Trucker Marty Johnson bellowed along with Merle Haggard as he nudged his rig up past seventy-five mph. He knew he couldn’t carry a tune, so he made up for it with volume. Marty loved driving at night—not much traffic or many cops—so he could make good time. Of course, he frequently fudged his records, so his time didn’t look too good. Tonight, he had the road all to himself—except for that damned Suburban up ahead. He’d been trying to catch and pass the bastard for the last couple of miles. Just his luck to get stuck behind the guy through the one-lane construction.
There was something wrong with that guy, too. Marty had been watching him swerve all over the road for the last mile. That candy-ass in his fancy SUV is probably going nighty-night. Marty hated SUV’s. His faggoty boss drove one. Whenever he passed one on the highway, he made a point to creep over the line and scare ’em just a bit.
Marty’s irritation soon gave way to anticipation as an idea struck him. After all, Marty knew how to wake people up. He goosed the gas and soon was riding the Suburban’s bumper. He didn’t let the fact that they had entered the cattle chutes bother him. The jerk didn’t even seem to be aware of him. Marty grinned as he gave his air horn a tremendous long blast. “That’ll either wake the dead or give ’em a heart attack,” he said and chuckled.
Much to Marty’s surprise, the two-and-a-half ton Suburban traveling at sixty-five mph continued to inch closer to the center concrete barrier. What the hell was going on? The left front bumper hit first, a glancing blow that sent the truck careening toward the outer concrete barrier. Holy shit!
Marty quickly realized his mistake. He took his foot off the gas and applied the brake; he now craved some distance between the two vehicles. As his rig begrudgingly slowed, Marty watched in horrid fascination as the Chevy truck impacted the outer barrier at roughly a 45-degree angle—no glancing blow this time. The passenger side front end crumpled hideously, exploding the right front tire in the process. The truck fishtailed and spun on impact, until the left back end made contact with the center concrete barrier. Having turned almost completely sideways, it continued to skid, quickly bleeding speed as it scraped along both concrete walls. The twisted Suburban came to rest completely blocking the road barely thirty feet away.
Marty jammed on his brakes as hard as he could and hit the horn again, but knew it was hopeless. He had slowed to about forty mph, but didn’t really have a prayer of stopping his twenty-ton baby in time. And the damned barriers prevented him from avoiding the Suburban. “Shit!” His eighteen tires screeched in unison, a horrible racket that was outdone only by the sickening sound of the collision.
As the flames licked over his left hand, Mike’s brain flickered into consciousness. He felt searing pain, smelled the burning rubber, plastic and skin and heard the roaring flames. Slowly his comprehension gelled; he knew he was in his truck and that there had been a horrible accident. He tried to move but only managed to produce waves of pain from the mangled pieces of bone and muscle that had once been his legs. He was hopelessly trapped in his burning truck.
“What happened?” He’d dreamt that he had safely arrived home and was snuggled up in his warm bed. And then it dawned on him. Mike knew with astounding clarity what had happened. “That son-of-a-bitch! Raskin must’ve drugged me. I was right!”
The flames, encouraged by the strong night breeze, engulfed the whole vehicle. The truck filled with thick smoke, obscuring Mike’s vision and causing him to breathe in short, choking gasps. He groped for his cellular phone, but it was gone. The impact of the collision must have jarred it loose from its floor mounting. His hand closed on some wires, and he followed them a short distance. The phone was wedged under the dash. He couldn’t free the handset from the cradle. Shit! No voice message. He doubted the thing even worked. He couldn’t see the keypad but this didn’t matter, as he had long since memorized it anyway. He punched in RCL 04 and was rewarded by normal sounding beeps from the phone. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. He pushed SEND and heard one last beep. He hoped to God that someone would understand his message. He clutched his gold crucifix and began to pray. The pain of the fire was becoming unbearable. Just then, he heard a noise above the roar of the flames. He looked out the window and thought he could make out the Angel of Death swooping out of the darkness to collect his soul.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Doug Landry drove down the road on his way to work practically in a trance. He had one more call day to get through before the weekend. Deep down somewhere he realized that this weekend would be a crossroads for him. He had never before even considered meeting someone secretly, let alone set the plan into motion. What in the world was he doing? Didn’t Laura and the boys deserve better? Then he saw Jenny standing there, posed in some silky nightgown, smiling seductively, beckoning him. He squeezed his eyes tight and shook his head. If only he could get her out of his mind.
His daydream was penetrated by the news on the radio. “. . . and in local news—this just in—area physician Doctor Michael Carlucci was killed when a tractor trailer collided with his vehicle late last night on Interstate 283, just south of the Hershey exit. Let’s check with Chuck in the Traffax Command Center to see what affect this is having on the morning rush hour commute. Chuck . . .”
Doug almost plowed into the car ahead of him as he listened horrorstruck. He didn’t believe it at first—he thought he’d obviously heard wrong. He switched to the all news station, and his fear was soon confirmed. When he got to work, the nightmare continued.
“Doctor Landry, did you see the paper?” Julie Miller, the group’s secretary asked. Her eyes were red with tears, and her voice quavered badly.
Doug just nodded his head in response; he didn’t trust his own voice. He left her and ran to the surgeon’s lounge, not bothering to change. Morning papers would be found there.
Five or six surgeons were hovering around the coffee pot, most with newspapers in their hands, all talking loudly. Kim Burrows, Omar Ayash, and Bryan Marshall were chatting with the surgeons. The numerous conversations stopped almost immediately when Doug burst through the doorway. All eyes were upon him; they knew that Doug and Mike were close friends. Nobody moved.
“Bad news, Doug,” said Marshall, the first to recover. He walked over and handed Doug the front section of the paper as explanation. “Read this.”
“Doug, I’m so sorry,” said Kim. She reached out and stroked his arm.
“Those truckers are a menace!” Ayash said angrily. He banged his fist in his palm repeatedly. “If I say it once, I say it tousand times.”
Several surgeons offered their condolences, but most became absorbed in suddenly pressing paperwork and telephone calls.
Doug didn’t say anything but quickly looked at the paper. There was a large color picture of the fiery wreck. The headline read, “Doctor Falls Asleep At Wheel.” His eyes blurred with tears. He scanned the article, only able to focus on bits and pieces of it.
“Trucker Marty Johnson, who was uninjured in the crash, had this to say: ‘I couldn’t stop in time. There was just no way. He was just sitting there crossways blocking the road. Must’ve had a heart attack or fallen asleep—I seen him swerve. Happens more than you think.’ ”
Doug paused to wipe his eyes. He continued to read.
“Dr. Carlucci had been on the way home after doing emergency surgery at Mercy Hospital, where he worked as an anesthesiologist for six years. He is survived by his wife, Colleen, and two children Emily, five, and Christine, two.”
Doug was completely numbed by the news. His best friend cut down in his prime. What a waste! Colleen must be a basket case. He knew he should call and offer his support and comfort, but he couldn’t face it right now. He envisioned the upcoming funeral and couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Mike’s two little kids there.
Intense grief was not the only emotion Doug wrestled with. He was also stricken with guilt. He believed he knew why Mike had fallen asleep at the wheel. Surely it had to do with the fact that he was abusi
ng drugs. It was their little secret. He should’ve mailed the letter, should’ve gone right to hospital administration, should’ve spilled the beans on Mike’s drug use. Laura had been right. Mike’s career would’ve been ruined, but at least he’d be alive, maybe in a rehab program right now. At least his kids would have a father. Another bad decision, Doug.
Doug was completely miserable as he headed to the locker room to change. The hospital-wide intercom sparked to life: “This is Sister Emmanuel from Pastoral Care Service with our morning prayer, taken from the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .”
As Sister Emmanuel prayed, Doug said his own prayer. He prayed for Mike and Colleen and the two girls. Finally, he prayed for himself. He wondered how he was going to make it through the long twenty-four-hour call day ahead. His life was unraveling before him, and he was felt he was responsible.
All morning, Doug practically ran from one operating room to the next. As call man, he supervised four CRNA rooms, which meant he had to interview, induce anesthesia, and wake up all the patients and arrange for breaks and lunches for everyone. There were labor epidurals and steroid epidurals to do in between. He was horribly distracted; more than once he caught himself almost giving the wrong drug.
Doug wondered where Rusty was this morning. He had taken a liking to Rusty, after working closely with him for the past week. He smiled thinly when he thought of how Rusty’s personality and mannerisms conjured up images of a golden retriever puppy in his mind. Rusty was cheerful, smart, eager to please, and followed him everywhere. All that he lacked was a big, furry tail. And Doug badly needed a friend to talk to.
Doug knew he didn’t make friends easily himself. He had never been able to have anything other than superficial conversations with Marshall, Ayash, or Raskin; usually these centered on corporate finances or anesthetic issues. He got along well with Kim, but certainly wouldn’t consider it a deep relationship. He felt most of the problem wasn’t even his fault. All his life, people had shunned him because of his intelligence and success. Ken Danowski and Mike were the only ones he really confided in, besides Laura of course. Ken was still taking some days off. And Mike, his one, true best friend, wouldn’t be coming in today. Or tomorrow. Tears returned to his eyes. He wiped them away roughly and attended to his next duty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rusty Cramer finally crawled out of bed after beating the snooze button senseless. He had trouble getting up because he knew he didn’t have to; he had already called in sick yesterday. Also, his sleep had been interrupted by wild, unsettling dreams of botched surgery. He could only recall one, but the vividness of the memory shocked him. He had been the patient, and they had been cutting him open awake. The surgeon’s face had been hidden by his mask but was somehow familiar. The pain of the sharp blade had forced him out of his body until his spirit hovered above the OR table. Blood had been spattered everywhere—his own. Finally, when it seemed he could bear no more, someone had appeared to comfort him, wrapped their arms around him, and whispered soothing things in his ear. He had stared up into the eyes of his mother.
Rusty shuddered and shook his head. The dream was so weird because he had no recollection of his mother or, for that matter, his father. He had been told that his parents had died in some horrible accident when he was a baby; no more details were provided. On his way to the bathroom, Rusty tripped over his sneakers and stubbed his toe. He hoped a nice hot shower would calm him down and erase some of his mental fog.
The hot shower felt good indeed, and Rusty languished there, enjoying the unaccustomed freedom of a day off. He stood there, eyes closed, and let the force of the pounding water on his skull drive the tiredness out of his brain. He reminisced back to his days in the Milton S. Hershey Home for Boys, where he had been placed by the state.
Milton Hershey of Hershey Chocolate fame was a renowned philanthropist whose first act of charity was to set up a school for orphaned boys in the early nineteen forties. Rusty admired the man Hershey, and hoped to one day emulate him after he made his own fortune. Rusty felt he owed the man double because one of Hershey’s trust funds had also allowed for the creation of the Medical Center in 1968, where Rusty was currently a med student.
His memories of the orphanage were mostly pleasant; he had known no other home, so it wasn’t bad, like a blind man not missing sight. His family was the boys who shared his house and the counselors who provided love and guidance. Perhaps his lack of a real mother or father had led to his difficulty relating to people genuinely and had helped “Plastic-man” to emerge. He always had trouble trusting people enough to let down his guard and show them his true self. Rusty found it interesting that he felt closer to Dr. Landry and Dr. Carlucci then he had to anybody in a long time. It would’ve been nice to have had a father like one of them.
While in the orphanage, Rusty developed a love of comic books that he shared with many of the boys. Superheroes appealed especially to boys without mothers or fathers. To this day, he couldn’t bear to part with a certain banged up footlocker that housed his cherished collection of comic books. His speech was still laced with trademark expressions from his childhood buddies, Spidey, Torch, and the Caped Crusader.
Only later as he grew up and saw what families were all about did Rusty begin to sense an absence in his life. And so had begun his search for his missing past. After years of frustrating dead ends to the point where he had all but given up hope, he finally hit pay dirt.
A med school buddy tipped him off to a serious Internet missing persons search site. His friend, an antique car buff, told him it had helped him locate some very obscure people on a car title for his sixty-nine ’Vette. Rusty was dubious at first. When he heard about the fees involved, he figured it was just another scam. He reluctantly typed in his credit card number and anted up the twenty dollars required to access the site. It cost ten dollars thereafter for every query with no guarantee of return. But much to Rusty’s surprise and delight, he got closer to the truth than he ever had been—all for under sixty bucks. This is what had led him to Mercy Hospital. Unfortunately, his new information raised some troubling questions, but he had also gotten some fresh leads to track down.
Rusty got out of the shower and toweled off. He felt much better; he of course wasn’t really sick. He quickly threw on some jeans and his favorite sweatshirt, the blue, University of Florida one with the green gator on the front. He ran a brush through his damp red hair and went over his course of action. He planned to drive to Philadelphia to visit the large Municipal Court Building where he could search through birth and death certificates. He also intended to visit the Philadelphia Public Library and read through some microfilmed newspapers. He grabbed his watch from the dresser and checked it—9:15 a.m. Shit! The day’s a-wasting. He’d hit McDonald’s on the way and grab an Egg McMuffin for the turnpike. As he bolted out of his apartment, notepad in hand, he stepped over his neighbor’s newspaper lying upside down on the doormat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Doug walked into the anesthesia call room and flopped down on the sofa. He was exhausted already. It was only lunchtime, and this was his first opportunity to sit down and collect his thoughts. After spending several minutes steeling himself, he called Colleen. In between her pitiful sobbing, he managed to tell her that he and Laura would help in any way possible with the kids and that they would pray for them. He was in tears himself by the time the call ended.
Doug didn’t feel much like eating. He couldn’t stop looking at Mike’s desk, where there was a recent picture of Mike and Colleen with the two kids at Disney world. Everyone was smiling, and it looked like they didn’t have a care in the world.
He walked over to Mike’s desk and grasped the picture to take a closer look. As he lifted it up, a little piece of paper fluttered out from behind it. He would’ve ignored it, but a familiar name caught his attention—Bob Lehman.
He picked up the slip of paper and saw Bob Lehman’s hospital ID number also stamped on it. What would Mike be doi
ng with Bob Lehman’s hospital ID number? Doug was baffled. He finally decided Rusty might know; he had been working with Mike yesterday. He called the Medical Center Anesthesia Department and asked to speak to Rusty. “He’s attending the visiting professor lecture series, I think,” Doug added helpfully. He tapped his foot while waiting and glanced over at the photograph again. Colleen’s arm was wrapped around Mike’s waist with the girls tucked in front and Goofy towering over them from behind. He could almost hear Colleen giggling and the girls squealing. Even Mike looked relaxed. Doug’s eyes threatened to blur again, and he forced himself to look away.
“Uh, the Visiting Professor series is only on Mondays, sir,” the voice on the phone said. “There are no lectures today. Let me see—ah, yes—Dr. Cramer called in sick last night, sounded bad with the flu.”
“I see. Thank you.” That’s odd—Rusty seemed fine yesterday.
Doug called and paged Rusty at the hospital. No answer. It wasn’t like Rusty to play hooky. Doug wondered what Rusty was up to, but his thirty-minute lunch break was over, and he had to get back to work.
Later in the afternoon, the call day grinding on, Doug decided to play a hunch. He knew that Mike had a habit of using his car phone on the way home from work to attend to business matters. Mike had a thirty-minute drive and prided himself on always putting the time to good use. Doug picked up the phone and dialed.
“ConTel phone company. How may I help you?” asked a bored female. Doug envisioned a relatively young employee judging from her high-pitched voice.
“Hi, uh, this is Doctor Landry from Mercy Hospital.” He rarely identified himself as doctor unless he was desperate. “I need to check the phone records for Doctor Carlucci.”
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