Lethal Practice (40 page)

His words kept coming in a rush, as if he felt compelled to talk.

Riley leaned over and stopped the machine. “Did you know anything about a blackmailer?” he asked.

“No!” I exclaimed, astonished.

“The next part is going to be hard for you to hear,” he warned, restarting the tape.

After a few seconds of room noise, the man spoke. “At least, at first it was to find out who was blackmailing her. After the Kingsly fiasco,
whoever
it was hit her for a last big payment, probably figuring she’d soon get caught and the cash flow would end. The way Garnet had kept the pressure on, discovering the needle in Kingsly and exposing the derelict’s murder, she actually figured for a while that it might be him. That made her nuts. She thought he was lording it over her that he was a medical bigshot while he was bleeding her dry. But she didn’t want to kill him outright until she was sure. That first night she had her goons use the dogs on him, it was a warning, like, to back off.”

The man coughed, then said, “The next night she had the two of them follow Garnet to his country place—at that time she only wanted them to steal the analysis of the ER statistics. You see, she was also afraid Garnet was preparing a record of dates based on the data that would show her connection to the DOAs. She figured it would have been good strategy on his part, had he been the blackmailer, to have it as a kind of insurance policy against being killed if he was ever found out—to be opened if he died. Something like that. If she found a document like that she’d know for sure he was the blackmailer and could kill him. But his dog chased the guys off before they could get what they came for. She tried again herself and broke into his hospital office early one morning. She didn’t find anything. But when he had that resident ask about using cardiac needles on derelicts in front of her, she was sure it was him, and that he was still playing with her to get more cash out of her. So she phoned her goons and arranged his hit-and-run accident on the spur of the moment. I think it was as much revenge as a need to get rid of him. When it didn’t work, she got away from the hospital long enough to join the men in searching his house while we were on the way to the vet’s with his dog. Boy, did she go berserk when she couldn’t find his analysis.”

Riley stopped the tape again. “Does any of that make sense, Doc? Or was this guy blowing smoke to try to get a better deal?”

My mouth was so dry, I could barely swallow. “She thought I was blackmailing her?” I finally managed to croak.

“Apparently, at first.”

“What do you mean, ‘at first.’ “

“There’s more. But what about his account of what happened? Does it jibe with how you remember things?”

The swirl of events he described ran through my mind like fragments of a movie—familiar, yet seen from the other side. “I guess so,” I said haltingly. And then a detail popped into place. “He said he drove me to the animal hospital. That’s where I remember him from. He was the older attendant! Good God, does that mean he was the one who tried to run me down?”

As an answer, Riley continued the tape.

This time I heard the detective’s voice echo my own question.

“Was it you who hit Garnet and the dog?”

“Oh, no! That was those two goons of hers. I was only told to be in the area. Like I said, it was a last-minute call just twenty minutes before. She said that she was gonna take care of the blackmailer. I had to be careful because my partner had nothing to do with it.”

“Were you supposed to finish him off?”

“No!”

“Level with me! What were you supposed to do with him?”

“If he was okay, just shaken up like, I was to make sure we took him to the hospital for a checkup. To get him away from the house so she could search it.”

“And if he wasn’t okay?”

I heard some shuffling noises and another scrape from a chair leg.

“If he wasn’t already dead, but near killed, I was to tip him over, an accident like. Drop his neck, leave his airway blocked, stuff like that. You know, our usual screw-ups.”

There were a few more seconds of shuffling sounds.

“Hey, I didn’t do it, did I?”

“Because he wasn’t near dead, and it would have been too obvious.”

“No! I couldn’t do that.” There was another pause, then he added very quietly, “At least I found that out.”

Riley pushed Stop and waited.

I felt angry. “He probably saved my life only to get a better deal with you guys, once he saw Jones was dead.”

“Maybe. Either way, he’s going to do time. But I don’t think he had the taste for killing the way the others had.”

“You said there was more ... about the blackmailer?”

“That’s the next bit,” he answered. The tape came on in the middle of his next question.

“—Garnet the blackmailer?”

“No! That Sunday evening she calls me and says she’s taken care of the
real
blackmailer and that it hadn’t been him after all. But she told me Garnet was still a threat because he wasn’t buying that Kingsly and the derelict had been killed by that crazy psychiatrist who dove off the roof. She knew he hadn’t figured out it was her
yet
or he would have already gone to the cops and had them arrest her. If we moved fast, she said, we could stop him before it was too late and make it look like a heart attack. That we’d all be safe forever.”

Riley snapped off the machine and moved to put it back in his briefcase. “Do you know who might have been blackmailing Jones?”

“No. Did he, Vito, what’s his name?”

“Manley. No, he said she never told him. The other two men had no idea either.”

“Did you really think it was me?”

Riley looked embarrassed. “He brought it up. I had to ask the question. No offense. I only wanted you to hear in case you’d felt there was a blackmailer involved somewhere and hadn’t been sure enough about the idea to mention it. But if you’ve no idea, you know what I think?
Here
this guy’s talking ten pounds of fog, trying to get us hooked on chasing some crazy story about a blackmailer so he can get a better deal. No, I think it’s a crock. There were four creeps. One’s dead, and we got the rest. For once I agree with my boss. This case is closed.”

* * * *

That evening I got to sit in a chair for half an hour. Carole came up and would have put me to work had Nurse Mandy not shooed her off. But before she left, Carole sat on the edge of my bed, hunched forward, and started rubbing her palms together. I waited. Still looking at her hands, she said, “The police returned the articles they found in Jones’s locker that they didn’t think were important.” She reached into her sweater pocket and handed me a small envelope. “I thought you should have this.”

I opened the flap and shook out the contents while Carole continued to look down at her hands. It was an old newspaper clipping, a photo taken a few years ago of Janet and me in formal dress at the annual hospital ball. We wore polite smiles. We usually had the best fun of these evenings while getting ready, with Janet doubled over laughing as I struggled into my tuxedo. This kind of social circuit definitely wasn’t our style.

Clipped to the picture was an unused ticket. My first response was so what, but by the way Carole’s palms were rubbing together, I figured there was more. “What does it mean?” I asked, truly puzzled.

Carole stopped rubbing her hands, then looked up at me with a kind of smile you bestow on a child who’s too naive to get it. She started talking very softly, careful of her words. “With a woman like that, I wouldn’t use the word
love,
not at all. But she was interested in you. I could tell by a lot of little things, the sort of things only a woman might notice: the way she would watch you when you weren’t aware; all those green outfits she wore—in the early years I think they were mainly for your benefit. But you never caught on.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I asked, incredulous at what I’d just heard.

She laughed, leaned back, and said, “Hey, I’m your secretary, not your mother. Besides, you didn’t need warning. You weren’t going to do anything about it. Everyone knew that.”

“What do you mean ‘everyone’?”

“Well, not everyone. Just some of the more observant women in the department who could see what was going on.”

Jesus Christ! I thought. My old nemesis. Denial. Maybe that was why I’d become so aware of her sexuality recently, since it was safely directed at others. I’d spent years denying her overtures to me.

I needed no reminder of the demonic rage Jones had exhibited while straddling me back at the cabin.
Good. Hate me! I’m taking away your miserable high-class fucking life.
I’d hear that shriek in my dreams the rest of my days.

I looked back down at the unused ticket and the old picture of Janet and me in our evening clothes.

“You see,” said Carole, leaning forward, “I think what Jones really coveted was this.” And she tapped the photo of Janet and me, decked out in the full regalia of a
high-class fucking life.

                                                  * * * *

A few hours later I had the strangest visitor of all.

Kradic.

He stood at the curtain, fingering it, before giving a little cough. “Hi, Dr. Garnet,” he said hesitantly.

“Dr. Kradic,” I acknowledged, genuinely surprised.

“Can I talk with you for a moment?”

He was so uncertain, almost shy, that I was actually curious what was up. I was also relieved he’d no idea how much I had suspected him.

“Sure, have a seat.”

I was back in bed; he took Janet’s chair.

“How are you doing?” he asked, uneasy and obviously bad at small talk. He wanted to get on to what he came for.

I answered, “Okay,” and waited.

He coughed again, took a breath, and then started. “With Jones gone, I wondered if you’d give me her nights.”

I gave a laugh in spite of myself.

Kradic didn’t even look offended but pressed on with his case. “Look, I know it’s indelicate and that you don’t particularly like me, but I can do the job. You know patients are safe on my shift. Who else are you going to get to replace her?”

He had me there. Carole and the others had all assured me they were muddling through, but without Jones, the schedule would be a holy mess, and with Christmas coming up, it’d be worse yet. Nobody would admit it, but even increased doses of Kradic would be acceptable if he did more nights, worked holidays, and kept the rest of us, me included, from having to double up on these difficult shifts.

But I wasn’t prepared to pay any price for his help. I stared back at him, still not answering, and calculated my terms. “Since we are being frank. Dr. Kradic, let me say that the entire department, including myself, is fed up with your rudeness and your complete lack of professional behavior with your peers. I’ll give you the shifts on trial, for the holidays. Then the rest of the staff, nurses and clerks included, will decide if they want you around anymore.”

He looked taken aback but said nothing.

I continued. “I am offering you this last chance only because you are an excellent physician. I would trust you with the care of myself or any member of my family, but your skill doesn’t give you a license to disrupt the department. If anything, it gives you an obligation to help, not clobber, other physicians less gifted than yourself.”

The compliment surprised him. His face flushed. He swallowed hard and started blinking a lot.

I watched him as he regained his composure.

“Thank you,” he said simply, but he was looking down at his hands so I wouldn’t see his face.

“Al, I want to know why you’ve started to come late. Punctuality is part of the deal.”

My question broke his reserve. I watched his whole body tense, his hands tighten into fists. “Because my wife divorced me and is suing for custody of my two little boys.” He was spitting out his words. “I took some extra shifts at other hospitals to help pay my lawyers.” He looked straight at me, and his voice softened. “The additional nights will give me the income I’ll need, and I’ll be free in the days to take care of them.” He took a deep breath, swallowed, and very quietly added, “I can’t lose my boys. Dr. Garnet, I can’t. They’re all I have.”

Then, embarrassed, he got up and left. When I fell asleep again, I was worrying about the schedule. Things were returning to normal.

The morning I was discharged, I walked out of the ICU and went directly down to the ER to work a shift. My doctors had been livid, but Janet had understood. “Go to it,” she’d whispered in my ear, giving me a hug on my last night as a patient.

Susanne unceremoniously stuck a chart in my hand. “Welcome back. There’s a guy with multiple trauma in Resus A. The residents are losing him, and I mean losing!” We started for the room, and she told me the rest while we walked. “He’s a jumper. The medics said he must have fallen forty feet. He was still conscious when they found him, but he screamed when they tried to move his legs.”

I glanced at the ambulance sheet and learned he’d jumped from Oratory Steps, a shrine that some faith healers had erected on top of a fifty-foot staircase in an escarpment overlooking the Niagara River. A lot of cripples crawl up there to try to walk again. Apparently this guy had reversed the procedure.

When I stepped to the side of his stretcher, he was already half dead. The surgical residents had been fiddling with him an hour and fifteen minutes without calling their staff.

“What’s his pressure!” I asked, snapping on gloves.

“Sixty over zip,” hissed one of the nurses up by the guy’s head. “Like I been telling these two!” She glared at a pair of baby-faced kids in greens. New rotators. Lord help us.

“Shit, he’s in shock!” I roared at them. “What the hell’s he still doing here? He should have been in surgery an hour ago.” I spoke quickly to Lisa, who was nearest the door. “Call a code blue.” Then I turned to my new residents. “Gentlemen. This is unstable multiple trauma. It needs a trauma team. No one, not even you two, can save this man’s life diddling over him alone. Now get me two more lines, big ones!”

Thirty minutes later I stepped out to the parking lot. It was a clear morning. The small amount of snow covering the ground crunched under my shoes. My ears tingled. I could see my breath when I exhaled. All over the city, vertical white plumes were rising into the blue sky as Buffalo started its day.