Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  "More stuff for Old Man Ives?"

  The twenty-year-old lab tech startled Abby as she was slipping a thirty-cc syringe and three collection tubes into her clinic-coat pocket.

  "Oh, hi, Grace. That's right. His leg is improving every day. I appreciate everyone looking the other way when I make my raids. Ives appreciates it, too. How're you doing?"

  "Okay. I heard about what happened in the ER today, Dr. Dolan. The tech who was on with you said you were absolutely amazing."

  "He did?"

  "He said he's never seen any ER doctor do all the things you did today, and do them so fast."

  "Tell him thanks for saying those things. And thank you for telling me. That's really nice stuff to hear."

  If she only knew.

  Abby hurried up the stairs to the ICU. The moment she entered the unit, she knew Lew was there and that he had done his part. There was a great deal of commotion in the cubicle farthest from Willie Cardoza. The patient Lew had admitted the previous day was an eighty-year-old man who was extremely hard of hearing and prone to be combative when he was disturbed. He had a long history of recurring chest pain, but no evidence this time of any heart damage. Lew planned to examine the man enough to get him a bit riled, and then to express concern to the nurses that he might be slipping into heart failure. Rather than disturb the covering physician, he would order an EKG, stat blood work, a portable chest X ray, and a portable ultrasound, as well as an immediate weight to see if the man was retaining fluid. Now the old gent was letting the nursing staff know how he felt about the barrage of late-night tests.

  Abby smiled warmly at the police officer, who did not seem to care, or even notice, that she was making a return trip to Cardoza's room. She paused by the bedside and studied the monitor screen while she looked through the glass wall at the dozing guard. There was no one else around. She moved quickly to the other side of the bed, her back to the guard so that her movements were shielded. Willie's monitor tracings were strong and steady. He was most definitely a save.

  Abby's target now was the arterial line she had placed in the radial artery at the underside of Willie's right wrist. She had inserted a three-way stopcock valve in the line. One arm of the valve connected with the IV catheter and another with the monitor screen through an electrical transducer. The third made it possible to draw blood with no further needle sticks. She slipped the large syringe from her clinic coat and attached it to the empty arm of the valve. The movement roused Willie, who looked up at her sleepily.

  "Hey, Doc," he said, his voice still a raspy whisper.

  "I'm just drawing a little blood, Willie."

  "Go right ahead." He peered up at her. "Say, weren't you at that picnic at Colstar Park? Didn't I see you there?"

  "Yes. I saw you there, too," she replied as she worked. "That was a very brave and kind thing you did for that woman."

  Abby switched the flow of the three-way from vessel-to-transducer to vessel-to-syringe. A gentle pull, and the syringe instantly filled with bright-scarlet arterial blood. She then switched the valve back to its original setting.

  "It was nothing," Willie said. "Angela has a lot of problems."

  So do you, Abby thought.

  Working as rapidly as she could, she attached a large needle onto the syringe and stuck it through the rubber stopper of the collection tubes. The vacuum in the tubes quickly drew the blood from the syringe. She had drawn up enough to fill two tubes completely and half of the third. Next she carefully capped the needle on the syringe, then slipped it and the three tubes back into her clinic coat.

  "I see you've reconnected with our friend Willie."

  The words, spoken loudly from behind her, stopped her heart. She whirled. Her knees, now Jell-O, nearly buckled.

  "Mr. Quinn. Making rounds?"

  She barely got the words out. How long had he been there? What had he seen? What did he think she was doing? Her mind was racing. She brushed her hand against her clinic-coat pocket. The tubes of freshly drawn blood were concealed, but the top of the syringe was protruding an inch or so. Quinn's bland smile was chilling.

  "I was about to ask you the same question," he said. "I thought you went off duty a few hours ago."

  "I ... I was in the library. As you probably know, Mr. Cardoza and I spent a good bit of time together earlier today. I just wanted to see how he was before I went home."

  Quinn knew. She could see it in his face. He knew what she had been doing, and he was just trying to come up with the most effective response. In all likelihood she was cooked--finished at PRH. She felt as if her face were the color of the blood in her pocket.

  "Ah, yes, today," Quinn said. "I heard you performed quite admirably."

  "Admirably enough to be reviled by everyone from the medical chief to the janitor." Abby turned to Willie, took his hand, and bent over him. "Willie, you take care, now. I'll see you tomorrow."

  "You take care of that blood, Doc," he replied.

  She straightened up quickly and spun toward Quinn, uncertain whether Willie had whispered or shouted the words. But the Colstar security chief was standing with his back to her now, talking with the guard. She adjusted her clinic coat and its contents as best she could and left the room.

  "So," she said to Quinn, "what brings you here?"

  "Willie's Colstar. And what concerns Colstar concerns me."

  Abby felt she could have recited the words in unison with him.

  "He's doing well."

  "I'd like to say I'm glad to hear that."

  His flint eyes were the coldest Abby had ever confronted.

  "Yes ... well," she said, "he is under arrest. I'm sure he'll be punished for what he did."

  "Peggy Wheaton was a very special person and a very good friend of mine."

  Again Abby almost filled in the words. She was once more being criticized for saving Cardoza. But typical of Quinn, the chastisement was oblique. There was still a remote chance he hadn't seen her draw Willie's blood, but she doubted it. He was more likely just allowing her to make clear what she intended to do with it. Either way, all she wanted now was to leave. The commotion at the far end of the unit was calming down now. She caught Lew's eye for the briefest moment and cut her gaze quickly toward Quinn.

  Stay away. Don't try to examine Willie's eyes.

  Lew said something to one of the nurses and left by walking around the nurses' station. But Abby knew Quinn was far too observant to have missed that he was there.

  "Well," she said, "I guess I'll be going."

  "Neither you nor Dr. Alvarez is on duty, yet both of you are here. Is that a coincidence?"

  Abby glanced over at where Lew had been while she concocted a response.

  "We both had admitted patients to the unit. So here we are."

  It was a lame explanation, but if Quinn had seen her drawing Cardoza's blood, it really didn't matter.

  "Yes," Quinn said. "Here you are." He checked to ensure they were out of earshot of the policeman. "So I haven't heard from you since your tour of Colstar. My offer is still on the table, but I can't promise it will be there much longer. As you said, there are a number of people who are quite upset over some of the decisions you made today."

  "I'm sorry about that. I did what I strongly believed was right."

  "I'm sure you did.... Well, it's Sunday night. Suppose we decide that if I haven't heard from you by, say, Tuesday at noon, I may conclude that you have no desire to serve as one of our consultants."

  "I'm thinking it over."

  "I hope you're also considering carefully what Dr. Oleander told you about independently sending off blood for cadmium testing."

  He seemed to be looking directly at her clinic-coat pocket.

  "I'm considering that, too."

  "Do that." There was clear menace in his voice now. "And, by the way, would you happen to know why Mr. Wyler has been absent from work for the past few days? People have tried calling him at the house he's rented, but the phone's out of order."

&nbs
p; "I haven't heard from Josh for a week," she lied. "If I do, I'll tell him you're looking for him. Good night, Mr. Quinn."

  She started to walk away.

  "Dr. Dolan," he called after her.

  She turned back to face him.

  "Yes?"

  "Dr. Dolan, I just want to be certain you know how thin the thread is that's holding you up at this hospital. Please don't give us cause to cut it."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Patience Auto Glass people must be at the remote end of the town's grapevine, Abby thought. She was ecstatic when, just an hour after her call, the purple-and-yellow truck pulled up her drive. She had expected that services of all kinds would be harder and harder for her to come by as versions of the Wheaton/Cardoza story spread across the valley.

  It was a gray, drizzly morning, hardly the weather she wanted for the spectacular drive through the mountains to Sacramento, then down to San Francisco. But she would take it. The tubes containing Willie Cardoza's blood were carefully wrapped in cloth and bubble plastic, and packed in the sort of cooler used to transport human hearts. Sandy Stuart was expecting her by early afternoon. The cadmium assay would take a day or so to complete, although in an absolute emergency it could be done faster. Abby had assured her friend that there was no reason for such measures. Now, as the glass man worked on in the light rain, she stood by the back door, fidgeting and mentally reviewing the route she would take. Planning a drive from Patience to anyplace was never simple.

  "You just can't get here from there," was the way Josh had started his directions the first time she was preparing to drive up from the city to see him. "You can go north then east, or west then north then east, or just meander diagonally up the valley."

  Today, she decided, she would start by taking the narrow state highway west, away from town. The serpentine two-lane road was one of her favorites, rising and falling through dense primeval forest. The air there, even on a day such as this, would be sweet with evergreen and natural mulch, and so oxygen rich that just standing still and breathing would be a rush. After twenty or so miles she would cut south on another two-lane state road, winding through the foothills of the Sierras to I-80. From there, it was an eight-lane shot through Sacramento to the bay.

  The glass man was nearly through the job when Lew called.

  "I'm at work at the state hospital," he said. "I thought you might be gone by now."

  "Any minute."

  "Any problem getting the auto-glass people to come?"

  "None. I guess the owner's one of the few people in Patience who isn't a dear friend of Gary and Peggy Wheaton."

  "As if you didn't feel lousy enough about her death, you have to live with hearing that over and over."

  "Exactly.... Lew, I had a terrific time with you last night."

  "Thanks. So did I." His voice trailed off.

  Though he didn't say the words, Abby knew how he felt. And she knew that she was close, very close, to feeling the same way. After leaving the hospital last night, as planned, Lew had waited for her on a little-traveled side street. She parked behind his Blazer and then slid onto the seat next to him. Her pulse was still hammering from her confrontation with Lyle Quinn in the ICU. Breathlessly, she recounted the scene.

  "So, what do you think?" Lew asked when she had finished. "Did he see you take the blood or not?"

  "I don't know. It seemed that he did. But he never really said anything. God, but I dislike that man."

  "Are you going to be all right tonight?"

  "I ... I'll be fine."

  "I have to be at the state hospital at seven in the morning, but if--"

  "No, no. I'm fine. Really."

  "Well, if you need me for any reason, just call me at Caledonia. On second thought, the switchboard there is totally incompetent. Better use my pager. You have the number, don't you?"

  "I do.... Lew?"

  "Yes?"

  "I probably don't have to say this, but I just want to be sure you understand why I'm taking this chance. I want to get to the bottom of what's wrong with Willie, and I'm very worried about Josh. But I'm still no crusader."

  "Abby, I know that. Probably more than you realize. I told you before and I still mean it: no one's going to pressure you about the Alliance, especially not me."

  They kissed once, then again. He brushed her forehead with his lips, then her eyelids, her ear, and finally her lips once more. His mouth drew her in. His breath and the sound of his breathing were foreign to her, but incredibly comfortable. His hand touched her breast, lingering just long enough for her to know how badly he wanted her. She held him tightly and stroked the inside of his thigh.

  "Soon," was all she had been able to say....

  Abby looked out the kitchen window. The glass man was packing his gear and assembling the insurance forms for her to sign.

  "Listen, Lew, this is it," she said. "He's done, and I'm off to see the wizard."

  "Just be careful, Abby. I don't trust Quinn any further than I can throw him. I was a little worried after you went home alone last night. In fact, I wasn't going to tell you this, but I drove past your place a few times during the night."

  "What a waste."

  "What?"

  "Nothing. That was a very sweet thing for you to do, especially with an early shift staring you in the face."

  "Just be careful," Lew said again. "And call me when you get home tomorrow."

  Abby hung up and checked the house one final time. Then she signed the glass man's papers, tossed her overnight bag onto the backseat, placed the cooler with the blood samples on the floor, and headed off. The drizzle was just heavy enough for intermittent wipers, but the Mazda had a sure grip in almost any weather. She flipped through her case of tapes and whittled her choices down to Tracy Chapman and Mary-Chapin Carpenter. The grayness of the morning gave it to Tracy.

  Traffic was virtually nonexistent. Abby opened the sunroof a crack and accelerated to fifty, the fastest the winding road would comfortably allow. She worked her head from side to side, front to back. Gradually, the tension in her neck and shoulders began to subside. Even though it was just an overnight trip, she felt a sense of freedom. It had been a hellish month and a half since she had last been home. Home. She wondered how long she would have to live in Patience before she stopped thinking of San Francisco that way. Forever might be a good guess.

  A McDonald's tractor trailer roared by, no doubt headed for the glittering new addition to the chain at Five Corners. On either side of the road the forest deepened. Abby opened the sunroof another inch. Sweet, moist mountain air filled the car.

  Everything is going to be all right, she told herself. Quite possibly, the answers for Willie Cardoza and Josh were as close as the cooler right behind her. And then, once that business was over, she could turn her attention to finding the answers for Abby Dolan.

  She was reaching down to punch the repeat button for an encore of Chapman's "Fast Car," when the Mazda was hit from behind. Though the jolt itself was minor, the surprise was anything but. Abby shot upright, confused and frightened. Had she hit an animal or run over something? A second jolt, this time with a crunch of metal against metal, brought everything quickly into focus. She checked the rearview mirror and then risked a glance over her shoulder. A large battered red pickup with a black steel frame in front was no more than a few feet behind her. It had oversize tires that raised its cab a foot or two above the Mazda.

  Abby's hands whitened on the wheel, and, instinctively, she jammed down the accelerator. The rain-slicked roadway flashed beneath her wheels, rising and falling like an amusement-park ride, twisting from right to left with no predictable pattern. The truck sped up once more. Abby glanced in the mirror just as it hit her again. The jolt was harder than the others, though she still had no trouble maintaining control.

  The unbroken double yellow line was snaking under the driver's side whenever she chanced looking behind her. She was constantly whipping the wheel to the right to correct. Suddenly, just as she
was drifting again, a massive tractor trailer shot up from a deep swale, barreling past just a foot or so from her. The roar was deafening. The vacuum it created nearly tore the Mazda from the road. Abby screamed out loud as she wrenched the wheel to the right. The pickup, which had backed off a bit, began to close in once more. Was she unlucky enough to have happened into the path of a madman? Or was she specifically the target? Through her rearview mirror she caught a glimpse of the driver. At first it appeared as if a demon of some sort were behind the wheel of the pickup. Then it registered. The driver was wearing a ski mask. This was no chance encounter. It had to be Quinn or someone who worked for him.

  Determined to avoid being hit again, Abby accelerated. She was nearing seventy. It was only a matter of time before she failed to handle a curve or simply skidded into the trees. Her hands and arms were shaking on the wheel. Her mind, though, was responding reflexively, in the way it had been programmed to react over twelve years of medical crises. Her thoughts were becoming clearer, more focused. The movement around her, as it had done so many times in the ER, was actually beginning to slow down.

  The truck crept up on her again, closer and closer still. There was no way she could chance going any faster. Any substantial bump was bound to send her spinning out of control. But the nudge this time was much less than that--a tap, perhaps a reminder that she was at the madman's mercy. Her speedometer hit seventy. The truck pulled out to the left, intending, it seemed, to force her off the road to the right. Just as quickly it swung back as a convertible flashed past, its horn blaring.

  The road turned sharply to the right, then dipped. For a moment the pickup dropped out of sight. Abby wondered why Quinn, or whoever it was, hadn't just bashed her from behind until she lost control. One explanation, a lame one, was that he wanted to frighten her without actually killing her. More likely, though, he was toying with her. Toying. Vintage Quinn.