The Diagnosis is Murder (A Dr. Valorian Mystery Book 1)

by Steven Gossington

  “I could make a habit of it.”

  “Good. If my door happens to be locked, you can open it now easily enough. Just get a hammer, knock off the plywood, and reach in to unlock the door.”

  Alec grinned. “Will do.” He looked up from the stove. “Was everything okay last night at the hospital?”

  Laura told him about Derek’s injury.

  She had just finished her story when Alec’s cell phone rang. “Hello.”

  “Judkins here. I’m looking into a homicide. A young woman—strangled last night. There was a handwritten note under her body.”

  “A note?”

  “It said: ‘Alec Dupree made me do it.’ I guess your guy’s on the move again.”

  “Can I meet you at the station in a few minutes?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Is anything wrong?” Laura said after Alec ended the call.

  “That was Judkins. It’s something I need to check into.” He took a swig of coffee and transferred the cooked eggs to plates. “Everything’s cool.”

  Laura caught the faint frown on Alec’s face. “It’s the guy, right? Your tormentor.”

  Alec nodded. “I’ll put an end to this soon.”

  Laura stepped closer to him and grabbed his hands. “Please be careful.”

  With Alec following her, Laura arrived at the hospital before her shift and walked to Derek’s room. “How do you feel this morning?” she said.

  Derek groaned. “It’s morning already?”

  Laura chuckled. “Good, you’ve got your spirit back.”

  “I’m fine. I want to get out of here ASAP, as soon as I can get this chest tube out of me.” He pointed at her. “I heard you were here as a patient on Saturday.”

  “Yes, I was. It was surreal, like I was in a reality show. And, just like you, I was able to experience medical practice from the patient’s perspective.”

  “It’s a different perspective all right. So, what happened to you?”

  “It has to do with this strange murder case I’ve been working on. I’ll tell you about it when we have more time.”

  “I want to let you know something. I’ve made a decision.”

  Laura waited.

  “I’ve decided to apply for residency in psychiatry.”

  Laura’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t know if I could take good care of trauma patients, losing my head like I did. As a psychiatrist, I think I’ll have something to offer patients suffering depression and loss—since I’ve experienced that myself—and maybe it’ll help me come to closure with my brother’s death.”

  “I could see you were struggling with that memory. You’ve also probably gained valuable insight into neuroses, like the ones you and I have. Neuroses that make us go temporarily crazy.”

  “I hope you’re right.” He nodded. “I think psychiatry is where I belong.”

  “Isn’t the match for this summer’s residency positions already over?” Laura said.

  “It’s over. My plan is to complete a flexible internship and then apply for a residency position for the next cycle. I matched into an internship for this coming year. I just didn’t know what I was going to do afterwards. Now I know.”

  “I’d be happy to write a letter of recommendation for you.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” His face broke out in a wide grin. “Any other words of advice for a future doctor?”

  Laura considered the question for a few seconds. “Sure. Two things to remember. One: under no circumstances tell any patient that he or she will never walk again. And two: never ask a woman how long she’s had hair growing on her lip.”

  Derek laughed and then grimaced with chest pain. “Gracias, profesora.”

  “Sorry, I hope they remove the chest tube soon.” She stood and stretched her arms. “My shift is about to start, so I’ll check on you later.” She turned back at the door. “I know you’ll make a fine physician, whatever specialty you choose.”

  That afternoon, Peggy approached Laura in the ER hallway. “Dr. Valorian, could I talk to you in the office?”

  Laura nodded and they walked back to the doctors’ office. Peggy closed the door. “I just brought back a three-year-old child with injuries. The child’s mother claims that he fell off a kitchen counter. I think his arm is broken.”

  As Laura listened, she sensed Peggy’s concern about the veracity of the mother’s story. Her head began to swim. Peggy led her out of the office and to the patient’s room.

  “Keep your cool,” Laura said to herself under her breath.

  Peggy addressed the mother of the injured child. “I’m back with Dr. Valorian.”

  Laura walked over to the boy, who sat on the stretcher. He cradled his left arm and his eyes were moist, although he was no longer crying. Laura spotted a reddish, swollen area on the cheek under his left eye. A tiny trickle of clotted blood was visible at the opening of the left ear canal. He watched Laura with wide eyes that were not so much frightened as pleading.

  Laura completed her exam and left the room. Outside in the hall, her breaths were rapid and sweat ran down the side of her face. She ran her fingers through her hair, and as she walked back to her office, she sensed that the nurses were watching her. Peggy followed her into the office.

  “Did you notice the boy’s face?” Laura said as she plopped down in a chair.

  “Yes. I guess someone slapped him?”

  “Right. That bruise on his cheek is consistent with a slap. What about his ear?”

  “I saw the blood on his ear.”

  “I did get a glance into his ear canal. His left eardrum is ruptured.” She spoke those last words with a quiver in her voice that she couldn’t quite control. Nausea welled up in her stomach and her head was swimming again. She put her hand to her mouth.

  “You know we all support you,” Peggy said.

  “Thank you.” Laura took a deep breath. “Let’s get X-rays of the left shoulder, humerus, and elbow. By the way, do you know how his eardrum got ruptured?”

  “Someone hit him on the ear?”

  “Correct. If you hit the ear hard enough with the flat palm of your hand, the suddenly compressed air in the ear canal will often rupture the eardrum.”

  In an effort to keep her mind focused, Laura spoke as a teacher to a student with logical, professorial language. But toward the end of her explanation, her voice broke, and pressure mounted in her chest. She slowed her breathing and clenched her fists. To accomplish her objective in this situation, she had to remain the calm and unbiased physician.

  “Will the eardrum heal?” Peggy said.

  Laura’s words came more naturally. “I’ll prescribe antibiotics to prevent infection. We need to tell the patient to keep water out of the ears. A small, centrally located rupture will usually heal on its own.”

  After a short while, the child’s X-rays popped up on Laura’s computer screen. They showed a fractured upper humerus. Her previous encounter with an abused child had deteriorated to an embarrassing situation, and Laura had felt diminished afterwards as a professional and as a person. Since that disaster, she’d reminded herself again and again that other health care specialists successfully treated child abuse patients, so why couldn’t she? So what if she hadn’t been successful at pursuing a career in surgery. She was now a damn good ER doc with a challenge to face down. She’d resolved to tackle her neurosis head on at the next opportunity—and this was it.

  Laura stood, her hands clenched. As she walked down the hall and approached the room with the injured child, thoughts swirled around in her head. She felt ready to do what was right. Here was an injured child who needed her help. She was a doctor whose purpose was to diagnose and treat patients with problems. This child had a problem requiring certain actions. Her role was to perform those actions and then go on to the next patient.

  Laura pushed the door open and stopped in front of the scowling mother, who sat in a chair near—but not next to—the stretcher that her child was sitting on.
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  “Your son has a broken arm, here.” Laura pointed to the part of the left upper arm that was fractured. “We need to admit him to the hospital for specialized orthopedic care.”

  “He has to stay in the hospital?” the mother said as she stood up from the chair. “Why can’t he be treated here and then go home? I’ll bring him back for appointments.” She stomped her foot on the floor. “I want to take him home.”

  Laura’s heart sped up, and she felt the heat rising in her face. She focused her eyes on the wall behind the mother. Her thoughts raced, gaining a momentum of their own and threatening to spiral out of control. Her hands opened. She wanted to strangle this poor excuse for a mother. She took a step forward.

  Laura froze, sensing the little boy’s stare. She lifted her hand to her moist forehead, then stepped back and looked at the boy. He was watching her, a worried look on his face. She gazed into his eyes and knew this child had witnessed and felt trauma and violence in the home—the sanctuary—where he lived. Laura had to show this little boy what a woman can be like, should be like. Not a fiend who can’t restrain her temper. No, Laura would show him a loving person who wanted to take care of him, soothe his hurting, make him better, let him be a rambunctious little boy if he wanted to be. Laura wanted to give him back some of his childhood if she could, some of those innocent and carefree days that had been ripped out of his life.

  I will not be like his mother.

  Her voice was clear, unwavering. She looked straight into the mother’s eyes. “No, he has to be admitted to the hospital for the best possible care. You do want that for your son, don’t you?”

  “Well.” She coughed into her hand. “Sure I do.”

  “Okay, I’ll arrange it.” Laura turned and smiled at the boy. Despite the pain he was in, he managed to smile back. Laura would remember that beautiful smile for the rest of her life.

  Out in the hall, Peggy walked beside Laura. “You were wonderful in there.”

  Laura sighed. “Thank you.” She felt light on her feet, like she could run to Mount Vernon and back, no problem. She turned to Peggy. “Is the mother right-handed?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll check. Why do you ask?”

  “The child’s facial bruise and ear injury are on the left side.”

  “Sure, I see. Right-handed slaps.”

  Laura had the child admitted to the pediatric ward and notified the child welfare service.

  At the end of her shift, still feeling proud of herself, Laura spotted a nurse leading a familiar figure down the hall. She followed them into an examination room.

  “Hello, Mr. Hamilton. You’re feeling bad today?”

  “Sometimes my stomach shakes.”

  Laura examined him and found nothing worrisome.

  “Am I all right?”

  “You’re going to be fine.”

  “I’m worried about something.”

  Laura sat on a nearby chair and waited. Mr. Hamilton often told her interesting details about his life on the streets. He’d mentioned before that he felt comfortable sharing information with her in the privacy of the ER examination room.

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “You won’t make me mad.” Laura expected another delusional story, followed by a more rational message or fact.

  Mr. Hamilton looked at the floor. “I know who hurt you that time.”

  Laura leaned forward. “What time?”

  “That time when he threw you on the ground.”

  Laura caught her breath. She felt her throat tightening. “How. How—”

  “He’s going to do it again, tomorrow. I heard him say it. He bragged about it. He said he knows you from before . . . I don’t want him to hurt you again.” Mr. Hamilton stood and walked toward the door.

  “Wait. Stop. Where did you hear this?”

  “Downtown. On a street, at night. He was talking to someone.”

  “Who is he? What does he look like?”

  “He’s mean and has big muscles. He likes to hurt people.” Mr. Hamilton stared past Laura. “He’s got mean eyes.”

  Laura followed him into the hallway and watched him exit through the ER ambulance entrance. Her heart pounded as she hurried back to the doctors’ office and called Alec. “You’re staying with me tonight, right?”

  “You got it.”

  “Mr. Hamilton was just here, in the ER.”

  “Our guy from the streets?” Alec said.

  “Yes. He overheard a man say that he planned to attack me again, tomorrow.”

  Alec paused. “Let’s nail the SOB.”

  “We’ll work out a plan.”

  Laura stopped by Derek’s room before she left the hospital. “Your vital signs are good,” she said after checking the wall monitor.

  “I’m ready to get back to work,” he said.

  Laura sat down in a chair close to the stretcher. “Don’t go too fast. Follow your doctors’ advice.” She crossed her arms and waited.

  Derek nodded. “Okay, you deserve to know.” He sighed and launched into his story. “My brother resented that our father left us—that really bothered him as he got older. He drifted away from the family, and he couldn’t find a decent job. Then he joined a gang.”

  “What kind of gang?”

  “They make most of their money selling drugs. Recently, they’ve added prostitution to their business. They seem to attract young girls and boys, like my brother, who are lost and poor and don’t have mentors and can’t find jobs. My brother was desperate to belong to something, anything. In a gang, he felt important—like he was somebody.”

  “I guess it’s easy to join?”

  “Right, and these days, the internet and social media have made it even easier for young people and gangs to connect with each other.”

  “So, you were checking out your brother’s gang last night?”

  “Yeah. I gained their trust. I told them I’d supply them with prescription opiates to sell, only the pills I brought along were placebos, look-alikes. They believed me and took me to the housing project where another gang hangs out—the gang that shot and killed my brother.”

  “Why did they shoot him?”

  “They were going off on my brother’s gang for trying to take over disputed territory, so gunshots were fired. He made it back home and then collapsed in front of us.”

  Laura shook her head. “You could’ve been killed, too. Have you talked with the police about your injury?”

  “They were here. I gave a report of what happened.”

  Laura leaned forward. “Are you going any further with this research about your brother?”

  Derek looked out the window. “No. I’m done.”

  Chapter 32

  Early Monday morning, after following Laura to the hospital, Alec drove to the police station to meet with Detective Judkins. An idea had occurred to Alec—a long shot—and he wanted to run it by Judkins. It was a plan to corral the real killer of Dr. Preswick.

  “You may be right about who did it,” Judkins said after listening to Alec’s argument. “Tina will probably visit Sutcliff, and she might try something desperate if she’s worried he’ll spill the beans about Preswick’s murder, especially if she planted the vial at Sutcliff’s and he figures that out.”

  Alec smiled. “It just might work.”

  Judkins opened a desk drawer. “I didn’t tell you everything that was on the note we found under the dead woman.” Judkins handed the note to Alec.

  Alec saw some numbers and letters on the note: ‘KWVM Mon nite 12 Alone.’ He looked up at Judkins. “Today’s Monday. Does it mean tonight? 12 midnight? And what’s KWVM? Is that his next victim?”

  “That’s a lot of letters for one person’s initials. It may be a place, maybe the Korean War Monument?”

  Alec pointed at Judkins. “Yes—the Korean War Veterans Memorial.”

  “I haven’t been there in a while.”

  “He wants me to come alone.”

  Judkins shook his head. “No way you’re
going alone. I’ll be there. He’s a wanted murderer.”

  “He wants me. You could scare him off.”

  “Look. You’re my friend, and I’ve been working this case. It’s a police case, and I have to be there. He won’t see me, and we’ll have backup.”

  After about 20 minutes of discussion, Alec and Judkins decided on a course of action—actually two plans of action.

  “Do you think we can nab two killers?” Judkins said. “The killer of Dr. Preswick and the one that’s trying to get you?”

  “The plans are good. Let’s do it.”

  “By the way, we got called to an overdose death last night. Max Flowers. He was found in an alley near a downtown restaurant, with a plastic bag next to him. We think it was heroin laced with fentanyl.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. He probably moved from prescription drugs to heroin, but got heroin with fentanyl instead—way more potent than heroin alone. Bet he didn’t know what hit him.”

  Judkins leaned back in his chair. “What a day.”

  ***

  At 8:00 a.m. that Monday morning, a young woman in a nurse’s uniform sauntered into the police station. She wore spotless white slacks, white shoes and a flowery cotton blouse.

  “Hello, Officer. I’m Tina Landry, a friend of Dr. Blake Sutcliff. He’s being held in jail here. I’m on my way to work, and I’d like to speak with him. He may need me to run some errands for him or something.”

  A desk officer scrutinized the nurse and then nodded. “Okay. Follow me. I’ll allow you just a few minutes.”

  Tina first submitted herself to a search by a female officer. She was allowed to leave her clothes on. Then a husky male officer led her to an area with detention cells.

  Blake Sutcliff heard them coming. “Oh, Tina. I was hoping you’d come.”

  Tina walked up near to the bars separating her from Sutcliff, and the officer stepped back. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Tina said, a concerned look on her face.

  “Sure. Ask around. I need a good attorney.” Sutcliff’s white-knuckled hands gripped the bars.

  “I’ll find the best. Anything you need done at your place?”