‘Clear.’
‘It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since this thing broke in the press and they’re covering it in New Zealand. Can you believe that? My wife’s sister is on vacation there and she saw it on the news. New Zealand. Who even knows where that country is anyway?’
‘I believe New Zealand is southeast of Australia, Bob,’ volunteered another board member.
‘I don’t give a shit if it’s northwest of the north pole,’ shouted Beckmann. ‘Bottom line, it’s on the other side of the world and Oceanside Manor is on the front pages of their newspapers. Everyone needs to keep their head down until we figure this out. If there’s nothing else, and I hope to God there isn’t, let’s adjourn.’
‘There is one more thing,’ Angela began, bracing for his reaction while at the same time, looking forward to it. ‘I hate to be indelicate, but I’m afraid the police have asked that all of you provide your DNA samples to them.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ demanded Beckmann.
‘According to our records, the board had one of your quarterly meetings with Frank Farwell in the building just before Dr. Farwell left for Ecuador,’ said Angela. ‘The date of that meeting fell within the time period that’s being investigated.’
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?’ said Beckmann.
‘I’m telling you, now,’ said Angela. ‘The police want your sample.’
‘This is outrageous. You think that one of us attacked a woman in a coma?’ said Beckmann. ‘Whenever we had our meetings at Oceanside Manor, we all came and left together and went to lunch—together. There would have been no time for any one of us to wander off.’
‘Don’t shoot the messenger,’ said Angela, turning her palms up, secretly pleased the police request for DNA had irritated Beckmann so much. ‘They’re taking samples from every male who was in the building during those twelve weeks. You’re a male and you were in the building. It’s not my call, it’s a request from the police. We can’t expect all of our employees to do this if our administrators and board won’t.’
Beckmann grumbled as he and the other board members made some calls and arranged for their samples to be taken somewhere other than at Oceanside Manor. That kind of publicity, they didn’t want or need.
27
Inside and outside the hospital everyone was losing their minds except for Jenny O’Hearn. She remained calm and focused as she poured over documents in a small records room on the third floor of the facility. Due to privacy laws, the hospital would release only material absolutely essential to the investigation. It was Jenny’s task to keep those protocols in mind while she compiled the list and ruled out those who didn’t fit the profile. She looked down at the column of names. One of these men is the father of Eliza’s baby. One of them is a rapist.
The small file room she was using had at one time been a staff break room before the hospital commandeered it for storage. Angela had turned the space over to Jenny while the project was ongoing, and the rest of the staff was told it was ‘off limits’ to all other personnel. It was now filled with boxes containing operational documentation; schedules, supply orders, patient dietary requirements, and so on. She pulled out a long cardboard box sitting on a metal shelf along the walls and dragged it with a thud onto the metal table in the middle of the room. The table was a remnant from the days when staff used to eat their lunch in there. She opened the box. It was filled with employee schedules from the previous year and she separated the men from the women. Spotting another carton of files on a higher shelf, she climbed up on a chair and pulled it down. It contained one of the things she needed, visitor and vendor logs. She began to sort through those.
Sadly, she noted as she read the visitor logs, most of the patients at Oceanside Manor didn’t get many visitors. During the ninety-day period that she was focused on, there were only forty-four different visitors and only eleven who went to 3 West. She also noted that Eliza Stern had only one visitor during that time period, her attorney, Elliot Meyers. According to the records, Meyers spent over an hour with Eliza—alone.
For the entire day, Jenny combed through box after box of documents. She wrote a note to herself. ‘Check the mail delivery guy. He comes every day but doesn’t always sign in on the log books because the front desk knows him and waves him in.’
Absorbed in countless files, she was startled when her phone rang. It was her boyfriend, Danny. Seeing his number pop up on her screen made her smile. After all the missteps she had with men in the past, Danny was possibly the real deal. They had only been going together for a few months but he was always so good to her, she had already decided he might be ‘the one.’
‘Jenny, whatcha doing?’ he said, chuckling. Danny was always laughing. That was one of the reasons she liked him so much. He could always make her smile.
‘I’m up to my eyeballs in files. Literally.’
‘Still?’
‘You have no idea. There are thousands of data points to be matched. I’m doing it all by hand. This is the kind of thing that would normally be done by a computer. My eyes aren’t even focusing anymore.’
‘Poor baby. I’ll have dinner ready for you when you get here.’
‘Have I told you today that I love you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I do.’
28
Late that afternoon, McQ and Blade’s car pulled into the Oceanside Manor parking lot for a five o’clock meeting with Angela and board president, Beckmann. The hospital was ready to pass on the names they had compiled and now the police would start banging on some doors.
Blade put the car in park and looked at her watch. It was four forty, still twenty minutes until their meeting.
‘You ready to go in?’ she asked her partner.
McQ looked over at her and picked up his half-finished cup of almost cold coffee out of the cup-holder and took a final gulp.
‘We got a minute. If we get there early, they’re only going to make us wait in the lobby. Let me finish my donut,’ he said as he unwrapped a half-eaten gooey chocolate mess covered with sprinkles.
‘Does Marie know you’re still eating those?’
‘Hey, this past weekend she decided we were going gluten free,’ said McQ. ‘I didn’t have any gluten for three whole days.’
‘And, how did you feel?’
‘I felt like crap,’ said McQ. ‘I really think my body needs gluten.’
Blade gave her partner a withering look.
‘No, seriously. I could barely hold my head up. When Marie took a shower I ducked out and got myself a bagel,’ he replied as he stuffed the remainder of the donut into his mouth. ‘I almost forgot to tell you. Got a call on the prints they took from Stern’s room. There were over thirty different sets. They were able to match all of them to staff except for one.’
‘Our perp?’
‘Could be,’ said McQ, ‘but something tells me it’s not going to be that easy and we’ve still got to identify who those prints belong to.’
‘Any new theories you want to share?’ said Blade.
‘Logistically,’ said McQ as he swallowed, ‘it’s most likely someone on staff because they would have frequent and easy access. A visitor or an outside employee would have to be really stealthy and know exactly when and where they could commit the act without getting caught. That seems too convoluted to pull off for an outsider. My money is on an inside job.’
‘But it could have been someone from outside,’ said Blade. ‘That’s still a possibility.’
‘That’s what makes this whole investigation so unwieldy.’
‘Here’s a creepy thought,’ said Blade. ‘How do we know the perpetrator only did this the one time? Maybe he had sex with Eliza numerous times, but this was the only time she got pregnant.’
‘What if whoever did this tried it with other brain trauma patients besides Eliza,’ said McQ. ‘Dr. Crawford said she was going to have all the female patients on 3 West checked for pregnancy and sign
s of any physical or sexual disturbance.’
‘Can you imagine if there are more?’
Minutes later, the two detectives waited in Angela’s office while she went down to the lobby to get Beckmann. Behind the administrator’s desk, McQ noticed a picture of Angela and, he presumed, her husband, all dressed up at some black-tie event. Out of professional habit, and because he couldn’t help himself, the detective studied all of Angela’s photos until she entered the room followed by the perpetually scowling board president. Beckmann walked past the detectives and sat in Angela’s chair at her desk, forcing Angela to sit on a nearby window ledge.
‘Take my chair,’ said McQ, getting up.
‘I’m fine here,’ said Angela.
While the seat jockeying was going on, Jenny O’Hearn knocked on the office door holding an armful of manila folders.
‘Come in, Jenny. We’re about to start,’ said Angela, waving the young nurse into the room. ‘Grab a chair from out front.’
‘I’ve got it,’ said McQ, who stepped out of the office and returned with a chair and placed it next to Angela.
‘Detectives,’ said Beckmann, ‘it’s been almost a week since this terrible business started. I trust you’re close to making an arrest.’
‘Mr. Beckmann, there are a lot of moving pieces in this case,’ said McQ. ‘We’ve been waiting all week for the data and logs from your people so we can run down leads. With all the health privacy laws, our hands have been partially tied. I think we’re going to get everything we need today from Ms. O’Hearn.’
Jenny smiled and nodded eagerly.
‘You mean to say you haven’t been doing anything except waiting for us to provide you with information,’ asked an incredulous Beckmann. ‘You’re the cops, not us.’
‘Mr. Beckmann,’ said Blade, jumping in and laying on her southern drawl. ‘We’ve had the entire Oceanside Police Department standing on their heads trying to get to the bottom of this unfortunate situation. As my partner already said, because of United States health privacy regulations, we’ve had to move very slowly and carefully. Now, I’m assuming Ms. O’Hearn here will be able to provide us with all relevant employee work schedules, patient-visitor log files and other assorted vendor lists in order for us to do a thorough and precise investigation.’
Beckmann glared at Blade but uncharacteristically, said nothing. Angela laughed to herself. Nicely done, Detective Blalock. I need to take a page from you on managing that pompous ass.
‘Jenny, why don’t you show us what you’ve got,’ said Angela. ‘She has fairly high confidence that she’s got a substantial and accurate list for you.’
Everyone’s eyes turned to the young blond nurse.
‘I could have missed something and I’m going to spend the next few days digging a little more but I think, detectives, what I’m about to give you is pretty solid,’ she said as she dropped some thick files on the desk near McQ and Blade.
‘How many people did you uncover?’ asked McQ.
‘A lot: 274,’ said Jenny with an air of confidence.
Blade whistled. ‘That’s a lot of people.’
‘Too big a challenge for a small-town police department, detective?’ said Beckmann. ‘Maybe we should call the FBI, bring in the big guns.’
McQ and Blade exchanged a look. ‘Mr. Beckmann, I think Detective Blalock’s reaction to the big number had more to do with her surprise at the largesse of your security breach,’ said McQ with authority, ‘not that our police department can’t handle it.’
‘Let’s get the show on the road,’ said Beckmann. ‘Every minute this case goes unresolved the reputation of the hospital goes further into the gutter. Already, some of our biggest financial donors have started to walk away. That can’t happen. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Crystal,’ said McQ, his steely eyes looking right through the board president causing Beckmann to squirm. Exactly what I thought, he’s a big pussy. I bet his wife has to cut up his meat for him before he eats it.
29
While his wife’s world at the hospital spun out of control, David’s routine remained painfully the same as it was the day, week, month and even year before. He cleaned up the breakfast dishes, read the news on his phone and sat down at his computer to work on his manuscript, the same as he did every morning. Each day, for five years, he’d type a few words or sentences into his computer, read them over and usually erase them. He’d do a few more sentences, delete some of them and keep one. After several hours of writing he’d discover he’d only accumulated one or two paragraphs and when he reread it, he’d decide it was crap and delete the entire page. That was pretty much how every morning went.
David’s mind drifted back to the early days of his career. It was easier reminiscing about his past Camelot than confronting his current dismal professional reality. Everything had happened so goddamned soon for him—faster than anyone expected, and maybe that was at the root of the problem.
College had been a magical time. He was handsome, charming and smart and without much effort, good grades and friends came easily. Interested in writing, at the end of his junior year, David showed some of his short stories to his favorite English professor, Dr. Anastos, head of the English department.
‘I like this one, David,’ said Dr. Anastos, holding up a short story called, The Savior Falls. ‘It’s got grit and asks some provocative questions. I want you to submit it to that writing competition I told you about.’
‘They must get thousands of entries,’ said David.
‘Listen to me,’ said Dr. Anastos. ‘You’ve got real talent. I don’t think I’ve ever said that to any of my students.’
When David left his professor, he was walking on air and the next day he mailed in his entry. Months later, quite unexpectedly, he got a letter.
Dear Mr. Crawford,
The National Literary Guild is delighted to inform you that you have been selected to receive this year’s first prize in the short story category.
He ran across campus to the English department to find Dr. Anastos. The older professor was sitting at his desk grading papers when a breathless David flung himself into the teacher’s doorway.
David waved the envelope as he tried to catch his breath. ‘The short story contest, I won first prize!’
Dr. Anastos’s face broke into a huge smile. ‘First prize! If I remember correctly, part of the prize is you’ll get a literary agent, too. You’re on your way.’
In early spring the following year, a week after his story was published, David got a call from Corbin Rotero, a seasoned New York literary agent. He had read David’s winning story and wanted to work with him.
‘Have you given any consideration to writing a full-length novel?’ asked Corbin.
‘All the time,’ said David. ‘I’ve got a million ideas.’
After graduation, he began working on a novel that would eventually be called, Where the Falcons Go.
For the next two years, David worked diligently on his manuscript sending bits and pieces to Corbin as he finished them. Right before his twenty-fourth birthday, David finished his manuscript, sent it off to his agent and held his breath. For two weeks, he waited by the phone until finally he got the call.
‘It’s brilliant,’ said Corbin, ‘one of the finest pieces of fiction I’ve read in a long time. You’ve blown me away and that doesn’t happen very often. I’ll bet I can even get a bidding war going from the top five publishers.’ Within two months, Corbin scored with several major publishing houses bidding for David’s book and a six-figure deal was signed.
When Where the Falcons Go came out eighteen months later, it was a hit. Magazines called him the next F. Scott Fitzgerald and his book was translated into seven foreign languages.
After a year of interviews, awards and basking in literary glory, David began working on his second novel but something was wrong. Where words had at one time sprung from his fingers, now it was like they were lodged in his knuckles. It would take him weeks to
write one chapter. Eighteen excruciating months later, he delivered his new manuscript to his agent.
‘I liked your other one better, but we’ll sell this one on your name alone,’ said Corbin. ‘A publisher will take it and consumers will buy it because of your first book.’
Early reviews were scathing and in no time at all, David’s second novel was on the sale table in book stores.
Fortunately, while he was writing his second novel, David had gotten his masters’ degree in journalism and had started teaching at his alma mater. The New York literary community may have had David Crawford in the rear-view mirror, but he was still a big deal on the college campus and enjoyed a kind of elite status there.
Over the next seven years, David wrote another novel but no one wanted to publish it.
It was around that time that he met a young pre-med student, Angela Asmodeo, who was taking one of his English classes. He thought she was beautiful the minute he laid eyes on her.
That was so many years ago. On this morning, David went through his daily fruitless literary gymnastics and eventually got up from his desk in frustration. Washing his hands in the bathroom, he looked at the familiar face in the mirror. When did your hair get so white? His hair, mustache and beard were prematurely white, but the skin on his face was taut and his eyes were still twinkly blue and bright. He stared at his reflection and was overcome by a feeling of self-loathing.
‘You think you can write?’ he said out loud to his image in the mirror. ‘You don’t have talent. You’re a fraud. You thought you were such a big deal when you published that first book. You were so full of yourself and now you can’t string two words together.’
Feeling the walls closing in on him, he had to get out of the house. He splashed water on his face, grabbed his car keys and headed out the front door. Before long he found himself on I 95 driving south towards Davie, Florida. He knew exactly where he was going, where he always went when he felt like he couldn’t breathe or live up to his own expectations. When he was in the middle of a game at the Hard Rock Casino, he wasn’t a ‘has-been’ writer anymore, he was the master of his universe with Lady Luck sitting on the arm of his chair. Sometimes, when she was smiling down on him, he won big. At that moment, he felt lucky. Truth be told, that’s how he felt every time he drove down to the casino. On some level, he knew he was no better than the guys who buy the lottery tickets with all the money from their social security checks when they should be paying their rent or making a car payment. He knew this but he couldn’t help himself. He truly believed each time he went to the casino, that was the day he was going to beat the house. But it never, ever was.
Without Her Consent Page 11
