Carnal

Chapter Eleven - Maids Know Everything

Cain nodded. "Go on."

"The thing is," I said, "I haven't seen anything yet that would lead me to believe there is anything special about this hospital. They don't perform experimental treatments and they don't contribute to research."

"So there's no reason he should have been flying nine hours away and paying nearly twelve hundred dollars a month in plane tickets just to go to a normal hospital," he said, catching my point.

I nodded.

"But that isn't the weirdest part," I told him. "There is another man who did nearly the exact same thing. He came from almost the same part of Mumbai as the first guy did, but the difference is that he moved to Germany within the first month of treatments."

Cain took the paper in my hands and studied it.

"This can't be a coincidence that two men from the same place each had the same disease and ended up receiving treatment from the same hospital that was nearly four thousand miles away from their home, unless..."

"Unless they were referred," Cain finished.

I nodded. "Exactly."

"I have a few connections in Mumbai," he said. "I'll pull a few strings and have them send over each of these men's medical records from India and see if anything matches up. If they were being referred I want to know who was referring them."

Cain continued to study the papers in his hands.

"How many times did they each receive transfusions while they were here?" He asked.

"The second guy only had three before he went missing. But, the other guy had eleven."

"Eleven blood transfusions in five months?" He asked incredulously. "There's no way his body could handle that."

"That's what I thought too," I told him. "But, according to his medical records, he had sickle cell anemia like all of the other men. It requires regular transfusion therapy, so it makes sense that he would need that many in such a short amount of time."

"So all of these men were attending this hospital regularly for the transfusion therapy?" He asked.

I nodded.

"Except your grandfather?" He asked. "I thought he only went once."

"That's another weird thing," I said to him, shaking my head. "All of these men went to this hospital every other week, except my grandfather. He went in August and that was the first and last time he went."

"Did he not have the same disease?" He asked.

I looked through the stack of papers on the desk and found my grandfather's file before handing it to him.

"Before he went for the transfusion in August, he hadn't been to the doctor in nearly seven years. It's a bit odd considering I thought he had a heart condition."

"You've told me this," he said. "But I thought we established that the heart condition was the reason he needed the blood transfusion."

I shook my head.

"The cause for the transfusion, as listed on the nurse's notes, was to treat sickle cell anemia, which is what the nurse wrote for all the other men as well. But I can't find anywhere in his medical records where he was ever diagnosed with that."

"And if he had it, he would have needed more than one treatment," Cain concluded.

I nodded.

"If he even had a heart condition, it had to be a very minor one. He never filled prescriptions and never went to the doctor. In fact, all of his records indicate he was in good health before he stopped going to the doctor."