“Obviously, Kelly came to the same conclusions about the digoxin cases that you and I did.” Braden said with no hesitation. “She confronted Melanie, and Melanie killed her to avoid getting caught.” He continued to stand there, his hands in his pockets, white coat immaculate, looking like he’d stepped out of a fashion magazine, at five-thirty in the morning. Something didn’t add up. “Why did you tell me this now?”
Braden looked at him as if he were crazy. “Because my son and I only just now finished going through Melanie’s files. We’ve been at it since yesterday morning, and wanted to make sure we were right before saying anything. I came right up because I figured your life might be in danger. And so did you, from the looks of it when I got here. Weren’t you about to escape her clutches?”
Sounded reasonable. And he should be grateful to the man. Why didn’t he feel that way? Instead, he had the inkling he was being manipulated. “What do we do now?” he asked, playing along while trying to sort out his doubts.
“First thing this morning I’ll call the CEO of the hospital and the president of the medical school. This is going to be a tabloid special, and they’ll want to get all their legal ducks in a row. Then we’ll call the police, and they’ll arrest Collins. I want it over with fast, before anything else tragic happens. I tried to warn Mark Roper the other night that I was onto something and requested that he slow down to give me a couple of days. But he’s such a hothead, just like his father. Insisted on plowing full speed ahead with his investigation.”
The more the man talked, the more Earl grew wary. Charles Braden still had a lot of questions to answer about his role in other matters, from the demise of Cam Roper, whom Braden had just called a real hothead, to a recent gas explosion. And he appeared to be in an unseemly hurry to rein in Mark. In fact, Earl just realized an obvious hole in Braden’s story.
“Tell me, Charles, how did you know which charts I first looked at in this case?”
Braden studied him a few seconds, his blue stare now cold as a polar sea. “Why, Lena Downie must have told me. You know what a chatterbox she is.”
Really? Earl thought. That would be easy enough to check out. “Why I asked is that Mark Roper said someone sneaked into his house and went through his father’s file on Kelly. The M and M reports on those two patients that started this whole paper chase were in there. Would you know anything about that break-in?”
Braden didn’t bat an eye. “You, know, Earl, after what I’ve just done for you, I don’t necessarily want a show of gratitude, but I would expect you to have the common courtesy not to make gratuitous insinuations about the whole Kelly affair, especially after all the harm you did to my son’s-”
“She told me it was Chaz who wrecked any feelings she had for him.”
Braden said nothing this time, but his body seemed to tense beneath the gleaming white coat.
In the menace of that silence, Earl teetered between opposing instincts.
One urged him to probe further. Demand what kind of game Charles had been playing at the birthing center. Shake him up with the fact that Mark Roper had some interesting questions regarding statistics for the place. Confront him about the death of Victor Feldt and what it had to do with Nucleus Laboratories, executive health plans, or genetic screenings on siblings with a family history of cancer – anything to provoke an angry outburst and a revealing slip.
But self-preservation made Earl cautious. Whatever Charles had been up to, trying to spook him with bravado could be very dangerous. Better to outmaneuver him. “Sorry, Charles, I didn’t mean to insinuate you had anything to do with the break-in at Mark’s, and I’m most grateful for the warning about Melanie, believe me. As for my hurtful comment regarding Chaz and Kelly, it was inexcusable. Please, accept my apology, and put it down to the morphine talking.”
Braden continued to watch him.
Earl felt the man see right through his wooden attempt to make peace. “Look, I spoke out of line,” he added. “Let me make it up to you by helping out with Melanie’s capture. After all, that’s the important thing, right? I’ll get back into bed, so when she makes her morning rounds nothing will tip her off that we’re onto her. You start rousting the administration. With me corroborating what you and Chaz are saying, they’ll be more ready to believe us.” His real plan? Pretend to cooperate, then, once Braden left, skedaddle the hell out of the hospital to the nearest police station. Now that he had Melanie pegged, let the cops figure out the rest.
The rigidity under the lab coat lessened. Still, Braden seemed to be in the limbo of deciding something. “You’re right about going back to bed and Melanie finding you there,” he finally said, turning and walking toward the door. “But we both know you don’t intend to hang around, and I can’t allow that. Better we sedate you.” He stuck his head into the hallway and yelled, “Nurse!”
Earl broke into a cold sweat. “Wait a minute! What if Melanie does something to me while I’m under? You yourself said it would take a few hours to convince the police…”
Braden looked at him, his eyes almost sorrowful.
My God. He’s going to let her kill me! Earl’s mouth went dry “I’ll tell the nurses what you’re doing.” His voice sounded like a croak. “You won’t get away with it.”
Braden glanced back out in the hallway, apparently unconcerned.
“I’ll say that you’re under investigation for murder,” Earl added, judging his chances of knocking him over and making a run for it.
Braden shook his head as if enduring a great weariness. “You must be mad, the morphine no doubt.”
“What about Mark Roper? He already thinks you smothered deformed infants and buried their bodies on the grounds of your home for unwed mothers.” Earl raised his voice to make sure any approaching nurses would hear the accusations. Whether they believed him or not, he hoped to at least make them pause before carrying out the man’s orders. But his own skepticism about Braden being capable of infanticide had vanished. “He’s going to the police about it this morning. When he finds out you visited me, he’ll suspect you arranged my death.”
Braden stared at him in amazement. “The grounds? Oh, my God, Dr. Garnet. Even if I were the monster you’re suggesting, I wouldn’t be fool enough to leave human remains on the grounds of an abandoned building.”
Braden ought to be sweating bricks by now if he’d done any part of what Mark had accused him of, Earl thought. Instead he remained calm, practically purring. Could he have already moved the bodies? Son of a bitch! Or he’d never buried anything there at all. Of course. He’d be too smart to leave that kind of evidence behind.
Mark’s account of what happened with Braden in the library flashed to mind, and a sickening realization swept through Earl. Mark had been on the losing end of a game he probably didn’t even realize Braden had been playing. Because not only would Charles have been too smart to leave bones lying about where they could be found, he wouldn’t have said the suggestive things that he had about smotherings if he’d truly wanted to avoid such atrocious allegations. Instead, it almost seemed he’d invited them. Why?
“Nurse!” Braden bellowed a second time. “Nurse, come quickly.”
“Now hold on-”
“Nurse!”
Earl heard the sound of running feet in the hallway.
Mrs. White bolted through the door, her cheeks aflame.
“I’m afraid Dr. Garnet’s having a psychotic episode, probably from the drugs-”
“What are you doing out of bed-” she said, striding toward him. “And what happened to your IV?”
“Nurse, I’m fine-”
“I blame myself, Nurse,” Braden continued, his voice serene with the quiet authority of one used to being in charge. “I barged in here on a grievous family matter between Dr. Garnet and my son – well, let’s just say I was upset.”
“He came here to set me up-”
“This is what I mean about paranoia. We had words, but then Dr. Garnet began to spout the most bizarre accusations, about me mu
rdering babies, and burying their bodies-”
“He’s lying! The man is under suspicion for murder. Coroner Mark Roper will verify everything I said-” Earl stopped, realizing too late he’d whipped his hand out from under the covers and was brandishing the glinting points of a half dozen needles in their faces.
Mrs. White screamed.
“My God!” Braden said, recoiling in horror.
Another nurse appeared at the door. One glance and she bellowed, “Orderlies! We’ve got a code forty-four!”
From his residency days, Earl recognized the call. Within sixty seconds a herd of young men wearing white would stampede into the room with enough Haldol and tie-downs to immobilize an elephant.
“Put down the needles, sir!” the nurse at the doorway said.
Braden and Mrs. White backed away from him.
At the very least he had to get to a phone and call Janet.
“Back off,” he screamed at the one blocking the way out.
She stood her ground. “Don’t do this, sir.”
“All I want to do is call my wife. No need for drugs. No tie-downs. Just let me call my home.”
“Absolutely, sir. You can make the call as soon as you put down the needles.”
He knew the tone and the routine. He’d used it himself many times. When a patient threatens staff, promise him anything, then hit him with everything, all in the name of preventing anyone from getting hurt. There’d be no stopping what he’d set in motion. And no calls.
“I’m getting to a phone,” he said, advancing toward her. “I won’t hurt you.”
She retreated a few steps, the look of terror in her young eyes horrible to see.
He lunged by her and raced down the hall toward a stand of public phone booths.
His legs nearly went from under him.
“Stop!” he heard Braden yell.
Still brandishing his needles, he ran up, grabbed the nearest receiver, and punched in 0 plus his number.
Immediately he was surrounded by a growing group of orderlies, the two nurses from his room, and Braden. They all shouted instructions at him and each other.
“Put down the needles.”
“Watch it.”
“Who the hell’s he calling?”
The phone chirped through the long-distance dialing and rang Janet’s cellular.
The semicircle closed in.
He made wide sweeping arcs with his weapon, and they shrank away from him. He was bluffing of course, and ready to drop them the instant anyone rushed him, but they didn’t know that.
The yelling continued.
“We got to jump him.”
“You jump him. Those needles could be contaminated.”
“Why not wait and see who he’s calling?”
“I advise you to get him now!” Braden thundered.
The second ring sounded.
Be at home, Janet, and not off in the delivery room.
More orderlies arrived, tie-down straps in hand.
A third nurse appeared with a large syringe.
A shock of red hair made its way through the crowd.
The next ring broke off with a click.
She’d answered. “Janet, help me. Melanie Collins is trying to kill me, and Charles Braden-”
“The person you are calling is not available…”
No!
Over that he heard, “You have a collect call from…”
“Janet! Help-”
“I’m sorry, but your collect call has not been accepted…”
At that second some hero in the crowd dived at his legs. As he tumbled to the ground he dropped his handful of syringes to one side, careful not to jab anyone, and went limp.
His intention was lost on the swarm that grabbed him. They hoisted him on a gurney, held him in place, and tied him down.
The nurse with the syringe approached. The rest hung back, like onlookers at an accident.
Earl seized on an idea. “You can’t give me that,” he said to the one with the needle.
“And why not?” She lifted a flap of his gown and anointed his butt with an alcohol swab.
“Because I’ve a critically low potassium.”
“What!” She pulled up just before the tip of the needle hit skin.
He was thinking clearly now. “Low potassium and major tranquilizers don’t mix,” he told her. “Causes cardiac conduction problems, as if I didn’t already have enough of those already. Ask any doctor.” He hadn’t made it up. And in the time it took her to sort it out, he might convince the other nurses not to give him anything.
“He’s right, ma’am,” said a male voice from somewhere behind her.
Earl recognized Dr. Roy’s voice.
Mrs. White appeared at the side of her colleague who had the needle and showed her Earl’s chart. “Better listen. There was some kind of screwup with his potassium last night. The lab called about it.”
The one with the needle looked disappointed. “Oh, man, I hate it when we have doctors as patients…”
As they second-guessed themselves, a new volley of painful spasms erupted in his stomach. Gritting his teeth, he nevertheless pressed his case. “Nurse, Mrs. White, I don’t need sedation at all-”
“Will someone medicate this man, or should I do it myself?” Charles Braden interrupted. He stepped up to Mrs. White and took the chart from her. “Here, he’s got a standing order for morphine. Give him that.”
Oh, God, not again. I’ll be a sitting duck for Melanie.
As Charles walked away, Mrs. White readily trotted off to the medication cupboard.
“Please! Call my wife! Dr. Janet Graceton. She’s in the case room at St. Paul’s Hospital in Buffalo.”
No one paid him the slightest attention.
The crowd started to thin out. He saw Dr. Roy’s bushy red hair disappearing down the hall. He had another idea. “Dr. Roy. Call Tanya Wozcek. Tell her what’s happened. Then do the DONT.”
The people who had started to wheel the stretcher back to his room looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Who’s Tanya Wozcek?” he heard someone whisper.
“I think she’s a nurse up on geriatric?”
“Sounds like that’s where this guy is headed.”
Twenty minutes later he felt his brain had been packed in a SlushPuppie.
He also didn’t seem to care.
Chapter 20
Charles Braden stepped outside the Thirty-third Street entrance of NYCH and dialed Melanie Collins’s number on his cell phone.
“Yes,” she said sleepily.
“Melanie. It’s Charles Braden. I’m sorry to wake you so early, but there’s been a problem with Earl Garnet.”
“Problem?”
“Yes. I blame myself. My son had just received the upsetting news that Garnet was the man in the taxi with Kelly the night before she disappeared. I went to Garnet’s room and confronted him about it. Now I know I shouldn’t have, but-”
“What happened?” Her sudden alertness told him he had all her attention.
“He started going on about how you had been deliberately making patients sick so you could then diagnose bizarre syndromes and act the hero. Even said you killed a few, made one of your former victims slip into a coma to silence her, and, get this, accused you of trying to kill him. Now I think it’s the drugs, but they had to sedate him-”
“I’m on my way-”
“Melanie, that’s not the worst of it. The man has this crazy idea Kelly found out what you were doing, and that you murdered her to keep her quiet.”
“Oh, God.”
“Fortunately just the two of us were in the room. He’s not talking much to anyone right now, but I thought you should know. Even ridiculous rumors like that, once they get rolling, can snowball.”
“I appreciate the heads-up.”
I’ll bet you do, he thought, hanging up.
Now all he had to do was wait. He glanced at his watch and saw it read nearly six. The coffee shop would be open
in a few minutes.
He dialed medical records at Lena Downie’s extension. Chaz would be waiting there for his call.
“Dad?”
“So what do you think?”
“You were right. She’s definitely dirty. I can’t believe the woman got away with it for so long.”
“Because no one was looking.”
“But she killed who knows how many over the years.”
“And Kelly, remember.”
The silence on the other end of the phone hung between them, pregnant as a held breath. “I guess I thought I’d feel so different finding her killer,” Chaz finally said, his voice funereal. “Rage, relief, free – something. Instead, I’m just empty inside.”
“That’s to be expected-”
“Expected! My life’s been chained to her fucking corpse. Now she’s turning to dust, and what do I have – closure? What a fucking joke. And you say, ‘That’s to be expected.’ ”
Charles winced at Chaz’s anger.
“Chaz, why don’t you join me in the coffee shop so we can talk. We still have to decide how to proceed-”
“How did Garnet take it when you confronted him?”
“Not well.”
“Did he deny it?”
“He went a little wacko, to tell you the truth.”
“I’d like to wacko him-”
“Now you stay away from him, Chaz. This whole thing has to be done properly, and legally. Then you’ll finally feel free. I promise you.”
He could hear his son breathing at the other end of the line. The seething rage in that sound frightened him. “Chaz, promise me you’ll stay away.”
“Okay,” Chaz said, after a few more seconds.
“Now come and have coffee with me.”
“I can’t. Since I was here all night anyway, I put myself on call. I just got beeped for a cardiac case coming in by air ambulance.”
“You?” His son never took weekend calls. Considered excusing himself from it the privilege of being chief.
“Yes, I know. But a couple of loudmouths in my department started to complain about my never putting myself on the schedule. This’ll shut them up for a while.”
Charles walked over to the Starbucks on the ground floor and ordered an espresso. He needed to clear his head after practically having to guide Chaz through Melanie’s files most of the night. His son might not be the dimmest light on the board, but he was a far cry from the brightest.
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