Every Fifteen Minutes (48 page)

“Thanks.” Eric went past the examining rooms and ducked into Laurie's office, at the end of the hall. He closed the door behind him, glancing around, and the office looked like no place else in the hospital. Lining the walls were framed posters of abstract art from Matisse, Delaunay, Kandinsky, and Marz; the names of the artists were at the bottom of each poster, and though each painting was different, they all shared vibrant and vivid colors, like the Marz, which depicted a bright cobalt-blue horse. Laurie's framed diplomas had yet to be hung, stuck on a shelf between medical books and hospital manuals, and the top of the shelf was covered with the funky windup toys she collected: mechanical robots, walking cats, elephants with a Babar crown, ducks, and chattering teeth, next to a Magic Eight Ball.

Eric picked up the Magic Eight Ball and turned it over, and the triangle appeared through the black water, reading,
Cannot predict now
. Unfortunately, he didn't know the question.

“Eric, hey!” Laurie entered the office, closing the door behind her, then came over and gave him a hug. “It's so good to see you.”

“Hi.” Eric hugged her back, remembering that before he'd run into the mall, he'd kissed her on the cheek. He couldn't explain how that happened, so he hoped she didn't remember and his impulse would be consigned to let's-pretend-this-didn't-happen territory.

“Wait.” Laurie looked Eric up and down, then made a funny face. “Why are you dressed like my brother?”

Eric smiled. “Because he dressed me.”

“Creepy, yet it works.”

“Thanks for hiding me.”

“Do you believe such idiocy? Please sit down. You've been through hell.” Laurie leaned against the side of the desk in her white coat. Her stethoscope was looped around her neck, her dark eyes looked bright and lively, and her curly dark hair was twisted into a topknot with a pencil. She smiled at him. “So you survived jail,
and
Paul. Which is worse?”

“I like Paul.” Eric sat back down, smiling. “I bet he had no idea what he was getting into.”

“Ha!” Laurie chuckled. “That's what he says about you. It's quite the bromance. So fill me in.”

“You don't have time.”

“You're right, and I have marching orders from him anyway. He wants me to talk to you. He thinks you're going too far out on a limb for Max, and I have to tell you, for once in my life, I actually agree with him. Do you know what a brat he was when he was little? I never, ever,
ever
thought that would happen.”

“Why do you agree with him?”

“Why?” Laurie's eyes flared. “I saw you run past an armed barricade into that mall. That was insanity! Just because it ended up okay doesn't mean it was a smart thing to do, or even the right thing to do.”

“The nurses approve,” Eric said slyly, suddenly in a good mood. Maybe it was the colorful artwork, making him happy.

“Very funny.” Laurie folded her arms, getting serious. “Eric, let me ask you a question, sincerely. Do you really believe that Max didn't kill that girl? Think about it. I mean, really think about it.”

“Well, I just learned about this secret boyfriend that Ren
é
e had, named Todd Schuler, and I'm sure the police haven't even questioned him yet.” Eric had been thinking about it on the way over, and the more he considered it, the more it seems like Todd had been overlooked as a suspect. “I found out that Ren
é
e used to walk her dog every morning in the park, at that same time. It was a well-established routine, because she was so crazy about the dog. But I don't think she was just there walking the dog. I think she used to meet Todd in the mornings, secretly, because her mother didn't like him. He could've killed her one morning and nobody would've known. He's a big guy, too. He could have overpowered her easily.”

“That's not the answer to my question. Before you go off on a tangent, I want to bring you back to Max and ask you if you really think he's innocent.”

Eric challenged his thinking. He flashed on Max last night at the mall, saying he didn't remember killing Ren
é
e, but seeming resigned to the fact that he had probably done it. “Okay, I'm ambivalent. Maybe he did it, but I can't imagine him doing it. It's just not like him.”

“So that's how you feel, your intuition?”

“Yes.”

“I know that you're intuitive, and you rely on your emotional intelligence as a clinician. But let's look at this objectively. Sometimes you have to look at the data.”

“Do you think he killed her?”

“Yes.”

Eric blinked, surprised. “I thought we were on the same page. I had the impression you thought Max was innocent, too.”

“I did, before last night. But last night changed things for me.” Laurie frowned slightly. “I have to be honest with you, when I saw the trouble he caused, when I saw the fear and even the terror he caused, those kids crying, police mobilizing from everywhere, the EMTs, first responders, guys I
know,
whose help is needed elsewhere. He caused all that to happen.”

“So you're angry at him.”

“Damn right, I'm angry at him. I deal with emergencies every day and I've seen how first responders work all night, picking up the pieces after accidents, rushing children in here, arms off, legs off, even
babies
in here after car accidents, shootings, stabbings, muggings, accidental poisonings, household accidents, every kind of horrible thing that can happen to human beings ends up in my ED.” Laurie gestured at the door. “Right out there. The lives of innocent people could have been
lost
last night, it could've been a disaster. We drill for bomb threats, and when I heard that Max had a fake bomb, I could've killed him myself.”

“I understand that you're angry, but that doesn't make him guilty of murder. I tell you, he was trying to kill himself last night.”

“Eric, I'm not the shrink, but I think you're in denial about Max. You're projecting onto him, seeing yourself in him—or maybe even Hannah. It's like you're being protective without knowing the facts.”

“What facts?”

“Exactly. You saw Max a total of three times, including the time you met him on Friday night here, for which I will be forever regretful. Do you really have enough facts on which to base this
ambivalence
you're sticking to?” Laurie threw up her expressive hands. “How well do you
really
know Max? You think you understand him, but would you have predicted that he would do what he did at the mall? Did you see that coming? According to you, that was wildly out of character, but he did it. It's a fact that he did it.”

“I admit, I didn't see that coming. I worried he was suicidal, but this kind of scheme, with the bomb and everything, it doesn't seem like him.”

“Hello, wake up, he did it. I saw it.”

“But still, it's not like him. It's almost like he had another influence, as if someone was influencing him.”

“You sound like a mother who says that her kids fell in with the wrong crowd. Doesn't that sound like denial to you?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.” Eric felt stubborn, but he couldn't bring himself to believe that Max was completely responsible for the hostage-taking at the mall. He was buying into the police's theory, that Max was weak and there had to be a Svengali. Eric thought back to Marie, telling him that Eric talked to someone on the phone at night, sometimes they fought. Whoever that person was, maybe
he
was the Svengali. But Eric couldn't talk to Marie, not after what Paul had said about the lawyer they'd hired.

“Eric.” Laurie sighed. “You need to get your head out of your own ass. Take a look at the facts. Begin at the beginning.”

“I did that. I read through my notes of my sessions with him.”

“I took notes about Max the night you met him and his grandmother. They're in her file. Max was Chatty Cathy before you came down and he gave me an earful.”

“He did?” Eric felt his ears prick up. “Why didn't you mention this before?”

“I didn't think it mattered, and it's not as if we've had a lot of free time to chat.” Laurie snorted. “I don't know what he told you in his sessions, but I think you need to start over. Begin at the beginning. Look at this kid with new eyes. Objectively.”

“Okay.”

“Hang on a sec.” Laurie walked around to the front of her desk, bent over her computer keyboard, and hit a few keys. In the next moment, her cell phone signaled an alert, as part of the two-step security system that HGH maintained for access to its electronic medical records system. She slid the phone from her pocket and typed in the security code that appeared on the text. Only then would she be permitted access to the record, then she'd also have to type in her own personal identity code, was which was also confidential. “Okay, here's his grandmother's file, with my notes from him that night, which came from my conversation with Max.”

“Great.” Eric started to rise to come around the desk, but Laurie held him off with a stagey wink.

“I'm sure you're not allowed to look at this since you're on suspended status. So, don't you dare look at this file. Oops, I think I hear someone paging me, so I'm going to leave.” Laurie straightened up and walked out of the office without another word, closing the door behind her.

Eric rose, intrigued, and went around the desk.

 

Chapter Fifty-five

Eric scrolled through the first page of Virginia Teichner's electronic medical records, or EMR, skimming the logged entries of her vital signs on the night of her treatment in the emergency room and scanning the ghostly gray images of her chest X-ray, which showed the amorphous whitish tumor that interfered with her breathing and swallowing. He could see the telltale crosshairs where the X-ray technician had dutifully measured the mass, but you didn't have to be an oncologist to know that it would kill Mrs. Teichner sooner rather than later.

Eric felt a stab of pain, remembering how lively Virginia had been that night, and how funny, but he had to put that memory behind him for now. He scrolled to the back of the file, where Laurie had typed in her notes, and began reading, picking up the parts about Max: “… grandson vocal on subject of his mother … expresses anger at mother and her neglect of grandmother … grandson resents that mother has ‘milked grandmother for all she is worth and then some' … grandson seems v. depressed and angry about grandmother's imminent death … says he ‘can't stand idea of living with his mother' and he ‘would be better off if the mother were dead' … grandson says that mother is ‘useless whore' … and ‘deserves to die'.….. he ‘hopes that one of her loser boyfriends kills her in her sleep.' … call Eric for psychiatric consult…”

Eric considered it, though he wasn't really surprised. Max had expressed anger at his mother in their sessions, and Eric could see with his own eyes that Marie was an irresponsible mother. The hostility was more than Eric might have expected, considering it was expressed to a stranger like Laurie, but that could be explained by the fact that Max was so upset that night, with his grandmother choking at the house, then having to bring her to the emergency room. It wasn't really a fair picture of Max, Eric thought, then he paused, wondering if he really was making excuses for the boy.

Eric scrolled to the next page to see if there were any more notes, but there weren't, though he hadn't reached the end of the Virginia Teichner file. The next page of the EMR was the first page of a previous admission of hers, and he checked the date of the admission. Evidently, two months prior to her admission to the emergency department, Virginia had been admitted to the third floor, which was cardiology, and had stayed there for three days, for observation and treatment of breathing difficulties and chest pain.

Eric remembered that Laurie had mentioned the previous admission that night in the ED, but he must have forgotten. He hadn't really focused on it before, because it didn't matter, and it made sense that Virginia, who had such an advanced cancer by the time he met her, would have been admitted to HGH before. Eric checked the top of the page to see which physician had been assigned to her case: Dr. Morris Brexler, Cardiology Chief.

Eric frowned. It was odd that Morris hadn't mentioned that he'd treated Max's grandmother. He had just run into Morris downstairs, and they'd discussed the scene at the mall last night, so it would've been a natural thing to mention. It didn't make sense that Morris was omitting it, for some reason. It seemed remotely possible that Morris hadn't made the connection between Max and his grandmother, but that was unlikely, given that Max had probably been the one to bring Virginia to the hospital in the first place and had undoubtedly visited her, if he even left her side at all.

Eric looked at the upper right side of the page, where the treatment team for each patient was always listed. The treating physician was Morris Brexler, the resident Sara Stone, the assigned nurse Caleb Martieki, and the social worker Martha Girandole. Next to each of the names was the general phone number for the cardiology department. Under HGH procedure, the personal cell numbers of hospital staff were kept confidential, to avoid patients' calling them at all hours.

Eric scanned the report of Virginia's vitals and her bloodwork, idly noting the levels, then looked at her MRIs and X-rays of her chest and throat, in which the mass was barely visible, so it must have been a fast-growing tumor. He kept going through the file to see if Morris or anyone else had made any notes regarding Max, but he reached the last page, under Physician's Notes. There was one relevant note on the first day of Virginia's admission, on which Morris had noted: “patient accompanied by grandson, no other visitors … grandson is primary caretaker and familiar with medication and eating habits of patient.” On day two of Virginia's hospital stay, after notes about her breathing issues, Morris noted that, “Patient very worried about mental state of grandson, given her diagnosis.” On day three, Morris made a similar note, “Patient wants referral psychiatrist for grandson w depression, grief counseling.”