“Can’t imagine,” Prek said. “I was hoping they’d be together, but what can you do. When you finish getting settled, bring that milk carton up to the front and sit between us. I want you to look out the windshield for the Grazdani girl along with us. Six eyes are better than four.” The trickle of medical students had swelled to a horde. Like livestock returning from the pasture on their way back to the barn.

The van was parked on the west side of Haven Avenue facing southeast. Prek et al. were facing the medical students coming from the medical center complex, passing the van on the passenger’s side.

“We have one bird in the nest. Now, where the hell is the other one? Where the devil did she go?”

Chapter 50.

50.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER
520 FIRST AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 25, 2011, 5:30 P.M.

Chet McGovern waited with anticipation for the beautiful med student sitting in front of him to tell him if there was anything she wanted him to ask Jack Stapleton, who had performed the autopsies on the dead researchers she was interested in. McGovern tried to read her face. She’d looked crestfallen a few minutes earlier when he told her the bodies were gone, but now she seemed to have brightened. After a few moments’ contemplation, something seemed to have occurred to her.

“Well, maybe there is something you could ask,” Pia said.

“What? What would you like me to ask him?” McGovern said. He tried to mask his eagerness, worried it might scare her off.

Pia remembered Rothman’s rebound tenderness, which she had been the first to find. It heralded the peritonitis, which bore witness to what was going on in Rothman’s gut. Typhoid’s target organ was the small intestine. From her recent research she knew that the gut was also sensitive to radiation, particularly the cells that lined the gut. But it was the whole gut, not just the small intestine. If polonium was involved, then the whole gut would have been damaged.

“I’d like to know if the autopsy findings were typical for typhoid fever.”

“Let me go and find him,” McGovern said with alacrity. “Not a problem. Don’t move!”

He jumped up before Pia could change her mind and dashed out of the room, heading down the hall to Jack Stapleton’s office. He knocked on the door and barged in without waiting for an answer. To his dismay, the office was empty.

“Damn!” He then ran down to the office of Jack’s wife, Laurie, whose door was ajar as usual. To his delight both Laurie and Jack were there.