“Wait a minute. You make it sound like there’s been a lot more cases than the two Kelly discovered.”
“The woman’s been setting up her ‘triumphs’ for a couple of decades. Glory-kills, I suppose you could call the ones who didn’t make it. Deaths didn’t really matter to her, as long as she got kudos for nailing the diagnosis.”
“My God. But how did you get onto her?”
“I started with the same two charts you did, and saw the same patterns. I also had access to her student evaluations. I remembered she had been something less than a star during her rotation in obstetrics. My staff nicknamed her ‘Fumbles’ they were so afraid she’d drop a baby. I also looked up the other departmental assessments of her. Borderline. So how does someone so mediocre get so good? I asked myself.”
Earl listened with a mixture of relief and wariness. “And what about the rest of the story?” he asked. Braden seemed about to clear him, but would he help Kelly’s lover, or make him pay?
“Obviously, Kelly came to the same conclusions about the digoxin cases that you and I did.” Braden said with no hesitation. “She confronted Melanie, and Melanie killed her to avoid getting caught.” He continued to stand there, his hands in his pockets, white coat immaculate, looking like he’d stepped out of a fashion magazine, at five-thirty in the morning. Something didn’t add up. “Why did you tell me this now?”
Braden looked at him as if he were crazy. “Because my son and I only just now finished going through Melanie’s files. We’ve been at it since yesterday morning, and wanted to make sure we were right before saying anything. I came right up because I figured your life might be in danger. And so did you, from the looks of it when I got here. Weren’t you about to escape her clutches?”
Sounded reasonable. And he should be grateful to the man. Why didn’t he feel that way? Instead, he had the inkling he was being manipulated. “What do we do now?” he asked, playing along while trying to sort out his doubts.
“First thing this morning I’ll call the CEO of the hospital and the president of the medical school. This is going to be a tabloid special, and they’ll want to get all their legal ducks in a row. Then we’ll call the police, and they’ll arrest Collins. I want it over with fast, before anything else tragic happens. I tried to warn Mark Roper the other night that I was onto something and requested that he slow down to give me a couple of days. But he’s such a hothead, just like his father. Insisted on plowing full speed ahead with his investigation.”
The more the man talked, the more Earl grew wary. Charles Braden still had a lot of questions to answer about his role in other matters, from the demise of Cam Roper, whom Braden had just called a real hothead, to a recent gas explosion. And he appeared to be in an unseemly hurry to rein in Mark. In fact, Earl just realized an obvious hole in Braden’s story.
“Tell me, Charles, how did you know which charts I first looked at in this case?”
Braden studied him a few seconds, his blue stare now cold as a polar sea. “Why, Lena Downie must have told me. You know what a chatterbox she is.”
Really? Earl thought. That would be easy enough to check out. “Why I asked is that Mark Roper said someone sneaked into his house and went through his father’s file on Kelly. The M and M reports on those two patients that started this whole paper chase were in there. Would you know anything about that break-in?”
Braden didn’t bat an eye. “You, know, Earl, after what I’ve just done for you, I don’t necessarily want a show of gratitude, but I would expect you to have the common courtesy not to make gratuitous insinuations about the whole Kelly affair, especially after all the harm you did to my son’s-”
“She told me it was Chaz who wrecked any feelings she had for him.”
Braden said nothing this time, but his body seemed to tense beneath the gleaming white coat.
In the menace of that silence, Earl teetered between opposing instincts.
One urged him to probe further. Demand what kind of game Charles had been playing at the birthing center. Shake him up with the fact that Mark Roper had some interesting questions regarding statistics for the place. Confront him about the death of Victor Feldt and what it had to do with Nucleus Laboratories, executive health plans, or genetic screenings on siblings with a family history of cancer – anything to provoke an angry outburst and a revealing slip.
But self-preservation made Earl cautious. Whatever Charles had been up to, trying to spook him with bravado could be very dangerous. Better to outmaneuver him. “Sorry, Charles, I didn’t mean to insinuate you had anything to do with the break-in at Mark’s, and I’m most grateful for the warning about Melanie, believe me. As for my hurtful comment regarding Chaz and Kelly, it was inexcusable. Please, accept my apology, and put it down to the morphine talking.”
Braden continued to watch him.
Earl felt the man see right through his wooden attempt to make peace. “Look, I spoke out of line,” he added. “Let me make it up to you by helping out with Melanie’s capture. After all, that’s the important thing, right? I’ll get back into bed, so when she makes her morning rounds nothing will tip her off that we’re onto her. You start rousting the administration. With me corroborating what you and Chaz are saying, they’ll be more ready to believe us.” His real plan? Pretend to cooperate, then, once Braden left, skedaddle the hell out of the hospital to the nearest police station. Now that he had Melanie pegged, let the cops figure out the rest.
The rigidity under the lab coat lessened. Still, Braden seemed to be in the limbo of deciding something. “You’re right about going back to bed and Melanie finding you there,” he finally said, turning and walking toward the door. “But we both know you don’t intend to hang around, and I can’t allow that. Better we sedate you.” He stuck his head into the hallway and yelled, “Nurse!”
Earl broke into a cold sweat. “Wait a minute! What if Melanie does something to me while I’m under? You yourself said it would take a few hours to convince the police…”
Braden looked at him, his eyes almost sorrowful.
My God. He’s going to let her kill me! Earl’s mouth went dry “I’ll tell the nurses what you’re doing.” His voice sounded like a croak. “You won’t get away with it.”
Braden glanced back out in the hallway, apparently unconcerned.
“I’ll say that you’re under investigation for murder,” Earl added, judging his chances of knocking him over and making a run for it.
Braden shook his head as if enduring a great weariness. “You must be mad, the morphine no doubt.”
“What about Mark Roper? He already thinks you smothered deformed infants and buried their bodies on the grounds of your home for unwed mothers.” Earl raised his voice to make sure any approaching nurses would hear the accusations. Whether they believed him or not, he hoped to at least make them pause before carrying out the man’s orders. But his own skepticism about Braden being capable of infanticide had vanished. “He’s going to the police about it this morning. When he finds out you visited me, he’ll suspect you arranged my death.”
Braden stared at him in amazement. “The grounds? Oh, my God, Dr. Garnet. Even if I were the monster you’re suggesting, I wouldn’t be fool enough to leave human remains on the grounds of an abandoned building.”
Braden ought to be sweating bricks by now if he’d done any part of what Mark had accused him of, Earl thought. Instead he remained calm, practically purring. Could he have already moved the bodies? Son of a bitch! Or he’d never buried anything there at all. Of course. He’d be too smart to leave that kind of evidence behind.
Mark’s account of what happened with Braden in the library flashed to mind, and a sickening realization swept through Earl. Mark had been on the losing end of a game he probably didn’t even realize Braden had been playing. Because not only would Charles have been too smart to leave bones lying about where they could be found, he wouldn’t have said the suggestive things that he had about smotherings if he’d truly wanted to avoid such atrocious allegations. Instead, it almost seemed he’d invited them. Why?