Oath of Office

by Michael Palmer

  He gave a What can you do? shrug, and Kim slunk back into the crowd.

  It had been foolish of her to suspect the man. Whoever wrote the note was frightened enough to take these sorts of precautions. He wouldn’t be standing around making eye contact with her.

  More people had crammed into the darkened lounge area, making it impossible for her to observe them all. She stopped in front of the wall-mounted jukebox, rifled through her purse, and pulled a crisply pressed dollar bill from her wallet.

  Russ Evans has been framed, she kept thinking. Assuming it was true, countless other questions were in need of answering. First, though, there was the matter of proof, and clearly that proof had to be evaluated by the First Lady.

  Kim’s hands trembled as she inserted the bill into the machine’s narrow maw. The song playing at the moment was “Voodoo Child” by Jimi Hendrix—appropriate, she thought, given the sense that she was being manipulated. The bill disappeared into the slot like a snake’s tongue retreating back into its mouth. As soon as it was gone, Kim felt a vibration from inside her purse.

  Glancing about once more, she opened her bag and took out her iPhone. A year ago, she’d taken a picture of the White House during an August sunset, and liking it so much, she made it her iPhone’s background image. But superimposed over that image now was a semi-transparent rounded rectangle bordered by a thin white line. In the center of the rectangle was a single-line text message.

  I’ll be in touch.

  CHAPTER 19

  Nearly five hours had passed since the hand team had taken Joey Alderson to the OR. Lou and Millie Neuland regularly checked the empty corridor beyond the picture window wall for any sign of his surgeon. Eisenhower Memorial’s interior designers had made the family room as homelike as possible, given the restrictions of a hospital. A forty-eight-inch flat-screen TV covered much of one wall, and according to the laminated instructions tacked beside it, could even stream Netflix. The bookshelves offered a collection of paperbacks, children’s books, and magazines. There were also two computer workstations with wireless Internet access, and a kitchenette—everything needed to pass the anxious hours.

  Whatever doubt Millie harbored regarding bringing Joey to Eisenhower Memorial seemed to have vanished before the sheer magnitude of the place, and the attention to detail and family needs. But it was the quiet confidence of hand surgeon Dr. Rafe Kurdi, speaking to her hours ago in the ER, that sealed the deal—especially when he shared glowingly that he, his wife, and kids had once, a year or so ago, eaten at her restaurant.

  “This is going to be a long and complicated operation,” Kurdi explained. “But just as preparing wonderful food is what you do, fixing damaged hands is what I do. Saving Joey’s thumb, while preserving as much function as possible, is our goal. We have been aided in this effort by the exceptional work that Dr. Welcome, here, performed at the scene. He has a well-deserved reputation in this place for knowing what he is doing. Joey is a very lucky young man that he was there.”

  “I’m figuring that out,” Millie said. “Dr. Welcome insisted that we come here rather than to our local hospital.”

  Lou could hear the unasked question in her voice, and knew that sooner or later, he might have to explain why he believed there was something terribly wrong in Kings Ridge and also at her beloved DeLand Regional. Lou pictured Joey Alderson twitching with anticipation as he timed his lunge beneath the huge chopping knife, going for a single, bright orange slice of carrot. Was he yet another example?

  Lou checked the wall-mounted clock. Nearly eight. The stress was showing on Millie’s face. She hadn’t appeared at all frail until now. Lou took hold of her hand, which was surprisingly callused.

  The woman smiled grimly. “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said, pulling a tissue from her purse to dab at her tears.

  “He’s going to do fine. After all these years in the ER, I can tell a battler when I see one.”

  “Do you have any idea what could have happened back there in my kitchen?”

  “I saw most of it developing, and right up until the last second, I didn’t believe he was going to do it. Has he ever done anything that impetuous or poorly thought out before?”

  “Joey’s a little what you might call accident prone. That’s why they know him so well at DeLand.”

  “I see.”

  “But he’s not really reckless—certainly not in this way.”

  “Back at the restaurant, you used the word ‘limited’ when you spoke of him. What did you mean by that?”

  Millie sank down on a sofa, and Lou did the same on the far side.

  “Joey came to my office one day when he was just thirteen,” she said. “He told me he was looking for a job. I still have no idea how he found me or how he got out to the restaurant. I tracked down his family—what there was of it, anyhow. No father. Alcoholic mother. Joey was the oldest of four. They lived in a dump of a place in Baxter. Family Services was about to move in and dole out the kids to foster homes. I talked them into letting me have Joey. Even though he had some learning issues, and an attention problem, he graduated from high school when he was nineteen. A few years after that, I set him up in a small apartment in the Dorms. That’s what I call the place out behind the restaurant where some of the staff stays. He does a good day’s work, and the rest of the staff really likes him and sort of protects him, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  Lou was unable to reconcile anything in the boy’s history with what he and Dennis had witnessed, and this hardly seemed like the time to start barraging Millie Neuland with probing questions. Still, she continued her narrative with no prompting.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Joey is hardly a regular guy. He’s sort of, I don’t know, quirky sometimes.”

  Lou perked up at the word.

  “Quirky?” he asked.

  “You know, odd, strange. He’s not exactly obsessive, but he gets onto a hobby and goes overboard with it. It’s sort of like he gets fixated on things.”

  Like that piece of carrot?

  Lou began ticking off what he knew about conditions that featured fixations without dominating obsessive compulsive behavior. His list, as might be expected from an ER doc, was a short one—variants of autism such as Asperger’s syndrome, and …

  “Can you give me some examples of things that Joey’s gotten locked in on?” he asked, wondering about Carolyn Meacham and her nearly deadly fixation on a busted taillight.

  “The last thing Joey really got into,” Millie said, “was learning how to tie knots. I once bought him a book of over a hundred different knots, thinking he probably wouldn’t have enough of an attention span to do much with it. It took him two or three months, but he learned to tie every one of them. Eventually he could even do a bunch of them blindfolded. It was amazing to watch.

  “How long ago was that?” asked Lou.

  “Maybe two Christmases. And before that, it was puzzles. And before that, radio-controlled cars. Using a kit, the boy built one that went faster than I’m comfortable driving. Then he just lost interest and went on to something else.”

  “So he’s been like that for a long time?”

  Lou tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. If Joey’s behavior had been a recent development, it might have been an interesting avenue to explore. Instead, it appeared to be just another in a string of dead ends.

  “Oh, he’s been that way ever since I’ve known him,” Millie said. “Now, I can’t be certain I’ve touched on all his hobbies. Joey’s a very private person, and not a boy anymore. I make it my business to keep out of his world. He has a driver’s license and an old Ford pickup, and pretty much comes and goes as he pleases. I don’t go traipsing about his apartment at the Dorm, and he doesn’t invite me over for dinner.” Millie said that with a laugh, and then added, “’Cause everybody eats at Millie’s.”

  “And to your knowledge, he’s never behaved irrationally? Done anything dangerou
s?”

  “No. Oh, no. Joey’s a stickler for the rules. My only demands of him beside honoring the Ten Commandments are that he’s on time for work and polite to everybody. He’s never let me down on either regard.”

  Their conversation drifted off, and for a time, Millie dozed and Lou read some articles in an emergency medicine journal.

  They were startled upright when the door to the family room swung open and Dr. Kurdi entered. He appeared as fresh as he had when he left to do the case, and he was smiling pleasantly, almost ecstatically.

  “It went as well as we could have hoped,” he said. “I’m optimistic that we’re going to get a significant amount of function back.”

  Lou had been imagining what Joey’s life of hobbies would have been like missing a functional thumb.

  “That’s great news, Rafe,” he said.

  “You get as much credit for the success as we do.”

  Millie squeezed Lou’s arm.

  “Can we go see him?” she asked.

  “In a little while, one of the recovery room nurses will be in to get you. He’s still pretty out of it from the anesthesia. He’ll need to stay here for a couple days. We want to keep a close eye on him and give him pain meds and IV antibiotics.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” Millie said, a note of disappointment in her voice. “I’m not much for driving any distance, but there are plenty of folks at the restaurant who will come and get him. In fact, someone will come and get me tonight. I’m just glad he’s going to be all right.”

  Lou put his hand on Millie’s shoulder.

  “It’s no problem for me to bring him back to Kings Ridge when it’s time,” he said. “In fact, it would be my pleasure. I’ll drive you home later tonight, too. I have a couple of new CDs I want to listen to on the way back home. Also, I work right down the street at the Annex, so I can pop in as much as I want. And I’ll phone you with progress reports. How would that be?”

  Most of Millie’s wrinkles vanished around a bright smile. “How would that be?” she echoed. “Let me put it this way. Neither you nor Dr. Kurdi will ever have to pay for another meal at Millie’s again.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Lou rolled double sixes and moved his pewter Scottie dog ahead twelve spaces. Emily reacted immediately, springing from her beanbag chair, and tapping feverously at the IN JAIL square on their Monopoly board.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said. “That’s your second double in a row. You’ve got to go to jail.”

  “No, no, no,” Lou countered. “It’s three doubles in a row and go to jail. Two in a row and I get to buy North Carolina, which I, in fact, am about to do.”

  This was a serious development, and the teen’s somber expression reflected it. Her father already owned two monopolies to her one. North Carolina would give him a shot at putting her away. Her usual strategy of acquiring railroads at any and all cost along with the orange or red monopoly wasn’t working out.

  “I’m sure it’s two doubles,” Emily said, as she plucked up Lou’s dog and set it on the jail square. Lou picked up the piece and reestablished it on North Carolina.

  “Three,” he said.

  “Two.” Emily moved the terrier back to jail.

  Lou sighed deeply and spoke through clenched teeth. “Okay.… Let’s … get … the … rules.”

  “We’re not getting the rules.”

  “Because you know that I’m right.”

  “No. Because I know that I’m right. And giving you the rules would be the same as admitting that I could be wrong.”

  “I could always send you to your room.”

  Emily’s face lit up. “I knew it. I knew you’d resort to that. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Okay, I’m ashamed of myself. Go to your room!”

  Lou could not keep from smiling as well. These were the times he treasured the most—though this one would sadly be ending soon. It seemed that with each passing day, Emily was becoming sharper and more fun. He loved spending time with her at his apartment, even though Renee rarely missed an opportunity to disapprove of his chosen neighborhood. The cozy two-bedroom place above Dimitri’s Pizza, across the street from the gym and not far from his old halfway house, had served him and, more important, Emily quite nicely.

  “All right, then, the rules,” Lou said.

  Emily dug out the flimsy, Scotch-taped rule booklet from underneath a pile of tattered Monopoly money.

  “Come and get it!” She tossed it between them.

  When he reached for it, she dived at him and wrestled him facedown onto the rug, bouncing on him until he cried uncle. When she let up and rolled off, he quickly read, “‘If you throw doubles three times in succession, move your token immediately to the space marked In Jail.’”

  Emily looked at him, batting her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Butler,” she said in a heavy Scarlett O’Hara accent, “did you say something?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good, because when it comes to rules, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. They’re stupid.”

  “Oh, they have their place,” Lou said.

  Emily harrumphed. “Do you know how many rules Steve has?” she asked. “It’s insane over there. But he’s still like way more strict with me than with his own brood.”

  “That’s a little hard to believe.”

  In a split second, she went from lying on her stomach to sitting in a lotus position. “Oh, trust me,” she said, “it’s true.”

  “Example, please.”

  “Okay. He and Mom won’t let me have my computer in my bedroom, and when his brood is with us, he lets David have his.”

  “You can’t have your computer in your bedroom here, either,” Lou said.

  “That’s not the point. The rules should be the same for everybody.”

  “How are you and Steve getting along these days?”

  Lou knew the answer to that question. Renee had filled him in on Emily’s more recent flare-ups with her husband, and had even asked Lou’s help with reining in her temper.

  “Steve’s all right, I guess,” Emily said. “When he’s not trying to be my father.”

  “From what I’ve heard, I don’t believe he thinks of himself that way,” Lou replied. “I know he loves you, and wants only what’s best for you.”

  “Well, what’s best for me is getting rid of the no-laptop-in-my-room rule.”

  Lou frowned, but it was hard for him to maintain a stern expression. His daughter’s spirit reminded him of her mother.

  “You know, sweetie, part of the art of living is knowing when you can break the rules, and when you can’t.”

  Emily made a sourpuss face. “I prefer to follow your example,” she said. “You don’t take shit from anybody.”

  “Hey, come on. You have too much class for that kind of language. And for your information, I’ve managed to get myself into quite a few pickles by not following the rules, so don’t make me your shining example there.”

  “Yeah? Name one?”

  “Uh … how about, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can—”

  “—and the wisdom to know the difference,” Emily said, finishing the Alcoholics Anonymous Serenity Prayer that Lou had long ago imprinted on her. “Okay, but that’s different. You had a problem and you dealt with it. I’m talking about rules like what you fight against at the Physician Wellness Office all the time.”

  Lou’s chest did a double-clutch. How much had Renee told her? Did she know about his suspension—that Filstrup blamed him for what Meacham had done?

  God grant me the serenity …

  “What about the PWO?”

  Emily shrugged. “Just that you say you’re always fighting with your boss because you know that you’re right and he’s wrong about something. You don’t play along just to play it safe. You fight for what you believe. And I believe if David can have a laptop in his room, I can have one, too.”

  Lou quickly deco
mpressed. She knew nothing. But, he decided, it was time she did. “That’s not always a winning strategy,” he said. “There are times you can be wrong, even though you’re right. Does that make any sense?”

  “No.”

  “What if I told you that because of my tendency to trust my judgment more than the rules, that I’m currently not employed with the PWO.”

  Emily went pale. “You got fired?”

  “Not fired exactly, but I’m not in good standing right now with our board of directors.”

  “What’d you do wrong?”

  “Let’s just say that if I listened to my boss and some others who didn’t feel as strongly as I did, things might not have gotten so drastic so fast.”

  “So if you hadn’t always been trying to prove that you were right, you might still be working there. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Something like that, yeah. Listen, I don’t want to see you complicate things with Steve. Give him a chance. Don’t fight him at every corner. Show him that you at least respect his judgment. Ask him what you could do to earn the same privilege that David has. Maybe the answer will surprise you. Maybe it will turn out to be something simple.”

  “Now you sound like Mom.”

  “Well, your mother is a very intelligent woman.”

  “And beautiful.”

  Lou nodded. “Yes, and beautiful.”

  “Very beautiful,” Emily said.

  “Very beautiful.”

  “And incredibly talented.”

  Lou sensed something was afoot. “Yes, your mother is very talented. She’s a great cook and fabulous dresser.”

  “You forgot to mention a brilliant psychologist.”

  “One of the best around.”

  “And that you’ll never meet a woman who’ll compare to her.”