Code Blue

by Richard MD Mabry

  Cathy's expectations had stemmed from cartoons she'd seen in The New Yorker. She'd lie on a couch, pouring out her soul as she sniffled softly. The psychiatrist would stroke his pointed beard and murmur, "I see. Very interesting."

  But there were no couches in this office. Instead, she sat in a padded leather armchair. A small, round coffee table holding a box of tissues separated her from Dr. Josh Samuels, who occupied a similar chair to her left, angled slightly so that they might have been host and guest on some TV talk show. Only the framed diplomas and certificates on the wall behind the littered desk gave any hint of what went on in this room, that and the faint aura of dread and apprehension that lingered in the air.

  Josh—he'd corrected her the first time she called him Dr.Samuels—did have a beard, but not the pointed Van Dyke variety. Instead, his neatly trimmed full beard, black with a smattering of gray, stretched from ear to ear, forming a marked contrast to his shaved head. Cathy had never seen him wear a suit and doubted that he owned one. He wore a white dress shirt, its button-down collar open at the neck, with the sleeves folded back two neat turns. His khakis were starched and creased.

  Halfway through today's session, during one of the pauses that Josh never seemed to find awkward, Cathy leaned forward and blurted out, "I went to the cemetery yesterday."

  "And?"

  "I cried. I talked with my folks. I told Daddy how sorry I was."

  "About what?"

  She wanted to tell Josh that if she knew the answers to all his questions she wouldn't be sitting here with the clock ticking away another fifty- minute hour. She wanted the psychiatrist to unlock the twisted dreams that made her wake up in a cold sweat. Most of all, she wanted to ask him if he thought she was crazy.

  "I don't know. I suppose that, in some way, I feel responsible for their deaths."

  Josh crossed one leg over the other, displaying worn white Reeboks and a hairy calf above tan crew socks. He laced his hands together over his knee and leaned forward. His expression invited comment.

  "I've told you some of this," she said.

  "Tell me the rest."

  Several sips of water from the glass in front of her didn't ease the dryness in Cathy's throat.

  "I was in my final year of medical school, home for Christmas vacation. They tried to hide it, but it was obvious that my folks weren't getting along. My mother dropped some hints that she thought my dad was unfaithful. I saw she'd become extremely distrustful. She was suspicious of him, of his time away from home, his contact with female patients. All my life, I'd thought that my father could do no wrong. But I loved and trusted my mother. I didn't know what to think. Finally, I couldn't take it any more. I told them I was going back to Dallas, and I didn't want to talk to them again until they worked it out."

  "And?"

  "Daddy called me in May, the day before I was scheduled to graduate from Southwestern Med School. I hadn't even sent them an invitation, but he had friends at the school, and he found out the details. He said Mom had been having some . . . he called them emotional issues, but he thought they were under control. They wanted to see me graduate."

  The therapist focused his unblinking gaze like a laser beam.

  Cathy felt as though there wasn't enough oxygen in the room. She took several deep breaths. "I was thrilled. Daddy said they'd see me after the ceremony."

  Josh made a faint motion with his hand that Cathy knew meant, "Go on."

  "The rain started after they left Dainger. The Highway Patrol said it came down in sheets, a typical Texas spring storm. Daddy had been delayed with a patient. He was afraid they'd miss the graduation, so he was driving too fast. He came around a curve, lost control, and the car skidded into a bridge abutment. He and Mom were killed instantly."

  "And you're angry?"

  "Yes!" she exploded. "At God, for letting it happen. At my parents for not having the perfect marriage I thought they should have. At Daddy, for putting his practice before his daughter so he had to hurry to make up lost time. And . . .and at myself, for making it such a big deal that he drove like that to keep his promise."

  "And you feel guilty?"

  She reached for a tissue. "Yes. The guilt of their deaths has been like a fifty- pound weight on my shoulders ever since."

  "Do you really think the accident was your fault?"

  Cathy wanted to bolt. How should she know? Wasn't that what she paid this frustrating man to help her find out?

  "Think about it." Josh leaned forward, and his posture spoke encouragement. "Think it through."

  Cathy closed her eyes for a moment. She dredged up scenes she'd imagined from that horrible night, pictures she'd visualized so many times she could no longer tell fantasy from reality. The images ran through her head like a late-night, black-and-white movie. She swallowed hard. "Maybe not."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No. I'm not sure of anything. And why are we talking about my parents, anyway?"

  Josh's expression told her to figure it out for herself. But nothing made sense to her right now. The last several months had been a downward spiral. Unable to sleep. Hard to concentrate.Now someone had tried to kill her. Or at least, she thought they had. Was someone out to get her? Or was she following her mother into—? No, she wouldn't think about that. Couldn't Josh help her? He had to.

  As though reading her thoughts, Josh said, "Cathy, we'll get you through this. It will take some time and some effort on your part. It won't be easy. But we'll get there. For right now, believe me when I say that you're not the first person to experience these emotions. They're not pleasant, but I don't think they're pathologic."

  Cathy started to speak but he stopped her with an upraised hand. She had decided after a couple of sessions that Josh must have an internal clock in his head. He wore no watch, and there were no clocks in the room, but he'd never been wrong when he said it before, and a glance at her wrist confirmed that he was correct now.

  "Our time is up. I'll see you next week."

  3

  CATHY LEFT JOSH'S OFFICE AND NAVIGATED THROUGH FORT WORTH'S downtown traffic. By the time she reached the highway, she was more than ready to trade the relative hustle and bustle of the city for the slower pace of life in Dainger. That is, if only someone there weren't out to drive her out of town or kill her. Or were they?

  She'd barely cleared the city limits when a sudden, driving rain hit her windshield like bullets. Texas rain. Cathy had seen it every spring and fall since she was a child. It was the kind of rain that had killed her parents. She eased her foot offthe accelerator.

  On the drive back from Josh's office, Cathy finally let down her guard long enough to think about what she'd dismissed during her session. She was sure she wasn't imagining her problems. The rumors circulating around town.Her request for hospital privileges that encountered a roadblock at every turn. The black SUV intent on her destruction.

  But did they represent some kind of plot? Or could they be unconnected, random events? Was what she felt a simple case of paranoia? Was she sliding into the same mental illness that had consumed her mother and threatened to tear her parents' marriage apart? Paranoid schizophrenia. She remembered a line that had made her laugh during medical school. It didn't seem so funny now. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

  If this wasn't paranoia, was there a single driving force behind everything that was happening? If so, who or what was it? Could it be Robert? Was it all some sort of sick joke? Cathy figured that calling offthe engagement had caused more damage to Robert's pride than his heart. But would he go this far to get even? And how would he do it? Maybe he hired someone. That would be his style, all right. Pay to have his dirty work done.

  Might it be one of the local doctors? Sure, they weren't anxious to share their patients with a newcomer—certainly not with a woman doctor. And especially not with a female family practice specialist who had the nerve to ask for privileges far beyond what these men had always doled out to the general practitione
rs in town. But would one of them go this far? Maybe she'd get a clue at the credentials committee meeting tonight. Meanwhile, it did no good to worry about it. That's the advice she always gave her patients.

  Cathy squinted past the flashing wipers and gripped the wheel a bit tighter. Josh said she'd be okay, and she had to trust him. Meanwhile, she determined to put her mental state out of her mind. She chuckled at the irony of that statement. Snap out of it. Think productively; don't worry aimlessly. There was certainly enough to occupy her thoughts.Her practice. Hospital privileges. Finances.

  She squared her shoulders and sat up straighter in the cramped driver's seat of the little rental car. She'd handle these problems. She'd handle them the way she'd been taught to approach any diagnostic problem: examine the possible causes, make the right diagnosis, call up the proper treatment from her memory bank, implement it, and move on to the next. It had always worked in her medical practice.Unfortunately, it wasn't so simple when it was her life she struggled to put back together.

  Cathy decided to start with finances. Her floundering practice barely made enough to pay her monthly bills. If she expected to remedy that, her patient base had to grow, and this required hospital privileges. She'd asked for extended privileges, but so far the credentials committee hadn't even granted her the standard ones given to family practitioners.For years the doctors who controlled the hospital had made it an article of faith that general practice meant taking care of sniffles and bellyaches. But Cathy's training in family practice was excellent. She proudly displayed her certification by the American Board of Family Physicians on her office wall.She could do so much more if only they'd let her.

  Why did her request for privileges keep hitting snags? Was this part of the plot against her? Was a doctor behind all this? It would be easy enough for a member of the credentials committee to arrange for repeated delays in considering her request. For that matter, any physician on the hospital staffcould put in a word here and there, encouraging the committee to drag out the process.

  Then Cathy had another thought. Were the two bankers who turned down her loan request under pressure from one of the doctors in town—maybe their own physician? Or could one of those bankers have something against her and be taking his dislike of Cathy a step further than simply cutting offher access to finances?

  The driver behind her tapped his horn. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a string of five or six cars behind her. The double yellow line stretched ahead of her down the two-lane highway and out of sight. She waved her apology and clicked her right blinker, then carefully steered the car onto the shoulder and rolled along until the caravan behind her had passed. Texas friendly. Sometimes it was good to be back home in a smaller town. Sometimes. Not always.

  The rain had stopped and the sun peeked out of a cloudbank in the east. She lowered her window and took a deep breath of the rain-washed air. Let your mind go blank, she thought. Try to relax. She'd be at the office in another five minutes. There would be plenty of time to worry then.

  Jane dropped a message slip on the desk in front of Cathy. "Your insurance agent called. He said it was important."

  Cathy pulled the phone toward her and dialed. She felt certain this was more bad news. It took only a few moments to determine that she was right.

  "I'm sorry, Dr. Sewell. I'm not getting anywhere with the company about paying for the damage to your car. I got all the way up to a senior manager in claims adjustment, but I can't get him to budge. It's that NSF check. They ran it through twice and by the time it bounced the second time, the grace period had expired. There's a letter somewhere in the system informing you that the policy has lapsed."

  "I can't believe this," Cathy said.

  "I know how you must feel. I'll call a friend of mine in the business and see if there are any stones I've left unturned."

  She took a deep breath, but it didn't change the sinking feeling in her stomach. "I've had that policy since I left home for college over ten years ago. Never missed a quarterly payment."

  "That's what I told them. But there's no doubt that the company refused the last check you sent because of insuf- ficient funds."

  "After I got the loan for my practice I transferred my account to Mr. Nix's bank. I don't know how they managed to bounce the check. I'm sure there were funds in my account to cover it. There must have been a mix-up at the bank."

  "Then you might see if the bank will contact the company," Steve said. "I'll do what I can, but—and I hate to say this about one of the companies I represent—you may wind up having to sue them before they'll pay for the damages to your car."

  Okay, if that was what it took, so be it. Cathy hung up and pulled the wrinkled card from the edge of her desk blotter.She stared at it for a moment. Don't think; just do it. She punched in the numbers and felt a slight quickening of her pulse as she waited for the call to be answered.

  "Yes, this is Dr. Cathy Sewell. Is Will Kennedy available?"

  "Will he know what it's about?" his secretary asked.

  "Just tell him who it is. He'll know."

  The strains of a soft-rock song filled the silence, then Cathy heard a click and Will's voice. "I thought you'd never call. Have you recovered from your cuts and bruises? Can we schedule that dinner now?"

  Cathy's gut tightened. "I'm sorry I haven't called. I apologize. I appreciate the dinner invitation, but I'm too overwhelmed to think about a social life. But physically, I'm doing okay. Thanks for asking. The reason I called is that I've got some legal issues. Are you available?"

  The silence on the other end of the line gave Cathy serious second thoughts. Had she hurt his feelings because she called him for professional help, not dinner? Or did the hurt run deeper? Was it about their past? She was about to tell him to forget she'd asked when he said, "I'll help you in any way I can. When would you like to sit down and tell me about the problem? I'd suggest we do it over dinner, but I get the sense you're not ready for that."

  Cathy's heart urged, Yes. Let's have dinner out. Let's pick up where we left off. But her head intervened. "No, I'm not ready for that. I'm sorry."

  "Tell you what. I'm in court most of the day. Can you come by my office at five this afternoon?"

  "That sounds fine." She hung up, still wondering when—if ever—she could let herself care for a man again. With a sigh, she pulled a yellow pad toward her and made a list of all the questions she wanted to ask Will. By the time Jane called to tell her the day's first patient had been shown to the treatment room, the list filled half the page.

  The man perched on the edge of Cathy's examining table was dressed for success. The label of an exclusive tailor peeked from inside the suit coat hanging on the back of the exam room door. Gold links closed the cuffs of a crisp dress shirt as white as a first snowfall.

  The effect was spoiled by the gaps between the shirt's buttons and the roll of fat spilling over the edge of the man's collar. His florid complexion screamed high blood pressure. The network of fine blood vessels tracing across his nose told Cathy more about his drinking habits than the history sheet clipped to the chart in her hand.

  "Doc, I don't want to hurry you," he said, "but I've got to get back to work. My wife made me come. Says she's tired of me chewing Tums and gulping Mylanta all day. But I know it's just heartburn."

  "Why do you say that?" Cathy asked.

  "Hey, my schedule would give anybody heartburn. Out of the house in the morning with a can of Red Bull to get me as far as the Starbucks for my double espresso. Grab a burger and fries for lunch, unless I'm taking a client out. The only real meal I get in a day is dinner with the wife, assuming I get home in time. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there.I made the Million Dollar Roundtable the last three years, but insurance doesn't sell itself. I've got to keep pushing if I want to send Junior to college."

  "Mr. Phillips, why don't you slip offyour shirt? I need to check you over."

  Instead of complying, Phillips gave her a hard look. "I don't have time for that." He p
ulled back his cuffand consulted a watch that looked to Cathy like a Rolex. "Got an appointment in fifteen minutes. Just give me some of that stufflike I see advertised on TV, would you?"

  Cathy looked at the vital signs Jane had recorded on Phillips's chart. She tried to keep the urgency she felt out of her voice.

  "Mr. Phillips, your blood pressure is through the roof.The pains you've described are probably angina—signs of an impending heart attack. If you'll excuse an overused expression, you're a ticking time bomb. I want to get an electrocardiogram, have Jane draw some blood for studies, including your cholesterol and lipids. You'd better cancel that appointment."

  The man eased his ample bottom offthe table and reached the door in two strides, snagging his coat on the way. "You doctors are all alike. Do some tests. Run up a big bill. Well, I don't have time for this. I thought I'd throw some business your way. Maybe get you to buy some insurance from me in return. But I'll just call my regular doctor. He won't ask for a bunch of tests. I won't even have to go to his office. No sir, he'll call in a prescription for me." The last words trailed down the hall as the man made his exit.

  Jane stuck her head in the door. "Mr. Phillips didn't stop at the desk on the way out. What are the charges? Does he need a follow-up appointment?"

  Cathy shrugged her shoulders before returning them to the slumped position they'd assumed. "No charge. And follow-up? I suspect the next time I or any doctor sees him will be in the emergency room or the morgue."

  The first thing that struck Cathy was the comfortable feel of Will's office. The framed diplomas and certificates on the wall were balanced by paintings with a Western theme, one of which she recognized as a reproduction Remington.Stacks of files and a jumble of law books, most with yellow Post-it notes, fluttering from the pages like the plumage of some rare bird, covered the surface of a round table in the corner. Will's desk, made of an oak door sanded and varnished to a glowing patina, held a phone, a computer, a handheld cassette recorder, and a leather-bound Bible.The only picture on the desk was of Will with his parents. She hadn't seen Pastor and Mrs. Kennedy for years, but they didn't appear to have changed. A little frisson of pleasure—a faint, warm shiver—ran through Cathy as she noticed the absence of any woman's picture in the room.