Isolation Ward

by Joshua Spanogle

  On a whim, I went to a national phone directory site and typed in Alaine Chen with the Northern California town I last knew her to inhabit. Okay, it wasn’t really a whim; I’d been thinking about doing it all day. Anyway, I got no hits. So I went to the Web site for my old university and clicked on the “Search for People” tab. I entered her name in the field and . . . eureka, I got a hit: campus address, with home and campus phone numbers.

  This was the type of information I didn’t need. More exactly, the emotions it dredged up were the type I didn’t need.

  I logged out of my account and shut off the computer without writing the numbers down. But I remembered them. Unlike Brooke Michaels, I sure as hell don’t have a photographic memory, not for anything useful, anyway. But for numbers of old girlfriends who can do little more than torture me, I’m an ace.

  My cell phone sat next to the computer with its charging cord snaking like a flagellum from its rear end. It was after eleven o’clock, two a.m. Eastern time, and I should have been tired enough to fall asleep standing upright. That is, if I didn’t have those ten digits ricocheting around in my brain, knocking other thoughts out of the way, chipping away at the wall between me and a flood of painful memories.

  And damn it if that wall didn’t collapse.

  I pictured her face, her eyes drilling into me across a restaurant table, her foot snaking up my leg underneath. I remembered the way she sometimes held my hand, squeezing so hard it felt like we’d fused. Her laughing at my stupid jokes. The morning she brought breakfast to my apartment at five a.m., before having to be at the hospital at six to pre-round. I was dull with sleep, balancing the plate on my bed, when I found the note cooked into the salmon-and-goat-cheese omelet. I love you, it said in blurred blue pen, the first time either of us ever spoke or wrote those words to each other. . . .

  I picked up the cell and, without thinking, dialed.

  Somewhere around the third ring, I got an inkling of how crazy it was, what I was doing. Then, when the female voice I knew so well said “Hello,” I knew it was insane. I hit End on the cell.

  I lay on my back on the stiff futon, running that word—hello—over and over in my head.

  How long had it been since she’d said that to me? When was the last time I’d heard that voice?

  I remember the first time I heard it, or at least the first time I heard it when it wasn’t answering some question about the Krebs Cycle or the pathogenicity of epidermolysis bullosa in a crowded lecture hall, the first time I heard her say my name. We were at some medical school function, a party at a bowling alley. She was slightly drunk, I was really drunk, and we bowled in adjacent lanes. I don’t remember exactly what was first said, but I think it had something to do with her dynamite bowling shoes. Before I knew it, we were talking, an actual conversation about how it was possible for someone—me—to gutter-ball six times in a row. The repartee lasted for forty glorious seconds or so, before I realized I was talking to the unapproachable Alaine Chen. Then adrenaline dumped into my system, cutting through the beer, drying out my mouth, shooting my blood pressure up to the high triple digits, fogging my thoughts, slaying my wit. I needed to escape but, somehow, managed to ask her to dinner before I did.

  She said, “Sure, Nathaniel.”

  That night, despite the alcohol, I tried to figure out why. Why she said “Sure.” Why she would go for a guy from central Pennsylvania who had never been out of the country, who was autodidact enough to have read Goethe but pronounced the name as if it rhymed with “growth,” who drove a twenty-year-old car so pocked with Bondo it looked like it had come straight from a leper colony. She drove a Mercedes, had gone to Yale, had studied for a year in Paris. So why the hell did she say “Sure”? Was she slumming? We were too country boy/city girl. Too state school/Ivy League. Too white/Asian. Choose your opposites.

  I expected it to end even before that first date, for her to call me and beg off with some excuse about having to plant-sit for a friend or something. But she didn’t beg off, at least not for a couple of years. By then I was in too deep. And how I got in too deep with someone who, despite the good façade, turned out to be as shallow, as comfort- and status-obsessed as Alaine Chen, I don’t know.

  Actually, I do know, since I was focused on some of the same things for a while. But why I was fixating on her nearly a decade after our parting . . . well, chalk it up to being back in fucking California.

  Really, this wasn’t the best use of my time. I should have been working the angles of Douglas-cum-Casey and figuring a strategy for when I talked with Gladys Thomas and Rosalinda Lopez in the morning. But I was tired and lonely and heartsick, and that little word seemed to offer just enough comfort to get me to sleep. Hello, hello, hello.

  CHAPTER 37

  I was awake at dawn, draining fluid from my eyes and nose. The cat’s dander had worked its magic, and the little parasite itself was curled on my pants, which I’d left on the floor. I hissed at the thing and it skittered away through a crack in the doorway.

  Needless to say, I hadn’t slept well, though if it was because of the cat or dreams of Alaine, I couldn’t be sure. Thankfully, the cat was gone and Alaine was just a dull pulse in the background.

  I grabbed the pants, trying to shake off whatever feline detritus still clung to the fabric, and pulled them on. Then I went into the living room to make some telephone calls. Brooke’s apartment seemed to be located in the only wireless hole in all Silicon Valley, so I had to sit in the chair in front of the computer to connect my calls. If I shifted ten inches, I dropped the call. I’d dropped one to John Myers already.

  “John, sorry about that,” I said once I got him back on the line.

  “You on a cell?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Those things sure aren’t ready for prime time. And what’s wrong with your voice? Sounds like you got a mother of a cold.”

  “Must be the connection. So, anyway, it seems our guy went by Casey for his girlfriend out here—”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Makes sense?”

  “I’ll get to it in a second. Go on.”

  I got back into the story. “So he had some connection—a significant connection—to California, which would explain the San Fran posters in his room.”

  “Okay,” Myers said.

  “You should check how much money his parents left him. The guy had to have some funds to keep that room at Baltimore Haven and to jet-set with his girlfriend out here. Takes money to lead a double life.”

  “He visited her out there? When?”

  “I don’t know, actually. Though I suspect he wasn’t a stranger here. The nurse at Gladys Thomas’s home was holding back, but I’m sure she recognized him.” I waited for Myers to say something. He didn’t, so I asked, “What were you going to tell me?”

  “We talked to Jefferson yesterday. The guy’s a fucking pain in the ass. We might actually have to indict him, if you can believe it. Anyway, he was real concerned about where you were.”

  “Why?”

  “We don’t know. We assumed he wanted to make sure you actually left town. You got under his skin.”

  “Like scabies.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Bad joke. So, you told him where I was?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did he shout for joy?”

  “No. Was as pissed off as before. Anyway, we tried to get the word on why Mr. Buchanan was treated like royalty, and he said he didn’t know anything about it. He gave us his admissions papers and some other shit that didn’t produce nada.”

  “When was his admission?”

  “December ’97. Just after his mom died.”

  “So, you got nothing? I give you all this great shit, John, and you give me squat?”

  “I thought you were a doctor, Doctor. You wanna play detective? You trying to step on my turf?”

  “I’m trying to stop an epidemic.”

  I heard him chuckle. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Y
ou never asked why we think we might be able to indict Jefferson.”

  “Okay, John, why do you think you might be able to indict Dr. Jefferson?”

  “Fraud.”

  “Great. We knew the guy was doing something fishy. How does that help me?”

  “Jefferson was taking state money for a dead man. It seems your friend Douglas died—”

  “I know. I saw the body, remember?”

  “Twice.”

  Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. Finally, Myers said, “I had a guy I know up in PA do some digging for me. The deceased is from there, right? And I thought some poking around might turn something up. Well, it did. Let’s see: Douglas Buchanan died October 1998. Cause: congestive heart failure.”

  My head felt full; it was having trouble digesting what the detective was saying. “So, what you’re saying is that Douglas Buchanan—or who we thought was Douglas Buchanan—”

  “—wasn’t him. Looks like your friend Casey decided to steal a dead man’s identity.”

  “That he picked up sometime after ’98.”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  I was thinking fast, trying to put the pieces together. “There are a couple of possibilities here,” I said.

  “Right,” Myers replied. I had the feeling he’d already worked the possibilities out but was going to let me discover them for myself.

  “Casey could be from back east, could have taken Douglas Buchanan’s identity, then traveled out here and met Gladys Thomas.”

  “Or she could have met him on the East Coast.”

  “Could be, but I don’t think so. She talked about him leaving—she said that, ‘leaving’—so I assume he was out here for at least some time. He had to be here for him to leave here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Or he could have lived in California, met Gladys, started this affair, then gone east.” There was silence on the phone. “Or,” I said, “it could be none of the above.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Myers said, laughing.

  “In any case, we got some sketchy information that indicates Casey didn’t go east until about a year ago.”

  “We have quite a gap, then. Jefferson’s records say he’s been there since ’97.”

  “Did you check with the state? Make sure they’ve been making payments since then?”

  “Yeah. This is the basis for the fraud case. Payments from the state have been continuous since ’97.”

  “So . . .” I said.

  “So, Jefferson was taking payments from Social Services for a guy who died out of state in 1998. Sometime between October of 1998 and earlier this year, your friend Casey came in and took over the spot.”

  If Jefferson was trying to . . . well, maximize profits, he probably would have double-billed the state for both the dead Buchanan and the new arrival. Unless maximizing income wasn’t the only reason.

  I said, “This would be a pretty convenient arrangement if you were trying to hide out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Casey was running from something or someone, then taking over Douglas Buchanan’s identity would be a pretty easy way to escape, right? Who could trace it? The parents are dead; Buchanan died out of state.”

  “Good. The only way to trace it would be to find the death certificate.”

  “Which you did.”

  “Right. And only because we were looking.”

  Both of us took a moment to process the information. Casey’s death was looking less and less like the result of some pissed-off relative taking revenge. Something bigger was at work here.

  “What can you do to make Jefferson talk?” I asked.

  “I got the rubber hoses and the thumbscrews ready.”

  “That’s how they do it in Baltimore?”

  “I wish. The guy’s talking through his lawyer. Not a good sign, for him or for us.”

  I asked Myers to keep the information about Douglas Buchanan’s two deaths to himself. I was off my turf here. This was more detective work, less epidemiology. But I was convinced this detective work might lead us to the cause of our disease. I was convinced that I knew more of the angles than anyone else and was, at that point, the best man for the job. And I sure as hell didn’t need Tim Lancaster sticking his nose into my business.

  Myers was reluctant to stay mum at first—“I don’t like stopping information flow in an investigation,” he said—but eventually gave in.

  “Work fast” were the last words I heard before the line went dead.

  “Good,” I said aloud, my arms crossed in front of me, the cell phone still in my hand. “Good, good, good.”

  But apart from having some freedom from Tim Lancaster, things were not good. In fact, they were very bad. Sinister clouds were gathering; who or what was behind them, I didn’t know. What I did know was that they stretched across the country, from California to Maryland and God only knew where else.

  I sat in the chair, brooding, until there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” I said.

  Brooke stood there, framed in the doorway, a big Penn T-shirt dropping to the tops of her thighs, revealing quite a lot of those well-formed legs. I was too agitated to take any pleasure in the eyeful.

  “Breakfast?” she asked.

  Again, I looked at my watch. “I gotta go.”

  “It’s not even seven.”

  “It’s late.” I stood. “And I have to talk to Gladys Thomas.”

  Brooke turned and walked to her bedroom. Before she was out of earshot, she said, “We, Dr. McCormick. We have to talk with her.”

  CHAPTER 38

  We didn’t leave right away for Santa Ana, Gladys Thomas’s home. I wanted to shower and wash off the cat and lack of sleep. Feeling somewhat more human, I was still sneezing as I pulled on clean underwear and soiled trousers.

  When I walked into the living room, Brooke asked, “You’re not allergic to my cat, are you?”

  “That little bastard? No way. I think I’m allergic to you.”

  “Funny. I’m still coming with you.”

  And she did. Actually, I went with her, since we took her car instead of my Buick rental. We walked to a line of cars under an awning, and Brooke made for a red BMW convertible. I said, “Daddy?”

  Brooke unlocked the door, my side first, and walked to the driver’s side.

  “No. Daddy is actually a high school teacher in Virginia. This is from the bank.” After a moment, she said, “It’s three years old, okay?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  She looked at me over the cloth roof, biting her lip just a little. Then she climbed into the car, hit a button on the console, and the roof folded into the back. We drove.

  As we pulled into traffic, Brooke said, “I got it for a song. The car. Some business student at the university was leaving for a job in Tokyo and had to get rid of it in a hurry.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Look, I need to drive. I’m in California.”

  “I wholly agree.”

  “And I’ve been through four years of med school, four years of residency. Eight years of hell. I deserve a decent car.”

  “You do.”

  She slammed into third gear. “Oh, stop with the holier-than-thou attitude.”

  “Brooke, you deserve this car.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?” she demanded furiously.

  “1986 Corolla—”

  “Jesus Christ, Nathaniel. You wear hair shirts, too? Jesus.”

  “It’s a dependable car.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “I just don’t care that much about cars is all.”

  She drove in silence. Then she said, “I’m selling this next week.”

  “Really?”

  “No, but you’re a bastard for making me feel guilty about it.”

  Whether I liked it or not, Brooke Michaels was getting on my good side, which, to tell the truth, was not a place I was prepared for her to be. It was . . . well, let’s just say
that Alaine Chen was not the only emotional quagmire in Northern California. Maybe the stickiest and deepest, but not the only one.

  Anyway, I was feeling pretty kindly toward Brooke. And though partner would be too strong a word, I brought her a little more into the fold by telling her what John Myers had told me earlier that morning about Douglas Buchanan.

  “It’s really weird, Nathaniel.”

  “I think so, too.”

  But before we could mine the hows and whats of Buchanan’s double demise, we were turning onto the block for Santa Ana.

  “Uh-oh,” Brooke said. She was looking forward; I followed her gaze.

  Ahead of us, parked in front of the home, facing traffic, was a police slickback, unmarked, the emergency light still sitting on the dash. Behind it was a black-and-white cruiser.

  As we walked toward the front door of Santa Ana, it passed through my mind that John Myers might have called his counterparts in the San Jose PD to help him out. The thought made me furious. Not only did it mean we’d have the police out here mucking things up, it meant Detective Myers didn’t trust me worth a damn.

  Was Myers that fast? Were the cops already talking to Gladys Thomas?

  I checked my watch. Damn it, I thought, I shouldn’t have taken the time for a shower.

  At the door, after ringing the bell, Brooke looked at me and asked, “What do you think—”

  The door swung open, and a mountain of uniformed cop stood in front of us.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  I suppose he thought he ought to be asking the questions, so he tried to stare me down for a few seconds—which he did pretty well—before asking, “Who are you?”

  I sighed and fished my ID out of my pocket. Brooke did the same. He looked at them. “Thought you were reporters,” he said. “Don’t know why you’d be interested in this.”

  “We’re not reporters and we are interested.”

  “You’re doctors.”

  Great work, Sherlock. “Yes,” I said. “We’re here to speak with Gladys Thomas.”