by Harry Kraus
John poured himself another cup of coffee and sat at his desk. A moment later, after a soft knock on the door, Ami appeared and lifted a stack of papers from his out-box. She moved silently to adjust the location of his pencil holder and letter opener, and then turned to leave.
“Good morning, Ami,” he said. “You’re quiet this morning.”
She glanced at him, flashing large brown eyes before closing them in a long blink and turning back to the door. “Morning, Mr. Cerelli.”
“So now I’m Mr. Cerelli. What happened to John?”
“We’re at work. I should treat you professionally.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
She hesitated. “If I finish early, could I leave by three today?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What’s up?”
“I’d like to see my mother,” she said, stepping closer to his desk. “My stepdad died recently, so she’s alone.”
“I’m sorry. Was it expected?”
She nodded. “Cancer.”
She stood clutching the stack of papers across her chest, looking very much like a stranded child in the center of a Wal-Mart.
“How are you handling it?” he asked.
She looked at him, as if searching his face for sincerity. “You want to know?”
What else could he say? “Sure.”
As she walked around and leaned against his desk, John inched his chair away. In a moment, with her hand cupped against her mouth, her voice erupted in a sob. “He was the only man I could talk to.” She sniffed and swallowed before setting aside the stack of papers. “He pretty much raised me. Mom married him when I was in junior high.” She shook her head. “My real dad was an abusive jerk. My stepdad loved me.”
John rose to his feet, uncomfortable with the emotional volcano he’d uncapped. He’d wanted to create some distance between them, to slip past and toward the center of the room, but as he moved, she launched her body forward, enveloping him in a hug.
His arms shot straight out from his sides, and he stood there crucified with his tearful secretary draped over him, sobbing against his chest. He looked anxiously at the open door, wondering what to do. Meanwhile, Ami nuzzled her sniffing face against his neck, her breath spreading warmth over his skin.
“It’s been so lonely,” she said, her voice jerking between breaths.
He felt silly. Trapped. If she had been fifty and dumpy, he’d have hugged away. But Ami was young. And built to take John’s mind off of work. Hugging Ami created an immediate dilemma. How could he comfort her without enjoying it in the process?
With his eyes on the doorway, he slowly folded his arms around her, and even though he tried to sink his chest away from hers, every movement seemed to be countered as she pressed against his form. He patted her back lightly. “There, there,” he said softly, refusing to let his hands stay against her for more than a bouncing touch.
After a moment, he pulled his hands back in what felt like an exaggerated push-up. Managing to edge her back to arm’s length, he reached for a box of tissues on his desk and held them up between them. “Here.”
She blew her nose and blotted her eyes. “My mascara,” she moaned.
“You’re fine. Really.”
“You’re so sweet.” She sidestepped the tissue box and brushed his cheek with her lips. A kiss, quick and innocent enough, a thank-you between friends.
She stepped away and picked up the papers she had placed on his desk. “I’m sorry to burden you. I’d better get to work.”
He watched as she blotted her eyes and straightened the front of her low-cut blouse. When she reached the doorway, he called after her, “Ami.”
She paused and took a deep breath to collect herself. “Yes?”
“You can leave early today.”
That evening after a day of work at McCall Shoes, Della pulled into her driveway and glanced in the rearview mirror when she heard the rumble of Jimmy’s Harley. Sure enough, he was in his usual pose, confident and free.
She parked and watched as he removed his helmet and unzipped his leather jacket. “Hi, Jimmy.”
“What say we ride up the valley to Luray? I know a nice little café where we could have dinner.”
Della leaned against her car and sighed. “You’re persistent.”
“That’s good.” He hesitated. “Isn’t it?”
“I shouldn’t.”
He held up his hands. “We’re friends. That’s all. Two adults out enjoying each other’s company. What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re a man. I’m a woman, remember? A married woman.”
“You need a man to talk to, Della. I know Wally’s not able.” He took a step closer. “What would be wrong with a companion?”
“I – I can’t.” She shook her head. “People would — ”
“People understand, Della. Anyone who has seen Wally in the last year wouldn’t begrudge a woman who needed a man around.”
She shook her head. “Friendship is only the beginning, Jimmy. I know myself.”
He stood still, searching her eyes.
“You’re eligible. Smart. Not bad-looking for an old man.”
He smiled. “Careful,” he warned.
“But I’m not. Eligible, that is,” she added.
“I’m lonely.”
She pushed her hand against her chest, suddenly angry at his selfish-ness. “And you think I’m not? I still ache for the loss of a husband,” she said. “Every day. But Huntington’s disease has played a cruel trick on me. Wally’s not an able husband anymore, but his body lives on, binding me to a promise I made long ago.” She looked away from his gaze. “For better or for worse. In sickness . . .”
They stood for a moment, the silence heavy between them.
“I owe this to Wally,” she said. “I can’t betray him again.”
He nodded and scuffed his boot against the gravel. “I’m going to have a little dinner party. A group. You wouldn’t be my date or anything. Maybe you’d like to come?”
She rolled his request around, staring at this new man who had emerged since Miriam’s death. With a leather jacket in place of a white lab coat, he seemed determined to squeeze something extra out of life.
“Thursday evening, seven o’clock. Casual.”
She straightened. “Why not?”
That night, Della and Claire faced sleeping in the McCall house alone.
Claire pulled back the curtain. A police cruiser sat in the driveway. A second car was at the end of the lane.
Della acted nonchalant. “Someone else could have stolen the mower.”
“No one else knew where we kept the key. There was no forced entry.”
“Did the police look for fingerprints?”
“Yes, but Tyler’s prints should be all over that place. He worked for me, remember?”
Della nodded. “So what if it was him? It doesn’t mean he’ll come after you.”
“Mom, this guy has a revenge motive. He took the mower as a warning to me. Don’t you see it? He’s trying to frighten me.” Claire walked to the bedroom and came out holding a handgun.
“Do I need to remind you of your decision to trust God?”
“I am trusting God,” Claire said, checking to see that the pistol was loaded and sliding on the safety.
“You’re trusting that gun.”
Claire went to the garage and came back with a baseball bat. “Here,” she said. “Come with me to search the closets before we go to bed.”
“You’re kidding. I thought the deputies already searched the house.”
“So call me paranoid. Remember the night I was attacked? Tyler was in the house all along. He hid in the closet and came out after I’d locked the doors.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Come on,” she said. “We’ll search together.”
Della tapped the bat against her open palm. “I still don’t think we should be trusting in this.”
“We’re not. We’re trusting in God,” Clair
e said. “This is what Pastor Phil calls a means of grace.”
Shaking her head, Della followed Claire into the hallway. “Somehow I don’t think this was what he meant.”
Chapter Fourteen
Thursday morning’s schedule included two work-ins: a twenty-two-year- old camper with a weeping poison ivy rash on his arms and neck and a sixty-year-old grandmother with diverticulitis.
Claire handed Emma Robinson a prescription for Cipro and Flagyl, powerful antibiotics to fight the infection lining her colon. “I need to see you again Monday. Stay on a liquid diet until then. If you start having fever or worsening pain, let me know. I’ll be on my cell phone this weekend.”
Emma nodded resolutely. She’d been through a bout of diverticulitis last winter. “Thank you.”
Claire exited the exam room to come face-to-face with her receptionist in the hall. Lisa was not smiling.
“Dr. McCall,” she whispered. “A man is here to see you.”
Claire sighed. “Tell him to get in line. How backed up am I?”
She shook her head. “He’s not a patient. He said he’s from the state board.” Lisa held out a business card.
Claire read the card. James Dogget Jr., MD. A surprise visit from the state board couldn’t be good news. A knot tightened in her upper abdomen.
“I put him in your office,” Lisa said. “He’s waiting.”
Feeling like a fifth grader on the way to see the principal, she took a deep breath and walked back up the hall. She pushed open the door to find a man in a three-piece suit occupying her chair, his briefcase open on her desk, with her work shoved aside. He was garden-hose thin, with glasses a size too large for his bony face. He didn’t stand. A smile passed on and off his face like a camera flash. “Dr. McCall?” He nodded to a chair opposite her desk. “Have a seat.”
She sat on the edge of the chair, not quite believing the little general who had conquered the high ground and positioned himself in her place.
“I’m Dr. Dogget,” he began, clearing his throat, “an investigator for the Virginia State Board of Medicine.”
“I’m Dr. McCall,” she responded. “But I guess you know that.”
Another camera-flash smile. “Of course.” He pushed up his oversized glasses. “We have received a letter of complaint,” he said, snapping his briefcase closed. “It is a rather sensitive issue.”
Claire glanced at the door before rising and shutting herself in with the suit.
He waited until she was seated again before continuing. “Honestly, we don’t see this problem very often, and we debated the proper forum for this.” He folded his hands into a mass of knuckles in front of him and leaned forward. “I personally thought the police should be the ones to investigate such a matter.” He paused. “Murder is a criminal matter, you know.”
Her jaw slackened. “What?” She lowered her voice from the fevered volume that she’d started. “What is this about?”
“My higher-ups view the board as the consummate physician advocate, and although we are ultimately here to protect the people of the commonwealth, we wanted to begin our own internal investigation before turning this into a police matter.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me see if I can help.” He flashed another grin, this one quick enough for Claire to wonder if it was only a weird facial tic. “I’ll need to see the file of a patient, Richard Childress.”
Claire shifted in her seat, immediately wondering whether she needed a lawyer, whether she should open her patient records to this power-intoxicated pencil.
He sensed her hesitation. “I can assure you that the state board has the authority to demand and review patient records. If you choose not to cooperate with us, it can only reflect in a negative way on the outcome of our investigation. The police will take little time in obtaining the proper search warrants to obtain what they need if we turn the matter into their hands.”
“I – I’ll cooperate, Dr. Dogget. It’s just that this is such a surprise. I’d really like to know just what it is that I’m being accused of. And who is my accuser?”
He popped open his briefcase again and lifted a letter which he held at arm’s length before tilting his head to look through his bifocals. “Physician- assisted suicide of Richard Childress.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Claire scoffed. “Who is raising such an accusation?”
“A family member,” he said, running his finger to the bottom of the letter. “Ami Grandle, a stepdaughter.”
“Have you spoken to Richard’s wife, Nancy? I’m sure she can clear this up. I only learned of my patient’s death several days later when I was asked to fill out a death certificate.”
He shook his head. “I have not. It is our custom as the physician advocate to hear their side of the story first.”
Claire restrained the impulse to scoff. Dr. Dogget seemed more of an accuser than an advocate. “May I see what this stepdaughter has written?”
The investigator tilted his head back and forth, as if rolling the thought around his little brain, before sliding the letter across the desk in her direction. She picked it up, her hands trembling. She glanced at Dr. Dogget, whose eyes were trained on her fingers.
Slowly she read the letter.
To whom it may concern,
This letter is to inform the board of my concern that a physician, Dr. Claire McCall, has euthanized my stepfather by a willful overdose of morphine. He was suffering from colon cancer and had undoubtedly asked for her assistance in relief of his pain. Her actions, while perhaps humanistic in intent, were in defiance of my wishes and certainly are in direct violation of state law. She is a dangerous rogue who needs to be stopped. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ami Grandle
Claire shook her head. “Excuse me,” she said, standing. “I’ll have my staff retrieve the record. I’m sure we can lay this concern to rest.”
She stepped into the hall and motioned for her nurse. “Lucy,” she said. “Have Lisa bring me the file for Richard Childress. It will be among the deceased files.”
Lucy nodded and stepped away.
“Oh, Lucy, tell Lisa to offer the non-urgent patients a chance to reschedule. I may be tied up here for a while.”
Lucy nodded and whispered, “I’ll pray.”
Claire reached for her hand. “When will I ever remember who’s in control?”
Lucy’s eyes sparkled beneath her gray hair. “Look with the eyes of your heart.”
Claire squinted as the metaphor settled into understanding. Faith meant seeing the unseen loving Father behind the present darkness. She nodded. “Thanks.”
A minute later, Lisa handed the chart to Claire. Claire, in turn, opened it in front of Dr. Dogget. “Here,” she said, pointing at her last entry. “I’ve documented the last visit. He was getting weak. I’ve dictated my feelings about comfort care and a discussion we had about getting Richard a hospital bed.” She flipped a page and pointed to a copy of a prescription. “Here is a copy of the prescription for morphine. It is clear that the instructions are for dosages which would be far beneath a lethal dose.”
Dr. Dogget closed his hand around the file and slid it away from Claire. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to examine this on my own.” He turned to the first page of the chart and poised a pen over a yellow legal pad. “Why don’t you continue seeing patients? I’ll let you know when I’m through here.”
When Claire didn’t move, he held up his hands in a truce. “Look, Dr. McCall, I know you don’t like this. I don’t either. And hopefully, I can help clear up this mess for you.” He offered a weak smile.
Claire didn’t return it. Instead, she nodded and left him alone, pulling the door shut as she backed out of her office.
She plodded up the hall and pulled a chart from a door rack. A young man who wanted to play football and needed a physical. She smiled. This she could do.
Fifteen minutes later, she glanced back at her office door, still closed. She imagined
Dr. Dogget cackling with glee over the open chart. She shook her head and went into the next exam room. An elderly man with a hundred complaints, all of which surfaced since the loss of his wife to cancer three months ago.
After twenty minutes of a thorough exam, and some reassurance, Mr. Bonhaver left, as he did monthly, with a quicker step.
Claire avoided looking at the office and jumped through the next three patient visits, a well-baby check, an elderly man whose urinary stream had weakened to a dribble, and a teen pregnant with her second child.
When she entered the hall again, Lucy pointed to the office. “Dr. Dogget is ready.”
Claire barked under her breath and Lucy giggled. Claire pushed open the door.
He held up his hand toward a chair. “Don’t be afraid of me, Dr. McCall. I’m on your side.”
She sat.
“Your chart seems to be in order. There is nothing here to substantiate a claim against you.”
“There is no evidence to be found, sir.”
“I would assume that a physician involved in euthanizing a patient wouldn’t document it.”
“Assuming I am guilty, Dr. Dogget.”
“I’m assuming nothing. I am merely responding to a rather serious accusation.” He paused. “Were you present when Mr. Childress died?”
“No. I only learned of his death a few days later.”
Dr. Dogget stared at her from above his oversized glasses. “He died the day after you gave this prescription for morphine.”
Claire’s mind churned, wondering if it was time to find a lawyer. She thought back to the weekend of Mr. Childress’s death. “I was in Brighton that day. I was shopping for a wedding dress with my mother.”
The investigator made a note.
“I think you need to talk to Nancy Childress. I’m sure she attended her husband’s death. She can straighten this all out. If my patient died from a morphine overdose, it was certainly against the instructions on the prescription I wrote.”
“Did you explain the dosing to Mr. Childress?”
Claire paused. “No.”
Dogget raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t?”
Inside, Claire’s stomach knotted. She was hesitant to draw Dr. Jenkins into this. But she needed to tell the truth. She took a deep breath. “My employer, Dr. Jimmy Jenkins, is a personal friend of the Childress family. He took them the morphine I prescribed. I trusted him to give the instructions.”