So what's he been up to?
Not golf, obviously. What else had he been Lying about?
Gin was uncomfortable. She didn't like the idea of Duncan Lying, to her or anyone else.
On impulse she went back upstairs and returned to Duncan's office.
"I left some papers on his desk, " she told Barbara as she breezed by her.
Great, she thought as she swung the door open. Now I'm Lying too.
Tense and uneasy, feeling like a sneak, she went to the big partners desk and tugged on the top drawer. It wouldn't budge. Locked.
Damn.
- She dropped into his chair and slouched there, swinging back and forth, wondering what to do.
What, if anything, was going on here? And what should she, could she, do?
Most likely it was all just nothing, but she had to ask herself, Did Duncan have anything to do with those four dead or damaged legislators?
Probably not. Their deaths, accidents, and illnesses weren't really linked . . . just one of those weird coincidences that sometimes occur.
. . the kind of coincidence that gts conspiracy theories started.
Still, why was he Lying about where he went when he cut out of here early every afternoon? Did that really matter?
But she had seen an injection vial of something in Duncan's top drawer, also some sort of trocar. Why were they -- there? What was in that bottle? Why did he keep the drawer locked?
Damn! She hated doubting Duncan like this. But why wasn't he where he'd said he'd be? Where the hell was he?
Duncan removed the dressing from Kanesha's face and studied his work.
He gripped her chin and gently turned her head back and forth.
Reflexively her hand fluttered up to cover the area of the surgery.
Duncan gently pulled the hand away and pressed it against her hip.
"No need to do that anymore, Kanesha." The thick, stiff wad of scar tissue thu had held the left side of her mouth prisoner was gone. In its place were a pair of healing hairline incisions and a normal-looking angle of the mouth. Duncan was pleased. But now the most important test.
'"Smile for me, Kanesha." Again the hand came up and covered that corner of her mouth. She looked at her mother. Her expression said, Get me out of here.
"C'mon, Neesh, " said her mother. "Smile for Dr. Duncan." Duncan pulled the child's hand down again and stood her on the chair.
He turned her toward the mirror on the wall.
'"Look at that girl in there, " he said. "What do you think of her? " Kanesha stared at herself in silence for a moment, then leaned forward for a closer look. Her left hand came up again, this time not to cover, but to touch, to confirm that what she saw was real.
Duncan watched her, waiting for a smile. And the smile was important.
Kanesha's had been a tougher piece of surgery than he'd anticipated. The scarring had gone deeper than usual, not only had he had to free up all the subcutaneous layers, but he'd had to do a partial reconstruction of the perioral musculature. A smile was the only way he'd know how successful he'd been.
"Well? " he said. "Don't keep me in suspense, little girl. Has Kaneshe Green got something to smile about or not? " He poked a wiggling finger into her flank, tickling her. She giggled, and with that giggle came a smile. An enormous smile, bright, even, symmetrical.
She stopped giggling and stared. The smile faltered for a heartbeat as she leaned forward, her eyes wide, then it returned full force.
She turned to Duncan, grinning, joy and wonder dancing in her dark eyes. Her mother burst into tears and reached for her daughter, but Kanesha did the unexpected. She leaned - forward, threw her arms around Duncan's neck, and hugged him. An instant later her sobbing mother had her arms . around Duncan as well.
< "Oh, thank you, Dr. Duncan! Thank you so much! " This was getting a mite sticky.
- "Now, now, ladies, ' he said, extricating himself from the tangle of limbs. "We've made a big jump, but we're not finished yet." - "Not finished? " the mother said, wiping her eyes. "She's beautiful! " "Of course she is. But she's not fully grown yet. And some scarring might redevelop in the deeper tissues. In a few years I may want to do one more procedure, to make her perfect."
"She looks perfect now! Oh, Dr. Duncan, if there's ever anything I can do to repay you, anything at all, just, " Duncan put his hand on Cindy Green's shoulder. "Just keep her smiling."
"No, I'm serious."
"So am I. Keep her safe, keep her healthy, keep her smiling.
Daughters are . . . " His voice caught. He cleared his throat.
"Daughters are precious. I don't want to find out I did that surgery for nothing."
"I will, " she said, putting her hand over his. "I promise."
"Good! " He straightened and lowered Kanesha to the floor.
"Stop at the desk on your way out. The nurse will have some ointment and instructions for its use. I want to see Kanesha next week. " Cindy Green was puddling up again. "Dr. Duncan . . . " "Come on, come on, " he said, ushering them toward the door. "You're wasting time Get her home and let her show off that smile." That'll teach you to doubt me, he thought as he watched them go.
"Okay, Marge, " he called out. "Who's next. Let's keep moving." He didn't have all day.
It began as a whim, which soon evolved into a compulsion, and by midafternoon Gin found herself in the periodicals section of the Alexandria Public Library.
Lisa Lathram . . . there had to be more on Lisa Lathram. And where better to find it than in the town where she lived and died?
Disappointingly, the Alexandria Banner's obit was identical to the one in the Host. But a short news blurb about her death made an offhanded mention of her father being under investigation by the Virginia State Board of Medical Examiners.
Gin went rigid in her seat. Duncan? Investigated? For what?
She began buzzing backward through the microfilmed issues of the Banner. Fortunately it was a small paper with a low daily page count.
Whenever she found mention of Duncan she photocopied the page and put it aside. When the Lathram references petered out, she assembled the copies and read through them in chronological order.
The first story appeared about three months before Lisa's death. Half the Banner's front page was devoted to Duncan, citing him for billing Medicate over a million dollars in vascular surgery fees the preceding year. An editorial in the same issue categorized him as a prime example of "unchecked greed in a profession run amok." Gin shook her head in wonder. A million . . . a lot of money, even for a vascular surgeon. But billing Medicate for a million didn't mean you received a million. It only paid a fraction of what was billed. And even if it paid dollar for . . .
.
dollar, so what? She'd seen how Duncan worked when he was a vascular surgeon. If he billed a million, it was because he'd earned a million.
, 79 The follow-up article described how a patient's rights ,"t group was circulating petitions calling for an investigation of - Dr. Lathram to determine how much, not if but how much unnecessary surgery he was performing. The petitions were forwarded to the Virginia State Board of Medical Examiners. Soon the Banner was announcing on its front page that Duncan Lathram, MD, was under investigation for suspicion of malfeasance and fraud by the state board. Then came an article revealing that Medicare's fraud unit was conducting an audit of Duncan's office and hospital records.
God, how awful, she thought. How humiliating to have all those investigators pawing through your records, probably while patients sat in the waiting room.
Then Lisa's death.
And after that . . . nothing.
Where was the resolution? What was the outcome? She couldn't find a single mention anywhere. Had Duncan lost his Virginia license? Was that why he was in Chevy Chase 7 now?