Critical Condition

by Peter Clement

  Then he went still. There Hamlin sat, at a table near the front, not the one in the rear nearest his vantage point that he'd insisted on when making the reservation. But there was no mistaking the man's white hair as it bathed in the silver light cast from the flickering images overseeing everything. Crouching in a shooter's position, he slowly brought the rifle to his shoulder and focused its sight on the back of the man's head.

  All at once the heat seemed to suffocate him, and his skin grew damp under his clothing. So the deed was to be done now after all, he thought. He only had to pull the trigger at the precise moment, the chosen scene fast approaching.

  From the beginning he'd accepted that the shot would change his life forever, launching him into a deadly cat and mouse game with the police as he went after the rest. For the e-mail indicting Hamlin contained the names and crimes of others to be taken care of. Even the seed of his targets would be punished, if necessary, for as usual when on a hunt, his network had tracked down their children and provided him with the schools they attended. And if he succeeded, once everyone pieced it all together, he would have opened a whole new front in the war that consumed him. He carefully placed a long twig on the windowsill, then waited without moving a muscle.

  Barbara Stanwyck pulled a gun.

  His own finger tensed on his trigger.

  They fired together.

  Tony Hamlin never saw the surprise on Fred MacMurray's face as Stanwyck put a bullet in him.

  Instead he fell sideways, his head flopping onto the shoulder of a woman at a table beside his.

  At first she must have thought he was drunk, until she saw that the back of his skull was missing.

  Chapter 7

  Tuesday Morning, June 26

  The killing made front-page news in New York's three major papers.

  PROMINENT NEUROSURGEON SHOT BY SNIPER IN BRYANT PARK.

  UNKNOWN SHOOTER BLOWS OUT SPECIALIST'S BRAINS.

  MURDER AT THE MOVIES!

  No one knew any reason for the man to have been targeted by anyone. His wife didn't even know why he'd been there. "He hated the cinema," she said to the media. "The last picture show he ever took me to was The Sting back in the seventies." When asked to comment on reports that he'd told a waiter he was waiting for someone, the woman looked bewildered.

  The nurses had their own ideas.

  "He was probably meeting one of his residents— female of course," one nurse said, expressing the commonly held view. Some unloaded their disapproval on Rachael Jorgenson, treating her to cocked eyebrows and icy sneers.

  She in turn, armored with the righteousness of what she'd convinced herself was grief for her lover, refused to feel shame. Defiantly she went about her business, head erect, posture rigid, acid tongue at the ready to enforce a pyramid of power in which even she, a resident, outranked nurses. Under ordinary circumstances they would have let experience teach her the reality of the teaching hospital's food chain— that it's nurses who can save a resident's ass, or bust it, depending on how the doctor in training wheels wants to play the game. She, however, got their backs up, and smirks graduated to snickers whenever she walked onto a ward.

  But nobody had any reason to call the police.

  Except one.

  "If you don't . . . get me . . . the detective . . . I'll ask Lisa. . . . She . . . Chet . . . will help me . . . find McKnight."

  In order for her to speak Richard had to cover the tracheal tube sticking out the front of her neck with a small rubber pad. "It redirects expelled air up through the vocal cords, allowing you to say short phrases," he'd explained to her. Between each fragment of speech he would remove the cover, she'd ponderously inhale the next lungful, and out would come the next few words. Watching her pulse and pressure creep up on the monitors, he grew tense. She was in no condition to meet with an NYPD homicide detective. "Kathleen, you're not up to it."

  "Liar," she whispered.

  "No! Your throat's been too traumatized for the kind of grilling that would turn into." He had listened to her painstakingly tell how Hamlin had touched her. She'd embellished nothing, whispering her account a detail at a time in cold, clinical terms that burned away all his doubts and branded images of what she'd endured into his mind's eye. When she finished he could hardly control his rage, and had to grip the side rail of her bed to keep his hands from trembling.

  "I don't . . . believe you!"

  She took in a breath.

  "You still think . . ."

  She drew in another.

  ". . . I hallucinated . . ."Her next effort was even more laborious.

  ". . . he put something ... in my brain."

  He swallowed twice, then a third time. "I swear that's not true. And for what he did to you I'd have killed him myself if he had walked in here this morning. All I'm saying is let me handle the police."

  "What you're saying ... is you believe ... he diddled me . . . and not the rest."

  He eyed the monitors again. Her vitals revved up a few notches more. "Kathleen, I believe you saw and heard what you say. But what does it prove? That part of the story is so bizarre no one else, including the police, are liable to think it credible. Yet it won't stop them from bombarding you with questions there are no answers to. Which is why I should be the one to deal with them."

  "I'll convince McKnight . . . that it's true."

  He watched her vitals spurt higher still. Better he just stop talking. Every time he opened his mouth she got more agitated.

  Her eyes watered over. ". . . Get out . . .""Kathleen . . ." His voice trailed off into another grotesque silence and he sank back in his chair, taking the rubber pad with him. He felt disgusted with himself, able to fix airways, insert IVs, even jump-start a heart, but incompetent at regaining her trust.

  She curled her hands into fists where they lay. Unable to move her wrists or arms at all, she was totally dependent on him to cover her trachea for her. Her frustration raged at him through her eyes, until once more he leaned forward and closed the opening in her airway, bestowing on her the power to say, "Go to hell!"

  He removed the small rubber pad he used as a seal only long enough for her to take yet another breath. But clearly the effort was starting to exhaust her, and he knew she wouldn't be able to go without the respirator much longer. Her own breathing muscles, though beginning to function, were still far too weak to sustain her. When she did talk, her pronunciation was thick and slurred, the result of a lingering paralysis in the right half of her tongue and the rest of her mouth. It broke his heart to hear her once-lilting voice hobbled. Earlier this morning he'd mustered an appropriate show of enthusiastic delight at her first words and what, clinically speaking, was deemed remarkable progress considering she'd started with zero function of anything except her eyes. Privately he found it such a puny advance he couldn't stop the physician in him from taking inventory of her chances for ever talking normally again. They were dismal. Nevertheless he quickly replaced the pad on the opening, not wanting her to feel anymore impeded than she already did.

  "I want McKnight!"

  She took a quick short gasp, and started to sob. A succession of loud, blowing noises full of gurgling came out the tracheostomy site as secretions from her lung pooled in her airway. Without suction, he knew, she could drown in her own juices.

  Jesus Christ! he thought, reaching for the small plastic catheter that hung on the wall. The nurses didn't clear her out nearly often enough as far as he was concerned. Yet they resented it when he did the job himself. Well, tough! Opening the intake valve to activate it, he threaded the tip of the flimsy device down through the much bigger orifice of her tube and into her lungs. The pain and anger he saw in her eyes as he emptied out the accumulated fluid nearly stopped him. "Hold on, just a few seconds more, Kathleen," he kept saying as he worked. "But it's got to be done." Feeling guilty about already having upset her so much, he added, "I'll get you McKnight. I promise."

  When he finished, her face and lips were turning a dusky gray from a la
ck of oxygen. He quickly reconnected her to the respirator and reinflated the seal around her tube to block any leaks. Cutting off the flow of air out her larynx rendered her silent again. Her skin quickly pinked up, but she wouldn't look at him, keeping her lids clamped shut. Nor would she respond to yes and no questions by squeezing his hand the appropriate number of times. When he inserted his fingers into hers, she feebly opened her grip, rejecting him.

  "I told you I'd get McKnight," he said, feeling more helpless than ever. The man would unquestionably pay very close attention to anything she told him. Whether he believed her, would be another matter. "I'll phone him from my office. And while we're waiting for him, I'm going to radiology and do some serious damage to Lockman if he doesn't tell me what they did to you—"

  The curtains behind him parted and Gordon Ingram swept into the cubicle.

  "Morning, Richard. Some news about Hamlin, eh? I guess we know why the poor bugger didn't show up last night." He went right to Kathleen's side.

  Her eyes flew open,

  "Hello, Dr. Sullivan. I'm the fellow responsible for this little doohickey in your neck. Thought I better check my handiwork." He quickly undid the pads of dressing surrounding the tube and exposed a thin line of stitches where he'd repaired Jorgenson's hatchet job. Though the area appeared bruised and a little inflamed, Richard thought it looked surprisingly good. "You did a hell of a repair, Gordon."

  "Shouldn't be much of a scar. Nothing an expensive diamond necklace won't cover up."

  Kathleen gave them both a who is this man stare.

  Ingram smiled and disconnected the respirator. "Let's hear what you've got to say, Dr. Sullivan. Shall we send Richard shopping, big-time?" Releasing the seal and adjusting her tube so she could once again speak, he added, "I know a terrific jewelry store on Fifth Avenue."

  "You did . . . my neck?"

  "Guilty as charged."

  "What happened ... to Dr. Jorgenson?"

  "Richard didn't tell you? She needed a little help," he said.

  "Will there . . . really be a scar?"

  "In truth, nothing too noticeable," he whispered. "But let's tell him to start looking for a forty-carat stone, maybe call Elizabeth Taylor."

  Kathleen's eyes twinkled. "We're having ... a fight."

  "Are you now? Well that sounds healthy. I'll leave you to it."

  "Are you . . . my new doctor?"

  "No, the neuro people will take care of you still. But I'll be your tracheotomy doctor if you like."

  "I'd like."

  "Good. Well, happy battles."

  And he was gone.

  So was the icy silence.

  "I like him," said Kathleen when Richard had again covered her airway.

  "Me, too."

  "Will I really . . . need a . . . necklace?"

  "Absolutely."

  A half hour later he'd contacted Lockman's secretary.

  "That man," she said, issuing a sigh that nearly fried the telephone line. "Not only has he not come in today, I can't reach him at home either."

  "Well, when he shows up, tell him Richard Steele called, and to phone me right away." If he knows what's good for him, he nearly added.

  "But Dr. Sullivan, it's not my case," said the giant ebony-skinned detective at her bedside.

  She gave his hand a squeeze. How small her own fingers looked in his massive palm. She and Richard had met him over a year ago, during the bioterrorist attack on New York City and a dozen southern states they had tried to thwart. Although the country was still dealing with the consequences of the assault, the one thing she knew she had with this tough skeptical cop as a result of that previous escapade was credibility. His appearance within hours of being sent for proved just how quickly she could get his attention.

  "But first let me say how sorry I was to read about your stroke," he continued. "They had a mighty fine article on you in the Times a few days after it happened."

  Lisa had read it to her only last week. "Sounded too much . . . like an obituary . . . for my taste," she whispered. "And thank you . . . for coming." Richard stood opposite the detective, humble as a manservant, covering and uncovering the opening in her throat, enabling her to speak. "I'll have ... to be brief."

  "Then I'm ready to hear what you have to say. Dr. Steele told me you have information that you think might have a bearing on the murder of Dr. Tony Hamlin. I also understand he was the neurosurgeon who operated on you, is that correct?"

  She stole a glance at Richard, wondering if he'd already editorialized on what she had to say, undermining it as drug-induced ramblings. But he looked her right in the eye, gave a wan smile, and she knew he hadn't interfered. "Yes . . . my first night here ... he infused something . . . into my brain . . . intravenously . . . and he didn't want. . . anyone to know. . . . He's done it before ... to other patients. . . . Some must have died. . . . His radiologist said . . . they'd face homicide charges ... if Richard found out."

  "Me?" said Richard. He hadn't heard that part of the story before. "What did I have to do with it?"

  "They were arguing . . . feared you'd somehow . . . realize what they'd done . .. from DOAs in ER."

  "DOAs? But I haven't noticed a rash of patients brought in dead on arrival."

  "He said . . . 'more DOAs'. . . . Most . . . are yet to come ... I think."

  "You didn't know about any of this?" said McKnight, glancing over to Richard, incredulous furrows forming lateral swells across his brow.

  "Well, not specifically—"

  "Not specifically?" The folds deepened toward outright dismay. "For starters, I would have thought the mere mention they'd done something not aboveboard to Dr. Sullivan here would have had you on the warpath. Yet you did nothing?"

  "Hey! Morphine, or even a stint in ICU can cause paranoia," Richard said defensively.

  McKnight shook his head at him. "I suggest you start checking your records on DOAs, Doc, especially any with Hamlin's name on them." Retrieving a pen andnotepad from the breast pocket of his suit, he then turned and leaned close to her. "Now, what's this radiologist's name?"

  Before answering she savored the pained expression that had slid across Richard's face at the detective's rebuke. Good, she thought, and would have added an ever so sweet / told you so smile had she the muscles for it. "Matt Lockman. . . . And he implied . . . others are involved."

  "Did he say who?"

  "No."

  She felt Richard's hand at her neck tense, and glanced at his face in time to see it light up as if he'd been caught in a camera flash. Whatever had crossed his mind he kept to himself.

  "He also . . . threatened . . . he'd do anything ... to keep Richard . . . from telling . . . the police."

  "He threatened Dr. Steele?"

  "Said he'd silence . . . him and anyone else . . . who might talk."

  "My God," said McKnight, getting to his feet with remarkable quickness for such a large man. "I want to speak with this guy, tonight. What a lead! The people working the case were beginning to think it had to be some sicko picking off a random target."

  "You think Lockman shot Hamlin?" Richard asked.

  McKnight looked at him as if he were an idiot. "I think the man's got a lot of explaining to do, don't you? I also think you'd like to ask him a few questions yourself, no?"

  "You've got that part right. In fact, I already tried to reach him today. He didn't come into work, and wasn't answering his phone. His secretary was supposed to have him call me soon as she reached him."

  The detective turned back to her and took her hand, his dark eyes narrowing as if he'd already drawn a bead on the ratlike radiologist without even having seen him yet. "Whatever he tells us, Dr. Sullivan, I'll bring you some answers, I promise. And thanks for the information. You're an amazing woman." He returned her weak grip with an affectionate squeeze.

  "There's more," she said.

  "Oh?"

  "Monday . . . eight nights ago . . . Hamlin fondled me. ... I think ... he did it ... to make me . . . discredit
myself. . . make anything else I said . . . seem crazy. .. from sedation . . . and morphine."

  McKnight swung around to face Richard. "She told you this, and you didn't believe her?"

  Richard's expression remained still, his mouth grim and his face growing crimson. "Not at first. But I do now." She thought she saw his hands, usually so rock steady, tremble slightly as he began reconnecting her to the respirator, signaling that the interview was over. He brought his lips up to her ear. "I'm so sorry," she heard him say, his voice shaking, and he brushed her temple with a kiss. She saw as sad a look as she ever wanted to see in those eyes that already had known far too much pain. "I'm so sorry," he said again, grabbing her hands and caressing them with his mouth.

  McKnight discretely looked away. Then the two men strode from the cubicle.

  My avenging angels, she thought. Lockman still wasn't anywhere to be found in the radiology department. Those who were there working late said that they hadn't seen him all day. When Richard reached the hospital switchboard to ring his home number, he got a busy signal. A check with the phone company revealed the receiver was off the hook.

  "Do you know where he lives?" McKnight asked.

  "I can find out," said Richard, leading the way to his office in ER. Rifling through his hopelessly disorganized drawers and a shelf, he found a copy of the staff directory.

  McKnight gave an appreciative whistle when he saw the address. "That part of Long Island is pretty posh," he said, copying it down. "I've got a big bust coming down tonight and have to get back on duty, but I'll radio this in to the detectives who are on the Hamlin case. They'll want to talk with the guy for sure, maybe even tonight. Care to tag along?"

  "Wouldn't miss it for the world," he said, imagining having Matt Lockman in his clutches for a few hours before the police got to him.

  "They'll need time to liaise with the Long Island precinct to arrange proper backup for the visit. I'll give them your cellular. They'll phone you when they're ready."