Harmful Intent (21 page)

He'd been tense with anticipation since he'd arrived at the hospital that morning. Each time the circulating nurse returned to the OR, he expected her to spread the news that there had been a terrible anesthetic complication. But nothing had happened. The day had remained stultifyingly routine.

At lunchtime in the cafeteria, his hopes were falsely raised when one of the nurses who handled OB cases said, “Hey, did you hear what happened in room eight?”

Once she had everyone's attention, she regaled them with a story of how one of the surgical resident's pants had mysteriously become untied during a case and had slipped to his knees. Everybody had a big laugh over that one. Everyone but Trent.

Trent paused outside of Central Supply. He'd already been to his locker and had the good ampule of Marcaine hidden in his briefs again. There were plenty of people moving in and out of various ORs, but the confusion of the shift change had dissipated.

He was not pleased with this situation. It was risky for him to go into Central Supply at that time because he was not on duty. If someone saw him and questioned his presence there, he'd have little to say in defense. But he had no choice. He couldn't leave the doctored vial unattended. He had made it a practice to be around when one of his vials was used so that in
the ensuing confusion he could either remove the empty vial from the scene, or at least dispose of any remaining contents. He couldn't risk anyone's checking the Marcaine to see if anything had been wrong with it.

Trent took a quick stroll around Central Supply before going to the cabinet that contained the local anesthetics. So far so good. With one last furtive look around to make sure no one was watching, he lifted the lid of the open box of Marcaine and peered in. There were two ampules left. One had been used sometime that day.

Trent easily identified his doctored vial and quickly switched it for the good one in his briefs. Then he closed the lid and pushed the box back into its original position. When he turned to head back to the locker room, he stopped in his tracks. He was dismayed to find his path blocked by a tall, blond nurse. She seemed as surprised to see him at the cabinet as he was to see her. She had her hands on her hips and her feet spread apart.

Trent felt his face redden as he tried to think of a plausible reason for being there. He hoped the tampered ampule in his briefs was not apparent.

“Can I help you?” the nurse asked. From her tone, Trent guessed the last thing in the world she wanted to do was help.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I was just leaving.” At last he thought of something: “I was returning some IV fluid we didn't get around to using on the aneurysm case in room five.”

The nurse nodded but she seemed unconvinced. She extended her head to look over Trent's shoulder.

Trent looked at her name tag. It read Gail Shaffer. “The aneurysm went on for seven hours,” Trent told her just to make conversation.

“I heard,” Gail said. “Aren't you supposed to be off duty?”

“Finally,” Trent said, regaining his composure. He rolled his eyes. “It's been a long day. Boy, am I looking forward to a few beers. Hope things are quiet for you this evening. Take care.”

Trent edged by the nurse and started down the corridor toward the surgical lounge. After twenty or so steps, he glanced around. Gail Shaffer was still standing in the doorway to Central Supply, watching him. Damn, he thought. She was suspicious. He waved at her. She waved back.

Trent pushed through the swinging doors into the lounge. Where the hell had Gail Shaffer come from so quickly? He was irritated at himself for not having been more careful. He'd never been caught in the supply cabinet before.

Prior to going into the locker room, Trent stopped at the bulletin board in the lounge. Among the notices and schedules he found Gail Shaffer's name listed with the hospital softball team. Each player's telephone number was listed on the bulletin board in one form or another. On a piece of scrap paper, Trent wrote Gail's number down. From the first three digits, he guessed it was a Back Bay exchange.

What a pain, thought Trent, as he went into the dressing area to put on his street clothes. He slipped the vial back into his white hospital coat.

As Trent headed for the elevators and then home, he realized he'd have to do something about Gail Shaffer. In his position he couldn't afford to ignore loose ends.

Devlin had always hated hospitals. Ever since he was a little boy growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, he'd been afraid of them. His mother had played on his fear to threaten him: If you don't do this or you don't do that, I'll take you to the hospital and the doctor will give you a shot. Devlin hated shots. That was one of the reasons he now wanted to get Jeffrey Rhodes whether Michael Mosconi paid him or not. Well, that wasn't completely true.

Devlin shuddered. Thinking about Jeffrey reminded him of the terror he'd just experienced. Throughout the whole ordeal, he'd remained conscious and aware of everything that had happened. It had felt like gravity had suddenly increased a thousandfold. He'd been completely paralyzed, even unable to speak. He'd been able to breathe, but only with great effort and concentration. Every second he'd had the terror that he was about to suffocate.

The idiot of a clerk from the Essex Hotel had come out only after Jeffrey was long gone. He'd tapped repeatedly on the glass, calling to Devlin to see if he was okay. It had taken the fool ten minutes to open the damn door. Then he asked Devlin ten more times if he was okay before he had enough sense to go back into the hotel and call an ambulance.

By the time Devlin arrived at the hospital, forty minutes had passed. To his great relief, the paralysis had passed. The leaden feeling had vanished during the ambulance ride. But, terrified it might come back, Devlin had allowed himself to be wheeled into the emergency room to be examined despite his fear of hospitals.

In the emergency room, Devlin had been ignored except for a quick visit by a uniformed policeman. Officer Hank Stanley,
whom Devlin knew vaguely, had come in to have a chat. Apparently one of the ambulance drivers had seen Devlin's gun. Of course once Stanley recognized him, there had been no problem. Devlin's gun was properly registered and licensed.

Finally, Devlin had been seen by a doctor who looked like he was barely old enough to drive. His name was Dr. Tardoff and he had skin like a baby's behind. Devlin wondered if he'd started shaving yet. He had told the doctor what had happened. The doctor had examined him, then had disappeared without saying a word, leaving Devlin alone in one of the emergency room cubicles.

Devlin swung his legs over the side of the examining table and stood up. His clothes were in a heap on a chair. “Screw this!” he said to himself. It seemed like he'd been waiting for hours. Removing the hospital johnny, Devlin quickly dressed and pulled on his boots. Walking out to the main desk, he asked for his gun. They'd insisted he leave it there.

“Dr. Tardoff hasn't finished with you yet,” the nurse said. She was a huge woman, about Devlin's size, and looked about as tough as he did.

“I'm afraid I'll die of old age before he gets back,” Devlin said.

At that very moment, Dr. Tardoff appeared from one of the examining rooms, snapping off rubber gloves. He saw Devlin and came over. “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said. “I had to sew up a laceration. I talked with an anesthesiologist about your case and he said that you'd been injected with a paralyzing drug.”

Devlin lifted both hands to his face and rubbed his eyes as he took a deep breath. His patience had come to an end. “I didn't have to come all the way over here to this hospital to be told something I already knew,” he said. “Is this what you've had me wait for?”

“Our guess is that it was succinylcholine,” Dr. Tardoff said, ignoring Devlin's remark.

“I already told you that,” Devlin said. He'd remembered what Jeffrey had told him. He hadn't quite gotten the name of the drug completely right when he'd repeated it to Dr. Tardoff, but he'd been close enough.

“It's a drug that's used routinely in anesthesia,” the doctor continued, unruffled. “It's something like what the Amazon Indians use on their poison darts, although physiologically it involves a slightly different mechanism.”

“Now that's a helpful little tidbit of information,” Devlin said
sarcastically. “Now maybe you could tell me something a little more practical, like whether I have to worry about paralysis recurring at some inconvenient moment, say when I'm behind the wheel of my car going ninety miles an hour.”

“Absolutely not,” Dr. Tardoff said. “Your body has completely metabolized the drug. To get the same effect, you'd have to have another dose injected.”

“I think I'll pass.” Devlin turned to the nurse. “How about my gun now?”

Devlin had to sign some papers, then they gave him the gun. They had placed it in a manila envelope and the cartridges in another. Devlin made a great show of loading the gun right at the emergency room desk, then putting it into its holster. He touched his index finger to his forehead in a kind of salute on his way out. Boy, was he glad to be out of there.

Devlin took a cab back to the Essex Hotel. His car was still parked in front of the fire hydrant. But before he picked it up, he stormed into the hotel.

The clerk was nervously solicitous about how Devlin was feeling.

“Fine, no thanks to you,” Devlin told him. “Why'd it take you so long to call the ambulance? I could have died, for chrissake.”

“I thought maybe you were sleeping,” the clerk said feebly.

Devlin let that comment go. He knew if he thought about it, he'd probably want to strangle the idiot. As if he'd decide to take a catnap right after he'd apprehended a fugitive and handcuffed him at gunpoint. It was absurd!

“Did Mr. Bard come back inside after it looked like I fell asleep?” Devlin asked.

The clerk shook his head.

“Give me a key for 5F,” Devlin demanded. “You haven't been up there, have you?”

“No, sir,” the clerk said, handing the key to Devlin.

Devlin climbed the steps to Jeffrey's room slowly. There was no hurry now. He looked at the bullet hole and wondered how the slug had missed the doctor. It was centered on the door about four and a half feet from the floor. It should have hit something, and it should have stopped Jeffrey, even if by fright alone.

Opening the door, experience told Devlin that the clerk had been lying. He'd been in there searching for any valuables. Glancing in the bathroom, Devlin guessed that the clerk had taken most of the doc's toiletries. Devlin picked up some of the
notepaper on the nightstand that had Christopher Everson's name on it. He wondered again who Christopher Everson was.

 

After his quick getaway, Jeffrey had wandered around the downtown section of Boston, avoiding any policeman he saw. He felt like everyone was watching him. He walked into Filene's and hung out in the basement. Crowds made him feel safer. He pretended to browse long enough to try to calm down and figure out what to do next.

He stayed in the store for almost an hour, until he realized that the security people were eyeing him as if they had reason to believe he was a shoplifter.

Once he left Filene's, Jeffrey headed up Winter Street to the area around the Park Street MBTA station. Rush hour was in full swing. Jeffrey felt envious of the commuters hurrying home. He wished he had a home he could go to. He hung out by a bank of telephones and watched the parade of people go by. But when a couple of mounted police appeared, coming against the traffic on Tremont Street, he decided to move into the Boston Common. For a moment, Jeffrey was tempted to go down into the MBTA station with the commuters and catch a Green Line trolley to Brookline. But at the last minute he couldn't let himself do it.

What Jeffrey longed to do was go directly to Kelly's. The memory of her cozy house beckoned. The thought of a cup of tea with her was so tempting. If only things weren't the way they were just then. But Jeffrey was a convicted criminal, a fugitive. He was one of the homeless now, aimlessly wandering the city. The only difference was that he was carrying a ton of money in his duffel bag.

As much as he wanted to go to Kelly's, he was reluctant to draw her into his whirlpool of troubles now, especially with a crazed, gun-toting bounty hunter on his trail. Jeffrey did not want to jeopardize Kelly's safety. He couldn't lead a fiend like Devlin to her door. He shuddered as he recalled the sound of Devlin's gun.

But where could he go? Wouldn't Devlin search all the hotels in the city? And Jeffrey realized that his disguise would be of no help now that Devlin had seen him. For all Jeffrey knew, there might be a revised APB out on him already.

Jeffrey crossed the edge of the Common and ended up at the corner of Beacon and Charles streets. He turned up Charles. A few doors in from Beacon was a busy grocery store called
Deluca's. Jeffrey went in and bought some fruit. He'd not eaten much that day.

Eating his fruit, Jeffrey continued his wandering up Charles Street. Several taxis went by, and he stopped walking. He followed the cabs with his eyes while his mind came up with an explanation of Devlin's appearance. It had to have been the cabdriver who'd taken Jeffrey from the airport to the Essex. He'd probably reported Jeffrey to the police. Thinking back, Jeffrey had to admit that he'd acted rather strangely.

But if it had been the cabdriver who'd gone to the police, why hadn't the police come and not Devlin? Jeffrey started walking again. But he wouldn't let the issue drop. Finally he reasoned that it had been Devlin who'd gone to the cab companies on his own. The implications were that Devlin was more than a fearful presence. He was also resourceful, and that being the case, Jeffrey had better be significantly more careful. He was learning that becoming a successful fugitive took some effort and experience.

Reaching Charles Circle, where the MBTA emerged from beneath Beacon Hill and ran across the Longfellow Bridge, Jeffrey paused, not sure where he should go. He could turn right on Cambridge Street and head back downtown. But that didn't sound so good since he now associated downtown with Devlin's presence. Squinting into the sun, Jeffrey saw the footbridge that spanned Storrow Drive to the Charles Street Embankment along the Charles River. That seemed like as good a destination as any.

Reaching the river's edge, Jeffrey strolled along what used to be elegant walkways, as evidenced by granite balustrades and steps. It was now overgrown and unattended. The river was pretty, but it was dirty and emanated a swampy smell. There was a profusion of small sailboats dotted across its sparkling surface.

Reaching the esplanade in front of the Hatch Shell stage where the Boston Pops gave free concerts in the summertime, Jeffrey sat on one of the park benches under a row of oak trees. He wasn't alone. There were numerous joggers, Frisbee tossers, power walkers, and even roller skaters doing their thing on the maze of walkways and stretches of grassy turf.

Even though there were still several hours of daylight remaining, the sun seemed to abruptly lose its strength. A haze of high clouds had materialized that suggested the weather was about to change. A wind picked up and blew chilly air from over the water. Jeffrey shivered and put his arms around himself.

He had to be at the Memorial at eleven for work. He had no place to go until then. Again, Jeffrey thought of Kelly. He could remember how comfortable he'd felt in her home. It had been so long since he'd confided in anyone; so long since there'd been anyone to listen.

Jeffrey thought about going to Brookline again. Hadn't Kelly encouraged him to stay in touch with her? Didn't she want to clear Chris's name? She had a stake in this too, after all. That was all the convincing Jeffrey needed. He really needed help and Kelly seemed willing. She'd said she was willing. Of course, that was before these latest developments. He would be completely frank with her and tell her what had happened, including the gunshots. He would give her the choice again. He could understand if she didn't want to stay involved now that Devlin was back in the picture. But at least he could try her. He rationalized that she was an adult and could make her own decision about risk.

Jeffrey decided that the best way to get to Kelly's would be by taking the MBTA from the Charles Street station. He broke into a jog at the thought of himself sitting by Kelly on her gingham couch with his legs on the coffee table, and she laughing her crystalline laugh.

 

Carol Rhodes had just gotten home from the office. It had been an exhausting but productive day. She'd finished turning most of her clients over to other officers in the bank in anticipation of her upcoming transfer to the Los Angeles branch. After seeing the transfer put off for so many months, she'd begun to doubt that it would ever happen. But now she was confident that before too long she would be in sunny southern California.

Opening the refrigerator door, she looked to see what she could make herself for dinner. There was the cold veal left over from the dinner she'd made for Jeffrey. A lot of thanks she'd gotten for that effort. And there were plenty of salad fixings.

Before tackling dinner, she glanced at the telephone answering machine. There were no messages. She hadn't heard from Jeffrey all day. She wondered where the hell he was and what he was up to. She found out only that day that Jeffrey had kept the money he'd been able to raise from the increase in the mortgage. Forty-five thousand in cash. Just what was he planning? If she'd known he was going to behave this irresponsibly, she would never have signed the new mortgage. Let him wait out the appeal in jail. She only wished their divorce was final. At
this point she wondered what had ever attracted her to the man in the first place.

Carol had met Jeffrey when she'd come to Boston to attend Harvard Business School. She'd come from the west coast where she'd studied as an undergrad at Stanford. Maybe she'd been attracted to Jeffrey because she had been so lonely. She had been living in a dorm in Allston and hadn't known a soul when they'd met. Never in a million years had she planned on staying in Boston. It was so provincial compared to L.A. She felt the people were as cold as the climate.