He clutched the binder and looked at me. “Sir, are you here for the conference?”
“Actually, no,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’m trying to track down a friend.”
“A friend?”
“Her office told me I could find her here,” I said, trying to look harmless. “Charlotte Truman?”
He set the book on the table, frown lines wrinkling his forehead. “You’re a friend?”
Can’t fool everybody all of the time. I reached into my back pocket and flipped my license open at him. “Not really, but I do need to find Ms. Truman.”
He stared at the license, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Is she in trouble? Has something happened?”
“No, everything’s fine. I just need to talk to her.” I smiled. “I’m not looking to rock the boat.”
He looked at the license again, then at me. “I hope not. She’s giving the keynote address this evening. It would be a disaster if she weren’t able to do that.”
I tried to look sympathetic to his cause. “I promise. My visit will do nothing to change her availability for this evening.”
He bit his bottom lip for a moment, clearly not wanting to be a party to the potential ruin of the conference.
“Look, you told me she’s speaking tonight,” I said. “If you won’t tell me where she is now, I’ll have no choice but to hang around until I find her tonight.” I shoved my wallet back into my shorts. “Your call.”
His left eye twitched, then he opened the binder. He flipped through several pages, ran a bony finger down one, and tapped the middle of the page.
“The Santa Anita Room,” he said, pointing to his right. “Last room at the end of this hall.”
“I appreciate it,” I told him and started in that direction.
“Sir?”
I turned back to him.
He held up a plastic badge with a nylon string attached to it. The card in the clear plastic badge said VISITOR.
“This might make it easier,” he said, offering it to me. “You’ll look like you’re supposed to be here.”
I took the badge and hung it around my neck. “That, buddy, is something I don’t hear too often.”
48
The Santa Anita Room was one of those sterile spaces that could be divided up into sections with ugly partitions, but currently it was wide open and completely filled for whatever was going on.
About seventy-five tables dotted the room, six chairs around each. I didn’t see an empty seat anywhere.
The attendees were focused on a long table toward the front, where four people sat. Three men and a woman. The woman was attractive. Early forties, auburn hair cut to her shoulders, an expensive-looking navy suit. She gestured with her hands as she spoke.
“Our job,” she said, friendly but confident, “is to deal with the people, and the issues, that the rest of the hospital won’t. Can’t, in fact. They aren’t equipped with the knowledge to make those kinds of decisions. Their job is to save the patients. Ours is to ensure that they can continue to do that.”
A round of applause arose from the tables and one of the men on the panel stood.
“I think we’ll end on that note,” he said, smiling broadly at the audience, then at the three people to his left. “Let’s thank our panelists today. Chandler Mott, Damian Taitano, and Charlotte Truman.”
I eased into the back corner of the room as the audience stood and again applauded. The people began to trickle out of the room, smiling and whispering to one another, apparently having learned some big secret to hospital administration.
I let the room nearly clear out before moving toward the front and Charlotte Truman.
“That was fabulous,” a woman was gushing at her. “Exactly what most of us needed to hear.”
Charlotte Truman nodded graciously. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”
“I mean,” the woman continued, “I don’t think my hospital has any idea of the confrontations that I face on a daily basis.”
Truman began gathering up her belongings. “No, they probably don’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re any less valuable. Part of your job is to be good at thankless endeavors.”
“Yes, yes, I guess it is,” the woman said, nodding vigorously, as if the thought had never occurred to her.
Truman picked up the last of her folders and looked at the woman. “Great to meet you.”
“Oh, no,” the woman said. “The pleasure was mine.”
The woman turned from Truman and pounced on the man that had been sitting next to her.
I caught up to Charlotte Truman in the middle of the room.
“Quite a presentation,” I said, falling in step next to her.
She gave me what I thought to be a very practiced smile. “Thank you. You really think so?”
“Actually, I didn’t hear a word of it,” I said. “I was just going by her reaction.”
She cocked her head in my direction, large green eyes sparkling. “It actually sucked.”
“You fooled her?”
“Fooling them is the key to getting invited to these things,” she said. “Anything is better than working, right?”
We walked out into the hallway.
“I suppose,” I said.
She stopped. “You don’t look like an attendee.”
“Why’s that?”
“The visitor badge for starters.” She looked me up and down. “And most of these people don’t own shorts and T-shirts. I imagine they sleep in their suits.”
“Makes it tough to relax,” I said.
“Yes, it does. What can I do for you?”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “I’m taking a chance.”
“Shorts, T-shirt, and a risk taker. Definitely not a hospital administrator,” she said with an amused smile.
“I’m an investigator,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow, suddenly wary. “If you’re insurance, I’m not talking to you outside my office.”
I shook my head. “No. Something else. A doctor at your hospital.”
Her eyebrow fell. “I’m not sure I’m following, Mr….”
“Braddock,” I said. “But call me Noah.”
“Well, Noah, what is it that you’re here for?”
“I’m doing a background check on a doctor who works at St. Andrew’s. Dr. Randall Tower.”
Until that moment, she’d seemed unflappable. Completely comfortable in her skin and her surroundings, totally in command of the room and the subject about which she was speaking.
Randall’s name destroyed all that.
The color drained from her face. “What the hell is this?”
“You know him?”
She shifted the folders in her arms. “He works at the hospital. Of course I know him.”
“Friends outside the hospital?”
Her eyes narrowed, the easygoing demeanor vanished. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not sure. What am I doing?”
“Pissing me off, for one,” she said, the color rising back to her cheeks.
I decided to be straight. “I’m looking into his wife’s death. Her body was found in the trunk of her car along with this piece of paper.” I pulled the scrap from my pocket and handed it to her.
“Kate’s dead?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She blinked rapidly for a moment, then stared at the piece of paper. She shook her head. “So she knew.”
“Excuse me?”
Charlotte handed me the paper back. “Look, you found this and you found me. My guess is you know more than you’re letting on, seeing if I’ll spill the beans for you.” She smiled but it wasn’t warm. “Randall and I were sleeping together, but I think you already knew that.”
“I had an idea.” I looked at her. “Can we talk for a few minutes?”
She paused for a moment. Then, “Kate’s really dead? You’re not kidding me, right?”
“No, Ms. Truman,” I told her. “Kate Crier is dead.”
She winced slightly, the word “dead” making an impression. She started walking again.
“I can talk for a few minutes. But only a few minutes,” she said. “Because talking about him for any longer than that will make me ill.”
49
We walked outside onto the expansive pool deck. I bought a cup of coffee and a soda from a pushcart under a big palm tree. Charlotte was sitting on the edge of the stone retaining wall that ringed a small garden in the middle of the courtyard. I handed her the coffee and sat next to her.