Isolation Ward

by Joshua Spanogle

  “There’s nothing to follow up on, Nate. And if there is anything to follow up on, it’s a police matter, not something an EIS officer should play around with. Remember our mandate.”

  I wanted to remind him that our mandate was to identify and stop threats to public health, but I didn’t.

  “Also, I want you in Atlanta, ready to go down to Louisiana. There have been a few cases of West Nile reported. We’re waiting to see how big it gets.”

  “So, which is it, Tim? Am I coming to Atlanta to coordinate lab work, or am I coming to hang out for West Nile to pop?”

  “Both.” Good old Tim Lancaster. Had an answer for everything. The real answer—that he wanted me out of this case—would never cross his lips. “You said the funeral was tomorrow? Okay, stay. But I want you in Atlanta by Saturday the latest. Give me a call when you get in.”

  “Okay,” I said, though it would be impossible for me to button things up in California by then. And if I didn’t button things up, I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave for Atlanta. Il Duce would have to wait for that call.

  “Well?” Brooke pushed a spoon into a bowl of some barnyard-looking mix.

  “I still have a job. Until Saturday, at least.”

  “Good for you. What happens Saturday?”

  “I have to be in Atlanta.”

  “That leaves us two days.”

  “Us two days? Us?”

  “I didn’t pull my first damned all-nighter since residency for nothing. This is important.”

  “What’s important?”

  “Nate . . .”

  “I’m serious. What are we doing here? What’s important?” My tone was sharp, and it occurred to me that I was being a real prick to this woman. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because I was pissed off and unsettled at whatever weirdness was swirling around me. Maybe I was upset about Dr. Tobel being—what? Murdered? Involved in something that stank so much? Or maybe, just maybe, I was still miffed about Brooke leaving me a year before, and I wanted to punish her for it.

  Anyway, whatever the reasons, I was being a jerk and I got a reaction. Real mature, Nathaniel. Real mature.

  “Why are you on my case? I’m trying to help you out here.”

  “I’m not on your case. I’m just asking why you need to play the hero.”

  “What? Me, play the hero? I helped you out. Helped you do your fucking job, Doctor.” Her eyes were blazing, real anger in them. “You know what, Nate? Fuck it.”

  “Brooke—”

  “Take these two little shit dogs”—she gestured to the dachshunds, who were awake now, looking uncomfortably at the scene—“and go to a motel. Go poke around the city for whoever killed your beloved mentor. Because that’s what it’s really about now, isn’t it? Not about some disease jumping around. It’s personal now, isn’t it, Nate?” Her voice got mean on that—personal.

  “That’s really wonderful, Brooke. Thanks for the sympathy.”

  “Or perhaps this is about Atlanta. Perhaps you needed to get one last jab in. Screw the best interests of the public health because of some misunderstanding a year ago.”

  How did she get to that? I was being so subtle.

  “Oh, but no. Not you. You killed it off in Georgia. You’re a real man, aren’t you, Nate? An island. Totally in control of your emotions. Great. Really effective. You know what? Why don’t you sit down and talk with your inner child for a while and figure out why you’re really involved with this? And maybe, after that scintillating conversation, you’ll realize maybe you should be in Atlanta, because you’re so goddamned confused, you can’t see the real situation out here.”

  “Confused? I’m confused? I thought you had a lock on confusion. Perhaps you need to figure out why you want to be deep into something that’s not even your damn job. Work’s not so interesting, so you need to step on my toes? You’re still smarting from this blitzed marriage, so you want me to be your teddy bear? Your buddy? Is that it? I’m trying my damndest to make sure that what’s in Baltimore stays there, that I find out what the hell’s going on back there so I never have to worry about it again. And maybe I am wondering about why the only person who ever really loved me is stiff and cold at the ME’s now. So crucify me for that, if you want. I don’t care. I do not care, Brooke.”

  Screw her, I thought. Screw her. Screw her for not understanding where I was coming from, for not understanding her own motivations for being involved in this. Though she seemed kind, though she seemed to care about me, about Dr. Tobel, about this disease, she was a political animal—no better than anyone else. She was a budding Tim Lancaster with tits, great legs, and nice words.

  I slammed into the bedroom to grab my things. I shouldered my two pieces of luggage and walked back into the living room. Brooke hadn’t moved from the couch. Her jaw was set; she wouldn’t look at me.

  I said, “You can keep the goddamned dogs. Or take them to the pound. I don’t care.”

  I left, marveling at how quickly things fall apart.

  CHAPTER 58

  So, two days. Two days to figure out who was the rapist, who was the raped, and how that meant anything to me. Two days to figure out how and if this played into the sickness in Baltimore, to figure out how Harriet Tobel was involved and if her death was tied to this. Two days to divine why I’d been such an ass to Brooke. Two days to wonder why I had to be the lone cowboy who fights his battles outside the system, who always gets the job done, who always gets the glory, who always gets the girl. Nate McCormick: Hero.

  Except I wasn’t getting the job done, I wasn’t getting the girl. I was, however, fucking up. You would have thought I’d learned by now.

  I headed north toward the university, toward another emotional vortex. The sad truth is I had to speak with Alaine Chen, who, as my luck would have it, was the person most likely to have some information about Harriet Tobel and a nondescript room number three somewhere in the hospital.

  I felt sick to my stomach as I climbed the steps of the Heilmann Building. Going from a Brooke Michaels disagreement to an Alaine Chen summit would not have been my choice for a great afternoon. But heroes have to be courageous, right?

  The Tobel lab buzzed with activity. Yonnick was there, as were the undergrad and some other students whom I didn’t recognize. But something was missing, of course, though I couldn’t tell if it was the actual zeitgeist in the lab or just in my head. The captain of the Tobel lab lay, at that moment, on an autopsy table. You could feel the lack of a presence. Still, I didn’t know if anyone in the lab had learned of her death yet. Who would have told them? The police? Larry or Don? Probably not.

  Then I saw Alaine and knew that she knew. She looked—well, stunned: her eyes were red, and her face looked ravaged. For a moment, I was touched. Alaine Chen, who’d been the coldest, most remote woman I’d ever known, could feel.

  She caught my eye, forced a little smile, then motioned me into Dr. Tobel’s office. I followed, and she closed the door behind me.

  “Nate . . . I can’t believe it.”

  “Neither can I,” I said. Couldn’t believe Dr. Tobel was dead. Couldn’t believe two emotionally spent women in one day.

  Though this would have been the moment to embrace, neither of us made the move. After a moment, we talked: about how sad we were, about how much of a surprise this was—all the requisite death stuff. I was feeling kind of close to her, though I couldn’t tell if that was because we were both stricken with grief or whether it was genuine. Nevertheless, “close to Alaine Chen” wasn’t a spot I wanted to be in.

  No, that’s not completely true. Actually, it’s not true at all. As she went on about her feelings toward Dr. Tobel, about how lost she felt, I realized how desperately I did want to be close to her. I’d just lost my mentor and friend, Brooke Michaels hated me now and was probably sticking knitting needles into a little Nate doll, Tim Lancaster was ruing the day he hired me. I don’t think I’d ace the emotional intelligence test, but I could see why I wanted to connect with Alaine. In that moment
, it hit me how goddamned unhappy I was. Like Alaine. Would it be so dangerous to comfort each other? Would it be so bad to let gravity take over, let her fall against me, let her break down and feel her hot tears dampen my shirt, cup the back of her head in my hand, stroke her hair? To press my lips to her wet eyes, taste the salt? It will be okay, I imagined telling her. It will be okay, Alaine. It will be okay.

  Alaine kept talking and I kept struggling. I leaned back against a lab bench, trying to keep myself steady and as far from her as I could. My hands were on the bench. Keep them there, I thought. Make no gesture. I could not afford once again to be in this woman’s emotional orbit. I had a job to do. I had only two days.

  “We have no idea what will happen to the lab,” Alaine was saying. “Chimeragen and the FDA will want a big name to carry on the work. But we’ve done so much here, Nathaniel. We know the protocols better than anybody, and if they move everything to Duke or Yale . . .”

  All right, Alaine, good. Break the spell by mentioning your career woes. This was the Alaine I wanted to remember—the ice queen, the self-obsessed. I did not want to see her feel. I did not want sympathy to wreck my defenses.

  So, I didn’t let it. I had walked away from Brooke Michaels that morning. I sure as hell could walk away from Alaine Chen.

  “I need to show you something,” I said abruptly. Alaine stopped her story, a little taken aback.

  “There’s a conference room on this floor, right? I need a VCR.”

  CHAPTER 59

  I didn’t give a lot of prelude to the tape, just said it had come from Dr. Tobel before she died. OK, I made it a little more pointed than that.

  “Dr. Tobel called me to tell me where to find this. She left the message around nine o’clock. Three hours later, I found her dead.”

  I pushed Play and room number three swam into view. “You recognize the room?” I asked.

  Alaine glanced at me, then back to the screen. Her mouth moved a little; then she said, “I don’t know.”

  “Who is the woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, ‘I don’t know’?”

  “How many interpretations of ‘I don’t know’ are there, Nathaniel? I don’t know.”

  I shook my head. For what it’s worth, I realized I was not wasting a lot of kindness or sensitivity on Dr. Chen. Chalk it up to my being an asshole or the lone hero Brooke Michaels took me for. Actually, chalk it up to that and to the fact that, minutes ago, I’d very nearly embraced the spider woman who’d caused me such pain. I felt like I’d narrowly missed a fatal car crash.

  But there was something else at work here, too: Alaine’s reaction to all of this bothered me.

  “See if you recognize this person. Dr. Tobel probably knew who this is. I’m guessing you do, too.”

  The bath played out on the screen, then the masturbation, then the rape. Alaine’s face slipped from a look I couldn’t put my finger on to one of horror and disgust, to something like fear. I froze the tape on the man’s exit. Alaine’s eyes stayed locked on his image.

  “Alaine?”

  Her head jerked toward me. Her hand went halfway toward her mouth and hung there. It trembled.

  “I . . . This is horrible.”

  “Do you know that man, Alaine?”

  She stared at me for a second, as if she couldn’t see me, then she looked back to the screen. “No. I can’t see his face. Why would I know who this is?”

  “You have any idea about this incident?”

  She shook her head.

  You goddamned liar, I thought. “Do you know where this room is?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Do you know where this room is?” I repeated sharply.

  “Nathaniel, please—”

  “Please what? The room is in this hospital, Alaine. Harriet Tobel had this tape. You’re the head researcher in her lab. Where is this room?”

  “I don’t . . . I’m too upset. . . . Nate. Please. Please, Nate. I’m upset about Harriet’s death. Then you . . . you show me this. What am I supposed to say?”

  “You’re supposed to say what you know, what Dr. Tobel told you. Why did she have this tape?” Alaine said nothing. “Why did she want me to have this? Why did she want to give it to me right after I told her about the outbreak in Baltimore?” Alaine’s slicked eyes cut toward me, then away.

  “Stop it, Nathaniel.”

  “Would Harriet Tobel have been killed because she had this?”

  Nothing.

  “Was Harriet killed because she wanted to tell me something?”

  With that, Alaine Chen—soulless Alaine Chen—took a moment, put her head in her hands, and began to cry. And I—soulless Nathaniel McCormick—took a step toward her.

  I said, “Alaine, please help me out here.”

  Nothing.

  The idea of comforting her returned. Before me, there was no spider woman, just a sad, scared girl. The primordial, undefined warmth that I’d felt toward her years before and spent years trying to kill off returned. Before I could stop myself, I’d reached out and touched her shoulder. A small gesture, but it was enough. She rolled to my chest and began to sob. My arms closed around her. Her tears dampened my shirt. They were hot and wet. They felt just as I’d imagined.

  So, the dangerous fantasy had become real. Standing there, clutching this woman I’d loved, rocking her, whispering in her ear, I knew I had crossed a line. Crossed into what, however, I did not know.

  On the VCR, the pause clicked off and the image of the rapist, of the comatose woman, of room number three, gave way to darkness.

  Five minutes? Ten? I have no idea how long I stood in that ugly conference room, embracing my former lover. In the end, it was she, not I, who made the tiniest push to signify the end of things. Had she not done that, had it been up to me, we might have held the position for weeks, the two of us wasting away to nothing. I let go.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She wiped at her eyes and forced a smile. “I’m sorry.”

  “No—”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” I looked around the room. “There’s a tissue here?”

  She pointed to a roll of paper towels. I pulled off two sheets, handing one to her. I blew my nose in the stiff material. She followed suit, then tossed the paper towel, grabbed another. She began to dab at my chest, at the damp spot left by her tears. The tenderness of the act almost killed me. “Sorry about your shirt.”

  “I have others.”

  She stopped grooming me and we stood for a moment, looking at each other. The moment was over and I didn’t know what to do. I nodded and said lamely, “I’ll be going.”

  “Sure.”

  I nodded again, then crossed the room to eject the tape from the VCR. Another glance at Alaine Chen, and I left.

  I was in danger of falling into a pit of nostalgia and what-ifs that couldn’t benefit anybody, least of all me. Even so, I stood outside that conference room, waiting, I suppose, for Alaine to come out. I guess I wanted to see her vulnerable just one more time.

  But she didn’t appear. After a few minutes, I realized I was obsessing. I had more pressing business, I told myself. Six people had died. I left the Heilmann Building, a soundtrack of two words—stupid, weak—marking my steps.

  Outside, I found a chair, a ratty discarded thing, under a couple of hemlocks. I set it upright, dusted the seat, and parked myself. I tried to think about things that had little to do with the sticky history between Alaine and Nathaniel.

  A rape, Harriet Tobel, Alaine’s supposed ignorance of the connection between the two. I didn’t know much; that was clear. What I did know was that things—things about which I knew too damn little—were happening fast. Doors were closing, the wagons circling, all that. I didn’t have much time.

  “Damn it,” I said. There was information I needed, information I failed to get because I’d run from Alaine like a kid running from a bully. I looked back at
the Heilmann Building. Back in the lion’s maw.

  Upstairs again, I went to the conference room, half-hoping to find Alaine at the whiteboard, scrawling hearts shot through with arrows, NM + AC written inside in loopy girl-letters. But of course she wasn’t scrawling anything; she wasn’t there. I went to the lab.

  Yonnick—bearded, Semitic, intense—fiddled with a small tray dotted with a hundred small wells.

  “Is Dr. Chen here?” I asked.

  He looked up briefly, then back to his tray. “Haven’t seen her.”

  I watched him work for a moment, then asked, “ELISAs?”

  He nodded.

  “Fun, fun,” I said. Running ELISAs was tedious. “What are you looking for?”

  “Interleukins. Immune response.”

  ELISA is a test to see what proteins are present in whatever sample you chose to test. For example, if I became ill, my body would produce signaling proteins—cytokines—important for inflammation, which would help fight the disease. These would be picked up by ELISA.

  “The Chimeragen project?”

  Yonnick glanced at me suspiciously, then nodded.

  “Anything else?”

  “I work mostly on Chimeragen, some on HIV immunity.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Where do the Chimeragen samples come from?”

  He stopped working. “Who are you again?”

  So, Yonnick was going to be a pain in the ass. I pulled out my badge. “I met you yesterday. Nathaniel McCormick from CDC.”

  “Yeah, I remember. You should talk to Dr. Tobel.”

  “Dr. Tobel died last night.” Yonnick’s face froze, mouth half-open, obviously disbelieving. A palpable quiet drifted through the lab as others stopped their work to listen in. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” I said. “She died late last night of a heart attack. You’ll want to talk to Dr. Chen about the details. But I need to ask you about your work here in the lab. So, let’s start at the beginning. Again, where did the samples come from?”

  “Talk to Dr. Chen about the details,” Yonnick said, his voice impassive, and continued filling the wells on the ELISA tray. “We signed a nondisclosure agreement.”