Evasion (12 page)

What does it say about a man’s intrigue and presence in society when one of the most interesting things you can say about him has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with a particular patient he treated – or, in the case of Citino, he wasn’t even the lead physician, but rather an intern charged with doing some of the menial tasks and examinations.

Taking no chances that he would miss anything, Scott dug deep on all of the patients and surgeries Citino had performed – he only realized what he’d been hoping to find when nothing came up. He’d been expecting and hoping, perhaps, to find a pattern of carelessness or previous errors and mistakes in surgery. He’d been hoping he could find some sort of evidence that would prove Citino had a history of errors, a history of botched surgeries, a history perhaps, even, of medical malpractice suits held against him – anything that would allow Scott the opportunity to prove his negligence and hold him responsible, legally, for his father’s death.

But there was nothing there. No errors, no malpractice suits in which he was the main attending surgeon, no skeletons in any of the closets.

The man’s credit history was pretty straight-line and standard. He’d had student loans and paid them off in a timely fashion, particularly considering the incredible costs he had incurred going to medical school. But his payments were always on time, as were his credit card statement payments. He made the occasional car repair or furniture or appliance purchase on his VISA, and either paid the entire balance the day the statement came in or, with larger purchases, made the regular monthly payment plus additional funds in order to bring the balance down more quickly. But he never held a balance for more than six months, and, for the most part, kept a zero balance on his single credit card.

Pretty much the only interesting financial transaction that Scott could find had to do with the small house on Ramsey Lake that Citino owned.  He’d bought it a few years after becoming a surgeon, at about the time his loans were pretty close to being paid off.  He’d made the small five percent down-payment required and paid the bank in rapid bi-weekly payments.  Once every six months he would make an additional lump sum payment on the mortgage – and that’s where Scott became confused. The money had come from a savings account Citino had set up, an account towards which he regularly deposited ten percent of each of his paychecks.

But, when Scott looking into the history of that savings account, he found there were additional funds trickling in to the account from an outside source. Getting to the source had been challenging, but Scott found they were coming from an offshore account in the name of an Alexander Citino, the surgeon’s uncle on his father’s side. According to medical records, Alexander Citino had died three decades earlier, and, childless, had bequeathed his accumulated wealth to his one nephew, Maurice.

When Scott dug back deep enough, he saw that, throughout Citino’s school and medical career, the funds had been steadily coming in. Nothing spectacular, but enough to make a small positive difference.

What was strange was that, after a decade and a half of the same monthly fund – Two hundred and fifty dollars – being deposited into Citino’s account, at about the time the surgeon had purchased his house, the funds changed such that every second month two thousand and five hundred dollars was being deposited  instead of two hundred and fifty.

Scott couldn’t figure out why or how the deposit pattern had suddenly changed, but, recognizing this matter likely had nothing to do with Citino’s competency as a physician or surgeon, he let the matter go.

He didn’t just look into Citino’s life.  He spent several weeks uncovering as much information as he could about the surgery itself, the surgery’s history, how often incidents like his father’s had occurred, who the manufacturer of the clips were, what surgery’s they were used on, as well as a host of other medical instruments and supplies that the same company produced.

There was nothing that came up in his research that suggested to him a pattern he could use to lay the blame for his father’s death on the manufacturer.

He’d been about to look back into Citino’s uncle, to determine where the money had come from, when an article in the Ottawa Citizen popped up mentioning the surgeon.

Sudbury Surgeon Presumed Dead In Horrific Accident
 

Dr. Maurice Citino, a Sudbury region surgeon who grew up in the Ottawa valley and attended University of Ottawa, was driving along the Rocliffe Parkway early Sunday morning when his vehicle lost control, crashed through the guardrails and plunged into the Ottawa River.
 

Emergency crews were called from a nearby residents reported the sounds of screeching tires and the crash. The resident, who asked not to be named, said that he was just letting his dog back in from the back yard, when he heard the noise.
 

“At first I thought it was teens racing,” the resident said, explaining that teens often used the parkway as a race zone, trying to recreate scenes out of
The Fast & The Furious
. “Because I heard the roaring engines and screeching tires. But then I heard the crash. I let the dog in, closed the door and ran through the house to the front door to see what was going on.
 

“At first I couldn’t see nothing,” the resident continued. “The parkway was empty and there were no cars in sight at all.  I thought I might see a car up against the rails, which isn’t all that uncommon around that hairpin turn. But
then, when the clouds shifted and the moonlight shone through, I could see the broken guard rail. That’s when I knew.”
 

The resident reported that this was the third time he had seen an accident like this in the five years he has lived in the home.
 

“Sure, there are a lot of cars that hit the rail. Maybe one every second week. But only three so far have broken through. He was driving real fast. That I could hear before the crash.”
 

Ottawa Fire & Rescue were the first to arrive, and they deployed a team to descend the cliff, looking for survivors.  “Sometimes cars get lodged in the trees on the side of the cliff,” Lieutenant Mike Lazarius explained. “But there was nothing lodged in any of the foliage that we could see with our flashlights, so we started to make our way down.”
 

The car wasn’t found until almost two hours later, just as the sun was coming up.  Lazarius and his team located the car completely submerged about half a kilometer downstream from the crash site. The car was empty. No survivors, nor any victims.
 

“Those waters move pretty quickly this time of year,” Lazarius said. “If somebody was in that car and managed to get out, it was unlikely they would have been able to fight the current enough to get back to shore.  They most likely would have been carried further downstream and into the rapids.” Lazarius was referring to the rapids located another hundred yards downstream from where the vehicle was found.
 

The crew dragged the water and also scouted along the shore and through the trees of the cliff until mid-day on Sunday, but no bodies were found.
 

While the occupants of the car could not be determined for certain, police did confirm that the vehicle was registered to Dr. Maurice Citino, a Sudbury area surgeon. Citino was registered at an academic conference at the University of Ottawa, the school he received his undergrad degree from.
 

According to colleagues and the conference registration records, Citino arrived in town two nights earlier and was scheduled to do a presentation on Monday morning. But he never arrived and has not been seen since.
 

Citino was assumed to be in the vehicle, as the sole occupant of the car at the time of the crash and is presumed dead. No next of kin have been identified.
 

Police are asking anybody who might have been in contact with Citino on Sunday evening, or anybody who might be able to provide information helpful to their investigation to contact them at 613-555-5469.
 

As the week went on, Scott found a few other articles referring to the crash, along with a follow-up series of the dangers of stunt driving, an account of the history of crashes that had taken place on the Rockcliffe Parkway over the years, and a plea, by a local residents, to install speed-calming measures on three different areas of the Parkway that were prone to similar accidents.

Citino was only mentioned, very briefly, in a couple of follow up articles. No new information was provided, simply the fact that Citino was still missing and presumed dead and that no bodies were recovered.

The Sudbury area paper ran a couple of short articles about the surgeon missing, with a request from the local police detachment to have anybody who might be able to assist in the search for the missing surgeon to contact them.

Another week later, Scott found a memorial post up on the Laurentian University Hospital website. It was a simple picture, one of the three staff photos he had previously been able to find of Citino, and this one, in Scott’s opinion, being one of the less attractive pictures of the man, with a few lines of text.

IN MEMORIUM, the article read, and then mentioned Citino had been a surgeon at the hospital for ten years, had been a graduate of Laurentian’s medical school, and did not have any family.

The whole thing threw Scott into a depression.

His father’s death had overwhelmed him, for sure.

But Citino’s death, and the utter lack of any lasting legacy, seemed even harder on Scott.

Sure, he had originally been looking at the surgeon to try to lay some sort of blame on him for his father’s death. Citinio had become a focal point, something that Scott could channel a huge degree of his anger, resentment and hatred towards. Looking into Citino’s past, trying to find something – anything – on him that could lay the groundwork for blaming him, holding him responsible for Lionel Desmond’s death, kept Scott going, gave him the forward momentum to keep going in the face of the incredible angst and pain he’d felt with his father’s loss.

But when Citino died like that, completely unexpectedly, it had a bizarre and unique effect on him.

Scott mused about Citino’s unremarkable life, at the fact that this fifty-eight year old surgeon, somebody who had achieved something unique, a medical degree, a life dedicated to the Hippocratic Oath, to healing others, could be gone so quickly, so easily, and with virtually nothing to show for it.

The loss of Scott’s father happened unexpectedly and had hit Scott powerfully. But he had been so consumed with anger and wanting to blame someone, that he had allowed his pursuit of investigation to keep him going, keep him from thinking about the mortality in front of him.

But when Citino also died, Scott had no choice but to reflect back on that, reflect on death, on the finality of it all. Sure, Lionel Desmond had his wife and his son; he had some sort of legacy, people who would remember him, and cherish him and, in the manner Scott had been doing these past weeks, fight on his behalf. But Citino had nobody – no family, no friends. He had lived a life dedicated mostly to his profession as a doctor, as a surgeon.

Scott’s father had fishing, a passion that had kept him going beyond work, given him something to purse in his spare time. Citino didn’t seem to have any hobbies, any passions outside of work.

All he had, it seemed, was work, was his job.

And when he died, there was nothing.

Scott couldn’t help but reflect on his own life, on his own situation, on the manner by which he had pursued the things he had gone after.

He enjoyed the computer skills he had perfected. And he made a significant amount of money doing the black market work he had done. He had become known through hacker circles as a proficient expert, someone who could be turned to perform remarkable tasks, hack into systems that nobody else seemed capable of.

He was, by many different measures, at the top of his field.

But beyond his hacking skills, beyond his reputation, beyond the money he could command for the tasks, the selective manner by which he was in such high demand that he could easily turn down three out of every five jobs that came his way, what did Scott really have?

Nothing.

Sure, the money he made had allowed him to spend almost a full month of investigating his father’s death, of taking no jobs, not needing to answer any phone calls, any emails.  He had enough money to comfortably live on while he pursued this investigation. He had enough money put away, in fact, to allow him to continue to live comfortably for at least another four months while pursuing his quest.

But to what end?

What did Scott really have?

He had work, he had his skills, and he had money.

But that was it.

Like Citino, that was pretty much all he had.

He spiraled into a deep depression for several days, continually speculating about what his own obituary might say about him. Would anyone even write one for him?

He doubted it.

Then then thought back to all of the times his father had reflected on Scott’s grandfather’s life.

Sure, the man had died quite young.  But he had been a war hero; he had brought his family something to be proud of. His life, though short-lived, had served a greater purpose.

Scott’s father had never gone anywhere without carrying around a picture of his father. He even kept those secret photos of his Dad locked away in his tackle box.

Lionel Desmond carried the legacy, the memory of his father everywhere he went.

He had, it seemed, made much of his life based on the message, the legacy, the example his father had set for him.

Scott reflected back on the words his father had spoken to him once about his grandfather.

“I never really knew him all that well,” Lionel Desmond had said as they sat by the campfire one quiet evening after a marathon day of fishing. He’d had one too many beer and was a bit chattier than he normally would be. Scott had sat quietly as his father had been reflecting about his old man “But it feels as if he is always with me, you know? I keep that picture of him in my wallet and I look at it at least once every day.