by Ray Flynt
Eric cleared his throat again. “I can’t help you. I don’t get that information. Our office collects thank you notes like this, but then we pass them along to the transplant coordinator. Let me get you her number.”
Brad stood. “I already know Leslie Carpenter. Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” Eric said—no throat clearing required.
Brad closed the door behind him and wondered how long it would be before the lucky man fell back to sleep.
In the hallway, Sharon’s cellphone chirped. She retrieved it from her purse and answered, “Hello. Yeah, he’s standing right here.” She listened for a moment longer, then snapped the phone shut.
“We’ve been summoned to Danita Harris’ office.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
3:00 p.m., Thursday, January 11th
Brad closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. His headache was gone; replaced by a combination of sleep deprivation and information overload. If his brain were a computer, error messages would be popping up all over the screen. He had little choice but to focus and keep going. A water fountain beckoned, and he leaned down and savored a long, cool drink.
Sharon had dashed to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee and agreed to rendezvous with him at Danita Williams-Harris’ office on the fourteenth floor.
Despite the hospital being short-staffed and visitors nearly absent due to the storm, the elevator seemed over crowded with buttons punched for eight of the fourteen floors. As he stood crammed in a corner and thought about the victims, Brad tried to imagine any elements common to their deaths.
The elevator stopped on the sixth floor and two more nurses wedged their way onto the crowded car. “Sorry,” one of them muttered, as she bumped a fellow passenger. “This is the only working elevator.”
Great! The hospital was straining under the snow emergency, and was taking its toll on maintenance.
“It looks like the storm might be letting up,” said a man in green scrubs, yawning and rubbing the stubble on his chin.
“For now, maybe, but I heard another foot of snow is coming tomorrow,” a woman grumbled, as she tucked a limp strand of hair behind her left ear. There was a collective groan. Brad wondered how near the staff was to the breaking point.
Occupants peeled off one or two at a time as the elevator rumbled its way to the top floor, where Brad alone exited on the executive level.
The officious receptionist waved him into Danita Williams-Harris’ inner sanctum. Ms. Harris sat calmly behind her desk, while Larry Whitmore, the PR specialist, and security chief Ed Carlton paced like nervous fathers in the maternity department awaiting news. In the farthest corner of the room, Dr. Alan Fenimore sat with legs crossed looking bemused. With the details of Alan’s medical condition fresh in his mind, Brad viewed him differently, but knew that Alan wouldn’t want his pity.
“Mr. Frame, thanks for coming,” Harris announced. “I thought we ought to convene before the press conference, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
“What page is that?” Fenimore quipped.
Before she could reply, Whitmore piped up. “I just want to go on record that having this press conference is a huge mistake.” The press conference had been pushed back to 3:30 p.m. at the request of one TV station that had a conflict for the 3 O’clock hour.
“Duly noted, Larry. You’ve made that clear all afternoon. The maintenance department set up a podium and twenty chairs in the lobby. I’ve prepared a brief statement,” she tapped a paper on her desk, “and on Larry’s strong advice, there has been a change in plans, and I won’t take any questions.”
A smile broke out on Whitmore’s face.
“You might want to re-think that strategy,” Brad said. “They won’t just broadcast your statement. The evening news will likely air film of reporters shouting questions while you hustle off the stage. It’ll look like you have something to hide.”
“We don’t…” Larry Whitmore began, until Alan Fenimore started to chant, “All the King’s horses, and all the King’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
Alan was right, Brad knew, even though he’d resorted to nursery rhyme-speak to make his point, but the eye-rolls and diffident reactions from others in the room showed he had lost all credibility.
“You might consider taking a couple of questions,” Brad said, “which you can answer by referencing your statement, and promise to meet with the press again once the storm stops.”
Harris looked at Whitmore, who shrugged. A non-answer answer.
Carlton piped up. “I’ll have a couple of plainclothes security guards in the lobby mingling with the crowd.”
“Is that to protect the reporters from the killer?” Alan asked.
“That’s enough, Alan,” Harris said. “The situation is tough enough without your sarcasm. I’m trying to keep you in the loop here. Don’t make it harder on me.”
The half-sorrowful, half-absolution stare on Danita Williams-Harris’ face made Brad wonder how much she knew about Alan’s medical condition. She had expressed concern about Alan’s mental acuity, but did she know more? Patient confidentiality aside, rumors of his condition were most likely circulating among the medical staff. Wouldn’t Jamal share what he knew with Danita?
Alan rose from his seat and marched toward the door. As he passed Ms. Harris’ desk, without looking at her, he muttered, “Thanks for keeping me in the loop.” Just as he reached the door, Sharon burst in toting a large cup emblazoned with “Seattle’s Best.”
“Sorry I’m late,” she said.
Alan brushed against her, and she juggled the cup to avoid spilling its contents all over the beige carpeting of Harris’ office.
Harris glared at her, in what seemed like a misdirected reaction to Alan’s abrupt departure. “We were just about finished. I’ll see you all in the lobby in about fifteen minutes.”
“She’s a little testy,” Sharon observed, as she rode the elevator with Brad back to the lobby.
Brad grinned. “Just a little.”
He filled her in on the brief, but inconsequential meeting.
“So why are we going to this press conference?” Sharon asked.
“We’ve been asked. But more importantly, I want to see who shows. If the killer is motivated by publicity, we might see him here.”
The elevator clanged to a stop at the lobby, and the doors ground open. Two nurses carrying take-out food from the cafeteria were waiting to board. Beyond them Brad saw the preparations for the press conference. Four rows of chairs had been set up near the glass walled entry to the lobby. They faced a stone wall in front of which was a podium set between two poles holding United States and Pennsylvania state flags. Were the flags Whitmore’s idea? Strickland was a private facility, but the flags would convey the impression of a public facility.
Brad noticed the original 1913 cornerstone for the hospital where the stone wall intersected with the glass entry. Affixed to the wall were plaques honoring donors to hospital expansion projects over the years. The wall read like a Who’s Who of Philadelphia philanthropists: Annenberg, Haas, Kimmel, Mann, and Pew, while corporate plaques reflected the changing economy of the region from the prominent Comcast logo etched in glass to names of insurance companies that had long since moved their headquarters from the region. Just to the left of the American flag, Brad spotted a granite marker engraved with Joseph and Edith Frame, his parents. Brad hoped he could live up to their life of generosity.
Mounted directly behind the podium was a three dimensional stainless-steel representation of the Strickland hospital logo—the initials S, M, and H superimposed on a winged staff with intertwined snakes.
Four rows of chairs were three too many.
One print reporter perched in the front row, his notebook balanced on his knee. Behind the rows of chairs three TV station crews positioned cameras on tripods and checked sound levels with an on-air reporter standing near the podium. In fact, it looked like only one station had sent a rep
orter, with the others relying on film footage. Brad had been wrong; perhaps Danita Williams-Harris would get away with a brief statement before dashing for the exit.
Sharon pointed toward a guy dressed in a denim jumpsuit near the front door. Brad suppressed a laugh. He hadn’t met the twenty-something young man before, but knew that it had to be one of Ed Carlton’s crack security force on plainclothes duty. What a joke!
Sharon nodded toward the elevator, where Crystal Himes was just getting off, looking like she’d recently run a comb through her hair and applied a fresh coat of makeup. She smoothed the front of her uniform. Crystal didn’t seem overly aware of her surroundings, showing no recognition of Brad or Sharon, as she slipped into a seat in the second row.
Brad glanced at his watch: Three-twenty-five p.m.
“We might as well grab a seat,” Brad said.
Sharon headed for the third row and sat directly behind Crystal. Sharon tapped her on the shoulder, and Crystal jumped. “Oh, hi,” she said as she turned around and looked rather sheepish.
“You okay?” Sharon asked.
Crystal nodded, and resumed facing front.
Brad stared out the glass wall to the murky scene beyond. Though there were seventy-five minutes of daylight left, the dense cloud cover and falling snow gave a twilight feel to the city canyons. One news truck parked under the protection of the overhang that shielded the driveway from the storm, while two other TV station vans stood on the street in front of the hospital with their four-way flashers pulsing. Brad watched as a plow made its way along the street, pushing snow against the sides of the vans creating an icy barricade at the entrance to the driveway. He figured Ed Carlton had better be prepared to help shovel out the media trucks at the conclusion of the press conference.
A woman wearing a white lab coat slipped into the front row. Brad recognized her as one of Carlton’s minions from the security office. Carlton’s idea of a plainclothes officer!
At precisely 3:30 p.m. Danita Williams-Harris emerged from the elevator, with Larry Whitmore and Ed Carlton in tow. Whitmore scurried ahead of her to place a folder on the podium, and then Ms. Harris stepped behind it. She smiled and adjusted the colorful kente cloth over her left shoulder. “Good afternoon,” she began, her voice amplified by a microphone that would carry her remarks all the way to the cafeteria, “and thank you for coming.”
Hospital staff, traveling between the elevator and the cafeteria now stopped to gawk at the press conference, making a small crowd.
“Philadelphia, as well as Strickland Memorial Hospital,” Harris continued, “is under the most serious weather emergency that we’ve experienced…”
Outside an ambulance shrieked by, siren going full blast, and she paused, perhaps not realizing that with the sound system she could be heard above the noise of five such ambulances.
“…in more than a decade. I want to take this time to address rumors about our operations.”
A different sound drew the sparse crowd’s attention to the windows. An arriving TV van had plowed through the icy berm on its way to the protection of the hospital’s portico, but its rear wheels became hung up on the ice pack, and the driver revved up the engine in an attempt to extricate himself. Brad noticed that one of the cameramen took his camera off the tripod and walked closer to the window to film his competitor’s predicament.
Harris stopped, glanced outside, then turned to Carlton, who spoke into his walkie-talkie. His voice was heard emanating from the pocket of the plainclothes security guard standing by the front door. In a scene worthy of a Marx brothers’ movie, Carlton waved his arms exhorting the young officer to go outside and render assistance.
The young man ducked through the sliding glass doors and before they closed again, could be heard shouting, “Rock it. Put it in reverse and rock it.”
Danita Harris tried again. “I apologize for the interruption. As I noted, we’ve all been experiencing a very challenging time with the weather.”
Danita had already lost her small audience, most of whom divided their gaze between the podium and the more interesting scene outside. Brad heard the familiar sound of a manual transmission shifting between reverse and drive, accompanied by the grinding of gears. The guard stood in front of the van, and like a cheerleader urged the driver on. The van appeared to lurch forward by more than a foot, and the guard shouted, “Again.” Seconds later, Brad saw the security guard run toward the building as the van appeared to gain traction and barrel up the drive, only to hit an icy patch, spin out of control and careen toward the column holding up the front corner of the hospital’s portico. The impact knocked out the support, and with a loud cracking sound the overhang roof collapsed onto the van, smashing a satellite disk on top and partially collapsing the driver’s compartment.
Snow slid off the edge of the collapsing roof like an avalanche, and a crack worked its way from the ceiling to the floor in the window to the left of the front door.
The press conference was over. Reporters and cameramen raced toward the crash scene capturing as much footage as they could. Carlton barked into his walkie-talkie that an ambulance was needed at the hospital entrance. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just send out a stretcher? Less than two minutes later one appeared, siren blaring and lights flashing. It was clear that the only story about Strickland Memorial Hospital on the five o’clock news would be of the accident.
Crystal Himes rose from her seat, turned and looked at Sharon. There’d be no telling of her story to reporters. Brad couldn’t tell who looked more crestfallen at the turn of events—Crystal or Danita Williams-Harris.
Chapter Thirty
3:42 p.m., Thursday, January 11th
“We wasted enough time on that so-called press conference.” Brad grumbled. “Let’s find Leslie Carpenter.”
They located the transplant coordinator in her third floor office. Every strand of her silver-grey hair remained neatly in place; if she suffered any strains from her confinement during the storm it didn’t show. Some people just don’t wrinkle.
“Oh, hi.” Leslie smiled as she recognized him, and gave Sharon a quizzical look.
Brad introduced his associate, and when Leslie invited them to sit down, they settled into chairs opposite her desk.
“Is your son still stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike?” Brad asked.
Leslie clasped her hands on the desk in front of her. “Thank God, no. He arranged to have his car towed into the Sunoco there, and managed to hook a ride with a trucker who promised to drop him off in New Brunswick.”
“I’m glad that you don’t have to worry about him.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I’m his mother, I still worry.” Then, in a conspiratorial tone, she added, “Are you making any progress on your investigation?”
Brad shrugged. “It feels like one step forward and two back.”
“I saw Ed Carlton in the cafeteria, and he felt the same way.”
Brad could only imagine the impression Carlton would have conveyed.
“How can I help?” Leslie asked.
“Eileen Henness, the sister of Barbara McCullough, one of the transplant recipients who died, showed us a note of thanks that Barbara wanted to pass along to the family of the donor who provided her new liver. Barbara had asked Eileen to take the note to the hospital’s social worker. We met with him earlier, to see if we could learn anything about the donors. He referred us back to you.”
“Well.” Leslie exhaled. “You’re asking about matters of confidentiality again.”
“I’m authorized—”
“Yes, Mr. Frame,” she cut him off. “I asked Ed Carlton about your involvement. He confirmed that Ms. Harris had retained your services. But you are not medical personnel. We still have our rules, and require a signed release from a patient, or in this case, from the donor‘s family, before we can release confidential information.”
Or a subpoena. Brad wondered how long it would take Nick Argostino to find a judge who could authorize the release of hospital
records in the middle of the snow storm. He clamped his jaw, not wanting to say what he really thought.
Sharon jumped into the fray, using a sweet voice tinged with desperation. “Ms. Carpenter, we’re looking for connections that would help make sense of these tragic deaths. If you can’t give us the information, perhaps you could take a look at the files for Barbara McCullough, Michael Severn, and…”
She turned to Brad, seeking the other name.
“Joseph Esposito. Those are the patients who died.” Brad added, “You might also look at Dennis Ayers, who was attacked but survived.”
“Maybe you’ll spot something,” Sharon pressed the case.
Leslie Carpenter pursed her lips. Her eyes shifted back and forth between Brad and Sharon. “I have the files for the most recent cases here in my desk. I’ll take a look.” She held up her index finger. “But I’m not promising anything.”
She pulled open a desk drawer and leaned over to thumb through the folders. “Ayers, Esposito, McCullough, and Severn,” she called out the names in alphabetical order, and then placed the manila folders on her desk. A pair of reading glasses hung from a chain around her neck, and Leslie slipped those on.
The next few minutes seemed interminable. Brad hoped Leslie wasn’t just going through the motions as she opened each folder, and scanned the pages. From his vantage point, Brad noticed several colored stickers on the outside of each folder, but they were different color combinations for each patient, and he wondered about their significance.
“Hmmm,” Leslie mumbled, as she opened the second file and made a notation on a pad of paper on top of her desk.
When she finished reviewing all of the folders, she said, “I can tell you that all four of these individuals received their organs from one donor. I won’t give you his name, but he was a twenty-two year old man from Monmouth, NJ.”
