Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense Read Free Page B

a fork, a Saint Christopher medal, a fingernail clipper, a cell phone, a keychain, a fishing lure, a pen, a class ring, and a stick of gum still in its foil wrapping.
    "What do you do with this stuff?" Steve asked.
    "What any sane person would do." The beachcomber scratched at his soiled armpit. "I put it all on eBay."
    * * *
    Finding a corpse on the beach didn't slow Mark Sloan down. He still made it to Community General Hospital on time for his first appointment. Not that he'd been in any hurry to get there. It was a meeting he'd been dreading.
    His patient was Dr. Dan Marlowe, a cardiologist at Community General. They'd done their internal medicine residencies together and were even neighbors for a while, back when their children were in diapers and their wives were still alive.
    Dan was a big, gregarious, round-cheeked man whose hearty laugh, ready smile, and perpetual good cheer made him the natural choice at Christmas to play Santa Claus in the children's ward. He'd gladly donned the Santa suit and passed out gifts to the sick kids for nearly forty years.
    Lately, Dan spoke with a hoarse voice that he blamed on too much laughter and lingering laryngitis. But being a doctor himself, he naturally put off seeing one. Mark finally nagged him into it, arguing it was probably a simple sinus or throat infection that could be quickly cured with the right antibiotics.
    But it wasn't. Instead, Mark discovered something unexpected and much worse. The laryngitis was an alarm bell, one that rang far too late in Dan's case. The scratchy voice was caused by a tumor on the upper left lobe of his lung that had invaded his recurrent laryngeal nerve. Dan showed no other obvious symptoms of his dire affliction.
    Dan insisted that Mark conduct all the follow-up tests and exams at another hospital so word wouldn't spread around Community General about his condition.
    So now, rather than meeting in Mark's office or an exam room, they got together over coffee in the Community General cafeteria. They were both wearing their lab coats, stethoscopes slung around their necks, several files open between them. To anyone who saw them, they appeared to be just two doctors conferring on a case. There was nothing unusual about that. But this time the patient happened to be one of the doctors at the table.
    The news Mark had to deliver was far from encouraging. The cancer had metastasized widely throughout Dan's body. Aggressive chemotherapy and surgery were the only options, but the prognosis wasn't good. Both men knew that. Dan was in his late sixties, and his cancer was advanced. At best, the treatment might add a year or two to his life, but not much more. His illness was a death sentence.
    "This is probably sacrilegious for a doctor to say, but I'm not going to do a damn thing about it," Dan said. "It's a quality-of-life issue. What's the point of living another year or so if the extra time is going to be spent in misery?"
    Mark had guessed that would be Dan's decision, and he couldn't really blame him. It was a choice Mark might have made himself had he been in the same position. But still, it saddened him.
    "I understand," Mark said. "But there are still things we can do to relieve some of your discomfort."
    "Nothing invasive and no drugs that are going to turn me into some kind of zombie," Dan said. "I want to continue showing up at this hospital as a doctor instead of a patient for as long as I can."
    "You're going to keep working?"
    "Of course," Dan said.
    "Wouldn't you rather spend the time you have left traveling? Visiting with your grandchildren? Reading all those books you've always meant to get to someday?"
    "Hell no. That would almost be as bad as the chemo," Dan said with one of his robust grins. "I love my job, Mark. I want to do it as long as I'm physically able. But don't worry, old friend. I'll find time to indulge myself and do some of the things that I've put off for too long." It wasn't the first time Mark had told a patient that