by Robin Cook
“I’ll be out,” Jazz said. She took a drink from her water bottle as she watched the health-club employee head out of the weight room. Jazz’s first thought was that her Glock was back in the pocket of her coat, hanging in the locker. If there was going to be trouble, she wanted the Glock. But why would there be trouble? Mulhausen had gone smoothly, without a ripple. The only thing that came to her mind was the possibility of something happening in regard to the Chapman investigation. Like everyone else on the eleven-to-seven shift, Jazz had been approached by a couple of exhausted-looking detectives for routine questioning. But that had gone down just fine, as evidenced by the conversation they’d all had at nursing report. The buzz was that it had been a mugging, pure and simple. Hospital security had made a big point of promising they’d be beefing up patrols, particularly at the times when shifts changed.
Jazz walked quickly to the door. As preoccupied as she was she didn’t even notice the men staring at her. Wasting no time, she went back to the locker room and grabbed a Coke at the entrance. Opening her locker, she pulled on her coat over her workout clothes, thrusting her hand into her right pocket to clutch her Glock.
With one hand in her pocket and the other holding the Coke, Jazz had to use her shoulder to open the door to the lobby. Beyond the sign-in desk, there was a rather spacious sitting room, and beyond that, a restaurant and bar. There was even a small sports-apparel shop.
Jazz quickly scanned the people sprinkled around the space, and not seeing Mr. Bob or Mr. Dave, she went over to the sign-in desk and asked the receptionist for the men who wanted to see her. She pointed to two men hidden behind newspapers. Clearly, they were not Mr. Bob and Mr. Dave. From the look of their lower halves, they could have been homeless bums.
“Are you sure they asked for me?” Jazz questioned. Her next worry was that they were a couple of deep-undercover detectives trying to scare up dirt about Chapman. With a sense of resignation, Jazz walked over to where the two men were sitting. Her hand still clutched the Glock in her pocket.
“Hello!” Jazz called irritably. “I was told you two were looking for me.”
The men lowered their papers, and when they did so, Jazz could feel her face flush and her pulse pound in her temples. It was all she could do to keep from pulling out her gun. One of the men was her father, Geza Rakoczi. He had a two-day growth of stubble on his face, as did his companion.
“Jasmine, dear, how are you?” Gesa questioned.
Jazz could smell the alcohol on his breath from where she was standing behind a shallow coffee table littered with magazines. Without answering, Jasmine looked at the other man. She’d never seen him before.
“This is Carlos,” Geza said, noticing the direction of Jazz’s attention.
Jazz looked back at her father. She’d not seen him for years and had hoped he’d drunk himself into the grave. “How did you find me?”
“Carlos has a friend who’s good with a computer. He says you can find anything on the Internet. So I told him to find you, and he did. He said you played a lot of online games and used what he called ‘chat rooms.’ I don’t know anything about all that malarkey, but he sure did find you. He even found out you were a member of this club.” Geza’s eyes roamed around. “Pretty fancy place. I’m impressed. You’re doing all right, girl.”
“What are you doing here?” Jazz demanded.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I need a little money, and knowing you’re a fancy nurse and all, I thought I’d ask. You see, your mother died, God rest her soul. I got to come up with some money, or they’ll be burying her out on some island in a plain wooden box.”
For a moment, all Jazz could see in her mind’s eye was the thirteen dollars she’d made shoveling snow. Remembering what happened to it only deepened her fury. As hard as she was holding the Glock, she was smart enough to take her finger out of the trigger guard.
“Get the hell out of here!” Jazz spat. She spun on her heels and headed back toward the locker room. She could hear Geza call out her name, and the next thing she knew, he had grabbed her shoulder, pulling her around.
Jazz yanked her hand out of her pocket—luckily, without the Glock. Later, she’d wondered how it had happened, since her instinct was to draw the weapon. She jabbed her finger into his face. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” she snarled. “And don’t come pestering me! You know what I’m saying? If you do, I’ll kill you. It’s that simple.”
Jazz turned again and headed for the locker room. She could hear Geza try to complain, saying that he was her father, but she didn’t stop, and he didn’t try to follow. She returned to her locker, spun the combination, and put her coat away. Back in the weight room, she decided to start her routine from the top, even though when she’d been disturbed, she was close to finishing.
Jazz had needed the exertion to control her fury, and it worked to a large degree. By the time she returned to the locker room for her shower, she had regained control. She could almost see some humor in the pathetic creature that her father had become. She wondered when her mother had died. Jazz was amazed she’d lasted this long, as obese as she was.
Since she was behind schedule after doubling her workout routine, Jazz showered and dressed hurriedly. Emerging from the locker room, she looked back into the lobby area where her father had been sitting, and was relieved that he’d taken the hint and left.
As she approached her car, she couldn’t help but remember the previous night, and after opening the door, the first thing she did was check the backseat. She wasn’t happy about Mr. Bob and Mr. Dave surprising her the way they did. She liked to think of herself as being wary and observant.
Climbing into the Hummer and buckling herself in, Jazz was looking forward to some fun on the way to the hospital. Dueling with taxicabs was a good way to deal with the remnant of anxiety that her father’s surprise visit had aroused. Waiting in the short line to get out of the garage, she got out her Blackberry. After three names in the last two nights, she wasn’t optimistic, but she wanted to check just the same.
At the first red light, she logged on for messages. To her delight, there was one from Mr. Bob. Hastily, she opened it. “Yes!” she cried out. There was another name on her LCD screen. It was Patricia Pruit.
A smile spread across Jazz’s face. All was well. By that time the following night, her account balance would be more than sixty thousand dollars.
When the light changed, Jazz bolted ahead of the pack of cars and taxis. No one seemed to want to challenge her. Settling back into the seat, she thought about how her father had found her. She was a little surprised. Although she spent a lot of time in chat rooms on the Internet, she thought she had been careful about her identity and whereabouts, except for the few times she “hooked up.” She decided she’d better be more careful, because she liked chat rooms and wasn’t about to give up the pleasure. It was only online that she found people of like mind to whom she could truly relate, respect, and even love. It was such a far cry from the assholes she had to deal with in real life.
Roger’s dinner with Rosalyn turned out to be an unqualified success. The fact that she had been aloof when they first met was more than adequately made up by her behavior during dinner, particularly after she’d had a few glasses of wine. Following the meal, Roger tried to put her in a taxi to take her home, but she insisted that they share one. Outside her Kew Gardens apartment, she mounted a hard-to-resist argument for Roger to come in for a nightcap. a term Roger hadn’t heard since college.
Ultimately, Roger did resist, even after a sustained and passionate kiss on the sidewalk. Roger had kept one hand on the open taxi door. Despite being severely tempted to take advantage of her hospitality and whatever else her newly expressed physicality implied, Roger kept reminding himself about the work he planned to do in his office. He felt he was on a roll, and even if he couldn’t have anything that evening to present to Laurie, the weekend was just beginning.
After a promise to keep in touch, Roger climbed back into
the cab and waved out the back window. Rosalyn stood nailed to the spot, waving until she disappeared from view. Roger was pleased. The venture to Queens had been rewarding. Not only did he get most of the information he wanted, he’d met a woman who was a strong candidate for some interesting future encounters.
By the time he had gotten back to the Manhattan General, it was nearly eleven o’clock. The first thing he did was visit the coffee shop and have a cup of real coffee. By the time he got up to his office, he was wired, and he dove into his work with alacrity. By two A.M., he’d developed quite a bit of data. Laurie’s idea, coupled with his decisions of how to expand it, had proved to be strikingly fertile. In fact, it appeared to be too fertile. When he had started, he’d wondered if he’d come up with any suspects. Now he had too many.
Roger rocked back in his chair and picked up the first sheet he’d printed, a list of five doctors with admitting privileges at both Manhattan General and St. Francis, and who had actually exercised those privileges at both institutions over the previous four months. The original list of the doctors with dual privileges was far too long to be workable. That was when he decided to restrict it.
As chief of the medical staff, Roger had unfettered access to the credentialing information and records of all physicians associated with the Manhattan General. Three of the five doctors on his list had disciplinary problems. Two of the doctors were euphemistically called “impaired” because of addiction problems to which Roger could surely relate. They were on probation, with some minor limitations in respect to their privileges, after having gone through drug rehab six months ago. The other individual, Dr. Pakt Tam, was involved in multiple malpractice suits that were still pending, all of which involved untimely deaths, although not the ones in Laurie’s series. The hospital had tried to revoke his privileges, but he had sued, and his privileges were reinstated by court order pending the trial.
Dr. Tam’s case had stimulated Roger to look up all the doctors whose privileges had been either eliminated or curtailed over the previous six months, with the idea that they could be angry, vengeful, and deranged, or any combination. That inquiry had led to eight doctors. The problem was that he had no way of knowing if any of them had had an association with St. Francis. Quickly, he scribbled a note to himself to call and ask Rosalyn on Monday. He attached the note to the page with the eight doctors and put it off to the side.
The thought about an angry doctor had made Roger think about any disgruntled current or former employee of the hospital, particularly a nurse or someone else who had direct access to patients. If he was going to think about doctors, he had to think about everyone else in the hospital as well, so he’d made a note to talk to Bruce to get a list of employees terminated prior to the mid-November cutoff date, maybe even going back a year. He’d taped the note to the edge of his desk lamp so he’d be sure to see it. At that point, he had begun to get discouraged, but he had pressed on.
The next group Roger had considered was the anesthesiologists. As he had voiced to Laurie, and for the reasons Laurie had concisely specified, he felt their expertise made them prime suspects, and his intuition had paid off with a couple of interesting possibilities. Two had immediately jumped out at him. Both worked the night shift exclusively, and presumably by choice. One was Dr. José Cabreo, who had a history of impairment with OxyContin, as well as several malpractice suits. The other was Dr. Motilal Najah, a recent addition to the professional staff from St. Francis. Roger had printed out copies of both doctors’ records and had drawn stars next to their names. Those papers were directly in front of him just off the central blotter. As far as he was concerned, they were his chief suspects, with Najah ahead of Cabreo. Although Najah’s credentialing record was clean, the timing of his transfer was just too perfect.
The last group Roger had looked into was the rest of the hospital employees. Comparing the list of people leaving St. Francis after mid-November with the list of new employees at the Manhattan General during the same period, Roger had come up with a group of more than twenty people. At first, the number shocked him, but then, when he thought about it, it made a certain amount of sense. The Manhattan General was the flagship of the AmeriCare fleet, and if there was active recruiting going on, as Rosalyn suggested, it would be natural for most professionals and support personnel to prefer to be at the name institution.
Recognizing his limitations as an amateur sleuth, Roger had known immediately that twenty-three suspects were too many for him to consider. To narrow the group, he had used Laurie’s suggestion of considering only those people who worked the night shift at St. Francis and moved to the night shift at Manhattan General. With such narrow parameters, he had no idea if he’d get any hits, but to his surprise, he did. He had gotten seven. The names were Herman Epstein from pharmacy, David Jefferson from security, Jasmine Rakoczi from nursing, Kathleen Chaudhry and Joe Linton from the laboratory, Brenda Ho from housekeeping, and Warren Williams from maintenance.
Roger picked up the sheet containing these seven names. Although it was more people than he had expected, he thought he could deal with seven. As he read over them again, he couldn’t help but notice how much the surnames reflected the ethnic heterogeneity of American culture. He felt he could guess the general ancestral origins of all except Rakoczi, although if pressed, he’d say Eastern European. He looked at the various departments involved and realized that all of them would have access to patients in some form or fashion, particularly during the night shift, when oversight was at a minimum. Vaguely, he wondered if he should try to talk Rosalyn into getting him their St. Francis records. Now that he had the beginning of a personal relationship with her, perhaps he would be able to get the information without her sending up a red flag, but there were no guarantees. Yet how else was he to proceed?
Putting the paper down next to the list of anesthesiologists, Roger looked at his watch. It was now a quarter after two in the morning. He shook his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he had stayed up so late working. He guessed it had been back in his medical residency. It was a bit depressing, thinking of most of the rest of the city sleeping, but at least he wasn’t tired. The bolus of caffeine he’d gotten down in the coffee shop was still coursing around in his bloodstream, making him feel antsy. He even noticed that he’d been unconsciously tapping his right foot. He wished it were about ten P.M. instead of two A.M., because now that he had all these potential suspects, he would love to call Laurie and maybe even suggest that he pop over to her apartment. Unfortunately, that was out of the question. As upset as she was about her BRCA1 situation, he was surely not going to wake her up.
Thinking about the hour made Roger realize that for the first time since he’d been employed at Manhattan General, he was actually in the hospital during the night shift when all the questionable deaths that he and Laurie were interested in had occurred. With the caffeine on board, sleep was out of the question, and as long as he was in the sleuthing mood, he might as well check out the surgical floor where more than half of the questionable deaths had occurred and, while he was at it, at least some of his so-called suspects. With that idea in mind, he picked up the records of the two anesthesiologists and the sheet with the seven individuals who’d transferred from the night shift at St. Francis to the night shift at the General. He looked over them again, committing the names to memory.
Roger was about to get up when another thought occurred to him. Given how wired he was, he knew he’d be up most of the night. Since he’d need some sleep, he’d likely not be back to the office until late morning. With that in mind, Roger dialed Laurie’s extension at work.
“It’s me, Roger,” he said to Laurie’s voicemail. “It’s after two in the morning, but your suggestion about Saint Francis was on target. It’s produced a lot of potential suspects, certainly more than I expected, so I have to give you credit. I’m looking forward to sharing it all with you, and maybe we could get together tomorrow night for dinner. At the moment, I’m heading upstairs to do a b
it more detective work, like check out the surgical floor and meet some of the people on my lists while they are on duty. As a teaser, let me tell you about one of the night-shift anesthesiologists, Motilal Najah. I interviewed him when he applied for a staff position. Anyway, I had forgotten that he had come from Saint Francis right after the holidays. Is that a coincidence or what? And he’s just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway, I’m going to be here another few hours, so I might not be back here in my office until possibly noon or early afternoon. I’ll call you as soon as I get in. Ciao!”
Roger hung up the phone and looked at the list of the seven nonphysicians who’d also transferred to the General during the period in question, and he wondered if he should have run down the list for Laurie. More than anything else, he wanted to fan her interest as much as possible, in the hope that she’d accept the idea of getting together. He thought about calling again to add to his message, but then decided the message he’d given was enough of a teaser.
After donning the long, white coat he wore whenever he ventured out into the hospital, Roger walked the length of the administration area. He’d been there a few times in the evenings, but never after midnight. At this hour, it was like a mausoleum.
The main hospital corridor was empty, save for a person using a floor polisher in the distance. As he rode up in the elevator, he was amazed at how wide-awake and energized he felt. He also recognized a touch of euphoria, which unfortunately reminded him of heroin. He shook his head. He didn’t want to fall into that trap. For doctors, such temptation is harder to fight, with drugs so easily available.
Roger got out at the third floor and pushed through a pair of swinging doors into the OR complex. He found himself in a deserted corridor. To his right, the sound of a TV issued forth from the arched opening leading into the surgical lounge. Hoping to run into some of the surgical staff, he walked in.
