Night Chill

by Jeff Gunhus

  “So cause of death unknown?”

  Dr. Mansfield handed over a document. “The medical examiner’s report will show massive coronary as cause of death.”

  Lauren threw the folder back on the desk. “This is bush league medicine and you know it.”

  The doctor rocked back in his chair, eyes narrowed. Lauren regretted her comment as soon as it was out of her mouth. She respected Dr. Mansfield, but this lapse of judgment was unconscionable. They had no idea what they were dealing with here. It wasn’t the time to get sloppy.

  Dr. Mansfield pursed his lips together. Lauren noticed his knuckles were white as they clutched the side of his chair. He was fighting to control himself. She saw a flash of anger in his eyes, something she had never seen before in him.

  “I’m sorry we don’t measure up to your standards, Dr. Tremont.” The words came out clipped, each syllable snapped off like it was frozen. His voice rose as he spoke. “Good people work at this hospital and they do an excellent job with the resources they have. I’ll not have you or anyone else disparage their efforts to save that little girl.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s…” she blinked hard, surprised to feel tears rolling down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if it was the shock at Dr. Mansfield’s harsh tone or the stress of the last few days. Regardless, the tears came, pouring faster than she could wipe them away with the back of her sleeve.

  Dr. Mansfield held up his hands and sighed. “I’m sorry. Really. Look, I understand you’re upset. I get attached to my patients too. In fact, I was just on the phone with one of them. It’s hard when they don’t respond well to treatment.” He got up from his desk and walked over to her. “We’re both a little spent here. Let’s just chalk this up to stress, all right? No hard feelings?” He opened his arms for a hug.

  Lauren shook her head. She suddenly felt ten years old. She wanted the embrace, wanted to cry on his shoulder, but she wouldn’t let herself. Smiling weakly, she said, “Thanks. I’m fine. I don’t usually get so emotional.”

  “You’re human. Emotional is OK.”

  Lauren smiled. “Yeah, I guess.” She recognized his tone. It was what she called his grandfather mode, his voice full of comfort, his eyes sympathetic, the smile just enough to show he cared. It was the Dr. Mansfield she was used to but his flash of anger only seconds before left her unnerved. No amount of country charm could shake her surprise at the dark cloud that had covered his face. It made the old gentleman doctor routine seem just that, a routine. Then again, he had said that the phone call he was on when she walked into the room was a patient who wasn’t doing well. Maybe it was the stress.

  Still, she suddenly felt uncomfortable being in the room alone with him. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Besides, she was anxious to call Felicia’s parents.

  “I’m going to try again with the family to get them to authorize an autopsy. I have good rapport with the father. I think I’ll be able to convince him.” She turned to leave, but was stopped by Dr. Mansfield’s low baritone voice.

  “You’re too late. The body was taken directly to Westlawn. Felicia Rodriguez was cremated earlier today. I’m afraid this particular matter is closed.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Jack fingered the white piece of paper as he waited for the red light to change. The prescription was scrawled out in the indecipherable handwriting that seemed to be universal among doctors. With a little imagination he could see the word ‘lithium’ buried within the loops and squiggles from Dr. Moran’s pen.

  There was a pharmacy a couple of blocks down the street. Leaving the psychiatrist’s office he decided to get the prescription filled and head home. Maybe read a book for a while. Go for a hike. Catch up on the consulting work that was due at the end of the month. Anything to get his mind off things.

  He glanced at the prescription.

  The turn for the pharmacy came up. He removed his foot from the gas and it hovered over the brake. The car slowed as it coasted but Jack’s foot remained suspended over the brake. The shopping center with the pharmacy slid by.

  A voice in his head chastised him for being stubborn. That much he knew about himself. But there was something nagging him from his meeting with the psychiatrist. The whole meeting seemed contrived. Moran was too plastic, too ready to suggest answers to everything. Didn’t psychiatrists try to get their patients to make their own breakthroughs? Establish their own conclusions?

  The rational part of his brain laughed at the thought. What did he know about therapy, anyway? He had not gone after the accident in California. He had just dealt with it. That was who he was, the guy who could deal with anything.

  “You’re doing a hell of a job with that, aren’t you?” he muttered to himself.

  It was ridiculous for him to second-guess Moran. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling.

  He usually had a good feel for people, his success in business had depended on it, and he got a strange read from Moran. But given the circumstances, he decided he didn’t have the luxury of playing hunches or letting his feelings get in the way. The psychiatrist had given him an explanation he could live with, and a prescription to help him cope. He needed to follow the advice and get on the medication. He owed it to Lauren and the kids to do it.

  He glanced over his shoulder to merge left and make a U-turn back to the pharmacy. There was a black Ford Bronco positioned just off his rear left bumper that blocked his way. Jack turned on his signal and sped up. When he looked back he saw that the Bronco also accelerated, staying on his bumper.

  Jack groaned. Probably some high school kid, he thought. He didn’t have the patience to play around. He slowed down to allow the Bronco to pass. But it matched his speed again, staying right behind him.

  “What the—” Jack twisted in his seat to get a look at the driver. He felt his heart thump hard in his chest when he recognized the man behind the wheel. Joseph Lonetree. He felt as if the air in his lungs had turned to cement. Clenching the wheel with his left hand, he grabbed the phone to call the police.

  But as he dialed, the initial shock wore off. His adrenaline rush transformed his panic into something else. Anger. Not only because the man following him, but that he had allowed himself to feel intimidated. This man was a threat to his family. He wasn’t going to run away from him. And he wasn’t going to wait for Sheriff Janney to ride in and save him either.

  Jack cancelled the call and threw the phone on the passenger seat. He pressed a button on his door and the automatic window slid down. Jack extended his arm out of the window and waved the man forward. Once the Bronco pulled up even, Jack motioned for Lonetree to follow him. The Bronco fell back and followed Jack’s lead off the main road and into an EZ Mart parking lot.

  He parked at the far end of the lot away from any other vehicles and threw the car into park. Jack climbed out of the car as the Bronco pulled into the space next to him. He walked up to the SUV and squinted through the tinted side window, trying to see what the man was doing. When the automatic window rolled down, Jack had his answer.

  The handgun was positioned by Lonetree’s waist so that it wasn’t visible through the front windshield. But Jack had a perfect view down the gun’s dark barrel. A view, he realized, only made possible because the gun was pointed directly between his eyes.

  Jack couldn’t believe it. He was being held up in the middle of the day in a grocery store parking lot. This sort of thing happened in Columbia, or even in South Central L.A., but in Prescott City?

  Jack looked up from the gun into the face of its owner. Lonetree was expressionless, his mouth a straight line, his eyes hidden behind impenetrable sunglasses that reflected Jack’s alarmed face back to him.

  “What is this? What do you want with me?”

  The barrel of the gun wagged in the air. “Get in. I want to show you something. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Then why do you need the gun?”

  Lonetree shrugged. “You seem like the kind of guy who needs to be
persuaded.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Jack said with more confidence than he felt.

  There was a metallic click as Lonetree slid his thumb over the top of the gun. Jack didn’t know much about firearms but he was pretty sure the click was the sound of the hammer being cocked. Lonetree’s voice came soft but unmistakably firm. “Just so you know, I have no problem shooting you if you refuse to come with me.”

  “What’s this all about? Money? What?”

  Lonetree waved the gun. “Last call. Get in the car.”

  Jack wondered whether Lonetree could get a shot off if he dropped to the asphalt. Maybe if he stayed low next to the car he could escape.

  It only took a few seconds for him to throw out the option as too risky. As crazy as it was to get in the car, Jack decided it was an even worse idea to resist. Something about the man’s voice told Jack he wasn’t lying. He was willing to shoot, and doing so wouldn’t bother him one bit.

  Besides, Jack was curious. Lonetree had predicted Huckley would try to contact him again and it had happened. It occurred to Jack that perhaps the prediction was the seed that caused his hallucination in the first place.

  At least that was what Moran would likely say.

  But Jack didn’t buy it. Somehow Lonetree knew what Huckley was up to and that was enough to make him interesting.

  Jack opened the door to the Bronco and climbed in. Lonetree shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, heading south.

  “So, where are we going?” Jack asked.

  Lonetree glanced over and gave him a crooked smile. Jack considered that the smile might have been meant to reassure him, but coming from a man who had just kidnapped him at gunpoint, Jack felt less than comforted. They drove to the Interstate in silence, leaving Jack to wonder if he had just made the worse mistake of his life.

  FORTY

  “Mommy,” the girls shrieked on seeing Lauren round the corner. They pushed away their piles of band aids and gauze and ran to see her. Lauren knelt down and gave them a squeeze. On a normal day they would have only given her a quick glance and gone back to their playing, as if not noticing she was there would mean they could play longer. Their excitement reminded her that this was no normal day. After last night, Becky and Sarah were confused and scared, just like their mother.

  “Have you been good for Nurse Haddie?”

  “Yes Ma’am,” the nurse answered from behind them. “They’ve been sweet. Playing right there the whole time. I think you have a couple of future docs on your hands.”

  “Well, they’re certainly bossy enough.”

  Nurse Haddie laughed, “Are doctors bossy? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I have a few more things I need to do. If they’re—”

  “No, leave ’em here. It’s not a bother at all. Keeps me from being lonely. It’s dead around here today.”

  Sarah tugged at her mom’s sleeve. “Becky’s not sharing.”

  “Am too. Shut up you little baby.”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  Lauren glanced up at the nurse. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take them with me?”

  “Shoo now. Go do what you need to go do. Nurse Haddie’s got it covered.”

  The girls giggled at their mom being shooed away. Lauren thought they might get anxious over her leaving but they were already walking back to their play area. “I won’t be long. Then we’ll get in the car and head down to Baltimore.”

  “And see the dolphins?” Becky asked.

  “At the quarum?” Sarah added.

  “It’s the aquarium, dummy.”

  Lauren leaned down and gave each of them a kiss on the head. “Don’t call your sister names. We’ll see if there’s time for the aquarium when we get down there. Play nice now.” With a wave and a mouthed thank you to Nurse Haddie, she headed back toward her office.

  Lauren wasn’t sure where to start. All she had was a bad feeling that something was very wrong. It wasn’t only the botched protocol on Felicia Rodriguez’s body that had her bothered. She felt like Dr. Mansfield was hiding something. Maybe he had made a mistake. Administered the wrong drug, something. She’d seen things like it before. It happened more often than the general public would care to know. Working on little sleep and surrounded by stress, tired docs and nurses made mistakes. And sometimes the mistakes killed people. It wasn’t that they were reckless, it was just a fact of life. No one was perfect. People expected their doctors to be infallible, but to hold doctors to a standard where they were not allowed to make errors was unrealistic.

  As Lauren ran through these old arguments in her head, she couldn’t help wonder if she was making them for Dr. Mansfield or for herself. Felicia was her patient and she had died. Was it her own failure she was trying to wash away? If it was, it wasn’t working.

  She dug into a pile of papers by her computer and pulled out a photocopy of Felicia’s admittance records. Cradling the telephone between her shoulder and her ear, she dialed the number listed as her home. There was a long pause and then the phone rang. Panic seized her as she realized she didn’t know what she was going to say. She reached for the button to disconnect the call but before she could do it someone answered.

  “Hola?”

  “Uh, hello. This is Dr. Tremont. Is this Mr. Rodriguez?”

  The voice erupted in a torrent of Spanish, too fast for Lauren to understand. It came across loud at first and then faded, as if the person had dropped the phone and was shouting at it from a distance. Lauren couldn’t understand the words but the tone was unmistakable. Anger. Mixed with grief. In her line of work, she was an expert in that language. Suddenly a new voice was on the line.

  “Hello. Can I help you?” a woman said. She sounded young.

  “Yes, my name is Dr. Lauren Tremont. I was treating Felicia. I’m so sorry for your loss. Is this her mother?” Lauren could still hear the man shouting in the background.

  “Look, this isn’t a good time.”

  “Is this Mrs. Rodriguez?”

  “I’m Felicia’s sister. Rosa.”

  “Rosa, I know this is hard. But I’m trying to understand what happened to your sister. I need to know what happened so I can stop it from happening to other people. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Look lady, don’t talk down to me like I’m some illegal just over the border. I was born in this country, OK? I go to college.”

  “I’m sorry, I just—I just want to find out what happened.”

  “You’re sorry, huh? I’ve had enough with you people. You come after us because we’re poor, offering us money. Then when things go wrong you act like you don’t know what happened. You said you were her doctor and you’re calling me to find out what happened? That’s pretty screwed up, lady.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand. Who offered you money? For what?”

  “And now Felicia is dead. OK? Dead. I say fuck that lady. Fuck that you don’t know. Just leave us alone, all right. Leave us alone.”

  The voice was gone, replaced by dead air. Lauren sat in silence, absorbing the sting of being accused of Felicia’s death. The girl was right, she was Felicia’s doctor. She should be calling the family with answers not questions. But she couldn’t let that stop her. Lauren hit the redial button. Busy. She tried again with the same result, busy. The phone was probably off the hook.

  Lauren replaced the receiver on the headset with a shaking hand. The silence in the room felt cold and sterile. Her heart pounded in her chest and the blood thudded through her eardrums like boots marching on pavement. What the hell was going on?

  She reached down to the filing cabinet drawer on the lower level of her desk. She pulled it open and flicked through the headings until she came to the one marked CDC. Pushing the other files out of the way, she pulled the manila folder out and slid the drawer back in with her foot. When she looked back up Dr. Mansfield was in front of her desk.

  “Hello, Lauren,” he said.

  Lauren jerked back
in her chair, startled at his sudden appearance. “God, you scared me.”

  “Seems I’ve been doing that a lot recently,” he said with a smile. “Sorry about that.”

  Lauren caught her breath. She turned the CDC file face down on her lap so the label wasn’t visible. “What are you doing here?”

  “Funny, I came by to ask you the same question. I heard you were still in the building. You’re supposed to be on the road, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m just…just finishing up some paperwork,” she said, hating how unsteady her voice sounded. She wasn’t sure if it was because of their last conversation or how he’d just given her a scare, but she felt nervous being in the room alone with him.

  “Are you all right? You seem a little shaken.” Dr. Mansfield edged around the desk toward her.

  “No, I’m fine. I…I…I was talking to Jack. You know, he’s a little confused right now.”

  “Oh, I see. Is there anything I can do?”

  “You know, I’d like to be alone for a while, to tell you the truth. Pull myself together a little before I go get the kids. A nurse is watching them for me.”

  “I understand.” Dr. Mansfield squinted at her. “Are you sure there’s nothing else. Are you all right about Felicia Rodriguez.?”

  Lauren straightened up in her chair. A flush of anger pushed back the nervousness she felt. “To tell you the truth, I’m not all right with it. She’s dead. And I still think there ought to have been an investigation. Luckily, the CDC will still have her samples so we can run more tests.”