False accusations

CHAPTER 10

The consortium occupied what was essentially an old car dealership building. It had been renovated and remodeled by a construction contractor whose son had suffered a severe head injury as a result of a motorcycle accident. In appreciation for all the assistance the CCMR had provided his son, the contractor transformed the building into a respectable facility that proudly housed the services and offices the CCMR required to run their operations. That was twenty years ago, and the structure had an outdated eighties look to it. Still, it was functional and served its purpose.

His conversation with Michael Murphy eight days ago still occupying his thoughts, Madison entered the building and walked down the corridor to the office of the administrative officer. There, he found Brittany Harding sitting behind Donna’s desk with the phone pressed against her ear. She looked up, saw Madison and motioned for him to sit down. She continued her conversation.

He had not yet met her in person; he had only spoken to her on the phone five or six times during the past couple of weeks. She was much more attractive than he had envisioned. She had long, lustrous auburn hair that was blown back and loosely permed, giving it a playful lift and fluff. High cheekbones of Asian ancestry showcased large brown and gold-highlighted tiger eyes. Her makeup was understated.

Harding’s desk was meticulously arranged, with a blotter in place and messages and notes tucked neatly under the edges. There was an in box, an out box, and a tidily stacked pile of opened mail. There was even a coaster under her can of opened Diet Coke.

A framed photo of an older Asian woman and Caucasian man sat on the bookshelf behind her, beside numerous knickknacks harkening back to her Chicago roots.

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “…Yes, Mr. Ivy, I’ll take care of it. I’ve already told you that I’ll look into the matter… Yes, I will. As I already said, I’ll call you once I have an answer for you… Uh-huh… Uh-huh,” she said, opening a paperback novel to a bookmarked page. Her eyes began moving across the lines of text. “Yes, Mr. Ivy, I’m here…I understand. Okay. Okay. Right. ‘Bye.”

She hung up the phone, closed the novel, and sighed heavily again. “Some people…” she said, her voice trailing off. She arose and extended a hand toward Madison.

She squeezed his hand. It hurt.

“And you are…”

“Phil Madison.”

“Oh, Phil. Glad to meet you in person. Or I guess you prefer ‘Dr. Madison’?”

“Phil’s fine. I try not to be so formal here. I’m called ‘doctor’ all day. It’s kind of nice to hear my real name sometimes. I actually forget what it sounds like,” he said, smiling.

She took a swig of Coke. “Want something to drink?”

“Sure,” he said. “Hot one today.”

She walked into the adjacent room and pulled a can from the compact refrigerator.

“Sorry I’m late,” he called to her. “I had a patient with complications.”

“I thought you flaked out on me. I was gonna leave, but then I got this call and the guy kept me on the line for twenty minutes. All he did was complain.” She walked in and handed him a Coke. “Do you want a glass?”

“Can’s fine. I never bother with glasses.”

“Me neither,” she said, settling back into her chair, crossing her long, slender legs in front of her. She pulled another coaster from her drawer and handed it across the desk to Madison.

“I did call, by the way, from my car. I left a voicemail.”

She glanced over at her phone, where a red light was blinking.

“You said this guy was complaining. About what?”

“Nothing important,” Harding said, brushing the long, thick locks off her face. “We’ve only got a little while before the board meeting. If there’s anything you want to review before we go in…”

“I thought we’d go over the agenda together to make sure we’re on the same page.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out some papers. “How’s everything been since we spoke? Holding your own?”

“‘Holding my own’ would be a good way of describing it.”

“Good. I know it’s tough trying to learn everything in a crash course, picking up someone else’s work in mid-stream.”

Harding removed a cigarette from her purse and began playing with it in her right hand. “Stepping in at the eleventh hour’s not the hard part.”

Madison was about to remind her she could not smoke, but realized she did not intend to light it. “Not the hard part,” he said. “What do you mean?”

“I’m constantly putting out fires. Everything’s a mess. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know, but Donna wasn’t the greatest organizer. When I first started working with her, I noticed some inefficiencies, but I didn’t realize the scope of it all until I took over.”

“We never seemed to have a problem before,” Madison said. “Her last couple of weeks aside, I always considered Donna to be a consummate professional and quite well prepared.” He glanced at Harding’s desk again, the extreme degree of neatness placing her comments about Donna in perspective.

She placed the cigarette in her mouth and pulled a sheet of paper from a bin on her desk. “Anyway, I got your email with the agenda. Why don’t we go through it?”

Madison sat back, a bit put off by her attitude. He rummaged through his file and found the agenda. He would have to be understanding. She’d had a difficult day. He certainly hadn’t noticed indications of an attitude problem during their prior conversations. On the other hand, they were just quick calls to inform her of things that needed to be done, to touch base on board matters, and other items of that nature that did not allow much independent expression of thought.

They discussed the agenda, matter-of-factly covering each topic in a swift but thorough fashion. For the most part he was educating her on what he was going to be discussing. Since she was only a couple of weeks on the job, her perspective was limited.

Harding would essentially be a figurehead for the meeting to give the appearance of some semblance of order. It was not easy losing the top staff person indefinitely, and he had already received a few calls from board members inquiring as to how they were going to function without Donna. She had been a mainstay of the office, having survived the longest of all other staff associates over the years. She knew the history of the place better than any other existing employee-she was, in essence, its institutional memory.

Yet here was her freshman assistant criticizing her work. It raised Madison’s hackles, but he filed his thoughts away for the time being and tried to focus on the task at hand.

The board meeting went fairly well. They covered the items on the agenda, and Madison dodged a bullet when discussing Donna’s condition by not providing any specifics. It helped that he did not know many details to begin with. But he and Murphy had decided that it would be best to portray Donna’s absence as a temporary situation, to enable Consortium business to proceed in the short term with as little disruption as possible.

Overall, Harding handled herself professionally. He decided to set up a meeting between just the two of them to spend more time going through procedures and goals.

“How about this Thursday or Friday night? My wife’s taking the kids out of town to visit their uncle so I won’t be cutting into family time.”

“I’ve got a meeting Thursday and I wanted to be at the program we’re running on mainstreaming Friday night.” She shook her head. “This is going to be a tough week. I’ve got so many things to do, so much to learn.”

Madison zipped his briefcase closed. “Don’t worry about it; you’ll do fine. Just take it as it comes, and call me if you have any questions. He glanced at the calendar on his phone. “Why don’t we give you a little breathing room and take it a couple of weeks out, say the twenty-first?”

She tossed her hair back off her face. “Works for me.”

He entered the meeting in his calendar said good-bye. He was already feeling better about her. New staffing situations rarely went smoothly, and inevitably a few obstacles would surface that required attention. The key was quickly identifying the problems and taking steps to address them.

Madison felt that in scheduling their meeting, they were already working toward ironing out any wrinkles in the fabric of their relationship. In addition, he found himself looking forward to finding out what Harding had identified in Donna’s work that was lacking. Maybe she had indeed found something that could be improved upon. After all, Donna wasn’t perfect. According to Murph, Harding had the basic skills; it was just a matter of tapping her potential.

Perhaps he was right.

It was seven o’clock on Thursday morning, and the sun was already oven-hot. Rippling waves of heat rose from the asphalt, and Madison figured it would hit a hundred today for sure…possibly even 105. Madison loaded the car with a couple of suitcases and he, Leeza, and the kids set off for the airport.

“You have your phone with you?”

“Yes, Phil. You’ve asked me that twice already.”

“I know. Just want to make sure that you didn’t forget it. I want you to have it with you at all times-”

“In case of an emergency, I know. I’ve got it.”

“Batteries charged?”

“Don’t worry about us, okay? It’s only Los Angeles.”

“That’s why I’m worried.”

“Very funny.”

They arrived at the airport and the skycap checked in the baggage. Madison handed him ten dollars and kissed everyone good-bye.

As he reentered the freeway, he mentally reviewed his tasks for the day. He was scheduled to see patients beginning at nine, then do rounds at the hospital at four. He would stay extra late tonight, as he did not need to be home for any particular reason other than to tend to Scalpel.

Upon arriving home a little after 9 P.M., Scalpel ran over to greet Madison and slid to a stop on the wood floor inches from his shoes. He played with the dog for a few minutes, then fed him and changed into a pair of hospital scrubs for the rest of the evening.

As he sat down to eat the leftovers that he had just removed from the microwave, the doorbell chimed its scale of music. He sighed, pushed back from the table, and summoned his remaining energy to lumber down the long hallway toward the front door. He looked through the peephole. Brittany Harding was standing on his porch.

“Brittany,” he said. “You said you couldn’t meet tonight-”

“I know, I’m not here on CCMR business.” She was holding her stomach and bending forward slightly. “I’m in a lot of pain. I went to that Quick Care doc-in-the-box in Fair Oaks, but the doctor was busy and they had me see some useless nurse.” She stood farther forward and took a step to catch her balance.

“Here, here, come in,” Madison said, helping her into the entryway. “Lie down on the couch.” He guided her across the room and she lay on her back. Her satiny hair glistened against the deep blue of the crushed velvet sofa.

The dog came over and sniffed, curious as to what was going on and who this visitor was.

“Scalpel,” Madison said, “go lay down.” The dog complied, settling himself down across the room, in a strategic position to keep an eye on their guest. Madison stuffed a couple of small pillows under Harding’s knees. “Bending your legs should ease the pain a little.” He repositioned them, then asked, “Better?”

Harding shook her head no. She started to open her belt but had difficulty with the buckle. Madison was able to unlatch it.

“Where exactly does it hurt?” he asked, kneeling down in front of the couch.

“Here,” she said, taking his left hand. She placed it over the region of her belly button and then moved it down across the lower abdomen. “The whole area.”

He felt uncomfortable allowing his hand to slide down so low on her stomach. He was a physician, but he was unaccustomed to performing lower abdominal examinations-especially on his couch, with his wife 400 miles away, no one else at home, and no nurse in the room.

Her eyes, an intense brown and gold, caught the light from the overhead spotlights and sparkled. They had a brilliance he’d never seen before. Despite the pain she was in, her face had a pristine look to it.

“Gastrointestinal disorders aren’t my specialty,” he said after gently palpating the area she had indicated.

“It just hurts so much. Can’t you do anything for it? Ease the cramping, maybe?”

“When did it start?”

“Early this evening, around six, after dinner.”

“What did you eat?”

“I had some Mexican food.”

“Ever have this type of pain before?”

“A few times, but nothing this severe.”

He felt around her abdomen again for a moment. “Relax your stomach muscles.” He groped around a bit more. “No rebound tenderness,” he said. “No pain over McBurney’s point, no organomegaly, no palpable aneurysms-”

“What does all that mean?”

“Again, this is not my specialty. But I don’t see anything major.”

“Something’s not right. The pain’s really sharp.”

“Have you been constipated, or have you had any diarrhea lately?”

“Constipation. Why?”

“You could have irritable bowel syndrome. A lot of women in your age group have it. And you’ve had some unusual stress lately, starting a new job, taking on a lot of responsibility.”

“Is it serious?”

Madison laughed. “Irritable bowel syndrome? No, not at all. But it can be painful, and very annoying. Just watch what you eat. Eat lots of fiber and stay away from sweets and caffeine. Increase your fruits, potatoes, cereals, grains.”

“That’s it?”

“You should have a thorough workup tomorrow. Who’s your primary physician?”

She belched. “Excuse me,” she said, covering her mouth. “Dr. Vincente.”

“I’ve heard he’s a good man. Make sure you see him tomorrow.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Is it easing a bit?” He could tell by her face that the sharp pains had subsided.

“I think I can sit up now.” She arose, slowly, grabbing his arm and steadying herself.

“Just a little dizzy.”

“Probably from lying down. You have low blood pressure?”

She nodded. “Mind if I use your phone to make a couple of calls? My battery’s almost dead and people must be wondering where I am.”

They walked into the kitchen and he pointed to the phone on the wall. While she made her calls, Madison let Scalpel into the backyard and then went into his den. He wanted to finish eating, but figured he could wait another couple of minutes for Harding to leave.

A moment later, she appeared in the hallway. “No one’s home. Voicemail both times. Just shows you that when you’re missing, no one’ll even notice.”

Madison smiled and showed her to the door. “You feel okay to drive?”

“I’ll be fine. Sorry for barging in on you like that, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

He opened the door; it was quiet outside. The gardenias were blooming and their pungent scent permeated the entryway. “How’d you find out where I lived?”

“Oh, I got it off the computer at the CCMR. The mailing list.”

“Right,” he said as he started to close the door. “Talk to you soon.”

He stood there in the quiet entryway, thinking. The only address he had ever given the CCMR was their private mailbox at the local Postal Express store. In fact, no one had his street address except for his close friends-he was very cautious about his privacy.

So where had she gotten it from? And why’d she lie?