Decker leaned against the wall, watching it all, fascinated by the sci-fi medicine. Someone tapped his shoulder. He straightened and turned around.
A heavyset nurse with muscular forearms. Young and well scrubbed. In another life, she might have been a milkmaid. She whispered, “Dr. Berger will be with you in a moment. Would you like more coffee?”
“No thank you,” Decker said softly. The nurse’s ID tag told him her name was Tara. “I’m pretty much coffeed-out. What exactly is Dr. Berger doing?”
“Pardon?”
Decker cleared his throat. “It’s almost three in the morning. Aren’t most of the patients asleep?”
Tara said, “He’s just finishing off two o’clock vitals check. Normally, we nurses record the numbers, dispense the necessary medicines according to the doctor’s orders. But Dr. Berger wanted to familiarize himself with Dr. Sparks’s patients. It will help ease the transition…as much as that’s possible.” She swallowed hard. “Dreadful!”
“Horrible.”
“Who would do such a terrible thing?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.” Decker leaned in close. “You wouldn’t have any thoughts about it, would you?”
“Why no!” Tara looked down. “Well, I have thoughts. But they don’t mean anything.”
“Tell them to me anyway.”
She started to talk, stopped, then bunched her facial muscles in concentration. “Well…to me, it sounds like…maybe he picked up the wrong person.”
Decker looked around the room. “What do you mean by ‘picked up’?”
“Like a motorist who he thought needed help. But the motorist was really a robber. Isn’t that a possibility?”
Decker slipped out his notebook. “Have you ever known Dr. Sparks to pick up people?”
“Not hitchhikers. But he was a take-charge kind of man. And he was a doctor.”
“Meaning?”
Tara dropped her voice even further. “Let’s say he thought he saw an accident. I’m sure he would have pulled the car over to help, no?”
The woman was making sense. Decker said, “Go on.”
“But suppose it wasn’t a real accident. Suppose it was a dodge…to entrap some poor unsuspecting motorist. And of course, Dr. Sparks would pull over. And when he did, he was carjacked. Robbed. Taken to a dark place…” She shivered. “It’s awful to think about it.”
“Do you know if Dr. Sparks ever did that before? Stopped at the scene of auto accidents?”
“Once. The driver had had a heart attack and had crashed into the sidewalk.” She paused. “Everyone was talking about it the next day…it became a joke.”
“A joke?”
“Yeah, the bad news is you had a heart attack at the wheel of your car. The good news is Dr. Sparks was in the neighborhood. And it’s true. The accident victim was lucky. She wouldn’t have made it if Dr. Sparks hadn’t stopped.” Tara thought a moment. “You know that wasn’t the only joke going around.”
“Tell me.”
“Everyone used to josh that Dr. Sparks secretly carried a paramedics scanner.”
Decker wrote sloppily, his tired brain trying to decipher what she was saying. “Why?”
“I’m not sure why. Maybe to hear if there were any auto accidents near to where he was. So he could help out. One of his many famous lectures dealt with the importance of the first few minutes when treating the victim of a cardiac infarct. Or it could be the joke came about because of Dr. Sparks’s incredible dedication to saving people’s lives. If someone needed help, he was there-Oh, there’s Dr. Berger. Excuse me.”
Tara scuttled away.
Round but compact, Berger moved quickly toward Decker. But his carriage belied his energy level. Of medium height, he appeared to be in his sixties with fleshy features-a bulbous nose and thick lips. His lids drooped, puffy pillows under his eyes, cheeks sagging with wan flesh. A face that had been dragged under the wheels of exhaustion. The dome of his head was pink, shiny skin dotted with sweat. A small gray ring of hair clothed the bottom and sides of his cranium. His clothes were stylish but in need of a pressing. In fact, his whole body seemed wrinkled with fatigue.
“I really am very busy, Lieutenant.”
“I know you are, Dr. Berger. All I need is just a few minutes of your time.”
Berger nodded. “Step out into the hallway.” On his way out, he said, “ Tara, what the hell is going on in 4D?”
Tara looked up from behind the nurse’s desk. “Pardon, Dr. Berger?”
“Where is Mrs. Gooden?”
“She was moved to 6B yesterday.”
“Who moved her? Dr. Sparks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, move her back here. I want all my patients in one wing, okay?”
Tara paused. “You want me to move Mrs. Gooden now?”
Berger barked, “By eight o’clock tomorrow. Unless she’s fibrillating. Then you can leave her until she stabilizes. You might think I’d be allowed to have one division to myself since Dr. Sparks has the other five.”
Tara blinked rapidly. “Yes, sir.”
Berger glanced back at Decker, a blush rising to his cheeks. “This way.”
Decker followed Berger into the hallway.
Berger said, “It may seem petty to you, but it makes my life a hell of a lot easier…to have all my patients together.”
Decker didn’t answer.
Berger rubbed his eyes. “What do you need from me? I told the other detective, Wooster or Werber-”
“Webster.”
“That’s it. Mr. Southern Boy. I told him that my wife and I were at a dinner theater in Tustin. As soon as I heard the news, I came rushing back. What else do you need from me?”
“I’m just trying to get a timetable for Dr. Sparks-”
“I saw Dr. Sparks leave with Dr. Decameron around a quarter to eight. Which means these questions are best directed to Dr. Decameron. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a hospital to run.”
He started to walk away. Decker said, “Lucky for New Chris that they found someone to fill Dr. Sparks’s shoes. And so fast.”
Berger stopped, pivoted around. “Are you being snide?”
“No.” Decker’s face was flat. “Just that everyone keeps saying Sparks is a one-of-a-kind. It’s fortunate that he had you on his team to take over in this crisis.”
Berger’s cheeks turned crimson. “I’m not saying I’m Dr. Sparks, sir. I’m just saying there are patients here and someone has to take care of them.”
“Absolutely,” Decker agreed. “Dr. Decameron said you were a fine surgeon.”
Berger stared at him. “He said that, did he?”
“He did.”
“Well, I’ll have to thank him for the vote of confidence. Now if you’ll excuse-”
“Will you also take over the FDA trials of Curedon, Dr. Berger?”
Berger pursed his lips. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far in advance.”
“I was just wondering if Curedon was more Dr. Decameron’s bailiwick.”
“Not at all-”
“Being as Dr. Decameron…and Dr. Fulton for that matter…are primarily researchers. And you’re primarily a practicing surgeon-”
“You can stop right here, Lieutenant.” Berger held out his palm. “You’ve got some facts turned around and right now, I don’t have time to correct your wrong impressions.”
“When will you have time?” Decker asked. “Don’t want to go around with a wrong impression. Might cause me to jump to wrong conclusions.”
Berger tossed Decker a mean smile. “I’ve got work to do. If you come back…say a half hour before my six o’clock rounds, I’ll talk to you.”
Decker looked at his watch. Three-fifteen A.M. Berger wasn’t the only one with work to do. “Five-thirty, it is.” He slipped on his jacket, bade the doctor a good night.
Bunking down at Devonshire made infinitely more sense than waking up Rina. At his desk, Decker left a message on their answering machine, telling his wife that he loved her and that he’d call in the morning.
He went inside the squad room-empty except for Homicide. The team was filling out thick stacks of forms, mowing through paperwork. Though there were a half-dozen open computer stations, much of the pencil pushing was still done by hand. They needed a break. Decker put on a fresh pot of decaf and called a meeting.