Natural Causes (17 page)

It would have been a pleasure, Sarah felt, to air such issues. If only Devlin had done his job fairly. If only he had asked for her side. Now she was faced with the prospect of having to hold a press conference of her own, just to be certain her responses to his allegations were laid out clearly and completely.

Throughout the morning just past, the atmosphere surrounding her had been a striking contrast to the cheers and back-slapping that had followed her treatment of Lisa Summer. By the time she arrived on the OB/Gyn floor for rounds, copies of the
Herald
were everywhere—at the nurses’ station, on the bedstands in patients’ rooms, even in the bathroom of the staff lounge.

There was an almost palpable coolness from many of the nurses, along with whispers behind her back and gestures she caught out of the corner of her eye. But virtually no one mentioned the column to her—no one except her department chief, the chief of staff, the CEO of the hospital, and the head of public relations.

At noon she managed to break away from the madness to visit Lisa. If anyone deserved a personal rebuttal of Devlin’s implications, it was she. The empty room,
scrubbed and waiting for its next patient, was unsettling, but no more so than the news that Lisa had left the hospital with her father not fifteen minutes before with no attempt made to call Sarah. No message left. Just a discharge order from Randall Snyder, and she was gone. An hour later Sarah had asked someone to take over for her in her laparoscopy case.

By two-thirty, a brief nap and three aspirins had eased the pressure in Sarah’s head. She set her copy of the
Herald
on the small metal desk and pulled a pad of lined progress note sheets from the drawer. She had always been a fighter. But twice in the past she had decided not to dignify Axel Devlin’s jibes at her with a response. This time there was no way she was going to turn her back on his bullying. She would state and restate her position and qualifications. And she would not stop until his destructive, irresponsible reporting techniques were exposed.

At Wellesley, her anthropology honors thesis had been highly praised, both for its content and for her writing style. There was no reason she could not draft a press release that would put Devlin in his place and make strong points for certain herbal therapies as well.

Carefully she read through the column again, this time underlining key words and phrases. Although it was not essential, it would help to know the source of Devlin’s information. Glenn Paris had spoken of the constant, damaging leaks of hospital goings-on and had even threatened termination for anyone found responsible. Was this particular column the result of just another in that series of leaks, or was someone specifically trying to bring her down?

Herbal Prenatal Supplement … nine different roots and herbs … elephant sleeper … moondragon …

Was there any chance a patient of hers had gone to Devlin with the clinic handout? That made no sense. She had never kept secret the supplement or its contents.
And no one—not even Devlin—had shown any particular interest in it. Not until now.

Now two of those … patients are dead and a third is maimed.…

Sarah scratched her pen absently along one edge of the pad. Who knew that she had at one time or another seen all three victims in the clinic? Who would have had access to their records? Would Devlin have trusted a source other than a doctor?

Where do these herbs and roots come from? Who checks them for contamination?… For composition?…

Even the tone of Devlin’s questions sounded professional. Someone had fed him the words. Furthermore, that someone almost certainly had to have been a physician. For a few suspended minutes, Sarah closed her eyes, searching her memory, sorting through the facts and possibilities.

“No,” she whispered suddenly. “Oh, no.”

She hurled her pen against the wall. Then she snatched up her clinic coat and stormed from the room.

“Why, Andrew?” she cried as she raced down the stairs. “For God’s sake, why?”

“Money, of course,” Truscott said simply.

Sarah slammed her fist down on the
Herald
, landing dead center on Axel Devlin’s sketched likeness. “Andrew, I know you don’t like Glenn, and you don’t like this place. But we’ve been friends for over two years. You would do this to me for money?”

“Not for money, luv. For lots of money. And as for our being friends—the last friend I remember having stole my bike in the fourth grade and gave it to a girl he liked.”

“Oh, Andrew.”

“You can handle it, kid. You are possibly the most competent woman I know. And just remember, there’s
no such thing as bad publicity. There is only publicity. The article will raise public awareness of your cause.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Who paid you? Devlin? Everwell?” Sarah glared across the desk at the surgeon.

“It’s really none of your business who paid me,” Truscott said. “You know, Sarah, I didn’t make up any lies—about this place or about you. You
did
see all three of those women, and you
did
give them your little potion.”

“Andrew, before turning bits and pieces of information over to a person like Devlin, you could at least have taken the time to speak with me, or to read the studies on the supplement. You know what you did—the way you did it—was wrong. Can’t you at least admit that?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Truscott said with sudden vehemence, “I’ll admit that what I did was wrong as soon as you admit that ever since you arrived at this place, you’ve annoyed people with your holier-than-thou attitude regarding the inadequacies and callousness of the way we poor, limited M.D.’s do things. You walk around with this smug if-only-you-all-knew-the-great-secrets-I-know, if-only-you-all-were-as-complete-a-doctor-as-I-am attitude that just about everyone in this place finds threatening.”

“But—”

“Let me finish! You may think you’re helping to make all of us more complete doctors. But even in this place, even in Crunchy Granola General where almost anything goes, you’re looked on as a kook. The women on the staff think you’re not professional enough, and the men are so intimidated by you that they avoid you like sea captains avoid icebergs. So before you start attacking me, you might take a look at yourself.”

Sarah felt perilously close to tears. She had been wronged, clearly wronged by this man. Yet here he was, putting
her
on the defensive. Over her years at MCB, she had felt almost universal respect and acceptance
from the staff, male and female. Many, like Alma Young, had gone out of their way to tell her so. Her performance evaluations were consistently among the highest of the residents. After two decades of solo practice, Randall Snyder was considering
her
for a partnership. Why was she letting this, this
clone
of Peter Ettinger, get to her so?

She bit at the inside of her lip until she felt certain her tears were contained. Then she snatched up the
Herald
and turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Truscott demanded.

“I’m going back to work.”

“What are you going to do about all this?”

“If you mean am I going to Glenn, the answer is I don’t know yet.”

“They won’t fire me. Not without hard proof.”

“Andrew,” she said without turning back, “right now, thanks to what you’ve done, I have more important things to worry about than whether or not they fire you.”

T
HE EXERCISE ROOM, AN EXPANSIVE SOLARIUM AT THE
rear of the Great House, was as well equipped as most health clubs. Annalee Ettinger, while not nearly as fanatical about exercise as her father, did work out most days. There was a Universal, free weights, a StairMaster, treadmill, and Nordic-Track, as well as a continuous-current lap pool, ballet bar, tumbling mats, and a sauna. Today Peter had just finished a session with his trainer and was putting in some extra time with the weights. Annalee was feigning a workout on the Universal, waiting for the right moment for conversation.

Although she was no longer in as much awe and fear of the man as she had been for so many years, neither was she particularly comfortable around him. And although she understood him well enough to predict his reaction to most situations, she was completely in the dark as to how he would respond to what she was about to disclose.

She glanced over at him and couldn’t help but be impressed. At forty-eight, he had the body of a thirty-year-old. He worked obsessively on his strength and
flexibility and did forty minutes of Tai Chi a day for balance and centering. In his professional and personal life, he was unaccustomed to weakness or failure.
How would he view the decisions his daughter had made?

Annalee was not yet two when he brought her home from Mali. In his accounts of the adoption, Peter left no doubt that he had saved her life. Her mother had died from dysentery, and the chances for her own survival were poor.

“I wanted to bring every orphaned child in the village home with me,” he had told her more than once. “But that wasn’t possible. So I carefully evaluated dozens of factors in dozens of children, and I finally picked you because you wouldn’t let go of my leg.”

From the beginning, the standards of achievement and success he set for himself were those he set for her. It might not have been fair, but it was the only way he knew. Throughout her school years, her persistent weight problems and ennui were a source of constant concern for him. Still, though she always felt judged, and often inadequate, she never doubted that he cared.

Over their twenty years together he had dated many women, lived with two, and married one. But he had never made her feel secondary to any of them. And now, despite her years of rebellion and insensitivity toward him, he had welcomed her home, provided for her, and made her a part of Xanadu—a part of his dream.

The Xanadu Holistic Health Community was being constructed on 150 acres of mixed farmland and forest, crisscrossed by centuries-old fieldstone walls. The Great House, a rambling, thirteen-room structure, had been built in 1837. At the time Peter purchased the property, the house had decayed to the point that several architects felt there was no possibility of restoring it. He had proven them wrong. And now the house, complete with nine-foot ceilings and reconstruction that was true to the original, was a showplace—the centerpiece of Xanadu. Peter had given Annalee a small office on the
ground floor and made her the assistant director of marketing and public relations. It was their decision—his, really—that she would switch her major to business when she resumed full-time studies in January. Eighteen months later, she would be ready to go for an MBA. Meanwhile, summers and vacations, she would continue to expand her role at Xanadu.

Now, one way or the other, those carefully designed plans were about to change.

“Hey, Dad, lookin’ good. Lookin’
good,”
she said.

Peter was doing situps with a five-pound dumbbell in each hand. His forehead and razor-cut, silver hair glistened with what seemed to Annalee to be just the right amount of sweat.
Perfect perspiration
, she thought.
That’s it. That’s Peter Ettinger in a nutshell
.

“Enjoy your youth while you have it,” he responded without slowing. “This gets harder and harder. You quitting?”

“Yeah, I—I’m not feeling so hot today.”

The comment put an abrupt end to Peter’s workout.

“Now that you mention it, I’ve been noticing that you haven’t looked well the last couple of days,” he said, toweling off.

Nonsense
, she thought. It was doubtful that they had seen each other for five minutes over the preceding week.
You don’t have to impress me, Peter. Believe me, I’m already impressed
.

“A little peaked, huh?” she said.

“Yes, yes. Exactly.” He glanced over at her fine, ebony face. “Oh, very funny.”

Annalee reminded herself that her father’s sense of humor was far less developed than most of his other attributes. She would do well during this session to keep hers in check. She stretched her long, slender body to the maximum and wondered if he noticed the smooth, low mound beneath her leotard.

“I’ve been feeling a little sick to my stomach,” she said.

“Perhaps some ginseng tea.”

He stared out at a backhoe, rumbling down the hill toward the lakeside amphitheater construction site.

“And a little bloated.”

“In that case, perhaps we should brew it with a bit of apple bark and saffron.”

“And—and I haven’t had a period in five months.”

Peter tensed visibly and turned to her slowly. “How long?”

“Five months.”

His eyes narrowed. “Am I to assume, then, that you are pregnant?”

Annalee managed a thin smile.

“That would be a safe assumption,” she said.

“West? The musician?”

“Yes. His first name’s Taylor, Dad, in case you forgot.”

“You’re certain?”

“About it being Taylor?”

“No, about the pregnancy.”

Annalee searched her father’s face and voice for clues as to what he was thinking and feeling. At first reading, the signs weren’t encouraging.

“I’m certain. I had the test. And, Peter, before you ask the next obvious question, I want you to know that I’m very happy and excited about the whole thing.”

“That’s nice.”

“Please, don’t be flippant.”

Peter pulled on a loose, terry-cloth T-shirt. Annalee could see him processing the implications of her news. His displeasure was clear. But that was no surprise. Little pleased him that he did not initiate or control.

“And Taylor?” he asked.

“He’ll still be on the road a lot with the band. But sooner or later we’ll be getting married.”

Peter snatched up a ten-pound dumbbell and absently did half a dozen curls, first with one arm, then the other.

“You love him?” he asked suddenly.

The question startled Annalee—especially coming, as it had, before any inquiries about Taylor’s income or earning potential.

“Yes … yes, I love him very much.”