by Regina Doman
I can understand why, Fish thought. Either a desire to redeem herself, or a desire to throw suspicion away from herself. Most likely, a mixture of both.
As they were driving, Kateri showed Fish a copied photograph of Tennille LeBlanc. A middle-aged black woman with an agreeable face. “This article was written when she was honored for being the first black nurse to head up the emergency room at Graves Memorial Hospital.”
“Interesting,” Fish murmured.
Kateri directed him to a neighborhood in the center of Meyerstown, where the houses were tiny but well-kept, with fenced-in yards creatively landscaped. Not a wealthy neighborhood, but a good one.
Mark Leblanc met them at the door of the small frame house and welcomed them into the living room, where he introduced them to his sister, Frances. Both of them were in their fifties. They showed Fish and Kateri pictures of their mother, and were quite willing to reminisce about her.
Both of them knew that their mother had begun to have difficulties with her job at the hospital. They recalled some strange goings-on. The daughter, Frances, said, “One night, she came home from work looking real bad. I asked her what was wrong, and she said a bum had been hit by a truck and brought into the emergency room. She was starting to take care of him and got called away. When she came back, she found he had been pronounced dead and a surgeon was removing his vital organs for the hospital organ bank. She said she was sure he couldn’t have died in that quick a time, and was just sick at heart.”
“Do you think there’s any chance she would have tried to speak to a reporter about what she saw?” Fish asked.
The progeny of the deceased nurse looked at each other dubiously. “Only if she could do it anonymously,” her son predicted. “She wouldn’t have done it if her name was going to be in the paper. She was shy, Mom was. When the local chapter of the NAACP honored her, she didn’t want to even go to the ceremony—she just couldn’t stand being noticed. But she was real smart. When she died, at her funeral, other nurses came up and told us how smart she was on the job, and how sharp. ‘Knew as much as most of the doctors,’ one of them said.”
“Do you know if she worked with any particular doctors?” Kateri asked.
“I think most of the time she was in the emergency room. She moved around quite a bit,” Mark said. “For a long time she was head of the emergency room staff.”
“Yes, for a long time, till Dr. Prosser was made director and demoted her,” Frances said, a little sourly. “I think Mom was too old-fashioned for her.”
“We keep on hearing the phrase—‘abuse of patients’ regarding what your mother told Rose’s dad,” Fish said. “Any ideas on what that means?”
Mark looked a bit apprehensive. “I’m not too sure, but I have a feeling Mom thought they were using patients for their organ banks—or maybe, something worse. Like, to sell.”
“They were selling organs?” Kateri asked.
“I think so. I just overheard her talking with dad one night, and she was saying something like, ‘It’s all about the money.’ And that only makes sense if the doctors were selling the organs. It’s against the law to sell organs, you know. People have to donate them.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Kateri said, and shivered.
“But that’s all we know,” Mark said. “Suspicions, nothing more. I guess I’m not ready to make an accusation against the hospital or anything.”
Fish decided to change the subject. “Before I forget, do you recognize this phone number?” He wrote out the phone number Kateri had found on the piece of paper in the barn.
“Oh sure,” Mark said. “That’s our old number, before they switched the area codes around. Dad had that phone number until he died last year.”
Kateri and Fish both nodded. “Thanks very much for your time,” Fish said courteously.
“Well, that was a match!” Kateri said, raising an eyebrow as they got in the car.
“Certainly was,” Fish said. “Unless Dan Brier was interviewing her for some other reason, I bet she was our informant nurse.”
“Dying unexpectedly—and conveniently—in a car accident fifteen years ago,” Kateri pointed out.
“I wonder though,” Fish said abruptly. “Dan couldn’t get the interviews published. Could it be because Tennille might have been a ‘hostile witness?’ In other words, she was mad with Dr. Prosser about being demoted, and set out to slander the hospital, using a young green reporter to do her work for her?”
“I don’t think so,” Kateri objected.
“But the fact is, the story was never published,” Fish said. “Maybe her information was tainted by her prejudice against her new boss, and the editor picked that up.”
Kateri sniffed. “If anyone was prejudiced, it was probably the editor,” she said, a little bitterly. “There’s still a lot of that around this town.”
It was at times like these that Fish remembered that Kateri was Vietnamese, and deferred to her knowledge of prejudice.
“Besides, the story Frances remembered about the bum having his organs harvested doesn’t sound like something vindictive to me. It sounds sick,” Kateri said. “There’s something seriously wrong at that hospital.”
“But maybe she misdiagnosed him. Maybe he actually was in more critical condition than she thought, and he just died naturally and wanted to have his organs donated. That happens too.”
“But why would the hospital send someone to threaten Dan Brier at his daughter’s christening party if the story he was writing wasn’t truthful?” Kateri asked.
“Slander can be damaging. They said that Dan couldn’t expect to get optimum medical health care if it was published. If he had been about to write false accusations about them, they might well have been ticked off.”
“But his mom dying...”
“Might just have been a coincidence, as Jean said,” Fish said. He sighed. “I’m just playing the devil’s advocate here. What would really help is if we had the interviews themselves. Then we’d know what they were about, and whether anything in them was true. Or at least, we’d have a better idea.”
“True,” Kateri said. “But they seem to have vanished.”
“Along with Rose’s notebook of her interviews, and Rose’s ability to serve as a legal witness,” Fish said dryly. “It’s still suspicious, I grant you. Threats made to Daniel Brier, Tennille LeBlanc dying, Grandma Brier dying, Rose getting nearly killed—I suppose we do have a trail of corpses, assuming they’re all related somehow.”
“Rose isn’t a corpse yet, thank God,” Kateri said.
With that idea in his mind, Fish drove them out to Graceton Hall as it was nearing seven o’clock. To their surprise, they found Paul and Alex there.
“We just came out for a visit,” Alex said. “I had to run to the mall.” He was sitting next to Rose, who lay sleeping peacefully, as usual. Paul was out in the hallway, talking to Dr. Murray about some kind of drug research.
“We had some interesting conversations,” Kateri said to him quietly. “Really?” Alex dropped his voice. “With whom?”
Fish related the substance of their visits with the children of Tennille Leblanc. Alex shook his head.
“Fishier and fishier,” he said. “You think this is evidence enough, Ben?”
Fish shrugged. “There are still missing links. Even if Dr. Prosser was responsible for getting rid of Tennille and Grandma Brier, there’s still the jump of twenty years to get to Rose.”
“Fifteen years,” Kateri reminded him.
“All right, fifteen years. Still, it’s a long time. We have no idea if Dr. Prosser knew anything about Rose’s research, and she’s not a suspect unless we can prove that.”
“And why would someone like Dr. Prosser care if someone was digging up fifteen-year-old dirt?” Alex asked quietly. “Sorry to be critical, but there it is. Unless it was a crime with no statute of limitations.”
“Like murder,” Kateri put in.
“I was just going to say that.”
“Or unles
s it was documentation of something she had done that she was still doing,” Kateri said. “She could still be harvesting organs from poor patients. Maybe she’s selling them on the black market. There’s a lot of money in that, from what I understand. Some doctors will buck the penalties to keep their practices out of debt, to line their own pocket, or whatever reason.”
Fish turned to the comatose girl. “Rose, what do you think? Were you the victim of foul play, or was it an accident? Wish you could tell us.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Alex said. “She might not have seen it coming.”
“No,” said Fish. “She saw it coming, beforehand. She didn’t know what would happen, but she saw it.” And he added to himself, “And I saw it, too.”
They talked for a bit more time, until a technician came by and reminded them that visiting hours were about to end.
“Where’s Paul?” Alex said, getting up. “Isn’t he back yet?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Fish said.
Alex checked his watch. “I have a proctor’s meeting in a half hour. I’m going to go find him.” He thrust his hands in his black trench coat and hurried down the hallway.
Fish waited for Kateri to finish saying goodbye to Rose and said, “Ready to go?”
“I was going to get a ride back with Alex and Paul,” Kateri said. They lingered in the hallway a moment, waiting for the two Cor guys to come back, but no one returned.
“Come on,” Fish said at last. “Let’s go find them.”
He and Kateri walked up the hallway in the direction where Paul, and then Alex, had gone. There was no sign of either in the downstairs lobby, but they caught Alex on the stairs going up.
“Where’s Paul?” they called to each other simultaneously, and Alex made a face.
“He’s not out in the car—I already checked. He’s going to make me late for my meeting. Can I use your cell phone?”
“I can’t get a signal anywhere around here,” Fish said.
“Drat. Well, we have to find him now.”
“Let’s try upstairs then,” Fish said with a grimace.
They hurried to the third floor, then up to the fourth floor, and scanned the long marble corridors. There was no sight or sound of Paul.
“What a pain. The staff is going to be annoyed with us,” Fish said. “Where could he have gone?”
“Anywhere,” Alex said with a groan. “That’s the problem with Paul and medical facilities. He gets inquisitive and talkative. How much you want to bet he’s off in some corner charming some nurse and swapping stories about IV insertions and impactions? And I’ve already been reprimanded for being late to these stupid proctor meetings. Well, it’s going to happen again.”
They retraced their steps to the ground floor and hunted down the side passages, checking in the staff cafeteria and meeting rooms. They even found the basement, a rather sinister-looking area behind a bolted door.
“Paul?” Alex yelled down the steep wooden steps to the cavernous regions below. There was nothing but echoes. “Where could he have gone?”
“For someone so tall, he’s managed to lose himself pretty thoroughly,” Fish remarked, and all present nodded.
They were wandering back down the corridor. “I don’t even know where we are anymore,” Kateri said unenthusiastically. “I hope we haven’t gotten lost ourselves.”
Fish was looking around at the rooms. “We seem to be in the surgical section,” he said. “Those look like operating rooms.”
“Probably not at all where we should be,” Alex said. “Darn proctor meetings, darn Mercy College regulations, and darn Paul.”
They turned a corner and found their way blocked by two beefy male techs.
“What are you doing down here?” one of them demanded.
“We’re looking for our friend—a tall curly-haired guy,” Alex attempted to justify their position. “We were visiting a patient upstairs, and we seem to have lost him.”
“Visitors shouldn’t be down this hallway, and no one should be here after hours,” the one technician grunted.
“Sorry,” Alex said, retreating. “Like I said, we’re just looking.”
“We’ll get night security to bring you back to the exit then.”
“Right. No problem. Sorry.” And Alex and the others were escorted back to the visitor’s entrance by a mean-looking security guard, when a very fierce receptionist whose nametag said “Janet” landed on them.
“Are you still here?” she demanded curtly. “I thought you had left.”
“We were trying to find our friend,” Alex explained wearily. “Paul Fester. Tall guy with curly hair. Have you seen him?”
“No,” she said, even more irritated. “We can’t have visitors running all over the building without permission. It’s against our regulations. This is a private care facility, not a public hospital.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex repeated.
Just then they heard a clamor of footsteps and Paul came bounding down the hallway towards them. Janet the receptionist turned on him.
“You must be the missing one. Didn’t anyone tell you that you shouldn’t be wandering around without an escort?” she said with exasperation.
“But I wasn’t,” Paul said earnestly. “I was with Dr. Murray. She was showing me around the place. I’m a pre-med student, you see, and I asked for a tour, and she was kind enough to show me what you do here. It’s really impressive.”
Janet softened. After all, Paul had a terribly engaging manner. Plus, he was what girls termed “cute.”
“Oh. Then that’s all right,” she said abruptly, raising her nose. “I didn’t know.”
“We didn’t know that either, or we wouldn’t have gone looking for him,” Alex added. The receptionist eyed him, still a bit stern. Obviously, he wasn’t as “cute” as Paul.
“I’ll show you all out,” she said.
The four college students hurried to their car in the cold winter night, feeling effectively bounced from the building.
“I hate their attitude sometimes. You’d think they didn’t want us to visit,” Kateri said, getting into Paul’s car.
“They just want us to respect their rules,” Fish responded mildly. “They have things they have to get done.”
“Yeah, Paul, and then you go and get us all in trouble,” Alex added. “We got caught in the surgery section, which we didn’t realize we had wandered into.”
“Surgery section?” Paul said, surprised. “She didn’t show me that. Gosh, that must have been interesting. What was it like?”
“Peopled by goons who look like they beat up vagrant visitors when they don’t have anything better to do,” Alex retorted. “Which is what I’m going to do to you if I get chewed out for missing my proctor’s meeting. Thomas Aquinas on ‘the necessity of attention to one’s duty’ for you, lamebrain—in the snow, till midnight. You’ll be lucky if I let you sleep in the room.” He got into the car and slammed the door.
“Boy, he’s mad,” Paul remarked to Fish, getting into his car.
“See you, Fish,” Kateri said with a sigh, shutting her door.
Fish shook his head in sympathy, and got into his own car, grateful for some solitude at last.
Hers
Again she surfaced into the blue world, but this time she was forced to hover beneath the water, unable to rise to the surface.
Questions again? She asked as the wavering figure bent over her.
I’m afraid so. Or we can just talk, if you like, until you fall asleep again.
She saw the serpent hover, then lower itself over her arm. There was the bite of silver she couldn’t feel.
Are you going to kill me now?
Such paranoia. No, I won’t kill you. The serpent was sweeping over her face again. Relax. Last time we spoke, you were telling me about the old barn you visited the day you fell. Why don’t you think about that? How did you come to be interested in your father’s notes? Such an interesting story.
I don’t suppose yo
u’ve seen Fish?
The Fish again. How do you know he’s not a figment of your imagination?
Laughter bubbled up deep inside her.
He’s far too uncomfortable to be a figment. If I had invented him, I would have created someone far more pleasant, and perfect, not to mention compliant.
So he is a disappointment to you. I hope you aren’t thinking of him as your savior.
Her heart skipped. And what if I am?
You’re being foolish. Who can save you from a coma?
I certainly can’t do it myself. She writhed against the twisted serpent coils pinning her in place. So I suppose I’m waiting…for him.
Why him?
He has an extraordinarily good track record, when it comes to me. I know it’s foolish…but I’m waiting for him.
Ah. Tell me more about this Fish of yours.
Rose, aching at the memory of Fish, needed no further encouragement. She spoke for a long time about Fish, how she had first met him while playing her violin in Central Park, how she had known his brother Bear, and then, there was that dire day when she had descended into an old man’s cellar and found Fish beaten, bleeding, and bound to a post… She shivered in her bonds, but kept talking. The serpent seemed interested in the story, and asked questions: who was the old man, and why was Fish there, and what had happened to him… and before Rose had quite realized it, she had told the entire story, including the depth of Fish’s suffering and humiliation.
Tears ran down her face and she turned her head and sobbed. Her tears were mixing in with the waters around her, turning them gray. She couldn’t believe what she had just done: revealed Fish’s secret. The words had slid out of her carelessly and effortlessly, as though she had no inhibitions to stop them.
Why are you crying?
Because he trusted me. The one thing he trusted me with, and I told you.
Were you supposed to keep this all a secret?
Parts of it. Oh, I wish I hadn’t said anything! What is wrong with me?
Don’t be so upset. The serpent brushed against her cheek, its coils seeming like the spread of human fingers. You’re a very sweet girl. But you must remember, you can’t communicate with the outside world, nor they with you. Your friend will never know that you told anyone.