Until recently, Oceanside had grappled with a fairly large drug and vagrant problem. Over the past two years, a concerted effort to turn things around by Mayor Davidson and the chief of police had made a big difference. The cops had successfully reversed the trajectory of the drug and homeless population and the mayor was happy because he got re-elected.
Riding in their dark gray Toyota Camry along the shoreline, McQ and Blade were rerouted by the police dispatcher to head across town to the west side.
‘This is coming directly from the chief,’ said the voice on the radio. ‘Get over to Oceanside Manor right away. Possible rape.’
‘Is Oceanside Manor part of the hospital?’ McQ asked the dispatcher.
‘It’s the long-term care annex adjacent to Oceanside Medical Center. It’s a separate building for brain injuries.’
‘Copy that,’ said McQ, signing off on the radio.
‘Still glad you came to South Florida?’ said McQ, while rolling down his window to put his siren light on the roof. Cars moved out of their way as the sound from the siren pierced the air and their car picked up speed as it headed towards a crosstown street. ‘Well, are you?’ asked McQ again.
‘Haven’t decided yet,’ said Blade.
‘You’ve been here for six months. What’s not to like? You gotta admit it’s beautiful here.’
‘I might need a couple of years to make up my mind.’
‘C’mon, Anita, look at that beach, all that white sand and blue green water.’
Blade looked out of the passenger window at the sparkling blue ocean. Happy tourists carrying chairs and umbrellas scurried along the ocean promenade enjoying the eternal sunshine. Tons of strollers, some containing babies, more containing dogs, created an odd kind of parade that included skaters, walkers, runners and bikers and the occasional Jehovah’s Witness.
‘What’s not to like about Oceanside?’ said McQ with a smile. ‘Sure beats the cold winters of upstate New York. If I had to live through one more blizzard, or shovel one more walk, I would have killed Marie or more likely, she would have killed me. The cold weather up north didn’t agree with either of us anymore. Must be getting old.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Look out your window,’ said McQ. ‘What do you see? Happy faces. Everyone here is happy.’
‘Everyone here is white.’
‘You got a problem with white people, Anita,’ he said, poking her in the shoulder, making her grin.
‘It’s just that we had a teensy bit more diversity in Atlanta, that’s all I’m saying,’ said Blade, laying on her childhood South Carolina drawl as she often did to make a point. ‘All I can say is, they ain’t having no Kwanzaa celebrations in downtown Oceanside.’
‘True. Let’s see what you and I can do to shift that paradigm.’
‘You’re on, my friend.’
The unmarked car sped west down the main thoroughfare, Harbor Avenue, a street filled with restaurants, shops and throngs of partying tourists visibly thrilled to be in the warm weather.
‘Look at ’em all,’ said McQ, pointing to all the visitors as they sped by them. ‘They think they’ve died and gone to heaven. They’re all smiling because they think they’re in paradise.’
‘They’re all smiling cause half of ’em started drinking at breakfast,’ said Blade with a smirk.
11
Detectives Blalock and McQuillan walked through the front entrance of Oceanside Manor and gave their names to the receptionist. Moments later they were met by a young woman who said she worked in the public relations department.
‘Is this facility affiliated with the hospital next door?’ asked McQuillan.
‘We are an adjunct to the hospital. Our facility is strictly for brain trauma,’ she explained. ‘We provide palliative care and the best possible quality of life for our patients but if they are in here, they will not recover. Our job is to keep them comfortable.’
‘Why are most of them in here?’ asked Blade.
‘We have a variety of traumatic brain injuries, coma and even some cases of severe dementia,’ said the PR lady as she led the two detectives to Angela Crawford’s office in the administrative wing.
‘This is a depressing place,’ whispered Blade to her partner as they followed the young woman through the dismal yellow halls. ‘Nobody here gets better.’
Angela Crawford along with Oceanside Manor’s attorney and Head Nurse Lourdes Castro were waiting for them when the detectives arrived. Within a few minutes, the two detectives were briefed on everything that had transpired.
‘Let me get this straight. You’re saying that the mother of the baby has been a patient here for the past twelve years?’ asked McQ.
‘More or less,’ said Angela.
‘And, she’s been in a non-responsive coma the entire time?’ asked McQ.
‘The whole time. Almost twelve years ago Eliza Stern’s entire family, which included her mother, father and identical twin sister were in a terrible car accident with a drunken driver on the Florida Turnpike. Everyone else was killed but, miraculously, little Eliza survived but never regained consciousness. She was sent here from Boca Point Regional when no more could be done for her. The family’s estate and insurance cover the costs.’
‘Any chance she’ll wake up?’ asked McQ.
‘I’m not a neurologist, but from what they tell me, there’s no possibility,’ said Angela. ‘For every additional day someone remains in a coma, the odds of them recovering become less likely. It has to do with generating neuron connections. Once that ability is lost, it’s almost impossible to bring them back. From what I recall from Eliza’s file, she had some pretty serious head trauma. According to the notes from when she was admitted, even if she had regained consciousness, they didn’t have much hope for any meaningful functioning. If she had woken up, she would have had the developmental abilities of a six-month-old or less.’
‘How is she now, after giving birth? Any change in her condition?’ asked Blade.
‘She’s the same. There were no complications. Dr. Horowitz, one of our staff physicians, thoroughly examined Eliza,’ said Angela. ‘No unusual bleeding or residual problems from the birth, other than her milk coming in, which we’re addressing with hot compresses.’
‘None of the doctors or nurses who attend to Ms. Stern noticed she was pregnant?’ asked Blade, squinting her eyes and tilting her head to the side.
‘That seems to be everyone’s overarching question. Lourdes, that’s your floor, why don’t you take this question?’ Angela asked, turning her attention to the head nurse.
‘I’m embarrassed to say it, but no one noticed,’ said Lourdes. ‘I mainly supervise. I don’t do much with the patients other than to check their vitals occasionally, make sure their tubes and medications are in order. It’s usually the aides who change their gowns and bedding, give the sponge baths or roll them to prevent bed sores.’
‘How often is she seen by a doctor or a nurse?’ asked Blade.
‘A nurse will typically check the charts and look in on each patient at some point during their shift. Feeding tubes, catheters, heart monitors et cetera, will be evaluated to make sure everything is operating properly,’ said Angela.
‘What about the doctors? How often do they come around and examine patients?’ asked McQ.
‘We’ve got two MDs from Oceanside Medical who care for the patients in that wing—Dr. Steve Horowitz is the primary and George Kantounis fills in when Horowitz isn’t available. Both are general practitioners and have patients over at the hospital and here. Dr. Horowitz sees our population about once a week unless we have a medical problem. If a patient has a health issue the doctors are brought in to address it. Overall, the day-to-day with our patients is primarily with the aides. They’re our first line of defense.’
‘Looks like your first line got ambushed,’ said Blade with a raised eyebrow.
‘We’ll need to talk to all the aides,’ said McQ, making a note in his book.
‘An
d the baby, you said it was a boy,’ said Blade.
‘Yes,’ said Angela, breaking into a smile for the first time since the meeting started. ‘He’s actually a beautiful baby. Quiet, content, cherubic. Maybe it’s because he had such a quiet and sedate womb to develop in. They tell me he hardly cries. I’ve got nurses taking care of him round the clock.’
‘Why did you wait so long to call us?’ asked McQ.
‘It was extremely late when the baby was born, and everyone was exhausted. I needed to alert our board first so it just made sense to wait until the next day,’ said Angela. ‘The crisis was over at that point so I didn’t think it mattered.’
‘I see,’ said McQ, making a note. ‘We’re going to need all your records.’
‘Detectives, for obvious reasons, this whole awful thing needs to be resolved as fast as possible,’ said Angela in an official tone. ‘I’m afraid because of the HIPAA laws regarding patient confidentiality, our staff will have to vet the records first, before we turn anything over to you. My staff and I have already started going through everything with the hopes of providing you with as much help and data as possible.’
‘How long do you estimate it will take to come up with a comprehensive list?’ asked McQ.
‘Unfortunately, Oceanside Manor is a small facility and we are woefully behind the times when it comes to automation,’ said Angela. ‘Believe it or not, a large part of everything we do is still on paper. This year we were supposed to move everything over to digital but the money wasn’t there.’
‘What about your security cameras? We noticed there were some in the lobby when we entered the building,’ said Blade.
‘They’re only in the lobby at that particular entrance, nowhere else,’ said Angela, shaking her head. ‘We only save footage for a month. We wouldn’t have film going back nine months. Every thirty days it records over itself and the old files are deleted.’
‘How about sign-in logs?’ asked Blade. ‘Does everyone who comes in have to sign in?’
‘They’re supposed to,’ said Angela, biting her lip, ‘but sometimes the person at reception is called away for a few minutes or needs to use a restroom so it’s possible, every once in a while, someone comes in and doesn’t sign in.’
‘What about tradespeople or deliveries?’ asked McQ. ‘Do they have to sign in?’
‘Again, they’re supposed to,’ said Angela. ‘I would guess we have a record for about ninety-eight percent of the people who come into our building. Of course, it’s always possible that a few may have slipped through the cracks.’
‘Now, why is that?’ asked Blade.
‘You might have a group of relatives who come in and one person signs in for all of them and doesn’t put everyone’s name down,’ said Angela. ‘Or an air-conditioning guy who signs in but his assistant doesn’t. There’s a lot of coming and going around here. A lot of deliveries. We get most people but I’m sure we miss a few.’
‘That’s going to be a problem,’ said Blade. ‘Let’s hope the two percent you didn’t record had nothing to do with this situation.’
‘Dr. Crawford,’ said McQ, ‘we’ll need a private room here to conduct interviews. We’ll want to see all your logs, video, employee rosters and shift schedules from the past year. We don’t know much yet, except for one thing—Ms. Stern was raped and we are going to treat this case like a sex crime.’
12
Rape. That was the first time anyone had used that word, and it landed like a grenade in a foxhole. In an uncomfortable silence, everyone in the room looked at each other until Blade broke the spell.
‘The fact is, someone had sex with that poor girl and it was without her consent. Where I’m from, that’s called rape,’ said Blade.
‘Oh my God,’ said Lourdes, making the sign of the cross.
‘Dr. Crawford, you said earlier that by your calculations, Ms. Stern was probably attacked last year sometime between April and June, correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘We’ll need a list of every man who’s come in contact with the mother during that time frame,’ said McQ. ‘Every visitor, tradesman or employee. If there’s a guy who waters your plants, I want a name. If there is a man who pulls weeds out in your parking lot, I want to know who he is. And, I want the names of every male patient.’
‘But, all our male patients have traumatic brain injuries,’ said Angela.
‘I don’t care,’ said McQ. ‘We’re going to check everyone’s DNA. No exceptions.’
‘Won’t that take weeks or months?’ said Angela. ‘We really need to get this wrapped up. I can’t have this black cloud hanging over us for months and months while we wait for DNA results. The longer it takes, the more negative press we’re going to get. There could be lawsuits.’
‘It doesn’t take months anymore, not even weeks,’ said Blade.
‘Technology is a beautiful thing,’ said McQ. ‘Some big city police operations have portable machines about the size of a large desktop printer that do certain DNA checks practically in real time. They can analyze the DNA in a swab and produce a profile on a DNA strand in less than two hours. Prosecutors have been using this kind of machine for about five years and the results are incredible and reliable. Rest assured, DNA—she don’t lie.’
‘In Atlanta, we could run someone’s DNA while we were interrogating them and know if he or she was our perp before we finished the interview,’ said Blade. ‘Of course, those aren’t connected to CODIS yet, the FBI database, but it will be eventually.’
‘Do we have that capability here in Oceanside?’ asked Angela.
‘Not yet,’ said McQ, ‘but we can still get the results pretty quickly in most cases.’
Detective Blalock’s phone buzzed. ‘It’s SVU,’ she said, reading the text message, ‘they want to know if we need a rape kit.’
‘I think that ship has sailed. The attack was too long ago,’ said McQ. ‘Ms. Stern has been bathed and cleaned and delivered a baby. It’s highly unlikely we’d recover anything. Would you agree, Dr. Crawford?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid you’re right.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ said Blade, while texting her response. ‘Dr. Crawford, we’ll also need every male medical staff member’s name including any doctors or nurses that work here from the hospital next door. Don’t forget about the workers in food services, laundry, and housekeeping. No one is off limits.’
‘I’ll give you everything we have,’ said Angela. ‘It may take a little time but I’ll put extra staff on it.’
‘We’ve got time,’ said Blade. ‘Can we see Ms. Stern?’
A few minutes later, Jenny O’Hearn was summoned to escort the two detectives over to 3 West. When the group walked into Eliza’s pale-yellow room, a dozen stuffed animals had been placed strategically around the space making it surprisingly cheery. In the hospital bed, twenty-one-year-old Eliza Stern lay silently with various tubes and electrodes attached to different parts of her body. An empty crib was positioned next to the bed.
‘Look at that girl,’ said McQ, walking over to Eliza’s bed and looking down at her. ‘She’s not much younger than my own daughter. My kid just got engaged and has her whole life ahead of her. You got cheated, Eliza, didn’t you?’
‘She was only ten when the accident happened,’ said Blade. ‘Poor kid.’
‘It’s so sad,’ said Jenny. ‘She never got to live her life and now this happened.’
‘What kind of an animal would do this?’ said McQ, moving closer to Eliza and leaning over her. ‘I’m making you a promise, Eliza. I’m going to find out who did this to you and put them away for good. You can count on that.’
‘We both will,’ said Blade, putting her hand on her partner’s shoulder. She knew the older cop well. He was tough as nails on the outside but a total creampuff on the inside and he had a huge soft spot for young people and kids.
13
Later that day, Angela led Detectives McQuillan and Blalock to a plain vanilla medium-sized rectangular
conference room. Inside there was a large table and eight chairs.
‘This will be your space for as long as you need it for the investigation,’ said Angela. ‘There’s also a smaller conference room across the hall that you can use as well. You can interview people here and you’ll be able to lock up the rooms when you leave. That way you can store things safely.’ She handed McQ and Blade a set of keys. Then she passed a copy of the spreadsheets Jenny had started to compile.
‘We’ve narrowed down the list of visitors, vendors and others to 284 men that we know entered Oceanside Manor within the designated three-month period last year,’ said Angela. ‘This list includes staff, both medical and non-medical; delivery people, maintenance workers, clergy, visitors and relatives.’
‘It’s a start,’ said McQ, coming to grips with the daunting task in front of him.
‘Do you need us to include the names of our board members?’ asked Angela.
‘If they’re male and over the age of ten, they go on the list,’ said Blade, jumping in before her partner could answer.
‘Ten?’ gasped Angela. She closed her mouth and closed her eyes anticipating the fallout she would have to endure once that tidbit of news hit the board. She was about to leave the room when the detectives asked her to stay for a moment.
‘We have a few other questions,’ said McQ. ‘We’d like to tap into your expertise.’
Angela nodded.
‘You said you’re an OB-GYN by training, correct?’ asked Blade.
‘I used to have an obstetrics practice. But, the hours got too demanding,’ said Angela. ‘Delivering babies is great when you’re in your twenties and thirties, but as you get older, those hours get really tough. I couldn’t handle the sleep deprivation. I thought moving into hospital administration would bring balance into my life. Look at me now.’
Without Her Consent Page 5
