Shortly before quitting time, she called Treadwell and learned that the cops weren’t ready to release her car. Unwilling to be without transportation any longer, she got Linda to drive her to the nearest place where she could rent one. As she had done with Kate, she avoided telling Linda what had actually happened.
That night, all she was holding inside clamored for release to the point that she considered calling Sharon McKinney in New Orleans and unburdening herself. But that seemed like such a dependent, selfish thing to do that she decided against it. Even though she felt a little safer with Linda in the house, sleep came reluctantly, held at bay by thoughts of what else Latham might have planned for her. By one a.m., that damned five percent lay across the bed like a suffocating shroud. Finally, worn out from worry, she slept. But even then, the battle raged, and she woke the next morning with her pajamas clinging wetly to her skin.
At the hospital, she managed to work a few hours without thinking too much about her troubles. Then, a little after ten o’clock, she was paged to Koesler’s office.
Finding him as usual at his desk, she crossed the room and prepared to take a seat.
“Don’t,” Koesler said. “You won’t be here long.”
He reached toward the little device with the row of hanging steel balls at the front of his desk and pulled the first ball in the row away from the rest. “The last time you were here, I saw from the look on your face that you believed this was a childish thing for me to have.”
Sarchi felt she should apologize for that thought, but couldn’t think how to phrase it.
Koesler released the ball he was holding, allowing it to hit the others and kick out the one on the far end. He watched while the ballet set in motion played out. “I like this device because it demonstrates that certain actions in life lead to inevitable consequences. You, Dr. Seminoux, apparently do not believe that.”
From the moment she’d received the page to see him Sarchi had feared he knew about the incident in the park. Now she was sure of it.
“I told you we were on a collision course,” he said. “But you chose to ignore me. That will not continue.” He shook his head. “Unconscious in a public park. Why, you’re a danger even to yourself. So now you have two choices. Admit your problem to me right now and accept counseling or be suspended.”
His ultimatum was a crushing addition to the burden Sarchi was already carrying. She couldn’t admit to being an addict when it was all a hoax. “It’s true I was found drugged in the park, but it wasn’t my doing. Someone—”
Koesler held up his hand. “No more of that. Just choose.”
“I can’t.”
“Then leave.”
Unable to believe her life had come to this, Sarchi didn’t move.
“Would you rather I call security and have them show you to the street?”
Dazed, Sarchi got up and walked to the door.
“Doctor Seminoux . . .”
She turned and looked back.
“Come to grips with your problem,” Koesler said. “It’s the only way.”
In a fog, Sarchi went to Kate McDaniels’s office. Through the open door she watched Kate at her computer for a few seconds, unsure of what to say. She settled on a direct, unadorned statement. “Kate . . . I have to leave.”
Kate turned. “Oh, hi. I didn’t know you were there. What do you mean you have to leave?”
“I’ve been suspended.”
Kate’s face fell. “I was afraid that might happen. Sit down, and let’s talk about it.”
“Not now. Maybe another time. I have to go.”
With leaden steps Sarchi left the hospital and got in her car. Before pulling onto the street, she paused. Where was she going? She was in no frame of mind to be cooped up at home. Without making a conscious decision, she headed for the heart of downtown.
Oblivious to her surroundings, she took Union Avenue to Front Street and turned north, a route that took her past the huge stainless steel-clothed pyramid sitting cold and dull under the overcast sky. At the next light she turned left and went over the Auction Street Bridge to Mud Island, the bustling residential development on the banks of the Mississippi.
Drawn to the river by the same power that had attracted Harry Bright when he was in trouble, she pulled into a parking bay that looked out over the water barely thirty yards away and shut off the engine.
What was she going to do? Being a doctor wasn’t just a job. It was part of her, like her heart or her eyes. What would happen to her now? Without her work, she was nothing.
The river was high and moving fast, a broad gray sheet topped with foam near the shore where eddies twirled and played with flotsam the river had brought from St. Louis or some other point to the north. As she watched the debris moving at the mercy of the currents, she suddenly saw how her whole life had been controlled by other people: her parents when she was a kid; and all her teachers, especially those in med school, who regularly handed out more work than anyone could reasonably handle, leaving her practically no time for herself, expecting her to keep her mouth shut when they said things that were wrong or insulting.
And there was Koesler, ruling the hospital like a feudal king, wrong not to have an MRI tech on call at night, imposing his will on everyone, taking her chief residency away just because someone had asked him to do it, believing she was on drugs when she wasn’t . . . Carolyn dying . . . and her mother . . . Drew, damaged . . . None of it right, all of it out of her hands.
And the night she was kidnapped, forced into a situation where she was spread-eagled on a table and objects were inserted into her. It was all too much, just too much. Unable to think anymore, her mind closed to everything but the river rushing south to its destiny. She remained for some time lost in that water world. Then, Koesler’s last words called her back.
“Come to grips with your problem. It’s the only way.”
Her eyes hardened. He was right. She was through being controlled. She was taking charge. With or without the help of the police, she was going to make Latham wish they had never met.
24
SARCHI BEGAN TO think in practical terms. The clinic was the way to get Latham. This wasn’t just about mistakes made during surgery. There was something criminal going on. And she was damned sure going to find out what. But she was not a professional investigator, and this was a dangerous situation. She’d need help. But from whom?
Certainly not Pierce. He’d wanted to put his head in the sand from the beginning. Kate? Hardly. Sharon would have been her first choice for a lot of things, but not this. She needed someone who could handle themselves in a tight spot and knew how to conduct an investigation—a private detective maybe.
Wait a minute.
She started the car, backed out of her parking bay, and whipped it into drive.
KNOWING SHE WAS going so far out on a limb a squirrel couldn’t hold on, Sarchi rehearsed what she was going to say, then picked up her phone and entered a number she’d recently added to her contact list.
It took him four rings to pick up.
“John, this is Sarchi. I realize it’s early, and we barely know each other, but I need help, and I don’t know who else to ask.”
“What kind of help?”
“It’s too complicated to go into on the phone. Could you possibly come to my house to discuss it?”
“When?”
“At your convenience. But soon I hope.”
“How about thirty minutes?”
For the first time since she’d awakened in the park, Sarchi felt a flicker of optimism.
She put on a pot of coffee and sat down to wait for Metcalf to arrive. Suddenly she remembered that Redmond had recommended she check the house to see if anything was missing. But there was no need for that. This wasn’t about petty theft.
Metcalf
pulled into the driveway twenty-eight minutes after she’d called him. He got out of his truck and came up the drive wearing his tan bomber jacket over a rust-colored cable knit sweater and tan houndstooth slacks.
She had the door open before he reached the porch. “I really appreciate you coming.”
“I was actually about to call you and see when we could get together again.”
She stepped back and let him in. “How about some coffee? It’s already made.”
“Sure.”
He followed her to the kitchen and sat at the table. Feeling very awkward now that he was here, Sarchi put a cup and saucer in front of him and another at the opposite seat. Not thinking, she filled his cup nearly to the brim, leaving no room for any cream.
“Nuts. Did you want cream? My housemate takes it black, and she likes a full cup—I must have done that out of habit.”
“Black is fine.”
She poured herself a cup, added a little cream, and sat down. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Start anywhere.”
“Are you aware of what happened to me Saturday night?”
“No.”
“Did you hear any calls on your radio about a woman being found unconscious in Overton Park?”
His brow furrowed. “I was off duty. Are you saying that woman was . . .”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Unconscious . . . how?”
“When you came here the second time to talk about the apparent theft of my bag, do you remember me saying that it wasn’t the first odd thing that had happened to me lately?”
“The other was your car. Someone had driven it without your knowledge and left it in a different place than you parked.”
“Shortly after those two incidents, the progress charts of two of my patients disappeared. Then someone told the Tennessee Medical Board I was into drugs, and the board sent out an investigator to check up on me. All this has really screwed up my reputation at the hospital. They all think the drugs I’m supposedly abusing are affecting my memory. Then, Saturday night, things really got rough.”
She explained those events in as much detail as she could, finishing with, “They left a bag of tranquilizers on the front seat of my car to make it look as though I’d driven to the park in a drugged stupor. And I’m pretty sure the detectives who questioned me didn’t believe that, especially since LG&W doesn’t have any record of me calling them that night.”
“What phone did you use to call LG&W?”
“The one by the front door. I had to use that one because I couldn’t get a signal on my cell that night.”
“But it’s working now.”
Puzzled about where he was going with this, Sarchi said, Yes . . .”
“Has anyone examined your phone line where it comes into the house?”
“For what?”
“Let’s go see.”
Sarchi followed John into the backyard, where he quickly located the line and bent to study it. After a few seconds, he slipped his finger behind a spot about five inches above where it entered the house and lifted it away from the siding. “Have a look.”
Leaning close, she saw some tiny punctures in the line.
“That could be where a device was attached to shunt your LG&W call to a different destination.”
“And my cell didn’t work that night because . . .”
“It was being electronically jammed.”
“We should tell those detectives about this.”
“Without any other corroborating evidence to support your account, I don’t think they’ll be very impressed. Who would want to do all this to you?”
“A man named George Latham. He runs a clinic in New Orleans. It’s a long story better told inside.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Sarchi described to Metcalf all that had happened since Drew’s operation. “And my guess is Latham is worried I’ll figure out what he’s up to and will try again to bring him down. By making it appear I have a drug problem, he’s hoping to undermine my credibility.”
Sarchi paused and waited for Metcalf’s reaction. He stared into his coffee cup without speaking for so long she was sure he was searching for the words to say he didn’t want any part of this. Finally, he looked at her. “You may be underestimating Latham’s intent.”
“Does that mean you believe me?”
“Why would you call me over here just to lie to me?”
“Maybe as a ploy so you’ll convince those detectives I’m not an addict.”
Metcalf leaned back in his chair and gave her a puzzled look. “That’s an odd thing to say. I was under the impression you wanted my help.”
“I do. I just don’t want you thinking of that later and begin to wonder.”
“That won’t happen.”
For a moment both of them were silent.
“Tell me what you meant when you said I may be underestimating Latham,” Sarchi said.
“It’s possible he intends to have you killed in such a way as to make it appear it was an accidental drug overdose. That way no one would ever look at him.”
Sarchi stiffened in her chair. “I never thought of that. If it’s true—if he’d be willing to commit murder—then he’s got to be hiding something extremely important.”
“You need around-the-clock protection.”
“Where would I get it, the police?”
“Probably not. How about bodyguards?”
Her pulse quickened. “Are you volunteering?”
“It’s not a one-man job, particularly if the one man has other obligations.”
That was so obvious now, Sarchi regretted what she’d just said. “I don’t have any money for a bodyguard.”
“You could borrow it.”
“I’m already seventy thousand dollars in debt for my education. And anyway, I can’t have my movements hindered out of fear. I’ve got work to do.”
“I know your work is important, but . . .”
“I don’t mean at the hospital. I’ve got to figure out Latham’s secret and expose him. Isn’t that really my best protection?”
“In the long run, maybe.”
“So the faster I move, the better off I’ll be. The problem is I don’t know where to begin. That’s why I called you.”
“You’re committed to bringing this guy down?”
Just hearing the question fueled her anger against Latham. “Irrevocably.”
“Do you own a firearm?”
“No.”
“You need one. I’ve got a .38 special I’ll lend you. Do you know how to shoot?”
“No.”
“I’ll also throw in a free lesson.”
25
SARCHI AND JOHN picked up the .38 and spent an hour on a firing range. Then John gave her a short course in self-defense. They stopped for lunch at Molly’s, a popular Mexican restaurant in Overton Square.
After they’d ordered and shifted their chairs around so the legs no longer rocked on the rough tiled floor, John leaned across the table. “I should mention that if you’re planning on carrying that gun around in your bag, you’ll need a permit.”
“How long will it take to get one?”
“A month if you’re lucky.”
“Considering the circumstances, you expect me to obey that law?”
“From this point on, I’m not gonna think about it.”
The waitress brought their drinks and some tortilla chips. When she moved out of earshot, Sarchi said, “How do you think I should start my investigation of Latham?”
“First thing you should do is get some background on him. Where he was born, where he went to med school, where he did his residency.”
“I already have that. In fact . . .” She dug in her
bag and gave him the page containing the bio of Latham that Sharon had copied from the specialty directories in New Orleans.
He tried to read it, but couldn’t figure out the abbreviations. “I’m afraid I need a translator.”
Sarchi moved her chair closer and interpreted for him.
“So, is there anything significant there?” she asked.
“Not by itself. But it’s a start.” He handed the paper back to her. “I’d also look up his publications—if he has any—to see what he’s done and who he’s worked with. That anonymous e-mail you mentioned sounds like a potential gold mine. Whoever sent that is very close to the heart of what’s going on, but they obviously aren’t willing to reveal what they know directly. They want you to work for it. But if we could figure out who this person is, we might be able to tap them for more than they want to give.”
Sarchi was pleased at his use of “we.” “There’s a woman in the information services department at the hospital who’s a computer genius. We can go over there and ask her if there’s a way to use the return address on that message to track it back to the sender. Then we could stop by the UT library and get more information on Latham.” Then, realizing she was assuming he was as interested in all this as she was and didn’t have plans for the rest of the afternoon, she said, “Sorry . . . I’m usually not this self-absorbed. I can’t expect you to give up your whole day.”
“After the story you told me, you don’t expect me to go home now, do you? I want to know who this guy is and what he’s hiding, too.”
Despite John’s objections, which arose partly from Sarchi’s admission earlier that she was hugely in debt, Sarchi paid for lunch. They then drove to the medical center and parked John’s truck in the commercial lot at the corner of Dunlap and Madison, a location between their dual destinations.
Sarchi suspected that by now her suspension was common knowledge around the hospital. Heading that way, she prayed they wouldn’t run into any of the other residents.
As it turned out, the possibility they might gain some insight into the identity of the author of the anonymous e-mail could not be immediately explored because the woman they’d come to see had taken the day off. She would, however, be there tomorrow. More than a little disappointed, they set out for their second stop.
The Killing Harvest Page 20
