Code Blue pft-1

by Richard L Mabry

  Lawton led her on through a series of benign questions, and she concentrated on answering truthfully, careful not to volunteer information. Then, out of the blue, the lawyer asked, "And did you deliberately try to poison Milton Nix, or was it an accident?"

  Will's voice never rose. "Sam, I'll object to that question and ask my client not to answer." He turned to the stenographer."Offthe record."

  The woman took her hands offthe keyboard and rubbed them together.

  Will shook his head. "Sam, do you take me for a secondyear law student?"

  Lawton grinned like a fox. "Never hurts to ask, Will. Never hurts to ask."

  The questioning seemed to go on and on. Finally, Lawton asked Cathy about her decision to switch Nix from Lanoxin to generic digoxin. She answered without pausing to think."I thought it would be nice to save him a few dollars."

  "Had you been visited by a detail man from one of the pharmaceutical companies that makes this form of digitalis just before you saw Mr. Nix?"

  Cathy bristled. "I never let pressure by pharmaceutical companies influence my prescribing. And for your information, generic drugs aren't detailed to doctors like brand name drugs. Maybe that's why they're cheaper."

  Will's hand touched her arm and knew she'd violated one of the rules he'd stressed. Answer the question, don't volunteer information, and don't lose your temper.

  "Never mind." Lawton pushed his glasses up offthe tip of his nose. He reached into a thin manila envelope resting on the table beside him. "This is a photocopy of the prescription you wrote for Milton Nix. Does the dosage appear correct?"

  "I didn't-."

  "Just answer the question I asked. Is the dosage correct?"

  "No."

  Cathy looked at Will, expecting him to say something about the prescription being altered. Instead, he turned away and appeared to study the crown molding across the room. For a moment, Cathy flashed back to the credentials committee meeting-men sitting in a room deciding issues that would affect her life, while she sat helpless. Was Will hesitant to go up against Judge Lawton because he didn't want to upset a local power broker? She ground her teeth as she prepared to answer the next question.

  After the deposition, Will shook hands with Judge Lawton and said, "Sam, I'll be in touch about deposing your client."

  "Just give my secretary a call, Will." Lawton picked up his briefcase. "You know, I was surprised that you're handling this case instead of a lawyer from the insurance company."

  "They're willing to let me be the local presence. And I might as well be involved from the start. After all, I'll be filing the countersuit against your client."

  To his credit, Lawton showed no surprise except a faint twitch of his bushy eyebrows. "Oh?"

  "Sure, for malicious prosecution, tampering with evidence, and a few other violations. We'll be asking for five million." Will butted a stack of papers together and shoved them into his briefcase. "See you, Sam."

  "Will, what was-?"

  Will gave his head a single vigorous shake, his meaning clear. They stepped into the elevator and rode in silence to the ground floor. When they finally slid into Will's pickup and shut the doors, he turned to Cathy. "I guess I surprised you."

  "You mean the way you let him accuse me of malpractice without objecting? The way you allowed him to imply that I'm guilty without uttering a word in my defense? Why, yes. You surprised me."

  "A deposition isn't necessarily about getting information. It's mainly sparring, seeing if you can get the witness to lose their temper, say something rash so it's on the record under oath. That way, if that information comes up at trial, the witness can't back out of any corner they've painted themselves into without committing perjury. As for what we did today, I doubt that it will affect the trial-if there is one. He might ask you some of those same questions, but if he does, now you're prepared for them."

  Cathy thought about that. "So you don't want to argue about anything he brought up?"

  Will's eyes never left the road. "Why should I tip our hand? We know what our defense is, but they don't. Let's keep it that way."

  "What about the countersuit. We never talked about that."

  "Oh, if you want to go to the expense and trouble of filing one, we can do it after we discover who altered that prescription and why, but you'd never win it. Nix surely didn't change the directions so that he'd almost die, so there's no use suing him. He actually filed this suit in good faith. What we can do, after we get to the bottom of this, is see that whoever's responsible is prosecuted for what they did. But we're not about to file any civil suit. I just wanted to throw Sam off balance." He grinned. "He may be old and crafty, but I'm no slouch myself."

  She knew he couldn't see her smile, but she hoped her voice showed it. "No, Will. No, you aren't."

  "So, next we subpoena our own deponents."

  "Pardon?"

  "We serve subpoenas to the people we want to depose. Nix, his wife, the two pharmacists. Who else?"

  "Let me think." Cathy nibbled on her thumb, a habit she thought she'd broken in her teens. Suddenly, she saw Robert's face in her mind's eye. The rumors? That would be his style. And he wouldn't be above paying someone to run her offthe road and frighten her. But arranging the alteration of a prescription-almost killing a patient? Despite his arrogance, Robert was a good doctor. She couldn't believe that of him.

  "Well?" Will asked.

  "I'm sorry, Will. I'm blank. I can't imagine how anyone else could have altered that prescription. It's got to be one of those people."

  Will stopped at a traffic light. He turned to Cathy. "Don't forget to think outside the box."

  "Like-?"

  "Someone blackmailing one of the pharmacists. Someone with a key-the cleaning person, a former employee. Someone-."

  "Okay, I get it. Anyone could be behind this."

  Will accelerated smoothly into the intersection, then slammed on the brakes.

  "Whoa!" Cathy felt the tug of her seatbelt. "What was that?"

  "Some idiot driving a black SUV almost hit us."

  Emma Gladstone settled carefully into the patient chair. The patent leather purse she held in her lap looked big enough to accommodate supplies for a three-day trip. Cathy wondered how the elderly lady could manage carrying around that load just ten days after major surgery.

  Cathy leaned across her desk. "Mrs. Gladstone, can I get you anything? Are you comfortable?"

  The woman smiled serenely. "I'm fine, Doctor. I just wanted to come by and tell you how much Ernest and I appreciate everything you've done."

  Cathy tried to act as though compliments came her way every day, instead of with the frequency of snow in July."Think nothing of it. All I did was assist Dr. Harshman. And at that, I had to scrub out before the case was finished."

  "Oh, I don't mean just the surgery, although Arthur told Ernest that you were a lot of help. I wanted you to know how much we appreciate your coming by to check on me in the hospital and calling me after I went home."

  Harshman actually complimented her? Despite her best efforts to appear cool, Cathy felt her jaw drop when Mrs. Gladstone unloaded this bit of information. Would wonders never cease? "I try to show all my patients how much I care for them."

  "And it's appreciated."

  "I'm afraid there are some folks who don't share your opinion of me."

  Mrs. Gladstone wrinkled her nose. "Oh, that suit Gail Nix had her husband file? I was sorry to hear that."

  "Mrs. Nix is behind the suit? Not Mr. Nix?"

  "Dear, I have a good idea of pretty much everything that goes on in this town. I heard from a reliable source that Milton was grateful that you saved his life. He didn't care about the prescription error. It was Gail who badgered him into filing the suit. Apparently, she has something against you."

  Cathy thought back to the contact she'd had with Gail Nix since returning to Dainger. She'd pegged the banker's wife as a vapid airhead, more interested in her social position than anything else. Why would she have a gr
udge against Cathy?

  After Mrs. Gladstone left, Cathy plunged into her afternoon's appointments and soon was too busy to think further about Gail Nix. With one thing and another, it was late that night before Cathy's thoughts returned to her conversation with Mrs. Gladstone.

  During her training Cathy developed the habit of mentally walking the halls of the hospital each night before she dropped offto sleep. She'd review the patients in every room, patients whose lives had been given over to her care. With her switch to private practice, Cathy made only one small adjustment. Now each night she reviewed the patients she'd seen in the office that day. Only when she was satisfied she'd done all she could for each of them was she able to turn over and fall asleep. Not tonight.

  Lying in the dark, Cathy wracked her brain to figure out what she'd done to anger Gail Nix. Why had the woman badgered her husband into filing a malpractice suit?

  "You've done it now. You're awake." Cathy was surprised to hear that she'd spoken aloud. Maybe she wasn't handling the stress as well as she'd implied to Josh. She slipped out of bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and padded to the medicine cabinet. How about a couple of Tylenol? It might help the headache that had become a frequent companion. Her self-diagnosis was tension headache. Should she go back to Josh and ask him for something to calm her nerves? She'd avoided sleeping pills and tranquilizers all her life, probably because she'd seen her mother take too many of them. That thought cemented her decision. No, she'd gut it out.

  She slid back beneath the covers and turned out the light. She was still awake when she heard a commotion outside. What-?

  Quickly, she wrapped her robe around her and groped under the bed for her slippers. She was halfway to the window when she heard someone shouting.

  "Cathy! Cathy! Get out. The garage is on fire!"

  It took a moment for the words to register. Fire in the garage below her! Cathy snatched the little framed photo of her parents from her bedside table and slid it into the pocket of her robe. At the door, she reached for the knob, then pulled her hand back with a shriek, bringing it to her lips to soothe the burn. Now what? These stairs were the only real way out. Get out a window? Knot bed sheets together and shinny down them? Would they hold? What if she fell and broke an arm or a leg? There seemed to be no other choice.

  She pulled the top sheet offher bed, but before she could make use of it, the floor shook beneath her and a thunderous blast assaulted her eardrums. Something hard struck the back of her head, and she descended into silent darkness.

  "I think she's coming around."

  Cathy had been under general anesthesia only once in her life: a tonsillectomy when she was six years old. She recalled the sensations as she woke up. The strangeness of moving slowly from a dark tunnel into the light. Her confusion as she tried to make sense of the images hitting her retina. She had that same feeling now. Blurred forms hovered over her, their voices reverberating like sound at a rock concert. Only this time, like a velvet curtain, the smell of smoke permeated the air.

  "Doctor, can you talk?" She squinted her eyes and made out the face of Joe Elam, concern lining his already wrinkled face. His wife, Bess, stood beside him.

  "I-" Cathy shook her head, trying to clear it as she'd seen athletes do after "having their bell rung." The motion set offa pounding in her head like men with hammers holding a convention inside her skull.

  "Just lay back." Bess Elam's voice was calm. No panic there. This was a mother and grandmother, used to taking care of bumps, bruises, and any other catastrophe that came along.

  Cathy relaxed back onto the grass and tried to remember how she'd gotten here. Then it came to her. A fire. Then an explosion. Her apartment! Everything she'd accumulated in the past ten years was in there. Granted, most of it was still in boxes, but it was precious to her. Insurance couldn't replace the memories some of those boxes held.

  "Doc, open your eyes." She forced her lids to respond and looked into the face of Mark, the emergency medical technician.

  "Mark-" She choked and gagged. Someone held a bottle to her lips, and she sipped water. "We've got to stop meeting this way."

  "Yeah." His laugh was forced. "Doc, let me check you over. You got knocked on the head pretty good."

  "How long was I out?"

  "They tell me it was only a few minutes. But I still need to go through the routine."

  She lay still as he took her blood pressure and pulse, then shined a light into her eyes. His fingers probed the back of her skull, setting offan encore by the men with hammers.

  After he'd finished his examination, she asked, "So, do I get a clean bill of health?"

  Mark sat back on his heels. "You ought to go to the ER and let a real doctor check you. Maybe get a CT scan. But best guess? You'll be okay except for a headache."

  "Nothing new for me. Thanks, Mark. Can you help me sit up?"

  Willing hands helped her to a sitting position. "Now let me try to stand."

  Mark and Joe Elam steadied her so that her legs scarcely bore any weight. She swayed for a few seconds, then said, "Okay, let me try it without your support."

  "Doc, we really need to take you to the ER," Mark said.

  She knew she was being stubborn-a doctor trying to treat herself-but she asserted her independence anyway."I promise I'll let Joe drive me there, but I've had enough ambulance rides this month."

  She gritted her teeth against the pain that bored into the back of her head when she turned to look around her. A fire engine idled at the curb, its red and white strobes alternately painting the leaves of a nearby live oak. Two firemen coiled and stowed lengths of hose that looked like huge, puttycolored snakes. In addition to the Elams, she recognized several neighbors.

  Cathy turned with dread toward the little garage apartment that had been her home the past two months. She expected to see nothing but a mound of rubble and ashes. Instead, although the steps were badly charred and one side of the garage and her apartment above it were covered with smoke and soot, the framework seemed intact. The garage door stood open, and the Elam's car sat in the driveway. Shadows obscured the interior of the garage, but she could make out puddles of water on the floor.

  "What happened?" Cathy asked.

  Bess Elam answered. "I was in the kitchen for a snack when I saw somebody moving around over here near the foot of the stairs. I knew you were in for the night, so I was suspicious. Then I saw a flicker- like a match or a lighter- and then some flames. I yelled to Joe and he called 911. By the time we got outside, whoever I'd seen was gone and the corner of the garage was on fire."

  Cathy rubbed the back of her head. "I remember an explosion. Did your car blow up?"

  "We were afraid the car's gas tank would go, so I had Joe run in and back it out. I started uncoiling our garden hose to fight the fire when, I guess, the fire reached some cans of paint we had stored in the garage. Anyway, they exploded. As best we can figure, the force of that blast rocked the floor of your apartment, making you fall back and hit your head. The firemen were here by then. One of them fought his way up the stairs through the flames and carried you down here. End of story."

  Cathy knew better. She was pretty sure that this wasn't the end of the story. It was just another chapter. And she hoped it didn't get any worse before she could bring it to an end.

  13

  Since the fire chief pronounced the stairway to her apartment unsafe, Joe Elam used a tall ladder to climb up and pack a suitcase with Cathy's list of things she needed for the next day or so. Cathy stood at the foot of the ruined stairway and wondered what else could possibly happen? If this was an attempt to kill her, how much worse could it get? The obvious answer was that they could succeed.

  Cathy spent the rest of the night curled up on the Elam's couch, waking at every sound. The next morning, she stepped out of the front door, thankful that her car had been parked at the curb, safely out of danger. She paused at the end of the sidewalk, her keys in hand, and took stock of her situation. The smell of smoke permeated
the blouse, slacks, and jacket she wore. Nothing she could do about that today, but as soon as she could, she needed to have all her clothes cleaned. Would insurance pay for that? She made a mental note to call her agent when she got to the office. More paperwork, more hassles, more problems.

  Before Cathy could open the door of her car, Will Kennedy's pickup screeched to a stop behind her and he jumped out. He covered the ground between them in a few quick strides, and the hug he gave her threatened to crack her ribs. "Cathy, are you all right? I just heard this morning about the fire."

  "I'm okay, I guess. Just a few bumps and bruises." She went on to explain what had happened. "The Fire Chief agrees with the Elams that the fire was deliberately set. He thinks someone soaked the corner of the garage and the stairs leading to my apartment with gasoline, then lit it and ran. I'm lucky Bess saw him and got help as quickly as she did."

  "Do you plan to stay with the Elams for now?"

  She'd wrestled with that one all night. "Joe and Bess made that offer, but their house is so small we'd be tripping over each other. Besides, it will be at least a couple of days before my back unkinks from one night on their couch. I don't know if insurance will cover the cost of a hotel."

  "I have a better idea. Why don't you move in with my folks? They have a spare bedroom-my old room, matter of fact-and I know they'd love to have you."

  The idea of staying with Pastor and Mrs. Kennedy appealed to her. Truthfully, Cathy had been deeply touched by their kindness. It was like having a family again. On the other hand, she wondered if by moving in she'd open herself up to a "hard sell" about coming back to the church.

  It was as though Will read her mind. "In case you're wondering, Dad and Mom won't pressure you about where you are with God. They'll pray for you, that's all. Right now we all want you to be comfortable

  … and safe."

  Cathy looked at her watch. "Will, I need to talk with you about something I learned yesterday, but right now I have to get to the office. I have patients to see right up to the close of the day, which, considering the shape of my bank account, is a good thing. But having all this to deal with will keep me tied up all day. I hoped we could get together this evening."She looked toward the smoke-stained walls of her little apartment where Joe and two of his friends were already at work building a new stairway. "I can't cook for you, but can we still have dinner?"