“Nurse!” Braden bellowed a second time. “Nurse, come quickly.”
“Now hold on-”
“Nurse!”
Earl heard the sound of running feet in the hallway.
Mrs. White bolted through the door, her cheeks aflame.
“I’m afraid Dr. Garnet’s having a psychotic episode, probably from the drugs-”
“What are you doing out of bed-” she said, striding toward him. “And what happened to your IV?”
“Nurse, I’m fine-”
“I blame myself, Nurse,” Braden continued, his voice serene with the quiet authority of one used to being in charge. “I barged in here on a grievous family matter between Dr. Garnet and my son – well, let’s just say I was upset.”
“He came here to set me up-”
“This is what I mean about paranoia. We had words, but then Dr. Garnet began to spout the most bizarre accusations, about me murdering babies, and burying their bodies-”
“He’s lying! The man is under suspicion for murder. Coroner Mark Roper will verify everything I said-” Earl stopped, realizing too late he’d whipped his hand out from under the covers and was brandishing the glinting points of a half dozen needles in their faces.
Mrs. White screamed.
“My God!” Braden said, recoiling in horror.
Another nurse appeared at the door. One glance and she bellowed, “Orderlies! We’ve got a code forty-four!”
From his residency days, Earl recognized the call. Within sixty seconds a herd of young men wearing white would stampede into the room with enough Haldol and tie-downs to immobilize an elephant.
“Put down the needles, sir!” the nurse at the doorway said.
Braden and Mrs. White backed away from him.
At the very least he had to get to a phone and call Janet.
“Back off,” he screamed at the one blocking the way out.
She stood her ground. “Don’t do this, sir.”
“All I want to do is call my wife. No need for drugs. No tie-downs. Just let me call my home.”
“Absolutely, sir. You can make the call as soon as you put down the needles.”
He knew the tone and the routine. He’d used it himself many times. When a patient threatens staff, promise him anything, then hit him with everything, all in the name of preventing anyone from getting hurt. There’d be no stopping what he’d set in motion. And no calls.
“I’m getting to a phone,” he said, advancing toward her. “I won’t hurt you.”
She retreated a few steps, the look of terror in her young eyes horrible to see.
He lunged by her and raced down the hall toward a stand of public phone booths.
His legs nearly went from under him.
“Stop!” he heard Braden yell.
Still brandishing his needles, he ran up, grabbed the nearest receiver, and punched in 0 plus his number.
Immediately he was surrounded by a growing group of orderlies, the two nurses from his room, and Braden. They all shouted instructions at him and each other.
“Put down the needles.”
“Watch it.”
“Who the hell’s he calling?”
The phone chirped through the long-distance dialing and rang Janet’s cellular.
The semicircle closed in.
He made wide sweeping arcs with his weapon, and they shrank away from him. He was bluffing of course, and ready to drop them the instant anyone rushed him, but they didn’t know that.
The yelling continued.
“We got to jump him.”
“You jump him. Those needles could be contaminated.”
“Why not wait and see who he’s calling?”
“I advise you to get him now!” Braden thundered.
The second ring sounded.
Be at home, Janet, and not off in the delivery room.
More orderlies arrived, tie-down straps in hand.
A third nurse appeared with a large syringe.
A shock of red hair made its way through the crowd.
The next ring broke off with a click.
She’d answered. “Janet, help me. Melanie Collins is trying to kill me, and Charles Braden-”
“The person you are calling is not available…”
No!
Over that he heard, “You have a collect call from…”
“Janet! Help-”
“I’m sorry, but your collect call has not been accepted…”
At that second some hero in the crowd dived at his legs. As he tumbled to the ground he dropped his handful of syringes to one side, careful not to jab anyone, and went limp.
His intention was lost on the swarm that grabbed him. They hoisted him on a gurney, held him in place, and tied him down.
The nurse with the syringe approached. The rest hung back, like onlookers at an accident.
Earl seized on an idea. “You can’t give me that,” he said to the one with the needle.
“And why not?” She lifted a flap of his gown and anointed his butt with an alcohol swab.
“Because I’ve a critically low potassium.”
“What!” She pulled up just before the tip of the needle hit skin.
He was thinking clearly now. “Low potassium and major tranquilizers don’t mix,” he told her. “Causes cardiac conduction problems, as if I didn’t already have enough of those already. Ask any doctor.” He hadn’t made it up. And in the time it took her to sort it out, he might convince the other nurses not to give him anything.
“He’s right, ma’am,” said a male voice from somewhere behind her.
Earl recognized Dr. Roy’s voice.
Mrs. White appeared at the side of her colleague who had the needle and showed her Earl’s chart. “Better listen. There was some kind of screwup with his potassium last night. The lab called about it.”
The one with the needle looked disappointed. “Oh, man, I hate it when we have doctors as patients…”
As they second-guessed themselves, a new volley of painful spasms erupted in his stomach. Gritting his teeth, he nevertheless pressed his case. “Nurse, Mrs. White, I don’t need sedation at all-”
“Will someone medicate this man, or should I do it myself?” Charles Braden interrupted. He stepped up to Mrs. White and took the chart from her. “Here, he’s got a standing order for morphine. Give him that.”
Oh, God, not again. I’ll be a sitting duck for Melanie.
As Charles walked away, Mrs. White readily trotted off to the medication cupboard.
“Please! Call my wife! Dr. Janet Graceton. She’s in the case room at St. Paul’s Hospital in Buffalo.”
No one paid him the slightest attention.
The crowd started to thin out. He saw Dr. Roy’s bushy red hair disappearing down the hall. He had another idea. “Dr. Roy. Call Tanya Wozcek. Tell her what’s happened. Then do the DONT.”
The people who had started to wheel the stretcher back to his room looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Who’s Tanya Wozcek?” he heard someone whisper.
“I think she’s a nurse up on geriatric?”
“Sounds like that’s where this guy is headed.”
Twenty minutes later he felt his brain had been packed in a SlushPuppie.
He also didn’t seem to care.
Chapter 20
Charles Braden stepped outside the Thirty-third Street entrance of NYCH and dialed Melanie Collins’s number on his cell phone.
“Yes,” she said sleepily.
“Melanie. It’s Charles Braden. I’m sorry to wake you so early, but there’s been a problem with Earl Garnet.”
“Problem?”
“Yes. I blame myself. My son had just received the upsetting news that Garnet was the man in the taxi with Kelly the night before she disappeared. I went to Garnet’s room and confronted him about it. Now I know I shouldn’t have, but-”