Silent Treatment

by Michael Palmer

  Sidonis whirled like a startled cat. “You know damn well I do. Were you in here with her before … before this happened?”

  “Of course I was with her. She’s my wife. Now, just what in the hell—”

  “Dick, was anyone else in here after him?”

  “What?”

  “I said, was anyone else in here with Evie after Corbett?” Sidonis was nearly shouting.

  “Caspar, calm down. Calm down,” Cohen said. “Let’s go out in the hall and talk.”

  Leaving the respiratory technician behind, the three physicians left the room, followed by Sue Jilson.

  “Now, what’s this all about?” Cohen whispered. “Does this have something to do with the meeting this morning?”

  Sidonis’s fury was barely under control. He spoke loudly, without regard for Maura Hughes, her brother, or two residents standing nearby.

  “All I asked was whether anyone else came into this room between the time Corbett—excuse me, Dr. Corbett—left, and the time Evie was found.”

  “I think I can answer that question,” Sue Jilson said. “There was no one else. Dr. Corbett didn’t leave until eight-forty-seven. That’s in my notes. The only way onto the hall after eight is through the elevators and past the nurse’s station. Officer Hughes—that’s Maura’s brother, the man with her over there—arrived on the floor around nine-thirty, but we were already in with Mrs. Corbett. You can check with Alice Broglio, the other nurse on the floor, but I’m sure she’ll confirm what I’ve said.”

  “I knew it.” Sidonis’s fists were clenched.

  “Caspar, will you please tell us what this is all about,” Cohen demanded.

  “Ask him.”

  “Harry?”

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” Harry said.

  “Bullshit,” Sidonis snapped. “Evie was leaving you to be with me, and you know it. She told you so last night at the restaurant she took you to. The SeaGrill. See, I even know the place. Now, what did you do to her?”

  “You son of a bitch—”

  Harry’s burst of anger and hatred was almost immediately washed away by a consuming despair. There was no reason for him to doubt what he was hearing. Evie and goddamn Caspar Sidonis. Suddenly, so much made sense. The months and months of coolness and distance. The odd hours she kept. The trips out of town. The excuses for avoiding sex. Yesterday’s cryptic call. “Harry, I need to talk to you” … Sidonis!

  You’re lying, he wanted to shout. You son of a bitch, you’re lying! But he knew the man wasn’t. For months he had felt as if he was battling a persistent, inexplicable sadness. Now he understood what he was really responding to. Without another word, he left the group and walked back into room 928.

  “Give me a minute, will you?” he said to the respiratory technician. “I’ll call you if there’s any problem.”

  He turned off the bright overhead light, pulled a chair to Evie’s bedside, and sat down. Beside him, the ventilator whirred softly, then delivered a jet of oxygen-enriched air into Evie’s lungs, paused, then whirred again. It had been nearly ten years since they first met. Ten years. They had been fixed up by a mutual friend who felt certain that each was exactly what the other needed. Harry would acquire adventure, spontaneity, and some stamps in his nearly barren passport. Evie would get some desperately needed serenity and stability. She would be the sail, he the rudder. And it had worked, too. At least for a while. In the end, though, she never was able to change in the ways she had hoped to. She just … just wanted more. That’s all.

  “Dammit, Evie,” he said softly, “why couldn’t you at least have talked to me? Told me what was going on? Why couldn’t you have given us a chance?”

  He reached through the bedrail and took her hand. It had been stupid and naive to believe she could become a different person—or even that she truly wanted to.

  A hand settled gently on his shoulder.

  “Harry, are you okay?”

  Doug Atwater looked down at him with concern.

  “Huh? Oh hi, Doug. Actually, no. No, I’m not okay at all.”

  “What’s with Sidonis? He’s over at the nurse’s station right now, phoning the medical examiner and the police. I asked him what was going on, and he just glared at me. For a moment I thought he was going to tell me to go screw myself.”

  Harry shook his head. This was a nightmare. The medical examiner … the police …

  “Doug, I don’t know what’s going on. Evie’s aneurysm has blown. She’s not going to make it.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Sidonis just announced that he’s been sleeping with her and that she was going to leave me for him. He thinks she told me so last night, but she didn’t.”

  “Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry, pal.”

  “Yeah. What are you doing here at this hour anyway?”

  “Anneke and I were at a film. I just stopped by to pick up some papers, and the guard downstairs told me what was going on. I left Anneke in my office and came up here. Why is Sidonis calling the police?”

  Harry loosened his grasp and and moved away from the bed. The thought of Caspar Sidonis touching his wife was at once saddening and repulsive.

  “I was the last one in with her. He must think … actually, I don’t give a shit what he thinks.”

  He left the room with Doug Atwater close behind. Transportation had just arrived to bring Evie down for her scan. Richard Cohen looked at Harry and shrugged.

  “Harry, Caspar’s gone to call the ME and the police. He’s sure you gave your wife something to cause her pressure to skyrocket—some sort of pressor drug. I think maybe I should call Bob Lord and Owen, let them know what’s going on.”

  Lord was the chief of the medical staff. Owen Erdman was president of the hospital.

  “Call anybody you want,” Harry said. “This is ridiculous.”

  “I’ll call Owen,” Atwater offered. “Is Sidonis crazy or what, Richard?”

  “I don’t know about crazy,” the neurosurgeon replied, “but he’s definitely furious. Harry, he says he spoke to your wife just as you two were leaving the house last night, and that she swore she was going to tell you about the two of them.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Well, listen. We’ve got to get going. I’ll call Lord from X ray. Stick around here, will you? As soon as I’ve seen the CT I’ll be back up to speak to you. The EEG tech is on the way in, but she lives in the Bronx.”

  With the respiratory technician breathing for Evie with a rubber Ambu bag, the transportation worker guided her bed toward the elevator. Cohen and Sue Jilson followed, along with the two residents who had remained nearby at Cohen’s request.

  Doug Atwater glanced over at Maura Hughes.

  “Evie’s roommate,” Harry explained. “The cop’s her brother. She’s in the DTs.”

  “In the DTs right now?”

  “I think they’ve got her pretty heavily medicated. Doug, I just don’t believe this is happening.”

  Atwater led Harry over to a molded plastic chair and motioned him to sit.

  “You going to stay here in the hospital?” he asked, lowering to one knee.

  “I … I guess so. At least until the studies are all back. Cohen wants my permission to have Evie donate her organs. I’m probably going to have to decide before morning.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Atwater knew them as a couple about as well as anyone at the hospital did. He had been a dinner guest at their home twice, and had double-dated with them on at least two other occasions, although the last time was probably two or three years ago. He was charming, outgoing, and at times—especially when he had had a few drinks—extremely witty. More than once, Evie had spoken of fixing him up with one or another of her friends. However, Harry recalled now, as their marriage deteriorated she had stopped suggesting a fix-up, and instead frequently encouraged him to join Doug for a “boy’s night out.” Small wonder.

  “I thought Sidonis was married,” Harry said.

&nb
sp; “Not as long as I’ve been here. He has a kid or two somewhere. I know that much. But mostly he’s married to the OR, plus his stockbroker, his publicity agent, and of course his mirror. I had even heard rumors he was gay.”

  Harry laughed bitterly.

  “Guess not,” he said.

  “Listen, Harry, I’d better go call Owen. I need to check on Anneke, too. Do you want me to say something to Sido—never mind. Here he comes.”

  Sidonis bore down on them.

  “The medical examiner’s called the lab and ordered some blood samples on Evie,” he announced triumphantly. “And there’s a Detective Dickinson on his way over. He’d like it if you could stay until he gets here.”

  “I’m not going anyplace. But I have nothing to say to him or anyone else you bring in.”

  “Caspar,” Doug said, “why are you doing this?”

  Sidonis eyed the executive suspiciously. Clearly, he had placed Atwater among the enemy.

  “You really don’t know?” he said finally. “Evie and I have been seeing each other for over a year. Last night she told Harry she was leaving him. Tonight she checks in here with perfectly normal blood pressure, and not one symptom of her aneurysm for a month. He goes into her room, she’s fine. He leaves, and not half an hour later her blood pressure’s three hundred plus and her aneurysm has blown. Wouldn’t you be suspicious?”

  Atwater held the surgeon’s gaze.

  “If I didn’t know Harry Corbett I might be,” he said. “But you’re way off base. And if what you say is true about you and this man’s wife, someone ought to kick the shit out of you for busting up their marriage. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to phone Owen Erdman and let him know what you’ve been up to. Harry, I’ll be back a little later. Be cool.”

  “Now just a second,” Sidonis protested, hurrying after him. “If you’re calling Erdman I want to talk with him.…”

  He was still railing when he and Doug Atwater disappeared around the corner of the hallway. Suddenly, the corridor was silent.

  “Um … excuse me.”

  “Huh?” Harry looked around. Maura Hughes’s brother, still by her bedside, cleared his throat and self-consciously smoothed his uniform shirt. Harry noticed the three stripes on his immaculate uniform. A sergeant, then.

  “I’m Tom Hughes,” he said, his speech free of all but a hint of New York. “Maura’s my sister.”

  “Hi,” Harry said flatly. He felt embarrassed that the policeman had been witness to Sidonis’s outburst and disclosure. But in truth, not that much.

  “I … um … I’m sorry for what you’ve been going through.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Maura says you’ve been very kind to her.” He looked back at where his sister lay. She was asleep and snoring somewhat unnaturally. “I guess the sedation has kicked in.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Look, I don’t mean to butt in, but standing where I’ve been, it was impossible for me not to hear.”

  “Yeah.”

  Harry felt suddenly awkward sitting. He also felt incapable of maintaining a conversation—even one as superficial as this. He stood up and pushed the plastic chair away with the toe of his shoe. He still hadn’t called Evie’s family. Maybe he should call Steve Josephson as well In anticipation of Evie’s surgery, he had already canceled his morning patients and signed out to Steve until one. Maybe he should call and make it the whole day.

  “Look, I’m sorry for blabbering on like this,” Hughes said. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind and the weight of the world on your shoulders. But there’s something I really need to tell you.”

  Harry hesitated, then crossed the corridor.

  “That doctor,” Hughes went on in a near whisper, “the dark-haired one, the one who claims—”

  “Yes, yes, I know who you mean. Sidonis.”

  “Well, Dr. Sidonis seems to be making a big deal over the report from the nurse that you were the last one in with your wife before she got so—”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you weren’t.”

  “What?”

  “You weren’t the last one. There was a man in with her shortly after you left. A doctor, in fact.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Tom Hughes thought for a few seconds before he responded.

  “Pretty sure,” he said finally. “No, make that very sure.”

  “But … but how do you know that?”

  Again the policeman hesitated, his gaze fixed on one of the bed wheels. When he looked at Harry again, his expression was sheepish.

  “My sister told me so,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  “I’m sure she doesn’t look it to you right now, but Maura really is a very special, very talented, very good person.”

  After just a few minutes of conversation with Tom Hughes, several things had become quite clear to Harry: although young, Hughes was very intelligent and as sharp as any policeman he had ever met; and despite his older sister’s obvious problems, he was absolutely devoted to her. He was also convinced that the man she claimed to have seen enter her hospital room had actually been there.

  “A doctor in a white clinic coat came in shortly after you left,” Hughes related to Harry. “Maura was apparently hollering at the time—she said something to me about the nurses never paying any attention to her unless she makes noise. The doctor smiled at her, stroked her forehead, leaned over, and whispered to her to just relax. Then he went around the curtain, spoke with your wife for a short while, and left. He was in his thirties or early forties, five foot eight or so, with brown hair closely cut, unusually dark brown eyes, a large diamond ring on the little finger of his left hand, and a blue and green clip-on tie.”

  “A clip-on? How could she know that?”

  “I’m telling you, drunk or sober, or even in the DTs, my sister is a remarkable woman. She’s an artist, a painter, and she has an incredible eye for detail.”

  Harry recalled the . quickness with which she had spotted his lapel pin.

  I notice things, she had said.

  “Well, maybe some doctor came up the back way, or slipped past the nurses.”

  “Slipped past the nurses maybe,” Tom said. “But not came up the back way. The door is locked and alarmed after eight. The nurse warned me about that when I called to ask if I could come in late tonight. Anyone who comes on or off any floor in this building after eight has to come by elevator and check in at the nurse’s station.”

  “I guess I knew that,” Harry said. “I mean I’ve only worked here for a decade or two. Why didn’t you say something about this mystery doc to Sidonis or the nurses?”

  “The way things were going down, there really wasn’t much chance for me to say anything to anyone. Besides, they’re not very fond of my sister here on Alexander Nine. I hardly think they would give much credence to anything she has to say—especially if it conflicts with what they say.”

  “I think you’re probably right.”

  It was after eleven now. Rather than disturb the overextended staff on Alexander 9, the two of them had wheeled Maura back to her spot in room 928. Fifteen minutes later, the call Harry dreaded had come from neurosurgeon Richard Cohen. Evie was still in the CT scanner, but the initial images were as bad as they had feared. The hemorrhage was massive. The rapid swelling and pressure had forced a portion of her brain through the bony ridge at the base of her skull, totally and irreversibly cutting off circulation to her cerebral cortex—the gray matter responsible for all thought. Surgery was no longer even a long-shot possibility. All that remained was a series of EEGs … and a decision.

  As Maura Hughes continued her stertorous, unnatural sleep, Harry sat opposite her brother in the dimly lit room. As much as he wanted to be alone to sort out what had transpired with Sidonis and to deal with the decision he would shortly be asked to make, he was grateful for the man’s company.

  “No one’s been able to explain to me what the DTs is, or why my sister got it,”
Hughes said. “She definitely was on a bender when she fell, but I know a lot of people who are much heavier drinkers than she is and never seem to get into trouble.”

  “Most alcoholics coming off alcohol just get the shakes and some intestinal stuff,” Harry explained. “There are two really frightening things they can get: seizures and DTs. Seizures usually happen in the first day or two. The DTs come on later—two days to a week or even more after the last drink. We have no way of predicting whether they’ll happen at all.”

  “But Maura’s pretty damn lucid about some things—even while she’s seeing the bugs and such.”

  “All I can say is, that is not unusual. The mix of fantasy and reality is unexplainable. You know, I take care of a fairly large number of alcoholics in my practice. Many of them have been sober for years, some of them against monstrous odds. If you and she would like, I can have one or two of them stop by and speak with her.”

  “You mean AA?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I’ve tried to get her to go to AA. But she never would go. Too much pride, I guess.”

  “Maybe you should take some videos or Polaroids of her right now.”

  Tom Hughes grinned at the suggestion.

  “Maybe I should at that,” he said. “Dr. Corbett, do you mind if I ask you a little about what’s going on between you and that other doctor?”

  “Sidonis?” Harry shrugged. “I think you’ve heard most of it already. He claims my wife has been having an affair with him, and that she planned to leave me for him. He thinks she told me all about it last night at the restaurant we went to. He even knew the name of the place. Now that I look back on our evening, I think Evie actually wanted to tell me. But she never did.”

  “So you believe him? I mean, there is another possibility. He could have been obsessed with your wife and followed you to that restaurant.”

  Harry looked down at the floor and swallowed at the fullness that had again begun building in his throat.

  “No,” he said finally. “I believe him.”

  “And he thinks that because of what you knew, you gave something to your wife to … to what?”

  “To send her blood pressure up high enough to cause her cerebral aneurysm to rupture.”