Intervention (16 page)

“More than ready,” Sana said. Thanks to her discomfort, she wanted to see where they would be working later that night, then leave. Under the circumstances, the three-dimensional details of what Shawn was patiently describing were not registering.

Shawn led the way down a number of metal steps into a relatively large room, where the tour group had reassembled. The guide was explaining that the Plexiglas boxes seen through a small wall opening into Peter’s tomb contained the bones of the saint.

“Is that true?” Sana whispered to Shawn.

“Pope Pius the Twelfth said they were,” Shawn answered softly. “They were found scattered in the tomb within a V-shaped niche in the red wall. I think what swayed the pope was the lack of a skull. Saint Peter’s head historically was supposed to have been in the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano.”

“Okay, so where is the tunnel?” Sana asked impatiently. She’d had enough history for the moment.

“Follow me!” Shawn said. They passed behind the tour group and approached a large decklike structure reached by several descending steps. It had a gridlike metal frame and handrails. The surface was comprised of large squares of clear three-quarter-inch glass.

Standing on the deck, one could look down to the lowest point of the excavation about five feet below.

“That’s the level of the floor of Peter’s tomb,” Shawn explained. “To get to the tunnel, we have to go down there and then back under where we are standing in front of the graffiti wall.”

“How are we going to get down there?” Sana questioned, as her eyes ran around the transparent deck. There didn’t seem to be any opening.

“The glass panel in the far corner lifts up. It’s heavy as hell, but we’ll be able to do it together. What do you think? Will you be able to manage all this?”

The thought of crawling through a tunnel pricked at Sana’s mild claustrophobia.

Knowing she was already some forty to fifty feet underground didn’t help.

“Having second thoughts?” Shawn asked when Sana didn’t answer.

“Are these lights going to be on?” Sana asked in a scratchy whisper. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth to try to drum up a bit of saliva. Her throat had suddenly gone dry.

“We can’t have the lights on,” Shawn said. “They are on an automatic timer, and if someone were to open either of the doors to the necropolis and see the lights, they’d know something was wrong. Besides, we need the lights off to act as a warning system.

If anyone goes through the basilica while we are using the chisels, they might hear it, despite it being forty or fifty feet away. Remember, marble is a great sound transmitter.

If they come to investigate, they’ll turn on the lights, which will warn us someone is coming. Does that make sense?”

Sana reluctantly nodded. It made a lot of sense, but she didn’t like it.

“Talk to me,” Shawn said. “Are you going to be able to handle this?”

Sana nodded again.

“Tell me!” Shawn demanded, raising his voice and giving it an edge. “I have to know for sure!”

“Okay! Okay!” Sana said. “I’m with you all the way.” She glanced around self-consciously at the nearest members of the tour group, several of whom were eyeing them curiously. Sana looked back at Shawn. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry!” she assured him in a whisper, but had she known what was to transpire several hours hence, she might not have been quite so confident.

11

11:34 A.M., TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2008

NEW YORK CITY

(5:34 P.M., ROME)

H
ow was lunch yesterday?” Jack asked. He’d stuck his head into Chet’s office, where his colleague was at his microscope studying a set of slides. Chet looked up and then pushed back from his desk.

“It wasn’t quite what I expected,” he confessed.

“How so?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking Saturday night,” he said with a shake of his head. “I must have been bombed outta my freaking mind. That woman was the size of a horse.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Jack said. “So, I guess she’s not going to be ‘the one’ after all.”

Chet made a gesture as if waving away a noisome insect while chuckling derisively.

“Mock me!” he challenged. “I deserve it.”

“I want to ask you about that VAD case of yours you mentioned yesterday,” Jack said, trying to rein in his enthusiasm for his crusade concerning what he thought was the irrational popularity of alternative medicine. He was now even more convinced it was generally ineffective beyond the placebo effect as well as being expensive: a bad combination. And as if that wasn’t enough, he now knew it was, at times, dangerous. In fact, he felt personally embarrassed that forensic pathology had not taken a more responsible stand on the issue.

Jack’s opinion had hardened after the site visit he’d made to Ronald Newhouse’s office the previous afternoon, even though, in retrospect, he admitted it had been a mistake, as he had allowed his fragile emotions to get the better of him. Later in the day he’d done an Internet search and had found an enormous amount of information, which would have precluded the need to confront Newhouse. He’d been unaware of the thousands of

“studies” that had been done to prove or disprove the efficacy of alternative or complementary medicine. His search also highlighted what he saw as the Internet’s biggest drawback: too much information, with no real way to evaluate the bias of the sources.

By chance he’d come across a number of references to the book,
Trick or Treatment
, he’d earlier put on hold at Barnes & Noble. A check of the authors’ credentials left him unquestionably impressed. One was an author of a book that he had enjoyed several years earlier, called
Big Bang.
The man’s grasp of science, particularly physics, was awe-inspiring, and Jack was duly encouraged he’d trust the man’s opinions concerning alternative medicine. The second author, educated as a conventional medical doctor, had taken the time and effort to train in some types of alternative medicine, and had had the experience of practicing both. Such a background could not have been better to evaluate and compare without prejudice the two approaches. Duly encouraged, Jack had decided to give up on the Internet and had left work early to pick up the book.

When Jack had arrived home the previous evening, he’d been disappointed to find both Laurie and JJ fast asleep and a note on the console table by the front door: “Bad day, lots of tears, no sleep but asleep now. I have to get mine when I can. Soup on the stove.

Love, L.”

The note had made Jack feel guilty and lonely. He’d not called all day for fear he’d wake them, which had happened in the past. Although he always encouraged Laurie to call him when she could, she never did. He hoped the reason wasn’t out of resentment that he got to go to work while she remained at home, but even if it was, he knew she wouldn’t have it any other way.

But his guilt wasn’t just about not calling—it was because he actually didn’t want to know what was going on at home. Sometimes, he didn’t even want to go home. Being in the apartment made the tragedy of his son’s illness and Jack’s inability to affect it unavoidable. Although he’d never admitted it to Laurie, just holding the suffering infant was a strain on his emotions, and he hated himself for it. At the same time he understood what was behind his feelings: He was vainly trying not to get too attached to the child.

The unspeakable reality lurking in the recesses of his mind was that JJ was not going to survive.

Jack took advantage of the house’s peacefulness by diving into
Trick or Treatment.

When Laurie awoke four hours later, she found him so completely absorbed that he’d forgotten to eat.

Jack listened while Laurie recounted her day. Just like every other day, the more he heard, the more he felt she was a saint and he the opposite, but he let her get it all out.

When she’d finished, they’d gone into the kitchen, where she insisted on heating up some soup for the two of them.

“It’s ironic that you brought up trying alternative medicine this morning,” he’d said as they’d eaten. “I can tell you one thing, we might be desperate, but we are never going to use alternative medicine.” He told her about Keara Abelard and his decision to look seriously into the alternative-medicine issue. As physically and mentally exhausted as she was, she listened to his impassioned lecture with only half an ear until he got to the fatal case of the three-month-old dying from chiropractic cervical manipulation. From that point on, Jack had had her full attention. He described how
Trick or Treatment
was opening his eyes to all the mainstream alternative-medicine fields, including homeopathy, acupuncture, and herbal medicine, in addition to chiropractic.

When Jack had finished his mini-lecture, Laurie’s response was to congratulate him on finding a worthy subject to occupy his mind while the family was treading water regarding JJ’s treatment. She even confessed to some jealousy, but that was as far as it went. When Jack again brought up the subject of getting her back to work with the aid of round-the-clock nurses, she’d again refused, saying she was doing what she needed to do. She then went on to mention three cases of alternative-medicine fatalities that she’d had herself. One was a case of an acupuncture victim who’d died when the acupuncturist inadvertently impaled the victim’s heart with an acupuncture needle right in the area of the sinoventricular node. Two others died from heavy-metal poisoning from contaminated Chinese herbs.

Jack was pleased to get Laurie’s cases and had admitted he’d sent out an e-mail to all their M.D. colleagues, asking for similar cases, to try to estimate the incidence of alternative medicine- induced deaths in New York City.

“Hey!” Chet called out while giving Jack’s arm a forceful nudge. “What are you having, a psychomotor seizure?”

“Sorry,” Jack said, shaking his head as if waking from a trance. “My mind was someplace else.”

“What did you want to ask me about my VAD case?” Chet asked. He had been waiting for Jack to finish his question.

“Could you possibly get the name or accession number of that case so I can get the details?” Jack said, but he didn’t listen for Chet’s response. His mind was back, remembering that morning when he’d awakened at five-thirty, still in his clothes, still sitting on the living-room couch. On his lap was
Trick or Treatment,
open midway through the appendix.

The book had solidified his negative feelings about alternative medicine and boosted his interest in the issue. Although there were certain sections of the book that he’d skimmed, for the most part he’d read the entire volume, even underlining certain key passages. Its message surely meshed with his own stance on the subject, and he felt the arguments the authors used to justify their conclusions were clear and unbiased. In fact, Jack felt they had bent over backward to try to make a case for alternative medicine, but in their summary all they could say was that homeopathy provided only a placebo effect; acupuncture, besides placebo, might have an effect on some types of pain and nausea, but it was minor and short-lived; chiropractic, besides placebo, showed some evidence of efficacy in relation to back pain, but conventional treatments were usually equally beneficial and far less expensive; and herbal medicine was mostly placebo, with products of little or no quality control, and for those products with a pharmacological effect, drugs that contained just the active ingredient were decidedly more safe and more efficacious.

Having slept just a couple of hours, Jack thought he’d be exhausted. But, at least initially, that hadn’t been the case. After an exhilarating cold shower and a bite to eat, Jack had cycled to the OCME in near-record time.

As keyed up as he was with newfound knowledge about alternative medicine, Jack immersed himself in his work, signing out several pending cases before grabbing an unwilling Vinnie to start work in the autopsy room. By the time Jack had come by Chet’s office he’d finished three autopsies, which included a shooting at a bar in the East Village and two suicides, one of which Jack found definitely suspicious and about which he’d already put in a call to his buddy, Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano.

“Hey,” Chet called out again. “Anybody home? This is ridiculous. It’s like having a conversation with a zombie. I just told you the name of that VAD case of mine, and you look like you’re back having another petit mal seizure. Didn’t you sleep last night?”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, squeezing his eyes together and then blinking rapidly. “You’re right about me not getting much sleep last night, and I’m running on nervous energy.

Tell me again the name!”

“Why so interested?” Chet questioned, writing the name on a piece of notepaper and handing it to Jack.

“I’m looking into alternative medicine in general, and chiropractic VAD in particular.

What did you find when you looked into VAD back then?”

“You mean above and beyond the fact that no one wanted to hear about it?”

“You mean besides your chief?”

“When I presented the case on grand rounds, it ignited a kind of debate, with half the audience for and half against chiropractic, and those who were for it were really for it. It was an emotional issue that took me by surprise, especially that my boss was such a fan.”

“You said you’d gathered four or five cases. Do you think you could find their names as well? It would be interesting to unofficially compare the incidence of VAD between New York City and L.A.”

“Finding the name of my own case was relatively easy; finding the others is asking for a miracle. But I’ll check. How are you going to look into it around here?”

“Have you checked your e-mail lately?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“When you do, there’s one from me. I sent an e-mail to all the city MEs, looking for cases. Later this afternoon I’m going to go over to records and see if I can find any there as well.”

Suddenly, Jack’s BlackBerry buzzed. Always concerned it might be Laurie and a crisis at home, he snatched it out of its holster and glanced at the LCD screen. “Uh-oh!” he said. It wasn’t Laurie. It was the chief, Harold Bingham, calling from the front office downstairs.