Under the Knife

by Tess Gerritsen

  “A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman,” he replied, unruffled. “I don’t discriminate.”

  She blinked back a veil of tears. “Henry did.”

  “Have there been other women?” Kate asked gently.

  “I suppose.” She shrugged. “He was a man, wasn’t he?”

  “Did you ever hear the name Ellen O’Brien?”

  “Did she have some—connection with my husband?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  Mrs. Tanaka shook her head. “He never mentioned any names. But then, I never asked any questions.”

  Kate frowned. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t want him to lie to me.” Somehow, by the way she said it, it made perfect sense.

  “Have the police told you there’s a suspect?” David asked.

  “You mean Charles Decker?” Mrs. Tanaka’s gaze shifted back to David. “Sergeant Brophy came to see me yesterday afternoon. He showed me the man’s photograph.”

  “Did you recognize the face?”

  “I never saw the man, Mr. Ransom. I didn’t even know his name. All I knew was that my husband was attacked by some psychotic five years ago. And that the stupid police let the man go the very next day.”

  “But your husband refused to press charges,” said David.

  “He what?”

  “That’s why Decker was released so quickly. It seems your husband wanted the matter dropped.”

  “He never told me that.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Almost nothing. But there were lots of things we never talked about. That’s how we managed to stay together all these years. By not talking about certain things. It was almost an agreement. He didn’t ask how I spent the money. I didn’t ask about his women.”

  “Then you don’t know anything more about Decker?”

  “No. But maybe Peggy can help you.”

  “Peggy?”

  She nodded toward the office. “Our receptionist. She was here when it happened.”

  Peggy was a blond, fortyish Amazon wearing white stretch pants. Though invited to sit, she preferred to stand. Or maybe she simply preferred not to occupy the same couch as Mari Tanaka.

  “Remember the man?” Peggy repeated. “I’ll never forget him. I was cleaning up one of the exam rooms when I heard all this yelling. I came right out and that psychotic was here, in the waiting room. He had his hands around Henry’s—the doctor’s—neck and he kept screaming at him.”

  “You mean cursing him?”

  “No, not cursing. He said something like ‘What did you do with her?’”

  “Those were his words? You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “And who was this ‘her’ he was referring to? One of the patients?”

  “Yes. And the doctor felt just awful about that case. She was such a nice woman, and to have both her and the baby die. Well…”

  “What was her name?”

  “Jenny… Let me think. Jenny something. Brook. I think that was it. Jennifer Brook.”

  “What did you do after you saw the doctor being attacked?”

  “Well, I pulled the man away, of course. What do you think I did? He was holding on tight, but I got him off. Women aren’t completely helpless, you know.”

  “Yes, I’m quite aware of that.”

  “Anyway, he sort of collapsed then.”

  “The doctor?”

  “No, the man. He crumpled in this little heap over there, by the coffee table and he just sat there, crying. He was still there when the police arrived. A few days later, we heard he’d shot himself. In the mouth.” She paused and stared at the floor, as though seeing some ghostlike remnant of the man, still sitting there. “It’s weird, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He was crying like a baby. I think even Henry felt sorry….”

  “Mrs. Tanaka?” The other clerk poked her head into the waiting room. “You have a phone call. It’s your accountant. I’ll transfer it to the back office.”

  Mrs. Tanaka rose. “There’s really nothing more we can tell you,” she said. “And we do have to get back to work.” She shot Peggy a meaningful glance. Then, with only the barest nod of goodbye, she walked sleekly out of the waiting room.

  “Two weeks’ notice,” Peggy muttered sullenly. “That’s what she gave us. And then she expects us to get the whole damn office in order. No wonder Henry didn’t want that witch hanging around.” She turned to go back to her desk.

  “Peggy?” asked Kate. “Just one more question, if you don’t mind. When your patients die, how long do you keep the medical records?”

  “Five years. Longer if it’s an obstetrical death. You know, in case some malpractice suit gets filed.”

  “Then you still have Jenny Brook’s chart?”

  “I’m sure we do.” She went into the office and pulled open the filing cabinet. She went through the B drawer twice. Then she checked the J’s. In frustration, she slammed the drawer closed. “I can’t understand it. It should be here.”

  David and Kate glanced at each other. “It’s missing?” said Kate.

  “Well, it’s not here. And I’m very careful about these things. Let me tell you, I do not run a sloppy office.” She turned and glared at the other clerk as though expecting a dissenting opinion. There was none.

  “What are you saying?” said David. “That someone’s removed it?”

  “He must have,” replied Peggy. “But I can’t see why he would. It’s barely been five years.”

  “Why who would?”

  Peggy looked at him as if he was dim-witted. “Dr. Tanaka, of course.”

  * * *

  “JENNIFER BROOK,” SAID the hospital records clerk in a flat voice as she typed the name into the computer. “Is that with or without an e at the end?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Kate.

  “Middle initial?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Date of birth?”

  Kate and David looked at each other. “We don’t know,” replied Kate.

  The clerk turned and peered at them over her horn-rimmed glasses. “I don’t suppose you’d know the medical-record number?” she asked in a weary monotone.

  They shook their heads.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” The clerk swiveled back to her terminal and punched in another command. After a few seconds, two names appeared on the screen, a Brooke and a Brook, both with the first name Jennifer. “Is it one of these?” she questioned.

  A glance at the dates of birth told them one was fifty-seven years old, the other fifteen.

  “No,” said Kate.

  “It figures.” The clerk sighed and cleared the screen. “Dr. Chesne,” she continued with excruciating patience, “why, exactly, do you need this particular record?”

  “It’s a research project,” Kate said. “Dr. Jones and I—”

  “Dr. Jones?” The clerk looked at David. “I don’t remember a Dr. Jones on our staff.”

  Kate said quickly, “He’s with the University—”

  “Of Arizona,” David finished with a smile.

  “It’s all been cleared through Avery’s office. It’s a paper on maternal death and—”

  “Death?” The clerk blinked. “You mean this patient is deceased?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, no wonder. We keep those files in a totally different place.” From her tone, their other file room might have been on Mars. She rose reluctantly from her chair. “This will take a while. You’ll have to wait.” Turning, she headed at a snail’s pace toward a back door and vanished into what was no doubt the room for deceased persons’ files.

  “Why do I get the feeling we’ll never see her again?” muttered David.

  Kate sagged weakly against the counter. “Just be glad she didn’t ask for your credentials. I could get in big trouble for this, you know. Showing hospital records to the enemy.”

  “Who, me?”

  “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?�
�

  “I’m just poor old Dr. Jones from Arizona.” He turned and glanced around the room. At a corner table, a doctor was yawning as he turned a page. An obviously bored clerk wheeled a cart up the aisle, collecting charts and slapping them onto an already precarious stack. “Lively place,” he remarked. “When does the dancing start?”

  They both turned at the sound of footsteps. The clerk with the horn-rimmed glasses reappeared, empty-handed.

  “The chart’s not there,” she announced.

  Kate and David stared at her in stunned silence.

  “What do you mean, it’s not there?” asked Kate.

  “It should be. But it’s not.”

  “Was it released from the hospital?” David snapped.

  The clerk looked aridly over her glasses. “We don’t release originals, Dr. Jones. People always lose them.”

  “Oh. Well, of course.”

  The clerk sank down in front of the computer and typed in a command. “See? There’s the listing. It’s supposed to be in the file room. All I can say is it must’ve been misplaced.” She added, under her breath, “Which means we’ll probably never see it again.” She was about to clear the screen when David stopped her.

  “Wait. What’s that notation there?” he asked, pointing to a cryptic code.

  “That’s a chart copy request.”

  “You mean someone requested a copy?”

  “Yes,” the clerk sighed wearily. “That is what it means, Doctor.”

  “Who asked for it?”

  She shifted the cursor and punched another button. A name and address appeared magically on the screen. “Joseph Kahanu, Attorney at Law, Alakea Street. Date of request: March 2.”

  David frowned. “That’s only a month ago.”

  “Yes, Doctor, I do believe it is.”

  “An attorney. Why the hell would he be interested in a death that happened five years ago?”

  The clerk turned and looked at him dryly over her horn-rimmed glasses. “You tell me.”

  * * *

  THE PAINT IN the hall WAS chipping and thousands of footsteps had worn a path down the center of the threadbare carpet. Outside the office hung a sign:

  Joseph Kahanu, Attorney at Law

  Specialist in Divorce, Child Custody, Wills, Accidents, Insurance, Drunk Driving, and Personal Injury

  “Great address,” whispered David. “Rats must outnumber the clients.” He knocked on the door.

  It was answered by a huge Hawaiian man dressed in an ill-fitting suit. “You’re David Ransom?” he asked gruffly.

  David nodded. “And this is Dr. Chesne.”

  The man’s silent gaze shifted for a moment to Kate’s face. Then he stepped aside and gestured sullenly toward a pair of rickety chairs. “Yeah, come in.”

  The office was suffocating. A table fan creaked back and forth, churning the heat. A half-open window, opaque with dirt, looked out over an alley. In one glance, Kate recognized all the signs of a struggling law practice: the ancient typewriter, the cardboard boxes stuffed with client files, the secondhand furniture. There was scarcely enough room for the lone desk. Kahanu looked unbearably hot in his suit jacket; he’d probably pulled it on at the last minute, just for the benefit of his visitors.

  “I haven’t called the police yet,” said Kahanu, settling into an unreliable-looking swivel chair.

  “Why not?” asked David.

  “I don’t know how you run your practice, but I make it a point not to squeal on my clients.”

  “You’re aware Decker’s wanted for murder.”

  Kahanu shook his head. “It’s a mistake.”

  “Did Decker tell you that?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach him.”

  “Maybe it’s time the police found him for you.”

  “Look,” Kahanu shot back. “We both know I’m not in your league, Ransom. I hear you got some big-shot office over on Bishop Street. Couple of dozen lapdog associates. Probably spend your weekends on the golf course, cozying up to some judge or other. Me?” He waved around at his office and laughed. “I got just a few clients. Most times they don’t even remember to pay me. But they’re my clients. And I don’t like to go against ’em.”

  “You know two people have been murdered.”

  “They got no proof he did it.”

  “The police say they do. They say Charlie Decker’s a dangerous man. A sick man. He needs help.”

  “That what they call a jail cell these days? Help?” Disgusted, he fished out a handkerchief and mopped his brow, as though buying time to think. “Guess I got no choice now,” he muttered. “One way or the other, police’ll be banging on my door.” Slowly he folded the handkerchief and tucked it back in his pocket. Then, reaching into his drawer, he pulled out a folder and tossed it on the battered desk. “There’s the copy you asked for. Seems you’re not the only who one wants it.”

  David frowned as he reached for the folder. “Has someone else asked for it?”

  “No. But someone broke into my office.”

  David looked up sharply. “When?”

  “Last week. Tore apart all my files. Didn’t steal anything, and I even had fifty bucks in the cash box. I couldn’t figure it out at the time. But this morning, after you told me about those missing records, I got to thinking. Wondering if that file’s what he was after.”

  “But he didn’t get it.”

  “The night he broke in, I had the papers at home.”

  “Is this your only copy?”

  “No. I ran off a few just now. Just to be safe.”

  “May I take a look?” Kate asked.

  David hesitated, then handed her the chart. “You’re the doctor. Go ahead.”

  She stared for a moment at the name on the cover: Jennifer Brook. Then, flipping it open, she began to read.

  Recorded on the first few pages was a routine obstetrical admission. The patient, a healthy twenty-eight-year-old woman at thirty-six weeks of pregnancy, had entered Mid Pac Hospital in the early stages of labor. The initial history and physical exam, performed by Dr. Tanaka, were unremarkable. The fetal heart tones were normal, as were all the blood tests. Kate turned to the delivery-room record.

  Here things began to go wrong. Terribly wrong. The nurse’s painstakingly neat handwriting broadened into a frantic scrawl. The entries became terse, erratic. A young woman’s death was distilled down to a few coldly clinical phrases.

  Generalized seizures… No response to Valium and Dilantin… Stat page to E.R. for assistance… Respirations now irregular… Respirations ceased… No pulse… Cardiac massage started… Fetal heart tones audible but slowing… Still no pulse… Dr. Vaughn from E.R. to assist with stat C-section…

  Live infant…

  The record became a short series of blotted-out sentences, totally unreadable.

  On the next page was the last entry, written in a calm hand.

  Resuscitation stopped. Patient pronounced dead at 01:30.

  “She died of a cerebral hemorrhage,” Kahanu said. “She was only twenty-eight.”

  “And the baby?” Kate asked.

  “A girl. She died an hour after the mother.”

  “Kate,” David murmured, nudging her arm. “Look at the bottom of the page. The names of the personnel in attendance.”

  Kate’s gaze dropped to the three names. As she took them in one by one, her hands went icy.

  Henry Tanaka, M.D.

  Ann Richter, RN

  Ellen O’Brien, RN

  “They left out a name,” Kate pointed out. She looked up. “There was a Dr. Vaughn, from the E.R. He might be able to tell us—”

  “He can’t,” said Kahanu. “You see, Dr. Vaughn had an accident a short time after Jennifer Brook died. His car was hit head-on.”

  “You mean he’s dead?”

  Kahanu nodded. “They’re all dead.”

  The chart slid from her frozen fingers onto the desk. There was something dangerous about this document, something evil. She stared down, unw
illing to touch it, for fear the contagion would rub off.

  Kahanu turned his troubled gaze to the window. “Four weeks ago Charlie Decker came to my office. Who knows why he chose me? Maybe I was convenient. Maybe he couldn’t afford anyone else. He wanted a legal opinion about a possible malpractice suit.”

  “On this case?” said David. “But Jenny Brook died five years ago. And Decker wasn’t even a relative. You know as well as I do the lawsuit would’ve been tossed right out.”

  “He paid for my services, Mr. Ransom. In cash.”

  In cash. Those were magic words for a lawyer who was barely surviving.

  “I did what he asked. I subpoenaed the chart for him. I contacted the doctor and the two nurses who’d cared for Jenny Brook. But they never answered my letters.”

  “They didn’t live long enough,” explained David. “Decker got to them first.”

  “Why should he?”

  “Vengeance. They killed the woman he loved. So he killed them.”

  “My client didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Your client had the motive, Kahanu. And you provided him with their names and addresses.”

  “You’ve never met Decker. I have. And he’s not a violent man.”

  “You’d be surprised how ordinary a killer can seem. I used to face them in court—”

  “And I defend them! I take on the scum no one else’ll touch. I know a killer when I see one. There’s something different about them, about their eyes. Something’s missing. I don’t know what it is. A soul, maybe. I tell you, Charlie Decker wasn’t like that.”

  Kate leaned forward. “What was he like, Mr. Kahanu?” she asked quietly.

  The Hawaiian paused, his gaze wandering out the dirty window to the alley below. “He was—he was real…ordinary. Not tall, but not too short, either. Mostly skin and bones, like he wasn’t eating right. I felt sorry for him. He looked like a man who’s had his insides kicked out. He didn’t say much. But he wrote things down for me. I think it hurt him to use his voice. He’s got something wrong with his throat and he couldn’t talk much louder than a whisper. He was sitting right there in that chair where you are now, Dr. Chesne. Said he didn’t have much money. Then he took out his wallet and counted out these twenty-dollar bills, one at a time. I could see, just by the way he handled them, real slow and careful, that it was everything he had.” Kahanu shook his head. “I still don’t see why he even bothered, you know? The woman’s dead. The baby’s dead. All this digging around in the past, it won’t bring ’em back.”