Dead of Night (Dead of Night 1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

WOLVERTON REGIONAL HOSPITAL

STEBBINS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

Dez braked hard and jolted to a stop in front of the emergency room entrance and was out of the car before the ambulance passed her and pulled into the turnaround. Orderlies, nurses, and a doctor were running in a pack and converged with Dez as the back door of the ambulance opened and JT jumped out.

They brought the stretcher down, dropped the wheels, and then the swarm turned and ran with it into the hospital amid a flurry of technical medical jargon neither JT nor Dez understood.

Instead of taking Diviny to a regular curtained bay in the emergency department, they wheeled him into the trauma bay, which was a large semi-operating room intended for a single patient. Dez and JT stood in the open doorway, not wanting to enter but needing to know something—anything—that would make some sense of this.

An argument broke out between the doctor and paramedics over the vitals, and the doctor—an Indian man whose name tag read Sengupta—was loud and condescending. He ordered the nurses to “take a proper set of vitals, goddamn it. ”

They did. Or, at least they tried. They cut through Diviny’s clothes and stuck EKG leads onto his chest. They tried taking his temperature by the ear and later rectally. They put him on an automatic blood pressure machine and clipped another oximeter to his fingers. They used a Doppler device to try to take a pulse.

Sengupta was soon yelling again.

“Check the damn machines!” he snarled.

They did. Then he went and checked for himself. New blood pressure machines were wheeled in. New thermometers were used. Half a dozen stethoscopes were pressed against Diviny’s chest and abdomen.

And then the noise and confusion in the room suddenly melted down into a hushed silence as the medical professionals stood around the table. Some stared at Diviny; the rest looked to each other for confirmation or explanations. No one said anything for at least half a minute.

Oh, shit, thought Dez; and she realized how much hope she was placing on a proper medical examination.

Then the doctor began firing a new set of orders. “I want a CHEM-7 panel. Electrolytes and renal function tests. Do a liver function test, ABG, CBC with diff … serum-urine tox screen. Check for everything: alcohol, Tylenol, aspirin, cocaine, heroin, any other narcotics, amphetamines, marijuana, barbiturates, benzodiazepines. Get me a UA culture and sensitivity, as well as blood cultures, cardiac enzymes. And let’s get a chest X-ray and a CT scan. Get IVs going. ”

He turned to the paramedic. “Who brought him in?”

Don pointed to Dez and JT, and the doctor stepped away from the table and headed toward them, herding them outside with wide arms, like a shepherd herding goats. They backed out into the hall.

Sengupta had a dark, scowling face and very intense eyes. He loomed over them, taller even than JT’s six one. “What happened to this man?”

“I don’t know—” began Dez, but he cut her off.

“Then tell me what you do know. ”

She nodded and launched in. Sengupta interrupted constantly, digging into the story for little bits of information. Dez could see him becoming more and more frustrated because even though they had a lot of details, none of them seemed to want to assemble into a reasonable picture of any kind.

Sengupta drained them dry and then stood silent, looking from them to the swinging vinyl doors that separated the hallway from the trauma room.

“Doc,” asked Dez, “what’s wrong with him?”

The doctor didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Did you see anything unusual? Containers of chemicals? Unusual poisons? Anything like that?”

“Just the stuff Doc Hartnup keeps in the mortuary,” said JT. “Don’t really know what he has in there. ”

“Is there a landfill near the mortuary? Anyplace where a toxic leak might—”

Dez shook her head. “Nothing like that. ”

“Did Officer Diviny drink or eat anything while he was there?”

“No,” they both said.

“I don’t think he was even inside the mortuary building,” said Dez.

“Okay, okay…” The doctor chewed his lip. “I’m going to call Poison Control and have them get some people out there. I would like you to contact Chief Goss and ask if anyone else has become sick, or is acting strangely. Anything, even small symptoms. ”