He abruptly reigned himself in.
God, how could he be so infatuated with a woman and trust her so little? He felt disgusted by his own paranoia. He spent the next few minutes trying to reassure himself that the woman who had given herself to him so completely a few hours before couldn't be capable of such treachery. The woman whose dream of restoring a normal life to the Ralph Coady's of the world burned as fiercely as his own.
The uniformed officer seemed to be winding up.
". . . your statements will be kept confidential, and you may call me later to set up a private meeting away from the hospital . . ."
He sidled up for a closer look at the picture she was holding and saw a broad-faced man who seemed a complete stranger to him. "Who is this guy?" he whispered to the woman standing next to him.
"Didn't you see the morning news?"
"No, I was . . ." The image of Francesca bent over him, urging, offering herself to be entered, ran through him like a flash fire.
"That's who the police are looking for. He's the one they think killed doctors Hamlin and Lockman."
"Really?" he asked, still reasonably sure he'd never seen the person before. "What's his name?"
"Nobody knows. That's why they circulated the composite, in case anyone here might recognize him."
"Any luck?"
"Not so far. At least nobody here can pinpoint him."
Norris continued to stare at the suspect's features. As he concentrated on the man's eyes, some familiar stirrings at the base of his skull tried to tell him something but failed to congeal into anything specific that he could decipher.
"Do you recognize him?" the nurse asked.
"No, I don't think so. For a second there I thought he looked familiar, but I must be wrong. How did the police get this likeness anyway?"
"Boy, you really are out of the rumor loop. He's the one who tried to slip an IV dose of something to Dr. Kathleen Sullivan in ICU last night."
Norris felt ice run up his spine. "What?"
"Yeah, and they also are pretty sure he's the one who attacked Dr. Steele in medical records."
"Steele?"
"Right. He was going through charts to see if he could find out what it is that Hamlin and Lockman did to Dr. Sullivan."
"I see," he said, trying to appear simply as curious as any other innocent bystander. Inside he was panicking— not just about Steele being well on his way to finding him out, but because he had absolutely no idea what was going on. 10:30 a.m.
"Dr. Sullivan, I'm Dr. Adele Blaine. Josephine O'Brien told me about your case."
Kathleen snapped her eyes open. The diminutive, trim woman standing at the foot of the bed ran counter to what she'd been expecting, though she wasn't too clear what that had been. Her being African-American hadn't anything to do with her surprise. It was, perhaps, more the woman's lack of size. Kathleen had been expecting someone big. Even forbidding? Instead the woman's short, coiffed dark hair, beige business suit under a loose-fitting lab coat, and triple strands of gold around her neck made her appear as an expensive mahogany figurine half-covered by a white drop cloth. "Thank you for coming . . . Dr. Blaine.""Did Richard also recommend me?"
"Ah, well, he said . . . you were ... an excellent choice . . . when I asked him. . . . The poor man's . . . been so distracted ... by all that's happened. ... I don't think he ... even thought far enough ahead ... to consider rehab. . . . Everyone, including him . . . seems surprised . . . that I'm going to be ready . . . for it so soon. ... I think he's . . . mainly relieved . . . I'll be getting out of here . . . and to someplace safe . . . as quickly as possible."
In reality Richard had railed about her going. "You could still be a target if she's involved and finds you sneaking into her files on Hamlin's patients."
"The same . . . goes for you . . . Mr. Chart Snooper," she'd fired back. "The woman . . . won't buy . . . your 'I'm doing ... an audit' line."
McKnight had settled the problem by promising a policewoman would be at Kathleen's side day and night. "And as an officer of the law, I'm certainly not going to recommend anyone break into medical files," he cautioned them both. "But people chat— secretaries, nurses, orderlies, therapists. Whoever works there might let something slip, Dr. Sullivan, with your encouragement. We could end up knowing more about what's going on than we do now. You said yourself, Richard, we can't go in there with sirens blaring and expect to learn anything."Kathleen had liked how McKnight called Richard by his first name like a brother giving advice, rather than a cop giving orders.
After that Richard hadn't so much agreed as run out of arguments. He did suggest they recruit Jo O'Brien to set it up. "Blaine has a habit of dropping by ER and doing wallet biopsies, looking for affluent patients in need of her services. It borders on ambulance chasing. A word from a veteran nurse," he explained, "suggesting Kathleen as a prospective client wouldn't seem out of the ordinary. Even if Blaine suspects we're on to her or is nervous about you coming to the center, she won't be likely to refuse. Saying no in the face of trying to scrounge up new business would so fly in the face of her usual eagerness to take on well-off, high-profile people, it would seem too odd, suspicious even."
Now, Blaine pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. "Jo told me about the attacks on you and Dr. Steele last night. How horrible!"
Her alarm seemed genuine enough, Kathleen thought. But there was a practiced opacity to her gaze, the kind that kept outsiders from peering in. She also noticed the slightest delay in Kathleen's reply, the instant it took for her fast mind to calculate a safe response. She was studying Kathleen as carefully as Kathleen was studying her. "Yes, it was hideous. ... I don't even want ... to think about it right now. . . . Thank you for . . . seeing me ... so quickly. . . . As you can understand . . . I'm eager to learn . . . what I can still do."
"Of course you are, honey."
The ridges of Blaine's rather guarded expression smoothed themselves out a little, and her eyes became less guarded, revealing the usual transparent sadness most older physicians carry from having witnessed so much loss and suffering. Were the ruins of something personal there as well, Kathleen wondered. "Believe me," Blaine continued, "I know how sandbagged you must feel. Strokes are so nasty. They rob you of so much, especially when you're young. But I've looked at your file, and trust me, you've already shown remarkable progress."
Kathleen felt a flash of genuine anger.
"Really? . . . Wiggling my toes . . . flapping my hands ... is progress? Maybe ... in your book . . . but not in mine."
The sadness in Blaine's eyes deepened. "You're right, girl. It's tough."
"Tough doesn't . . . begin to cut it . . . and I'm tired ... of people telling me ... they 'know' how it is. . . . Hell ... I pee in a bag . . . and shit in a pan. . . . You don't. . . . These fingers," she motioned with her left hand, curling it into a claw, "once capable of. . . the most delicate work . . . under a microscope . . . couldn't manipulate ... a knife and fork. ... I bet you've . . . got a dinner date tonight. ... I sure as hell haven't. . . . Worst of all . . . I look at the man I love . . . and wonder if the best . . . I'll ever offer him again ... as a woman ... is to be his inflatable doll—"
"Dr. Sullivan," interrupted Blaine, standing up and bending close enough to grasp Kathleen's face firmly between her hands. There was nothing tender about the grip, and, mingled with the scent of a very tasteful perfume, a sour whiff of stale alcohol came off her breath. "Listen, honey. I'm not going to make promises I can't keep, but you've every hope of feeding yourself, having sex, and maybe even walking again. But it'll take work, unbelievable patience, and time." She let go and took both Kathleen's hands in hers. "Squeeze my fingers."
"What's the point? . . . The nurses . . . are asking me ... to do that ... all the time. . . . My grip's pathetic."
"Squeeze!"
She obliged.
"Hang tight!"
Blaine abruptly pulled the still-paralyzed arms up in the air. The movement sent the flexor muscles flying
into spasm, curling Kathleen's fingers, wrists, and elbows in on themselves with a contraction so powerful it lifted her trunk right off the bed and caused Blaine to stagger trying to support the weight."Okay, honey, now try and relax it out," Blaine said, leaning forward and gently lowering Kathleen back down by carefully reextending her arms. "See?" she added once the limbs had loosened up. "There's no problem with your strength, just your control. That will improve by the day. If the hard wiring is still there, I could have you sitting by three weeks and walking by twelve."
Kathleen felt astonished by what Blaine's brutal maneuver had elicited from her body, then resentment at being treated so roughly. Stunned, yet not sure whether to be angry, all at once she became genuinely intrigued by what this severe woman could do for her. The bold prediction, sitting by three, walking by twelve, had sounded a bugle cry of hope.
"Will you work . . . with me . . . take me as a patient?" she finally said.
Immediately the glaze came over Blaine's eyes again, and a beat— a fraction of a second— passed between them, not enough even to be noticed by anyone not paying particular attention. "Of course I will, Dr. Sullivan. Don't worry about a thing," she replied, her voice smooth as cold glass. "I'll make all the arrangements. We'll aim to make the transfer in forty-eight hours, as long as all continues to go well here."
"Forty-eight hours," said Kathleen, immediately alarmed. She'd been expecting this would happen sometime next week."Sure. Your 02 sat is ninety-five percent. They'll have you weaned off this wheeze box by then. And my nursing staff are good as any here, better even. I hire only veterans who can handle patients directly from ICU so as to start therapy as soon as possible. Believe me, every day you don't use a muscle, it takes twice as long to get it back." She gave Kathleen a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "And for starters, this morning I'm going to order the nurses to begin putting you in a chair ten minutes at a time, safely harnessed of course, to check out how your trunk muscles are coming."
Remarkable woman, thought Kathleen, and hard to read. But she liked her, instinctively . . . even though she knew she shouldn't.
"Dr. Blaine . . . you're a very tough cookie . . . but a good one."
Blaine chuckled, a rich throaty sound of pure pleasure. "You got that right, honey; I'm not just good. I am the best!"
No hesitation in her reply this time, Kathleen noticed. The hint of candor emboldened her to ask, "And you care . . . don't you?"
"More than you'll ever know."
Kathleen eyed her, and under her steady gaze, something in Adele Blaine seemed to give way. Suddenly she cleared her throat and leaned close.
"I'll tell you why I care so much about rehab," Blaine said.
"Why?"
"Because of my mother."
"Your mother?"
"Because she had a stroke."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"I was only three."
"Look, I—"
"We lived in rural Tennessee. The bastards at the hospital there just shoved her out the door in a wheelchair once it was clear she wasn't going to die. Said she ought to be grateful simply for being alive. The fact she couldn't talk, eat, or walk didn't matter at all to them. I spent so much time with her, I could see her trying to say words, chew her food, even move her legs. I felt sure she could do more, but hadn'ta clue how to help her. But I taught her how to roll her wheelchair."
"Jesus ... I see why . . . you're so committed—"
"No you don't. What could you know about being a poor black woman trying to raise a family—"
"Something ... I think."
"Maybe you do. Well, lady, she used the skills I taught her through the years to finally roll herself in front of a bus."
"Oh, my God." Kathleen felt tears well in her eyes. If only she were able she would hug this "tough," diminutive woman.
"So that's that," Blaine said. "I'll see you in a day or so. Toodle-oo." Her sleek figure cut through the curtains so cleanly they hardly seemed to part.
"You know ... I hope she's innocent," Kathleen confided to Jo O'Brien when the nurse dropped by later to see how the encounter had gone. "She's one strong-minded therapist. . . . And that's what I need. A mean-minded gal . . . like me . . . who'll kick my ass . . . until I can walk, work, and fuck as good as before."Yet she remained uneasy. Why hadn't there been more resistance? she wondered. Blaine's eagerness to get her into the center so quickly wasn't at all what she had expected. And the woman drank, but it wasn't as if she needed a steady hand like a surgeon. More, though, that story about her mother— could it all be a lie? 11:00 a.m. Medical Records Department
"How dare you presume to bad-mouth poor Dr. Hamlin after he helped my father so much. And don't you phone here again. You've got my mother in tears with your talk about digging up her husband and doing an autopsy after all this time."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, I certainly didn't mean to upset—"
"Well what the hell did you expect would be her response, you idiot?"
"I know, I didn't phrase it right—"
"Phrase it right? She's still grieving, for Christ's sake, and out of the blue you tell her maybe Hamlin put something in her husband's brain that killed him. Why, I ought to report you to the hospital. In fact, I will. Bothering widows like this."
"Yes, it was stupid of me, I know; it's just, I'm desperate to find out what he did to a friend of mine—""What's that got to do with us?"
"Can you just tell me if your late father suffered from hypertension?"
"Who's your supervisor?"
"Uh, well, actually I am, in ER, where your father was first seen after both strokes—"
She hung up on him.
Christ! That's all he needed, another complaint to Ingram about him. And this time it would be for frightening a helpless old lady.
He'd been in medical records all morning, seated at the same desk where he'd worked last night, crawling up one blind alley after another.
His previous call hadn't been any more successful, the husband of the woman who'd been DOA also suggesting Richard was straying way beyond the bounds of propriety. But instead of threatening to take his complaint through channels, the man offered to reprimand him using a baseball bat, "if anyone with a shovel so much as goes near my wife's grave." At least, though, he had denied she'd ever had high blood pressure— before demanding to know what business it was of Richard's anyway.
McKnight had warned him that he hadn't much hope of convincing the next of kin to request exhumation orders. "People generally don't like the idea of pulling their dead back up out of the ground and cutting them into pieces," was how the detective had put it.
Richard also had attempted contacting the private physicians of the deceased, but they, too, wouldn't discuss anything, both citing confidentiality.
"Look, doesn't it bother you that there's no explanation of the second bleed?" he said to the physician who had taken care of the woman. "It happened eighteen months after the removal of a congenital malformation, there was no evidence of a second defect being present at the time of the initial surgery, and, according to her husband, she never had hypertension to make her at risk for another hemorrhage."
"Not enough to get sued, it doesn't," the doctor had replied, her voice clipped and impatient. "Besides, out here in the real world, as opposed to ivory towers, we see enough to know bad things just happen sometimes without risk factors to explain them away and help doctors feel better about it. There's more to medicine than trying to tie everything up into tidy little knots for your residents."
The woman's resentment had hummed over the line as Richard scrambled to think of a way to win her cooperation. He could picture her, stranded amidst a waiting room full of patients with too little time to see them all. Then, too, she probably was so far removed from the milieu of academic medicine she felt threatened by anyone from that world who challenged her.
"Nevertheless, Doctor," he'd said, "would you raise the question with her husband for me?" He intended to flatter her into helping b
y playing the university-coddled, hapless person she already thought him to be. "You obviously would know better than me how to handle him. Seems I said all the wrong things and pissed him off."
"Me? You've got to be kidding. He already phoned a few minutes before you did warning that some ER doctor might call. Threatened to redecorate my office with a baseball bat if I said anything that led to anyone disturbing his wife's remains."
So much for his people skills.
Nor had Hamlin's old charts helped any. Even after a few hours going through them, he could no more tell what the neurosurgeon had started doing differently two years ago than he could decipher hieroglyphics.
Should he start phoning all the surviving patients Hamlin had operated on in recent years? Suggest their surgeon, who'd just been murdered, might have put something in their brains that would kill them suddenly? Promise that if they would let him see their charts in rehab, or come in and let him test the hell out of them, he might find what it was in time to save their own lives?
Yeah, right!
Even if he did it— CTing them, MRIing them, reangiograming them, in itself not a harmless procedure, PET scanning them, not to mention scaring them all to death— Jesus, what a mess that would be.
Because testing them blindly without the least idea of what to look for, he might still miss the very thing he was after.
He slammed his list of names and chart numbers down on the table, startling the uniformed policeman positioned just inside the door.
"Is everything all right, Doc?" he called.
"Sorry," said Richard, staring at the smudges left on the paper from the ink they'd used to fingerprint him and listening to the chatter of a half dozen men and women prowling the stacks. They were leaving big splotches of brushed-on dust wherever they went. "Have your technicians had any luck?"
"We got a partial superimposed overtop of yours on the inside handle of the door here. Also there were a few shreds of latex on a seam of that metal cabinet you toppled onto him, so we figure he tore his glove, and didn't realize it in the dark. We may get more if he was feeling his way along the way you were."
Critical Condition Page 20
