Harvest (23 page)

"It's no secret she has sympathies with the euthanasia movement," said Susan Casado.

Abby stared at her. "What?"

"We've spoken with the nurses. On one occasion, Dr. DiMatteo was heard to say, quote..." Susan flipped through the pages of a yellow legal pad. '... "If the morphine makes it easier, then that's what we should give her. Even if it makes the end come sooner." Unquote." Susan looked at Abby. "You did say that, didn't you?"

"That had nothing to do with euthanasia! I was talking about pain control! About keeping a patient comfortable."

"So you did say it?"

"Maybe I did! I don't remember."

"Then there was the exchange with Mrs Allen's niece, Brenda Hainey. It was witnessed by several nurses, as well as Mrs Sperry here." She nodded towards the nursing supervisor. And again she glanced at her legal pad. "It was an argument. Brenda Hainey felt her aunt was getting too much morphine. And Dr. DiMatteo disagreed. To the point of using obscenities."

It was a charge Abby couldn't deny. She had argued with Brenda. She had used an obscenity. It was all crashing in on her now, wave after giant wave. She felt unable to breathe, unable to move, as the waves just kept slamming her down.

There was a knock and Dr. Wettig walked in and carefully shut the door behind him. He didn't say anything for a moment. He just stood at the end of the table and looked at Abby. She waited for the next wave to crash.

"She says she knows nothing about it," said Parr.

"I'm not surprised,"Wettig said. "You really don't know anything about this, do you, DiMatteo?"

Abby met the General's gaze. It had never been easy for her to look directly at those flat blue eyes. She saw too much power there, and it was power over her future. But she was looking straight at him now, determined to make him see that she had nothing to hide.

"I didn't kill my patient," she said. '! swear it."

"That's what I thought you'd say."Wettig reached in his lab coat pocket and produced a combination padlock. He set it down with a thud on the table.

"What's this?" said Parr.

"It's from Dr. DiMatteo's locker. In the last half-hour, I've become something of an expert on combination padlocks. I called a locksmith. He says it's a spring-loaded model, a piece of cake to get open. One sharp blow is all it takes. And it'll snap open. Also, there's a code on the back. Any registered locksmith can use that code to obtain the combination."

Parr glanced at the lock, then gave a dismissive shrug. "That doesn't prove anything. We're still left with a dead patient. And that." He pointed to the vial of morphine.

"What's wrong with you people?" said Mark. "Can't you see what's happening here? An anonymous note. Morphine conveniently planted in her locker. Someone's setting her up."

"To what purpose?" said Susan. "To discredit her. Get her fired."

Parr snorted. "You're suggesting someone actually murdered a patient just to ruin Dr. DiMatteo's career?"

Mark started to answer, then seemed to think better of it. It was an absurd theory and they all knew it.

"You have to agree, Dr. Hodell, that a conspiracy is pretty farfetched," said Susan.

"Not as farfetched as what's already happened to me," said Abby. "Look at what VictorVoss has already done. He's mentally unstable. He assaulted me in the SICU. Putting bloody organs in my car is something only a sick mind would think of. And then there are the lawsuits - two of them already. And that's just the beginning."

There was a silence. Susan glanced at Parr. "Doesn't she know?" "Apparently not."

"Know what?" said Abby.

"We got a call from Hawkes, Craig and Sussman just after lunch," said Susan. "The lawsuits against you have been dropped. Both of them."

Abby reeled back in her chair. "I don't understand," she murmured. "What is he doing? What is Voss doing?"

"If Victor Voss was trying to harass you, it appears he's stopped. This has nothing to do with Voss."

"Then how else do we explain this?" said Mark.

"Look at the evidence." Susan pointed to the vial.

"There are no witnesses, nothing to link that particular vial with the patient's death."

"Nevertheless, I think we can all draw the same conclusion."

The silence was suffocating. Abby saw that no one was looking at her, not even Mark.

At last Wettig spoke. "What do you propose to do, Parr? Call in the police? Turn this mess into a media circus?"

Parr hesitated. "It would be premature..."

"You either make your accusations stick, or you withdraw them. Anything else would be unfair to Dr. DiMatteo."

"My God, General. Let's keep the police out of this," said Mark.

"If you people want to call this murder, then the police should be involved," said Wettig. "Call in a few reporters as well, put your PR

people to work. They could use a little excitement. Get it all out in the open, that's the best policy." He looked directly at Parr. "If you're going to call this murder."

It was a dare.

Parr was the one to back down. He cleared his throat and said to Susan, "We can't be absolutely certain that's what it is."

"You'd better be certain it's murder," said Wettig. "You'd better be damn certain. Before you call the police."

"The matter's still being looked into," said Susan. "We have to interview a few more nurses on that ward. Find out if there's something we've missed."

"You do that," said Wettig.

There was another pause. No one was looking at Abby. She had faded from view, the invisible woman no one wanted to acknowledge.

They all seemed startled when Abby spoke. She scarcely recognized her own voice; it sounded like a stranger's, calm and steady. "I'd like to return to my patients now. If I may," she said. Wetfig nodded. "Go ahead."

"Wait," said Parr. "She can't go back to her duties."

"You haven't proved anything," said Abby, rising from her chair. "The General's right. Either you make the charges stick, or you withdraw them."

"We have one charge that's indisputable," said Susan. "Illegal possession of a controlled substance. We don't know how you obtained the morphine, Doctor, but the fact you had it in your locker is serious enough." She looked at Parr. "We don't have a choice. The potential for liability is sky-high. If something goes wrong with any of her patients, and people pounds d out we knew about this morphine business, we're dead." She turned to Wetfig. "So's the reputation of your residency programme, General."

Susan's warning had its intended effect. Liability was something they all worried about. Wettig, like every other doctor, dreaded lawyers and lawsuits. This time, he didn't argue.

"What does this mean?" said Abby. "Am I being fired?"

Parr rose to his feet, a signal that the meeting was over, the decision now made. "Dr. DiMatteo, until further notice, you're on suspension. You're not to go on the wards.You're not to go anywhere near a patient. Do you understand?"

She understood. She understood perfectly.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Yakov had not dreamed of his mother in years, had scarcely thought of her in months, so he was bewildered when, on his thirteenth day at sea, he awakened with a memory of her so vivid he could almost smell her scent still lingering in the air. His last glimpse of her, as the dream faded, was her smile. A wisp of blonde hair tracing her cheek. Green eyes that seemed to be looking through him, beyond him, as though he was the one who was not real, not flesh. Her face was so instantly familiar to him that he knew this must surely be his mother. Over the years he had tried hard to remember her, but her face had never quite come to him. Yakov had no photographs, no mementoes. But somehow, through the years, he must have carried the memory of her face stored like a seed in the dark but fertile soil of his mind. Last night, it had finally blossomed. He remembered her, and she was beautiful.

That afternoon, the sea turned flat as glass and the sky darkened to the same cold grey as the water. Standing on the deck, looking over the railing, Yakov could not tell where the sea ended and the sky began. They were adrift in a giant grey fishbowl. He'd heard the cook say there was bad weather ahead, that by tomorrow no one would be keeping down much more than bread and soup. Today, though, the sea was calm, the air heavy and metallic with the taste of rain. Yakov was finally able to coax Aleksei from his bunk to go exploring.

The first place Yakov took him was Hell. The engine room. They wandered for a while in the clanking darkness until Aleksei complained the smell of fuel was making him sick. Aleksei had the stomach of a baby - always puking. So Yakov took him up to the bridge, where the Captain was too busy to talk to them. So was the Navigator. Yakov could not even demonstrate his special status as a regular and accepted visitor.

Next they headed to the galley, but the cook was in a cranky mood and did not offer them even a slice of bread. He had a meal to prepare for the aft passengers, the people no one ever saw. They

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were a demanding pair, he complained, requiring far too much of his time and attention. He grumbled as he set two glasses and a wine bottle on a tray and slid it into the dumbwaiter. He pressed a button and sent it whirring upwards, to their private quarters. Then he turned back to the stove where a pan was sizzling and pots were steaming. He lifted one of the pot lids, releasing the fragrance of butter and onions. He stirred the contents with a wooden spoon.

"Onions have to be cooked slowly," he said. "It makes them sweet as milk. It takes patience to cook well, but no one has patience these days. Everyone wants things done at once. Stick it in the microwave! Might as well eat old leather." He closed the pot lid, then lifted the lid to the frying pan. Browning inside were six tiny birds, each one no bigger than a boy's fist. "Like morsels from heaven," he said.

"Those are the smallest chickens I've ever seen," marvelled Aleksei.

The Cook laughed. "They're quail, idiot."

"Why do we never eat quail?"

"Because you're not in the aft cabin." The cook arranged the steaming birds on a platter and drizzled them with chopped parsley. Then he stepped back, his face red and sweating as he admired his creation. "This they cannot complain about," he said, and slid the platter into the dumbwaiter, which by then had returned empty. "I'm hungry," saidYakov.

"You're always hungry. Go, cut yourself a slice of bread. The loaf is stale, but you can toast it."

The two boys rummaged in drawers for the bread knife. The Cook was right; the loaf was dry and stale. Holding down the loaf with the stump of his left arm Yakov sawed off two slices and carried them across to the toaster.

"Look what you're doing to my floor!" said the cook. "Dropping crumbs all over. Pick them up."

"You pick them up,"Yakov told Aleksei. "You dropped them. I didn't." "I'm making the toast."

"But I didn't drop the crumbs."

"All right then. I'll just throw away your slice."

"Someone pick them up!" roared the cook.

Aleksei instantly dropped to his knees and picked up the crumbs. Yakov slid the first piece of bread into the toaster. A furry ball of grey suddenly popped out of one of the slots and leaped to the floor.

"A mouse!" shrieked Aleksei. "There's a mouse!"

The grey ball was scampering around Aleksei's dancing feet now, chased in one direction by Yakov, then in the other direction by the Cook, who threw a pot lid at it for good measure. The mouse skittered halfway up Aleksei's leg, eliciting such a scream of terror it immediately changed course. It dropped back to the floor and shot off, vanishing under a cabinet.

Something was burning on the stove. Cursing, the Cook ran to turn off the flame. He cursed some more as he scraped blackened onions from the pot, the onions he'd been so tenderly nursing along in butter. "A mouse in my kitchen! And look at this! Ruined. I'll have to start over again. Bloody fucking mouse."

"He was in the toaster," saidYakov. Suddenly he felt a little sick.

He thought about that mouse crawling, scratching around inside. "Probably left it full of his shit," said the cook. "Bloody mouse."

Yakov cautiously peered into the toaster. No more mice, but lots of mysterious brown specks.

He slid the toaster towards the sink, intending to dump out the crumbs.

The Cook gave a shout. "Hey! Are you stupid? What are you doing?"

"I'm cleaning out the toaster."

"There's water in that sink! And look, the thing is still plugged in. If you put that in there, and you touch the water, you're dead. Didn't anyone ever teach you that?"

"Uncle Misha never had a toaster."

"It's not just toasters. It's anything that plugs in, anything with an electric cord. You're as stupid as all the others." He waved his arms, shoving them towards the door. "Go on, get out of here, both of you. You're a nuisance."

"But I'm hungry," saidYakov.

"You wait for supper like everyone else." He threw a fresh slab of butter into a saucepan. Glancing atYakov, he barked: "Go!"

The boys left.

They played on deck for a while, until they grew chilled. They tried the bridge again, but were shooed from there as well. Sheer boredom took them, at last, to the one place in the boat where Yakov knew they would bother no one, and no one would bother them. It was his secret place, and he'd meant to show it to Aleksei only as a reward, and only if Aleksei could manage, for once, not to be a crybaby. He had found it on his third day of exploring, when he had spotted the closed door in the engine-room corridor. He

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had opened that door and found it led to a stairwell shaft. Wonderland.

The shaft soared three levels. A circular staircase spiralled up and up, and leading off the second level was a flimsy steel walkway that clattered and shook if you jumped up and down on it. The blue door leading aft from the walkway was always kept locked. Yakov had stopped even bothering to try it.

They climbed up to the top level. There, with the floor a dizzying drop below them, it was easy to scare Aleksei with a few noisy jumps.

"Stop it!" Aleksei cried. "You're making it move!"

"That's the ride. The Wonderland ride. Don't you like it?"

"I don't want to take a ride!"

"You never want to do anything."Yakov would have kept jumping up and down, shaking the walkway, but Aleksei was on the verge of hysteria. He had one hand clenched around the railing, the other hugging Shu-Shu.

"I want to go back down," Aleksei whimpered.

"Oh, all right."

They went down the staircase, setting off lovely clatters. At the bottom they played for a while under the bottom steps. Aleksei found some old rope and tied one end to the lowest walkway railing. He used it to swing back and forth like the ape man. It was only a foot off the ground; not very exciting.