In the car I took a second to lie back and close my eyes. The incision throbbed and my face felt like someone was tunneling a transatlantic cable through it. I tried a smile on for size and it hurt worse. Driving over to Marta Vasquez’s I prayed that my phone would ring. It didn’t. I trudged grimly up to the front door. Just as I was about to knock on the door, Marta Vasquez pulled it open. “Please come in, Mr. Haggerty.”
“Thanks. Can I have a glass of water, please?”
“Surely.” She walked back towards the kitchen. Over her shoulder she asked, “What happened to your face?”
“I cut it shaving.”
“You must be very clumsy.”
“Touché.”
She returned and held out a glass of water. I took it, said thanks, popped a painkiller in my mouth and drowned it.
Marta wore a burgundy sweater tucked into blue jeans. The jeans were tucked into high, cordovan boots. Her hair was pulled straight back and highlighted her black eyes and lush mouth. Whatever Malcolm Donnelly couldn’t find at home it wasn’t sexual.
“Do you have the information I asked for?”
“Yes. It’s on the dining room table.”
“Great.”
“Do you want anything to eat?”
“No, thanks. I’m drinking my meals these days.”
“Some soup, then. I have some homemade sopa de ajo. It’s very good for shaving cuts.” She smiled.
“Thanks.”
I went to the table. On it were a pad and pencil, a checkbook, a manila folder and an address book. I sat down, opened the checkbook and made a list of all the checks made out to physicians. Then I went through the folder that contained his credit card receipts and added any new names to the first list. A review of the year’s medical claims did not yield any additional names. Then I went through the address book and wrote down the phone numbers and addresses for the names on the list. There were seven names. Six physicians and a pharmacy.
“Soup’s on.”
I took my list and went into the kitchen. A large bowl of soup with a thick slice of a dense, dark bread next to it was set out for me. I sat down and Marta pulled up a chair catty-corner to mine with soup and bread of her own.
The soup was hot and spicy, redolent with garlic. I tore off chunks of the bread and dunked them in the soup. Properly softened, I was able to get them down. I slid the list over to Marta. “What can you tell me about these names?”
I sipped my soup as she scanned the list.
“Dr. Carson was our dentist.”
“For all of you?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Canzoneri was Malcolm’s physician. He’s an internist. I went to him also. Dr. Harrison is my OB-GYN. Dr. Locke is my eye doctor; I wear contacts. Dr. Reece is the kids’ pediatrician. Dr. Tompkins is Cholo’s vet. Cholo is our boxer.” I looked around for said animal. “He’s at Dr. Tompkins’s right now. His ears were just cropped and I think he’s got an infection in one of them.” She handed me the list and I scribbled some notes on it.
“Would you hand me the phone, please? I’m going to call these people.” She reached over, grabbed the phone, freed up some cord and handed it to me. “And thanks for the soup. It was just right.”
“Por nada.”
Harrison, Locke and Reece had never seen Malcolm Donnelly as a patient. Carson was a solo practitioner and had been out of town on the day Malcolm Donnelly died. Donnelly’s call from the hotel had been local. Four down, one to go. Dr. Canzoneri’s office refused to give me any information. When Mr. Donnelly paid the overdue balance on his bill they would be glad to speak with me. Until then Consolidated Collection Corporation spoke for them. I drew question marks after Canzoneri’s name. It would be interesting to know whether he had treated Malcolm for gonorrhea, and when. That left the pharmacy.
Marta asked, “Would you like some coffee?”
“Thanks, plenty of milk with it, though.”
“Sure.” She stood up and went to the sink.
With her back to me she asked, “Why are you so interested in Malcolm’s doctors?”
“I want to know where he got the medicine that was in his system when he died. I think he might have had a prescription for it after all.”
“What is it called?”
“Meprobamate. I don’t know what the brand name would be.”
“Let me look in the medicine chest. See if we have it there. I don’t remember it, though. Malcolm hated drugs. You could hardly get him to take aspirin for a headache.” She washed her hands and walked out of the kitchen.
She came back with three jars and a bottle. They contained a common antihistamine, a painkiller, an antidiarrhea medicine and a cough medicine with codeine. All of which were over two years old.
“This is all we have. I knew I hadn’t seen any new pills recently. Why do you think he had a prescription for it?”
Truth and consequences time. “Your husband was not alone on the night he died. A high-priced call girl was with him. She says that he looked sick and that he had some pills with him. I’m trying to find out where he got them from.”
“Was she with him when he died?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me expectantly.
“She said that he looked sick, but he didn’t want to die. He wanted to live. He called a doctor for help. She went into the bathroom and when she came back out he was dead. It must have been very sudden. He didn’t cry out or anything.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes.”
“Will she say this in court?”
“If she’s approached properly, I think she will.” Like with a two by four.
“How does this change things?”
“It opens up the possibility of malpractice. I’m certain that Malcolm didn’t commit suicide. Now it’s a question of whether he died by accident or from negligence. Either of those findings is more consistent with his behavior that day. If Malcolm spoke to a doctor and did something on that doctor’s advice and died from it, that makes the doctor responsible.”
She didn’t bring up and I decided not to remind her about that very bothersome suicide note. Marta went back to making the coffee. After she had it going she turned around and wiped her hands on a towel. “I’m glad he didn’t suffer.” She went on wiping her hands. “Maybe it’s better that he didn’t want to die. I don’t know. At least I can tell the children that their father didn’t want to leave them and know that it’s the truth.”
“It’ll spare them a lot of guilt on top of everything else. Now if I can just prove what I’ve told you.”
The coffee was done. Marta poured two cups and brought them to the table with cream and sugar. I kept doodling around the pharmacy’s name.
“I have an idea. I want you to make a phone call.”
“Okay, who do you want me to call?”
“The pharmacy. Tell them that your husband has died. Tell them that for estate purposes—taxes and insurance and so on—you’d like a complete list of his prescriptions including the doctor’s name and the date of each prescription.”
“Okay.”
I passed the phone and the pad to her. Five minutes later she hung up the phone and pushed the pad back to me. There was one prescription. It had been refilled three times. Meprobamotrin. Prescribed by a Dr. Truman Whitney, office phone 555–7241.
I picked up the phone and dialed his number. On the fourth ring someone answered and said, “Mental Health Center.” I hung up.
“Who was it?”
“A mental health center.”
“What?”
“I think your husband was in therapy there. At least, he was going there to get medication.”
“But I had no idea. He never told me.”
“There were a lot of things he never told you, right?”
“Yes, but there were no records.”
“You said your husband was concerned about his security clearance. Therapy is not something you want the clearance investigato
rs to know about. My guess is that he paid for his sessions in cash and never filed for insurance reimbursement.”
“What can you do to find out if all this is true?”
“I’m going to pay them a visit and take a look at your husband’s chart.”
“Will you tell me what you find out?”
“You mean about what Malcolm was doing in therapy?” She nodded. “Are you sure you want to know?”
She sipped her coffee, then put her cup down. “Maybe not. What difference would it make anyway?”
“Probably none.” I stood up to leave. Marta followed me to the front door. “Thank you for believing me, Mr. Haggerty.”
“Nothing to it. You were telling the truth. I’ll be in touch.”
I drove home in silence. A cold lump was beginning to form in my chest. Cancer of the heart.
Chapter 21
When I arrived home, I raced inside to check my answering service for messages. They had only one message for me. Randi Benson had called.
I rang her at school. “North Hall,” a girl’s voice said.
“Miranda Benson, please. Room 311.”
“Hang on I’ll get her.” Five minutes went by.
“Hello, Leo?”
“Yeah, Randi. How are you?”
“Okay I guess. I need to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“I really can’t talk about it over the phone. Could you come out and see me?”
“Sure. When?”
“How about tomorrow? I have a lunch break at one.”
“Okay. Is this about your father?”
“Isn’t it always?”
“All right. See you tomorrow.”
Miranda represented my one foray into the role of social worker. It hadn’t turned out quite as I had planned. Her therapist had been required by law to report Miranda’s sexual abuse by her father. The protective service investigators wanted to take the case to the police and press for criminal charges. After a long conference with my attorney and Benson’s attorney, a complicated consent order was entered in juvenile court. A finding of abuse was made and entered in a sealed case file to be stored in Richmond under Miranda’s name, not her father’s. The record could not be reopened by anyone. Benson agreed to pay for Miranda’s boarding school and therapy. In exchange for the return of some photographs, I was made Miranda’s legal guardian. I wondered what the bastard was up to now. My face had begun to throb again. Since I had to drive I passed on taking another pill for it. The throb reminded me, however, to call Skrepinski’s office. I made an appointment for nine A.M. two days later.
I got dressed to go back into town and check up on Dr. Truman Whitney. Since Malcolm Donnelly had died, his records would not have the usual safeguards of confidentiality. The proper way to do it would be to have Marta, as executor and next of kin, request the records. The center’s C.Y.A. committee would convene an in-house proctoscopy and then release the records. Except for that unnecessary suicide note I’d have been glad to do it that way. Whoever left that note in Malcolm’s room wouldn’t be above purging the records. Time for Dr. Haggerty to make a house call.
I gathered up what I needed, straightened my tie, slipped into my coat and got ready to leave. I left Samantha a message on her machine that I’d be by her place this evening. Going against traffic I had no problem getting back into the city before five P.M. Five o’clock is the magic time, the window of opportunity, for this kind of operation.
At precisely five o’clock I walked up the steps to the mental health center, went around to the entrance marked Emergency Admissions and tried to look like I owned the place. A young black woman with a wiry nimbus of hair and large golden hoop earrings was hustling by with an armful of charts towards a door marked Records Room. I allowed her a decent interval and then followed her in. She was sorting through piles of charts and muttering under her breath. I stood in front of her trying for a look of professional arrogance with a dollop of little boy charm. I wanted her to do what I asked and love doing it.
She looked up at me. “Yes?”
“Hello.” I stuck out my hand. She shook it cautiously. “I’m Doctor Yost. I need the records on a patient named Malcolm Donnelly. That’s D-O-N-N-E-L-L-Y.”
“Sure. Just give me a minute okay? These charts are a mess. What do they think I am, the maid?” She looked back at me. “I haven’t seen you here before.”
“No. This is my first night on duty. Truman helped me get the job.” I hoped Truman was in Ghana for the evening.
“Truman Whitney?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s all right. You know, I wish they’d tell us when you new guys are gonna start. But then they never tell us night people nothing anyway.” She walked over to the floor-to-ceiling files and returned with a manila folder. She extracted a sheet from it and said, “You have to sign for it and put today’s date next to your name. When you’re done please return all your charts here. Don’t make me go around looking for them, okay?”
“No problem. Thanks.” I printed Yost and dated it. A quick scan showed that other than Dr. Whitney, only a Dr. Gutierrez had taken out the chart. I memorized the dates on which the chart had been taken out and by whom. She took the sheet back and stuck it in the slot where the record had been.
You don’t have to worry about hackers getting into the computers that store confidential information. The leaks created by human hiring policies are enough to do you in. Once social program funds were cut, public mental health center staffs were frozen. All new personnel came on as part-timers or temporaries, and they were usually given the night shift jobs. This kept the centers open around the clock for emergencies. Thus they qualified as a full service center and stayed eligible for whatever funding scraps were left to be had. The turnover rates are terrific. Only vampires work midnight to eight regularly. So you have an endless revolving door of part-time clerical help and rotating emergency service residents hired by people who never see nor talk to them. To get hold of anybody’s chart, all you have to do is get on the merry-go-round, claim to be new on the job and look like you belong. I know all this because I once worked undercover in a similar center trying to track down a blackmail ring.
I took the chart to an empty therapist’s office. Inside, I closed and locked the door, drew the curtains, flipped on the desk lamp, and sat down to read the record. First, I wrote down the dates it had been taken out and by whom. Then I skimmed the telephone contact sheet, patient information, treatment contract, and consent to exchange information forms. The only useful information was that there were two samples of Malcolm Donnelly’s signature. I noted that he’d retained Percy Carleton as his attorney. Percy vs. Nate should have been on HBO from Las Vegas. It would have been a hell of a fight. The next page was a medication log. It listed the drug name and dosage, prescription dates, number of pills to be dispensed and instructions for taking them. I wrote down the information about the last prescription: Meprobamotrin, six hundred milligrams, 11/2/86, forty pills, four times a day. A ten-day prescription. There was a closing note on the log: “Informed patient of all risks attached to use of medication, including abrupt termination and extrapyramidal effects with alcohol. Concern over previous Hx of alcohol abuse, r/o alcohol abuse, DSMIII 305.0. Keep dosages sub-lethal. If agitation persists dispense at center to r/o hoarding.”
The next pages were actual session notes. My ordinary qualms over reading this stuff had been buried with Donnelly. The first note was an intake:
10/2/86 Presenting problem: Depression. Pt. says it’s deepening. Bitter custody battle. Precipitant of crisis: Gonorrhea in wife. She claims he gave it to her. He denies this. Alleges she got it from one of her lovers. She denies any infidelity. Provoked, he hit her. Told her to leave house. She has refused. Very volatile situation. Rec. he consider moving out to cool off situation. Says attorney wants him to stay. Put pressure on wife to leave. Use abandonment as grounds for divorce. Goal: Help control depression and agitation through crisis of imp
ending divorce and custody battle. Informed pt. of limits on confidentiality in court.
10/9/86 Marital Hx: Marriage on rocky ground from start. Met in Argentina. Woman got pregnant. He claims she deceived him about birth control. Married her to do the “right thing.” Figured they’d work out their problems later. Stresses brought on by recent failure to be promoted. Felt he needed more money to provide for wife’s “unbridled spending.” Says he loves wife. Very beautiful. Always wanted the best of everything. He wanted to give it to her. Anxiety and agitation responding to medication. Mood has not lifted.
10/16/86 Pt. wants to cut back frequency of sessions. Not interested in exploring his input into marital situation. Feels problems are all wife’s. Clear he wants divorce and custody. Sees sessions as being for symptom relief of anxiety. Doesn’t feel like he’s “out of control.” R/O underlying character pathology.
10/23/86 Pt. very angry. Wife has served him with papers. Refuses to consider mediation or joint custody. Calls wife slut and tramp. Intends to prove she’s unfit mother. Says she’s taken his money, his love, his self-respect, but “she won’t get my kids.” Asked if I would testify about his fitness as a parent. Told him such evaluations are a specialty area. Sugg. he consult a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist. Feels she’d just lie and make a good show of it. “Always has been a liar.” Can look like great wife and mother when she has to. Wants to hire p.i. to spy on her, catch her with lovers in house, use photos to force her to give up kids.
10/30/86 Abandoned p.i. idea. Cost exorbitant for round-the-clock surveillance. Mood markedly lifted however. Medication finally taking effect? Says he’s found solution to his problems. Does abrupt mood shift indicate decision has been made re: suicidal ideation? Pt. resolutely denies any suicidal thoughts. Wants to terminate. Feels it won’t look good for a custody case. Manic defense against depression or decompensation? Says he has found expert who will testify to fitness as a parent.
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