In many ways, the postmortem examination is a character test for physicians and sometimes a Pandora’s Box. Through the autopsy, physicians expose themselves to the revelation of a mistake, a missed critical diagnosis, or the chance that they injured the patient with their treatments.
“Can I see her?”
“Of course, but let me see if she’s ready.”
He stared at Jacob oddly. “Ready?”
“The nurses like to straighten up and make her presentable.”
“Presentable?”
With Pete standing before them, Jacob slowly pushed the swinging door open and they followed him into his wife’s now dim and silent room.
Ginny Harrison had remade the bed and just pulled the sheet over Shannon’s face.
The white-sheeted body is iconic of death. The image draws immediate attention, the respectful pause, the turned head, and the questioning glance.
Pete stood by her bedside, looking down in silence. After a moment, he stared at Jacob and nodded.
Jacob grasped the top of the sheet. With solemnity, he slid it down to expose Shannon’s face.
Pete stared at the bloodless, lifeless wax figure of what was once his wife, his life. His eyes widened and his legs weakened. He grasped the bed for support.
Jacob held Pete’s shoulders for a moment until he regained control.
Pete placed his hand on Shannon’s cheek. When he touched her cold lifeless skin, he reflexively retracted his hand with the reality of death. He stared at the woman who’d shared his life, then bent over and placed a kiss on her lips.
“Get me the papers to sign, Jacob. I need to know what happened.”
Chapter Three
Jacob Weizman slipped out of Brier Hospital at 8:00 a.m. and walked, head down, toward the parking garage. A few deep breaths and the salty scent of the San Francisco Bay, just three miles to the west, cleared his sleep-deprived head.
When he reached the bright fluorescent entranceway, Angel Hernandez, the night attendant, waved. “Don’t tell me you worked all night, Doc.”
“No, Ángel,” said Jacob, using the Spanish pronunciation, “just a sad beginning to another day.”
“Sorry, Doc. Hope the rest of your day is better, and say hello to Mrs. Weizman for me. Ella esta La Pistola.”
“Lola, a pistol...fair enough.”
Jacob stared at his 1970 black Volvo 122. He brushed away the light coating of dust blurring his wrinkled image in the mirror-like hood finish and recalled the day he and Lola purchased the car new from the Berkeley showroom floor. Growing old together, he and the Volvo remained sturdy, a bit outdated, but far from useless, he prayed.
Jacob climbed in. He sank in the well-worn driver’s seat, and drove through the ground fog up the steep wet streets to their modest home nestled in the Arlington section of the Berkeley hills.
When he cracked open the front door, the smell of freshly ground coffee and baking blueberry scones set his mouth watering.
Lola bent before the oven, holding the door ajar and checking on her creations. The kitchen table held a stack of newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and the New York Times. They shared these papers each morning and fought over the crossword puzzles, especially the Times. Jacob was faster, but Lola was better, and she delighted in looking over his shoulder and kibitzing—more like tormenting him over missed clues. More than once, he fended off her pencil-poised-hand that loomed over his empty squares.
Lola was three years his junior. She stood at five feet two inches and weighed 98 pounds. She looked and sounded like a skinny Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Her pruned face reflected the calendar and the years of heavy smoking. Her brown-stained second and index fingers said that in spite of Jacob’s admonitions, she remained a slave to the deadly habit.
“If it hasn’t killed me yet, it never will.”
Jacob sagged into his kitchen chair and rolled to his place before the east-facing window. The rising sun finally broke through the morning fog and shined brightly through white sheer curtains.
Lola pushed the button on their Senseo coffee maker for a second cup. The machine growled, forcing pressurized hot water through the Colombia Supremo blend.
As she zipped across the room, Jacob smiled. Lola still had the graceful movement of a much younger woman, a talent hard earned in the ballet she studied in Vienna so long ago.
“Shannon Hogan’s gone.”
Lola froze for a moment, then carried Jacob’s mug to the table and added three teaspoons of raw sugar.
“What happened?”
Jacob yawned. “We don’t know.”
“Come on, Jacob. You must have some idea.”
“She went through so much. I could have accepted her death at any time during the initial part of her hospital stay, especially in the ICU when she was so sick, but to die suddenly when she was getting better, when she was getting ready for discharge, I’m getting too old for that kind of disappointment.”
“Maybe it was her time.”
“Her time?”
“It amazes me that after all we’ve seen, all we’ve endured, you still see the world in black and white.”
Jacob placed his mug heavily on the table, splashing coffee on the crossword puzzle. “The camps left no room for God, Lola. Where was He when so many suffered and died?”
“I’m not talking God or religion. I can’t remember the last time we went to temple...a wedding, I think. I believe we survive for some purpose, and maybe we die for reasons we can’t understand.”
“You’re getting spiritual in your old age.”
“Maybe. Our survival is a miracle. Perhaps we’re still here for a reason.”
“Stubbornness.”
Jacob inhaled the sweet scone scent, and then took a bite, washing it down with coffee. “If you’re looking for miracles, start with your coffee and scones.”
“That poor woman, and Pete. I can’t imagine how he’s going to cope with her loss. They had a great marriage.”
“What choice does he have?”
Jacob took another sip then looked up. “You’re going to court today?”
Lola studied her feet. “Yes, Jacob, love of my life.”
“It’s not funny, Lola. They’ll pull your license one of these days. It’s your third speeding ticket this year.”
“I’m not counting.”
“This isn’t Florida, where senior power prevails. In California, they’ll pull the license of any octogenarian for looking the wrong way. With you, they don’t have to look so far.”
Lola drove a bright red Honda S2000, literally a red flag for the CHP who knew Lola by name and by reputation as the car with its headless driver sped along.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, if they convict me again, I’ll go back to traffic school.”
“They won’t let you get away with that forever.”
“Don’t be concerned, Jacob.” She winked. “I have a way with judges.”
After breakfast, Jacob put aside the papers and incomplete puzzle. “I’ll stop at the Zimmerman’s on my way to the office. Got to check on Hazel Pincus.”
“Eighty-eight years old and still making house calls. The medical staff’s going to put out a contract on you.”
“I should worry.” He smiled and kissed Lola on the lips.
She held him tight for a moment. “I love you, Jacob.”
“I love you too, old woman. See you tonight.” He hesitated and grasped her hand. “And, do me a favor.”
She caressed his cheek. “Anything for my sweetheart.”
“Don’t get a speeding ticket on the way to court.”
Chapter Four
For the first twenty years of medical practice, Jacob Weizman used the small office attached to their home. He enjoyed stepping from his kitchen into his waiting room. Even in those days, his practice was considered outmoded by most physicians who dissociated work from life. Jacob never made the distinction. If it weren’t for his success, the need for
additional space, and the licensing requirements of a medical office, he’d still be living and working at home.
In the fall of 1965, Jacob purchased a Victorian just two blocks from Brier Hospital. The large first floor served his practice. He rented the second floor to a psychiatrist, Ross Cohen, and a speech pathologist.
As he drove toward his office, Jacob passed by the Brier Hospital complex, a study in contrasts. Bernard Brier, heir to the Brier Mines near Nevada City, California, lived in a Victorian mansion in the hills above Berkeley. Next to the mansion, he built a convalescent home that became a sanitarium, and finally a private, not for profit community hospital. The modern six-story hospital dwarfed the original Brier Mansion, now on the list of historic California sites.
Jacob parked in the space labeled, Jacob L. Weizman, M.D., General Practice and entered the house through a side door.
Margaret Cohen, his office manager smiled at Jacob. “Good morning, Dr. Weizman.”
Margaret was only his second office manager, having replaced Lola who threatened to kill Jacob if they worked together one more day. Margaret was in her late 60s and widowed. She had grown old with Jacob and the practice.
“Good morning Maggie, you’re looking particularly fetching this morning.”
She blushed, pushing back a lock of gray hair from her forehead. It was amazing that at her age, with three children and eight grandchildren, Jacob still made her blush.
“Let me introduce myself, Dr. Weizman, I think you’re getting forgetful. The name’s Margaret or Marge or Margie.”
“I could use a little forgetfulness. Did you hear about Shannon Hogan?”
Margaret nodded. “She was a wonderful woman. I’ll miss her. Why do all the good ones go so soon?”
“Don’t know, but at least you and I have nothing to worry about.”
“How’s Pete?”
Jacob shook his head slowly. “Devastated.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. They’re doing an autopsy at noon. Just get me out of here on time for a change.”
“If you stop flapping your gums, you’ll get out of here, no problem.”
“Flapping my gums...how charming an image, Maggie.”
“You’d better start flapping your wings, Old Man. You have a busy morning.”
“Busy. Why do you always keep me busy?”
“You’re the one who says I shouldn’t turn anyone away...just squeeze them in.”
“Start noodging me at eleven. If I’m not out of here before noon, then...”
She slapped a chart into his hands. “It’ll be my pleasure, Dr. Weizman.”
Jacob finished with his last patient at 11:50. “You’re a good girl, Margaret. Thanks.”
“Just be back by two, Doctor.”
Jacob walked under the midday sun to Brier Hospital. He entered through the enormous sliding glass doors into an ornate lobby decorated with paintings and sculptures. Plaques recognizing major contributors lined one entire wall. He took the elevator to the basement and walked into the morgue.
In his sixty years of practicing medicine, the smell of a morgue—decaying human tissue and formaldehyde, never changed.
Mark Whitson was a man in his mid fifties, Brier’s chief of Pathology. He looked up as Jacob entered. “You’re on time. I’m just getting started. Is anyone else coming?”
“Jack Byrnes said he’d be here.”
“I read the chart. You didn’t expect this death, did you?”
“I never expect my patients to die, Mark, but they keep disappointing me.”
“Should I look for anything specific?”
“Just the usual. Anything that explains a sudden death.”
Mark wore a green scrub suit, a large white plastic apron, and protective goggles. “Do you want a brain exam too?”
Jacob nodded.
Billy Bliss, the diener, or morgue attendant, was as thin and pale as many of their clients and looked like he just came out of the corpse refrigerator himself. He wore the same uniform as the pathologist and stood at the head of the stainless steel table holding a Stryker vibrating saw used to open the skull. Whitson made the classical Y-incision from each shoulder, meeting at the lower ribs and extending to the mid-groin. Jacob watched the diener roll back Shannon Hogan’s scalp and begin cutting. The room resounded with the coarse vibrations of the electric saw. Fine puffs of bony powder billowed from the saw’s rapidly moving blades. Beyond the incisions, the foul aromas, and the lifelessness of the corpse, opening the skull with this coarse instrument reflected, more than anything else, the vulgarity of death.
Whitson spoke into the microphone hanging over the autopsy table. “The body is a middle-aged woman, measuring 162 centimeters and weighing 63 kilograms.” He went on to describe, in vivid detail, his findings as he dissected each major organ system and examined them with care.
Halfway through, Jack Byrnes and Ahmad Kadir arrived. “Anything yet, Jacob?”
“Nothing.”
Billy Bliss sneered at Ahmad. “What’s that damn Arab doing here?”
Ahmad reddened.
Jack stared at Billy with disgust. “Dr. Kadir is a resident from UC San Francisco. He’s working with me. Do you have a problem?”
Billy turned his face down in silence.
Jack shook his head at Mark who raised his palms in the what can I do gesture.
Ignorant and malicious, a great combination, Jack thought.
After about 45 minutes, Mark Whitson had examined the heart, brain, and major organs. He turned to Jack and Jacob. “Sorry, guys. Can’t find anything on gross examination. Maybe the microscopic will show something.”
Jack shook his head. “I hate this.”
Jacob had seen more autopsies than he cared to remember. “It happens. It may have been a lethal heart irregularity. We’ll just have to wait for the detail to follow.”
Mark smiled at Jacob. “Do you remember your first autopsy?”
Jacob shook his head. “That would be Moses, of course. Do you remember yours?”
Mark nodded. “Who could forget.”
Jacob’s eyes moved up and to the right. “I can still see the large amphitheater in Vienna. Two hundred medical students and doctors in training. I threw up...three times. Very embarrassing...undignified, in those days. You know, Mark, except for the fancy tables, the modern plumbing, the bright lights, the digital scales, and the electric saws, the procedure hasn’t changed in my professional lifetime.”
Jack looked around the room. “I guess death hasn’t changed much either.”
Jacob shook his head. “No, Jack. Death used to be simple...not anymore.”
As they left the morgue, Ahmad stroked his black beard. “That wasn’t necessary, Dr. Byrnes, but I thank you anyway.”
“Ignorance and bigotry must be carried on the same set of genes.”
“That was nothing. It was tough being an Arab in the U.S. before 9/11, now it’s impossible.”
Jacob Weizman entered Brier Hospital at seven the next morning to begin his rounds. After seeing his medical patients, he took the stairs to the fifth floor orthopedic unit. His patient, Lillian Brown, an 81-year-old woman, was entering her second day post op. She’d had her hip replaced by Harrison Baldwin, a new orthopedic surgeon. Lillian had been Jacob’s patient for thirty years.
As Jacob walked toward her room, he saw the Code Blue cart parked by the door to her room. He picked up his pace and entered.
Jacob turned to the charge nurse. “What’s going on here?”
The nurse was a woman in her early twenties. She turned to Jacob. “Mrs. Brown’s sodium level in her blood is extremely low and Dr. Baldwin is about to give her a concentrated salt solution.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Dr. Baldwin said not to disturb you. He’d take care of it.”
Jacob felt his pulse rise and his face redden. He walked to the bedside. “Wait a minute, Harrison. What are you doing?”
“Hi, Jacob
. Her sodium is down to 127 and she’s a little confused. I’m giving her some salt to fix it.”
Jacob pulled Harrison aside. “Don’t give her anything. She’s been on water pills, diuretics, for years and her sodium level tends to be on the low side.”
Harrison gritted his teeth. “Like hell I won’t. It’s going to be my ass if she has a convulsion and dies.”
“Did anyone see her have a seizure or any sign she might?”
“I’m not waiting for that to happen, Jacob. Now, with all due respect, let me take care of my patient.”
Jacob faced the nurse. “Nurse, I’m giving you a direct order not to give that salt solution, it’s dangerous.”
The nurse looked first at the youthful surgeon, recently completing his training, and then at the wrinkled octogenarian, trained before WW II. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weizman, but Mrs. Brown is on Dr. Baldwin’s service. I must follow his orders.”
No Cure for Murder Page 2
