by Jeff Shelby
When I pulled away, she kept her eyes closed for an extra moment before opening them. “Alright, good decision. Yeah. But definitely no googly eyes.”
46
As I put the key in the ignition of the Blazer, it occurred to me that I hadn’t mentioned to Liz anything about the key Emily had given me. I still wasn’t sure if it would tell me anything and Liz had been skeptical of my other ideas, so I didn’t see the point of bringing it up. But I made a mental note to ask Carter about the key the next time I visited the hospital.
I drove back to my place and rather than shower right away, grabbed my board and headed out to the small swells that were rising along the shoreline. The water felt good on my body and eased the soreness.
As I cut through the water, I managed not to think about Kate or Randall or Costilla. The great thing about surfing is that you can lose yourself in it. Whether you’re smashing into the lip or gazing into the front end of a tight barrel, everything else in the world falls away. Concentrate on your footwork, feel that back anchor foot driving the board back and forth, and let the rails slice through the face of the water and take you somewhere you’ve never been before.
In between sets, sitting on my board, watching the morning walkers along the shore, I did think about Liz, though. The night had felt like some sort of breakthrough. I didn’t know exactly what it was we were breaking through, but I definitely felt good about it. I hadn’t thought about Emily, and that fact made me realize that what she and I had been doing together was probably more out of confusion than anything else. What I didn’t feel good about was having to have that conversation with Emily.
I watched a small set roll by and below me and continued floating in the water.
Regardless of whom Emily and I had been with, the conversation would be uneasy. It always is. Even if we both recognized that we had gotten together for the wrong reasons, our relationship would probably be tense and awkward in whatever shape it remained.
A nice three footer curled up behind me. I moved to my stomach, paddled in front of it, and let it pick me up. I pushed up to a crouch and dropped into the small face, a tiny ripple of excitement working through my stomach as the board slid to the bottom of the wave. It closed out quickly, and I bobbed my way to the shore, the white water sending me in.
After showering and tossing on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, I took the cordless phone out onto the patio with a phone book and a notepad, along with the scrap of paper Liz had given me. I paged through the phone book, without really thinking I’d find something. Looking for Charlotte T. would have to start somewhere, no matter how tedious and silly it seemed.
After thirty minutes of looking, I’d located only a Charlotte Thompson in El Cajon and a Charlotte Terry in Mira Mesa. Both were on the other side of sixty, and neither knew Kate or Randall Crier.
I called directory assistance in Marin County and the not-so-friendly operator told me that she had over twenty Charlottes with the last initial T and that she could not give them to me over the phone. She informed me that I could find current phone books at my local library and hung up.
I sat there for a few minutes watching the people strolling on the boardwalk. The sun was high, but haze from the morning marine layer was muting its glare. The people who had slept in late were just now arriving at the beach, toting chairs, coolers, and kids, and finding a spot in the sand to spend the next couple of hours.
I called directory assistance in Marin again, got a different operator, and asked for the number to Randall’s hospital.
“St. Andrew’s,” a pleasant voice said. “How can I direct your call?”
“Not sure,” I said, scrambling. “I’m looking for a Charlotte, but I don’t know her last name.”
“Do you know the department, sir?”
“I don’t, I’m sorry. My answering machine ate most of the message and I have no idea what the call is regarding.”
“That’s alright,” she said. “Happens to the best of us. Let me check…okay. I have two Charlottes in the directory. Dr. Charlotte Kollack in oncology and Charlotte Truman, our deputy administrator.”
Bingo. “Let’s try the latter. I think I might’ve heard Truman on the machine.”
“I’ll connect you to that office,” she said. “One moment.”
Ten seconds later, a voice came on the line. “Charlotte Truman’s office.”
“Is Ms. Truman in?” I asked.
“No, I’m afraid not,” the female voice said. “She’s out for the week.”
“The whole week?”
“Yes, sir. She’s down in Los Angeles for the conference at the Bonaventure and won’t be back until next Monday.”
“I see.”
“Can I take a message, sir?” she asked. “She’s checking in periodically.”
I thought about it and decided against it. I told her no thanks and hung up.
I figured a drive up to LA would get me a quicker answer.
47
One of the things I admired about San Diego was that despite the fact that the population in the county continued to grow, it hadn’t changed its attitude. Sure, there were more cars on the road and housing prices were soaring, but no one seemed stressed out by it. Everyone was happy to be in a beautiful city by the ocean with weather that bordered on spectacular.
I couldn’t say the same for Los Angeles. The Angelenos had seemed to adopt a hustle and bustle lifestyle that was more appropriate for the East Coast. The result was something that gave the city the feeling of a spoiled younger sibling, and I rarely enjoyed venturing into the area.
The drive up the snarled 5 and 405 through Orange County and Long Beach took me a little over two hours. I read somewhere that Southern California possessed eleven miles of permanently clogged freeway where the traffic was at a constant standstill. As I took the interchange to the 110 and entered the massive maze of concrete and asphalt that made up downtown Los Angeles, I thought eleven miles might have been a conservative guess.
The Westin Bonaventure is LA’s largest convention hotel, a series of circular glass towers that rise out of the financial district like something from the future. It boasted of spectacular views of downtown Los Angeles from the higher floors, but never mentioned the possibility of those views being choked off by the smog.
I parked in the massive garage and found my way inside the hotel. The enormous six-story atrium, housing restaurants, bars, and shops, gave me the feel that I was in an oversized greenhouse. I saw a sign that directed me toward the conference and meeting rooms and found a tall thin man in his forties sitting at a table next to a giant easel that said CALIFORNIA PHYSICIANS AND ADMINISTRATORS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE.
“What can I help you find?” he asked, smiling.
“Well, I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m actually looking for a person, but I have no idea where she might be.”
“Presenter or attendee?” he asked, grabbing a thick black binder from the corner of the table.
“Don’t know that either,” I said, shrugging.
He clutched the binder and looked at me. “Sir, are you here for the conference?”
“Actually, no,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’m trying to track down a friend.”
“A friend?”
“Her office told me I could find her here,” I said, trying to look harmless. “Charlotte Truman?”
He set the book on the table, frown lines wrinkling his forehead. “You’re a friend?”
Can’t fool everybody all of the time. I reached into my back pocket and flipped my license open at him. “Not really, but I do need to find Ms. Truman.”
He stared at the license, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Is she in trouble? Has something happened?”
“No, everything’s fine. I just need to talk to her.” I smiled. “I’m not looking to rock the boat.”
He looked at the license again, then at me. “I hope not. She’s giving the keynote address this evening. It would be a disaster i
f she weren’t able to do that.”
I tried to look sympathetic to his cause. “I promise. My visit will do nothing to change her availability for this evening.”
He bit his bottom lip for a moment, clearly not wanting to be a party to the potential ruin of the conference.
“Look, you told me she’s speaking tonight,” I said. “If you won’t tell me where she is now, I’ll have no choice but to hang around until I find her tonight.” I shoved my wallet back into my shorts. “Your call.”
His left eye twitched, then he opened the binder. He flipped through several pages, ran a bony finger down one, and tapped the middle of the page.
“The Santa Anita Room,” he said, pointing to his right. “Last room at the end of this hall.”
“I appreciate it,” I told him and started in that direction.
“Sir?”
I turned back to him.
He held up a plastic badge with a nylon string attached to it. The card in the clear plastic badge said VISITOR.
“This might make it easier,” he said, offering it to me. “You’ll look like you’re supposed to be here.”
I took the badge and hung it around my neck. “That, buddy, is something I don’t hear too often.”
48
The Santa Anita Room was one of those sterile spaces that could be divided up into sections with ugly partitions, but currently it was wide open and completely filled for whatever was going on.
About seventy-five tables dotted the room, six chairs around each. I didn’t see an empty seat anywhere.
The attendees were focused on a long table toward the front, where four people sat. Three men and a woman. The woman was attractive. Early forties, auburn hair cut to her shoulders, an expensive-looking navy suit. She gestured with her hands as she spoke.
“Our job,” she said, friendly but confident, “is to deal with the people, and the issues, that the rest of the hospital won’t. Can’t, in fact. They aren’t equipped with the knowledge to make those kinds of decisions. Their job is to save the patients. Ours is to ensure that they can continue to do that.”
A round of applause arose from the tables and one of the men on the panel stood.
“I think we’ll end on that note,” he said, smiling broadly at the audience, then at the three people to his left. “Let’s thank our panelists today. Chandler Mott, Damian Taitano, and Charlotte Truman.”
I eased into the back corner of the room as the audience stood and again applauded. The people began to trickle out of the room, smiling and whispering to one another, apparently having learned some big secret to hospital administration.
I let the room nearly clear out before moving toward the front and Charlotte Truman.
“That was fabulous,” a woman was gushing at her. “Exactly what most of us needed to hear.”
Charlotte Truman nodded graciously. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”
“I mean,” the woman continued, “I don’t think my hospital has any idea of the confrontations that I face on a daily basis.”
Truman began gathering up her belongings. “No, they probably don’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re any less valuable. Part of your job is to be good at thankless endeavors.”
“Yes, yes, I guess it is,” the woman said, nodding vigorously, as if the thought had never occurred to her.
Truman picked up the last of her folders and looked at the woman. “Great to meet you.”
“Oh, no,” the woman said. “The pleasure was mine.”
The woman turned from Truman and pounced on the man that had been sitting next to her.
I caught up to Charlotte Truman in the middle of the room.
“Quite a presentation,” I said, falling in step next to her.
She gave me what I thought to be a very practiced smile. “Thank you. You really think so?”
“Actually, I didn’t hear a word of it,” I said. “I was just going by her reaction.”
She cocked her head in my direction, large green eyes sparkling. “It actually sucked.”
“You fooled her?”
“Fooling them is the key to getting invited to these things,” she said. “Anything is better than working, right?”
We walked out into the hallway.
“I suppose,” I said.
She stopped. “You don’t look like an attendee.”
“Why’s that?”
“The visitor badge for starters.” She looked me up and down. “And most of these people don’t own shorts and T-shirts. I imagine they sleep in their suits.”
“Makes it tough to relax,” I said.
“Yes, it does. What can I do for you?”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “I’m taking a chance.”
“Shorts, T-shirt, and a risk taker. Definitely not a hospital administrator,” she said with an amused smile.
“I’m an investigator,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow, suddenly wary. “If you’re insurance, I’m not talking to you outside my office.”
I shook my head. “No. Something else. A doctor at your hospital.”
Her eyebrow fell. “I’m not sure I’m following, Mr….”
“Braddock,” I said. “But call me Noah.”
“Well, Noah, what is it that you’re here for?”
“I’m doing a background check on a doctor who works at St. Andrew’s. Dr. Randall Tower.”
Until that moment, she’d seemed unflappable. Completely comfortable in her skin and her surroundings, totally in command of the room and the subject about which she was speaking.
Randall’s name destroyed all that.
The color drained from her face. “What the hell is this?”
“You know him?”
She shifted the folders in her arms. “He works at the hospital. Of course I know him.”
“Friends outside the hospital?”
Her eyes narrowed, the easygoing demeanor vanished. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not sure. What am I doing?”
“Pissing me off, for one,” she said, the color rising back to her cheeks.
I decided to be straight. “I’m looking into his wife’s death. Her body was found in the trunk of her car along with this piece of paper.” I pulled the scrap from my pocket and handed it to her.
“Kate’s dead?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She blinked rapidly for a moment, then stared at the piece of paper. She shook her head. “So she knew.”
“Excuse me?”
Charlotte handed me the paper back. “Look, you found this and you found me. My guess is you know more than you’re letting on, seeing if I’ll spill the beans for you.” She smiled but it wasn’t warm. “Randall and I were sleeping together, but I think you already knew that.”
“I had an idea.” I looked at her. “Can we talk for a few minutes?”
She paused for a moment. Then, “Kate’s really dead? You’re not kidding me, right?”
“No, Ms. Truman,” I told her. “Kate Crier is dead.”
She winced slightly, the word “dead” making an impression. She started walking again.
“I can talk for a few minutes. But only a few minutes,” she said. “Because talking about him for any longer than that will make me ill.”
49
We walked outside onto the expansive pool deck. I bought a cup of coffee and a soda from a pushcart under a big palm tree. Charlotte was sitting on the edge of the stone retaining wall that ringed a small garden in the middle of the courtyard. I handed her the coffee and sat next to her.
She squinted into the afternoon sunlight. “You from LA?”
“No, San Diego.”
“And you came up here to see me?”
I nodded.
She sipped from the paper cup. “Well, I guess I should talk to you then.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll bet,” she said, setting the coffee next to her. “I met Randall last year. I knew his name as an
employee before that, maybe said hello to him a time or two, but didn’t really get to know him until last year.”
We watched a group spill out from the hotel, deep in conversation.
“He had to come see me about some problems he was having,” she said.
“Drugs?”
She glanced in my direction. “You’ve done your homework,” she said, then after a pause, continued. “The hospital put him on probation because of his drug problem. It’s my job to deal with that kind of thing. Not always fun, but it’s my job.”
“Why wasn’t he fired?” I asked. “Seems like a huge risk keeping a drug-addict doctor on staff.”
She crossed her legs and picked up her cup. “You’d be surprised. A good portion of my job is working with our employees who have what I’ll call issues.” She sipped the coffee. “Alcohol, drugs, marital problems, financial problems. Doctors have it all. They aren’t immune from our cultural pitfalls. I could tell you that they are more susceptible, but that’s just my opinion.”
“The result of a high-pressure profession?”
“Sure. They get sucked in like the rest of us.” She rolled the coffee cup slowly between her hands. “Anyway, it was his first offense, as it were. He was receiving counseling and we kept him away from patients for a while to make sure he didn’t slip up.”
“What was he doing if he wasn’t seeing patients?”
She smiled at me. “Fucking me, mostly.”
I took a drink of my soda and said nothing.
“I was immediately attracted to him,” she said, brushing an auburn curl off her forehead. “I knew he was married and thought a bit of harmless flirting would be just that. Harmless.” She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I’d just gone through an ugly divorce and was not in the right place. He told me the drug counseling was tough on him, that his wife didn’t understand what he was going through.”
I took another drink of the soda and resisted the urge to point out Randall’s obvious lie. If anyone would’ve known what he was going through, it would’ve been Kate.