Fatal Flaws

by Clyde Lawrence

  As I jogged back to the athletic field parking lot where my vehicle was waiting for me, I imagined the scene within Hank’s house. I could see in my mind’s eye the doubtfulness and pity on the faces of the policemen as Jodi told her tale of what had happened outside Hank’s office building. After separating Hank and Jodi and taking their statements individually, I predicted that the cops would eventually decide their stories were consistent and plausible, even if not completely believable. I figured they’d eventually leave Hank’s house, feeling a bit frustrated and concerned, making mental notes to keep their eyes and ears open regarding any future reports of violence at his household. This was, of course, exactly what I had hoped for. Their documentation of the visit and their expectations of what Hank was capable of would help me to provide the appropriate backstory for the brutal scene that would soon be discovered by the authorities at Hank’s residence.

  Chapter 54

  “So, do you think the cops suspected you?” I asked Hank.

  Mandy and I were seated across from Hank in a booth at a popular restaurant in Rockwall called The Londoner. Standing along the bar were several loud and raucous groups of people who were apparently there to watch one of several televised soccer matches which were playing on elevated flat screen televisions attached to the wall above the bar. The bar patrons all seemed to be focused on the action on the screens, and none seemed interested in eavesdropping on our conversation.

  Hank had been to Dallas that afternoon to meet with one of his investment bankers. On a whim, he had called me as he left his meeting and asked if Mandy and I wanted to grab some dinner with him in Rockwall before he headed back home.

  Being the enthusiastic storyteller that he was, he had launched right into the story of Jodi’s mugging and the after party with the police at his house. It had only been a week since the incident and, as I had expected, Hank was still pretty worked up about the whole thing.

  “Uh—I think you could say that! They didn’t exactly beat around the bush. The ranking cop, Sergeant Vasquez, kept pointing out that the pattern of injuries on Jodi’s face were exactly what he’d seen before on the faces of women who’d had the shit beat out of them by their husbands or boyfriends. He kept asking me why a mugger would even take the time to smack Jodi after he had her down.”

  “So, what did you say?” Mandy asked.

  “I told him that I had no goddamn idea, but that he’d better quit pointing the finger at me unless he wanted problems of his own! I informed him I know people who would be very upset about him making any assumptions about me. I’m on the board of directors of the city's homeless shelter with the chief of police, and I have business dealings with two members of the city council. I am perfectly willing to pull some strings to get that asshole, or any other cop who treats me like a criminal, put on administrative leave or kicked off the police force altogether,” Hank replied testily.

  I was pretty sure Hank, the guy who had recently blown the head off an innocent liquor store clerk, didn’t even recognize the irony of what he’d said, but it certainly wasn’t lost on me. I instantly had a feeling that my buddy was losing his grip on reality and I knew this characteristic, more than any other, was what defined an individual as psychotic—a word that most people did not like to use when describing their closest acquaintances. I made the decision, however, to act like the comment had gone right in one ear and out the other.

  “Whoa, dude,” I said, “it sounds like he was just doing his job. You know he sees women who’ve been beat up every day and we all know who the most likely suspect is when it happens. Maybe you should give him a break.”

  I hoped that Hank was not going to really reach out to the police chief or any other of his prominent connections to try to retaliate for the police response to the anonymous call I’d made. It would be too bad if Sergeant Vasquez or his partner were to become more collateral damage in my plan to erase my friend and his girlfriend from my own list of problems.

  “I know he was doing his fucking job, Mark,” Hank snarled at me, struggling to control his temper, “but I was already redlining that night after seeing what some motherfucker had done to my girlfriend. I really didn’t need some asshole, flatfoot, boy scout, pig getting up in my face and accusing me of being a typical piece of white trash who beats up on his woman. There just might have to be consequences for cops who choose to fuck with prominent citizens, even if their intentions are good. It has taken me a long time and a lot of effort to get where I am in life and I think I deserve a little more consideration than the low life criminals who the police deal with everyday deserve.”

  “Sure, I understand that,” I replied, holding up my hands in a gesture of mock surrender. I was certainly not wanting to provoke Hank into becoming angry at me based on my lack of sympathy for what he had gone through. In order for me to continue moving forward with my plans regarding Hank and Jodi, I needed to continue my role as Hank’s best friend and confidante. For this to work, I needed him to believe I could both sympathize and empathize with his feelings of frustration and indignation.

  “In fact, you’re right, dude!” I exclaimed, as I pounded on the heavy wooden table with a closed fist. Hank and Mandy, both jumped a little at my expression of agitation. The beer in our mugs sloshed bit as the energy I had placed into the table vibrated out. “That fucking cop should have damn well known, before he showed up at your door, that you had no criminal history and aren’t the average Joe Blow in town. You’re an important guy and they should know who they are dealing with before they show up like that!”

  Hank and Mandy both kept their eyes locked on mine, trying to determine whether I was serious or if I was just mocking the situation and my friend’s response to it. As I’d hoped, Mandy picked up on what I was trying to accomplish and fed me the perfect line that would help convince Hank that I was legitimately pissed off on his behalf.

  “Take it easy, Honey! You are making a scene!” she scolded. “You’re going to get us thrown out of here.”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” I said. “Hank’s done a lot for that city. The last thing he should have to put up with is a cop harassing him when he’s already dealing with his girlfriend getting beat up. Where they hell were they when that was happening?”

  In actuality, I did understand how Hank was feeling and how he was reacting to the stressful events he had recently endured. I could only imagine my own response to having the police show up at my door and erroneously accuse me of hurting my wife or child while I was already dealing with the feelings of anger and helplessness that come with the knowledge that someone else has purposefully hurt them. In addition, I’m sure I would also have a somewhat elitist attitude about the fact that I was a prominent professional and didn’t deserve to be treated like a common street thug or even a suburban wife beater. I definitely understood where Hank was coming from as he described his ordeal with the police, including the injustice he perceived regarding being accused of domestic violence.

  On the other hand, I had to keep reminding myself that Hank was not just an innocent victim of circumstance, and he was no longer the friend and wing man I had loved and counted on over the previous two decades. He had become a cold-blooded murderer who had taken an innocent life and destroyed an innocent family. If not stopped by me, I was certain he would perform more monstrous acts in the future as he and Jodi carried on their campaign of vigilante justice.

  As a side note, I must say I was not even tempted to feel badly for Jodi. I had always felt like she was poison and knew she was partially responsible for creating the monster that had replaced my former best friend. Besides, that broad had clearly indicated her lack of esteem and her complete lack of respect for me when I had visited with her in front of Hank’s garage that day. Regardless of my disdain for her, however, I wasn’t looking forward to the gruesome tasks I would have to complete in order to rid her and Hank from my life once and for all.

  The thought of taking another life was not one that I was comfortable wi
th, and I was dreading the implementation of my plan. I was a healer and protector of human life, after all. The bottom line was that I knew it was my own life, and the lives of my wife and kids that I needed to focus on protecting, and it seemed like my moral responsibility to ensure my murderous friend could not continue destroying lives. If circumstances surrounding my friendship with him were normal, it would be my responsibility as a decent human being to turn him in to the authorities. Our relationship was far from normal, however. It involved a history of a shared crime which would, if it came to light, destroy me and my family, so my only remaining recourse was to do whatever it took to eradicate him. Hopefully, I would be able to fulfill my responsibility before he identified his next victim.

  As we sat together over the next couple hours, dining on bar food and enjoying several adult beverages, it was, on the surface, as if nothing had changed in our relationship. We discussed our kids and our careers, just as we had countless times before. Several times, we laughed loudly enough to get the attention of the other bar patrons, who smiled good naturedly at us, thinking we were just typical friends enjoying a meal together and having a good time catching up on each other’s lives. No one who saw or overheard us that evening would have suspected one of us at the table was a burgeoning serial killer, and another was secretly preparing to implement a plan to rid the world of his maniacal companion.

  Chapter 55

  It was midmorning on a Wednesday, and I had just finished performing a vaginal hysterectomy and placement of a mid-urethral sling, which would cure my patient of her excessive bleeding and the stress incontinence that had been forcing her to wear adult diapers for the previous three years. The surgery had gone well, and I knew after completing her recovery, she would be eternally grateful. Restoring the dignity of a patient by providing this type of surgery always gave me tremendous satisfaction. I truly felt sorry for many of my patients who had often endured similar fates for years before seeking the definitive cures I could offer them through gynecologic surgery. Even after hundreds of such procedures, I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d been able to successfully pull off the always impressive surgical feat which I’d heard some colleagues compare to a car mechanic replacing a muffler—working only through the tailpipe.

  I’d already decided this would be the day I would acquire the vials of succinylcholine which I needed in order to carry out the final step of my plan to deal with Hank and Jodi. This medication, categorized as a depolarizing neuromuscular blocker, is commonly used in the operating room to bring about paralysis of a surgical patient in order to achieve general anesthesia and endotracheal intubation. My intent was to use it to cause similar effects in Hank, but for an entirely different reason.

  Succinylcholine, commonly referred to by anesthesia personnel as ‘sux,’ was not something I typically had access to as an OB/GYN. There weren’t any real applications for it outside the O.R., except in the Emergency Department, where it was sometimes utilized to incapacitate an unruly patient, so I was going to have to procure my supply of it on the sly.

  It was not at all uncommon for me to be walking through the ‘sterile corridor’, a hallway connecting the operating rooms to the remainder of the surgical department, during times when I was waiting for the operating room staff to complete their preparations for my next surgical case. Typically, when I finished my surgeries, I’d exit the O.R. proper and head for either the doctor’s lounge, where I would enter my orders into the electronic patient medical record and dictate my operative report, or another unit of the hospital where my patients were admitted and I could check in on them. On this day, however, I slowly walked the hallways connecting the individual surgical suites as I looked for an opportunity to shoplift some sux.

  Each morning the nurse anesthesia personnel ‘check out’ a fully stocked anesthesia box, which resembles a plastic toolbox or tackle box. Within the box are the numerous vials of each anesthesia inducing medication, neuromuscular blocker, sedative, and narcotic pain medication that they would need throughout the day as they performed their duties. These boxes were supposed to be relocked after each time something was removed from them, so that only the nurse anesthetists would have access to the dangerous medications contained therein. In reality, however, after the boxes were opened as the anesthesia personnel prepared for their first cases of the day, they often remained unlocked throughout the day, until it was time to turn them in at the end of their shifts. This relaxation of the protocol was, of course, a way for the anesthetists to avoid having to go through the repetitive process of unlocking the box over and over as they utilized supplies throughout the day. In other words, it was a way to cut corners and save a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted dealing with the keys, padlocks, and latch mechanisms repeatedly, case after case. The other reason they overlooked this policy was that, oftentimes, they might have their hands full while dealing with a difficult patient, when one of these medications would be urgently needed. Besides, I’m sure they figured that there were plenty of sets of eyes wandering around the O.R. which would deter anyone without valid access to the medications from digging through the boxes when they had their backs turned.

  Of course, there were times that, if one were so inclined, one could quickly rifle through an unattended anesthesia box and grab a vial or two of a something that could be used to seriously fuck with another individual—something like succinylcholine.

  One of those times presented itself to me as I saw a nurse anesthetist and circulating nurse leaving their suite pushing an orthopedic surgical patient on a gurney on their way to the recovery room. They were followed immediately by the scrub tech, who was pushing a cart filled with ‘dirty’ surgical equipment on her way to Central Supply, where the instruments would be cleaned, repackaged, and sterilized in order to have them ready to be used again in a future surgical case. I made a few of my typical snarky comments to them as they passed by me in the hall, which was what they had come to expect from me over the years that we had worked together.

  I stood there listening to their snickers and replies until they rounded the corner, at which time I ducked into their suite. Once there, I picked up the phone on the wall and called Labor and Delivery.

  “Hey Elise,” I said into the receiver to the nurse who had picked up the call at the nurses’ station in Labor & Delivery. “This is Dr. Bishop. Can I talk with Caroline? I need an update on Ms. Jones in room 8.”

  Elise replied that she’d put me on hold for a minute and go find Caroline, the veteran Labor and Delivery nurse who had been assigned to my laboring patient that day.

  As I spoke, I wandered over and flipped open the unlocked lid of the anesthesia box sitting on top of a stainless steel cart positioned within an arm’s length of where Logan, the nurse anesthetist who had just exited the room, sat at the head of the operating table during his cases. It would not have been likely that anyone would be back to this room for a couple minutes, but I had decided that if someone were to find me there, I would just claim to be looking for a pen in order to jot something down while I was on the phone getting a report of my patient’s labor progress.

  “Hi Dr. Bishop,” Caroline said, as she picked up the line. “Your patient is progressing fine. She’s much more comfortable now, after getting her epidural. She’s dilated to about six centimeters.”

  As I quickly looked through the anesthesia box, I asked her a few more details about my patient’s progress, in order to prolong the conversation and continue to provide myself with a reasonable explanation, if needed, for the reason I had stopped into this O.R. suite. Within twenty seconds of lifting the lid on the box, I spotted the sux and quickly grabbed two vials of the appropriate strength and shoved them into the oversized utility pocket on the side of my scrub pants. I then closed the box and wandered back toward the adjacent wall, on which the phone was installed. I finished my conversation with Caroline and thanked her for the update, then hung up the phone and exited the suite. No one was in the hallway outside the s
uite as I left it, so I knew I was in the clear.

  I knew there would be a little hassle for Logan when his box was inventoried at the end of the day. The pharmacy would certainly make a bit of a stink about the missing vials of sux, but I knew that no one would get their panties in too much of a wad regarding this particular medication. It wasn’t exactly a drug of abuse, as anyone injecting into their own vein would become instantly paralyzed. This would include the inability to contract their diaphragm in order to take a breath. This didn’t exactly bring on a relaxed or euphoric state, such as one might achieve by self-administering one of many of the other medications in the anesthesia box. It would bring on a state of asphyxiation, followed closely by a state of death, so obviously, there wasn’t much reason for someone to maliciously pilfer it. So, its absence would probably be eventually chalked up to a human error related to stocking or inventorying of the box. Had I grabbed a vial of narcotic pain medication or a benzodiazepine, like Valium on the other hand, Logan would have been severely scrutinized by the pharmacy and anesthesia departments and probably written up. This would be a hassle he’d have to deal with, but, in the end, I didn’t expect any major repercussions for him.

  “Sorry Logan,” I mumbled to myself as I walked away from the scene of my latest crime. “I don’t mean to fuck your shit up, but I’ve got some evil deeds to do and you just happen to be the latest collateral damage.”