Medical Judgment

by Richard L. Mabry M. D.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She saw the security guard walking toward her as she sat in her car in the emergency room parking lot of Centennial Hospital. Without taking her cell phone from her ear, shook her head and gave him an “okay” sign. He turned to walk back into the building.

  “Prince is recovering, and he should be ready for discharge in a couple of days. But I’m wondering if I—”

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Hunter said. “You wonder if you’ll be able to care for him while he heals, since you have work and . . . and this other stuff on your plate. Let me stop you right there. Bring Prince back here after he’s discharged. I’ll take care of him. When he’s ready to go back to full activity, you and I can talk about whether you want to give it another try.”

  “That’s great, Hunter. Thanks so much,” she said. “And you don’t think—”

  “I know what you’re going to ask. And I don’t think you failed in any way,” he said. “I think having a guard dog was a good idea. We had no idea Prince would be in any danger. But if this person would shoot a dog, I’m afraid he’ll go for you next.”

  “I’m not going to let him scare me anymore,” Sarah said. “I have a pistol and know how to use it.” Without conscious thought, she opened the glove compartment and removed the revolver. It felt comforting, sitting on the seat beside her, as she continued to talk with Hunter.

  Sarah wondered if she should tell her father-in-law about her plan to use the pistol to try to capture the person who’d been behind the attacks. No, because if she did, Hunter would be knocking on her door, armed with a rifle or shotgun. And she didn’t want that much help with this. Better keep that to myself for now.

  When the conversation ended, she looked at her watch. Time to get to work. She scooped her phone and some other things into her backpack, climbed out of her car, and headed for the door to the hospital. The security guard saw her through the plate glass of the entrance. He stepped outside, put one hand on the butt of his holstered weapon, and watched her approach.

  “Thought you might want me to walk you in today,” he said as she reached the entrance.

  “No, but thanks.”

  “Well, find me when your shift is over, and I’ll escort you to your car,” he said.

  I may pass on that, but we’ll see. Depends on how tired I am and how brave I feel, I guess.

  * * *

  Alone once more in the detectives’ room at police headquarters, Bill Larson lifted the lid of Dr. Harry Gordon’s laptop and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same results. He wasn’t surprised that the battery was dead. The computer had been sitting unused for many months, and for all Larson knew, the battery was almost depleted when Harry Gordon was killed.

  Fortunately, the laptop was the same brand as Cal’s. Larson rummaged in the other detective’s desk until he found a power cord, which he hooked up to Harry’s computer. He’d give it a few minutes and try again.

  Meanwhile, Larson began to hunt through mug shots, looking for pictures of the two men he’d seen laying carpet at Sarah’s. He couldn’t be sure, couldn’t put his finger on the details, but his cop sense told him the men were criminals. Maybe he’d seen their picture, maybe he’d seen the men in person, or perhaps it was just a hunch. But it was a hunch he wanted to follow up.

  Almost an hour later he found a picture and record for one of them. The younger of the two men, Carl Washington, had been arrested about eight months ago for car theft. After some legal wrangling, which Larson remembered, Washington was charged with and found guilty of theft. Apparently his lawyer’s plea for leniency had some effect on the judge, though, because he gave Washington the minimum sentence for the felony. He served six months, and after his release from jail he had stayed out of trouble with the law—so far. Larson decided that although Washington was a convicted felon, he probably didn’t present much danger to Sarah.

  Larson searched available mug shots in vain for pictures of the older man, but found nothing for Darrell Kline. Had he perhaps seen that face some years ago when he was a detective in Minnesota? No, apparently not. Finally, Larson did what most people do nowadays when they want a question answered. He did a Google search. And there he struck pay dirt with older stories from the local Jameson paper as well as the larger Dallas News.

  Darrell Kline had been arrested while attempting to hold up a local bank. After a rather speedy trial, he was convicted of aggravated robbery. The man served six years in prison before he was released. As Larson put it together, he discovered Kline left prison about the time of Dr. Harry Gordon’s death.

  Larson dug a little deeper until he found more details about Kline’s crime and the trial that followed. One of the articles after the sentence was handed down quoted the jury foreman as saying, “It probably took us less than an hour of deliberation to find him guilty.” That foreman was a surgeon just setting up his practice in Jameson. His name? Harry Gordon.

  18

  The emergency room was filling up, but this wasn’t unusual for the day and time. Sarah had heard another ER doctor call Sunday afternoon, “Old Dad’s day.” It was his theory that children visiting their parents at this time would sometimes find that their father or mother had not been feeling well. Whether the problem was chronic or acute, guilt would overcome a few of them to the point they would bring the aging parent to the emergency room, hoping to assuage their feelings by seeking medical attention for the parent before the day ended.

  Just as Sarah was about to enter the combination break room–locker room to stow her backpack, Connie emerged. “Typical Sunday afternoon?” Sarah asked.

  “Looks like it. I just came on duty. When I checked in with the triage nurse at the front desk, she warned me about the man who’s in cubicle three with his father.”

  “What’s up?”

  “He visited his father for what was probably the first time in a couple of months and found him on the sofa in the living room. Looked like he’d had a stroke a day or two earlier that left him unable to care for himself, and since he lived alone, he’d been lying there for quite a while and was in pretty bad shape. Rather than calling 9-1-1, the son loaded his dad into his own car and rushed him here.”

  “I might have done the same thing in the stress of the moment,” Sarah said. “I presume the doctor is looking at the father now.”

  “He would, but the paramedics brought in a patient in cardiac arrest at about the same time. Dr. Crenshaw is dealing with the man who coded, so no doctor has seen the stroke patient yet.”

  “I’ll look at him,” Sarah said. “I’ll just stow—”

  “I want a doctor in here, and I want one now!” The voice came from the area of cubicle three. Sarah looked and saw that the son had pulled aside the curtains and now stood in the open space in front of the gurney where his father lay. He brandished a large, boxy-looking black pistol. “If I don’t see a doctor or nurse heading this way in ten seconds, I’m going to start shooting.”

  Sarah held up her hand and waved. “I’m coming,” she said, her voice a bit louder than usual. “No need to shoot anyone. Just give me a second.” She held up the backpack, signaling that she wanted to put it away before heading toward him. As she did, she thought it was a bit heavier than usual. Then she realized what had happened. Her pistol had been lying on the seat of her car. When she scooped up the things there and shoved them into the backpack, the gun came with them.

  The man with the weapon was looking away now, scanning the ER for anyone moving toward him. Sarah’s first instinct was to pull out the gun and fire a shot into his shoulder. She’d been pretty good on the firing range, but was she that good? If she missed, she might hit a bystander. And if the man shot back, he might wound or even kill her or one of the other people in the ER. She actually had the gun out of the backpack, ready to fire, but at the last minute she jammed it back inside and quickly closed the zipper.

  Maybe she could calm him down without adding another gun to th
e mix, without putting anyone in danger. Her decision made, she handed her backpack to Connie. “Put this in your locker for now,” she said. Then she began walking slowly toward cubicle three, hands held wide with the palms facing him. “I’m coming,” she said in a firm voice. “Put that pistol away. I’m going to need your cooperation and maybe your help. Let’s do something for your father.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Sarah and Connie sat in the break room sipping cups of hot tea. “You handled that well. I would have been scared to death,” Connie said.

  “I was,” Sarah said. “But everything worked out okay.”

  “I like the way you were able to talk the distraught son into putting away his gun. He looked to have enough firepower to clean out the whole ER.”

  “While I was checking over his dad, I got him talking. The man bragged that his gun was a seventeen-shot Glock, whatever that is. I got the impression this wasn’t the first time he’d used it to get his way, either. Anyway, I kept him engaged as I started an IV and got some oxygen going on his father. Then an armed security guard and a policeman, responding to a call from the triage desk, were able to subdue the son and lead him away in handcuffs.”

  “What about his dad?” Connie asked.

  “There’s no doubt he’s had a recent stroke. We contacted his family doctor, who in turn called in a neurologist. After the man’s discharged, he’ll probably need to go to a rehab center.”

  Connie looked around to make sure they were alone. “You know, that backpack of yours seemed a little heavier than usual, and it made sort of a ‘clunk’ when I put it into my locker. If I had to guess, I’d swear there was a gun in there. Matter of fact, I thought for a second I saw you take one out.”

  Sarah nodded. “I did. I don’t have my concealed-carry permit yet, so I usually lock it in the glove compartment when I leave my car. Today, I inadvertently scooped it up into my backpack with some other things.”

  “So why did you decide not to use it?”

  Sarah had considered that question a dozen times since she approached the man with the gun. “If I pulled out my revolver, I might have shot the man who had the pistol. But if I showed a gun, he could have shot first, and there was no telling who might have been wounded or killed. I didn’t think it was the best move, so I decided to try to handle the situation without force.”

  “And it worked out fine,” Connie said. “Does this mean you’re going to give up having a pistol with you in case your stalker or whatever you want to call him keeps showing up?”

  Sarah put down her cup. “I really don’t know.” She rose and started for the door. “I’ll handle that decision when the time comes. Right now, I guess I’d better get back to seeing patients. I have a job to do.”

  * * *

  Before he left his desk, Larson thought about how best to approach Darrell Kline. After a moment’s consideration, he decided he probably should start with Kline’s boss. The workman was at Sarah Gordon’s laying carpet this afternoon, but it was likely he had at least one or two other jobs for today. On the other hand, Tom Oliver was probably at home on a Sunday afternoon.

  Larson decided to call first. He found Oliver’s Yellow Pages ad under the heading Restoration Services. There was a twenty-four-hour number listed. Larson also found the same number and name, Oliver Construction, under Security Systems and General Repairs. He wasn’t surprised. Tom Oliver probably was willing to take on multiple types of jobs, so long as he could get paid. In a mid-sized town like Jameson, Texas, that was what it took to make a living.

  He dialed the number and after five rings a man’s voice answered. “Tom Oliver.”

  “Mr. Oliver, this is Detective Bill Larson. You did some restoration work for Dr. Sarah Gordon.” Larson didn’t make it a question, and Oliver didn’t respond. “I need to ask you some questions about your crew.”

  “Has there been a problem? I told Dr. Gordon to let me know if I need to redo something. Why would the police be involved?”

  “This has nothing to do with your performance of the work. It’s just that a name has come up in the course of one of my investigations, and I need to ask you about the man.”

  There was a slight pause. “I’ll do what I can to help, but I don’t see how—”

  “Just a couple of questions, Mr. Oliver,” Larson said. “Would you like me to come by your house?”

  “No, no,” Oliver said. “Can’t this be done by phone?”

  “Sure,” Larson said. “To begin with, how did you come to hire Darrell Kline?”

  “Are you going to harass him because he’s an ex-con?” Oliver asked. “Look, just because a man’s made a mistake, once he’s paid his debt to society I think he deserves a second chance. Unfortunately, not everybody feels that way, but I believe it’s possible for a man to change. I knew Darrell just got out of prison when I hired him. But he seemed to have turned his life around, and I had no problem putting him to work.”

  “Mr. Oliver, I don’t imagine Darrell answered an ad in the paper. What I’d like to know is if someone contacted you on his behalf.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Oliver answered. “I got a call from a friend who explained Darrell’s situation and said he needed a job. I told him to send him over. I liked what I saw of Kline, so I hired him.”

  “And what friend was this who called you?”

  “It was the man who defended Darrell Kline at his original trial, the same lawyer who helped my son when he got into trouble. Kyle Andrews.”

  * * *

  After lunch with his pastor, Kyle debated going home for a Sunday afternoon nap. Then again, he really wasn’t sleepy. Maybe he should catch up on the work that seemed to pile up on his desk faster than he could dispose of it. At home, he searched through his briefcase only to find that the material he needed was at his office. So that’s where he went.

  After Kyle had been working for a couple of hours, the words began to run together. That’s enough. I need to give it up and head home. The lawyer figured the balance of his day would involve eating pizza in front of the TV set until sleep claimed him. But the ring of his phone changed those plans.

  The call wasn’t to his private line into the office, so he knew it wasn’t from one of his two law partners or the practice’s secretary, the only people who had that number. It was to his cell. That number was known to lots of people, many of them clients, and the caller ID didn’t help, since it showed “blocked number.” That could mean it was from a telephone solicitor, but it might also mean a collect call from the local jail or from someone he represented who preferred not to have their number displayed. As an attorney who often did criminal defense, Kyle expected calls like that.

  “Kyle Andrews,” he said.

  “Mr. Andrews, this is Detective Bill Larson. Do you have a moment to talk?”

  There was nothing in the detective’s words or even his tone of voice to betray what was behind the call. Had the detective perhaps come up with a clue to the person behind the attacks on Sarah? And, if so, why would he be calling Kyle? There was one way to find out. “Certainly. How can I help?”

  “I have some questions for you, and I wonder if it would be convenient for me to talk with you.”

  When he worked at his office and no one was around, one of the first things Kyle did was slip off his shoes. He did that primarily so that he could put his stocking feet on the desk without his secretary fussing at him the next day for scarring the mahogany surface. Even though the detective couldn’t see him, the lawyer shoved his feet back into his shoes and sat up straight at his desk. Then he said, “Sure. Fire away.”

  “I’d rather not do this over the phone,” Larson said. “Would you like me to come to your home? Or perhaps it would be better for you to come down to the police station.”

  The average citizen might have been scared by the last sentence that Larson seemed to have tossed in carelessly, but Kyle had been a practicing attorney for too long to be frightened of either poli
ce or their place of business. On the other hand, if Larson came to Kyle’s office, the attorney might have what he thought of as a home field advantage. “I’m in my office, and that will do fine. Just knock on the door when you get here, and I’ll let you in.”

  Kyle sat up, letting his feet hit the floor with a thump. As he tied the laces of the wing-tips he’d worn to church that morning, he wondered what Larson wanted. He retrieved his coat from the hanger on the back of his office door and straightened his tie. He made sure the door from his private office to the waiting room was wide open, then reseated himself at his desk to wait for the detective. What did he want? No telling. But whatever it was, Kyle was certain that years of experience in a courtroom had prepared him to handle anything Larson might throw at him.

  * * *

  Bill Larson read the words inscribed in black paint on the glass-paneled door: “Andrews, Gilmore, and Stark, LLC. Attorneys at Law.” He tried the knob and found the door locked. He rattled it a couple of times, then raised his hand to knock, but before he could tap on the door, it opened.

  “Come in,” Kyle Andrews said. “Forgive me for not leaving the door unlocked, but I think you can see why that wouldn’t be a good idea for a criminal attorney alone in his office on a weekend.”

  “Quite all right,” Larson said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  Andrews closed the door and locked it behind Larson. Then he led him into an inner office and pointed to a sofa in one corner of the room. “Why don’t we sit there? It’s a lot more comfortable than the client chairs.”

  Larson eased down onto the leather upholstery. He wondered how many times the attorney had stretched out for a nap on this comfortable bit of furniture. It was probably a good thing that no such convenience was available at the police station. If the detective wanted to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep while putting in late hours on a case, he had to use a small cot in a back room, one that seemed to have been designed by the same people who devised the rack and other similar devices of torture. If something like this were available to him, Larson figured he might spend all his time napping on it.