“I think it is rather clear,” Marissa said. “Evelyn Welles didn’t have tuberculosis. She had disseminated BCG bacillus.” Marissa reached for Welles’ hospital chart and opened it to her autopsy page. “Look,” she said, pointing to a description of the microscopic appearance of her fallopian tubes. “It says there was an intense, overwhelming infection in her oviducts. I’ll tell you why that was the case: the fallopian tubes were the port of entry of the BCG. The fact that it disseminated was because of her immunological problem. And look here at the description of her cervix. It describes a recent punched-out lesion. That had to be a biopsy site.” Marissa flipped through the chart until she came to the woman’s last Pap smear report. “Now look at this. The Pap smear was normal four weeks before. Does that make any sense to you men?”

“I think I’m beginning to get the picture,” Tristan said. “You’re suggesting that the twenty-three cases of TB salpingitis that I reported were actually BCG, not TB.”