Murders at Hollings General ddb-1

by Jerry Labriola

  He tried to visualize a shoe covered with green cloth that was smeared with blood in varying degrees of clotting.

  He slapped his forehead and rushed to the bottom of the stairs again and looked closely at both doors there. The bottom edge of the left one-the one to Pathology bore a slight pink stain.

  When David arrived at Suite 7, security guards swarmed about the halls surrounding it. He shook hands with one of the men he recognized.

  "Just a quick look-see, that okay, Hank?"

  "Sure, doc, but don't step in any blood."

  He walked in. The room was empty except for the purplish corpse of Board Chairman Bugles which still lay in the tilted Trendelenberg position. The skin was waxy, almost translucent and the eyes were flat. David looked around, imagining all the stainless steel had lost its sheen, so blasphemed as a backdrop to murder. It was one thing for a surgical procedure to go sour; it was quite another for the nobility of such a place to be violated, for the trust of the consigned to be so severed.

  He saw tubes dangling loose from the anesthesia and suction apparatus. Syringes, surgical instruments and blood-caked towels were scattered over the floor. Stools and a cautery machine lay toppled against a wall as if the room had been ransacked.

  At the operating table, stationary retractors were still in place exposing the upper two-thirds of Bugles' abdominal cavity. David peered inside, scrutinizing the now malarranged vicera and supporting structures. He had seen his share of corpses before, but this was a carcass, a melange of crimsons, lusterless and brick-dry, and of deflated intestines tucked behind gauze strips. They probably suctioned away all the blood he had. The more he bled, the less they could see. So the more they suctioned. He examined the retro-spaces at both flanks where kidneys, now prune-like, had been shorn of their protective tents. And look there: both renals cut. Up here: liver lacerated end to end. On the other side: spleen sliced in two. David balled his hands into tight fists. There's the scalpel. One final swipe from quadrant to quadrant, and the bastard dropped his weapon before he bolted.

  He had seen enough. Leaving, he heard voices coming from the hallway. He recognized Kathy Dupre's.

  "We got here as quickly as we could. The traveling's terrible," Kathy said.

  David resisted the urge to iron out the pout of her lips with his own, to pat her short wet hair which had kept its waves. He had often reminded her she was too petite and luminescent for a cop. A blue London Fog was tucked over a purse that hung down from her shoulder. She wore his favorite black suit and, this time, displayed a badge on her hip pocket as he had often requested. "Keeps the bird dogs at bay," he had once said. "Especially when your stockings match the suit. And hair, come to think of it." He imagined the feel of her unpowdered skin, the brush against her high cheekbone below a hint of eyeshadow.

  "David, I'd like you to meet my new supervisor, Detective Chief Nick Medicore. He's moved here from the West Coast."

  David clicked him in as drab as Kathy was striking. "How do you do, Chief?" he said. "Welcome to Connecticut, your mirror image on the East Coast."

  "Except for the weather, but thanks. How do you stand this stuff, Dr. Brooks? It's bad for my bowling ball." He pointed to his head.

  "We don't, and it's David." He reached down to shake Nick's outstretched hand while engaging his eyes. The Chief was the first to disengage.

  "Medicore?" David said. "This should be right up your alley."

  "Some people call me Mediocre," Nick replied with a crooked grin.

  The Chief carried a gray overcoat and wore a white turtleneck under a checkered jacket, and there was a badge over the swelling near his breast pocket. His nose was redder than his red face, and he was smooth-shaven with cheeks that bore venous markings like tertiary roads on a highway map. David wondered why he hadn't grown a beard.

  "And you know Walter Sparks, our criminalist?" Kathy said.

  "Yes, of course. Good to see you again, Sparky … I guess."

  David nodded to the others who had arrived: Alton Foster, the hospital's administrator with two of his associates; the medical examiner and his deputy; and four uniformed police officers. He motioned Foster aside and put an arm on his shoulder. "I'm sorry this happened here, Alton. Hope I can speak with you about it in the next day or two."

  "Yes, yes. God, this is so terrible," Foster said, his voice cracking. His hair, normally plastered for hurricanes, was disheveled.

  David signaled Kathy and she joined them. "What happened to the Emergency Response Team?" he asked.

  "This is it, now. It's been streamlined."

  "No Evidence Officer?"

  "You're looking at him … I mean, her."

  Nick walked over. "So how's your seven-eighths professional sleuthing coming along?" he asked. "Kathy's been telling me about you. You're really building up the credits."

  "Not nearly seven-eighths, I'm afraid, but I'm working at it." David was not sure about the man and hoped his elbowroom would not be narrowed. "Have you seen the other body, yet?"

  "No, but we'd better look there first," Kathy answered. "Then, Sparky, you can do your dusting and stills and whatever. Where's the other one, David?"

  "In the locker room, down the hall."

  David felt the vibration of the digital phone attached to his belt. "Wait up," he said. He checked its display face. "It's Belle from the Hole."

  "His nurse/secretary," Kathy said, looking at Nick. "She operates out of a cubbyhole they gave him downstairs in the basement. He's never dared call it an office."

  "A hole with no rent," David said, punching in numbers. Contact was immediate.

  "Everyone's looking for you," Belle said at the other end.

  "Who's everyone?"

  "The world. But mainly the media. They already know you're investigating the murders. Isn't voice mail working on that pocket doohickey of yours? I've been trying to get you."

  "Preoccupied, my sweet. It's out about the murders?" "Out? Since I know, then everyone must know. When are you going to let me in on what happened? You okay?" "Frazzled, but yes. I'll go into it when I see you. Jasper's house call still on?"

  "Yes, definitely. His office called four times already."

  "I'm on my way. Look, Belle, I'll go alone this time."

  "That's all right with me, but there go the books and here comes more insurance rigmarole. I still say you should carry some forms with you."

  "Come off it, Belle, what do I know about what line they should sign?" David signed off and placed the miniature unit back into its leather case on his belt.

  Nick creased his forehead. "House call? I thought they were obsolete."

  "And if I don't make it soon, Dr. Jasper will be furious. Probably is, in fact. Unless he's heard about the commotion here."

  "You're making a house call on a doctor?"

  "No, not on him. For him. That's what I do now. I'll explain later. Bye. See you in about an hour." He wheeled around and groaned, clutching his knee. "Tough to get old," he said.

  "C'mon," Nick replied, "you're young enough to be my son."

  "If you diapered him when you were still in-let's see-high school senior year?" Kathy said.

  "Close enough," Nick said. "And, tell me, Dr. Brooks, shouldn't those house calls be your first priority?"

  David took it as a statement, not a question, and he pretended not to hear. As he limped by Sparky, he said, "I can phone you later if you're not still here?"

  "Sure."

  David paused, expecting a tag to the response, but there was none. He thought briefly about hanging around to see if he could learn anything from the police procedurals but, instead, pressed a door activator and breezed through the surgical booking and administrative wing, waving to several doctors and nurses before reaching the outer stairwell. He was certain the hues and cries from a small reception room were those of corralled news reporters. On the third floor, he crossed a ramp to the parking garage. The hospital had not yet reclaimed his private spot even though he had resigned from full-t
ime employment there a year ago.

  He exited to the garage and walked down a slight incline lined with cars parked at right angles on both sides. He paid little attention to a car revving up at the next higher level.

  Suddenly, he heard a roar and screech and knew the car was bearing down in his direction. No time to look back. He locked his knees and, ignoring a twinge of pain, dove between two parked cars, somersaulting onto his haunches.

  He smelled rubber as he twisted around to glance down the incline. But the car had rounded the lower corner and disappeared.

  What the hell! David's first impulse was to give chase, but it was too late for that. He stayed down for a moment, embracing both knees, and although stunned, managed to give thanks that Belle had not come along for the house call. As his breathing normalized, he also gave thanks to all fight-or-flight stress reactions and to the exalted levels they could take one's body. Has there ever been a choreographed mini-second somersault?

  He pulled himself up on a fender, dusted his trousers and, wobbly as a decelerating bicycle, headed for his car.

  So, these are the stakes. Welcome to murder investigations, pal.

  Chapter 2

  David weaved his black SL500 Mercedes convertible along the backroads of his Connecticut birthplace, thoughts thrashing through his mind, having conceded that the light but swirly snow had nullified his option of lowering the top-even though he believed he was a better fit when exercising that option.

  His stature was a genetic mutation, he theorized quantum leap from diminutive parents. They had operated a small corner store-Brooks Grocery-for thirty-five years before reluctantly folding six months earlier, another casualty of the supermarket blitzkrieg. Along the way, they had budgeted for their only child's college and medical school tuitions at Yale.

  David wouldn't activate the heater until the engine had warmed up. Usually when he arrived where he was going. He wore a blue tweed jacket and charcoal trousers. No hat, no overcoat. Just his trademark black scarf and gloves. From December to March, he added t-shirts, his only other winter concession. He eschewed clip-on bow ties in favor of the real McCoy. He appeared top-heavy, with an upper-body contour of a less towering man, perhaps a boxer. Empty-hipped, his trouser legs broke clear to his toes, a sight not lost on most observers. He would offer a dismissive wave. "Helps warm the tops of feet, you know."

  It was an effort but he forestalled a consideration of his brush with death. What's there to consider anyway? The killer used a dagger and then a scalpel. Why not a car?

  Pondering what he would eventually say to Nick Medicore about the origin of his house call practice, he wondered how much detail he should offer. The bottom line was that he had soured on both private, office-based practice and full-time hospital practice. It was a question of freedom. Freedom from staggering stacks of paperwork, from the annoyances of dealing with insurance companies and Health Maintenance Organizations, and from other elements in the burgeoning Managed Care approach to medicine. Meanwhile, he had become increasingly intrigued by police detective work. He had, in fact, always considered himself a medical detective, deriving more pleasure from making a diagnosis than from treating a disease. Yet, he didn't want to abandon patient care altogether. The solution, then, in avoiding the issues that irked him and in fulfilling his investigative and patient contact interests would be to restrict his practice to afternoon house calls for other doctors and to reserve mornings for sleuthing. David preferred the word, "snooping."

  He had been given a brief medical history about Megan Kelly, the patient he would soon examine and knew that a youngster with diabetes was as brittle as they come-that he might find her about to lapse into coma, or about to convulse from too much insulin, or anything else in between. But for the last half-mile to the Kelly apartment, he overrode the medical scenarios he had waded through many times before.

  Sure you want sleuthing at this level? Why not? My hospital. My friends-gone. Friends? Cortez maybe. But Bugles? Now, one less Christmas card and no more aftershave stenches. And what's with what's-his-name, Medicore? Just feeling people out?

  He told himself he wouldn't miss those mornings in the halls when he was between clinical meetings and the old industrialist strutted around, wearing his Board chairmanship on his sleeve, intolerable but for his money. That was Bugles. Nonetheless, he had been murdered now along with one of Surgery's pioneers.

  David aggravated over the two deaths. He had never been so close to major crime before. Never heard the frantic cries of doctors who knew better, in a killing whose M.O. was unspeakable. Never seen a pearly dagger in the chest of a distinguished colleague. Never tasted fumes while brushed by a speeding tire.

  But the surgery was brutal murder. A knifing in a sanctum sanctorum. And he was almost number three. Accept the challenge? Bring it on.

  David had called on ten-year-old Megan once before, when he had found her on the verge of insulin shock because she had played a vigorous soccer game but had not reduced herinsulin dose beforehand. So, he had no trouble finding the third floor flat behind Hollings' newest strip mall. Small black bag in hand, he climbed the exposed stairs in back, glancing down at a macadam play yard, its icy surface ruptured by frost heaves, like mole work on a spring lawn.

  Mrs. Kelly stood at the open door, wringing her hands. "I saw you through the window, Dr. Brooks. Megan's very sick."

  "Let's have a look, Mrs. Kelly," he said, handing her his scarf and gloves.

  They walked through a kitchen with an uneven floor and by a table whose mustard oilcloth matched the paint chips David noticed beneath a windowsill. A crucifix hung over the door to the child's bedroom.

  Megan struggled to push herself up in bed. "Hi … doc … tor," she said breathlessly. Her words brought on a coughing fit. When she settled down, David noted her shallow, rapid respirations. Her mother went to the window and raised the shade.

  "Just lie back down, Megan," David said. "That's it, easy does it."

  As he leaned over the child and placed his hands on both sides of her neck, he detected the fruity smell of acetone. She felt hot and dry. Her black hair was knotted, her eyes sunken. She scraped her tongue over her lips.

  "You checking her urine, Mrs. Kelly?"

  "Every day. I checked it four times today."

  "What are they showing? Both readings are up, right?"

  "Yes, Doctor." She consulted a small piece of cardboard which she pulled from the pocket of her housecoat. "The sugar is four plus," she said, "and acetone reads strong positive. It's been like that for three days." Megan's chest heaved during another coughing paroxysm.

  David examined her from head to toe, then returned to her chest. He put his stethoscope aside and said, "There's the problem, Mrs. Kelly. Has she been coughing long?"

  "All week. She can't seem to shake it. "

  "Well, she has bronchitis and that's upsetting the control of the diabetes. Here's how we should handle it." David scribbled prescriptions for an antibiotic and an expectorant, advised setting up a vaporizer, instructed the mother to triple the child's fluid intake, and explained how and when to increase Megin's insulin dosages.

  Winking at Megan, he said, "I know you feel rotten but you're going to do just fine." He motioned Mrs. Kelly to the hallway.

  "Now, get the prescriptions filled right away-you know Hatcher's down the corner will deliver-and if she's no better by morning, call Dr. Jasper. Between now and then, if you get worried, call me, okay?"

  She nodded and said, "Could you wait one more minute?" She disappeared into a back room and returned waving an insurance form.

  He thrust out both hands defensively. "No, no, those things scare me. I'll have Belle at my office contact you." He left, not at all certain he would give Belle a record of the visit.

  David raced to his home on the eastern edge of Hollings, a city of 100,000 people-big for Connecticut. Several decaying but proud manufacturing plants clasped hands along the valley river, holdouts to the exodus south, to warmer clim
ates and cheaper human resources. Industrial parks with their prefabricated look-alikes occupied higher ground while yet above them, unpretentious residential houses stocked both hills, each a template for the other. The city's shape and color changed with the seasons, a croissant in foliaged autumn, a warship in the grimy sludge of winter.

  He intended to freshen up before returning to the hospital, to splash his face with cold water at the bathroom sink, again ignoring the minor and the reflection of his chin. Another mutation. The cleft there was a shaving trouble spot, a breeding ground for nicks and cuts among inaccessible stubble, always the trigger for morning obscenities and vows to bury the gap in a goatee some day.

  David noticed the snow falling more heavily through the dark now, sucked against his windshield like bits of confetti. On the car phone, he called in his report to Dr. Jasper's office-that he had found the child in stable condition but upped her insulin dose in the face of a respiratory infection. He glanced at the dashboard clock which registered five-twenty. "Ah, shoot!" He had missed the start of his karate class. From five to six on Tuesdays, David helped Grand Master Bruno Bateman conduct a class for beginners, and on Thursdays, he polished his own skills during controlled combat with other black belts. He punched in the studio number. Agnes, the receptionist, answered.

  "Gorgeous? Tell the boss I'm sorry but I'm tied up tonight."

  "He understands, David, and he's already started the class. We caught the news on TV. I couldn't believe my ears-murders like that in a hospital. Guess you'll be preoccupied."

  "To say the least, but I'll try to make Thursday-unless things get worse." His last phrase had sneaked out, and he hoped Agnes wouldn't ask him to explain.

  "I'll tell Bruno you called, and you be careful, okay?"

  Before David and Kathy had cemented their relationship, he and Agnes had shared a drink or two, and more than a few all-nighters. Sometimes he reminded her that she taught him moves which were not exactly martial arts.