Robertson stopped directing traffic and turned to Angela. His chubby cheeks had become beet red. "What did you say?" he demanded.

Just then David slipped in between Angela and Robertson, forcing Angela away. He'd been eavesdropping on the conversation from a few feet away and he didn't like the direction it was taking.

Angela tried to repeat her statement, but David gave her arm a sharp tug. Through clenched teeth he whispered to her to shut up. When he got her far enough away he grabbed her shoulders. "What the hell has gotten into you?" he demanded. "You're taunting a man who's obviously got some kind of personality problem. I know you have a penchant for the dramatic but this is pushing it."

"He was ridiculing me," Angela complained.

"Stop it," David commanded. "You're sounding like a child."

"He's supposed to be protecting us," Angela snapped. "He's supposed to uphold the law. But he isn't any more interested in this threatening note than he is in finding out who murdered Hodges."

"Calm down!" David said. "You're making a scene."

Angela's eyes left David's and swept around the immediate area. A number of people had paused on their way into the church. They were all staring.

Self-consciously, Angela put the note away in her purse, smoothed her dress, and reached for Nikki's hand.

"Come on," she said. "Let's not be late for the service."

With Alice Doherty recruited to watch over Nikki and Caroline, David and Angela drove to the hospital. Nikki had met Caroline after the church service, and Caroline had accompanied them to the Iron Horse Inn for brunch.

At the hospital, David and Angela met Donald Schiller and his in-laws, the Josephsons, in the lobby. They sat on the benches to the right of the entrance to discuss the proposed autopsy.

"My husband has asked you for permission to do an autopsy," Angela said. "I'm here to tell you that I will be the one to do it if you agree. Since neither the hospital nor CMV will pay for this service, I'm offering to do it on my own time. It will be free. It also might provide some important information."

"That's very generous of you," Donald said. "We still weren't sure what to do this morning, but after talking to you, I think I feel okay about it." Donald looked at the Josephsons. They nodded. "I think Mary Ann would have wanted it too, if it could help other people."

"I think it might," Angela said.

David and Angela went down into the basement to retrieve Mary Ann's body from the morgue. They took it up to the lab and rolled it into the autopsy room. The room had not been used for autopsies for several years and had become a storeroom. They had to move boxes from the old stainless-steel autopsy table.

David had planned to assist, but it quickly became apparent to Angela that he was having a hard time dealing with the situation. He was not accustomed to autopsies, and this was the body of a patient he had been treating only the day before.

"Why don't you go see your patients?" Angela suggested when she was ready to begin.

"You sure you can manage?" David asked.

Angela nodded. "I'll page you when I'm done, and you can help me get her back downstairs."

"Thank you," David said. At the door he turned. "Remember, consider the possibility of an unknown viral disease. So be careful. And also, I want a full toxicological workup."

"Why the toxicology?" Angela asked.

"I want to cover all the bases," David said. "Humor me, okay?"

"You've got it," Angela said agreeably. "Now get out of here!" She picked up a scalpel and waved for David to leave.

David let the autopsy room doors close behind him before he took off the hood, gown, and mask he'd donned for the post mortem. He was relieved to have been excused. David left the lab and climbed up to the patient floor.

He fully intended to discharge Jonathan Eakins, especially after he he'd been told by the nursing staff that there'd been no abnormal heartbeats. But that was before he went into Jonathan's room to say hello. Instead of experiencing Jonathan's usual cheerfulness, David found the man depressed. Jonathan said he felt terrible.

Sensitized by recent events, David's mouth became instantly dry. He felt a rush of adrenaline shoot through his body. Afraid to hear the answer, he asked Jonathan what was wrong.

"Everything," Jonathan said. His face was slack and his eyes lusterless. A string of drool hung down from the corner of his mouth. "I started having cramps, then nausea and diarrhea. I've no appetite and I have to keep swallowing."

"What do you mean you have to keep swallowing?" David asked fearfully.

"My mouth keeps filling up with saliva," Jonathan said. "I have to swallow or spit it out."

David desperately tried to put these symptoms into some recognizable category. Salivation keyed off a memory from medical school. He remembered it was one of the symptoms of mercury poisoning.

"Did you eat anything strange last night?" David asked.

"No," Jonathan said.

"What about your IV?" David asked.

"That was removed yesterday on your orders," Jonathan said.

David was panicky. Except for the salivation, Jonathan's symptoms reminded him of the symptoms Marjorie, John, and Mary Ann had experienced prior to their rapid deterioration and deaths.

"What's wrong with me?" Jonathan asked, sensing David's anxiety. "This isn't something serious, is it?"

"I was hoping to send you home," David said, avoiding a direct answer. "But if you are feeling this bad, maybe we'd better keep you for a day or so."

"Whatever you say," Jonathan said. "But let's nip this in the bud; I've got a wedding anniversary coming up this weekend."

David hurried back to the nurses' station with his mind in an uproar. He kept telling himself that it couldn't happen again. It was impossible. The odds were too small.

David threw himself into a chair and took Jonathan's chart from the rack. He went over it carefully, re-reading everything, including all the nurses' notes. He noticed that Jonathan's temperature that morning had been one hundred degrees. Did that represent a fever? David didn't know; it was borderline.

Rushing back into Jonathan's room, David had him sit on the side of his bed so that he could listen to his chest. His lungs were perfectly clear.

Returning to the nurses' station David leaned his elbows on the counter and covered his face with his hands. He had to think. He didn't know what to do, yet he felt he had to do something.

Impulsively David reached for the phone. He already knew the response he could expect from Kelley and CMV, but he didn't care. He called Dr. Mieslich, the oncologist, and Dr. Hasselbaum, the infectious disease specialist, and asked them both to come in immediately. David told them he believed he had a patient who was in the very early stages of the same condition that had proved mortal three times in as many days.

While David was waiting for the consults to arrive, he ordered a barrage of tests. There was always the chance that Jonathan would wake up the next day feeling fine, but David didn't think he could risk his patient's going the route of Marjorie, John, and Mary Ann. His sixth sense was telling him that Jonathan was already locked in a mortal struggle, and lately David's intuition had not been wrong.

The infectious disease specialist was first to arrive. After a quick chat with David, he went in to see the patient. Dr. Mieslich came in next. He brought with him his records of Jonathan's treatment when he had been his patient. Dr. Mieslich and David went over the record page by page. By then Dr. Hasselbaum was finished examining Jonathan. He joined David and Dr. Mieslich at the nurses' station.

The three men had just begun to discuss the case when David became aware that the two doctors were looking over his shoulder. David turned to see Kelley looming above him.