Murders at Hollings General ddb-1

by Jerry Labriola

  "I didn't know that Cortez fellow," Foster said. "Sad. But, I've been insisting for years that our privileges for visiting professors should be tightened." He sighed and added, derisively, "But, oh no, the medical staff says that would be insulting. Too demeaning. As it is, these prima donnas can zip in, zip out, no one has to talk with them, check them out. Shit, it's a miracle a Good Humor man hasn't wandered in and treated a patient."

  "Alton, listen." David flipped open his notepad and sat on a black leather sofa facing Foster. "Can you think of anyone wanting to do Charlie in like that?"

  Foster bit into a sandwich. "Charlie was a fine man. His heart and soul were in this institution. Whoever was responsible really didn't know him." David didn't write anything down or bother to rephrase the question. He knew Foster was pulling a Sarah Bernhardt for it was common knowledge that, despite his brassiness, he had been Bugles' patsy, and Foster resented it. An hour earlier, Tanarkle had no hesitancy in saying as much.

  "Now, just for the record," David said, "but, besides, I know they'll want me to ask-can you tell me where you were during the-ah-surgery?"

  "Right here."

  David cast a furtive glance toward the back door and made an entry in his notepad.

  He continued: "One thing I've never been able to figure out. Coughlin across town-did it make any difference to him that EMS ran from here? I would have expected him to want it there at Bowie."

  Foster placed the sandwich on its wrapper and met David's stare. "It's a loser, David. Not all cities do it like us. In some places, EMS ambulances are dispatched from a municipal building. But long ago, our hospitals together agreed to help out. Oh, we're reimbursed by the state but not nearly the full amount. And, in a spirit of cooperation-for public consumption, of course-the agreement calls for EMS cases to be taken to alternating hospitals unless the patient has a definite preference or time is of the essence. You know, like a car accident a block away from here-they wouldn't run a patient clear over to Bowie. So, both hospitals pretty much break even on the cases but we have to pay Spritz ourselves. Clever, that Coughlin."

  "Why agree to a deal like that?"

  "Public relations, I guess, but primarily to be considered a full-service provider. Every little bit counts, you know, when you're trying to start up a transplant center."

  "But why fire Spritz?"

  "Money again. Between you and me, David, I like Vic. On the erratic side, maybe, but professionally he never gave us any trouble. So even though Anderson EMS is a bit less expensive, I voted to retain Spritz. The other three voted to switch to Anderson."

  "Did Spritz know the vote?"

  "Of course. I had to break the news to him and I told him the truth-that personally, I supported him."

  There was a knock on the door and Foster's secretary stepped inside.

  "Excuse me, but I thought you ought to know before I went to lunch: Dr. Coughlin just called. He went on and on about consultations or commitments or something through Friday morning-I believe he used the word incommunicado-and that, if he didn't make Mr. Bugles' funeral in time, he'd make your house afterwards. He insisted I not put him through to you but to relay the message."

  "Thanks, Doris." She left as Foster checked off a name from a list he had withdrawn from a desk drawer. Shaking his head, he said, "That's how the guy communicates with me-by message. It's a good thing we have others at the Joint Conference Committee meetings. But, fuck him."

  David had never heard him use the phrase.

  Foster continued, "If you hadn't dropped by, I'd have called. I contacted Bugles' family, such as it is: two sons. That wasn't easy. Which reminds me-there could be a lawsuit here. Brother! Anyway, in case you haven't heard, there are no calling hours and the funeral is on Friday morning. Afterward, we're having some people over to the house. I hope you and Kathy can join us."

  "Yes, of course, we'll be there."

  David got up to leave and Foster waddled behind him to the door. "By the way," he said, "one more housekeeping detail. We checked with Credentials to get Dr. Cortez's address in Chile. We've been in touch with the family. The medical examiner's finished with the body and after the autopsy, we're shipping it down there."

  David thanked him for the meeting and stopped at the secretary's desk to ask for Cortez's address. He would wire flowers later. He felt put through a wringer but it had missed the sweat he wore under his collar. Housekeeping details?

  Back at the Hole, he slouched into a chair and let his arms drop to the floor. He felt ensnared in more ways than one.

  "What's wrong?" Belle said. "You're a bundle of sighs."

  "I couldn't wait to get out of there."

  "Where?"

  "The cabinet room of our eminent administrator. The housekeeper." He sat up. "I'm telling you, Belle, the more I pry, the more I realize we've got a swamp of grudges around here. And I thought I knew the landscape pretty well. Uh-uh."

  "You sure you want to go through with all this?"

  "The plying and prowling? The snoops? More than ever. So if I complain now and then, disregard it."

  The phone rang and Belle picked up. As she traded barbs with a receptionist, David abbreviated a few thoughts in his notepad and punched in Sparky's number on his cellular.

  "Sparky? David. Too soon to call?"

  "Not at all. I got the blood confirmations a while ago."

  "And?"

  "Just as we suspected. The stains on the floor were Bugles' and the one on the lab door was Cortez's." "The locker shelf?"

  "One spot was Bugles'. The smudge was all Cortez. And I couldn't lift a print anywhere-nothing on the locker or stool or walls except the attendant's. His were all over the place. I had him drop by for prints and they match."

  "Maybe I should question him."

  "I wouldn't bother. Mousy old guy, about five feet tall, all hunched over. Hope you don't mind, but I asked him if he saw anything unusual yesterday. He answered in the negative but said he leaves at two everyday. He mostly cleans and opens lockers for the morning docs who misplace their keys."

  "Did your contact in Tokyo call back?"

  "Yes. I went over the x-rays with him and he's certain there were no prints from Cortez's skin. But, David, listen to this. I described the pearl-handled dagger to him. He said if the pearl is real, the dagger could be an original from centuries ago when the samurai of his country had a foothold. They were very militaristic and he said they always carried swords and many of them, daggers. They carried them in pairs because they believed a single dagger gave protection but matched daggers also gave mystical powers. And he talked about Japan's great history of pearl production. So that fits."

  "And if he's right, there's another dagger around somewhere?"

  "Sounds like it."

  David was taking notes and asked for a moment to catch up. Then, "What about the rock?"

  "It's common sedimentary found anywhere around here. No prints. The writing on the tape came from a lead pencil, probably number two."

  "It's ordinary adhesive tape, right?"

  "Right. Nylon. From any doctor's office or hospital."

  "So nothing spectacular there. What about the printing? Could you tell if he was right or left-handed by the way he printed?"

  "Not at all. And I don't think the way the strips were laid really pinpoints it either. I got to thinking about it, in fact tried both ways. I'd say it favored a lefty a tiny speck-but no more than that, in my opinion."

  "I tend to agree but if I were totally certain, I'd stop checking wrists. Maybe I will anyway."

  "What?"

  "Nothing important. Sparky, I want to thank …"

  "One last thing. Two, really. About the tape. Stuck beneath one of the strips was a thin strand of fiber. It checked out to be cotton."

  "Any dye?"

  "No."

  "Can you save it for me, or, at least, if I can hit upon where it came from, can you see if there's a match?" "Sure, but once again, it's always difficult to say positively."
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  "What's the other thing?"

  "Well, I don't know if it means anything. The tape is old."

  "Old?"

  "Yes, frayed, faded-you know, yellow."

  "Come to think of it, I remember that," David said. "You think it's important?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "We'll see. Anyway, Spark, good job. And, thanks a lot. I'll be in touch." David returned the phone to the case on his belt. Suddenly, he dwelled on daggers, museums and pawn shops.

  Belle had finished her phone conversation. "Lots to dissect?" she asked.

  "What? Oh, yeah, there is. Did you get ahold of Boston Childrens'?"

  "Yes, Tanarkle was there all right. They thought he was great. Inspiring. Grand Rounds were held from nine to eleven. No one seems to know whether he stayed for lunch."

  "That means he could have made it back in time."

  Belle squinted and he waited for her to comment. "I find it hard to imagine his giving an inspiring presentation, then racing back here and committing those hideous things," she said.

  "You took the words right out of my mouth," he said. "Now, next. Can you go back to having lunch with that gossip crew of yours from the E.R.?"

  "Sure, and they're not gossipers. They just happen to know the pulse of the hospital."

  "Okay, have it your way: keep it medical. And keep your ears peeled. See what you can find out."

  "They're always peeled."

  "I mean, even try to lead the conversation. But be subtle. Think along the line of, `Do any of you have any dirt on Spritz or Tanarkle or Foster'?"

  "Oh, that's real subtle."

  "I don't mean come right out and ask them. If they're talking about those guys, milk it along. Belle, you're a pain in the ass." He knew she smiled inside.

  "You already said that today. Are they your suspects?"

  "And Coughlin." David's. voice took on a deeper texture. "Of course, everyone's a suspect until proven otherwise."

  "Well, I'll be darned," she said, fondling an amber locket that hung from her neck.

  "What?"

  "You're becoming a pro."

  Chapter 6

  Dating back to his medical school days and continuing on through his tenure in the Department of Pathology, David hated the sights, sounds and smells of a postmortem examination. He called them "flesh-in-the-raw" smells. But, particularly the sounds were awful. He could never harness the jolt to his body by the screech of rotary saw on skull bone or the splash of water hose on body parts, its sound shriller than the dousing of his front lawn on a dog day in August. The saw and hose seemed so out of place there, giving him as they did, the feel from chalk high-pitched on a blackboard.

  At twelve-fifty, he set foot in the autopsy room and expected to watch Ted Tanarkle do the post on Charlie Bugles for only the time required to form an impression of the pathologist's demeanor. Besides, he had just yesterday witnessed the slaughter and later scrutinized the havoc in Bugles' belly.

  David deliberately arrived early to catch Tanarkle's initial reaction to the "Y" incision across the chest from shoulder to shoulder and down the front of the abdomen to the pubis. The pathologist would extend the vertical slit across the abdominal incision made earlier by the imposter in the operating room, and David believed it would be at that point that Tanarkle's facial expression would be the most revealing.

  He leaned against a wall feeling like a traitor to his longtime friend and mentor, awaiting his arrival, intent, therefore, not in collecting pathological evidence, but in detecting a flinch, a subtle twitch, an incriminating comment. David let his eyes drift over the varied shapes of stainless steel he'd seen many times before: the mobile cart for transporting bodies to the morgue; the autopsy table with holes to allow water and fluids to drain; the small-parts dissection table with its own set of drain holes; the tank for delivering water to the tables; the scale to weigh each organ-another misplaced item, he thought.

  The room was warm, so warm that he believed he would not have been surprised to see vapor lifting from the cold steel surfaces and from the cold, naked body. Sun poured from a thin bank of windows at ceiling height, dissolving onto the walls, rendering them creamy, the body more wax-like.

  He removed the phone from his hip to call the Hole, hoping Belle had returned from lunch.

  "You're back early," he whispered.

  "Hospital food's good for dieting. No, I didn't learn anything yet from my crew, and why are you whispering?"

  "The post should start any minute. Do me a favor, will you?" David looked at his watch. "Unless I call you back, buzz me at exactly five after, and when I answer, hang up."

  "Why, pray tell?"

  "So I can leave."

  "Why be there in the first place?"

  "So Ted will think I'm conscientious." David clicked off.

  At two minutes before one, Tanarkle entered the room alone through a swinging door. He wore a green scrub suit and brown rubber apron.

  "Hello, David. You're right on time." David nodded.

  The pathologist clipped a tiny microphone to the neckline of his shirt and squeezed his hands into a pair of latex surgical gloves. He opened a metal-bound chart and flipped through its first few pages as he moved to the foot of the body. He checked the number on a tag tied to the big toe against a line on the chart. Then he dictated: "This postmortem examination is performed at the request of Dr. T. Y. Tippett, Medical Examiner of the city of Hollings. Deceased is Charles J. Bugles, Accession Number 1569777. Hospital Chart Number 100745. The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished white male who appears his stated age of 65. His head is bald; his eyebrows and pubic hair appear gray-white. Height and weight listed are 70 inches and 182 pounds."

  Holding the chart in one hand, he ran his other over the body's face, neck, arms and legs. "Skin is generally greenish-red; neck and jaws slack; rigor mortis resolving in extremities. There is a tattoo of a bird's head on the lateral surface of his right upper arm …" He put the chart aside and, rummaging through a steel jar, pulled out a small Stanley retractable ruler and held it against the arm. "… measuring 5-by-6 centimeters."

  The autopsy room was excluded from the hospital's paging system and Tanarkle's words echoed in the silence. David stood on the other side of the body, his eyes riveted on the pathologist's face.

  "Externally, there is an obvious trans-abdominal incision between the xiphoid and umbilicus, measuring … 19 centimeters. There are no other skin lesions."

  So far, nothing, David said to himself. Tanarkle's voice was firm, his face expressionless.

  He swept a scalpel deftly from the right shoulder to the lower part of the sternum and repeated the process on the left side. Next, he cut straight down in the midline, over the trans-abdominal incision to the symphysis pubis. Then, he retraced the incisions for a deeper cut.

  The grainy sound ignited David's nerve endings, and he was relieved by the phone vibration at his beltline. He didn't want to hear the separation of ribs and cartilage which was soon to follow.

  He spoke softly into a dead phone: "I'll be right there."

  David thought himself foolish for not having activated the audible ring because Tanarkle had no way of knowing he was being summoned. Yet, David excused himself with no apology. He had learned little from the pathologist's stoic demeanor and ritualistic conduct.

  But maybe, he rationalized, in learning nothing, he learned something.

  David decided to skip lunch at the cafeteria, instead opting for a fast-food takeout on the way to his first house call. Top down on his Mercedes, black scarf starched in the wind, he munched as he drove along well-plowed streets. A Pavarotti aria blared from his tape deck as high C's and the aroma of French fries escaped into the dry but brisk afternoon. He liked the burn of the wind on his leathery face. On one long stretch, he was unable to shake a tailgater and, more than once, tucked in a shoulder to feel the reassuring rock that was his Beretta Minx. He split his eyes between highway and mirror until the car turned out of sight
.

  The first visit was to a male patient of thirty-two who over-complained about a sore back. He had first felt it after fixing a flat tire. After his thorough orthopedic and neurological assessment revealed no pathology, David resorted to misdirection.

  "You know," he said, "I used to complain about the screams and loud laughter of children playing-until I said to myself I'm lucky I can hear them."

  "I don't get it," the patient said.

  "Your problem is only a pulled muscle, and think of it this way, Danny, my boy. You're lucky you can walk." David outlined a treatment regimen as Danny looked on sheepishly.

  It took David two hours to complete the other three calls and to phone reports to doctors' offices.

  At the Hole, he gave Belle four three-by-four cards, one for each patient he had examined. He had scribbled date, name, diagnosis and treatment on each card. There were no exotic diagnoses that day.

  "These would really stand up in court, you know," she said, sarcastically.

  "Screw the courts," he fired back. He remembered Foster's earlier word choice but toned it down. Even so, he added, "Scratch that comment. If a court of law required more information, I could easily elaborate."

  "But, you have nothing in writing."

  "It's up here," David responded, tapping twice on his forehead. "Besides, I've handed you index cards for a whole year. Why gripe now?"

  "They used to be five-by-eights and they were filled." "I've honed my craft."

  Once home, David nursed the first half of a Manhattan until he figured Kathy had arrived at her condo across town, unless she had worked overtime. He was about to try her when the phone rang.

  "Where are you?" he asked Kathy.

  "Home."

  "You're on time. Thought you guys were busy?" "We are, but I'm bushed."

  "Funny, I was about to call. Too bushed to spend the night? The house needs straightening out."

  "Sure it does. That's why I called. The answer is yes. Do you think this mutual serendipity means anything?"

  "If I had to guess, it means our hormones are lined up in formation."