Absolute Zero (2002)

by Chuck Logan

  She nodded, filed it away, and they resumed moving through the master bedroom, past the open door of the bathroom where the mirror was still beaded with the moisture of her shower. The kingsize sleigh bed looked like it hadn't been slept in for a week.

  Then they turned into the spacious studio where Hank Sommer's loose body was arranged on a cranked-up hospital bed. Allen startled at a flurry of gray movement on Hank's lap.

  "Just the cat. She likes to curl on his stomach," Jolene said.

  Allen watched the gray, short-haired animal dart from the room. He disliked cats and he hated surprises, so he especially hated this cat's name: Ambush.

  Hank wore a baggy blue shift and as they entered the room his eyes lurched back and forth. His hands clenched up, strangled invisible tormentors, and fell down.

  Allen smiled tightly at the narrow single bed at the foot of the hospital bed where Jolene kept vigil. She had never been this devoted to Hank when he was whole. Now she kept to the care schedule like a martyr, and he had a real worry she'd hurt her back, moving him through the turning and ROM exercises.

  It was more denial. Like the radio and TV and the vase of fresh flowers that sat next to the bed and that she changed every other day. Some days she tuned the boom box to his favorite oldies station. On other days it was C-SPAN or the History Channel.

  It annoyed Allen the way she clung to hope.

  A diagram of instructions for turning and feeding was taped to the wall. She'd set up a regular baby-changing station on a cart next to the bed. Diapers, baby wipes, oil, talc, Desitin for rash. The most ironic of her makeshift innovations was the baby monitor with speakers positioned throughout the house.

  Her hand drifted up and touched his forearm, and Allen felt a jolt of excitement. It curdled to pique when she said, "He always does that when I come in, like he's looking at me."

  "Random eye movement; he blinks, he drools, he grunts. It doesn't mean anything," Allen said stiffly.

  "Well," Jolene said, "sometimes I come into the room and his eyes pick me up." She approached Hank's bed, stopped at a distance of one foot, and stared into him like he was a department store window.

  Allen's face flushed slightly. He folded his arms tightly across his chest and kept his voice low and under taut control. He gave it to her straight and clinical, and then some.

  "We had the best man from HCMC neurology evaluate him. He found 'no visual pursuit.' That means his eyes cannot fix and follow an object. Diagnosis: persistent vegetative state. We can run CAT scans, MRI's, EEG's; they will probably show brain shrinkage."

  Jolene pointed. "Look, he did it again."

  Allen went on, a little heated. "The eye movement is a primitive auditory response, just electricity firing down in his brain stem. It's not human, it's reptile. Remember what the neurologist told you— the diving-seal syndrome." Allen paused, visualizing the image of Hank plunging into blacker and blacker arctic depths. "The deeper the seal goes, the more nonessential physical systems it shuts down."

  Jolene wrinkled her nose.

  "Look, I, ah . . ." Allen stammered. Immediately he recovered, overcompensating with a technical barrage: "When Hank's body reached a crisis it had to choose between supplying oxygen to his brain or to his core organs—the heart and lungs. Peripheral functions lose to core functions. Unfortunately, in that scenario, the cerebral cortex is a peripheral function. And brain cells die within four to six minutes without oxygen. So along with consciousness, the voluntary motor fibers that control the face, the arms, and legs were wiped out. The involuntary muscles continue to function, intercostal muscles and the diaphragm survive to support the lungs which powers the heart."

  "All I know is that he looks at me," she said as she went to the bed and fluffed the pillow behind Hank's head. As she stepped back she fingered his thick hair. "Okay. I fed him and changed him. He doesn't need turning for two hours."

  "I'll be just fine," Allen said.

  "Well, I have to get dressed."

  Out of habit, Allen threw back Hank's gown and checked the incision. There was no sign of infection, it was healing normally. As was the feeding-tube insertion. Then he opened his bag, removed a blood-pressure cuff and a stethoscope, took Hank's blood pressure, and listened to his lungs. The vital signs were regular. One hell of a resilient lizard fought for life within Hank's human husk.

  Then he took a pencil light from his shirt pocket and moved it back and forth in front of Hank's eyes, which blinked rapidly as the pupils tightened normally to the light. Allen dismissed this lizard reaction, more attuned to the rustle of material on skin and the lily scent of body lotion coming through the open doorway to the bedroom that adjoined the studio.

  Hank's blue flotsam eyes sloshed from one side of his head to the other. His hands spasmed, clenched, and dropped. Just the lizard again, some nerve pathway twitching.

  Allen heard heels strike hardwood. She stood in the doorway wearing a simple gray dress, panty hose, and half-inch heels. The white-faced widow.

  "I'm not sure exactly when I'll be back. Milt mentioned having lunch after we meet."

  "Go," Allen said. "You need to get out of the house."

  She turned and disappeared and Allen overheard some muted conversation as Earl ascended, troll-like, from the basement. The door closed and Earl's van started, and a moment later Allen heard the tires spit gravel against the tree trunks as he swerved down the long, twisting driveway.

  In the more immediate vicinity he focused on the music playing in the background: Bob Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind." Allen walked to the radio and punched the off button.

  They were alone.

  Not they. It was a curious gray area. The definitions were inexact. Hank was more an it. Legally, he was dead. Clinically, it was alive.

  He walked up to the bed and—Jesus—a needle of pain pierced his right ankle and snagged in his sock. Allen lurched back and kicked at the husky gray fur ball. The goddamn cat had snuck back in the room and had been hiding under the bed and had lashed out a paw.

  The cat evaded the kick, which infuriated Allen who aimed another powerful kick. Missed. The animal skittered in a scramble of claws on the polished oak flooring and disappeared into the hall.

  Allen pulled down his sock, inspected his ankle, and found a thread of blood and a scratch. He rubbed the spot and hoped the cat had its shots. Then he turned his attention back to Hank.

  "She's gone into town to talk to Milt. He'll flirt with her over lunch, I expect. We all do." He patted Hank's knee. "But you knew

  that. I think you even enjoyed it. Remember the first time you

  showed her off? You'd discovered her at the AA group and brought

  her to the poker game. You were still married to Dorothy. The fact

  was, we all thought she was a hooker."

  He'd started talking to Hank the last time he was here alone,

  doing an examination. Now the sound of his voice didn't seem so

  odd. It was almost natural. And it was a little like being in a confes

  sional.

  There'd been no provision for confession in his Lutheran educa

  tion. Just him and God. No intermediate buffer of priests to barter

  sins into doing rosary laps. The older he got the more the notion of

  indulgences made sense. Right now he could use a spiritual litigant

  to plea-bargain his dilemma.

  How many commandments had he broken?

  The one about coveting your neighbor's wife for sure. "You shouldn't have flaunted her, Hank," Allen said. "You

  shouldn't have made a game out of it."

  Allen eased Hank's leg aside and sat down on the bed. "You were always so sure of yourself, you figured you were the

  only one who could take risks. We were all just—what did you used

  to call us—college boys. "Well, Hank, I really want to thank you for upgrading Jo from

  X-rated to PG 13. You won that little wager."

  Allen go
t off the bed and paced to the bank of windows over

  looking the river. He leaned forward, hands on the sill, and peered

  at the dusky color on the far Wisconsin shore. Then he turned. "Hank, you know, at first I was certain it had been an accident.

  I was fatigued and hypothermic. Paddling out with Broker damn

  near killed me."

  Allen clicked his teeth. "Oh, he's coming to visit. Phil Broker, the

  canoe guide. He's bringing your Ford down from Ely. I'm surprised

  Earl overlooked it. I think the green van's days are numbered."

  Hank's head slumped forward and his brow furrowed. The

  lizard perplexed. "For fifteen years I've trained myself to be immune to fatigue,"

  Allen went on conversationally. "Except for small details, I've never

  had a major slip in the OR." Allen paused and stared at Hank who

  rocked sightly and whose throat made a slight hiss.

  God, it was so sad. Like talking to a corpse with living eyes.

  "I mean, I'd just pulled off a very clean procedure under less than ideal conditions. I was working with a strange scratch team in a podunk surgical suite. I pulled you through.

  "And then . . .

  "You were in recovery and I talked to the anesthetist and she said you were awake and strong and I thought, okay, let him rest a minute, and I dropped my guard and the fatigue was really coming on then. But they got this new patient, the snowmobile accident, and I saw everybody run out the door and I thought, oh shit—this hick nurse has gone off and left you alone.

  "So I went into the room and I saw this loaded syringe sitting there on the cart next to your bed. And that's when the fatigue locked up my brain because I couldn't remember—had the nurse given you the Demerol?

  "So I picked up the syringe and shot it into the IV and then, looking at the syringe again, I saw the anesthetist's red stick-on label and—my God—I had just given you a shot of succinylcholine from the anesthetist's intubation tray. It's impossible to mistake that syringe for Demerol. But that's exactly what I'd done.

  "Believe me, I was shaking more than you were and you were shaking plenty when that muscle relaxant hit your bloodstream."

  Allen replayed it. His first instinct should have been to reintubate, to administer oxygen. To save the patient.

  But Hank was the patient. Jolene's husband.

  He'd been battered by shock and self-preservation. It had been his first major mistake as a surgeon and now he realized it had been a turning point in his life.

  "The fact is, Hank, I don't make mistakes. And now I wonder if my fatigue had freed my inhibitions." Allen's voice shook with sudden passion. "Maybe I was doing what I really wanted to do. Maybe I never wanted to save your life. Maybe, standing there, watching your muscles shake and then go flaccid, I realized how much I wanted you gone.

  "And I saw how it could happen. How the sucs would be out of your system in minutes without a trace. It would look exactly like a respiratory collapse in recovery, which would make sense with your difficult airway. And being left unattended.

  "No one was watching. I had blundered into the perfect crime. So perfect that it couldn't have been accidental. It had to be destiny.

  "And I remembered how we'd had this conversation; I'd asked you how I could find a woman like Jo and you just laughed and said, 'You have to be willing to take a chance,' and how I was a control freak and I'd never take a chance.

  "Well, check it out, Hank. I drew off some saline from the IV to refill the syringe and put it back on the tray. I turned off the alarm on the monitor and then I went back down the hall and slumped back in my chair. I knew the anesthetist and the attending nurse would be held accountable."

  Allen shuddered. There, he'd purged it and now it took a moment for him to bring his breathing back to normal. "There," he said aloud. "So now you know." Then he patted Hank's inert knee almost fondly. "The only thing I didn't foresee, old buddy, was that you would live through the episode."

  Chapter Twenty

  When Amy wheeled into the parking lot, Broker, antsy, was pacing at the end of the boat dock puffing on a cigar. She walked out to him and noted the vital color in his freshly shaved cheeks and his alert eyes. He wore his coat casually half zipped. No hat. "You're feeling better," she said. "What if . . ." Broker began. Amy held up a gloved hand. "Hold on. What are we doing here?" "What if there's a reason they don't have Hank Sommer in a hospital?"

  "You mean he isn't as wasted as they say he is?"

  "You tell me," Broker said.

  "That's wishful thinking." Amy shook her head. "First, I've been briefed by our risk-management people. Milton Dane is a topof-the-line malpractice attorney. No way he'd jeopardize his reputation in anything duplicitous. And second, Hank has been examined by the insurance company doctors, too. There's no dispute about the diagnosis."

  Broker studied the look in her eyes, which was the same methodical, intelligent look that good investigators always had in their eyes when they demolished his hunches.

  Procedure, they would say. Go slow, they'd say.

  Right on cue, Amy said, "These things follow a certain protocol."

  "Yeah, but what if the wife is right about him looking at her?"

  Broker pressed. "Unlikely. It's normal for a bereaved spouse to grab at straws." "What if I could get you in to see him?"

  Amy expelled an explosive, mirthless breath. "The defendant in

  a lawsuit approaching the plaintiff? They'd pull my license. I'd

  never work again." "So why'd you drop everything and come over here?"

  Amy bit her lower lip, looked down the lake. "Did you make

  that coffee?" Ha, thought Broker.

  They went inside and took off their coats. Broker poured two

  cups of black coffee from Uncle Billie's Braun. Amy took a chair to

  the kitchen table and made room for her cup in the litter of Broker's

  notes, permit applications, and the newspaper she'd left last night.

  Broker thumped a knuckle on the Stovall article in the Star Tribune. Amy sipped her coffee and read. Her tongue meditatively

  probed one cheek, then the other. She looked up. So? "The dead guy is Sommer's accountant." "Weird." "It's past weird. Sommer's luck giving out in the hospital after

  he lives through a cliff-hanger rescue is weird. Then his accountant

  coincidently dies the same week? Check this out—when the sea

  plane plopped down in Snowbank, the last words Sommer said to

  me were 'Tell Cliff Stovall to move the money.' Five days later you

  hand me a newspaper and I read that Cliff Stovall dies in the woods

  under bizarre circumstances."

  Amy considered the doodles on the notepad. The names, the

  address. The directions. The block letters: FOLLOW THE MONEY. "So those doodles—what does 'follow the money' mean?" "It's a cliché. But a very durable one. People being who they are,

  it never wears out." "Be more specific; exactly what does it mean, in this circum

  stance, associated with Hank Sommer's name?" she asked.

  Broker cleared his throat. "When somebody draws five fouls in

  the first quarter, what's the first thing you think."

  "Too many things going wrong for normal play," Amy said. "But that's hypothetical law-school bullshit. Give me facts."

  "Okay, that morning at the hospital, when Sommer was choppered out. His wife was there."

  "Yeah?"

  "Did you notice the young stud who came up with her?"

  "Broker, I sort of kept my distance that morning."

  "Mrs. Sommer isn't just a young, sexy trophy wife; she comes with heavy baggage, like her old boyfriend, who has apparently now moved into Sommer's house."

  Amy raised her cup and studied the faint coffee ring it left on the table. "So? She observes briefer decent intervals than the rest of us." She raised her eyes. "It's only the oldest stor
y in the world."

  Broker continued, unfazed. "On the trip, Sommer and his wife were fighting about money. They were feuding on his cell phone. At one point he got so pissed he threw the phone in the lake. Dane and Falken said he moved all his finances into a trust because she was giving money to the boyfriend. It involves money," Broker insisted.

  "What does?"

  "The accountant's death."

  Amy reread the article. "It says here he had a history of drinking and self-mutilation."

  "I don't buy it. He was sitting on Hank's estate which the wife wanted. She had to take Hank out of the hospital because of financial difficulties."

  "They were married. There's probate. Where the hell are you going with this?"

  Broker pursed his lips. He kept seeing the smug young guy standing next to Jolene in the hospital parking lot, his handsome, gloating face. Like he'd just won the lottery. "The boyfriend," he said.

  "C'mon, Broker. The wife is now a de facto widow. So she decides to seek the comfort and support of her young stud/ ex-boyfriend. It might be sleazy, but it's not breaking any laws. Is it?"