Silent Treatment (35 page)

He tossed two Percodans into the back of his throat and washed them down with a glass of water. Then he set out clothes for his meeting with Page. He would wear his sports jacket so that he could conceal the shoulder holster and his .38. He didn’t expect trouble, but he anticipated it. Since his betrayal and capture in Nogales, he always anticipated it.

He reached beneath the pillow, withdrew his pistol, and unscrewed the silencer. It was bulky, and although it had worked just fine that evening in Central Park, it tended to cut down on accuracy. Besides, he thought, when he finally stood face-to-face with Anton Perchek, when he finally leveled the .38 at a spot between his eyes and pulled the trigger, he wanted The Doctor to hear the sound.

“This hearing isn’t going to be pleasant,” Mel Wetstone said to Harry as they drove across town to the hospital. “But I promise you we are not going to take any bullshit from these people.”

He had picked Harry up in the Mercedes Philip had sold him—the one that Phil claimed defined the man as an attorney. The four doors as well as the trunk had electronic closing mechanisms, and the rear couch—
seat
hardly did it justice—reclined. It was certainly reassuring to see that Wetstone was successful enough to afford such transportation. But today the Mercedes had tapped into Harry’s midlife feelings of inadequacy. And block by smooth air-conditioned block, it was inflating them like a Thanksgiving Day float. Gratefully, there were just a few more blocks to go.

“Did Sam Rennick say what they were going for?” he asked.

“Sam plays things pretty close to the vest, but it was
clear that he isn’t willing to concede any of the points we’ve presented to him—not the sketch from Ms. Hughes, not the floor buffer theory, not the call to your office from the killer. They want you off the staff until the case is resolved.”

“Can they do that?”

“Probably. There are a few spots in the hospital bylaws where the language about who can do what to whom is vague—purposely vague, we think. The bottom line is that if they vote you out—and believe me, we’ve got some cards to play before they do—we can try for an injunction. But we’d better get a damn sympathetic judge. A far better idea would be to beat them back right here and now. That’s what I intend to do.”

Harry stared out the sun-sensitive window at the passing scene. He had no desire to be booted from the MMC staff. For one thing, his patients were his emotional and financial lifeblood; for another, being barred from practice in the hospital would make it that much harder to put the pressure on the killer. And they had made enough progress since connecting with Walter Concepcion to believe that before long, some sort of strategy for putting pressure on him might actually evolve.

Maura was on her way to meet with her brother’s friend, Lonnie Sims. The Dweeb had access to the latest in the graphics software being used to assist witnesses in creating drawings of suspects. Together they would enhance Maura’s sketch and add photographic quality, coloring, and detail. The result would be, essentially, a full-color mug shot, front and side views. They would then add and subtract, mix and match, until they had similar photos of the man with his appearance altered.

When Harry and his lawyer entered the executive conference room for the second time since Evie’s death, the atmosphere was distinctly more formal—and more threatening. Recording microphones had been placed at several spots around the massive table. The players from the first drama were all there already, along with a number of notable newcomers including members of the hospital board of trustees, the department heads who made up the medical
staff executive committee, the head nurses from Alexander 9 and Alexander 5, Caspar Sidonis, and a legal stenographer. There was also a man sitting beside the hospital attorney whom Harry did not know—a rough-hewn man in an ill-fitting blue suit.

Steve Josephson squeezed Harry’s hand as he passed. Doug Atwater smiled uncomfortably and came over.

“Harry,” he whispered, “I’m glad I got this chance to talk with you. I hope you understand that the other day I was only suggesting what I thought would be best for you. Obviously, I upset you, and I’m sorry for that. I wanted to be sure you know that I’m behind you a hundred percent in this thing.”

Half a dozen snide responses sped through Harry’s head. None of them made it to his mouth. Atwater didn’t deserve it. Over the years he had been most supportive of Harry and his struggles to keep family practice a respected option. Suggesting that Harry take a voluntary leave from the hospital was the only way he could think of to avoid the hearing that was about to take place—a hearing in which Harry seemed destined to be humiliated and ultimately swept aside.

“I understand, Doug,” he said. “But I haven’t done anything wrong, so I just can’t go down without a fight.”

“In that case, give ’em hell, Harry.” Atwater grinned.

Sam Rennick reviewed the ground rules that had been agreed upon by him and Mel Wetstone.

Witnesses would give a statement and answer questions from first Rennick, then Wetstone. Harry would be permitted to speak after each witness, but only to respond to questions from his lawyer, not to address any of the witnesses directly. When the hearing was concluded, the joint hospital and medical staff executive committees would vote by secret ballot whether to suspend Harry’s admitting privileges or not.

“Before you begin, Mr. Rennick,” Doug Atwater said, “I would like it to go on record that the Manhattan Health Cooperative will abide by the ruling of this hearing.” He looked over at Harry. “Dr. Corbett’s status as a physician
provider for MHC will remain intact so long as he has admitting privileges at this hospital.”

Considering that the health plan was bound only by its own laws in picking and removing physician providers, Atwater’s statement amounted to an endorsement. His company could have made the results of this hearing essentially moot by simply cutting Harry from its rolls. It was a move Harry had feared they might make. He was doubly glad, now, that he had held his temper with Doug.

The head nurse from Alexander 9 started things off by reading affidavits from both of the nurses who had been on duty the night of Evie’s death. There was no question in either of their minds that, except for Maura Hughes, Harry was the last one to see his wife before the lethal rupture of her aneurysm. Sue Jilson recounted in some detail Harry’s request to leave the floor for a milk shake and then return. The hospital attorney used his questions to pin down the nurse about the security setup on the floor. Then he homed in on the clinical condition of Maura Hughes.

“She was about the most classic case of the DTs I’ve ever seen,” the woman said. “She was restless and combative, sweating profusely, and disoriented most of the time. When she wasn’t accusing the staff of ignoring her, she was swatting at insects that weren’t there. She was medicated almost the entire time she was on our service, and despite that, she was still one of the most disruptive patients we’ve had in a long time.”

Harry and Mel Wetstone exchanged glances. The hospital attorney knew Maura’s sketch was about to be presented, and was effectively destroying its credibility by painting such an unappealing picture of her. It was the reason Harry had argued against having Maura attend the hearing to present her drawing herself. Mel had warned him what she might hear.

Wetstone cleared his throat, took a slow swallow of water, and favored the nurse with an icy smile.

“I’m sorry Ms. Hughes was so disruptive to your neurosurgical floor,” he said.

“Thank you,” the nurse replied, completely missing Wetstone’s sarcasm.

“You don’t have very warm feelings toward alcoholics, do you?”

“Does anyone?”

Wetstone allowed half a minute for the response to sink in around the room.

“As a matter of fact, yes. Some people do,” he said softly. “The American Medical Association has formally classified alcoholism as a disease. The American Psychiatric Association has also. I hope you’re not prejudiced against too many
other
diseases as well. I have no further questions of you.”

The head nurse, beet red, folded her notes and stared off at a spot that would keep her from eye contact with anyone. If the impact of her testimony hadn’t been neutralized entirely, it had certainly been diminished. Wetstone turned to Harry.

“Dr. Corbett, have you been in touch with Maura Hughes since her discharge?”

“I have.”

“And how’s she doing?”

“Quite well, actually. She hasn’t had a drink since her surgery, and she’s starting back on her painting.”

The white lie was one they had agreed upon the previous day.

“Oh, yes, she’s an accomplished and well-regarded artist, isn’t she? You have a drawing of hers here with you?”

“A copy of it, yes. Miss Hughes had trouble recalling some of the details of the man’s face, so we went to see a hypnotist.”

“That would be Dr. Pavel Nemec?”

The murmur around the room suggested that The Hungarian was known to most of those present.

“I’m not sure he’s a doctor,” Harry said. “But yes. He had no trouble helping her reconnect with her memories. One session, about fifteen or twenty minutes, was all it took.”

“Mr. Rennick,” Wetstone said. “Here is a notarised
affidavit from Pavel Nemec attesting to his Certainty that the drawing you are about to see represents the face remembered by Maura Hughes—the man who came into room nine twenty-eight after Dr. Corbett left to get his wife a milk shake.” He waited until everyone that mattered had a copy before he continued. “Dr. Corbett, have you ever seen the man depicted in Ms. Hughes’s drawing?”

“I have. He was dressed as a hospital maintenance man, buffing the floors outside room nine twenty-eight when I arrived. When I left for the milk shakes, he was still there. When I came back with them he was gone.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Positive. It’s an extremely good likeness of him. Maura Hughes has an incredible eye for detail. She says she suspects that the tie was a clip-on because the knot was just too perfect.”

Several people laughed out loud.

“This is ridiculous,” Caspar Sidonis muttered, though loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“So what you’re telling us, Dr. Corbett,” Wetstone said, “is that this man—” He waved the drawing for emphasis. “This man waited for an opportune moment, put on a doctor’s clinic coat taken from within the casing of his floor buffer, walked boldly into room nine twenty-eight, and injected your wife with a killing dose of Aramine,”

“I believe that is exactly what he did.”

Many of the faces around the room were expressionless. But Harry’s unofficial visual poll said that the majority still had strong doubts about him.

Without comment, Wetstone motioned that he was done. Since the burden of proof was, in theory at least, on the hospital, Harry would not be cross-examined by the hospital attorney. It was one of several procedural points Wetstone had won.

Sam Rennick next introduced the man in the ill-fitting blue suit, Willard McDevitt, the head of maintenance for the hospital. McDevitt, in his fifties with a ruddy complexion and a nose that appeared to have been broken more than once or twice, spoke with the force of one convinced
he was incapable of being wrong about anything. He reminded Harry of Bumpy Giannetti, the hulking bully who had stalked him after school and beaten him up with biologic regularity from grades seven through ten. He wondered in passing if Bumpy would respect him now that he was the chief suspect in two murders.

“Mr. McDevitt, is the man in that drawing anyone you recognize?” Rennick asked, after establishing the man’s credentials.

“Absolutely not. I never saw him before in my life.” He looked haughtily over at Harry.

“And what about that industrial floor buffer—the one Dr. Corbett claims the killer used that night?”

“Well, first of all let me say that if there was a buffer on Alexander Nine that night, it was one of mine. And if it was one of mine, one of my men was runnin’ it.”

“Could someone have brought one into the hospital?”

“Anything’s possible. But those babies weigh close to a quarter ton and are bigger ’n a clothes dryer. It’s hard to imagine someone sneakin’ one into the hospital without being noticed.”

“Could they have stolen one from your department?”

“Not unless it was at gunpoint. We have a sign-out system I designed myself to prevent any unauthorized person from usin’ any of our equipment. Even a wrench has to be accounted for. I don’t think we’d exactly misplace a five-hundred-pound buffer.”

“Thank you, Mr. McDevitt.”

Rennick nodded toward Wetstone without actually looking at him. Harry saw the gesture and reflected cynically on the foolishness of a profession in which sub-rosa byplay was an accepted, even rehearsed, part of the practice. Then he noticed Caspar Sidonis exchanging whispered comments with the trustee seated next to him, motioning toward Harry at the same time. The byplay in medicine might be more subtle than in law, but it was no less nasty.

“Mr. McDevitt,” Mel began, “where are these floor buffers kept?”

“Locked in a room in the subbasement—double locked
as a matter of fact. Only me an’ Gus Gustavson, my head of floor maintenance, have the key. Every one of them buffers that’s taken from that room has to be signed out by him or me.”

“I understand. Mr. McDevitt, I’d like to ask you again whether you believe there is any way a man who was not in your employ could get at one of those buffers?”

“Absolutely none.”

That look again
. Harry met the man’s gaze in a way he had never faced up to Bumpy Giannetti, held it, and even managed a weak smile. Had Mel Wetstone shared with him the next part of his strategy, his smile would have been much broader. Wetstone stood, walked to the door, opened it, and stepped back. A curious silence held for several seconds, then was shattered by a machinery hum. A tall blond man dressed in a tan MMC maintenance jumpsuit entered the room. He wore a standard hospital photo identification badge and was polishing the tile surrounding the plush Oriental rug with an industrial buffer.
PROPERTY OF MMC
was stenciled in red on the side.