Chapter 77

Chapter 77—Jack meets Kate’s boss

11:10 p.m., Thursday, December 29 

Just then a man in a tailored grey suit walked up to Jack’s right, joining Jack and the doctor. It was obvious that this third man viewed himself important, and that he intended to take part in the conversation.
“You’re Kate Handler’s surgeon?” he asked.
“Yes I am,” the doctor replied. “And who might you be?”
“I’m Captain Lawrence Spencer. Your patient, Kate Handler, works for me,” the man in the gray suit answered, opening his wallet to display his badge. “Kate is one of my detectives. I just learned that she was wounded. Can you update me?”
The doctor glanced down at the detective’s badge. “I was just explaining to Kate’s father here that we did locate the bullet. Unfortunately it had fragmented. We removed several pieces of it, and we did manage to control the bleeding. But there is a problem, and we have not gained the upper hand on that yet.”
“A problem?” Jack asked. “What sort of problem?” Jack was a little irritated that his daughter’s boss had interrupted.
“Well,” the doctor replied, showing the men a basic diagram of the human anatomy. “It will be easier to show you than to tell you.”
“Here’s where the bullet entered Ms. Handler,” he said, pointing to a spot just above the left hipbone. “As you might already know, the entry wound was substantially larger than it should have been. This would suggest strongly that the bullet had bounced around a bit before it hit your daughter. Because it had flattened out considerably, and lost velocity, it did not penetrate as deeply as it might have. That’s good and bad. It’s good in the sense that it did not do damage to her intestines, or vital organs. But because it was quite large, it did do some tearing. And, unfortunately, one of the things that it tore into was a large blood vein—a renal vein.
“Again, your daughter was fortunate. The bullet did not strike her kidney. In fact, the damage to the vein was minimal, but it did cause significant internal bleeding. Most of bullet’s energy had been spent by that time. All the bleeding we were seeing, it was from that hole in the vein.”
“But you were able to patch that up, right?” Jack asked.
“Yes we were,” the doctor said. “But there might be more to it than that. You see, when the bullet reached that point in Kate’s body, it had begun to disintegrate. I already alluded to that. As we followed its path, we found and removed several very tiny fragments. They had separated from the bullet, and had become lodged in the surrounding muscle tissue.
“The problem is, it is possible that we missed one or more of the fragments, because they were so tiny.
Jack interrupted at that point. “If they are so small, and lodged in the muscle, that wouldn’t hurt anything, would it?”
“If the fragments remain in muscle tissue, that would be correct. They would not significantly impact her recovery.”
“The problem, rather, the potential problem, that we encountered involves the point at which the bullet struck the vein. While we were able to remove the major part of bullet itself, and repair the hole, we did find a much smaller hole directly above where the bullet came to rest. That hole was tiny by comparison—not much larger than a pin might make if pushed head and all through a sheet of paper. It was very small.”
“You know I’m gonna need that bullet,” Kate’s boss interjected.
“I understand the procedure,” the doctor said. “But we’re not done with it. Even though it was tiny, it was a hole just the same. The curious thing about it was its location. It was only a couple millimeters above the larger hole. Now, there are only two ways that hole could have been created. First, we could have inadvertently caused it during the process of removing the bullet and making the repair. While that is a possibility, it seems unlikely. The more feasible explanation would be that the hole was caused by a fragment of the bullet.”
“When will I be able to get that bullet?” Captain Spencer interrupted.
Dr. Phillips glanced in the detective’s direction, but did not address his question.
“Now, if that is the case, if a fragment became separated from the bullet itself, and caused that puncture, then we would have liked to have found that piece. But we did not.”
“Are you saying that there could be a piece of the bullet still in Kate’s body? Floating around in her blood stream?” Jack asked.
The doctor nodded affirmatively. “And if that is the case, it still would not necessarily present a problem. At least not in and of itself. If that little piece of shrapnel, which would likely be about the size of a grain of sand, or smaller, if that tiny piece of metal simply ripped a hole through the tough wall of the vein, then bounced off and lodged itself in surrounding tissue, then that will never be a problem. It would never cause Kate any discomfort.
“But, it could be a different matter altogether if that piece, small as it is, passed through the wall of the vein, and got into her blood stream. If that happened, and we’re not at all sure that it did, then it could float around until it got lodged somewhere else. But if it made its way to her brain, it could plug a vessel, cause a clot, and that could be serious.”
“Can’t you stick a magnet in there, or something like that, and get it out?” Kate’s boss said.
“It’s possible we could find it with a scan,” the doctor said, trying not to patronize the detective. “If we knew where to look. But it is virtually impossible to locate something so tiny. At this point, about all we can do is wait. Chances are great that it will end up some place where it will do her no harm. The human anatomy has a way of dealing with things like that. Most likely there will never be any repercussions from this. But I wanted to give you as accurate a picture as possible. There can always be complications. In this case, I think the chances are excellent that nothing will ever come of it. But we will be keeping her for a few days, and we will be looking for signs of additional bleeding as well.”
“Then, given this piece of the bullet never presents a problem, what would you say is the prognosis for full recovery?” Jack asked.
“Excellent,” the doctor said with an air of confidence. “In addition to the gunshot wound, your daughter was unusually dehydrated when brought in. We found that curious. But we’ve got that under control. I would say that we’ll have her on her feet tomorrow, then watch her for a couple days. She should be totally mobile by that time. A little sore, perhaps, because of all the digging around we had to do. But other than that, she should be back to normal within a week or so. That is, as long as there are no further complications.”
Just as Jack reached out to shake hands with Dr. Phillips, Big Hands walked up. At first Jack did not notice him. But when he saw Detective Spencer slide over to make room, he realized they had company.
And, it was also at that time, that Jack remembered just what it was about Big Hands that had seemed familiar to him earlier.