Lee Goldberg - Diagnosis Murder 01 by The Silent Partner

Author:The Silent Partner [Goldberg, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Mark called Amanda on his cell phone on his way to the hospital with Jack. Amanda immediately ordered a new screening of Stanley’s blood and internal organs, then laid out the corpse for reexamination.

While they waited for the lab results, the three doctors conducted what amounted to a second autopsy. Mark had to see the body for himself, to be certain he agreed with Amanda’s findings. Jack needed to review his work, to convince himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong during the transplant procedure itself. And Amanda, in light of the new information, wanted to double-check her own work.

All three of them came away satisfied. Mark agreed that the physical evidence supported Amanda’s finding of anaphylaxis, and Jack was confident that no surgical errors were made during the transplant. In fact, from what Mark could see, Jack and Amanda had both done exemplary work.

So if Jack hadn’t made a mistake, and if Amanda’s findings were correct, what had gone wrong? What caused the profound allergic reaction that led to Stanley’s sudden death?

An assistant brought Amanda the new lab report. She quickly scanned the document, speaking up as soon as she hit a relevant fact. “The blood test came up negative for penicillin.”

“That can’t be,” Jack said, throwing his hands up in desperation. “There are only two other things we know Stanley Tidewell was allergic to—high-SPF sunscreen and fleabites. I didn’t slather him with Coppertone and we weren’t attacked by a swarm of fleas,”

“Hold on, Jack. I only said there wasn’t any penicillin in his blood.” Amanda looked up from the report, stunned. “But his kidney was saturated with it.”

Jack didn’t know what to make of the revelation at first, so he turned to Mark, who had a strange, contemplative look on his face.

“Very interesting,” Mark said, his voice trailing off with his thoughts.

“It’s a hell of a lot more than that,” Jack said, relieved. “It means I’m in the clear.”

“And it raises a lot more questions,” Amanda said.

“Yeah, like why didn’t you find this before?” Jack asked, instantly regretting the accusatory tone in his voice.

“Because she didn’t look for it,” Mark said, sounding a bit distracted, his mind still working on something. “I wouldn’t have, either.”

“Why not?” Jack asked.

“Because everything added up,” Mark said, suddenly focused, a strange smile on his face. Both Jack and Amanda had seen it a million times before. It meant Mark was on to something.

“Stanley died of a severe allergic reaction,” Mark said. “A review of his medical file shows he was allergic to penicillin. The postmortem lab results didn’t show any in his blood. But the record of the transplant operation indicates you gave him a cephalosporin IV, which can provoke the same deadly anaphylactic reaction. The cause of death is obvious. It’s open and shut.”

“Obviously not,” Amanda said remorsefully. “If I’d done my job right the first time, this never would have happened. I should have tested the kidney.” She turned to Jack. “I am so sorry for putting you through all this.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.