False accusations

CHAPTER 23

Eleven days passed without event. Neither Madison nor Hellman had heard anything from the detectives, and Hellman assured him that no news was good news-if they had enough to charge him, they would have already done so. Still, Madison’s concentration was off; he had difficulty focusing on the patients while they were talking to him during their examinations. His mind kept coming back to the Harding matter, and what it could mean to him and his family should they arrest him and charge him with sexual misconduct.

He reasoned that about the only charge that could be more damaging to a physician would be rape. Being innocent had nothing to do with it: given the nature of the difficulties in obtaining definitive evidence in sexual misconduct cases-unless there were witnesses, generally it was one person’s word against another’s. The charge would stick and remain in the collective mind of the public for years to come.

If he was found not guilty, they would say it was because of a lack of evidence, her word against that of a prominent surgeon; if he was found guilty, not only would he be a victim of a sick mind, but it would no doubt destroy his family.

No matter how it turned out, it would haunt him for the rest of his medical career, hanging over his head like a lead umbrella.

The red light on his phone was flashing when he returned to his office. He had been seeing patients steadily and this was the first moment he’d had to himself. He hit a couple of buttons and listened to the message. It was Jeffrey, urging him to call as soon as possible.

The receptionist put him right through.

“I got a call from those detectives this morning.”

Madison’s heart skipped a beat. “I thought no news was good news.”

“They want to get together tonight. Something about new evidence.”

“New evidence?” he asked, suddenly aware of the moisture forming across his forehead. “What the hell kind of evidence could they have?”

“I was going to ask you,” Hellman said. “There has to be something about that evening.”

Madison said, “Maybe someone saw her or her car leaving.”

“There was a brief moment of silence. “Look,” Hellman said, “let’s assume they have something we didn’t think of. It can’t be too damning, because if it was ironclad, they would’ve just come over and arrested you.”

“That’s comforting.”

“We’ll go over later and play it by ear. If the situation seems right, go ahead and tell them that she was there and you examined her, but forgot about it, and you didn’t think it was on September eleventh, but it could’ve been. Just make it convincing.”

“I knew it, Jeffrey. It’s always best to tell the truth. Then you can’t get caught in lies. You don’t have to worry what you’ve told to whom.”

“I never said you shouldn’t tell them the truth. I just said you shouldn’t volunteer the information.”

“Whatever.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby of the station at six-thirty. Can you make it?”

Madison looked down at his calendar and schedule for the day. “Yeah, I can cancel my fund-raising committee meeting tonight.”

“Don’t worry, okay?”

“Worry? What have I got to be worried about?”

“Phil-”

“I’ll see you later, Jeffrey,” he said, hanging up without waiting for a response.

Hellman sat in the lobby, waiting for Madison to show. He looked around, his eyes taking in the decor and clamor of the police station. But his mind was miles away.

He was thinking about the times when he and Madison were young teenagers, playing one-on-one basketball at the high school playground. Madison’s height advantage was sometimes too difficult to overcome. But Hellman always proved a worthy opponent, practicing hard and focusing on playing intelligently so as to minimize his friend’s physical advantages. Their competitions were fierce, evidenced by the fact that nothing deterred them-not rain, cold, or darkness.

“…Jeffrey,” Madison was saying.

Hellman shook his head. “I was daydreaming. We were playing ball at McClatchy.”

“I was winning, right?” Madison said. “I always won.”

Hellman smiled as they walked down the hall to meet the detectives. “Same team now. Hell of a combination. Unbeatable.”

They ascended the stairs and were led to the same interview room, where they sat down opposite Coleman and Valentine.

“Let’s talk about that night again,” Coleman said. “September eleventh of this year. You remember our last conversation? You said that you had nothing in your calendar about meeting Brittany Harding that night.”

“You saw my calendar.”

“Yes we did.”

“Maybe, instead of interviewing me again, you should be speaking with some of the people who’ve witnessed this lady’s bizarre behavior. She’s a nut.”

“Is that your medical opinion of Miss Harding?”

“Detective, let’s not play cat and mouse,” Hellman said. “Can we just get down to the nuts and bolts? You said you had new evidence.”

“We do.”

Valentine pulled a couple of papers from the folder that was sitting on the metal table in front of her. She handed one of them to Madison, who tilted it so that Hellman could see.

“Is that a copy of your phone bill, doctor?” she asked.

“My wife pays the bills, I never see them.”

“Is that your telephone number at the top?”

“Yes.”

Valentine handed him another page. “Do you recognize the two phone numbers that are highlighted in yellow?”

Madison instantly remembered. Harding had made two calls from his house before she left that night. How convenient. No, how clever.

Valentine leaned forward. “Doctor?”

“What?” Madison asked, not looking up. “No, I don’t recognize those numbers.”

Hellman was beginning to noticeably sweat.

“You’ll notice those calls were made on September eleventh, at ten-fifteen and ten-sixteen P.M.”

No response from Madison. He was still staring at the paper.

“Those numbers,” Valentine continued, “are local toll calls to the phone numbers of Sue Harding, Ms. Harding’s mother, and Nancy Bonham, her sister.”

“Hmm,” Madison mused, as if the news was intensely interesting.

“Detective,” Hellman said, “if I could have a moment with my client.”

“Wait a minute,” Madison said. “She made a couple of calls one night when she dropped by my house complaining of abdominal pain.”

“So she was at your home that night,” Valentine said.

“Well, if she made these calls on the eleventh I guess the night she came over was the eleventh. She wasn’t a patient. I didn’t keep treatment notes of her visit.”

“Apparently, it was September eleventh, Dr. Madison.” Valentine paused. “Wasn’t it?” she said, locking on his gaze.

“It would appear so.”

“So Harding’s story is taking on some truth,” she said to Coleman.

“What are you talking about?” Madison asked. “What possible reason would I have for making advances to Brittany Harding? I have a wife and two kids. I’m happily married.”

Coleman leaned forward toward Madison. “She’s a looker. Twenty-five, long legs, big tits. You had something she wanted…her job. And she had something you wanted. So you told her that if she wanted to keep her job, she’d have to grease your pole.”

Madison winced at the detective’s street language. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Then what happened that night?” Valentine asked.

Madison looked over at Hellman, who nodded for him to tell the story.

“She showed up at my door complaining of abdominal pain. She’d been to some local Quick Care facility where a nurse told her it was nothing to worry about. Brittany said she kept having sharp pains and didn’t know what to do, so she came by my house on the way home.”

Valentine leaned back in her chair. “Is that it?”

“Well, I gave her a brief abdominal exam, which was essentially negative, and I told her she probably had irritable bowel syndrome.”

“Anything else happen?”

“She started to feel better and left.”

“Describe an abdominal exam, the way you did it on Miss Harding that night,” Valentine said.

“The patient’s knees were flexed to relax the stomach muscles, and I placed my hand over her abdomen. I felt for rigidity, masses, and effusion. I made sure there were no aneurysms, and then I palpated the organs and checked for rebound tenderness.”

“How far down on the stomach did you go?”

“I examined the entire abdomen. From just under the rib cage down to the upper groin area.”

“You didn’t go any lower than the ‘upper groin area’?” Valentine asked.

“No.”

“And what happened after the exam?”

“Like I said, she just left.”

“And the phone calls?”

“Oh, she made them just before she left. She said something about not wanting anyone to worry about her not having been home all night. I let my dog into the yard and then went into my den.”

“What about sexual advances?”

“What about them?”

“I’m asking if you made any. You know, ‘Gee, you look incredibly hot tonight. I like your dress, how about-”

“All right, that’s enough,” Hellman said.

“I’ll answer that, Jeffrey.”

“You don’t have to, Phil.”

“It’s okay,” Madison said, turning to Valentine. “Detective, I swear to you. I examined her abdomen, I diagnosed her condition, urged her to get subsequent care from her personal physician if her symptoms returned, and that was it. No innuendoes, no overtures, under tures, comments, inappropriate behavior…nothing.”

“Do you usually examine patients’ abdomens at your home?”

Madison clenched his teeth but remained composed. “No, I don’t. I made an exception because it was someone I knew and she was in a great deal of pain. I’ll never make that mistake again, that’s for sure.”

Valentine sighed. “So that’s it? You were the perfect gentleman, just trying to help out a friend in need? I don’t buy it.”

“You know,” Madison said, “you’re so focused on me. But what about her? Why don’t you ask her how she knew where I lived? She said she pulled it off the Consortium computer. But they only have my P.O. Box.”

“We’re focused on you because you’re the one under investigation. How she knew where you lived is irrelevant. Maybe you gave her your home address and forgot.”

“I wouldn’t do that. But I’ll tell you how she knew. She must’ve followed me home one night. She’s stalking me-”

“Leave the paranoia at home, Doc.”

“Is that all you have?” Hellman asked.

“No. We’ve got one other item to discuss,” she said, motioning for Coleman to hand her the belt from the bag on the floor.

“Ever seen this belt?” she asked, showing it to Madison. It was encased in a plastic bag and tagged with an identification sticker.

“Not that I can recall.”

“Harding was wearing it the night she was at your house.”

“So?” Hellman said.

“So it’s got your client’s fingerprints on it.”

Madison rotated his palms toward the ceiling. “I examined her abdomen, and she was in a lot of pain. I helped her unbuckle it.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Look,” Hellman said firmly, my client has answered your questions and explained everything he possibly could. Now, are you going to formally charge him?”

“Not yet.” Valentine said this staring deeply into Madison’s eyes. He stared back, a game of cat and mouse.

“Fine,” Hellman said, arising and taking Madison by the arm. “Then we thank you for a most stimulating evening, detectives.”

They walked toward Madison’s Mercedes in silence.

“What do you think?” he asked Hellman as he unlocked the door.

“I think we’re okay, but I don’t like it. Too many implications. They could make a case of it. It would be dismissed, but not before your name was plastered all over the newspapers. I’m not going to deceive you. It would wreak havoc with your practice. Your reputation.”

“Tell me about it. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

“My gut feeling is that they’re contemplating more than just sexual misconduct. They’re thinking rape.”

“Rape?!”

“Yeah, but it would be a huge reach. It’s been how long since the alleged incident? To have the most credibility, the woman has to report it and get to a doctor within twenty-four hours to be examined.”

“But they said sexual misconduct.”

“An understatement,” he said. “Cops lie during interviews. They do what it takes to get the information they’re after.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what they charge me with. Even if we get it dismissed, I know what people will think.”

“Let’s just take one day at a time. So far so good. You’re out here and they’re in there, right?”

“Yeah, right.” Madison had a difficult time feeling relief, any relief at all.

Leeza was walking down the stairs as he came through the back door.

“Hi,” Madison said, trying to appear upbeat.

“You had a call from Ed Dolius,” she said as she kissed him. “He wanted to know why the meeting was canceled.”

“Oh,” he said, removing his coat and hanging it in the closet. He had not called Leeza from the office to tell her about the change in plans and the scheduled interview with the detectives.

“Where were you all this time if the meeting was canceled? I tried you at the office.” A hint of curiosity in her voice. The rumor of the affair was no doubt in the back of her mind.

“I had an interview with Jeffrey and the detectives at the station,” he said, sifting through his pile of mail. “They wanted to ask me some more questions.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. And I figured that since I was supposed to be at the meeting, you weren’t expecting me to be home.”

“How’d the interview go?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he said, forcing a smile and borrowing a line from Hellman.

“That’s not saying much.”

“That’s because not much happened.” He pushed his mail into a stack and faced Leeza. “They asked me some more questions and I gave them some more answers. It’s all a load of crap, and they know it. Jeffrey tried to push them into just letting the whole thing go.”

“And?”

“We’ll see. Jeffrey thought they’d asked enough questions, so he ended the interview and we left.” He loosened his tie. “What’s there to eat?”

“Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Go change your clothes and I’ll heat something up,” she said. “Be quiet. The boys just went to sleep. They had hard time going down tonight for some reason.”

That’ll make three of us, he thought.