by Alec Peche
DEATH ON A GREEN
By Alec Peche
Text Copyright © January 2015 Alec Peche
Published by GBSW Publishing
Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
Acknowledgements…
For my editor, G. M. Meyer, thank you for saving Angela from becoming a ditzy blonde when she is actually a smart brunette! I'd also like to thank Kim for helping me as a second reader. Your assistance in preventing opportunities to distract my readers through my choices of improper grammar, poorly selected adjectives, or typos is much appreciated.
As the reader might have guessed, the author had the pleasure of living in Green Bay for a decade in between stints of living in northern or southern California. It's a great city that I hope you get to visit someday.
Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer?
Thanks!
Alec Peche
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author and the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in review.
About the author:
Discover “Vials”, “Chocolate Diamonds”, and "A Breck Death" also written by Alec Peche.
“A Taxing Death” the fifth of the series, is to be released April 2015!
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www.alecpeche.com
email: [email protected]
DEATH ON A GREEN
Prologue
The patient was fine, but the surgeon had barely made it to the closure of the surgical incision. The two men were alone in the locker room. They had just finished changing into their street clothes from the green sweaty scrubs that they had both had on for the past five hours. One of the men looked tired having just provided anesthesia while worrying about both the patient and the surgeon operating.
“You just made it to the closure. What would you have done if you couldn’t have finished this surgery?” asked Doug.
“What do you mean? I was fine. I could have continued another hour. My work is just more complicated than yours and requires deeper concentration,” boasted Bradley.
“You paused several times during the surgery as if you had forgotten what your next step was. The surgical technician was holding out the appropriate instruments and you were not taking them out of her hands. The patient was under anesthesia for thirty minutes longer than the other five surgeons doing this exact same procedure.”
“That idiot surgical tech was handing me the wrong instruments - that’s why I wasn’t taking them out of her hands. As for the extra anesthesia time, I was being more careful than my fellow surgeons, and I take my time sewing the incision shut. I try to reduce my patients’ scars.”
“Those are all excuses. You know you barely avoided making several serious mistakes.”
“You know I don’t want to work with you anymore. I am going to request the office schedule any other anesthesiologist but you for all my future cases.”
“My peers worry about working with you. If you get sued for surgical technique, then they likewise get named in the suit. They don’t want their names dragged into court with yours. I am going to request the medical staff office do a quality review of your surgical outcomes.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, just giving you advanced notice of what I plan to do. You and I have worked together for more than ten years and you know that going behind people’s backs is not my style. I am really worried about patients under your care. I don’t know what your problem is. I don’t know if you’re ill, if you have an alcohol or drug problem, or if you lost your confidence in the operating room, but your surgeries are getting more dangerous with each passing month. You’re a different surgeon than you were a year ago. I wouldn’t allow you to operate on a family member and if that is my opinion, I should be concerned for the patients served by this hospital.”
“Let me put you on notice that I am going to report you to the medical staff office for causing a hostile work environment in the operating room. Your threats are interfering with my concentration. I’m going to ask them to review the quality of your work.”
“That is fine. I always welcome an evaluation of my anesthesia technique. Maybe I’ll learn something that will make me a better physician.”
Doug looked at Bradley while he made these last comments. He could figuratively see steam coming out of his ears and if his eyes had been a laser like what they used in the OR, he would have been blinded by now. He placed a hand on Bradley’s arm and asked, “Are you okay? You look un-well.”
Bradley shrugged his arm away from Doug’s hand and said, “Just get the hell out of this room and out of my life. You’ll regret if you report me to anyone. I am a brilliant surgeon and how dare you say otherwise.” He finished the last sentence nearly yelling at Doug.
Doug could see he wasn’t reaching Bradley, so he dropped his dirty scrubs in the laundry basket and picked up his satchel to leave.
Bradley tossed a parting shot at him, “You’ll regret that you ever brought this conversation up. You can’t tell lies about me. I am a brilliant surgeon.”
Doug didn’t say anything, he just closed the door gently on the locker room and walked away thinking about his next steps. Next to delivering bad news to a patient or their family, the next conversation he hated to have was about another physician’s performance. It had been his experience that they couldn’t see the poor performance on their own and thus each time he had such a conversation it usually brought up anger and denial. Unlike medical school where you had evaluations in terms of tests or physician Specialty Boards where you had to take a test and stand before your peers to discuss your knowledge, once you finished your medical training there was no regular ongoing evaluation of your skill and knowledge. Bradley was from the old school. When he graduated and took his Boards, it was his for life so there was no recertification every five to ten years. Thus his skill had not been evaluated in almost thirty years by a group of his peers. He had been grandfathered in as an older surgeon and did not have to get re-Boarded. He would give Bradley a week to take action on his own now that he had planted the seed. Doug would also make sure he wasn’t paired with him for any upcoming surgeries in the week ahead.
He approached his car thinking about the week ahead. It was Friday night and he wasn’t on-call for the week-end. On Monday, he had taken the day off to participate in his favorite golf outing. He enjoyed the outdoors, the chance to play golf, an opportunity to support one of his favorite charities, and just the general tone of this particular outing. It was fun, and really non-competitive which was a good thing given all of the alcohol that was served throughout the course. He also enjoyed the competition of hitting close to the chicken wings chafing
dish plugged in on the fairway, the wooden cow, or the bar stool. It was important to have a sense of humor when golfing.
Bradley was still sitting in the men’s locker room in the surgery department. He needed to check on his patient and speak to the family to tell them all was well. Because of his stupid argument with Doug, he had to sit here and get his temper under control. He was going to have the surgical tech written up for a poor performance, and then he was going to move on to Doug. He had checked the schedule and knew he had three days to figure out what to do about him. Taking some deep breaths he stood up to go speak with the family, and then he was going to head home to spend some time thinking about his comments. Why had Doug said such things? He was the best surgeon at this hospital. No patient had died under his care and if he was taking longer, it was because he was more careful and his wound closure was better than anyone else. He scoffed at Doug’s words in his mind, closed the door on those thoughts and entered the surgery waiting room to shake the hands of his patient’s family.
Chapter One
Jill Quint had been in Green Bay for three days of the week that she had planned to spend there. She was visiting her friends - Angela, Jo, and Marie who all made the city their lifelong home. Wisconsin was beautiful in the spring. There was an air of optimism that everyone had made it through another cold winter. The daffodils had come and gone and now the tulips were exploding in a rainbow of colors. It was also unfortunately windshield bug season. A driver would drive down the highway seemingly in a small pebble hail storm, and instead it was big bloody bugs committing suicide against a car’s windshield. Yuck, they even made it hard to see through the glass to the world beyond.
On this visit she had been to one of her usual favorites - Highland Howie’s bar which served the best Friday fish fry and bacon cheeseburgers on earth. Jill, a resident of California, couldn’t find perch in her home state. A staple of Wisconsin Fish Frys, the perch loved the Great Lakes. The term ‘fish fry’ in the Midwest originated with a meal eaten on Fridays during Lent especially by Roman Catholics. Fortunately, Highland Howie’s served it year around on Fridays as well as a few other days of the week.
She had also updated her sports wardrobe with a visit to the Packers Pro Shop. As a team owner - Jill owned her one share of the Green Bay Packers stock - she needed a full range of green and gold items. She was fair skinned, with green eyes and thick blond hair; her coloring meant that some shades of green and gold looked awful against her skin. However, she had a full closet of Packer clothing, so no new clothing was needed. This year she was looking for a new flag to run up the flag pole of her winery in California. The hot sun of the central valley of California had a way of fading green and gold to lime and lemon after two years of flying during football season.
They had lunch with Angela’s mother who was a wonderful cook. She had organized countless celebratory and funeral luncheons for her church and could put together a wonderful meal for three or three hundred just as easily. Jill would hit a cheese store just before she left to get cheese curds, a by-product of cheese-making that you could only find in the dairy state. Curds were generally supposed to be eaten within twelve hours of manufacturing to get the squeak when chewed, but her family was fine with day-old curds simply because of their novelty.
Yesterday, Jill and her friends had bicycled from Green Bay to Greenleaf stopping along the way at a winery to taste their varietals. Jill’s day job was that of vintner and she operated a part time forensic pathology consultancy that provided both a second opinion on the cause of death as well as a private detective-like service to assist families and law enforcement in determining the murderer. She had been glad to be off her bike as she had yet to find a comfortable bicycle seat. Sipping wine at a local vineyard gave her posterior a rest and allowed her to observe the tasting room. Her own vineyard, Quixotic Winery didn’t have a wine tasting room yet; she solely sold her vintage to local liquor stores. She planned to add a tasting room in one to two years. First she wanted to make sure she could handle the production process for making high quality wines. Then she would expand her acreage of grape vines and thus her production. She also examined the wine label on the bottles. Her boyfriend, Nathan Conroy was a world class wine label designer and she seemed to find his labels everywhere. He had remained in California where he and his cat Arthur, were dog sitting Trixie, her Dalmatian. Soon they had been back on their bikes, a wine bottle in their backpacks riding towards the D & G Restaurant for ice cream.
Today promised to be a great day. Jill had timed her visit to coincide with this particular golf outing as it was her favorite. The friends had also golfed two days earlier in the style of girlfriend golf - no one kept score, they walked with a pull cart to burn calories, Angela wore no shoes, and the conversation kept going even while they swung their clubs. Their styles and scores were the polar opposite of Tiger Woods, after all, could he gossip while he swung a club? Probably not.
It was at this golf outing during previous years that she had been introduced to gelatin shots and the skill it took to hit a chicken wing cooker in the middle of the fairway. She hadn’t yet figured out if the alcohol from the gelatin shots and margaritas affected her golf game in a positive or negative manner and given the fact that there was really no need to play well, she suspected she would go through life without an answer to that question.
Turning into the golf course parking lot Jill said to Angela, “Looks like we beat Jo and Marie to the parking lot, no surprise there - Jo is always late.”
“Jo still has thirty-five minutes to get here prior to the start of the outing. She’ll be here by then,” replied Angela giving her a look that said 'chill-out’.“What a beautiful day!You can see the sun starting to stream through the trees as the fog and morning mist is lifting. Beats having to take cover from the occasional rain storm!”
Jill tried to relax, but it wasn’t in her nature. So instead she took a look around the parking lot studying everyone's clothes and gear. Jill’s theory was the more elaborate the golf outfit and the larger the golf bag, the less likely people were to be fun to play with. They took the game far too seriously. She had played one course that required a caddy and wow, was that intimidating. They had even made Angela wear shoes.
Jill lifted the borrowed set of clubs from Angela’s father out of Angela’s car trunk. Marie, Angela, and Jo were all five feet nine plus, and Jill was a full half a foot shorter. That meant she couldn’t often use clubs or bikes from them as she was simply too short for the equipment. She leaned against the car, shoving her blond hair out of her eyes as she put her golf shoes on and then they both headed to the clubhouse. Jo was more of a natural redhead and Marie and Angela were brunettes. Of course their present hair color had more to do with science than Mother Nature. Jill was the heaviest of the four and Marie the thinnest, with Angela and Jo falling in between. They were all active in their lives - walking, running, cycling, and swimming. Leaning their golf bags against a rack, they walked in to pick up their registrations.
“Looks like we have cart fourteen-A and we’re starting on hole fourteen,” said Angela reading their registration packet. “Let’s go dump our clubs into the cart and then return to the clubhouse.”
“Sounds like a plan!”
Jo and Marie were just entering the registration area when Angela and Jill were exiting the clubhouse. After exchanging hellos and grabbing the additional registration packets, they all exited to put their bags into the golf cart and the four friends stood around examining their packet’s tchotchkes and what food and drink were at each hole.
“It’s the usual prizes closest to the pin on two holes, farthest from the tee, closest to the chicken wing warmer, the bar stool, and the wooden cow,” said Jill with relish of the competition ahead. She had occasionally won the longest drive, but never did well on closest to the pin.
“Which holes have the gelatin shots and margaritas?” asked Marie clearly with her priorities in the right place.
“Shots
are on ten and the margaritas are on two,” read Angela aloud.
“They gave us this boxed lunch, but I would rather have some of the chicken wings on the first hole,” declared Jo.
“I have never had the wings. Do they have wet wipes to get the sauce and grease off your hands before you touch the clubs?” asked Jill.
“They have a box of wipes just behind the cooker,” replied Angela.
“Is the lid locked down? I would think some drives would knock the lid off the cooker,” suggested Jill.
“Yes, it is latched,” laughed Jo. “You think of the strangest questions. It would not occur to me to worry about a lid.”
“Well, I don’t want flies or bees entering the cooker. They’ll either die on the wings from the heat or leave behind some fly disease. No thanks!” Jill exclaimed.
“Ok, I think you two should ride together so you can continue this fascinating conversation,” observed Marie. “Angela and I will ponder a much more difficult question such as are margaritas better blended or on the rocks.”
Just then a gentleman with a portable paging horn stepped up to the line of golf carts. He welcomed everyone, gave a fabulous weather forecast, noted food and drink highlights, and then sent everyone off to their holes. The golf outing was very popular and there were two foursomes starting at each hole. They would spend a fair amount of time waiting for other golfers to clear out of the way, before they could hit at each tee box, fairway, and green. Oh well, there was plenty of food, drink, and conversation to keep them occupied.
They soon arrived and introductions were exchanged with the other foursome. Angela, who seemed to know everyone in Green Bay, of course, knew two of the golfers in the other foursome. There were three men and a woman in the group and they felt sympathy for the woman who would hit from a different tee box than the guys. It could be disruptive to conversations. She was soon catching up on their lives. Angela and her foursome were designated to go first. Likely, this was a good thing as they could chat while they were driving from the tee rather than trying to remember to stay silent while the other foursome went first.
