Doc in the Box (14 page)

The tiny Asian woman behind the counter said in halting English, “Hot for you, or hot for me?”

I ordered hot for sissy Americans, and it still stripped my sinuses and made my mouth feel like it had been rubbed in ground glass and chili peppers.

“Hot for you, or hot for me?” Now there was an interesting distinction. That meal was probably mild by Thai standards. I was a foot taller than the Asian woman, but I was brought low by a couple of peppers. Twelve inches taller … I would be tall to her. Well, I’d be tall to most people. But would Stephanie
be tall to her? Would a man of five-nine be tall to her? He’d be short for me. “Tall for you, or tall for me?” I wondered.

A nurse in Dr. Brentmoor’s office had seen a man, or maybe a tall woman, leaving the scene of the shooting. What was tall for her? I’m sure she told the police, but I didn’t know.

I stopped by the Wellhaven Medical Arts Building that morning and asked for the nurse. She worked for one of Brentmoor’s partners now. She wasn’t quite as short as the Asian woman, but if she was five-five she was pushing it. Her name was Karen and she said she’d talk to me because she was a big fan of my column.

“I’ve got your column about diets on my refrigerator,” Karen said.

“The place of honor in any house,” I said.

“I’ve already told this to the police,” she said, looking worried. “I really didn’t see much. It was more like an impression of a person running, if you know what I mean. I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman. I think the person was wearing a baseball cap, but I don’t know if they had short hair, or long hair shoved under the cap. I guess I’m pretty useless.”

“No, no, not at all,” I said. “I’m mostly trying to get an idea of how tall this person was.”

“I’m no good at guessing heights,” Karen said, despairingly.

“Where would the person be on me?” I said.

Without hesitation, Karen reached up and touched the middle of my ear. About five-nine. Tall for you. Short for me. Exactly right for Stephanie Brentmoor.

• • •

I had another idea. Dr. Jolley may have been making mistakes with other patients besides Janet Smith. If so, there was someone who would know about doctors’ mistakes, my pathologist friend, Cutup Katie. She worked at the city medical examiner’s office. She saw a lot of doctors’ errors—on a slab at the morgue. I left my number on her beeper and she called right back. I knew she recognized my number, because she started in without any preamble: “If you’re asking about the Doc in the Box murders, I can’t talk right now. Call me tomorrow.” Before I could say anything, she hung up.

That was Katie. She didn’t mince words. I checked the newsroom clock. It was almost time to leave for Georgia’s double-barreled day at the hospital. Chemo and radiation. As I packed up my portable computer and the notes for the column I was working on, I thought what a drag this was getting to be, then felt ashamed. If I was tired of hospitals, how did Georgia feel?

She was in a funny, optimistic mood today. She breezed through the radiation treatment and seemed cheerful about her chemotherapy, even though she’d be hooked up to an IV drip for a couple of hours. She didn’t even complain about the long wait. The chemo waiting room was just as down-at-heels as the old radiation oncology waiting room, but it didn’t seem that way. The chemo folks did their best, adding live plants, cartoons ripped from magazines, and baskets of hard candy. Hard candy kills the terrible sulphur and bleach chemical taste some chemo patients get.

Every chair was filled. I glanced around at the crowd. If they weren’t in the chemo waiting room, I’d never guess some of them had cancer. Like that
thirtyish man sitting across from me. He was bald as an egg, and wearing a Cardinals baseball cap. If I saw him on the street, I’d figure he was in style—lots of young guys shaved their heads these days, and thanks to Mark McGwire half the city wore Cardinals caps. On second thought, he was a bit too skinny to be healthy. But the tall, broad-shouldered woman next to him looked fashionably thin. The cancer diet. How effective. She reached to pick up her briefcase and I saw a bicep bulge. Did she work out? The only way I could tell she was a chemo patient was that her eyelashes were missing and she’d carefully drawn on dark eyebrows. I suspected her curly dark hair was a wig, but it was hard to tell. Women’s wigs were so much better than men’s. No wonder the skinny guy with the Cardinals cap decided to stay bald.

There was no doubt the woman in the next seat was sick. She looked wasted and old beyond her years. Her head was wrapped in a bright blue print scarf that seemed to drain all the color from her sallow face. I wondered how old she really was—forty? sixty? I couldn’t tell if the handsome, healthy blond man pushing her wheelchair was her son or her husband, but he seemed to care about her very much. Next to them was a couple who seemed to be father and daughter. They had the same nose and chin. I couldn’t figure out which one was the patient. They both seemed sickly. My robust good health seemed almost shameful beside them.

Valerie came out for a minute to say hi. I asked her, “Did you know the doctor who got shot?”

“Dr. Jolley? No, never met him.”

“How do you think the killer’s getting into these places?”

“Beats me,” Valerie said. “I’ll tell you this, because it’s no secret. We tightened our security after radiation oncology. Hired more guards. Put cameras at all the exits. Made sure all delivery people showed IDs and signed in at the desk. Locked all entrances except the main one after seven
P.M
. Didn’t do any good. The killer walked into the Wellhaven building the next week and shot Dr. Brentmoor.”

“So how do you think the shooter’s getting in?”

Valerie shrugged. “For all I know, you’re doing it. You could be using Georgia here as a cover to get in these doctors’ offices.”

“But she never went to Dr. Jolley,” I said seriously. Valerie laughed, and so did other waiting room patients.

“I’ll come back for Georgia in about ten minutes,” she said.

“Nice interview technique,” Georgia muttered. “Why not use a rubber hose next time?”

“You don’t think I’m a good reporter?” I said, suddenly sounding defensive.

“I think you’re way too good for the
Gazette,”
she said firmly. “I don’t understand why you stay.”

“Fine talk from management. It’s simple. I like my job.”

“You could work for any paper in the country.”

“Not as a columnist. We’re white elephants these days. You know that. Papers don’t want us anymore. The only reason the
Gazette
keeps me is that readers would go ballistic if they got rid of me. At another paper I could be a reporter, but I’d never have the freedom I do here.”

“What freedom? Charlie’s always on your ass.”

“Not if I solve these killings,” I said.

She snorted. “Why not buy lottery tickets instead? If you win the thirty-eight-million-dollar Powerball, you could buy the
Gazette.”

“First thing I’d do is fire you,” I said. Several patients laughed, and I realized we’d been entertaining the waiting room with our conversation. I was relieved when Valerie called Georgia in for chemo.

The treatment rooms had bare white walls, white tile floors, and two big blue recliners for the patients. The nurses and caregivers sat on spindly metal-legged chairs with thinly padded gray seats. A TV bolted to the wall played a soap opera no one watched. Valerie set up Georgia’s IV drip and left.

At first Georgia and I shared the treatment room with a wan thirty-something woman who had dark circles under her eyes. But then Valerie came in and said, “I’m really sorry, Judy, but your white blood cell count isn’t high enough. You can’t take chemo this week.”

“But I have to,” Judy pleaded. “I missed last week, too.”

Valerie shook her head. “It’s not a good idea. I’ll call your doctor, but I expect he’ll confirm this decision.”

Judy waited for the doctor to call back. We could hear other nurses in the break room, singing happy birthday to someone. Judy began to cry silently. I wondered if she was crying because she feared she wouldn’t have another birthday. A few minutes later, Valerie came back and gently told Judy her doctor definitely said no. Judy picked up her book and purse and walked out, her shoulders slumped in defeat. The only thing worse than taking chemo was not taking it.

“Jesus,” Georgia said. “The things we see here.”

We had the small, bare room to ourselves now. The big recliner seemed to overwhelm Georgia. She shivered slightly in the refrigerated air. I got up, went to a cabinet, and found a thin hospital blanket. Georgia pulled it up around her and said, “Thanks, Francesca. You’ve done a lot of favors for me. Now I want you to do one more. Call Lyle. Quit being so goddamn stubborn.”

Tears welled in my eyes, but I wouldn’t cry. “I can’t do that. This is something we can’t work out. I don’t want to marry. He does.”

“What’s wrong with marrying Lyle?” she said.

I laughed bitterly. “How can you say that, knowing what happened to my parents?”

“Your parents had a booze problem, plus a few dozen other problems. I’ve never seen you drink anything but club soda.”

“There’s hardly a happy marriage at the
Gazette
. Look how Charlie and his pals cheat on their wives.”

“You really think Lyle would be like Charlie?” she asked, incredulous.

“No. I don’t. I just haven’t seen any happy marriages.”

“If it doesn’t work out, you can always divorce.”

“Divorce isn’t the answer. Look at Marlene and her ex. She spends more time thinking about that man now that they’re divorced. She has to haul him into court to collect every dollar of child support. Marriage may not last, but divorce is forever.”

I sat there, defiant and hurting, waiting for her next snappy comment. Instead, she hit back with the one thing I can’t stand—sympathy. “Is there anyone else, Francesca?” she said softly. “Is there another
man? Or are you just restless? You dated Lyle a long time. Maybe you need to check out the competition.”

I shook my head. There was no one else.

“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Then look around here. Quit spending your days around computers and cancer wards. Life is short, too short for stupid stubbornness. You love that man. He loves you. What difference does a piece of paper make? You’re married to him, anyway.”

“I don’t want to be a fool,” I said.

“You already are,” she said, angrily. We sat in silence until Valerie came back and disconnected Georgia’s IV.

The next day, Georgia was not at the office. I called her home, but no one answered. I checked with her secretary. “There you are. I was just going to call you,” she said. “Georgia called in with a touch of the flu, but she says it’s nothing to worry about. She wanted me to tell you that she was skipping her radiation treatment today, but not to worry.”

There was a lot of flu going around this spring, but I was still worried. Flu could wreck her white blood cell count. After work, I stopped by Kopperman’s deli for chicken soup. I’d been raised Catholic, but I believed in the healing power of chicken soup from Jewish delis, especially when they used lots of dill.

I had a key to Georgia’s penthouse. She’d given me one when I started driving her. I rang the doorbell and knocked loudly, for good measure. When no one answered, I let myself in and put the chicken soup on the kitchen counter. I found Georgia in bed, weak and sweating, racked with pain. She was wearing a jaunty pink turban that only made her look sicker.
Her hands scrabbled at the sheets as the pain hit her in waves.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, and then doubled up in another spasm. “I have terrible cramps. I can’t even sit up. I called my oncologist this morning, but the bastard was too busy to get back to me. His assistant called at five and said the doctor on call would phone me. He hasn’t yet.”

I looked at her bedside clock. “It’s after seven. You’ve been lying here suffering all day. That’s outrageous. What’s that doctor’s number?”

I called the number and half an hour later, the doctor finally called back. He said to take Georgia to the Emergency Room, and he’d fax his orders to the ER staff. Georgia didn’t want an ambulance. I helped her dress and half-carried her to the car. At the Emergency Room, the knife-and-gun club was out in full force. A woman had slashed her boyfriend across the face and genitals, and he needed eighty-five stitches. A drug dealer had a gunshot wound to the chest. There was a two-car accident on Lindell, and the bloody human wreckage was brought in. Georgia and I spent the whole time sitting on molded plastic chairs. Overhead, a TV mindlessly blared away. I was sure they had TV in hell.

It was almost midnight when the medics got around to Georgia, and I’d been fuming the whole time. The doctor hadn’t faxed his orders. Finally, Bruce, the male nurse, a kindhearted fellow, called the doctor directly. “I don’t believe this,” Bruce said, and slammed the phone down. “The doctor’s emergency number is a recording! I had to keep pushing
buttons and hitting the pound key to get to his answering service. I got lost and now I have to start over.” Exasperated, he went through the routine again and finally said, “This is an emergency. I’m calling from Moorton Hospital …”

I looked over and saw Georgia huddled in an uncomfortable chair. She looked cold. Why were hospitals such refrigerators? I found a blanket in a supply closet and wrapped her in it. Twenty minutes later, she was taken to a cubicle, where the doctor on duty said she’d probably had a bad reaction to her pain pills. He put her on an IV and left her there for a while, then sent her to X-ray to check for a possible bowel obstruction, then brought her back and took some blood tests, then left her alone some more. Sometime during the next two hours, her cramps went away, and she fell into a restful sleep on the gurney. I felt achy and stiff from sitting on the hard plastic chair at her side. At two-thirty
A.M
. the doctor pronounced Georgia fit to go home.

“You must stop at a drugstore on the way home,” he told me, “for her new medicine.” I asked if he could give us samples, but the doctor said he couldn’t. “There’s an all-night pharmacy right up the road.”