At noon, he tried Jeffrey. “He’s just walking out the door, Doctor,” said the receptionist.
“Catch him, please. This is important.”
He heard a click and he was placed on hold. He was not sure if she had hung up on him because she did not like his tone, or if she was actually retrieving Jeffrey before he was out of reach.
“Phil,” came the voice at the other end of the phone. “I got in late-”
“Yeah, I know. Listen, I’ve got a problem, and not much time to explain. What are you doing now?”
“I was on my way out to get a bite.”
“Meet me at Spinelli’s?”
“Sure, but I have to be back at one-thirty to prepare-”
“I’ll see you in ten,” he said, and hung up. He threw his lab coat on the chair behind him and buzzed Monica to tell her he was leaving.
“I was able to get the Pincer surgery rescheduled for tomorrow morning,” she said.
The Pincer surgery. He thanked Monica, then headed out the door. He had Brittany Harding and the police breathing down his neck for some godforsaken reason and he had to worry about performing major surgery in twenty hours. He rubbed hard at his temples to ease the developing headache. If only the human body had an emotional on-off switch somewhere, one that the great anatomists and physiologists of the world had long overlooked.
Madison filled Jeffrey in on the visit by the detectives and then backtracked and told him of Harding’s appearance at his home on Saturday morning.
“Sounds like it was quite a scene,” Hellman said between chews on his veal parmigiana.
“I thought attorneys avoided understatement.”
“She said, ‘What you did to me…?’” Hellman asked, confirming the wording. He received an affirmative nod from Madison. “Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”
“I assume she means firing her, but why would she threaten going to the police for that?” Madison asked, playing with, but not eating, the three-cheese ravioli on his plate. His head then shot up straight. “Wait a minute. She said something about me forcing her to sleep with her so she could keep her job.”
“ 0kayyy, ”Hellman said, nodding his head, “now things are starting to make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sexual harassment.”
“What sexual harassment? I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Doesn’t matter. Can you think of anything else, like maybe you told her sexually suggestive jokes or hinted at special employment considerations that could be made if she did something for you…”
“Jeffrey! What’s wrong with you? You know me better-”
Hellman was waving his hands in front of Madison, glancing side to side to see if any of the other patrons were looking. “Calm down, Phil. I was just asking a question. The police are no doubt going to ask you that question as well. If you explode like that-”
“I won’t explode. I was just…” he paused, searching for the right word, “insulted that you would even ask me that. You, of all people.”
“Me of all people is your attorney. Asking you questions like that is my job. Now, let’s get back on track. So you made no innuendoes, no remarks that could be taken the wrong way?”
“Nothing. In fact, when we went to dinner a couple of weeks ago, I even told her that she should put in an application for the position.”
“Dinner? You went to dinner with her?”
“Yeah, but-”
“Where?”
“Fifth Street Cafe.”
“The Fifth Street Cafe? Could you have picked a more trendy, romantic place?”
“Oh, come on, Jeffrey.”
“Phil, I’m just trying to point out-”
“Don’t point out. Just look at the facts. We had a meeting to discuss programming for the up-and-coming seminar. That was it. We started talking about her caustic attitude toward people, and we got into a minor disagreement. I told her that she should consider the fact that the position was going to be opened up to other applicants. I wanted her to realize that she was going to have to fight for her job, to shape up or get out.”
“Was anyone else at this meeting with you?”
“No.”
“Hmm,” was all Hellman said, falling silent, chewing on his veal.
“Look, nothing happened. She didn’t keep the job, did she?”
“That’s why she’s so pissed. She’ll say you reneged on your deal.”
“See, that’s the thing. There was no deal.” Madison shook his head. “What are we looking at here?”
“I’ll know more once we meet with the detectives. Obviously they don’t have enough evidence yet to charge you. We’ll go meet with them and see what they have to say. Just keep your mouth shut. Answer the questions they ask with as few words as possible. No details. In other words, don’t volunteer any information they don’t directly ask you.”
“Like a deposition or court trial.”
“Exactly,” he said, chewing. “And if they ask a question that I don’t want you to answer, I’ll stop you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
They chewed on their food some more. Both sat in silence. Madison pulled out his DayTracker wallet and thumbed through the pages.
“What’s the matter?”
“September eleventh was a Thursday, the day Leeza and the kids went to L.A. I bet that was the night when Brittany dropped by my house complaining of abdominal pain.”
“She did what?”
“She came by and said that she had gone to the Quick-Care clinic for treatment of abdominal pain, but the nurse practitioner saw her and blew her off. She was having a lot of cramping. I took a quick look at her, and told her that I thought it was just irritable bowel syndrome.”
Hellman put his fork down. “Can you define what you mean by taking ‘a quick look at her’?”
“A cursory abdominal exam. To rule out appendicitis, hepatitis, aneurysm-”
“How long did this exam take?”
“A minute, maybe. It was nothing, really.”
“And that was it?”
“I told her to follow up with her doc in the morning. She was feeling better, relieved that it wasn’t anything major, and she left.”
Hellman took a drink of water. Swallowed, deep in thought. “No one saw her there? I mean, no one dropped by, no UPS deliveries, nothing like that?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s not in your appointment book, and it’s probably not in hers, because she dropped by unexpectedly, right?”
“It wasn’t a meeting or anything.”
“Okay.” He paused. “Who was the doctor she was going to see the next day?”
“It was…John Vincente. Family practitioner.”
“Know him?”
“No, but I know of him.”
Hellman pulled out his phone and called Information, jotted down Dr. Vincente’s office number, and input it. Sat and listened. “Yes, hi, this is Elmore Elkins, a claims adjuster for California Prudent Health PPO. I have a claim form here submitted by a Brittany Harding, with a date of service of September twelfth. But when I try to input it into the system, I see that she went off our plan on September tenth. I’d like to pay this bill, but can you tell me if Miss Harding was in your office on that date?” He looked up at Madison, who was stifling a smile. “She wasn’t? Okay, then when was the last time she was at your facility?… May fifteenth for her annual Pap?… Okay, great, then this must be a mistake. Thanks for your help.” He ended the call and looked at Madison.
“Do people do that to my office staff too?”
Hellman set his phone down on the table. “It’s easier to get info from medical offices than people think.”
“So much for the HIPAA Privacy Rule.”
“She never went in to see Dr. Vincente after you saw her, so there’s nothing documented in his records about her having been examined by you.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So I don’t think you should bring it up.”
Madison made a face, as if to say “I don’t know.”
“Look, Phil, nothing happened, am I right?”
“Right.”