Right to Die

Please—”
    Depressing the plunger, I tried again. Same message.
    I thought back to Saturday, the hoarse voice. To Sunday, busy, like maybe she’d taken the phone off the hook. Now Monday, not in service, like maybe she’d left it off the hook.
    I got the snub-nosed Chief’s Special from the bedroom. What was seven blocks after twenty-six miles?
    This time, though, I didn’t run it.
    It was a moonless night, not much activity on the holiday now that the marathon crowd had dispersed. As I turned onto the little mews, there was no one in sight.
    I hobbled to the front steps and used the knocker. Nothing. I waited, tried again. Still nothing. Then I heard it.
    The sound of glass breaking, followed by a strangled cry.
    The door was locked. My legs didn’t want to work, but I finally braced a shoulder against the hinge jamb and generated enough force to smash my right foot through the wood at the lock.
    Inside the foyer, weapon in hand, I could hear the sounds of a struggle from the kitchen. I crossed to the swinging door, hitting it and diving onto the linoleum.
    I slid to a stop three feet from Maisy Andrus, thrashing around on the floor.
    Arms outstretched, back arched, her legs pistoned like a brat throwing a tantrum. Her eyes and throat bulged, and her mouth was locked half open, saliva cascading down her chin and cheeks. One leg kicked out, toppling a breakfast stool.
    I realized that she was alone. A windowpane over the sink was broken, but only as if something had been thrown through it from the inside. Water drummed from the faucet.
    Then Andrus began to choke, and I got on the phone for 911 and the closest hospital I knew before trying to help her.

    Dr. Paul Eisenberg came around the corner, a chart in his hand.
    I worked my way up from the cheap plastic chair in the waiting room. “How is she?”
    The skin on his forehead wrinkled toward the baldness above it. “Not good. Coma, signs very low. Where’s her husband?”
    “ Europe . Tennis tournament in Paris , I think she said.”
    “He should be notified.”
    “What the hell is wrong with her?”
    Eisenberg consulted the chart. “You told the EMTs that Andrus was choking when you got there?”
    “She was having a fit of some kind when I got there. The choking started after that.”
    “How long before you got to her did the fit start?”
    “I don’t know for sure. I heard glass breaking, turned out to be a window in the kitchen. I was to her within two, three minutes after that.”
    “In the kitchen, you say?”
    “Yes. I thought it was somebody trying to get at her, but maybe it was her trying to signal for help with the fit.” Eisenberg sighed. “Probably not. Not consciously, I mean. Was there any water near her?”
    “Water?”
    “Yes.”
    “Doc, she was writhing on the floor like she’d been gutshot. The only water was the faucet running in the sink.”
    “And which window was broken?”
    “The one over the sink. Why?”
    “Have you seen her much the last few weeks?”
    “Yes. Well, no, just a couple of times.”
    “How did she seem to you?”
    “Pretty tired. Haggard, even.”
    “Irritable?”
    “Yes. Much more than before she went out to San Diego .”
    “Sensitive to breezes or draffs?”
    I stared at him. “Yes.”
    “Has she been in any wilderness in the last six months?”
    “Wilderness? Not that I know of.”
    “Camping? Or maybe on a farm?”
    “No.”
    “Out of the continental U.S. at all?”
    “No. Wait, yes, down to Sint Maarten.”
    “ Caribbean ?”
    “Right.”
    “When?”
    “December into January.”
    Eisenberg jotted something on the chart. “Incubation period is within the brackets. That’s a possible, but not likely.”
    “What’s a possible?”
    “Sorry. A possible source of the infection.”
    “What infection?”
    “You have to understand, we don’t see this anymore, not in cities. I saw it only twice in Brazil , and I don’t think there have been six deaths in the whole U.S. over the last—”
    “Dr. Eisenberg, what the hell is wrong with her?”
    He told me.
    “Sweet Jesus of God.”

    I lay awake until after midnight Monday, when the effects of the marathon finally overcame everything else. Tuesday morning I got on the phone. First, I called in a favor from a friend at an airline. He patched his computer into four other carriers before finding what I needed to know and making reservations for me too. By Tuesday afternoon my legs were recovered enough to drive south to