held a stack of newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and the New York Times. They shared these papers each morning and fought over the crossword puzzles, especially the Times. Jacob was faster, but Lola was better, and she delighted in looking over his shoulder and kibitzing—more like tormenting him over missed clues. More than once, he fended off her pencil-poised-hand that loomed over his empty squares.

Lola was three years his junior. She stood at five feet two inches and weighed 98 pounds. She looked and sounded like a skinny Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Her pruned face reflected the calendar and the years of heavy smoking. Her brown-stained second and index fingers said that in spite of Jacob’s admonitions, she remained a slave to the deadly habit.

“If it hasn’t killed me yet, it never will.”

Jacob sagged into his kitchen chair and rolled to his place before the east-facing window. The rising sun finally broke through the morning fog and shined brightly through white sheer curtains.

Lola pushed the button on their Senseo coffee maker for a second cup. The machine growled, forcing pressurized hot water through the Colombia Supremo blend.

As she zipped across the room, Jacob smiled. Lola still had the graceful movement of a much younger woman, a talent hard earned in the ballet she studied in Vienna so long ago.

“She went through so much. I could have accepted her death at any time during the initial part of her hospital stay, especially in the ICU when she was so sick, but to die suddenly when she was getting better, when she was getting ready for discharge, I’m getting too old for that kind of disappointment.”

Jacob placed his mug heavily on the table, splashing coffee on the crossword puzzle. “The camps left no room for God, Lola. Where was He when so many suffered and died?”

“I’m not talking God or religion. I can’t remember the last time we went to temple...a wedding, I think. I believe we survive for some purpose, and maybe we die for reasons we can’t understand.”

Jacob inhaled the sweet scone scent, and then took a bite, washing it down with coffee. “If you’re looking for miracles, start with your coffee and scones.”

“This isn’t Florida, where senior power prevails. In California, they’ll pull the license of any octogenarian for looking the wrong way. With you, they don’t have to look so far.”

Lola drove a bright red Honda S2000, literally a red flag for the CHP who knew Lola by name and by reputation as the car with its headless driver sped along.