Mortal Fear

by Robin Cook

“What was your discovery?”

  “Just a moment,” Hayes said. He put his cigarette in the ashtray and pressed his right hand against his chest.

  “Are you all right?” Jason asked. Hayes appeared to have become a shade grayer, and a line of perspiration had formed at his hairline.

  “I’m okay,” Hayes assured him. He let his hand drop to the table. “I didn’t report this discovery because I realized it was the first step toward an even bigger breakthrough. I’m talking about something akin to antibiotics or the helical structure of DNA. I’ve been so excited I’ve been working around the clock. But then I found out my original discovery was no longer a secret. That it was being used. When I suspected this, I…” Hayes stopped in midsentence. He stared at Jason with an expression that started out as confusion but rapidly changed to fear.

  “Alvin, what’s the matter?” Jason asked. Hayes didn’t reply. His right hand again pressed against his chest. A moan escaped from his lips, then both hands shot out and gripped the tablecloth, clawing it toward him. The wine glasses fell over. He started to get to his feet but he never made it. With a violent choking cough, he spewed a stream of blood across the table, drenching the cloth and spraying Jason, who jumped backward, knocking over his chair. The blood didn’t stop. It came in successive waves, splattering everything as nearby diners began to scream.

  As a physician, Jason knew what was happening. The blood was bright red and was literally being pumped out of Hayes’s mouth. That meant it was coming directly from his heart. In the seconds that followed, Hayes remained upright in his chair, confusion and pain replacing the fear in his eyes. Jason skirted the table and grabbed him by the shoulders. Unfortunately there was no way to staunch the flow of blood. Hayes was either going to exsanguinate or drown. There was nothing Jason could do but hold the man as his life flowed out of him.

  When Hayes’s body went flaccid, Jason let it slump to the floor. Although the human body contains about six quarts of blood, the amount on the table and floor appeared to be considerably more. Jason turned to a neighboring table that had been vacated and took a napkin to wipe his hands.

  For the first time since the initial catastrophe, Jason became aware of his surroundings. The other patrons of the restaurant had all leaped from their tables and were crowded at the other end of the room. Unfortunately, several people had gotten sick.

  The maître d’ himself, with a green complexion, was swaying on his feet. “I’ve called for an ambulance,” he managed to say through a hand clamped over his mouth.

  Jason looked down at Hayes. Without an operating room right there, with a heart and lung machine primed and ready to go, there was no chance of saving him. An ambulance at this point was futile. But at least it could take the body away. Glancing again at the still body, Jason decided the man must have had a lung cancer. A tumor could have eroded through his aorta, causing the bleeding. Ironically, Hayes’s cigarette was still lit in the ashtray that was now full of frothy blood. A bit of smoke languidly rose to the ceiling.

  In the distance Jason heard the undulating sound of an approaching ambulance. But before it arrived, a police cruiser with a flashing blue light pulled up outside, and two uniformed policemen came bounding into the dining room. They both pulled up short when confronted by the bloody scene. The younger one, Peter Carbo, a blond-haired boy who looked about nineteen, immediately turned green. His partner, Jeff Mario, quickly sent him to interview the patrons. Jeff Mario was Jason’s age, give or take a couple of years. “What the hell happened?” he asked, astounded at the amount of blood.

  “I’m a physician,” Jason offered. “The man is dead. He bled out. There was nothing that could have been done.”

  After squatting over Hayes, Jeff Mario gingerly felt for a pulse. Satisfied, he stood up and directed his attention to Jason. “You a friend?”

  “More a colleague,” said Jason. “We both work for Good Health Plan.”

  “He a physician also?” Jeff Mario asked, motioning toward Hayes with his thumb.

  Jason nodded.

  “Was he sick?”

  “I’m not certain,” Jason said. “If I had to guess, I’d say cancer. But I don’t know.”

  Jeff Mario took out a pad and a pencil. He opened the pad. “What’s the man’s name?”

  “Alvin Hayes.”

  “Does Mr. Hayes have a family?”

  “I guess,” Jason said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know too much about his private life. He mentioned a son, so I presume he has a family.”

  “Do you know his home address?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Officer Mario regarded Jason for a moment, then reached down and carefully searched Hayes’s pockets, coming up with a billfold. He went through Hayes’s cards.

  “The guy doesn’t have a driver’s license,” Jeff Mario said. He looked at Jason for confirmation.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Jason could feel himself begin to tremble. The horror of the episode was starting to affect him.

  The sound of the ambulance, which had gotten progressively louder, trailed off outside the window. There was now a red flashing’ light in addition to the blue. Within a minute two uniformed emergency techs came into the room, one carrying a metal case that looked like a tackle box. They went directly over to Hayes.

  “This man’s a doctor,” Jeff Mario said, pointing at Jason with his pencil. “He says it’s all over. He says the guy bled out from cancer.”

  “I’m not sure it was cancer,” Jason said. His voice was higher than he intended. He was visibly trembling now, so he clasped his hands together.

  The EMTs examined Hayes briefly, then stood up. The one who’d been carrying the case told the other to go down and get the stretcher.

  “Okay, here’s his address,” said Jeff Mario, who had gone back to searching Hayes’s wallet. He held up a card. “He lives over near Boston City Hospital.” He copied the address down on his note pad. The younger policeman was taking down names and addresses, including Jason’s.

  When they were ready to leave, Jason asked if he could go along with the body. He felt bad sending Hayes to the morgue all alone. The cops said it was fine with them. As they emerged onto the square, Jason could see that a considerable crowd had formed. News like this traveled around the North End like wildfire, but the crowd was silent, awed by the presence of death.

  Jason’s eye caught one nattily dressed man who seemed to melt backward into the crowd. He looked like a businessman — more Latin American or Spanish than Italian — particularly his clothing — and for a moment Jason wondered at himself for even noticing.

  Then one of the emergency techs said, “Want to ride with your friend?” Jason nodded and climbed into the back of the ambulance. Jason sat on a low seat across from Hayes, down near his feet. One of the EMTs sat on a similar seat closer to Hayes’s head. With a lurch, the ambulance moved. Through the back window Jason saw the restaurant and the crowd recede. As they turned onto Hanover Street, he had to hold on. The siren had not been turned on, but the flashing light was still functioning. Jason could see it reflected in the glass of the store windows.

  The trip was short; about five minutes. The EMT tried to make small talk, but Jason made it apparent he was preoccupied. Staring at the covered body of Hayes, Jason attempted to come to terms with the experience. He couldn’t help but think that death was stalking him. It made him feel curiously responsible for Hayes, as if the man would still be alive if he’d not had the misfortune of meeting with Jason. Jason knew such thoughts were ridiculous on a rational level. But feelings didn’t always rely on rationality.

  After a sharp turn to the left, the ambulance backed up, then stopped. When the rear door was opened, Jason recognized where they were. They’d arrived at the courtyard of the Massachusetts General Hospital. It was a familiar place for Jason. He’d done his internal medicine residency there years ago. Jason climbed out. The two EMTs unloaded Hayes efficiently and the wheels dropped down under the stretcher.
Silently, they pushed the body into the emergency room, where a triage nurse directed them to an empty trauma room.

  Despite his being a physician, Jason did not know the protocol for handling a situation like Hayes’s death. He was a bit surprised they’d even come to an emergency room, since Hayes was beyond care. But thinking about it, he realized Hayes had to be formally pronounced dead. He’d remembered doing it when he’d been a house officer.

  The trauma room was set up in the usual fashion, with all sorts of equipment ready for instant use. In a comer was a scrub sink. Jason washed Hayes’s blood off his hands. A small mirror over the sink revealed a significant amount of dried blood that had splattered his face as well. After rinsing his face, he dried himself with paper towels. There was blood on his jacket and shirtfront as well as his pants, but there was little he could do about that. As he was finishing washing, a house officer breezed into the room with a clipboard. He unceremoniously yanked back the sheet covering Hayes, then pulled his stethoscope from around his neck. Hayes’s face looked eerily pale in the raw fluorescent light.

  “You related?” asked the resident casually as he listened to Hayes’s chest.

  When the resident took the stethoscope from his ears, Jason spoke. “No, I’m a colleague. We worked together at Good Health.”

  “You an MD?” the resident asked, sounding a degree more deferential.

  Jason nodded.

  “What happened to your friend?” He shined a penlight into Hayes’s eyes.

  “He exsanguinated at the dinner table,” Jason said, being deliberately blunt, mildly offended at the callous attitude of the resident.

  “No kidding. Far out! Well, he sure is dead.” He pulled the sheet back over Hayes’s head.

  It took all of Jason’s self-control not to tell the resident what he thought of his insensitivity, but he knew it would be a waste of time. Instead, he wandered out into the hallway and watched the bustle of the emergency room, remembering his own days as a resident. It seemed a long time ago, but nothing had really changed.

  Thirty minutes later, Hayes’s body was wheeled back out to the ambulance. Jason followed and watched as it was reloaded.

  “Do you mind if I still tag along?” he asked, uncertain as to his motives, realizing he was probably acting out of shock.

  “We’re just going to the morgue,” the driver said, “but be my guest.”

  As they pulled out of the courtyard, Jason was suddenly surprised to see what looked like the same sharply dressed businessman he’d spotted outside the restaurant. Then he shrugged. That would be too much of a coincidence. Odd, though, the man’s face had the same Hispanic cast.

  Jason had never been to the city morgue. As they wheeled Hayes’s body through scarred and battered swinging doors and entered the storage room, he wished he had not come on this occasion. The atmosphere was as unpleasant as his imagination had suggested it would be. The storage room was large and lined on both sides with square, refrigerator-like doors that had once been white. The walls and floor were surfaced with old, stained, and cracked tiles. There were a number of gurneys, some occupied by corpses covered with sheets, a few of which were bloody. The room reeked with an antiseptic, fishy smell that made Jason reluctant to breathe. A heavyset, florid man wearing a rubber apron and gloves came over to Hayes and helped transfer the corpse to one of the morgue’s ancient and stained gurneys. Then they all disappeared to attend to the necessary paperwork.

  For a few moments Jason stood in the body room and thought about the sudden end to Hayes’s distinguished life. Then, pursued by a vivid image of his trip to the hospital after Danielle’s death, he walked after the emergency technicians.

  At the time the Boston City Morgue had been built a half century ago, it had been considered a state-of-the-art facility. As Jason mounted the wide steps leading up to the offices, he noticed some architectural detail work with ancient Egyptian motifs. But the building had suffered over the years. Now it was dark, dirty, and inadequate. What horrors it had seen was beyond Jason’s imagination.

  In a shabby office he found the two EMTs and the florid morgue worker. They had finished the paperwork and were laughing about something, completely oblivious to the oppressive atmosphere of death.

  Jason interrupted their conversation to ask if any of the medical examiners were there at the moment.

  “Yup,” said the attendant. “Dr. Danforth’s finishing up an emergency case in the autopsy room.”

  “Is there someplace I can wait for her?” Jason asked. He was in no condition to visit the autopsy room.

  “There’s a library upstairs,” the attendant said. “Right next to Dr. Danforth’s office.”

  The library was a dark, musty place with large bound volumes of autopsy reports that dated back to the eighteenth century. In the center of the room was a large oak table with six captain’s chairs. More important, there was a telephone. After some thought, Jason decided to call Shirley. He knew she was in the middle of entertaining, but he thought she would want to know.

  “Jason!” she exclaimed. “Are you coming over?”

  “Unfortunately, no. There’s been some trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “This is going to be a shock,” Jason warned. “I hope you’re sitting down.”

  “Stop teasing me,” Shirley said. The concern in her voice rose a notch.

  “Alvin Hayes is dead.”

  There was a pause. Inappropriate-sounding laughter could be heard in the background.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Jason said, wanting to shield her from the horrible details. “Some kind of internal medical catastrophe.”

  “Like a heart attack?”

  “Something like that,” Jason said evasively.

  “My God! The poor man.”

  “Do you know anything about his family? They’ve asked me, but I don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t know much either. He’s divorced. He has children, but I believe the wife has custody. She lives somewhere near Manhattan and that’s about all I know. The man was very private about his personal life.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you about this now.”

  “Don’t be silly. Where are you?”

  “At the morgue.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “I rode in the ambulance with Hayes’s body.”

  “I’ll come and pick you up.”

  “No need,” Jason said. “I’ll get a cab after I talk to the medical examiner.”

  “How are you feeling?” Shirley asked. “It must have been an awful experience.”

  “Well,” Jason admitted, “I’ve been better.”

  “That settles it. I’m coming to pick you up.”

  “What about your guests?” Jason protested halfheartedly. He felt guilty ruining her party, but not guilty enough to refuse her offer. He knew he wasn’t ready to be alone with tonight’s memory.

  “They can take care of themselves,” Shirley said. “Where are you exactly?”

  Jason gave her directions, then hung up. He let his head sink into his hands and closed his eyes.

  “Excuse me,” said a deep voice softened by a slight brogue. “Are you Dr. Jason Howard?”

  “That’s correct,” Jason said, sitting up with a start.

  A heavyset figure advanced into the room. The man had a broad face with lidded eyes, wide nose, and square teeth. His hair was dark with glints of red. “I’m Detective Michael Curran, Homicide.” He stuck out a broad, callused hand.

  Jason shook it, flustered by the sudden appearance of the plainclothes detective. He realized he was being evaluated as the detective’s eyes went from his face to his feet and back again.

  “Officer Mario reported that you were with the victim,” Detective Curran said, taking a chair.

  “Are you investigating Hayes’s death?”

  “Just routine,” Curran said. “Rather a dramatic scene, according to Officer Mario’s descrip
tion. I don’t want my detective sergeant on my back if there’s any questions later on.”

  “Oh, I see,” Jason said. In truth, Detective Curran’s appearance made him remember Hayes’s insistence that someone was trying to kill him. Though the man’s death seemed a natural disaster rather than murder, Jason realized Hayes’s fear in part had motivated Jason to come to the morgue to check the cause of death.

  “Anyway,” Detective Curran said, “I got to ask the usual questions. In your opinion, was Dr. Hayes’s death expected? I mean, was he ill?”

  “Not that I know of,” Jason said, “though when I saw him this afternoon and then again this evening, I did have the feeling he wasn’t well.”

  Detective Curran’s heavy eyelids lifted slightly. “What do you mean?”

  “He looked terrible. And when I mentioned the fact to him, he admitted he wasn’t feeling well.”

  “What were the symptoms?” asked the detective. He’d taken out a small pad.

  “Fatigue, stomach upset, joint discomfort. I thought he might have had a fever, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  “What did you think about these symptoms?”

  “They worried me,” Jason admitted. “I told him that it might be better if we met in my office so I could have run a few tests. But he insisted we meet away from the hospital.”

  “And why was that?”

  “I’m not sure.” Then Jason went on to describe what was probably Hayes’s paranoia and his statements about having made a breakthrough.

  After writing all this down, Curran looked up. He seemed more alert. “What do you mean, ‘paranoia’?”

  “He said that someone was following him and wanted him and his son dead.”

  “Did he say who?”

  “No,” Jason said. “To be honest, I thought that he was delusional. He was acting strangely. I thought he was about to decompensate.”

  “Decompensate?” Curran asked.

  “Nervous breakdown,” Jason said.

  “I see,” Curran said, returning to his note pad. Jason watched as he wrote. He had the curious habit of licking the end of his pencil at odd intervals.

  At that moment another figure appeared in the doorway. She walked around the table to Jason’s right. Both Jason and the detective got to their feet. The newcomer was a diminutive woman barely five feet tall. She introduced herself as Dr. Margaret Danforth. In contrast to her size, her voice resounded in the small room.