“Or lack thereof.”
He was right, it was a valid concern. Tolan now had a personal stake in the case and if it went to trial, any defense attorney worth his salt would claim that he had somehow manipulated or coached the witness.
“So the question is,” Blackburn said, “can you be objective about this?”
Tolan wasn’t sure he knew the answer. Objectivity had not been his strong suit this morning. Far from it.
He thought of Jane and those brown eyes that looked just like Abby’s and wondered what they’d seen. Even if he could set aside his feelings, would he ever be able to break through the seemingly impenetrable wall she’d built?
Before he could respond, the door opened and Carmody stepped back onto the patio. “Rossbach’s sending a tech team up.” She looked at Tolan. “Do you have any objection to phone taps?”
“None at all.”
“What about your office line?”
“Considering the circumstances, I’m sure the administration will be happy to cooperate.”
“Good,” she said, then turned to Blackburn. “Rossbach says they’re going to hit up all the victims’ families, see if Vincent made any more phone calls. And there’s been a change of plans: He wants the witness transferred to County.”
Blackburn looked surprised. “I thought we all agreed to give the doc a shot at this.”
“That was before they knew about the calls. He says there’s too much at stake.”
“Rossbach’s a douche,” Blackburn said.
“He’s also right. And what he says goes.” She looked at Tolan again. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, but—”
“Wait a minute, wait.” Tolan raised his hands in protest. Despite any conflicts, he knew he couldn’t let Jane out of this hospital. Not now. “I think I may have a solution. A compromise.”
“What kind of compromise?”
He was thinking on his feet at this point and had no idea if what he was about to propose would fly, but it was worth a shot. “The problem isn’t with Baycliff but with me, right?”
“Right,” Carmody said.
“So what if we keep her here, but I turn her care over to another therapist?”
Blackburn snorted. “That pretty much defeats the whole purpose of me bringing her here in the first place.”
“I understand that,” he said. “But I can still serve as a consultant. Make suggestions on how best to approach her, without being accused of trying to manipulate her.”
Blackburn thought about it a moment. “Head shrinking by proxy. I like that, Doc. I’d rather have some of you than none at all.”
“Besides,” Tolan continued, “if Jane saw Vincent stab that man in his apartment, what’s to stop him from coming after her, too?”
“Don’t think we haven’t thought of that,” Carmody said.
“He’s right,” Blackburn told her. “We keep her here, we won’t have to spread ourselves so thin.”
Carmody ignored him, addressing Tolan. “Who do you have in mind to take your place?”
Tolan considered the question. Baycliff had several excellent doctors on staff, including the four of them here in the detention unit. Kessler and Edmunds rotated shifts, Simm worked graveyard and, as supervisor, Tolan was a floater — although he usually worked the day shift when the place was jumping.
Both Kessler and Edmunds were competent, even above-average clinicians. But in the time he’d been here, Simm had proven to be a true asset to the team. Tireless, dedicated, instincts that rivaled some of the best practitioners Tolan had known.
“Clayton Simm,” he said.
Blackburn scoffed. “The guy you want me to apologize to?”
“He’s one of the best I’ve seen.” Tolan didn’t mention the botched heterochromia diagnosis, but it had been a bad morning for all of them and he still had complete confidence in the man. “More important, he listens to me.”
Blackburn nodded, turned to Carmody. “What do you think?”
“I think if we do this, you’re the one who’s running it past Rossbach.”
“No problem,” Blackburn said. “We both speak douche.”
23
“I’d appreciate it, ma’am, if you could answer a question for me.”
The woman looked up from her paperwork, waiting for Solomon to continue. She had the face of somebody who wished she were on a beach somewhere, soaking up some sun, rather than stuck behind this desk, dealing with the likes of him. It was the kind of face you’d find at the DMV or the Social Services office. Pinched and unhappy. And very, very tired. A look Solomon had seen a thousand times in his life.
He tried his best smile on her. “You probably see just about everyone comes in here, right?”
“Is that the question?”
“Pardon me?”
“You said you wanted to ask me a question. Was that it, or are you gonna waste my time with a lot of mindless chitchat?”
She went back to her paperwork and Solomon felt his smile falter. You work in a warehouse like County General, you’re bound to be a bit surly, but this one was downright nasty.
The way he figured it, nobody was chaining her to this desk.
He decided to cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I’m lookin’ for a friend of mine. I think the police mighta brought her here earlier this morning.”
She looked up at him again. “A friend of yours.” It wasn’t a question, just a flat, disinterested statement with a touch of weariness thrown in for good measure. “And who would that friend be? Abe Lincoln? The tooth fairy? Somebody from your home planet?”
Wondering what had crawled up this woman’s ass and died, Solomon said, “Her name is Myra. And you’d remember her, because all she had on was a blanket and a lot of blood.”
The woman scowled. “We don’t discuss our patients.”
“You see,” Solomon went on, “the reason I ask is because she’s got some health issues I think the doctors need to know about.”
“They’re doctors. They’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe so, but what if she goes into insulin shock before they get to her?” It was a lie, of course, but bound to provoke a response.
“She’s diabetic?”
Solomon nodded. “She don’t get proper treatment, she could die.”
“I could think of worse things,” the woman muttered, then returned her attention to her task.
“So that’s it? You don’t give a damn?”
“No, Mr. — ” She glanced at the top of the page in front of her. “—St. Fort, I don’t.”
“What kinda nurse are you?”
She glared at him. “First off, I’m not a nurse. I run the emergency intake desk. The one you’re sitting in front of right now. Second, I’m tired of seeing people like you take a free ride off the backs of hard-working people like me. And third, I especially don’t give a damn because I’ve never seen this woman in a blanket you’re talking about, and I figure she’s either already dead or just a figment of your alcohol-soaked imagination.”
This lady was mad at the world. Give her ten minutes with Katrina or a couple days down at the river bottom, maybe she’d realize just how good she had it.
But no matter. Solomon had found out what he needed to know. He’d lost the coin toss. Myra wasn’t here. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to get himself up to Headcase Hotel.
“Just so you know, ma’am, people like me ain’t no different from people like you. We’ve just had some bad breaks, is all.”
She glanced at the page again.
“It says here you urinated on a police car. Was that a bad break?”
Solomon said nothing.