Rusty had started the saline drip, adding mannitol to reduce brain swelling. Haskell had left the OR at an actual run to do the bloodwork in the lab down the hall, a complete CBC. It had to be Haskell; Rusty was unqualified and there were no lab techs. Catherine Russell was now hideously understaffed. Rusty thought the Dinsmore boy might be only a down payment on the price the town would eventually have to pay for that lack of personnel.
It got worse. The boy was A-negative, and they had none in their small blood supply. They did, however, have O-negative - the universal donor - and had given Rory four units, which left exactly nine more in supply. Giving it to the boy had probably been tantamount to pouring it down the scrub-room drain, but none of them had said so. While the blood ran into him, Haskell sent Ginny down to the closet-sized cubicle that served as the hospital's library. She came back with a tattered copy of On Neurosurgery: A Brief Overview. Haskell operated with the book beside him, an otiscope laid across the pages to hold them down. Rusty thought he would never forget the whine of the saw, the smell of the bone dust in the unnaturally warm air, or the clot of jellied blood that oozed out after Haskell removed the bone plug.
For a few minutes, Rusty had actually allowed himself to hope. With the pressure of the hematoma relieved by the burr-hole, Rory's vital signs had stabilized - or tried to. Then, while Haskell was attempting to determine if the bullet fragment was within his reach, everything had started going downhill again, and fast.
Rusty thought of the parents, waiting and hoping against hope. Now, instead of wheeling Rory to the left outside the OR - toward Cathy Russell's ICU, where his folks might be allowed to creep in and see him - it looked like Rory would be taking a right, toward the morgue.
'If this were an ordinary situation, I'd maintain life support and ask the parents about organ donation,' Haskell said. 'But of course, if this were an ordinary situation, he wouldn't be here. And even if he was, I wouldn't be trying to operate on him using a... a goddam Toyoto manual.' He picked up the otiscope and threw it across the OR. It struck the green tiles, chipped one, and fell to the floor.
'Do you want to administer epi, Doctor?' Ginny asked. Calm, cool, and collected... but she looked tired enough to drop in her tracks.
'Was I not clear? I won't prolong this boy's agony' Haskell reached toward the red switch on the back of the respirator. Some wit - Twitch, perhaps - had put a small sticker there that read BOOYA! 'Do you want to express a contrary opinion, Rusty?'
Rusty considered the question, then slowly shook his head. The Babinski test had been positive, indicating major brain damage, but the main thing was that there was just no chance. Never had been, really.
Haskell flipped the switch. Rory Dinsmore took one labored breath on his own, appeared to try for a second one, and then gave up.
'I make it...' Haskell looked at the big clock on the wall. 'Five fifteen p.m. Will you note that as the TOD, Ginny?'
'Yes, Doctor.'
Haskell pulled down his mask, and Rusty noted with concern that the old man's lips were blue. 'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'The heat is killing me.'
But it wasn't the heat; his heart was doing that. He collapsed halfway down the corridor, on his way to give Alden and Shelley Dinsmore the bad news. Rusty got to administer epi after all, but it did no good. Neither did closed-chest massage. Or the paddles.
Time of death, five forty-nine p.m. Ron Haskell outlived his last patient by exactly thirty-four minutes. Rusty sat down on the floor, his back against the wall. Ginny had given Rory's parents the news; from where he sat with his face in his hands, Rusty could hear the mother's shrieks of grief and sorrow. They carried well in the nearly empty hospital. She sounded as if she would never stop.
9
Barbie thought that the Chief's widow must once have been an extremely beautiful woman. Even now, with dark circles under her eyes and an indifferent choice of clothes (faded jeans and what he was pretty sure was a pajama top), Brenda Perkins was striking. He thought maybe smart people rarely lost their good looks - if they had good ones to begin with, that was - and he saw the clear light of intelligence in her eyes. Something else, too. She might be in mourning, but it hadn't killed her curiosity. And right now, the object of her curiosity was him.
She looked over his shoulder at Julia s car, backing down the driveway, and raised her hands to it: Where you going?
Julia leaned out the window and called, 'I have to make sure the paper gets out! I also have to go by Sweetbriar Rose and give Anson Wheeler the bad news - he's on sandwich detail tonight! Don't worry, Bren, Barbie's safe!'And before Brenda could reply or remonstrate, Julia was off down Morin Street, a woman on a mission. Barbie wished he were with her, his only objective the creation of forty ham-and-cheese and forty tuna sandwiches.
With Julia gone, Brenda resumed her inspection. They were on opposite sides of the screen door. Barbie felt like a job applicant facing a tough interview.
'Are you?' Brenda asked.
'Beg your pardon, ma'am?'
'Are you safe?'
Barbie considered it. Two days ago he would have said yes, of course he was, but on this afternoon he felt more like the soldier of Fallujah than the cook of Chester's Mill. He settled for saying he was housebroken, which made her smile.
'Well, I'll have to make my own judgment on that,' she said. 'Even though right now my judgment isn't the best. I've suffered a loss.'
'I know, ma'am. I'm very sorry.'
'Thank you. He's being buried tomorrow. Out of that cheesy little Bowie Funeral Home that continues to stagger along somehow, even though almost everyone in town uses Crosman's in Castle Rock. Folks call Stewart Bowie's establishment Bowie's Buryin Barn. Stewart's an idiot and his brother Fernald's worse, but now they're all - we have. All J have.' She sighed like a woman confronting some vast chore. And why not? Barbie thought. The death of a loved one may be many things, but work is certainly one of them.