by Lucia Sinn
Her head filled with internal noise as she managed to drive through the narrow streets that led to Wabash Avenue. Numb with fright, she reached for her purse and fumbled for her cell phone to call the police, but it was lost somewhere in the clutter. What if she were being followed? She figured her best bet was to reach the safety of the hospital parking lot, dash inside and make a call from her office to make sure Tony was all right.
Her secretary waited outside her door with some memos that needed to be signed. Cara was still in a daze, bewildered about what had just happened.
“What’s wrong with you?” Debbie adjusted her thick glasses and looked at her closely. “You’re seem nervous.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Your hands are trembling. Look at your signature.”
Cara’s handwriting looked like she’d had a stroke. She handed the memo back to Debbie. “Print another copy. I can’t send this out. I’ll wait a few minutes to sign the rest of them.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.”
Cara took a deep breath, trying to think of a plausible excuse. She wasn’t about to tell Debbie about her lunch with Tony. He had a point about office people spreading gossip. “I came close to having an accident. Someone nearly hit me.”
“Where? On Main Street?”
“Yes, that’s right. But nothing really happened, just a close call. It got me rattled, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll go redo this. Can I get you a cup of hot tea?”
“No, nothing.” Cara waved her away. Her voice mail was blinking. She picked it up and heard a message from Jim Mason. They would meet with Dr. Rozgonyi today at three o’clock. She had more than an hour to find out what had happened to Tony and calm herself down.
* * *
Cara picked up the phone as soon as Debbie was out of sight, looked up the number for Peg’s, and punched it in.
“Peg’s Diner.” The cigarette voice came across as bored.
Cara saw no point in identifying herself by name. “Hey. I just left your place, where I had lunch with a friend. I thought I heard a gunshot right after we left. I got away, but I’m worried about the man I was with. Is he all right?”
The crackle of gum chewing and spit preceded the reply. “I didn’t hear no gun shot.”
“What do you mean? Are you telling me my friend wasn’t hurt?”
“Ma’am, I have no idea who your friend is.”
“We were just there. He has dark hair, and was wearing a gray pin striped suit with a blue shirt. My hair was pinned back with a clip and I wore black slacks with a white sweater. We were sitting near the middle, on the right. Are you the one who waited on us?” Cara recalled a thin girl with a blonde ponytail in a pale blue uniform. She’d had those square cut fingernails with white nail polish and triple pierced ears.
“No, this is Peg. My girls are busy waiting on customers now.”
“And you don’t remember seeing me and my friend.”
“Not really, no.”
“So, no one came in and tried to call the police?”
“Not that I know of.”
Cara tapped a pencil on her desktop. Peg’s had been full of customers when they left. It was entirely possible no one heard the sound or remembered seeing a couple who had come and gone. “Please do me a favor. Just check outside and see if someone hasn’t been hurt, maybe lying on the sidewalk.”
“Ma’am, if someone’s shooting at someone, I don’t think I want to go outside.”
“All right then. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Cara flipped to the emergency numbers at the front of the phone book. But as she frantically searched for the right one to call, dizziness swarmed in her head, and the fine print blurred. She leaned against the desk waiting for her vision to clear, when she heard a sharp rap on the window. Tony waited in the corridor.
Cara yanked open the door and pulled him inside. He screwed up his face and winced.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Tony’s dirt smudged suit coat hung lopsided from his broad shoulders. A red silk designer tie dangled from a side pocket, and his partially unbuttoned shirt revealed a mat of curly chest hair glistening with sweat. He held his right arm against his chest breathing heavily, filling her office with the smell of nicotine.
“Yes, I’m fine, but what about you? I was worried someone might have come after you.”
Cara looked down and saw a bloody shirt cuff dangling from under Tony’s left coat sleeve. “Oh my God. You’ve been shot.” she said.
“It’s nothing, just grazed my arm.” he said. “I bleed easily. It just stings. I’ll put a bandage on it right away, as soon as I leave here.”
“What do you mean? We have to call the police this minute and have them meet us up in the Emergency Room. They have to know there’s a shooter on the loose.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to hear about this.”
“Let me look at it.”
“Everyone can see in here, your blinds are open.”
Cara reached for the pull cord. “I’ll close them.”
“No. Don’t do it. People will wonder.”
“Damn it Tony, what difference does it make? I’m sorry I drove off like that, but I was afraid, and I panicked. What happened after I left? Did you see who it was?”
“Let’s forget about me. You car window got shattered, from what I could see. Did you get cut?”
Cara shook her head.
“Good. Now listen, I’ve already called the guys down at the Lexus dealership and they’ll fix it this afternoon.”
“But I don’t have a Lexus.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m a good customer.”
“I don’t understand the urgency. I mean, I appreciate your doing this, but why?”
“Because I feel responsible. After all, I’m the reason you were at Peg’s.”
“Wait a minute. Do you think that bullet was intended for you?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea. It could have been some kid horsing around with a B B gun and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens all the time. But the media checks police reports. If they see our names, both of us will make the front page of the Lewiston Star. Is that what you really want?”
“It’s not what I want, but I don’t know what else we can do. We can’t just ignore it. There must have been some witnesses inside the diner.”
“Cara, listen to me.” Tony moved close, his body radiating heat like a furnace. “You don’t need this kind of bad publicity any more than I do. There are still people in this town who think that salmonella outbreak last year was really your fault.”
Cara put her hands on her hips and backed away. “How could they think that? If it were true, I’d have been fired.”
“Dirt is dirt. People won’t remember the details--they don’t read past the headlines, anyway. But they will hear you were with me, that both of us were shot at. They’ll think you’re in some kind of deep shit again. Don’t you see, I’m just trying to help you--protect your reputation. And what will Drakos think? I’ll bet you didn’t tell him we were having lunch today.”
“I intend to tell him about it. I have nothing to hide. And we can’t pretend nothing happened. What if someone is trying to kill one of us?”
“Cara, don’t you think you’re over reacting? I know, all these public shootings have everyone on edge. But there were no other shots. If it were a real shooter, we’d both be dead by now, along with some people at Peg’s Diner. No, it was some kid horsing around. Now give me your car keys.”
Cara covered her face with her hands. It was true, she had called Peg’s and nothing else had happened. She certainly didn’t want to cause a public panic.
Cara sat down and inhaled sharply. Tony was pushing her, playing on her emotions to get his own way. He’d always been so good at that. But he was right about the bad publicity. She had no desire to see her name in headlines again. “You’re sure I’ll ha
ve my car back in a few hours?” she asked.
Tony’s face muscles relaxed. “I promise.”
Cara opened her purse, handed him the keys and told him where the Honda was parked. The sooner he left the better. He was right. They shouldn’t be seen together, although it didn’t seem likely any of her people would recognize Tony. They didn’t belong to the country club and they lived on the wrong side of the tracks.
And yet, he had been gone only a few minutes when Lydia stepped into Cara’s office, smiling with those beautiful white teeth, and winking. “What was that hunky Tony Cabella doing here?”
“You know him?”
“I don’t, no. But one of the girls in the dish room did. Said she recognized him.”
“How would she know someone like Tony?”
“Says he hangs out at Casino Aztar down in Evansville. She goes there on day trips with her Granny.”
“Her grandmother is a gambler?”
“Sure. Where you been, baby? The senior citizens center runs a bus down there every month. Haven’t you ever seen little old ladies in tennis shoes playing the penny slots?”
“All right, so it was Tony Cabella. What’s the big deal?”
“Well, she was impressed. Says he’s a high roller, plays black jack and twenty one with fifty dollar chips.”
“Look, Tony’s an old friend, that’s all. His daughter is a patient. He wanted to talk about her problems.” Cara’s voice sounded high and false, even to her own ears.
Lydia regarded her steadily with lips pulled down at the corners and arms folded across her chest. After a few moments of silence, she shrugged. “Hey, girl, sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. You just seem kinda worked up.”
“I’m perfectly fine; honestly, I don’t know why you think that.”
Lydia’s low voice grew husky. “I know you pretty well, hon. That look on your face made me think there’s something going on with this Cabella guy. He came charging into the front office like a bull, asking if you were here.”
“Who told you that?”
“Casey and Debbie. They were afraid something awful had happened, the way he was acting“
“He’s just upset about his daughter, that’s all.”
“Fine, I’m glad you’re okay.” Lydia turned and left.
Cara opened her drawer and found a couple of aspirin, chewed them up for speedy action, and gulped them down with a shot of bottled water. What she really needed right now was a tumbler of Chardonnay. She glanced at her face in her closet mirror, exasperated by the spots of red on her cheeks. No wonder Lydia knew she was bummed.
Cara envied Lydia’s poise and the way her dark skin masked any blushing. But Lydia also had the advantage of ramrod posture and high cheekbones—a regal bearing that gave her an aura of wisdom and endurance.
And you couldn’t fool her, not for a minute.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MEETING WITH DR. ROZGONYI
AT 2:50 P.M., Cara gathered her props for the showdown: sharpened pencil, yellow note pad, tortoise shell reading glasses, and a freshly starched lab coat from the closet. The aspirin overload gnawed at her stomach lining, but dulled the sharp pain in her temples. All thoughts of Tony Cabella and the near miss with a bullet had to be filed away in a corner of her brain and put on hold. She needed to focus her attention on the threat of Jeff King wreaking havoc in her department.
She walked briskly through the surgery corridor on her way to the administrative building across the street. Once, the administrators and patients had been under the same roof. Now the hospital was expanding into a behemoth of separate buildings.
Jim Mason was a thin man with blow dried, iron gray hair, and pale womanish fingers. As if to project a more masculine image, he had filled his office space with black leather furniture, and covered the painted brown walls with pictures of local sports heroes such as Larry Bird and Peyton Manning. He greeted everyone with the professional optimism befitting his position as a human resource manager.
Barely five foot tall, Dr. Rozgonyi was shorter than everyone in the room, yet had a bone crushing handshake. She wore generic professional attire: navy blue suit, white cotton blouse, brown loafers, and tiny diamond earrings. Not really pretty, she was nevertheless attractive, with glossy black hair cut in a stylish short bob, large blue eyes, and a smooth complexion. Cara felt somewhat intimidated by this accomplished woman who’d been actively recruited by administration.
Jeff King trailed two steps behind, wearing his usual blue button down shirt and khaki’s, and carrying a laptop. Cara thought their partnership incongruous and wondered why a person of Dr. Rozgonyi’s stature would be so taken by such an unpleasant man.
Rozgonyi didn’t waste time with amenities. She seated herself between Jeff and Cara and took charge. “Thank heaven we’re getting together. I can’t tell you how upsetting it was when I walked into one of my cardiac patient’s room and saw her eating a slice of bacon.”
Cara heart raced, but she tried to keep her voice steady. “We follow the diet orders. If your patient was served bacon, you must have ordered a Regular diet. Low Cholesterol diets are much more restricted.”
“But why would any patient receive bacon?”
Cara gritted her teeth. She knew Rozgonyi wasn’t about to admit she’d prescribed the wrong diet for her patient’s condition. In the hospital culture, physicians were granted immunity. Officially, they didn’t make mistakes.
But Cara stood her ground. “If they don’t have a problem with their lipids, there’s no reason they can’t enjoy a little Indiana comfort food. Most hospital patients have poor appetites, as I’m sure you’re aware. The problem is to get them to eat anything at all.”
Dr. Rozgonyi’s face grew solemn. She looked at Jim Mason and let out a long sigh. “This is difficult for me to deal with,” she said “I’m a vegetarian. It’s hard to understand how a hospital dietitian would serve this kind of food, with all the research showing the danger of eating animal fat.”
Jeff ran the tip of his tongue over his upper lip, his eyes sparkling with glee as he flipped open his laptop, turned it on, and punched a few keys. Cara had no idea what he was bringing up--probably some research studies or statistics to bolster their position.
”Much of this research is controversial,” Cara said, “Obviously, I read the journals and keep up with new studies. However, there are more than 246 factors contributing to heart diseases. A recently published study concludes there is no evidence that a moderate amount of animal fat in the diet of the average individual is dangerous. In fact, people of normal weight, with low cholesterol levels, need a good source of animal protein to maintain optimal health.”
Rozgonyi shook her head. “But they can get complete protein from tofu, nuts, beans, and other vegetarian sources.” She glanced at Jeff. “See if you can find that project they did at Berkeley.” She gave Mason a meaningful look. “Jeff was my student at USC.”
Cara said, “I’m familiar with the project. But those people were carefully selected for the study. It takes a somewhat sophisticated and motivated individual to plan such a diet and stay with it.”
The doctor grimaced. “You have a point, Cara. I’ve never seen so many obese people in one town. It’s different in California where everyone is health conscious. I understand that Lewiston is ranked among the least healthy cities in the entire state of Indiana. But isn’t it our responsibility to help change that statistic?” She paused dramatically to let her words sink in. “We’ve banned smoking in hospitals, haven’t we? Even though it wasn’t a popular choice at first, we know now it was the right thing to do. Health care institutions have a responsibility to provide leadership. I’d like to implement vegetarian menus throughout the entire hospital.”
“We already offer a vegetarian menu.” Cara tried to keep her voice steady and not sound defensive. “Only about five percent of the patients order from it.”
“There’s my point,” Rozgonyi said with a condescending smile. “Your vegetarian menus
aren’t appealing. You need the expertise that Jeff and I can offer.”
Cara had to admit Dr. Rozgonyi sounded convincing. But was she being realistic? Cara folded her hands in her lap and tried to stifle any irritation at having her inadequacies as a dietitian pointed out. It was important to appear objective. “I’m sure you know such a drastic change could only come about with the approval of the entire medical staff,” she said. “It’s difficult enough to persuade patients to enter the hospital for tests and surgeries. The doctors would throw a fit if we start serving tofu chili and soy burgers instead of meat and dairy products.”
Rozgonyi stuck out her jaw. “How do you know, if you haven’t tried?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Cara said. “Why don’t we have Jeff come up with a new vegetarian menu? If it goes over well with the patients, we’ll get in touch with the marketing department and have them plan a big promotion with lots of advertising. That should stir up some interest in the community and meet with the approval of the medical staff. Hopefully, we’ll make some converts, and more patients will request vegetarian meals.”
Mason clasped his hands with a show of approval, apparently relieved at Cara’s offer to compromise. “Great, I knew we could work things out,” he said.
Dr. Rozgonyi narrowed her eyes and turned to Cara. “What about Jeff? Will you make a place for him to work in your department?”
“Jeff is welcome to observe our cooks and patient tray line at any time. But you can see, our office space is limited. It would be better if he works out of your facility.”
“What’s wrong?” Jeff asked. “Are you worried I’ll see the rats and mice in your kitchen?”