shiver beside me.
“And all the time he just stares straight ahead as if he were dead,” I said. “Only he’s not. All his vital signs—heart rate, pulse, blood pressure—seem to indicate that he’s perfectly normal. It’s like he’s imprisoned inside his own body. But there was one thing that was odd, and it ties in with the fight-or-flight response described by Dr. Newman. Quite soon after he was admitted to the hospital, the doctors took a blood sample. Adrenaline is often measured in blood as a diagnostic aid. In any of us right now, the level is probably ten nanograms per liter. That can increase by as much as ten times during exercise and by as much as fifty times during extreme stress, to five hundred nanograms per liter. Osborne’s body contained about ten thousand nanograms per liter, which is apparently the amount they might administer to acute-care cardiac patients with a hypodermic. To inject that amount of adrenaline in a short period you’d need a large Epipen or a cardiac needle; and yet there is no sign anywhere on Osborne’s body of a hypodermic mark. Nor any evidence that an inhaler was used. No Epipen or inhaler was found at the hotel, or the plaza, or on Osborne’s person. Newman hasn’t ever seen that quantity of adrenaline occur naturally, but he says that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. He hasn’t ever seen a case of acute catatonia like Osborne’s, either.”
“That is strange,” said Gisela, scribbling something down on her pad.
“He also recently applied for a concealed-handgun license.”
“Nothing strange about that,” said Gisela.
“Except that he was a vocal opponent of the NRA and gun ownership in general,” I said.
“So something had him scared.” Gisela looked at Anne Goldberg. “Anything on his telephone records, Anne?”
“Not a thing that shouldn’t be there. All of the numbers were in his address book.”
“E-mails?”
“The guys at the lab are looking over his computer to see if there are any clues there,” I said. “But that’s going to take a little time. Until then, here’s what we know about the other three.
“Dr. Clifford Richardson ran the Silphium Clinic in Washington, D.C. Until his death six months ago, he was one of the country’s leading obstetricians. He was also a former president of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, and an internationally recognized authority on clinical obstetrics. Following threats to his life in Utah during the late 1990s, Richardson came to live and work in the capital, opening a clinic just a few hundred yards north of the White House, on Sixteenth Street where, he assumed, there might be less opposition to abortion.”
“If it wasn’t for people like him,” said Gisela, “I don’t know what women would do in this country.”
“He was wrong,” I said. “About there being no opposition in D.C. The Silphium Clinic has been regularly picketed as a so-called abortion mill by self-styled sidewalk counselors from pro-life groups and D.C.’s Catholic University of America. They try to talk women out of having abortions, and pray for women who are coming out of the clinic having had one.”
“It sounds like harassment,” observed Anne.
“Which is why there are cops on the scene,” I said. “And pro-choice escorts. Or ‘deathscorts,’ as the pro-life people call them.”
“Oh, brother,” muttered Anne. “There are times when I wish we could bring in Jesus for questioning and ask him if he wouldn’t mind disowning some of these stupid pricks.” She looked at me. “Sorry, Gil. I know you go to church.”
“That’s all right. Matter of fact, you didn’t say anything about him that I haven’t been thinking myself. And just for the record, people, I’m no longer a churchgoer.”
Gisela sat back in her chair. “What does Ruth think about that?”
I was about to make a remark about how thought didn’t seem to be part of my wife’s decision when the failure that was
“And all the time he just stares straight ahead as if he were dead,” I said. “Only he’s not. All his vital signs—heart rate, pulse, blood pressure—seem to indicate that he’s perfectly normal. It’s like he’s imprisoned inside his own body. But there was one thing that was odd, and it ties in with the fight-or-flight response described by Dr. Newman. Quite soon after he was admitted to the hospital, the doctors took a blood sample. Adrenaline is often measured in blood as a diagnostic aid. In any of us right now, the level is probably ten nanograms per liter. That can increase by as much as ten times during exercise and by as much as fifty times during extreme stress, to five hundred nanograms per liter. Osborne’s body contained about ten thousand nanograms per liter, which is apparently the amount they might administer to acute-care cardiac patients with a hypodermic. To inject that amount of adrenaline in a short period you’d need a large Epipen or a cardiac needle; and yet there is no sign anywhere on Osborne’s body of a hypodermic mark. Nor any evidence that an inhaler was used. No Epipen or inhaler was found at the hotel, or the plaza, or on Osborne’s person. Newman hasn’t ever seen that quantity of adrenaline occur naturally, but he says that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. He hasn’t ever seen a case of acute catatonia like Osborne’s, either.”
“That is strange,” said Gisela, scribbling something down on her pad.
“He also recently applied for a concealed-handgun license.”
“Nothing strange about that,” said Gisela.
“Except that he was a vocal opponent of the NRA and gun ownership in general,” I said.
“So something had him scared.” Gisela looked at Anne Goldberg. “Anything on his telephone records, Anne?”
“Not a thing that shouldn’t be there. All of the numbers were in his address book.”
“E-mails?”
“The guys at the lab are looking over his computer to see if there are any clues there,” I said. “But that’s going to take a little time. Until then, here’s what we know about the other three.
“Dr. Clifford Richardson ran the Silphium Clinic in Washington, D.C. Until his death six months ago, he was one of the country’s leading obstetricians. He was also a former president of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, and an internationally recognized authority on clinical obstetrics. Following threats to his life in Utah during the late 1990s, Richardson came to live and work in the capital, opening a clinic just a few hundred yards north of the White House, on Sixteenth Street where, he assumed, there might be less opposition to abortion.”
“If it wasn’t for people like him,” said Gisela, “I don’t know what women would do in this country.”
“He was wrong,” I said. “About there being no opposition in D.C. The Silphium Clinic has been regularly picketed as a so-called abortion mill by self-styled sidewalk counselors from pro-life groups and D.C.’s Catholic University of America. They try to talk women out of having abortions, and pray for women who are coming out of the clinic having had one.”
“It sounds like harassment,” observed Anne.
“Which is why there are cops on the scene,” I said. “And pro-choice escorts. Or ‘deathscorts,’ as the pro-life people call them.”
“Oh, brother,” muttered Anne. “There are times when I wish we could bring in Jesus for questioning and ask him if he wouldn’t mind disowning some of these stupid pricks.” She looked at me. “Sorry, Gil. I know you go to church.”
“That’s all right. Matter of fact, you didn’t say anything about him that I haven’t been thinking myself. And just for the record, people, I’m no longer a churchgoer.”
Gisela sat back in her chair. “What does Ruth think about that?”
I was about to make a remark about how thought didn’t seem to be part of my wife’s decision when the failure that was
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