The nurse carried the computer equipment into my room and wordlessly handed it to me before walking right back out. For a moment, I stared at the laptop as if it were something that might hurt me. I was sitting up in bed, where I continued to perspire profusely while I was cold at the same time.
I didn't know if the way I felt was due to a microbe or if I were having some sort of emotional attack because of what Janet had just told me. Lucy had wanted to be an FBI agent since she was a child, and she was already one of the best ones they'd ever had. This was so unfair. She had done nothing but make the mistake of being drawn in by someone evil when she was only nineteen. I was desperate to get out of this room and find her. I wanted to go home. I was about to ring for the nurse when one walked in. She was new.
'Do you suppose I could have a fresh set of scrubs?' I asked her.
'I can get you a gown.'
'Scrubs, please.'
'Well, it's a little out of the ordinary.' She frowned.
'I know.'
I plugged the computer into the telephone jack, and pushed a button to turn it on.
'If they don't get beyond this budget impasse soon, there won't be anybody to autoclave scrubs or anything else.' The nurse kept talking in her blue suit, arranging covers over my legs. 'On the news this morning, the president said Meals on Wheels
is going broke, EPA isn't cleaning up toxic waste dumps, federal courts may close and forget getting a tour of the White House. You ready for lunch?'
'Thank you,' I said as she continued her litany of bad news.
'Not to mention Medicaid, air pollution and tracking the winter flu epidemic or screening water supplies for the Cryptosporidium parasite. You're just lucky you're here now. Next week we might not be open.'
I didn't even want to think about budget feuds, since I devoted most of my time to them, haggling with department heads and firing at legislators during General Assembly. I worried that when the federal crisis slammed down to the state level, my new building would never be finished, my meager current funding further ruthlessly slashed. There were no lobbyists for the dead. My patients had no party and did not vote.
'You got two choices,' she was saying.
'I'm sorry.' I tuned her in again.
'Chicken or ham.'
'Chicken.' I wasn't the least bit hungry. 'And hot tea.'
She unplugged her air line and left me to the quiet. I set the laptop on the tray and logged onto America Online. I went straight to my mailbox. There was plenty, but nothing from deadoc that Squad 19 hadn't already opened. I followed menus to the chat rooms, pulled up a list of the member rooms and checked to see how many people were in the one called M.E.
No one was there, so I went in alone and leaned back against my pillows, staring at the blank screen with its row of icons across the top. Literally, there was no one to chat with, and I thought of how ridiculous this must seem to deadoc, were he
somehow watching. Wasn't it obvious if I were alone in a room? Wouldn't it seem that I was waiting? I had no sooner entertained this thought when a sentence was written across my screen, and I began to answer.
QUINCY: Hi. What are we talking about today?
SCARPETTA: The budget impasse. How is it affecting you? QUINCY: I work out of the D.C. office. A nightmare. SCARPETTA: Are you a medical examiner?
QUINCY: Right. We've met at meetings. We know some of the same people. Not much of a crowd today, but it could always get better if one is patient.
That's when I knew Quincy was one of the undercover agents from Squad 19. We continued our session until lunch arrived, then resumed it afterwards for the better part of an hour. Quincy and I chatted about our problems, asking questions about solutions, anything we could think of that might seem like normal conversation
between medical examiners or people they might confer with. But deadoc did not bite. I took a nap and woke up a little past four. For a moment, I lay very still, forgetting where I was, then it came back to me with depressing alacrity. I sat up, cramped beneath my tray, the computer still open on top of it. I logged onto AOL again and went back into the chat room. This time I was joined by someone who called himself MEDEX, and we talked about the type of computer database I used in Virginia for capturing case information and doing statistical retrievals.
At exactly five minutes past five, a bell sounded off-key inside my computer, and the Instant Message window suddenly dominated my screen. I stared in disbelief as a communication from deadoc appeared, words that I knew no one else in the chat room could see.
DEADOC: you think you re so smart
SCARPETTA: Who are you?
DEADOC: you know who I am I am what you do
SCARPETTA: What do I do? DEADOC: death doctor death you are me SCARPETTA: I am not you.
DEADOC: you think you re so smart
He abruptly got quiet, and when I clicked on the Available button, it showed that he had logged off. My heart was racing as I sent another message to MEDEX, saying I had been tied up with a visitor. I got no response, finding myself alone in the chat room again.
'Damn,' I exclaimed, under my breath.
I tried again as late as ten P.M., but no one appeared except QUINCY again, to tell me we should try another meeting in the morning. All of the other docs, he said, had gone home. The same nurse checked on me, and she was sweet. I felt sorry for her long hours, and her inconvenience of having to wear a blue suit every time she came into my room.
'Where is the new shift?' I asked, as she took my temperature.
'I'm it. We're all just doing the best we can.'
I nodded as she alluded to the furlough yet one more time this day.
'There's hardly a lab worker here,' she went on. 'You could wake up tomorrow, the only person in the building.'
'Now I'm sure to have nightmares,' I said as she wrapped the BP cuff around my arm.
'Well, you're feeling okay, and that's the important thing. Ever since I started coming down here, I started imagining I was getting one thing or another. The slightest ache or pain or sniffle, and it's, oh my God. So what kind of doctor are you?'
I told her.
'I was going to be a pediatrician. Then I got married.'
'We'd be in a lot of trouble were it not for good nurses like you,' I smiled and said.
'Most doctors never bother to notice that. They have these attitudes.'
'Some of them certainly do,' I agreed.
I tried to go to sleep, and was restless throughout the night. Street lights from the parking lot beyond my window seeped through the blinds, and no matter which way I turned, I could not relax. It was hard to breathe and my heart would not slow down. At five A.M., I finally sat up and turned on my light. Within minutes, the nurse was back inside my room.
'You all right?' She looked exhausted.
'Can't sleep.'
'Want something?'
I turned on the computer as I shook my head. I logged onto AOL and went back to the chat room, which was empty. Clicking on the Available button, I checked to see if deadoc was on line, and if so, where he might be. There was no sign of him, and I began scrolling through the various chat rooms available to subscribers and their families.
There was truly something for everyone, places for flirts, singles, gays, lesbians, Native Americans, African Americans, and for evil. People who preferred bondage, sadomasochism, group sex, bestiality, incest, were welcome to find each other and exchange pornographic art. The FBI could do nothing about it. All of it was legal. Dejected, I sat up, propped against my pillows and, without intending to, dozed off. When I opened my eyes again an hour later, I was in a chat room called ARTLOVE. A message was quietly waiting for me on my screen. Deadoc had found me.
DEADOC: a picture s worth a thousand words
I hastily checked to see if he was still logged on, and found him quietly coiled in cyberspace, waiting for me. I typed my response.
SCARPETTA: What are you trading?
He didn't respond right away. I sat staring at the screen for three or four minutes. Then he was back.
DEADOC: I don t trade with traitors I give freely what do you think happens to people like that
SCARPETTA: Why don't you tell me?
Silence, and I watched as he left the room, and a minute later was back. He was breaking the trace. He knew exactly what we were doing.
DEADOC: I think you know SCARPETTA: I don't. DEADOC: you will
SCARPETTA: I saw the photos you sent. They weren't very clear. What was your point?
But he did not answer and I felt slow and dull-witted. I had him and could not engage him. I could not keep him on. I was feeling frustrated and discouraged when another instant message appeared on my screen, this one from the squad again.
QUINCY: A.K.A., Scarpetta. Still need to go over that case with you. The self- immolation.
That's when I realized that Quincy was Lucy. A.K.A. was Aunt Kay Always, her code for me. She was watching over me, as I had watched over her all these years, and she was telling me not to go up in flames. I typed a message back.
SCARPETTA: I agree. Your case is very troublesome. How are you handling it?
QUINCY: Just watch me in court. More later.
I smiled as I signed off and leaned back in the pillows. I did not feel quite so alone or crazed.
'Good morning.' The first nurse was back.
'Same to you.' My spirits dipped lower.
'Let's check those vitals. How are we feeling today?'
'We're fine.'
'You've got a choice of eggs or cereal.'
'Fruit,' I said.
'That wasn't a choice. But we can probably scrape up a banana.'
The thermometer went into my mouth, the cuff around my arm. All the while she kept talking.
'It's so cold out it could snow,' she was saying. 'Thirty-three degrees. You believe that? I had frost on my windshield. The acorns are big this year. That always means a
severe winter. You're still not even up to ninety-eight degrees yet. What's wrong with you?'
'Why wasn't the phone left in here?' I asked.
'I'll ask about it.' She took the cuff off. 'Blood pressure's low, too.'
'Please ask Colonel Fujitsubo to stop by this morning.' She stood back and scrutinized me. 'You going to complain about me?'
'Good heavens, no,' I said. 'I just need to leave.'
'Well, I hate to tell you, but that's not up to me. Some people stay in here as long as two weeks.'
I would lose my mind, I thought.
The colonel did not appear before lunch, which was a broiled chicken breast, carrots and rice. I hardly ate as my tension mounted, and the TV flashed silently in the background because I had turned off the sound. The nurse came back at two P.M. and announced I had another visitor. So I put on the HEPA filter mask again and followed her back down the hall into the clinic.
This time I was in Booth A, and Wesley was waiting for me on the other side. He smiled when our eyes met, and both of us picked up our phones. I was so relieved and surprised to see him that I stammered at first.
'I hope you've come to rescue me,' I said.
'I don't take on doctors. You taught me that.'
'I thought you were in Georgia.'
'I was. Took a look at the liquor store where the two people were stabbed, scouted around the area, in general. Now I'm here.'
'And?'
'And?' He raised an eyebrow. 'Organized crime.'
'I wasn't thinking about Georgia.'
'Tell me what you are thinking. I seem to be losing the art of mind reading. And you look particularly lovely today, let me add,' he said to my mask.
'I'm going to go crazy if I don't get out of here soon,' I said. 'I've got to get to CDC.'
'Lucy tells me you've been communicating with deadoc.' The playful light vanished from his eyes.
'To no great extent and with not much luck,' I angrily said.
To communicate with this killer was infuriating for it was exactly what he wanted. I
had made it my mission in life not to reward people like him.
'Don't give up,' Wesley said.
'He makes allusions to medical matters, such as diseases and germs,' I said. 'Doesn't this concern you in light of what is going on?'
'He no doubt follows the news.' He made the same point Janet had.
'But what if it's more than that?' I asked. 'The woman he dismembered seems to have the same disease that the victim from Tangier does.'
'And you can't verify that yet.'
'You know, I didn't get where I am by making assumptions and leaping to conclusions.' I was getting very out of sorts. 'I will verify this disease as soon as I can, but I think we should be guided by common sense in the meantime.'
'I'm not certain I understand what you're saying.' His eyes never left mine.
'I'm saying that we might be dealing with biological warfare. A Unabomber who uses a disease.'
'I hope to God we're not.'
'But the thought has crossed your mind too. Don't tell me you think that a fatal disease somehow linked with a dismemberment is coincidental.'
I studied his face, and I knew he had a headache. The same vein on his forehead always stood out like a bluish rope.
'And you're sure you're feeling all right,' he said.
'Yes. I'm more worried about you.'
'What about this disease? What about the risk to you?' He was getting irritated with me, the way he always did when he thought I was in danger.
'I've been revaccinated.'
'You've been vaccinated for smallpox,' he said. 'What if that's not what it is?'
'Then we're in a world of trouble. Janet came by.'
'I know,' he said into his phone. 'I'm sorry. The last thing you needed right now…'
'No, Benton,' I interrupted him. 'I had to be told. There's never a good time for news like that. What do you think will happen?'
But he did not want to say.
'Then you think it will ruin her, too,' I said in despair.
'I doubt she'll be terminated. What usually happens is you stop getting promoted, get lousy assignments, field offices out in the middle of nowhere. She and Janet will end up three thousand miles apart. One or both will quit.'
'How's that better than being fired?' I said in pained outrage.
'We'll take it as it comes, Kay.' He looked at me. 'I'm dismissing Ring from CASKU.'
'Be careful what you do because of me.'
'It's done,' he said.
Fujitsubo did not stop by my room again until early the next morning, and then he was smiling and opening blinds to let in sunlight so dazzling it hurt my eyes.
'Good morning, and so far, so good,' he said. 'I'm very pleased that you do not seem to be getting sick on us, Kay.'
'Then I can go,' I said, ready to leap out of bed right then.
'Not so fast.' He was reviewing my chart. 'I know how hard this is for you, but I'm not comfortable letting you go quite so soon. Stick it out a little longer, and you can leave the day after tomorrow, if all goes well.'
I felt like crying when he left because I did not see how I could endure one more hour of quarantine. Miserable, I sat up under the covers and looked out at the day. The sky was bright blue with wisps of clouds beneath the pale shadow of a morning moon. Trees beyond my window were bare and rocking in a gentle wind. I thought of my home in Richmond, of plants to be potted and work piling up on my desk. I wanted to take a walk in the cold, to cook broccoli and homemade barley soup. I wanted spaghetti with ricotta or stuffed frittata, and music and wine.
For half the day, I simply felt sorry for myself and did not do a thing except stare at television and doze. Then the nurse for the next shift came in with the phone and said there was a call for me. I waited until it was transferred and snatched up the receiver as if this were the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my life.
'It's me,' Lucy said.
'Thank God.' I was thrilled to hear her voice.
'Grans says hi. Rumor has it that you win the bad patient award.'
'The rumor is accurate. All the work in my office. If only I had it here.'
'You need to rest,' she said. 'To keep your defenses up.' This made me worry about Wingo again.
'How come you haven't been on the laptop?' She then got to the point. I was quiet.
'Aunt Kay, he's not going to talk to us. He's only going to talk to you.'
'Then one of you sign on as me,' I replied.
'No way. If he senses that's what's going on, we lose him for good. This guy is scary, he's so clever.'
My silence was my comment, and Lucy rushed to fill it.
'What?' she said with feeling. 'I'm supposed to pretend I'm a forensic pathologist with a law degree who's already worked at least one of this guy's cases? I don't think so.'
'I don't want to connect with him, Lucy,' I said. 'People like him get off on that, they want it, want the attention. The more I play his game, the more it might encourage him. Have you thought about that?'
'Yes. But think about this. Whether he's dismembered one person or twenty, he's going to do something else bad. People like him don't just stop. And we have no idea, not one clue, as to where the hell he is.'
'It's not that I'm scared for myself,' I started to say. 'It's all right if you are.'
'I just don't want to do anything to make it worse,' I repeated.
That, of course, was always the risk when one was creative or aggressive in an investigation. The perpetrator was never completely predictable. Maybe it was simply something I sensed, an intuitive vibration I was picking up deep inside. But I felt that this killer was different and motivated by something beyond our ken. I feared he knew exactly what we were doing and was enjoying himself.
'Now, tell me about you,' I said. 'Janet was here.'
'I don't want to get into it.' Cold fury crept into her tone. 'I have better ways to spend my time.'
'I'm with you, Lucy, whatever you want to do.'
'That much I've always been sure of. And this much everybody else can be sure of. No matter what it takes, Carrie's going to rot in jail and hell after that.'
The nurse had returned to my room to whisk the telephone away again.
'I don't understand this,' I complained as I hung up. 'I have a calling card, if that's what you're worried about.'
She smiled. 'Colonel's orders. He wants you to rest and knows you won't if you can be on the phone all day.'
'I am resting,' I said, but she was gone.
I wondered why he allowed me to keep the laptop and was suspicious Lucy or someone had spoken to him. As I logged onto AOL, I felt conspired against. I had barely entered the M.E. chat room when deadoc appeared, this time not as an invisible instant message, but as a member who could be heard and seen by anybody else who decided to walk in.
DEADOC: where have you been SCARPETTA: Who are you? DEADOC: I ve already told you that SCARPETTA: You are not me.
DEADOC: he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease pathophysiological manifestations viruses like hiv our darwinian struggle against them they are evil or are we SCARPETTA: Explain what you mean.
DEADOC: there are twelve
But he had no intention of explaining, at least not now. The system alerted me that he had left the room. I waited inside it a while longer to see if he might return, as I wondered what he meant by twelve. Pushing a button on my headboard, I summoned the nurse, who was beginning to cause me guilt. I didn't know where she waited outside the room, or if she climbed in and out of her blue suit every time she appeared and left. But none of this could have been pleasant, including my disposition.
'Listen,' I said when she got to me. 'Might there be a Bible around here somewhere.' She hesitated, as if she'd never heard of such a thing. 'Gee, now that I don't know.'
'Could you check?'
'Are you feeling all right?' She looked suspiciously at me.
'Absolutely.'
'They've got a library. Maybe there's one in there somewhere. I'm sorry. I'm not very religious.' She continued talking as she went out again.
She returned maybe half an hour later with a black leather-bound Bible, Cambridge Red Letter edition, that she claimed to have borrowed from someone's office. I opened it and found a name in front written in calligraphy, and a date that showed the Bible had been given to its owner on a special occasion almost ten years before. As I began to turn its pages, I realized I had not been to Mass in months. I envied people with a faith so strong that they kept their Bibles at work.
'Now you're sure you're feeling okay?' said the nurse as she hovered near the door.
'You've never told me your name,' I said.
'Sally.'
'You've been very helpful and I certainly appreciate it. I know it's no fun working on
Thanksgiving.'
This seemed to please her a great deal and gave her enough confidence to say, 'I haven't wanted to poke my nose into anything, but I can't help but hear what people are talking about. That island in Virginia where your case came from. All they do is crabbing there?'
'Pretty much,' I said.
'Blue crab.'
'And soft-shell crab.'
'Anybody bothering to worry about that?'
I knew what she was getting at, and yes, I was worried. I had a personal reason to be worried about Wesley and me.
'They ship those things all over the country, right?' she went on. I nodded.
'What if whatever that lady had is transmitted through water or food?' Her eyes were bright behind her hood. 'I didn't see her body, but I heard. That's really scary.'
'I know,' I said. 'I hope we can get an answer to that soon.'
'By the way, lunch is turkey. Don't expect much.'
She unplugged her air line and stopped talking. Opening the door, she gave me a little wave and went out. I turned back to the Concordance and had to search for a while under various words before I found the passage deadoc had quoted to me. It was Matthew 10, verse one, and in its entirety it read: And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
The next verse went on to identify the disciples by name, and then Jesus invoked them to go out and find lost sheep, and to preach to them that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He directed his disciples to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. As I read, I did not know if this killer who called himself deadoc had a message he believed, if twelve referred to the disciples, or if he was simply playing games.
I got up and paced, looking out the window as light waned. Night came early now, and it had become a habit for me to watch people walk out to their cars. Their breath was frosted, and the lot was almost empty because of the furlough. Two women
chatted while one held open the door to a Honda, and they shrugged and gestured with intensity, as if trying to resolve life's big problems. I stood looking through blinds
until they drove away.
I tried to go to sleep early to escape. But I was fitful again, rearranging myself and the covers every few hours. Images floated past the inside of my eyelids, projected like old movies, unedited and illogically arranged. I saw two women talking by a mailbox. One had a mole on her cheek that became eruptions all over her face as she shielded her eyes with a hand. Then palm trees were writhing in fierce winds as a hurricane roared in from the sea, fronds ripped off and flying. A trunk stripped bare, a bloody table lined with severed hands and feet.
I sat up sweating, and waited for my muscles to stop twitching. It was as if there were an electrical disturbance in my entire system, and I might have a heart attack or a stroke. Taking deep, slow breaths, I blanked out my mind. I did not move. When the vision had passed, I rang for the nurse.
When she saw the look on my face, she did not argue about the phone. She brought it right away and I called Marino after she left.
'You still in jail?' he said over the line.
'I think he killed his guinea pig,' I said.
'Whoa. How 'bout starting over again.'
'Deadoc. The woman he shot and dismembered may have been his guinea pig. Someone he knew and had easy access to.'
'I gotta confess, Doc, I got no idea what the hell you're talking about.' I could tell by his tone he was worried about my state of mind.
'It makes sense that he couldn't look at her. The M.O. makes a lot of sense.'
'Now you really got me confused.'
'If you wanted to find a way to murder people through a virus,' I explained, 'first you would have to figure out a way. The route of transmission, for example. Is it a food, a drink, dust? With smallpox, transmission is airborne, spread by droplets or by fluid from the lesions. The disease can be carried on a person or his clothes.'
'Start with this,' he said. 'Where did this person get the virus to begin with? Not exactly something you order through the mail.'
'I don't know. To my knowledge there are only two places in the world that keep archival smallpox. CDC and a laboratory in Moscow.'
'So maybe this is all a Russian plot,' he said, sardonically.
'Let me give you a scenario,' I said. 'The killer has a grudge, maybe even some delusion that he has a religious calling to bring back one of the worst diseases this planet has ever known. He's got to figure out a way to randomly infect people and be sure that it can work.'
'So he needs a guinea pig,' Marino said.
'Yes. And let's suppose he has a neighbor, a relative, someone elderly and not well. Maybe he even takes care of her. What better way to test the virus than on that person? And if it works, you kill her and stage her death to look like something else. After all, he certainly can't have her die of smallpox. Not if there is a connection between him and her. We might figure out who he is. So he shoots her in the head, dismembers her so we'll think it's the serial killings again.'
'Then how do you get from that to the lady on Tangier?'
'She was exposed,' I simply said.
'How? Was something delivered to her? Did she get something in the mail? Was it carried on the air? Was she pricked in her sleep?'
'I don't know how.'
'You think deadoc lives on Tangier?' Marino then asked.
'No, I don't,' I said. 'I think he picked it because the island is the perfect place to start an epidemic. Small, self-contained. Also easy to quarantine, meaning the killer doesn't intend to annihilate all of society with one blow. He's trying a little bit at a time, cutting us up in small pieces.'
'Yeah. Like he did the old lady, if you're right.'
'He wants something,' I said. 'Tangier is an attention-getter.'
'No offense, Doc, but I hope you're wrong about all of this.'
'I'm heading to Atlanta in the morning. How about checking with Vander, see if he's had any luck with the thumbprint.'
'So far he hasn't. It's looking like the victim doesn't have any prints on file. Anything comes up, I'll call your pager.'
'Damn,' I muttered, for the nurse had taken that, too.
The rest of the day moved interminably slowly, and it wasn't until after supper that
Fujitsubo came to say goodbye. Although the act of releasing me implied I was
neither infected nor infectious, he was in a blue suit, which he plugged into an air line.
'I should keep you longer,' he said right off, filling my heart with dread. 'Incubation, on average, is twelve to thirteen days. But it can be as long as twenty-one. What I'm saying to you is that you could still get sick.'
'I understand that,' I said, reaching for my water.
'The revaccination may or may not help depending on what stage you were in when I
gave it to you.'
I nodded. 'And I wouldn't be in such a hurry to leave if you would just take this on instead of sending me to CDC.'
'Kay, I can't.' His voice was muffled through plastic. 'You know it has nothing to do with what I feel like doing. But I can no more pull something out from under CDC than you can grab a case that isn't your jurisdiction. I've talked to them. They are most concerned over a possible outbreak and will begin testing the moment you arrive with the samples.'
'I fear terrorism may be involved.' I refused to back down.
'Until there is evidence of it - and I hope there won't be - we can do nothing more for you here.' His regret was sincere. 'Go to Atlanta and see what they have to say.
They're operating with a skeleton crew, too. The timing couldn't be worse.'
'Or perhaps more deliberate,' I said. 'If you were a bad person planning to commit serial crimes with a virus, what better time than when the significant federal health agencies are in extremis? And this furlough's been going on for a while and not predicted to end anytime soon.'
He was silent.
'John,' I went on, 'you helped with the autopsy. Have you ever seen a disease like this?'
'Only in textbooks,' he grimly replied.
'How does smallpox suddenly just reappear on its own?'
'If that's what it is.'
'Whatever it is, it's virulent and it kills,' I tried to reason with him.
But he could do nothing more, and the rest of the night I wandered from room to room in AOL. Every hour, I checked my e-mail. Deadoc remained silent until six o'clock
the next morning when he walked into the M.E. room. My heart jumped as his name appeared on screen. My adrenaline began to pump the way it always did when he talked to me. He was on the line, it was up to me. I could catch him, if only I could trip him.
DEADOC: Sunday I went to church bet you didn't SCARPETTA: What was the homily about? DEADOC: sermon
SCARPETTA: You are not Catholic. DEADOC: beware of men
SCARPETTA: Matthew 10. Tell me what you mean. DEADOC: to say he s sorry
SCARPETTA: Who is he? And what did he do? DEADOC: ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of
Before I could answer, he was gone, and I began flipping through the Bible. The verse he quoted this time was from Mark, and again, it was Jesus speaking, which hinted to me, if nothing else, that deadoc wasn't Jewish. Nor was he Catholic, based on his comments about church. I was no theologian, but drinking of the cup seemed to refer to Christ's eventual crucifixion. So deadoc had been crucified and I would be, too?
It was my last few hours here and my nurse, Sally, was more liberal with the phone. I
paged Lucy, who called me back almost instantly.
'I'm talking to him,' I said. 'Are you guys there?'
'We're there. He's got to stay on longer,' my niece said. 'There are so many trunk lines, and we got to line up all the phone companies to trap and trace. Your last call was coming in from Dallas.'
'You're kidding,' I said in dismay.
'That's not the origin, just a switch it was routed through. We didn't get any farther because he disconnected. Keep trying. Sounds like this guy's some kind of religious nut.'