Knife Music

by David Carnoy

  “It was a friendly suggestion. I was just trying to help.”

  “Look, just because you’re a trauma surgeon doesn’t mean you can come waltzing into anybody’s operating room and start calling the shots.”

  “I was lonely.”

  “I’m serious, Cogan.”

  That was the problem, he thought. She was serious.

  “Look, Anne. Don’t pull that trauma bullshit with me. We all decide what we want to be woken up for in the middle of the night. It’s not my fault you get all the gall bladders and I get all the glory. You decided to be general. Not me.”

  “It’s not about that. It’s about attitude.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said, “but you’re not going to get an apology. When I really do something wrong, I’ll be glad to apologize. I’ll get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness.”

  “I want you to stay out of my operating room.”

  “Show me the pink slip and I will.”

  “What?”

  “The pink slip. The ownership papers. If it’s yours, I want some proof of purchase.”

  That did it. That was the last straw. She wanted to hit him. He could see it in her eyes. Slap him right across the face. But she didn’t. She just stuck her index finger in his face and said, “You—”

  “Have a good day, Anne. If you’d like to discuss this in a more civilized manner over coffee in the courtyard, I’m buying.”

  She wanted to say something else, but before she could, he turned around and walked away, back in the same direction he was heading before she stopped him.

  “Stay out of my OR,” he heard her call after him.

  Such a confrontation might have disturbed other surgeons, but Cogan was unfazed. He had no intention of trying to rectify the situation with Anne Beckler. It was impossible, as far as he saw it, so he didn’t let her worry him. That was the only way to win the game. You didn’t let people like Beckler get under your skin. And you didn’t let the little things bother you. You got good shock absorbers and rode the speed bumps like they were flat road: fast and smooth.

  14/ SAY IT

  April 1, 2007—12:16 p.m.

  MADDEN WAITS. HE MUST HAVE WAITED A GOOD FIVE SECONDS, but Carrie still won’t answer.

  “Did Kristen have sex with Dr. Cogan?” he says again. Still nothing. No reaction. He can’t figure out why she has reservations. Is she simply feeling overwhelmed? Or is she just playing some twisted version of the loyal friend?

  “What do you think of Dr. Cogan today?” he asks, deciding to take a different tack.

  “Today?”

  “Yes, right now.”

  “I don’t know,” she says uncomfortably.

  “I think you do. Kristen wrote about it. She said that you didn’t think he was very nice to her.”

  “That was her problem, not mine.”

  He smiles inwardly. Now he’s getting somewhere.

  “Do you think Dr. Cogan made love to her or do you think he just wanted to have sex with her that one time for his own personal gratification?”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

  “Did she tell you she’d had sex with him?”

  “She didn’t have to tell me. I saw them.”

  He blinks.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I saw them.”

  “That night, you saw them having sex?”

  “Yes,” she says, and he thinks, Jackpot, a witness, I’ve got a fucking eyewitness. “I heard something—a sort of grunting—coming from the guest room. I mean, where I was sleeping—that couch—was right up against the guest room wall. So I tiptoed over and looked in the room. The door wasn’t even closed all the way.”

  “And what’d you see?”

  “He was on top of her, humping her.”

  “He was naked?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what was she doing?”

  “She was just laying there kind of moaning, I guess. And then all of a sudden I heard her say, ‘Fuck me. Fuck me like you mean it.’”

  The remark floors Madden. Not because of the profanity, but because Kristen had written those exact words in her diary.

  “I’ll never forget that,” Carrie goes on. “I was totally shocked. I mean, she was a virgin. It doesn’t seem like something a virgin would say, does it?”

  Madden doesn’t know what to think.

  “What happened after that?” he asks.

  “Well, I went back into the living room and put a pillow over my head. I was very upset.”

  “Because your best friend was having sex with a guy you had a crush on?”

  “Not that. I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t into him anymore at that point. That was, like, a three-week thing.”

  He doesn’t want to lead her too much, but he feels he’s got to give her a nudge.

  “So, it was just that they were having sex?”

  “Yeah,” she answers. “I mean, he was a man. You know, and pretty old, too—like my father’s age. And there he is naked on top of my friend, grunting and stuff. I was kind of disgusted.”

  “And did you say anything to him the next morning?”

  “To Dr. Cogan? No, I didn’t see him. I called my brother at, like, seven-thirty and he came over and got us. We just kind of slipped out.”

  “And did Kristen say anything to you?”

  “Not until the next day. I pretended to be surprised. I didn’t want her to think I was a peeping tom or anything.”

  “And you didn’t see Dr. Cogan again?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But Kristen did?”

  “She called him, and went over to his house, I think.”

  “But he brushed her off?”

  “Yeah, he told her he couldn’t see her anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he could lose his job.”

  Madden flips back a couple of pages in his notepad. He looks for the quote he wants. When he finds it, he says, “Kristen wrote: ‘I can’t tell if Dr. Cogan means to be hurtful, but there have been moments during the past few weeks when I’ve felt completely rejected. ’ Did her mood reflect that?”

  Tears begin to well up in Carrie’s eyes. “Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  “To be honest,” she says, “at the time, I didn’t really care. I could see she was hurting and I was kind of happy about it. You know, serves her right and all. She wanted it and she got what she deserved.”

  “Did she ever tell Dr. Cogan that when she had sex with him it was her first time?”

  One tear, then more, stream down her face. It pains Madden to watch.

  “No,” she murmurs after a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” he asks softly.

  “Because she didn’t want him to know.”

  Madden reaches into his pocket and hands her another Kleenex. Her eyes move up to meet his. They seem to ask for some reassurance that she hadn’t really screwed up.

  “Was I a bad friend?” she asks.

  Her words have an echo to them—they seem to hover over the yard long after she’s said them.

  “Was I?”

  “Of course not,” he says.

  As she weeps, Madden looks over at the large windows of the living room. Standing there next to Carrie’s mother, watching them with a drink in his hand, is Bill Kroiter. They exchange glances, then Kroiter turns around and walks away, out of Madden’s line of sight.

  15/ A MINOR ACT OF RECOGNITION

  November 10, 2006—4:49 p.m.

  COGAN HAD STARTED AFTERNOON ROUNDS JUST BEFORE FOUR P.M. They were a little less encompassing than morning rounds. Really, he was just coming by to say hi, and let everybody know he hadn’t forgotten about them.

  The girl was one of the last patients he saw that day. He hated finishing the day on a low note, so he saw his difficult patients first, then the ones he found more pleasant. He remembered as a boy facing dinner with a similar philosoph
y. Instead of pushing his vegetables to one side, he ate them first, then moved on to the food he really liked. It had seemed more satisfying that way, leaving nothing to lurk on the horizon to taint the taste of the chicken or beef, which he could then enjoy singularly and thoroughly. Maybe that was why he had no trouble doing his homework before he went out to play ball. He never wanted anything hanging over his head while he pitched.

  The girl had been moved to her own room, but when he arrived she was not alone. There was another girl sitting in a chair next to her bed, which caught Cogan a little by surprise. He thought at least one of the girl’s parents would be there, particularly the mother.

  “Hello, Kristen,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “All right.”

  He flipped through her chart, looking at her vitals. Her urine output was up to 200, which was pretty standard for young patients. He’d have to tell the nurse to decrease her fluids.

  “I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions and check your bandage,” he said, setting the chart down at the foot of the bed. “Then I’ll let you get back to your program.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about that,” the girl said quietly. “There’s nothing good on TV right now.”

  He slipped his stethoscope under her gown from the top and gave her heart and lungs a quick listen. He told her to breathe deeply. When he was through, he lifted her gown a little from the bottom and examined her bandage. While he was examining it, she asked: “How long do you think I’ll have to stay here?”

  “Maybe three or four days,” he said. “We have to make sure you don’t get an infection.”

  “Do you think I could have my mom bring in my DVD player?”

  He lowered her gown.

  “I don’t see why not. You like to watch movies?”

  Her face reddened a little. “Sure,” she said after a moment.

  “She wants to be a director,” the other girl chimed in.

  “Really?” he said. “You’re studying to be a director?”

  “Well, we’re in high school,” Kristen explained. “You can’t study to be a director in high school. They don’t have any classes.”

  They were friends from school, he soon learned. But the other girl—her name was Carrie—had been shuttling between her parents’ homes because they were separated. She eventually might go live with her dad, but then he was only in a two-bedroom apartment, and it was in a different school district. Kristen was on her way home from Carrie’s dad’s house when she had the accident, which had made Carrie feel guilty because they had sat around talking too long and Kristen had to rush to make her eleven o’clock curfew. Carrie felt it was her fault Kristen had been in the accident. But Kristen said it wasn’t.

  They were both pretty girls, Cogan thought. They reminded him of the girls he’d liked in high school. Thin, clean-cut, and a tad demure. They didn’t have the cool confidence and hard faces that he remembered many of the most popular girls having. Carrie had short dark hair, big bright eyes, but a plain nose and slightly plump cheeks. The more ethereal of the two, Kristen had brushed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail since that morning. She had fine light hair, more golden-brown than blonde. With the ponytail, he could see her face better, and he realized she was more interesting than he’d previously thought. It was not a face that immediately struck you as beautiful. Perhaps because her skin was not perfect: she had a spattering of pimples on her forehead and a few scratches from the accident. But, when you took them away, there was something there.

  Part of the allure, he thought, was how her personality played out on her face, because they seemed to complement each other perfectly. In her looks, he could feel a certain reticence—a sort of reluctance to let go and shine brightly. Her face was holding something back. And a similar theme seemed to run through her disposition. Both girls appeared nervous. But while Carrie revealed her tension with a steady stream of chatter, Kristen sat back and listened and kept her comments to a minimum, even though Cogan sensed she had strong opinions. Every time she made a comment, he felt her retreat, fearing she’d embarrassed herself. And he saw the same movement in her face and eyes.

  “Is it true she almost died?” Carrie asked.

  “Well, if we hadn’t operated on her, yes, she would have died,” he explained. “But we figured out pretty quickly what was wrong and took care of it.”

  Carrie seemed impressed. She looked at Kristen, and Kristen gave her a look like See, I told you.

  “I have to ask you a couple of questions,” he said, cutting off the small talk. “This may seem silly, but have you passed gas?”

  Kristen blushed. Her friend, meanwhile, had to look away and cover her face to keep from laughing.

  “I told you it would sound silly, but it’s actually very important. You see, when you have an operation like the one you had, where we go into your belly, your bowels and stomach go to sleep. They literally turn off. So it’s very important for me to know whether you passed gas because that means they’re back—”

  “Yes,” she said before he could finish, “I did.”

  Carrie started laughing.

  “Stop it,” Kristen told her friend, barely keeping a straight face herself. “It’s not funny. It’s important. You heard him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carrie said.

  He told her she’d probably be able to start eating “clears” by the next morning. Clears were Jell-O, soup, and ginger ale.

  “Is that something I should be trying to do?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, should I be trying to pass gas?”

  “No, you don’t have to. Just be aware whether it’s happening or not, that’s all.”

  “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

  He could have told her she was lucky, he could have been asking her a lot more embarrassing questions. He could have told her about the woman whom he’d just seen who was obsessed with her hemorrhoids. But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I think the most important thing for you to do now is to try to get out of bed and walk around a little bit. I’m going to tell the nurse to decrease your fluids, and we’ll probably take you off the IV. We’ll switch your pain medication over from the morphine drip to Percoset, which is a milder painkiller but still very strong. And we’ll take it from there. I won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon but Dr. Kim, the other doctor who came to see you, will be around, and the nurses have my pager number if you need anything.”

  “OK,” the girl said.

  “I think that’s it for now.”

  Just as he was about to go he looked down and saw a blue backpack sitting on the floor next to Carrie’s chair. An emblem caught his eye. It was the head of a bear, the mascot of Menlo-Atherton High.

  “Do you guys go to MA?” he asked.

  “Yeah, uh-huh,” Carrie said. “We’re both juniors.”

  Months later, Cogan would look back on this moment, this minor act of recognition, and regret it more than almost any other. He’d wish he could turn back time and walk out of the room without saying another word. But instead, he said: “My next-door neighbor’s kid goes there. Josh Stein. Do you know him?”

  The girls looked at each other questioningly.

  “Dark hair,” Cogan said, helping them. “Pretty tall. Glasses.”

  “Yeah,” Carrie said after a moment. “I think I know who you mean.” Then, turning to Kristen, “Remember that kid in our history class last year? Josh.” Then, back to Cogan, “A little bit geeky, right? He has a laptop he carries around. He and his friends are always playing computer games.”

  “That’s him.”

  “We don’t really know him,” Carrie said a little snobbishly. “But we know who you’re talking about.”

  “Well, be nice to him. He may be a little geeky now, but when he shows up at your tenth reunion you’re going to be surprised. Believe me, I know how these things turn out.”

  “Why?” Kristen asked. “Were you li
ke that when you were in high school?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “What were you like?”

  He smiled. “About ten pounds lighter.” Then, after a beat, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Remember, try to walk around a little.”

  “I will,” she said.

  PART 2

  CROSSING THE LINE

  16/ THE ACCIDENTAL WOMANIZER

  April 1, 2007—2:16 p.m.

  THE FRAT HOUSE IS A RELATIVELY SIMPLE LOOKING STRUCTURE, white, with a porch and two balconies, both on the second floor of the three-story building. Standing in the main parlor, Jim Pinklow, Carrie’s older brother, age eighteen, is somberly offering the detective who’s come to interview him a little history lesson: In the 1950s the house served as the University’s admissions building, which is why today it’s commonly referred to as Rejection House. Despite the moniker’s negative connotation, according to Jim the house generally shares a positive standing among the women on campus—though a bad reputation tends to elicit more derogatory nicknames for both the brothers and the dwelling they inhabit.

  Jim’s fairly short, five-foot-seven or so, a shade stocky like his sister but a decent looking kid with a tight haircut and intense blue eyes. He tells the detective he’s never liked the smell of the house, especially on a Sunday after a big party, when the hardwood floors, sorely in need of a fresh coat of polyurethane, are still damp with beer. During the pledge period he and his fellow recruits, who live in freshmen dorms, would often spend the afternoons after blowouts trying to rid the floors of their stench. They would use Pine Sol and lemon-scented cleaners, even something that promised spring freshness. They tried everything, and by evening the odor would come back. Fainter, yes, but it would be there, lurking, waiting for the next batch of kegs to intensify it.

  “Well, this is it,” he says, leading the detective into a smaller side-room that has a large, heavily cushioned, black leather, half-moon sectional couch and big-screen TV.