Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  "Lew, tell me something," Abby said. "Assuming Willie's blood is positive for cadmium, what do we do then? Whom do we go to? The police? Joe Henderson at the hospital? State authorities? Federal?"

  "How about all of the above?"

  "Seriously."

  "Well, let's start by remembering that, for all intents, Colstar owns the town, including, and maybe especially, the hospital. That eliminates Henderson, the locals, and even the state police. A good lawyer might get Willie off if we can prove he's been poisoned, but our goal is to shut the plant down right now, and to keep it closed until it comes clean and makes retribution. As far as I'm concerned, that leaves us back at OSHA and the EPA. Either of them could intervene if we could show conclusive proof that Colstar has acted irresponsibly, or has information on an environmental exposure--air or water--that they've held back."

  "But you told me that both OSHA and the EPA have already sent teams in to investigate."

  "Exactly. And there's not much chance they'd come back again, either, unless we present them with positive blood work and some sort of incontrovertible pattern pointing to the big concrete house on Colstar cliff. That's why we need more in-depth record study like what you were doing the other night. Age, sex, water supply, street location, driving route to work, medications, recreational habits--I don't know what it is, but I firmly believe the explanation is to be found somewhere in those records, or maybe in a combination of the records and a questionnaire to the NIWWs. We've just got to accumulate more data."

  "It's just not possible, Lew. Joanne Ricci's got a lock on the system. I can't retrieve records anymore without going through the record-room person on duty. That woman is hard."

  "Dave Brooks and I used to call her the Dragon Lady. Did you know she fired that poor girl who helped you out the other night?"

  "Donna Tracy?"

  "Yes. I called Len McCabe in the ER this morning to check on changing some shifts. He warned me against conducting any more unauthorized chart reviews and told me about the Tracy girl. The hospital is starting to resemble a stalag."

  "I can't believe Donna lost her job because of me. That's horrible. She has little kids. After we check on Josh, I'm going to call her."

  "Maybe she can come up with some way for you to crack back into the system."

  "Lew, I would never ask her to do that."

  "Why not? What does she have to lose--her job? I'm telling you, Abby, this is war. And until you came, we didn't have a hell of a lot of ammunition."

  For the first time since she had begun to know Lew Alvarez as a person, Abby felt a spark of irritation at the man.

  "I'm not here to join anyone's army, Lew," she said. "I keep telling you that. I just want to help the patient I'm being blamed for saving, and the man who, until just a month or so ago, was the most important person in my life."

  "What about all those NIWWs? I suppose you don't give a damn about them."

  "Okay, okay. I care about them, too. Lew, just don't push me. When people push me, all I ever seem to end up doing is pushing back. And I don't want that to happen between us."

  "Understood. I'm sorry. I'll try to keep my feelings to myself."

  Orchard Road was part of a middle-class housing development with no trees older than five years or so, and remarkably featureless rows of houses. The Sawicki place, number seventeen, was a modest ranch, white with maroon shutters, set on a typically small lot. The lawn was brown beyond reclamation, and the low shrubbery abutting the house was badly in need of attention. It saddened Abby to think of Josh living in such a place, even temporarily. She flashed on how excited he'd been, reporting that the house he'd found for them to rent was on a secluded dead-end street, backed up to the pine forest, and full of character.

  The driveway, leading to a carport with a corrugated aluminum roof, was empty. They parked in the drive and rang the front doorbell. Nothing. Abby stepped behind the shrubs and peeked in the living-room window. What she could see of the room was a shambles, with newspapers and crumpled computer printouts everywhere. In addition, there were half-empty cartons of take-out food, beer bottles and soda cans, and an array of opened chip and pretzel bags.

  "Let's go around back," she said in a half whisper.

  She followed Lew around to the backyard with a sinking feeling in her chest. The side door, under the carport, was locked. The backyard, like the one in front, was barren and brown. A few weeds and low-lying vines had begun to encroach. Abby kicked at an empty tin can, one of several lying about. The shades were drawn on all the windows. She tried peering beneath but could see little. Then she tried the steel storm hatch leading to the basement. The heavy door swung open. Down a short flight of stairs, she found the basement door open as well.

  "Lew, quick, down here," she called out.

  "I'm not so sure this is a good idea," he replied, pulling the hatch closed behind him, then ducking to fit under the low door frame.

  The basement was cluttered with tools and yard implements, plus a typical array of boxes and old furniture. They walked upstairs and cautiously entered the first floor near the kitchen. That room, like all the others, was untended and littered with trash. The sheets were torn off the beds. Josh's clothes were strewn about. The phones were unplugged or else torn from the wall. Abby moved apprehensively from room to room, peering behind the sofa and beds, dreading that at any moment she would see Josh's body. The smell from rancid food permeated the house.

  Josh's computer and printer were set up on a Formica table at one corner of the living room. The floor around it was strewn with balled sheets of paper. Abby smoothed one out. It was a rambling, disjointed letter to the governor, decrying those industrial barons throughout the state who had forced their former employees into homelessness and depravity. A second page, similar in tone and composition, was a fragment of a letter addressed to the President. Abby was reaching for a third sheet when Lew called to her from the bathroom.

  "Abby, come on in here."

  She dropped the paper and hurried down the hallway, fearing the worst.

  But there was no body. Instead, there was a message, crudely printed in reddish brown on the mirror.

  VENGEANCE IS MINE I WILL REPAY

  "That's from the Bible," Lew said. "I can't say precisely where."

  Abby moved forward and peered closely at the letters.

  "Lew," she said, "this is dried blood."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Patience Police Department was housed downtown in an elegant new building of cedar, redwood, and glass. The array of communication dishes and antennae on the roof suggested that, like the regional hospital, the station was state of the art. And to Abby that suggested Colstar.

  She had driven alone to the station from Lew's farm to report Josh's disappearance and the frightening findings at the Sawicki place. The sergeant taking her report was a thick-necked moose of a man whose name tag identified him as Sullivan. His manner stopped just short of open contempt.

  "I'd like to be of assistance to you, Miss Dolan, I really would," Sullivan said in an unabashedly patronizing tone. "But, frankly, I don't know what we can do about this situation."

  Abby began to simmer.

  "The first thing you can do is call me Dr. Dolan. And the next is to let me speak to your captain."

  Sullivan reddened.

  "Captain Gould is out, Doctor Dolan. He won't be back until later this afternoon. But I know he'd tell you the same thing. If the Sawickis file vandalism charges against this Wyler character, then we can get a warrant and put out a bulletin on him. But, otherwise, as far as we know at this point, the only crime that's been committed is unlawful entry--by you."

  Just pray that you never get injured while I'm on duty, Abby wanted to say. But she knew such a threat would only cause her more trouble. Besides, there was no way she would ever treat Sergeant Sullivan differently from any other patient ... except, perhaps, to order a rectal temp.

  Smiling inwardly at the notion, she signed the report
and headed home. She was anxious to call Josh's parents and a few of his friends to alert them to what was happening. The trick would be to do so without alarming them too much. But, then again, why shouldn't they be alarmed? She certainly was.

  Before she began making those calls, however, there was one that was even more important to her--Donna Tracy. The young record-room attendant had become a victim of Abby's search for answers. An apology wouldn't replace the woman's job, but for today it would have to do.

  Donna was furious at her boss, Joanne Ricci, but not at all angry with Abby.

  "First of all, you saved Dad's life," she said. "You'd have to do something pretty horrible to offset that. But, second, as far as I was concerned, all we were trying to do was get some information on patients who were ill. That's what I don't understand. I don't think you deserved to be spoken to the way Joanne did the other night, and I told her so. That's why she fired me. Not for helping you, but for saying she was wrong, and for telling her that if you asked to check over some records again, I'd help you again."

  Suddenly Abby found herself debating whether or not to request just that. Lew or no Lew, there was still part of her that wanted to keep some distance between herself and the Alliance. But there was a much larger part that wanted to learn the truth. And Donna Tracy had opened the door.

  "Donna, I want you to feel free to say no to what I'm about to propose," she said.

  "Hey, that's easy. I'm a 'no' kind of person to begin with."

  "Here's what's going on."

  Carefully, completely, Abby reviewed the sorts of cases that had led her to believe that toxic exposure might be at work in Patience.

  "You need to get back into KarMen," Donna said when she had finished.

  "That's the request you can refuse."

  "Do you have a computer with a modem?"

  Abby considered whether she could return to Orchard Road and either take Josh's computer or use it where it was. But she wasn't even certain that the phone lines were working, and with the police now aware of the situation, she would not feel at ease hanging around the house. Bringing the computer to her place was a possibility, but she was worried about infuriating Josh should he return home, and fearful that her well-documented lack of mechanical aptitude would make it nearly impossible to set up the system at home.

  "Is there anyplace you can think of where I could find one?" she asked.

  "Of course. The bookstore at the community college has about a dozen of them for rent in back. Meet me there at, say, seven. That way we'll be certain Joanne has gone home. I should be able to get you into the system. From there you're on your own."

  "That's as much as I could have ever hoped for, Donna. I'm very grateful, but remember--"

  "I know, I know. I don't have to help. But, Dr. Dolan, remember what my dad looked like lying there on that table in the ER with almost no heartbeat at all on his monitor?"

  "Of course I do. I'll never forget that."

  "Well, he just left with my mom for Hawaii."

  It was nearing ten in the evening--one more hour before the Patience Community College Bookstore closed for the night. Abby was one of four still using the computers in the back room. She had yet to uncover any clear connections among the patients she had reviewed, but she was amassing information. She sensed that, sooner or later, a pattern would emerge.

  Donna Tracy had tapped into the KarMen record-keeping system with no trouble whatsoever. When Abby asked her whose password she had used, all Donna would say was, "I have friends."

  After Abby assured herself that she could find her way around the system, she insisted Donna return home. There were a dozen or so years separating them, but Abby enjoyed the younger woman's sarcastic humor and quickly felt comfortable around her. She had no wish to cause Donna more trouble.

  "I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you've done tonight," Abby said, "and also how sad I am about your losing your job."

  "There are more important things. The message to me was that I was working in the wrong place to begin with. I need to go back for some more schooling."

  "Almost never a bad idea," Abby said. "Are you going to be all right?" she asked, uncertain how to approach the subject of money.

  Donna made a theatrical show of looking at the data sheets and the screen.

  "I don't know," she said. "You tell me."

  She patted Abby fondly on the shoulder and left.

  Now, almost three hours later, Abby summoned up the twentieth record to be examined, a forty-five-year-old father of three, named Henry Post. Post worked for the city as a groundskeeper/maintenance man in Colstar Park.

  Name ... Age ... Birth Date ... Address ...

  Abby logged each fact onto her data sheets. Then she referred to the map of the valley she had constructed and divided arbitrarily into a grid of twenty-five equal segments. She located the man's residence and work address with dots of colored pencil--segment eight for the house and twenty-two for the park. There seemed to be a slight clustering of dots in the southwestern part of the valley--the area farthest from the plant itself. But the grouping was not at all striking.

  Status: Outpatient. Physician: G. Oleander. Admitting diagnosis: chronic cough. Discharge diagnosis: chronic bronchitis. Physical findings: none. Laboratory findings: CBC normal, Chest X ray normal, MRI unremarkable ...

  Abby dutifully recorded every available piece of information on the man. As she worked, she again became aware that something about the data was bothering her--something even beyond the fact that a predominance of the patients had George Oleander as their primary physician. The workups were, in most cases, simply too thorough. There were too many patients getting CT scans and way, way too many having MRIs, a sophisticated scan that was the diagnostic court of last resort--incredibly accurate, but very expensive. The patient was inserted into a total-body cylinder and had to lie motionless for nearly an hour while a three-dimensional picture of the body was generated--an unnerving experience for many people. But there were also an excessive number of blood counts, chemistry profiles, and standard X rays. In an age of medical-cost containment, peer review, and managed care, such overuse of the laboratory was almost unheard-of.

  The finding did nothing to explain the NIWWs, but it did seem too close to universal to be considered coincidence, a fluke. An insurance scam of some sort--fee splitting with the radiologist or laboratory director--seemed possible. But it was hard to believe that a prosperous and patrician man like George Oleander would risk his reputation and career for that level of larceny.

  Struggling to ignore the tightness in her back from three hours of work without a break, Abby finished with Henry Post and moved on to the next NIWW, a thirty-three-year-old teacher named Mildred Moore.

  ... Admitting diagnosis: chronic skin abscesses. Discharge diagnosis: same. Physician: G. Oleander ...

  The pile of data was growing. And with each additional fact Abby sensed there was something already there that she was overlooking--a pattern in those hundreds of pieces of information she had missed. But what?

  She rubbed at her eyes, then stood and stretched. One more hour. She could do it. Tomorrow she wasn't on in the ER until the evening. That would leave her time to check on Ives's leg, and then to return to the bookstore computers for another go-round inside KarMen. And somewhere during that time, Sandy Stuart would be calling.

  Abby twisted her neck until it cracked loudly, a habit that felt wonderful but used to irritate Josh beyond words. One of the remaining students looked up, startled. Abby grinned sheepishly and mouthed an apology. When she sat down at the computer again, the screen was blank. She dialed the access number for KarMen again. Nothing. There was trouble. She felt certain of it.

  Quickly, she gathered her notes and hurried to the desk.

  "I just lost my line," she said. "Are there any problems?"

  "None that I know of."

  "How much do I owe you?"

  "Four hours--sixteen dollars."

  Abby
dropped a twenty on the counter and left without waiting for change.

  About a hundred yards down the road a cruiser sped past her, lights flashing, headed toward the bookstore. She pulled over and watched through her rearview mirror until it turned into the parking lot.

  "Sorry, Donna," she murmured.

  Then she swung back onto the road and hurried home. There were plenty of places where her data sheets would be reasonably safe. She wondered if the same could be said for Abby Dolan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Abby was suturing a child in the ER when she heard the screams from outside, followed moments later by the horrible screech of tires and brakes. She cut the fine nylon thread and had just set her instruments down when Josh's Wrangler exploded through the doors of the ambulance bay into the center of the ER, showering the floor with glass and debris and striking the nurse, Mary Wilder, head-on. Her body flew through the air and hit the wall at eye level with a sickening thud. In an instant there was chaos, with patients and staff screaming, running, and diving for cover.

  The Jeep hurtled forward through the central examining area, slamming into a gurney in bay six with an elderly woman lying on it. The stretcher compressed like an accordion. The woman's body flew twenty feet across the room, limp as a rag doll. Then the Jeep struck the wall. The hood folded backward, shattering the windshield. Flames instantly leaped out from the engine.

  Abby raced forward into the billowing black smoke. Through the cobwebbed windshield she could see Josh struggling with the door. His head and face were bloodied. She shouted his name, once, then again, but her cries were lost in the shrieks of others. She raced forward, stumbling over the body of Mary Wilder. The nurse's head was twisted at a repulsive angle. Blood trickled down from the corner of her mouth. She stared up at Abby with the vacant look of death.

  Abby scrambled to her feet just as Josh stumbled from the Jeep. He was an apparition--the devil. His teeth were bared in a snarling rictus of hate. Blood was cascading over his face. But even through the crimson she could see his eyes, glowing like hot coals.