No Cure for Murder (3 page)
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, if they convict me again, I’ll go back to traffic school.”
“They won’t let you get away with that forever.”
“Don’t be concerned, Jacob.” She winked. “I have a way with judges.”
After breakfast, Jacob put aside the papers and incomplete puzzle. “I’ll stop at the Zimmerman’s on my way to the office. Got to check on Hazel Pincus.”
“Eighty-eight years old and still making house calls. The medical staff’s going to put out a contract on you.”
“I should worry.” He smiled and kissed Lola on the lips.
She held him tight for a moment. “I love you, Jacob.”
“I love you too, old woman. See you tonight.” He hesitated and grasped her hand. “And, do me a favor.”
She caressed his cheek. “Anything for my sweetheart.”
“Don’t get a speeding ticket on the way to court.”
Chapter Four
For the first twenty years of medical practice, Jacob Weizman used the small office attached to their home. He enjoyed stepping from his kitchen into his waiting room. Even in those days, his practice was considered outmoded by most physicians who dissociated work from life. Jacob never made the distinction. If it weren’t for his success, the need for additional space, and the licensing requirements of a medical office, he’d still be living and working at home.
In the fall of 1965, Jacob purchased a Victorian just two blocks from Brier Hospital. The large first floor served his practice. He rented the second floor to a psychiatrist, Ross Cohen, and a speech pathologist.
As he drove toward his office, Jacob passed by the Brier Hospital complex, a study in contrasts. Bernard Brier, heir to the Brier Mines near Nevada City, California, lived in a Victorian mansion in the hills above Berkeley. Next to the mansion, he built a convalescent home that became a sanitarium, and finally a private, not for profit community hospital. The modern six-story hospital dwarfed the original Brier Mansion, now on the list of historic California sites.
Jacob parked in the space labeled, Jacob L. Weizman, M.D., General Practice and entered the house through a side door.
Margaret Cohen, his office manager smiled at Jacob. “Good morning, Dr. Weizman.”
Margaret was only his second office manager, having replaced Lola who threatened to kill Jacob if they worked together one more day. Margaret was in her late 60s and widowed. She had grown old with Jacob and the practice.
“Good morning Maggie, you’re looking particularly fetching this morning.”
She blushed, pushing back a lock of gray hair from her forehead. It was amazing that at her age, with three children and eight grandchildren, Jacob still made her blush.
“Let me introduce myself, Dr. Weizman, I think you’re getting forgetful. The name’s Margaret or Marge or Margie.”
“I could use a little forgetfulness. Did you hear about Shannon Hogan?”
Margaret nodded. “She was a wonderful woman. I’ll miss her. Why do all the good ones go so soon?”
“Don’t know, but at least you and I have nothing to worry about.”
“How’s Pete?”
Jacob shook his head slowly. “Devastated.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. They’re doing an autopsy at noon. Just get me out of here on time for a change.”
“If you stop flapping your gums, you’ll get out of here, no problem.”
“Flapping my gums...how charming an image, Maggie.”
“You’d better start flapping your wings, Old Man. You have a busy morning.”
“Busy. Why do you always keep me busy?”
“You’re the one who says I shouldn’t turn anyone away...just squeeze them in.”
“Start noodging me at eleven. If I’m not out of here before noon, then...”
She slapped a chart into his hands. “It’ll be my pleasure, Dr. Weizman.”
Jacob finished with his last patient at 11:50. “You’re a good girl, Margaret. Thanks.”
“Just be back by two, Doctor.”
Jacob walked under the midday sun to Brier Hospital. He entered through the enormous sliding glass doors into an ornate lobby decorated with paintings and sculptures. Plaques recognizing major contributors lined one entire wall. He took the elevator to the basement and walked into the morgue.
In his sixty years of practicing medicine, the smell of a morgue—decaying human tissue and formaldehyde, never changed.
Mark Whitson was a man in his mid fifties, Brier’s chief of Pathology. He looked up as Jacob entered. “You’re on time. I’m just getting started. Is anyone else coming?”
“Jack Byrnes said he’d be here.”
“I read the chart. You didn’t expect this death, did you?”
“I never expect my patients to die, Mark, but they keep disappointing me.”
“Should I look for anything specific?”
“Just the usual. Anything that explains a sudden death.”
Mark wore a green scrub suit, a large white plastic apron, and protective goggles. “Do you want a brain exam too?”
Jacob nodded.
Billy Bliss, the diener, or morgue attendant, was as thin and pale as many of their clients and looked like he just came out of the corpse refrigerator himself. He wore the same uniform as the pathologist and stood at the head of the stainless steel table holding a Stryker vibrating saw used to open the skull. Whitson made the classical Y-incision from each shoulder, meeting at the lower ribs and extending to the mid-groin. Jacob watched the diener roll back Shannon Hogan’s scalp and begin cutting. The room resounded with the coarse vibrations of the electric saw. Fine puffs of bony powder billowed from the saw’s rapidly moving blades. Beyond the incisions, the foul aromas, and the lifelessness of the corpse, opening the skull with this coarse instrument reflected, more than anything else, the vulgarity of death.
Whitson spoke into the microphone hanging over the autopsy table. “The body is a middle-aged woman, measuring 162 centimeters and weighing 63 kilograms.” He went on to describe, in vivid detail, his findings as he dissected each major organ system and examined them with care.
Halfway through, Jack Byrnes and Ahmad Kadir arrived. “Anything yet, Jacob?”
“Nothing.”
Billy Bliss sneered at Ahmad. “What’s that damn Arab doing here?”
Ahmad reddened.
Jack stared at Billy with disgust. “Dr. Kadir is a resident from UC San Francisco. He’s working with me. Do you have a problem?”
Billy turned his face down in silence.
Jack shook his head at Mark who raised his palms in the what can I do gesture.
Ignorant and malicious, a great combination, Jack thought.
After about 45 minutes, Mark Whitson had examined the heart, brain, and major organs. He turned to Jack and Jacob. “Sorry, guys. Can’t find anything on gross examination. Maybe the microscopic will show something.”
Jack shook his head. “I hate this.”
Jacob had seen more autopsies than he cared to remember. “It happens. It may have been a lethal heart irregularity. We’ll just have to wait for the detail to follow.”
Mark smiled at Jacob. “Do you remember your first autopsy?”
Jacob shook his head. “That would be Moses, of course. Do you remember yours?”
Mark nodded. “Who could forget.”
Jacob’s eyes moved up and to the right. “I can still see the large amphitheater in Vienna. Two hundred medical students and doctors in training. I threw up...three times. Very embarrassing...undignified, in those days. You know, Mark, except for the fancy tables, the modern plumbing, the bright lights, the digital scales, and the electric saws, the procedure hasn’t changed in my professional lifetime.”
Jack looked around the room. “I guess death hasn’t changed much either.”
Jacob shook his head. “No, Jack. Death used to be simple...not anymore.”
As they left the morgue, Ahmad stroked his black beard. “That wasn’t necessary, Dr. Byrnes, but I thank you anyway.”
“Ignorance and bigotry must be carried on the same set of genes.”
“That was nothing. It was tough being an Arab in the U.S. before 9/11, now it’s impossible.”
Jacob Weizman entered Brier Hospital at seven the next morning to begin his rounds. After seeing his medical patients, he took the stairs to the fifth floor orthopedic unit. His patient, Lillian Brown, an 81-year-old woman, was entering her second day post op. She’d had her hip replaced by Harrison Baldwin, a new orthopedic surgeon. Lillian had been Jacob’s patient for thirty years.
As Jacob walked toward her room, he saw the Code Blue cart parked by the door to her room. He picked up his pace and entered.
Jacob turned to the charge nurse. “What’s going on here?”
The nurse was a woman in her early twenties. She turned to Jacob. “Mrs. Brown’s sodium level in her blood is extremely low and Dr. Baldwin is about to give her a concentrated salt solution.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Dr. Baldwin said not to disturb you. He’d take care of it.”
Jacob felt his pulse rise and his face redden. He walked to the bedside. “Wait a minute, Harrison. What are you doing?”
“Hi, Jacob. Her sodium is down to 127 and she’s a little confused. I’m giving her some salt to fix it.”
Jacob pulled Harrison aside. “Don’t give her anything. She’s been on water pills, diuretics, for years and her sodium level tends to be on the low side.”
Harrison gritted his teeth. “Like hell I won’t. It’s going to be my ass if she has a convulsion and dies.”
“Did anyone see her have a seizure or any sign she might?”
“I’m not waiting for that to happen, Jacob. Now, with all due respect, let me take care of my patient.”
Jacob faced the nurse. “Nurse, I’m giving you a direct order not to give that salt solution, it’s dangerous.”
The nurse looked first at the youthful surgeon, recently completing his training, and then at the wrinkled octogenarian, trained before WW II. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weizman, but Mrs. Brown is on Dr. Baldwin’s service. I must follow his orders.”
“Listen, Harrison, and you too nurse. You’re about to make a grave mistake. If you raise her sodium level too quickly, you could kill her.”
“I know what I’m doing, Weizman. I’d appreciate it if you’d butt out.”
Jacob looked up in dismay. “First of all, Doctor, Mrs. Brown is my patient and has been for many years.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor, but she’s on my service, and I’m responsible for her care.”
“How many emergency cases of low sodium have you treated, Dr. Baldwin?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Tell me what you know about central pontine myelenolysis or CPM, Doctor Baldwin.”
“Central pontine what?”
“As I thought. After you give that salt solution and Mrs. Brown has seizures or winds up paralyzed in all her extremities, you’ll be pleased to know.” He pointed at the surgeon and the nurse, “that I’ll be the prize witness for the plaintiff when they sue you both. Keep this little fact in mind, this won’t merely be a malpractice case, this will be felony assault and if she dies, manslaughter.”
Harrison paled.
The nurse looked at Jacob with a new level of respect. “Tell me what I should do, Dr. Weizman.”
Jacob smiled, and then looked at the IV bag of fluid and at Harrison. “First stop this IV. It’s only making her situation worse. I’m writing new IV orders and a series of blood tests for the next six hours. I’m making additional adjustments as I see how she’s correcting her sodium level.”
Harrison turned away from the bed and shuffled toward the door.
Jacob followed behind. “I thought I was arrogant in my youth, but compared to you, sir, I was humble.”
“Fuck off, old man.”
Jacob laughed. “Some time soon, you’ll recognize that I just saved your ass. Do me a favor, please.”
“What?”
“Don’t thank me.”
Chapter Five
At 4 a.m., the indirect lighting on the fifth floor medical unit was on its lowest setting in Brier Hospital’s silent hallways. Carol Fox, the ward clerk, sat at her desk organizing patient charts and adding the lab and other diagnostic reports.
Carol looked up over the raised nursing station counter and saw Tommy Wells’s smiling face.
“Don’t you ever get to go home, Tommy?”