Remote Control

by Stephen White

  Malloy didn’t think he had any adrenaline left, but he felt something start pumping through his veins right then. His voice rose. “You don’t have a choice about divulging her medical condition to me, Doctor. She’s my prisoner.” Malloy was about to lose his legendary cool. He had not anticipated any resistance from Lauren about access to her medical information and for the tenth time that night he asked himself why the hell she was making this so difficult for him.

  “Detective? It’s ‘Detective,’ isn’t it? Ms. Crowder’s a lawyer, and if she tells me not to talk, I don’t talk. I’ve learned over the years to be exceedingly respectful to lawyers. And Ms. Crowder is my patient, and I’m not about to go against her wishes. If you get me a court order that says we should chat, though, we’ll chat.”

  “But we’re paying for this, for you. The city is.”

  “That’s funny. She predicted you would say that.” He took one hand from the pocket of his jeans and scratched behind his ear. “She’s already authorized the hospital and me to bill her insurance and she’s signed for full financial responsibility if we fail to collect. Good night, Detective. As far as I’m concerned this case is private pay. If it turns out otherwise, rather than deal with the city or the county, I’ll comp her. I’m afraid I don’t owe you anything on that count. Sorry.”

  Malloy wished he was having this conversation some place less public. He was inclined to get mean. “She’s a prisoner, Doctor. She can’t stay in the hospital without my approval.”

  Arbuthnot looked down at the floor then hard into Malloy’s bloodshot eyes. “No, Detective, please permit me to tell you how it works. I decide if she stays in the hospital. You get to decide whether she stays here at Community or whether she goes to DG. Do you really want this woman in the prison ward at Denver General? Do that and you could have a major PR problem on your hands, don’t you think? She’s not much of an escape risk, is she? She’s almost blind. And she’s got friends in high places who won’t take kindly to imperiousness on your part.”

  Malloy hissed, “I can’t get a court order about something like this on a night like tonight, Doctor. You know that damn well.”

  Arbuthnot shrugged. “You can bully me about this until we both fall asleep on our feet, Detective. But it’s not what I know damn well that matters. What matters is what she knows damn well. And what she seems to know damn well is the law. Talk to her about it. It’s not my call. The medical information is hers to protect and she’s chosen to protect it. Sorry, I just can’t help you.”

  Malloy raised his voice and moved his face to within two inches of the physician’s. “I can’t talk to her without her attorney present. And her attorneys won’t allow her to talk to me. It’s a catch-22, Doctor, and I’m trying to solve a serious crime.”

  Arbuthnot didn’t budge. “She also told me—in the event you became belligerent—to remind you who it was who left her unguarded earlier.” Arbuthnot turned away from Malloy before he allowed a smile to creep onto his face. Lauren Crowder was one patient-lawyer he was not about to piss off. He’d much rather have an irritated police detective on his hands.

  Malloy knocked on the treatment room door, pushed it open a crack, and said, “I’m coming in. Get her decent.”

  Adrienne, all four feet ten of her, was ready for him. She was standing at the foot of the bed with a finger in front of her lips. She waited until she was sure Malloy had seen the signal and then motioned him to the far corner of the room.

  She whispered, “She’s asleep. She won’t be for long and I don’t want her disturbed. Got it?”

  Malloy had to look way down to see Adrienne’s face, and he felt like he was being ordered around by a twelve-year-old with an attitude. “I just wanted to see her, make sure she’s all right.”

  Lauren was curled on her side, a hospital blanket pulled up to her shoulders, a pillow under her head. The infusion pump burped rhythmically. Malloy envied her sleep.

  “How’s she doing, Doctor?”

  “We won’t know for a while.”

  “Why won’t she be asleep for long? I’d think she’d be exhausted. Put me in that bed, and I won’t wake up till Tuesday.”

  “The medicine. It has a mess of side effects. One of them is that it’s a stimulant. It’ll jack her up in the next couple of hours, maybe sooner.”

  Malloy nodded as though he understood even a little why doctors would give stimulants to someone suffering from acute vision loss. He was going to ask but assumed he wouldn’t get an answer.

  “She’s really blind?”

  “Her vision is severely impaired, yes.”

  “What about her…you know…her—?”

  “I have tests to run on her bladder. Nothing definitive. It’s probably not serious. Her vision is our main concern.”

  “You’re her friend, aren’t you? I mean, you’re not just her doctor?”

  “That’s correct, I’m her very good friend. You have a problem with that?”

  “She told you not to talk to me, too, right?”

  Adrienne nodded.

  Malloy yawned. “You know, I don’t know her that well, I’ve seen her around court and all, done a few minor felonies with her. I knew she was bright. But I’m truly impressed with her. The woman is smart as a whip, and clever—shit. She’s under arrest for investigation of first-degree assault, maybe a capital murder by morning, she can’t see, and, still, she’s not missing a trick, is she? She has all these doctors and lawyers making all the right moves. She’s playing this like a chess master.”

  “Lauren doesn’t miss much that I can tell.”

  “I’m trying to solve a serious crime here, you know. Could be an attempted murder.” Malloy was attempting to play on Adrienne’s sympathies, knowing that her husband had been the victim of a recent homicide.

  The shot missed its mark. “I wish you good luck with that, Detective. I really do. I also suggest you look elsewhere. My patient is innocent. My friend is innocent.”

  “Unless proven guilty.”

  “Won’t happen. Come on, let her get some rest. The best thing you can do for yourself and for her is to go catch your bad guy. You know the man can’t be too far away; he apparently has absolutely no respect for visiting hours.” She placed a hand on Malloy’s back and pushed him from the room.

  Malloy was unwilling to back down. “She may be making a big mistake here. There’s somebody after her. We need to know more about that in order to protect her.”

  Adrienne looked at the female officers on sentry in the hallway. One of them turned and stepped toward the open door.

  “Stay out,” Adrienne said.

  Malloy rolled his eyes. Adrienne noticed, pointed at one of the police officers. “She has a big gun, Detective. She’ll protect Lauren.”

  Adrienne left Malloy and continued down the hall toward the waiting area to find Alan. She had a message that Lauren had asked her to pass along.

  Alan saw Adrienne coming and met her halfway. They embraced. Adrienne whispered reassurances and promised she would watch Lauren like a hawk the whole time she was in the hospital.

  Cozy Maitlin was finally wide awake, a fresh styrofoam cup of tea in his hand. He had sweet-talked a nurse into a toothbrush, comb, and disposable razor and looked almost fresh. Adrienne had never met him before and found herself impressed by his middle-of-the-night panache. Adrienne required about as much rest at night as your average vampire and had little patience for people whose blossoms faded after dark.

  The man with the tea and the fresh face was not wearing a wedding ring. She reminded herself that she was a recent widow.

  After making certain she had everyone’s attention, and after double-checking that Detective Malloy hadn’t followed her down the hall, Adrienne said, “Lauren told me to tell all of you she’ll be more forthcoming—those are her words, ‘more forthcoming’—when you find Emma. The guy who took her was grilling her, looking for Emma. He said if she told the police anything that the disc goes public. Alan, she said yo
u would know what all that meant. She asked me to remind you to be discreet.”

  He nodded.

  “How is she, Doctor?” Casey asked.

  “Please call me Adrienne.” She smiled at Cozy, then directed her answer at Alan. “She doesn’t need this stress, I can tell you that. Her vision is for shit. She’s had previous optic involvement, hasn’t she?”

  “Once seriously.”

  “It resolved?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Listen, hopefully, this optic neuritis will resolve again, like it did last time. I would love to stay and bullshit with you folks,” she chanced another grin at Cozy, “but I need to schlepp Jonas back home and be here again in…” she glanced at her watch, “…in three and a half hours for an operation. I’ll check in on Lauren in the morning, before I go into the OR.”

  She started to walk away, turned back. “You going to get home tonight, Alan? Do you want me to take care of Emily in the morning, let her out?”

  “Please, Ren, that would be great, I don’t know if I’ll make it home. With this much snow her dog run is useless to her. Do you mind putting her in the studio for a while in the morning? She still likes to hang out there and she doesn’t like being in the house all day. You know where her food is?”

  Adrienne nodded. “Get some sleep, Alan. You really look like shit. Jonas can draw people who look better than you. And the kid doesn’t even know which end of the crayon is up.”

  As Adrienne retreated down the hall to retrieve her sleeping son, Cozy nodded his head in her direction and, with a smile, asked Alan, “Who was that masked man?”

  Casey said, “Later, Cozy,” and asked Alan if he knew where to find Emma Spire.

  “I know a guy she’s been seeing. I can go check his place, see if she’s with him. But even if she’s there, that only solves one problem. Because Emma doesn’t have the disc that Adrienne was talking about. That’s a huge part of all this. And I really don’t think she’ll be at this guy’s place. She’s still angry at him that the disc is missing in the first place.”

  “What’s on the disc?” Casey asked.

  Alan hesitated, then said, “It’s complicated.”

  Casey said the same words at the exact same moment before adding, “You and Lauren practice this ‘It’s complicated’ routine?”

  “Basically, the disc is a recording of Emma that she doesn’t want to become public.”

  “Video?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Audio?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’m too tired for twenty questions, Alan.”

  “It’s a computer thing, a digital recording.” He spent five minutes trying to explain the implications of Ethan Han’s technology.

  Cozy didn’t get it.

  But Casey grasped both concepts immediately, finally understanding what Lauren had meant about a thousand rapes. “He can really do that? What he says he can do?”

  Alan shrugged. “Not yet, but maybe soon. The technology is close.”

  Casey sat quietly for most of a minute, pondering the implications for Lauren. “First, I think I’ll settle for finding Emma Spire. Solving one problem out of two sounds like a winning ratio to me right now. But, Cozy, one of us needs to be here when Lauren wakes up.”

  Cozy said, “That should be you, she’ll need to see a face she trusts. Personally, I think we need to know just a little bit more about this young lady no one can find and we certainly need to know more about this disc.” He looked to Alan Gregory. “Doctor, you’re on. Let’s go find this man she’s been dating and you can begin to try and explain to me one more time why what’s on this disc is so damn important.”

  The storm had skidded east and the blanket of clouds above Boulder had started to shred into wispy rags, releasing any warmth left trapped near the ground.

  On the way from the hospital to Ethan Han’s Pearl Street flat, Cozier Maitlin seemed less interested in the details of the missing optical disc than he was in providing Alan Gregory his unique perspective on homicide defense.

  “Although it may not seem like it, we actually don’t have many homicides or attempted murders in Boulder, and lately, almost no one has been arrested on a capital offense who could afford a private attorney. During my most self-indulgent moments—and if Erin were here, she would be arguing that we’re talking the potential of Olympic-quality self-indulgence—I think that’s a crying shame. Because big cases get my criminal defense attorney blood rushing like whitewater. I wouldn’t miss a case like this for anything—anything.

  “When Casey called me tonight the last thing in the world I had planned to do with this weekend was to spend it slaloming through this damn blizzard chasing cops and prosecutors around town. But when she told me what was up I told her ‘yes’ before she’d finished posing the question.

  “In the next few hours we’ll really get cranked up. The phone calls will begin flying—almost like a tennis match—to the chief trial deputy, and to the special prosecutor once they find one. By the way, I have fifty dollars that says Weld County will provide the special, Casey says it’s going to be Arapahoe. She doesn’t know it, but that’s money in the bank for me. Soon, negotiations will begin over access, charges, bond, you name it, nonstop, every hour until the two o’clocks tomorrow. This one is big, too, once they get wind of Emma Spire’s involvement, the press will be everywhere. By dawn, probably. Boulder, Denver, the wire services, the tabloids, the networks. The frenzy will be something to watch. The DA, I think, is in the process of hanging Lauren out to spin in the wind by keeping his distance. He’s—”

  “Royal won’t do that, Cozy,” Alan interrupted. “He likes Lauren. He’ll stand behind her; he always has.”

  “You’re being naive again. Has Royal Peterson called her yet to offer his condolences or his assistance? Has he contacted Casey or me to offer help? I know the man. If Royal is busy right now, he’s busy looking for cover, not compassion; Teflon, not tenderness.”

  Alan thought about Royal Peterson not calling, not offering to help. Cozy was right. Alan wondered what Roy’s posture would mean for Lauren down the road.

  “Lauren’s enemies in the defense bar—and as sweet as she might be to you, she has enemies, I guarantee you—and her enemies in the police department—ditto—are going to start telling stories to reporters. That whole thing she was involved with in Utah with the Supreme Court justice and the Mormons will come back like an old case of the clap and all the old wire reports will be rewritten in ways that make her look evil. The press will be calling Casey and me every two minutes trying to stir up trouble. It’s going to be a three-ring circus.”

  Alan Gregory listened to Cozy Maitlin as dispassionately as he could. He was having trouble sharing Cozy’s excited anticipation and apparent delight over Lauren’s impending prosecution and public scrutiny. He felt like screaming a reminder to Cozy that his wife was seriously ill and in jail.

  Maitlin was oblivious. “I already have motions to prepare. The evidence gathering we saw earlier tonight is questionable at best, given the weather conditions. I can tie the prosecutors in knots on crime scene contamination, and the plain view aspects of sweeping off those cars that are parked on the street—that’s a constitutional beauty. The supremes are going to love it. And Lauren’s medical history is something else. She wants us to file a motion on her medical records staying secret, and, wait a second, I just had another thought.”

  He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a phone that was about the size of a deck of cards. He punched in a number.

  “Casey, it’s me. Yeah. It’s stopped snowing and the moon is out and it is soooo lovely out here…. No, no, that’s not the reason I called. I have an idea. Lauren has a little vision left, correct?…Thought so. What do you think of this, we offer a deal to the cops? They still don’t know who the guy who was shot is, do they?…Well, tell them that Lauren will visit the shooting victim in the recovery room and see if she can identify anything about the guy at all
…. Exactly, there you go. Then you two retreat right after she sees the guy…yes…and then decide what she says to the cops, if anything. I agree, I agree, I think they’ll go for it, what choice do they have? They need to know who this guy is…. We’re almost there I think. Slow going out here in this muck. No traffic, thank God…. You’ll let me know what happens? Adios then.”

  Alan asked, “What was that all about?”

  “We need to know who the victim is. The police need to know who the victim is. We’re going to offer the cops some cooperation in return for a peek at him, see if Lauren can ID him for us. I think they’ll go for it. It’s certainly worth a try.”

  “What if it’s someone who…I don’t know—”

  “Complicates things for us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Lauren, poor dear, it turns out, couldn’t see well enough to recognize him. This one is win-win for us. My favorite kind of odds.”

  Alan pulled to a stop at the corner of Fourteenth and Pearl, on the edge of the Downtown Mall. In the middle of a night like this, the area should have been deserted. But it wasn’t.

  In the eerie stillness of the snow-cushioned night three black and whites and a few unmarked cars were clustered on the usually vehicle-free Mall bricks. The focus of all their attention seemed to be the ornate facade of the Citizens National Bank Building.

  Alan said, “This isn’t good, Cozy. That’s where we were going. That’s where Emma’s boyfriend lives. Oh God, I wonder if she’s gone ahead and killed herself.”

  Cozy digested the news but didn’t get infected by the speculation. “Why does this man get the promotion? Ten minutes ago he’s a guy she’s dating, now they’re a couple.”

  “It’s awkward, that’s all. I bet something is going on here that involves him. Or, God forbid, her. I don’t like it.”

  Cozy surveyed the police response. “No, that’s not it. The police could handle an interview with Ms. Spire with a couple of detectives. This isn’t a typical police response. Look there, up on the roof.”