Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (6 page)

He glanced at my mismatched socks and broke out in a big grin, then tossed me two pairs, one white and one black.

"Why don't you just poke Whittington in the eye when you see him?" Chet asked. "You know whatever you do is going to have the same effect anyway."

I took one of the white socks, swapped it for my black one, and was just tying up my shoe when there was an urgent pounding on the door. Before either one of us could reply, Alice Blevins threw open the door. I was surprised she'd bothered to knock. The last thing she cared about was the privacy or modesty of a bunch of pampered doctors. She was the head nurse and had served in a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. Nothing rattled her except, perhaps, having to trade her camouflage fatigues for a dainty nurse's cap and apron.

"Incoming," she said.

The pounding rain created a swath of destruction in the San Fernando Valley. The Los Angeles River overflowed, washing two children, a brother and sister, off the banks and into the raging current of mud, plants, and debris. The children were carried two and a half miles before being rescued by firefighters, who dangled from the Zelzah Avenue bridge on ropes. It was during the rescue that the firefighters stumbled on another victim, a young woman caught up in some branches snagged around the bridge pilings.

The children arrived first. The nine-year-old boy was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia. A fire fighter gave him mouth-to-mouth all the way to the hospital. Dan took the boy from the gurney, draped him over his knee, and smacked him twice on the back, very hard. The boy coughed up water, and kept coughing it up, before starting to breathe on his own. Dan rushed the child into the exam room, where hot blankets were waiting. The kid was lucky to be alive, and so was his sister, a twelve-year-old girl who came in conscious but shivering, her left arm dangling awkwardly at her side. She was shivering so hard you could almost miss how much pain she was in.

She had a dislocated shoulder, and I knew the sooner we popped that arm back into place the better, or serious complications could result. I also knew it would be painful and I dreaded hurting the child, but there was no other way.

The girl was wheeled on a gurney into the exam room. I gestured for Alice to join me and to draw the curtain.

"I'm Dr. Mark Sloan," I told her. "What's your name?"

"Ginny Reese," she stammered, freezing, clutching the firefighter's blanket around herself with her good arm.

"You've dislocated your shoulder, Ginny. I have to put it back."

"Is it going to hurt?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. A lot of doctors would have soft-pedaled that, but I was a firm believer, even with the limited experience I had then, in being honest with all my patients, regardless of their age.

"Okay," Ginny said. "Let's get it over with." I smiled at Alice. "She's almost as tough as you." Alice shook her head. "I bet she's a lot tougher. Aren't you, Ginny?"

"I didn't save my brother," she said.

"I thought you were both swept up by the river," I said. "You're telling me you went in after him?"

"I'm his older sister," she said.

I wanted to hug her, but I knew how much it would hurt if I did. So instead I stroked her head.

"You're a terrific older sister," I said. "And he's just fine. He probably would have given up if it wasn't for you."

"You think so?" she asked.

"Positive," I said. "Okay, I need you to sit on the edge of the bed. Can you do that for me?"

Ginny did what I asked.

"Here's what's going to happen, Ginny. I'm going to take your arm, turn my back to you, and lift you up as if I wanted to give you a piggyback ride. This will pull your arm forward and slip it back into the shoulder socket."

I gave her a minute to think about what I'd said. When it comes to hurting children, some doctors like to amuse, trick, or distract them from the pain they are about to experience. The theory being, I suppose, that telling children what's going to happen will terrify them, that what ever you're going to do will be over before they know it anyway.

They always know it. And then the kids end up resenting the deception and distrusting doctors, an attitude that continues into adulthood. I believe that half of fear is uncertainty and that if a child, or any other patient, knows what's coming and has a chance to prepare for it emotionally, it also deadens the pain.

"Are you ready, Ginny?"

She nodded.

I took her dislocated arm, bent my body forward, and lifted her up on my back. She screamed and I heard the pop of the humeral head slipping back into place.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks when I set her back on the gurney, but she wasn't crying. "I'm sorry I screamed."

"Of course you screamed," I said. "If it was me, I would have screamed even louder."

That's when the firefighters came in with the third victim on a gurney, the woman they'd found in the river under the bridge. I hurried out to meet them, but Dan got to her first, placing a stethoscope on her chest.

The woman was wearing a raincoat, a white blouse, and a businesslike black skirt with garter stockings. The clothes were disheveled and torn from her journey in the roiling water. Her shoes were gone. Her entire body was caked with dirt, her face scratched. Her nose and mouth were full of mud. She'd clearly drowned. Our job now was to make the obvious official.

Dan shook his head sadly and glanced at the clock on the wall. "Time of death, eight forty-eight a.m."

I stood beside him and looked at her. She was an unnatural redhead. The hair color had run and stained her blouse. She smelled of mud, rot, and fresh flowers.

I felt an inexplicable, sudden stab of fear. I took a big step back from the gurney and collided with a firefighter, who stood dripping behind me.

"Haven't you ever seen a dead body before?" the fire fighter asked.

"Too many times," I said. I didn't think I'd ever get used to the death. It was an inescapable part of my job and I saw it every day.

It wasn't the corpse that frightened me. It was something else. But what?

"Do you know who she is?" I asked.

The firefighter shook his head. "The police are looking for her purse along the riverbank. All we found in her pockets were these."

He showed me a compact, a lipstick applicator, and a shiny new key all by itself on a rabbit-foot chain.

Dan looked at the belongings, too. "We've made a major discovery here today, Mark."

"What's that?" I asked.

"A rabbit's foot definitely doesn't bring good luck," he said and walked away.

I glanced back at the dead woman one last time and felt the oddest tingle. It wasn't fear. And it wasn't a physical sensation either. Something was flitting across my consciousness, tickling my mind. It was like a burst of static on a television screen, only I felt it rather than saw it.

Back then, I didn't know what the feeling meant, so I simply ignored it. I've learned never to ignore it now.

Alice brought over two orderlies, and they draped a blanket over the woman's corpse and wheeled it down to the morgue in the basement.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I went to the cafeteria for lunch, where I was served the "doctor's special," which was chopped beef, mashed potatoes, cubed carrots, a cup of chocolate pudding, and a tiny carton of cold milk. It made me long for the gourmet pleasures of a TV dinner.

Dr. Bart Spicer was sitting alone at a table, smoking a cigarette and leafing through an issue of
Life
magazine with astronaut John Glenn on the cover, wearing a space helmet. The cover read: THE MAKING OF A BRAVE MAN.

I took a seat across from Bart, who acknowledged me with a nod and a perfect smoke ring. "I was just reading about John Glenn. They call him 'A Man Marked to Do Great Things.' They say it was clear from the day he was born. What do you think of that?"

"It takes guts to fly into space and attempt to orbit the earth," I said.

"It takes guts just to get out of bed in the morning." He snubbed out his cigarette in the remains of his mashed potatoes. "You want to know who's a great man?"

"Sure," I said.

Bart opened up the magazine to an advertisement for the Admiral Multiplex FM stereophonic radio and high fidelity phonograph in a French provincial cabinet. "The guy who has to sell four of five of these a week or he loses his job. But you're never gonna see that guy's mug on the cover of Life magazine."

"Probably not," I said.

I liked Bart. Having lunch with him was like listening to the radio. He had opinions about everything and liked to express them. You could participate in the conversation as much or as little as you wanted. He'd simply go on talking without you.

Bart was a farm boy from Kansas, the first in his family to go to medical school. Actually, the first to go anywhere after high school except back to the plow. He and his wife, Mary, lived on our street and had a baby girl only a few months older than Steve.

"I'm going to be on the cover of
Life
magazine," Bart said casually.

"For orbiting the earth or selling radios?" I asked.

"It's not actually going to be my face that you see," he said. "It's going to be all the beautiful people I make more beautiful with my scalpel. You know why John Glenn is wearing a helmet in this picture?"

"Because he's an astronaut?"

"To distract people from his face. If I had that mug, I'd be wearing a mask," Bart said. "He should've come to see me."

"You aren't a plastic surgeon yet," I said.

Bart shrugged. "He couldn't look worse than he does now."

He looked past me and broke into a broad grin. "It's raining outside, but here comes a ray of sunshine."

I turned to see which nurse he was flirting with and saw Katherine coming in, carrying Steve. It was a wonderful surprise. I got up and gave them both a kiss, taking Steve from her arms. She sat down at the table.

"Bart, you are an awful flirt," she said.

"How's my big boy?" I said, tossing Steve up into the air and catching him again. It always made Katherine nervous, but I was a good catch and Steve loved it, shrieking with glee.

"What brings you here, honey?" I asked her.

"Me, of course," Bart said, kissing her cheek.

Katherine smiled. "Isn't this chopped-beef-and-mashed-potato day? We couldn't miss that. And we certainly can't go a whole day without seeing Mark."

"Now you've hurt my feelings," Bart said.

"I'm glad you came. I have some news. Dr. Whittington has invited us to a party on Saturday." I showed Katherine the invitation and gave Steve another toss in the air. "We need to find a babysitter quick."

"No problem," Bart said. "We've already lined one up. You can drop Steve at our place and the four of us can go to the party together."

"Are you sure Mary won't mind?" Katherine asked.

"Why should she?" Bart replied. "As long as she's out of the house having a good time, I could bring a walrus home and she wouldn't mind."

I held Steve up high and smiled at him. "Are you a walrus? Is that what you are?"

He giggled uproariously and then vomited all over me. My shirt and lab coat were covered. Bart burst out laughing and Katherine joined him. Even Steve thought it was funny, giggling so much I thought he might vomit on me again just for the fun of it. I was the only one not laughing because I was the only one who knew I was wearing my last clean shirt and lab coat.

I handed Steve back to Katherine, picked up a napkin, and began the hopeless task of cleaning myself off.

"That will teach you to call Steve a walrus," Katherine said. "He's very sensitive."

"So I've discovered." I went over to Katherine. "Thank you so much for coming."

"Do you really mean it?"

"Of course I do," I said.

"Even after what Steve did?" she said.

"A small price to pay for the chance to spend some time with you," I said.

Katherine glanced at Bart. "You're a good influence on him."

"I'm a good influence on everybody," he said.

"I better go clean up before Dr. Whittington sees me," I leaned down to kiss Katherine. I could still smell the faintest hint of fresh flowers.

Suddenly I felt a jolt of fear, the same flutter in my chest I'd experienced when I saw the dead woman who was pulled from the Los Angeles River.

"What is it?" Katherine asked, studying my face. "What's wrong?"

The fear passed quickly, but that nagging sensation, that mental itch, returned. I sniffed Katherine again.

"What is that smell?" I asked.

"Vomit," she said.

"I mean on you," I said. "The flowers?"

"It's probably my bath oil," she said. "Why?"

I thought back to the dead woman, but the image that came to me wasn't her entire body laid out on the gurney. It wasn't even her face. It was little, seemingly inconsequential details. The tan line around her wrist. Her pierced ears. The seam of her stockings. I was remembering things I didn't realize I'd even seen.

I knew why I was jerked back when I saw the dead woman.

She smelled like my wife
.

I was beginning to understand what that nagging feeling meant and why I'd felt afraid. But there was only one way to find out if I was right.

I reassured Katherine that everything was fine, then hurried to the locker room, washed up, and changed into a pair of surgical scrubs before making my way down to the morgue.

The woman's body was on a gurney in the cold room with a dozen other corpses, patients of all ages who had died of all kinds of ailments. Most of the bodies had been stripped and cleaned and were ready to be picked up by morticians. But the woman from the river was exactly as we had left her, still in her muddy clothes, waiting to be claimed by the medical examiner for her autopsy.

I wheeled her out of the cold room and into the light of the pathology lab.

She wasn't a corpse anymore. She was a puzzle.

I put on a pair of gloves and sniffed her. Although she was covered with mud, the smell of bath oil was strong. Her blouse must have been soaked with it; the river water hadn't managed to overcome the scent.