Critical Conditions

Thirty

My first patient was a thirty-four-year-old gay firefighter named Roland who, over the past eight months, had lost his partner of six years and his two closest friends to AIDS. Over the weekend he had discovered that another good friend was HIV-positive. We talked mostly about the promise of protease inhibitors. How Roland found the will to continue to believe that each new day would start with a fresh sunrise baffled me. But he did. Each week as we talked I permitted myself to be inspired by him.

My first scheduled break of the morning came at eleven. I called Cozier Maitlin’s office to leave him a message. His sweet secretary answered, and I convinced her that my news was probably more urgent than whatever it was Cozy was doing at the moment.

“Alan? What’s up?”

Well, your girlfriend is about to dump you for the chance to have a go at your ex-wife…

“Lots, Cozy, but I just have a minute now. Can I meet you somewhere at one-thirty? Your office? Coffee?”

“Come here. No clients on Saturday. ’Bye. I’m on the eighth floor.”

If you said you were on the eighth floor in downtown Boulder, you didn’t need to use an address. There was only one building that tall in the center of the city and it is such an architectural abomination that its construction resulted in an ordinance prohibiting any copycat developers from building their own brick-and-glass privacy fences between the rest of the city and the mountains.

One of Cozy’s building’s glass facades faced the mountains, and one faced the eastern plains. I wasn’t surprised that Cozy’s office had the western view.

It’s easy to find views of Boulder from on high. Many hiking trails and roads leave town to the west and provide stunning views of the city and the endless plains to the east. But a view of the city from this height with the mountains as a backdrop was breathtaking and novel.

I said, “Nice office, Cozy.”

Cozy barely looked up from his desk. “That’s what people say. It’s my turn to be running tight on time. Sit.”

My back was to the view as I filled him in on the developments with Madison and Brad, my helicopter trip over the Divide, and Madison’s murder.

The news I was providing caused him to sit back on his chair while he air-drummed an imaginary snare with two pencils. He said, “What’s it all mean?”

“I was hoping you would tell me that.”

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

I said, “I have a patient soon and I know you have limited time and there’s more for you to consider. First, and maybe most important, Merritt started talking to me.”

“What?” His voice was a sandwich of elation and alarm. The alarm part, I supposed, was his recognition that as long as Merritt wasn’t opening her mouth, she couldn’t very well stick her foot in it.

“Initially she insisted on total confidence. From everyone, you included, Cozy. I finally managed to get her to agree to let me fill you and the hospital staff in on what she was telling me.”

He slapped the pencils on the desk. “You need to be incredibly careful what you put in the chart.”

I said, “I know. No facts, Cozy.”

“And? Come on, Alan, what’d she say? I’m not big on suspense. There’re lawyers who are calm waiting for juries to come back; I’m not one of them.”

“Nothing yet. We were interrupted before she told me much. Her little sister is critical again. All Merritt’s told me so far is that she followed her stepfather when he went to Dead Ed’s house and that she thinks he went in and that she and her girlfriend were cooking up a scheme to save her sister. That’s it.”

“A scheme? What kind of scheme?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“And now the girlfriend is dead?”

“Yes. Merritt says that Brad-the boyfriend-had a mean streak. She didn’t seem surprised.”

“If I go to Denver, will Merritt talk to me?”

“I don’t know, Cozy. But I don’t recommend trying. Clinically, I mean. The trust level between her and me is fragile. I think it’s important to give her control of this now that she’s decided to talk. If we press her, she could clam up again.”

“Hell.” That was as close as Cozier Maitlin ever came to cursing.

I looked at my watch. I had eight minutes to get four blocks. “I almost forgot. It seems that Merritt broke a fingernail during some part of this affair. I saw the broken nail on her hand that first day when she was in the hospital. The cops have it. The broken nail.”

“You’re sure the cops have it? Who told you? And where did they recover it?”

“I don’t know where they recovered it. And you’ll just have to accept my word that I heard it from a reliable source that…should remain anonymous.”

“Oh.” Cozy knew immediately that my source was Sam. He put down his drumsticks. It was his turn to look at his watch. He said, “I should go, too. I’m having a late lunch with Adrienne. She can get irritable when I’m late.”

I smiled meekly, bit my tongue, and told him to enjoy his meal.

My afternoon was relatively uneventful. Before returning to Denver, I stopped home long enough to amuse Emily for a while and give her an early dinner. I was being a neglectful parent and still she greeted me as gleefully as a child greets Christmas morning.

The situation hadn’t changed much at Children’s. Chaney remained stable. Critical, but stable. Merritt was camped out two inches from her sister’s bed. When I arrived, she was reading a dog-eared copy of Catcher in the Rye. She waved at me and smiled a greeting. Brenda was sitting in a rocking chair, keeping vigil with her daughter. John was pacing in the hall and saw me enter.

With a wave, he beckoned me over to the nursing station door. He said, “Merritt won’t talk to anyone but Chaney. And when Chaney stirs she won’t shut up, just puts her mouth next to Chaney’s ear and whispers to her.”

“How is she, John? Chaney?”

“Same. The transplant team repeated their imaging this afternoon. Her primary has been on the phone with Seattle. Chaney’s eligibility for the procedure is now questionable. If her lung function deteriorates much more they won’t take her even if we get the insurance approval.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He was looking at the floor, sliding the toe of one shoe back and forth. “I’m an old hippie, Alan. Stuff doesn’t mean much to me. It just doesn’t. I can honestly say that this is the only time in my life I’ve ever been envious of rich men. And today, I want to be a rich man, too. My baby’s dying in that room, in that bed, and I can’t do anything about it. A rich man could do something about it. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

I wanted to touch him, but he had wrapped himself in his grief. I said, “No, John, I don’t. I can only imagine.”

“Merritt’s calm as can be. She seems absolutely convinced that her sister’s going to be fine. I worry about what it’s going to be like for her when she realizes the gravity of what’s happened, what’s going on.” He looked up from the floor. “She’s going to need you then. You know that?”

“I know, John. I’ll do everything I can.”

We both knew I could do precious little. Maybe put a pillow down to cushion a ten-story fall.

I waited with John and Brenda about ten minutes until the respiratory technicians arrived to do a treatment on Chaney. As she left her sister’s bedside, I casually invited Merritt to join me in an empty conference room adjacent to the intensive care unit.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she came along. I was surprised.

I said, “Hi. Tough day. What you’re doing for your sister is wonderful. It really makes a difference.”

She shook her head. Didn’t speak. Instantly, I feared that we had returned to square one: Silence.

I said, “The police still haven’t found Brad. I thought you would want to know.”

One side of the conference room had glass windows facing the ICU. Merritt stood and adjusted the blinds so that she could clearly see her sister’s bed. She ignored my comment about the fraternity boy, but asked, “How is Mrs. Monroe doing? Is she, I don’t know…?”

I was relieved that she was still speaking. “I haven’t talked to Ms. Monroe. I’m sure it’s an incredibly difficult time for her.”

In a halting voice, Merritt asked, “Does she blame me? For what happened?”

My next words were crucial, I knew that. I softened my voice and narrowed my focus. I leaned forward on my chair, resting my elbows on my knees. I said, “I don’t know, Merritt. Should she?”

Merritt returned to the chair opposite me and sat. Her gaze stayed aimed at the window. She said, “Probably,” and she shook her head, a disbelieving kind of shake. “But I told Madison not to tell Brad. I knew he’d do something stupid. God.”

My impulse was to say, “Tell him what?” I didn’t. I sat back and feigned patience and allowed Merritt to find a pace for telling this story that suited her. She bit on her lower lip for a moment, then, with a thrust of her jaw, she began to bite on her upper one.

“Do you wonder why I wouldn’t talk for so long?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay, here’s why.

“That day, the last day, I went over to Dr. Robilio’s house again. By myself this time, Madison wasn’t with me. I’d been working out at school. I took the bus and then I walked the rest of the way to his house. I wanted to…I don’t know…I don’t know…”

Merritt struggled, looking for a word. The silence stretched for at least ten seconds.

“Plead with him-beg him?-to save my sister. When I got there, I saw my stepdad’s car parked around the corner. Trent has this old beat-up Jetta, you can’t miss it. It’s an antique, at least as old as me. Anyway, I waited for him to come out. When he did, he came out of the back yard, not out of the front door, and calm as could be, he walked back to his car, started it up, and drove away.”

Merritt stood and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She was in profile to me, and she looked even taller and leaner stretched out against the window.

“I almost went home right then. Figured Trent had already done what I wanted to do.”

I waited a few beats. I said, “But you didn’t go home?”

“No, I didn’t. I rang the doorbell. Nobody answered. I rang it again. Nothing. So I went around back the same way Trent had come out of the yard.”

I reminded myself that the preamble to this story had to do with why Merritt had chosen to be silent. I was aware of her breathing being labored and wondered where she was heading.

“There’s all these doors back there that go into the house. And a big patio. And a pool with a fancy fence around it. I looked inside the house, didn’t see anybody. So I tried the doors. One of them opened. I went in.”

I had the strangest sensation right then, as though I were watching a movie and the music was reaching a crescendo and I knew something terrible was about to happen to one of the characters. I almost blurted out a warning to Merritt not to go in, to instead turn on her heels and run home. As fast as she could.

“When I did, I realized I had walked into this theater. The man has his own…private…theater. I couldn’t believe it. He has this big mansion and a stupid swimming pool and his own private theater and all I want is to have my sister stay alive…”

I desperately wanted to see Merritt’s face right then, but all I could see was a distorted reflection in the glass. It told me nothing.

“I looked around. Didn’t say anything at first. I was just getting madder and madder and madder about the money he has that he wouldn’t spend on Chaney.” She spun right then and faced me, her hands still in her pockets. “I went down this little hallway and there was this door. It was closed. I opened it and that’s when I saw him.”

While her left hand covered her mouth, her eyes were seeing nothing in the present. She was revisiting some horror. And it was freezing her.

I said, “Go on, Merritt.”

She swallowed. “I had never seen so much blood. It was everywhere. Everywhere.”

What?

“It was like he had drowned in it. And then I saw the gun, down near the edge of the desk, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run. Maybe I should have run.”

Run! Yes, run!

“But I tried to save him. I needed him to be alive to help Chaney. He was my only hope. I didn’t want him dead.”

Her forehead wrinkled into a frown. “He was slumped on this chair and I pulled him onto the floor-God, I wasn’t strong enough and he just plopped down and blood splashed everywhere, and I, I-I’ve taken Red Cross lifesaving-and I tried to resuscitate him. Mouth-to-mouth. It was awful. There was blood in his mouth and each breath I forced into him made this sick noise and I was kneeling in his blood and his body felt so awful to touch and his damn heart wouldn’t start beating and between breaths I was yelling at him and yelling at him not to let my little sister die.”

She slid to the floor and leaned against the window wall. “But it was stupid. He was dead.”

“You didn’t kill him.” I forced an inflection that made the words not sound like the question that they were.

“No, I didn’t kill him. Trent did.”

“You’ve been protecting your stepfather?”

She looked at me hard. “No, no. I’m still protecting my stepfather. Don’t forget your promise.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Good.”

She gestured out the window. “They’re done out there. I want to go back and be with Chaney while she’s still awake.”

In a firm voice, I said, “I have some questions first. About what happened.”

She smiled at me coolly. “They can wait. There’s no hurry anymore. The man’s dead, he can’t help Chaney anymore.”

I tried to counter. “But what about Brad? He’s in serious jeopardy. Half the police in Colorado are after him.”

“Brad? Screw Brad. He doesn’t care about Chaney at all. Never did. Take me back out there.”

I thought about it for a long time. I was in a power struggle with a teenager who had an array of weapons I couldn’t match. In addition, she had two trump cards. One, of course, was her vow to return to silence. The other was a willingness to die for her cause.

I agreed to return Merritt to her sister’s bedside while I was trying to figure out some way to explain to the psychiatric unit staff what I was doing so that it resembled something like a treatment plan.