Stress Test (9 page)

“Hmm. You know, Charlie doesn’t usually discuss things at the DA’s office with me, the same way I don’t tell him about stuff at our office.”

Sandra grinned. “I’m not asking for anything secret. Just see what you can find out.”

“Just to be clear, you want me to take Charlie up on one of his dinner invitations, pump him, and then toss him aside?” Elaine laughed.

“What you do with Charlie after you find out whether Grimes has a case against Newman is your business. You can play catch and release if you want to. If you go further than that, don’t tell me.”

“Gotcha.” Elaine took her first sip of coffee and smiled. “One cup of coffee, and I agree to play spy for you. I’ve really got to raise my fees.”

“Huh,” Sandra said. “You can’t kid me. You’d do it for nothing. The coffee’s just a bonus.”

Matt wasn’t sure he’d slept at all. Now that he was out of the ICU, the nurses no longer came in every hour or so to check his vital signs. Still, he remained aware of the ceaseless activity all around him: people going in and out of patient rooms, murmured conversations in the hall, the ringing of phones and rattle of charts at the nearby
nurses’ station. Besides, who could sleep when they knew they might be arrested as soon as they passed through the doors of the hospital into the outside world?

“Knock, knock.” A man wearing surgical scrubs paused in the doorway.

“Come on in,” Matt said. He sized up his visitor: probably mid-twenties, Asian features, a definite familiarity to his face. Matt had the sense he should know the man, but the name floated outside his reach. His visitor wore scrubs, but that could mean he was anything from a medical student to an OR orderly to a doctor.
See if he introduces
himself
.

He did. “Dr. Newman, I’m Hank Truong. I’m the one who brought your pager to you in the ICU. But you were pretty out of it.” Hank leaned on the back of the chair at Matt’s bedside, but didn’t sit down. “Actually I’m the one who saw you when the EMTs brought you to the ER.”

It clicked then. “Oh,
right
. Thanks for getting me to the neurosurgeon. You probably saved my life.”

“Just doing my job. But I’m glad you made it.”

Matt had it figured out by now. “So you’re a second-year resident, doing your rotation in the Parkland ER as Pit Boss.”

“Yes. I see you’ve picked up the slang for the resident in charge in the ER. They tell me that duty is pretty much the same as getting a battlefield commission in the service, and I can’t disagree. You see a little of everything, and you have to make some tough decisions, often in a hurry.”

“Well, I appreciate your coming by,” Matt said. “I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“I . . . I understand you’re about to be discharged,” Hank said. “So I wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”

Even if the chairman didn’t seem to care about his situation, Matt was pleased to find that this resident did. “Medically, I’m fine. Legally? That’s another story.”

Hank stuck out his hand. “Well, we’re all hoping you’ll get that straight soon. The residents are looking forward to your joining the faculty and staffing us here.”

Matt shook the offered hand. “Thanks.”

Halfway to the door, Hank seemed to reach a decision and turned back. “Let me ask you something. This morning I had a patient come in with an infected gash on his lower leg, several days old—maybe a week or so. Of course, it’s too late to suture it, so I cleaned it up real well, gave him a tetanus shot, and started him on an antibiotic. But I’ve read about doing secondary closures on wounds that long after the injury. What’s your opinion on that?”

“I haven’t tried it, myself,” he said. Something clicked in Matt’s brain.
Could it be?
A gash on the lower leg, over a week old. “Describe this guy for me.”

If Hank was surprised by the request, he didn’t show it. Then again, when a staff doctor asked a resident a question, the resident’s response was to answer, not wonder why. And Dr. Newman was a staff doctor—sort of. “He had a high-pitched voice,” Hank said. “Jittery guy. Short, sort of sharp-faced. Late thirties. Hispanic, I think. I don’t recall his name, though.”

“I’m betting the name and all the other information he gave was false. And I’d guess he paid cash.”

Hank frowned. “Uh, I don’t know. Do you want me to check?”

Would it do any good? If nothing else, it might back up his story. “Sure. Please do.”

“Where can I call you with the information?” Hank asked.

Good question. Maybe jail?
“Tell you what. I’ll call you in a day or so. Thanks.”

Hank left, undoubtedly to pull the ER record before it could get filed and—if the Parkland system was anything like what Matt had experienced at other hospitals—possibly lost.

“Ready to get out of here?” Ken Gordon stood in the doorway of Matt’s room. His rumpled scrubs and unshaven face told Matt the neurosurgeon had been up all night.

“Not sure,” Matt replied. “You have a busy night?”

Gordon eased into the chair at Matt’s bedside and finger-combed his hair. “Kid—actually, early twenties, but they’re all kids to me—riding his motorcycle down North Central Expressway about one a.m. Weaving in and out of traffic, doing about ninety, the police estimate, when he hit a rough spot in the road and lost control. Had on an expensive set of leathers—didn’t want to get road rash if he wiped out, I guess—but no helmet.”

“Closed head injury, I suppose,” said Matt, as much to himself as to Gordon. “Were you able to save him?”

“So far. My part was managing an acute subdural hematoma. He’s still in the OR while the general surgeons tend to a ruptured spleen and lacerated liver. The orthopods will have to deal with a fractured arm and crushed pelvis later, if he survives.”

“Tough,” Matt said. He remembered his own nights on emergency call and wondered if he’d ever get back to practicing medicine. Not if he were convicted of a felony . . . and possibly not even if he were found innocent of the charges Grimes was pursuing. There was such a thing as slinging enough mud until something stuck, and Matt was afraid that the barrage directed against him had just begun.

“Jennifer, I enjoyed dinner the other night.”

Jennifer Ball looked up from her computer. Frank Everett was perched in what was becoming his customary position at the edge of her desk. She hated when people did that, but swallowed the words that would move him. “It was fun,” she said.

“I have tickets to a show at the State Fair Music Hall next Saturday. Would you like to go?”

Jennifer did a rapid mental run-through of her social calendar and found it distressingly empty. After Matt, Frank was the only person who’d shown any interest in her. She had a twinge of guilt at abandoning Matt so quickly, but she shoved it aside. Besides, Frank could be a valuable asset as things played out. “Sure. That sounds good.”

“Great. I’ve got a meeting with the DA in a few minutes, but why don’t I come by here after that? Maybe we can get some coffee.”

Was this moving a little fast? Yes, but she feared that if she tried to slow it down, it might stop completely. “Sure. See you then.”

Jennifer applied herself to her typing, letting the words flow from her fingertips without making much of an impression on her mind. Only when she finished and hit the Print button on her computer did it register what she’d been transcribing. These were the notes from a meeting between DA Tanner, ADA Greaver, and a detective from the homicide squad. And they concerned potential murder charges against a doctor who was currently recovering from a severe head injury—a doctor named Matt Newman.

She snatched up the five pages of typescript and read it through carefully. The case appeared to be coming together, although much of the evidence was circumstantial. As she turned the last page, she
heard someone whistling toward her desk. Jennifer grabbed the papers and shoved them into her top desk drawer just as Frank Everett hove into view.

In addition to the whistling, he was smiling broadly and there was an unusual spring in his step. She didn’t have to wait long to find out why, either.

“Forget my offer of coffee. What would you say to dinner tonight? You pick the restaurant—the fancier the better.”

Now he was definitely moving too fast. But Jennifer’s curiosity got the best of her. Why was Frank back so quickly, and in a mood to celebrate? “I’ll check my calendar,” Jennifer said. “What’s the occasion?”

Everett leaned against her desk, but he must have seen the tiny frown Jennifer let flash across her face. He hooked a vacant chair from the next desk, pulled it toward him, and eased into it. “I’m apparently moving up in the world. I just met with Tanner and Greaver, and they’re giving me a plum case. If I get a conviction on this, I’m going to be their fair-haired boy.”

Jennifer worked hard to keep her expression neutral. “Will it be a tough one?”

Everett spread his hands in a “no problem” gesture. “I don’t think so. I’ll know more after I review the evidence and talk to the police, but I’m pretty confident I can nail it.” He smiled without mirth. “Yessir, Dr. Matt Newman is going to wish he’d never heard of Assistant DA Frank Everett.”

Jennifer’s palms were suddenly damp with sweat. She wiped them on her skirt, hiding the gesture by turning her swivel chair toward the clock on the far wall. “That’s great, Frank.” She struggled to keep her voice level. “Why don’t you make reservations at Nana for seven? I’ll meet you there.”

Everett went whistling on his way, while Jennifer wondered how to keep her new boyfriend from finding out about her old one.

Sandra Murray paused in the doorway of Matt’s room. “Ready for this?”

She could see the tension in Matt’s shoulders, the worry on his face. He tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. “I guess.”

“I know you’ve had visions of police swarming around you, weapons drawn, taking you into custody the moment you pass the front door, but I doubt that’s going to happen.” Sandra took the visitor’s chair and settled a briefcase-sized purse on her lap. “My spies tell me that the DA’s office is still building their case. If you were a flight risk, they might bring you in for questioning immediately. But they figure I’d object to the validity of anything they get from you until you’re fully cleared by your neurosurgeon, and that’s not going to happen until your checkup next week.”

“How did you know—”

“I’ve spoken to your doctor. He wants to help as much as possible.” She raised her hand to smooth her hair, but caught herself before she could complete the gesture. “He says he likes you.” She paused. “And he . . . we used to go out. But that’s over now.”

She wondered why she’d added those last words. Why did she feel the need to explain to Matt that she and Ken Gordon were no longer close? Was she developing feelings for Matt? She dismissed the idea as ridiculous. She’d never fall for a client. And especially not for another doctor.

Matt’s shoulders slumped. “I hate to confess it, but I sort of dread going out in public looking like this.” He pointed to his head.

Sandra nodded. Her client’s head had been partially shaved for the surgical procedure. The hair was growing back as diffuse black
stubble on that side, and metal staples marked the site of the incision. “Surely you weren’t surprised to see that,” she said.