Murder Ward

by Warren Murphy

  Remo did not answer. He was watching the doctor at the side of the bed. What was his name…Dr. Demmet? He was pounding on the woman’s chest with a fist. The electrocardiogram was now smoothly beeping along, rolling hills, gentle valleys. Demmet pounded hard. “Live, Goddamnit, live,” he cried.

  “Ummmm,” Remo said. “Yes, a shock. Her son, Nathan. They were very close.” As he watched the doctor, he did not see the glint in Kathy Hahl’s eyes as he mentioned the name “Nathan.” No one had said anything about a Nathan. She suddenly realized that Mr. Williams was not just an eccentric billionaire; he was something more. And dangerous.

  Demmet clenched his fists and shook them in front of his own face in frustration. “All right,” he said, his voice heavy and sullen. “You can stop now. She’s gone.”

  He looked up to where Remo and Kathy Hahl stood.

  “I couldn’t save her,” he said to Kathy Hahl across Mrs. Wilberforce’s dead body.

  “That’s a terrible shame, Dr. Demmet,” Kathy Hahl said, and Remo thought he detected sarcasm. “Beyond the reach of your medical skill, no doubt.”

  Demmet looked at her, then down at the patient, and as Remo watched, the anger at her death seemed to drain from his face, and was replaced by something resembling relief. He paused a moment, then turned and walked out of the emergency room. Now that was strange, Remo thought. Dr. Demmet might bear some watching.

  “He seems to be taking it very hard,” Remo said conversationally to Kathy Hahl.

  “Yes,” she said. “Some doctors get personally involved. It makes their lives difficult.” She paused, then said brightly, “And you, Mr. Williams, has everything been all right?”

  “Fine,” Remo said.

  “Medical service all right?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve brought my own physician. He won’t let anybody else touch me.”

  “Plan to be here long?” she asked.

  What’d she say she was? Assistant administrator? That might do. She might be just the person to put out the rumor Remo wanted put out around the hospital.

  He leaned over to her conspiratorially. “Not too long. Just until some Internal Revenue wiseguys get off my back.”

  “Oh, I see. Tax problems.”

  “The curse of the billionaire class,” Remo said.

  “Well, let’s hope they resolve themselves.”

  “Yes, let’s hope.”

  “I live in the hospital, Mr. Williams. The switchboard can always reach me. If you want anything…anything at all, or if I can help, don’t hesitate to call me at any hour. Day or night.” She looked at Remo with a gaze that was all electric.

  By the time he got back to his room, Remo felt pretty good. In the hospital only a few hours and already he had a suspect in that Dr. Demmet. And he had already put out the word that he had tax problems and might be appreciative of some help in getting rid of them. That might promote an offer. All in all, a good day’s work. All head and no muscle. No more Scrantons. He would intellect his way through this case. Yes, he would. And when he was done and he had tied up the solution neatly, with no blood and no killing, why Smith would be delighted and even Chiun would have to admit that Remo could figure out a thing or two.

  Yes, indeed.

  In Remo’s view, a plan planned was as good as an act acted. He already tasted the glow of victory. He paused outside his hospital suite, then pushed open the door and jumped into the room, his white robe swirling about him, his stethoscope flopping against his chest.

  “Da daaaaaa,” he trumpeted.

  “What is this da daaaaa?” asked Chiun who was now seated at the window, looking out over the hideousness which was downtown Baltimore a few miles away.

  “That’s called a triumphant entry,” said Remo. “I am Dr. Lance Ravenel come to save the world from the agony of psoriasis.”

  “Silence your face,” said Chiun. “Dr. Ravenel is no fit subject for your retarded sense of levity.”

  “Ummmm,” said Remo, feeling as if the air of joy had been squooshed out of him. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that is so. Dr. Ravenel is a noble member of a noble profession. The profession of healing. You see how he makes people well again in the beautiful stories.”

  “Those are only stories.”

  “There is more truth in those stories than in your so-called facts,” Chiun said.

  “Pfooey.”

  “Do you tell me there is no truth in how Dr. Ravenel heals the ill?”

  “Remember in San Francisco? You told me illness is a sign of lack of discipline on the part of the patient? You’ve changed your mind?”

  “No. That is what causes illness. But if doctors cannot get people to think right and end their illness, then they must do it some other way. It is a gift they have. You should not denigrate. Least of all, you, who have no gifts at all.”

  “Since when did you become a spokesman for the AMA?”

  “I do not know what it is, this AMA, but if it involves speaking only the truth, then I am for it.”

  Remo only grunted, thoroughly down now after having been so up. Victory no longer seemed as assured as it had when he jumped through the door. There was work yet to be done.

  And he had something else to think about. The aging of Mrs. Wilberforce had been nagging at his brain, and he realized now what it reminded him of. Anthony Stace in Scranton. Remo had been looking for a vigorous middle-aged man and instead had found a parchment-brittle old specter who seemed to welcome death in preference to being old.

  Had it happened to him, too? That sudden aging? And what was it he had told Remo? “Stay away from hospitals.” Had it happened to him too? Kathy Hahl had said shock could produce that kind of effect, but Remo had never heard of shock this severe.

  “Chiun, how does a man grow old?”

  “By donating the best years of his life to an ungrateful whelp who does not even acknowledge the finest of gifts.” Chiun was still angry.

  “Chiun, for a minute, forget Barbra Streisand. I just saw a woman die. Three days ago, she was a big, strong, loud hulk who could’ve busted a bear’s back.”

  “It sounds like no great loss,” Chiun said.

  “No. But just now, she looked a hundred years old. She was thin and wrinkled. Dammit, Chiun, she was old. And a week ago, I ran into a man who was the same way. Overnight, he had aged.”

  “And you do not understand it?”

  “No,” Remo said.

  “There are many things in the world we do not understand. How does an American meat-eater learn the secrets of Sinanju? What makes him able to climb a wall, to break a bond, to withstand a potion?”

  Remo waited for Chiun to answer his own questions as he usually did, but there was no answer. Remo said, “I changed, Chiun. That’s how I was able to do these things.”

  “And you changed because you willed yourself to change.”

  “Are you saying these people got old because they willed themselves to?”

  “No,” Chiun said. “I say they grew old because they did not will themselves to stay young. Perhaps one of your country’s special medicines made them old. But it could not have happened unless they allowed it. No one changes unless he allows himself to change. They grow old only who have been waiting to grow old.”

  “Thank you for no answer at all.”

  “Call upon me anytime,” Chiun said, and returned his gaze to the window.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “HIS NAME IS DOCTOR DEMMET. No, I don’t know the first name. Just Demmet.”

  “A minute,” Smith said. “Let me run that through the computer.”

  Remo heard the telephone being placed down, then he heard Smith working at the small computer console in his office. Thirty seconds later, the phone was picked up.

  “If there is anything, we should have it in a minute or so,” Smith said. “What about this Demmet? Why him?”

  “I don’t really know,” Remo said. “It was just the look on his face in the emergency room.” Remo thought
back, saw again Demmet’s strained thin-lipped face, his obvious mixed emotions when Mrs. Wilberforce began to sink. His frenzied effort to save her, to keep her alive, but then the look of relief on his face when there was nothing else he could do for her. “It was just the way he looked,” Remo said again.

  “Not much in the way of concrete information,” Smith said drily. “Hardly twenty-five-thousand dollars worth.”

  “Well, actually,” Remo said testily, “I was thinking of distributing a questionnaire to the staff here. Which one of you is a killer? If not you, list five suspects in descending order of probability. Then when I get them all together, I was going to ship them to you and you could run them through that idiot computer, which would probably decide that the guilty party was me. Dammit, of course I don’t have anything concrete yet, I just got here.”

  “Wait,” Smith interrupted. “The printout’s coming.”

  He paused for a full minute, then began to read;

  “Demmet, Daniel, M.D. Born in Elkton, Maryland.”

  “Skip the who’s who. Get on with it, please,” Remo said.

  Smith paused a moment, then said, “Demmet was one of the consulting physicians when Nathan Wilberforce died. He was the anesthesiologist when Boulder, the IRS man, died.”

  “Is that concrete enough for you?” Remo gloated.

  “It is highly suggestive,” Smith said.

  “Suggestive, my left nostril. It’s solid.”

  “Suggestive. I’d keep a weather eye on Demmet if I were you.”

  “Thank you,” Remo said testily. “And if you were me, what would you do if you saw a woman age forty years in a couple of days?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Remo realized that suddenly Smith was fully attentive.

  He told the director about Anthony Stace, and then about Mrs. Wilberforce. There was silence on the phone when he finished.

  “Not so quick with your suggestions now, are you?” Remo said. “You sometimes seem to have the idea it’s easy out here in the field. I don’t think you have any real concept of the kind of work I do.”

  “Mediocre work, generally,” Smith said. “On the aging business, I have no explanation. I’ll try to get autopsy reports on the two bodies.”

  “You do that. You do that. And in the meantime, I’ll stay here doing the hard, difficult work that solves problems like this.”

  “I’m touched,” Smith said. “I hadn’t realized how hard you work.”

  “That’s the trouble,” Remo said. “No one realizes how hard I work.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Smith hung up.

  Remo put the phone carefully back, restraining his impulse to break it into little plastic chips, only because the bill for the phone would go to Smith and he didn’t want to have to put up with that again. He looked around the large sitting room, illuminated now only by the conical splash of light from the high-intensity lamp on the wall over his head.

  Chiun slept on a thin mat in a corner of the room. Remo watched him, then went into the bedroom and lay on the bed. Slowly, he began to breathe deeply, down into the pit of his stomach, to try to rid himself of his tension and annoyance. Breathe. Deep. Down into the groin. Hold it. Release. Two counts for inhale. Two counts for hold. Two counts for slow exhale. He did it again and again. And again.

  The breathing exercise blotted out his surroundings. His perceptions eased. His level of consciousness lowered. Tension began to drain from his body and mind. Pure silence. Pure rest.

  “Hnnnnnkkkkk.” The noise was like an unoiled buzz saw ripping wet green wood. It went through Remo’s ears like an icepick. What the hell was that?

  “Hnnnnnnkkkkk” came the sound again, even louder this time.

  It was Chiun. Snoring.

  “Knock that off, Chiun,” Remo yelled at the open door.

  “Hnnnnnnkkkkkk.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Remo growled. He got up out of the bed and slammed the door.

  Before he returned to his bed, it came again.

  “Hnnnnnnkkkkkk.”

  Remo went out into the sitting room and looked over at the sleeping Chiun.

  What he would have liked to do would have been to go over to Chiun and put his toe into Chiun’s side and get him to stop the snoring. What he would not have liked would have been the broken leg, or worse, that would be sure to follow.

  “How’s a guy supposed to sleep around here?” he asked aloud.

  “Hnnnnnkkkkkk.”

  Remo slipped on his gumsoled shoes and walked out into the now darkened hospital hallway. His annoyance bubbled in him and momentarily he considered introducing the entire hospital staff to Remo’s unique of way of observing the Feast of the Pig. No. Smith would go nuts over another Scranton.

  Instead he walked the corridors, at first hearing his gumsoled shoes squish against the highly polished marble floor, then trying to forget his mind in his body, and practicing walking silently, soundlessly.

  He found a dark corridor around the corner from his room, and began to practice the Ninja side crawl. He stood with his back to the wall, then began to move down the hallway, left foot crossing over right, right left lifting and extending full, then left over again. Back and forth, he did it, faster and faster, until he was moving with the speed of a sprinter. Four times down the corridor, four times back. It did no good, and on his last return trip, he heard his gumsole squeak once on the final move, and the sloppiness only increased his annoyance.

  He ran straight up along the corridor, through a fire door, down to the next floor, along the corridor, down another flight of steps to the next floor, along another corridor, practicing moving silently, and he finally pushed open a fire door, to find himself in the hallway next to the clinic’s main lobby. He still was not tired, he was not breathing hard, and he wasn’t at peace with himself.

  He went back up the stairs to the fifth floor, and moved away from his room, down a long corridor to the back section of the new wing where there were more patient’s rooms. He stood listening to the breathing of the patients. A nurse’s station should be down the hall and he turned his hearing in that direction. He could hear a ball point pen skidding through its greasy ink across a piece of paper. The nurse was there writing. But maybe it wasn’t the nurse. He listened harder. He could hear the faint rustling crackle of a hard fabric, moving in unison with the pen. It was probably a nurse’s nylon uniform. Good enough, he thought.

  He trained his attention on the door of the third room down the hall. It was slightly ajar.

  Remo tried to blot out all other sounds on the floor. He listened intently. Yes. Two people were in that room. Both men. No, wait. One was a woman. The man’s breath was shallow and nasal. The woman’s breath deeper and slower.

  No, Remo, you’re wrong. What would a woman be doing in a hospital room with a man?

  He listened again. No. It was a man and a woman. Even if it shouldn’t be.

  That would be all he needed tonight to make the evening complete, a failure on his listening exercises.

  He moved along the near wall until he was opposite the slightly opened door. He still could not see the nurse—if it was a nurse—at her desk.

  He moved across the marble floor through the swinging door into the dark room. There were two beds there. A man in one, a woman in another.

  Okay. The hearing had been right. He felt pretty good. Still he wondered what a man and woman were doing in the same room. What was this—a coed hospital? Was nothing sacred anymore?

  Feeling relieved and rested, he walked out into the hallway. He looked down the hall and saw the nurse at her station, writing patients’ reports. She chose that moment to look up and see him. Her face widened with surprise. Her hand instinctively reached for the telephone.

  Remo walked toward her, smiling.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Who are you?” she said, her hand still on the telephone.

  “Well, actually, I’m an undercover investigator for the state anti
-vice and morals commission and I’m wondering what that man and woman are doing together in Room 561.”

  “That’s Mr. Downheimer. His wife is staying with him while he recovers from surgery. But who said you could come up here?”

  “Nothing stops me in the search for immorality,” Remo said. “It must be rooted out wherever it is, if we’re going to preserve the moral fiber of the republic. This is a republic, you know, and not a democracy.”

  “But…”

  “A lot of people think it’s a democracy, but it’s not really. Ask Chiun. He thinks it’s an empire, but actually that’s wrong too, you know. A republic. That’s all, a republic.”

  “I think I’m going to call an attendant,” she said, lifting the receiver.

  “I never met an attendant who knew the difference between a democracy and a republic,” Remo said. “But if you think he can take part in our conversation, why go ahead and call him. Actually, though, it was getting late and I was going to leave.”

  “The attendant will show you out,” she said.

  “Out? I’m not going out. I’m just going back to my room.”

  “Where’s your room?” The nurse was blonde and pert, and wore a name tag of Nancy. Remo thought for a moment to invite her to his room. But no, Chiun would get upset. Besides she looked like a good nurse and that meant she wouldn’t leave her station.

  “I’m in Room 515,” Remo said. “Over that way.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Mr. Williams.”

  The Mr. Williams?”

  “I don’t know if I’m the Mr. Williams. I’m just plain old Mr. Williams. Just another average, fun-loving, tax-dodging billionaire hermit.”

  The nurse was flustered. “Oh, Oh.” She took her hand away from the telephone, “I had heard you were on this floor, but I never thought I’d see you.”

  “Do me a favor, Nancy, and don’t tell anyone else I’m here. I don’t want reporters around. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. You working again tomorrow night?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “Fine. Maybe I’ll sneak out to see you again and we can talk some more.”