Silent Treatment

Tom turned off the overhead light, leavingonly the dim over-the-bed fluorescents.

'I'm really sorry for everything you'regoing through,' he said.

Harry glanced over at his wife.

'Thanks,' Harry managed to say.

'If you want to talk some more about it, Ihave the time, and I'm not at all tired.'

'In the hall, maybe,' Harry said. 'Not inhere.'

They dragged their chairs outside thedoor. The corridor was dimly lit and silent, save for the white noise of nightin the hospital.

'You don't have to keep talking about yourwife if it's too hard for you,' Hughes said.

'It actually might help.'

'Okay. Just don't be embarrassed to tellme to shut up. I confess that as a cop, what little you've told me so far hasme intrigued. What do you think is going on?'

'I have no idea. There's probably astupid, simple explanation for everything. The nurse who took the telephoneorder got the anesthesiologist's name wrong. . Some M.D. friend of ours wason the floor seeing another patient and stopped by to see Evie — '

'That's two simple explanations. Inmy experience, when you need to invoke more than one explanation for thingshappening coincidentally, none of them is the true story. Would you mind goingback into the room with me for a minute?'

Harry considered the request, thenfollowed him in.

Hughes began pacing deliberately aroundfirst Maura's bed, then Evie's, checking the wails, the light switches, and thebeds themselves. Maura watched him curiously.

'Rather than assume the most benignexplanation,' Tom said, continuing his inspection, 'for the moment let's assumethe worst. Some doctor — or perhaps someone planning to pose as a doctor — called in an order to have an IV started in your wife's arm and gave the realanesthesiologist-on-duty's name. Later, he entered this room, unseen by thenurses, spoke to my sister, then administered a pressor drug to your wife. Thenhe left the floor, again managing to avoid being spotted by anyone. We need amotive for why he would have done such a thing, and an explanation as to how hecould have made it on and off the floor without being spotted.'

'Dickinson made it in here without beingseen.'

'One way, he did. The nurses were in theirchange of shift report when he came on the floor. But having two suchopportunities — onto the floor, then off again — let alone planning on them, isasking a bit much.'

'So what are you looking for now?'

'Places where our mystery doctor mighthave left a fingerprint or two. Too bad we don't have prints of every M.D. onthe — '

'Okay, Dr. Corbett,' Albert Dickinson cutin. 'I guess is time you and I had a little talk.' The detective, leaningagainst the doorjamb, sighed wearily. 'I'm required to tell you that you havethe right to remain silent, but that anything you choose to say may and will beused against you in a court of law. You — '

'Wait a minute,' Tom said. 'Why are youreading him Miranda? Is he being arrested?'

'Not yet, but he will be. I just thoughtI'd get through the formalities.'

'Lieutenant Dickinson,' Hughes went on,'there are some things you don't know about what's gone on here.'

'You wanna know what I do know,Yalie? I know that no matter how much they got — sex, money, power, drugs, orwhatever — doctors always want more. That's just the way they are. Give me anunsolved crime where one of ten suspects is a doctor, and my money's on the docevery time. Now, Dr. Corbett, if you'd like to — '

'Lieutenant, another doctor came in to seeMrs. Corbett after Harry left here tonight,' Tom Hughes said.

'There was no one. The next person to comeon this floor after Dr. Corbett left here was you. And by that time, Mrs.Corbett was already on the chute. I checked with the nurses. They have allvisitors logged.'

'Well, the nurses are wrong. Someone washere. A white male in his forties wearing a white clinic coat. Five eight,brown hair, brown eyes.'

'Who says?'

Tom's expression suggested that he wasexpecting the question but still had found no easy way around having to answerit.

'My sister,' he said boldly. 'The manspoke to her, then went around the curtain to Mrs. Corbett, and then left. Itwas soon after that her aneurysm ruptured.'

Dickinson smirked. 'Is that what you saw,little lady?'

'Pinhead. You know, you should firewhoever made you that toupee. I could paint a piece of lettuce with shoe polishand have it look more realistic'

Dickinson smiled blandly but it was clearhe had been skewered. Harry realized only then that the man was wearinga hairpiece. Score one more for Maura Hughes's power of observation.

'Why don't you have another drink, littlelady,' Dickinson said.

'Maura,' Tom pleaded, 'would you pleasestop with the wisecracks and just tell the detective what you saw?'

Maura brushed at something on her shoulderbut said nothing.

'Don't bother,' Harry said. 'I don't thinkthe detective is going to pay much attention. Come on, Lieutenant. Let's getthis over with.'

'Lieutenant Dickinson,' Tom asked, 'do youthink it would be worthwhile calling someone over from forensics?'

'For what?'

'Maybe the doctor who was here left someprints.'

'Fingerprint a hospital room, huh. Soundslike a great idea to me, Yalie. I mean there couldn't have been more than, oh,one or two hundred people in here over the last day.'

'Almost everyone who's been in this room,including the doctors, has a set of fingerprints on file with hospitalsecurity,' Harry said. 'It's been hospital policy for years, ever since aconvicted child molester lied on his application and got a job as an orderly onthe pediatric unit.'

'Great. I'm sure forensics will bethrilled to come out on a night like this because a woman in the goddamn DTsclaims she saw someone that not a single other person on this whole floor saw.'

'I'm telling you, I know my sister, and Iknow that there was someone here.'

'And I'm telling you, spiders and ants andgiant snakes don't leave fingerprints. Now, Corbett, let's get this over.You'll feel much better when you get everything off your chest. .'

It was well after midnight by the timeHarry finished responding to Albert Dickinson's unemotional and uninspiredinterrogation. The detective had clearly made up his mind that the scenario fedto him by Caspar Sidonis was the correct one. Harry, unwilling to allow hiswife to run off with another man, had administered a blood-pressure-raisingagent to her. Her death would appear to be due to the rupture of her aneurysm,and no questions would be asked. Now, samples of her blood were being sent to thestate lab for analysis. If any unusual substances were found, especially onesrelated to raising blood pressure, there was a good chance that a warrant wouldbe issued for Harry's arrest.

'Motive, method, opportunity,' Dickinsonsaid. 'Right now, all we're missing is the method.'

Harry saw no point in telling the hostiledetective about the telephone order to start an IV on Evie. Pramod Baraswattiwould undoubtedly check with the floor first thing in the morning. An incidentreport would be filed, and sooner or later, word would trickle back toDickinson. His conclusion would, of course, be that Harry had made the callhimself, setting up a port for his lethal injection.

Motive, method, opportunity.

He followed Harry back to the room.

'Yalie, I want a cop here as long as she'salive and he's on the floor.'

'She's already been pronounced clinicallydead,' Hughes said.

'Look, are you gonna make me send someoneelse in here, or are you gonna show us that you're a fucking team player?'