Harvest (10 page)

Still Abby said nothing. She was translured by the ordeal she was witnessing in Cubicle Five. At that instant, Nina Voss's eyes lifted to hers. It was only a brief meeting of gazes, an appeal for mercy. The pain in those eyes left Abby shaken.

"We didn't know," Abby whispered. "We didn't know her condition was critical..."

"Do you realize what will happen now? Do you have any idea?"

"The boy--' She turned to Aaron. "The boy's alive."

"What about this woman's life?"

There was no reply Abby could make. No matter what she said, how she defended herself, she could not justify the suffering beyond that window.

She scarcely noticed the man crossing towards her from the nurses' station. Only when he said, "Is this Dr. DiMatteo?" did she focus on the man's face. He was in his sixties, tall and well dressed, the sort of man whose very presence demands attention.

Quietly she answered, "I'm Abby DiMatteo." Only as she said it did she realize what she saw in the man's eyes. It was hatred, pure and poisonous. She almost backed away as the man stepped towards her, his face darkening in rage.

"So you're the other one," he said. "You and that chink doctor."

"Mr Voss. Please," said Aaron.

"You think you can fuck around with me?" Voss yelled at Abby. "With my wife? There'll be consequences, doctor. Damn you, I'll see there are consequences!" Hands clenched, he took another step towards Abby.

"MrVoss," said Aaron, "Believe me, we'll deal with Dr. DiMatteo in our own way."

'! want her out of this hospital! ! don't want to see her face again!"

"Mr Voss," said Abby. "I'm so sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am--'

"Just get her the hell away from me!" roared Voss.

Aaron quickly moved between them. He took Abby firmly by the arm and pulled her away from the cubicle. "You'd better leave," he said.

"If I could just talk to him - explain--'

"The best thing you can do right now is leave the ICU."

She glanced at Voss, who stood squarely in front of Cubicle Five, as though guarding his wife from attack. Never before had Abby seen such a look of hatred. No amount of talking, of explanation, could ever get past that.

Meekly she nodded to Aaron. "All right," she said softly. "I'll leave." And she turned and walked out of the MICU.

Three hours later, Stewart Sussman pulled up at the curb on Tanner Avenue, and from his car he studied number 1451. The house was a modest cape with dark shutters and a covered front porch. A white picket fence surrounded the property. Though it was too dark for Sussman to see much of the yard, instinct told him the grass would be trim and the flowerbeds free of weeds. The faint perfume of roses hung in the air.

Sussman left his car and walked through the gate and up the porch steps to the front door. The occupants were home. The lights were on, and he could see movement through the curtained windows.

He rang the bell.

A woman answered. Tired face, tired eyes, her shoulders sagging under some terrible psychic weight. "Yes?" she said.

"I'm sorry to disturb you. My name is Stewart Sussman. I wonder if I might have a word with Joseph Terrio?"

"He'd rather not speak to anyone right now. You see, we've just had a... loss in the family."

"I understand, Mrs..."

"Terrio. I'm Joe's mother."

"I know about your daughter-in-law, Mrs Terrio. And I'm very, very sorry. But it's important I speak to your son. It has to do with Karen's death."

The woman hesitated only a moment. Then she said: "Excuse me," and shut the door. He could hear her call: "Joe?"

A moment later the door opened again and a man appeared, eyes red-rimmed, every movement sluggish with grief. "I'm Joe Terrio," he said.

Sussman extended his hand. "Mr Terrio, I've been sent here by someone who's very concerned about the circumstances surrounding your wife's death."

"Circumstances?"

"She was a patient at Bayside Medical Centre. Is that correct?"

"Look, I don't understand what this is all about."

"It's about your wife's medical care, MrTerrio. And whether any mistakes were made. Mistakes that may have proved fatal."

"Who are you?"

"I'm an attorney with Hawkes, Craig, and Sussman. My speciality is medical malpractice."

"I don't need any attorney. I don't want any goddam ambulance chaser bothering me tonight."

"Mr Terrio--'

"Get the hell out of here." Joe started to close the door, but Sussman put out a hand to stop it.

"MrTerrio," Sussman said quietly. Calmly. "I have reason to believe one of Karen's doctors made an error. A terrible error. It's possible your wife didn't have to die. I can't be certain of that yet. But with your permission, I can look at the record. I can uncover the facts. All of the facts."

Slowly Joe let the door swing open again. "Who sent you? You said somebody sent you. Who was it?"

Sussman gazed back with a look of sympathy. "A friend."

CHAPTER SIX

Never before had Abby dreaded going to work, but as she walked into Bayside Hospital that morning, she felt she was walking straight into the fire. Last night Jeremiah Parr had threatened repercussions; today she'd have to face them. But until Wetfig actually stripped her of her hospital privileges, she was determined to carry on as usual with her duties. She had patients to round on and cases scheduled for the OR. Tonight she was on call. Damn it, she was going to do her job, and do it well. She owed it to her patients - and to Vivian: Only an hour ago, they had spoken on the phone, and Vivian's last words to her were: "Someone there has to speak up for the Josh O"Days. Stay with it, DiMatteo. For both of us."

The moment Abby walked into the SICU, she heard the instantaneous lowering of voices. By now, everyone must know about Josh O"Day. Though no one said a word to Abby, she could hear the nurses' quiet murmurings, could see their uneasy looks. She went to the rack and gathered her patient charts for rounds. It took every ounce of concentration for her to complete that one task. She placed the charts in a rolling cart and wheeled it out of the station, to the cubicle of the first patient on her list. It was a relief just to step inside, away from everyone's gaze. She shut the curtains, blocking the view through the doorway, and turned to the patient.

Mary Allen lay on the bed, her eyes closed, her sticklike arms and legs drawn up in a foetal position. Mary's open lung biopsy two days ago had been followed by two brief episodes of hypotension, so she'd been kept in the SICU for close observation. According to the nurse's notes, Mary's blood pressure had remained stable for the past twenty-four hours and no abnormal cardiac rhythms had been noted. Chances were, Mary could be transferred today to an unmonitored room in the surgery ward.

Abby went to the bedside and said, "Mrs Allen?"

The woman stirred awake. "Dr. DiMatteo," she murmured.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Not so good. It still hurts, you know."

"Where?"

"My chest. My head. Now my back. It hurts all over."

Abby saw from the chart that the nurses had been giving morphine around the clock. Obviously it wasn't enough; Abby would have to order a higher dose.

"We'll give you more medicine for the pain," said Abby. "As much as you need to keep you comfortable."

"To help me sleep, too. I can't sleep." Mary gave a sigh of profound weariness and closed her eyes. "I just want to go to sleep, Doctor. And not wake up..."

"Mrs Allen? Mary?"

"Couldn't you do that for me?You're my doctor. You could make it so easy. So simple."

"We can make the pain go away," said Abby.

"But you can't take away the cancer. Can you?"The eyes opened again, and regarded Abby with a look that pleaded for undiluted honesty.

"No," said Abby. "We can't take that away. The cancer's spread too many places. We can give you chemotherapy, to slow it down. Gain some time for you."

"Time?" Mary gave a resigned laugh. "What do I need time for? To lie here another week, another month? I'd rather have it done and over with."

Abby took Mary' s hand. It felt like bones wrapped in parchment, no flesh at all. "Let's take care of the pain first. If we do that, it could make everything else seem different."

In answer, Mary simply turned on her side, away from Abby. She was closing her off, shutting her out. "I suppose you want to listen to my lungs," was all she said.

They both knew the exam was merely a formality. It was a useless ceremony, the stethoscope on the chest, on the heart. Abby went through the motions anyway. She had little else to offer Mary Allen except this laying on of hands. When she was finished, her patient still lay with her back turned.

"We'll be transferring you out of the SICU," said Abby. "You can go to a room on the ward. It'll be quieter there. Not so many disturbances."

No answer. Just a deep breath, a long sigh.

Abby left the cubicle feeling more defeated, more useless than ever. There was so little she could do. An absence of pain was the best she had to offer. That, and a promise to let nature take its course.

She opened Mary's chart and wrote: "Patient expresses wish to die. Will increase morphine sulphate for pain control and change code status to do not resuscitate." She wrote the transfer orders and handed them to Cecily, Mary's nurse.

"I want her kept comfortable," said Abby. "Titrate the dose to her pain. Give her as much as she needs to sleep."

'what's our upper limit?"

Abby paused. Considered the fine line between comfort and unconsciousness, between sleep and coma. She said, "No upper limit. She's dying, Cecily. She wants to die. If the morphine makes it easier, then that's what we should give her. Even if it means the end comes a little sooner."

Cecily nodded, a look of unspoken agreement in her eyes.

As Abby started towards the next cubicle, she heard Cecily call out: "Dr. DiMatteo?"

Abby turned. "Yes?"

"I... just wanted to tell you. I think you should know that, well . . ." Nervously Cecily glanced around the SICU. She saw that some of the other nurses were watching. Waiting. Cecily cleared her throat. "I wanted you to know that we think you and Dr. Chao did the right thing. Giving the heart to Josh O"Day."

Abby blinked away an unexpected flash of tears. She whispered, "Thank you. Thank you so much."

Only then, as Abby looked around the room, did she see all the nods of approval.

"You're one of the best residents we've ever had, Dr. D.," said Cecily. "We wanted you to know that, too."

In the hush that followed, a pair of hands started clapping. Another joined in, then another. Abby stood speechless, clutching a chart to her chest, as all the SICU nurses burst out in loud and spontaneous applause. They were applauding her.

It was a standing ovation.

"I want her off the staff and out of this hospital," said Victor Voss. "And I'll do whatever the hell it takes to accomplish that."

Jeremiah Parr had faced numerous crises during his eight-year tenure as president of Bayside Medical Centre. He'd dealt with two nursing strikes, several multimillion-dollar malpractice suits, and militant Right-to-Lifers rampaging through the lobby, but never had he faced such outright fury as he saw now in the face of Victor Voss. At 10 a.m. Voss, flanked by his two attorneys, had marched into Parr's off.ace and demanded a conference. It was now close to noon and the group had expanded to include Surgical Residency Director ColinWettig and Susan Casado, the attorney representing Bayside. Calling Susan was Parr's idea. As yet there was no talk of any legal action, but Parr couldn't be too cautious. Especially when dealing with someone as powerful as VictorVoss.

"My wife is dying," said Voss. "Do you understand? Dying. She may not survive another night. I lay the blame squarely on those two residents."

"Dr. DiMatteo is only in her second year," said Wettig. "She wasn't the one who made the decision. Our Chief Resident did. Dr. Chao is no longer in our programme."

"I want Dr. DiMatteo's resignation as well."

"She hasn't offered it."

"Then find a reason to fire her."

"Dr. Wetfig," said Parr, calmly. Reasonably. "We must be able to find some basis for termination."

"There's no basis at all," said Wetfig, stubbornly holding his ground. "All her evaluations have been outstanding and they're all on record. Mr Voss, I know this is a painful situation for you. I know it's only normal to want to lay blame somewhere. But I think your anger is misdirected. The real problem lies in the shortage of organs. Thousands of people need new hearts and there are only a few to go around. Consider what would happen if we did fire Dr. DiMatteo. She could lodge an appeal. The matter would go to higher review. They look at this case and they'll ask questions. They'll ask why a seventeen-year-old boy didn't get that heart from the beginning."

There was a pause. "Jesus," murmured Parr.

"You understand what I'm saying?" said Wettig. "It looks bad. It makes the hospital look bad. This isn't the sort of thing we want to see in the newspapers. Hints of class warfare. The poor getting the short end of the stick. That's how they'll play it up. Whether or not it's true." Wettig looked questioningly around the table. No one said a thing.

Our silence speaks volumes, thought Parr.

"Of course we can't allow people to get the wrong impression," said Susan. "Outrageous as it may seem, even the appearance of human organ deals would kill us in the press."

"I'm just telling you how it looks," said Wettig.

"I don't care how it looks," said Voss. "They stole that heart."

"It was a directed donation. MrTerrio had every right to specify the recipient."

"My wife was guaranteed that heart."

"Guaranteed?"Wettig frowned at Parr. "Is there something I don't know about?"

"It was decided before her admission," Parr said. "The match was perfect."

"So was the boy's," countered Wetfig.

Voss shot to his feet. "Let me explain something to you people. My wife is dying because of Abby DiMatteo. Now, you people don't know me very well. But let me tell you, no one screws me or my family and gets away with--'