Critical Conditions

Thirty-one

I made my way out of the ICU to the elevator lobby to head upstairs to make a note in Merritt’s chart. As the elevator door opened, Sam Purdy stepped out, accompanied by his wife, Sherry.

It should have been an inconsequential visit, an aunt and uncle visiting a critically ill niece. Sadly, in tertiary care hospitals like this one, such visits happen all the time. But it wasn’t an inconsequential hospital visit and Sam, Sherry, and I all knew it.

I said hello to the Purdys and they replied in hushed hospital tones.

Sherry Purdy is a pleasant woman, cautious interpersonally, but not shy. Every time I had ever seen her, she had always been quick with a smile. And every time I had spoken with her on the phone looking for Sam, I’d always been grateful for the effervescence in her greeting. Not this time, though. Sherry appeared tired and worn and her eyes were heavy and dark. Her clothes seemed to hang on her.

Sam said, “Where is Chaney, Alan?”

“Intensive care unit. It’s halfway down this corridor on the right. Everyone is down there. Merritt, both of her parents.”

Sherry snapped, “He is not her father.”

What was that about? “Excuse me, Sherry, I misspoke. Both Merritt’s mother and her stepfather are there.”

Sam jumped in to douse whatever embers were threatening to flare. “Honey, you go ahead down to see her. You still want to do this alone, right?”

She managed a throaty “Yes,” but didn’t sound like she meant it.

“I’ll be down soon,” Sam said, planting a gentle kiss on her cheek.

She tried to force a smile onto her face before she turned and headed down the hall. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether her dread over her long march was generated more by her niece’s illness or was residue of her ancient feud with her sister.

I said, “Sherry’s lost weight, Sam.”

“She’s ripped up by this. Chaney. Merritt. Having Brenda in town. It’s been hard.” He looked down the hall at Sherry. “You said Lucy told you about the extortion attempt? The phone call?”

“Yes, she told me. Anything new on it?”

“No more calls. Let’s face it, if it was the two kids, they’ve had a little falling out since then. Brad’s a proven asshole, by the way. His last two girlfriends both say he hit them.”

I wasn’t surprised. “Brad may follow through on the extortion on his own.”

“If he’s stupid enough to do that, everybody’s ready for him this time.”

“Do they know what the videotape was? The one he beat Madison with?”

“They’re still piecing it together. So far, it looks like it was a badly recorded copy of Pretty Woman, taped straight off the network, commercials and everything. All the other videos in the RV were the commercial versions. You know, store bought. And no, I don’t know what that means.”

“Anything else?”

“No. You leaving the hospital?”

“Not yet. I have some paperwork to take care of upstairs in the psychiatric unit.”

“I’ll go with you. See if I can read something over your shoulder.”

I said, “Fine. You learn anything new about the threats that were being made?”

He puffed out one cheek and arched his eyebrows. I didn’t know what it meant. But he didn’t answer my question. I figured that he’d tell me when he had something and when he was ready. No sooner.

We had an elevator to ourselves on the way upstairs. I said, “This has to be hard for Sherry. The visit, I mean, coming here.”

“Yeah, sure is. It needed to happen, though-seeing her sister and the kids. Sherry’s been on the outside of this too long.” He paused a moment, enough to scratch under his nose. “Listen, your empathy’s real sweet and everything, but, uh, things you don’t know about are getting goofy. Nothing’s making much sense to me anymore about Merritt and…”

His voice faded as the electronic chime announced we had reached the third floor. No one entered.

Sam faced me again when the doors closed. “See, it turns out that Merritt was not only in Dead Ed’s house, she was also in Dead Ed’s RV.”

“What?”

The doors opened at the fourth floor and I followed him out. I yanked him into an unoccupied room that had two empty cribs in it and repeated, “What? She was in the damn RV? What the hell was she doing in the RV?”

“I don’t know. When we did the search of her bedroom in her house-you know, after you found the bloody clothes?-we found an earring in the trash can under her desk. Just one, a little silver cross. Didn’t make much of it. Till now. Because it turns out the other one was in Dead Ed’s RV.”

“What?”

He examined me critically. “Great questions you’re asking. You suffer some brain damage since I saw you last? I could use some thoughtfulness here.”

I realized that by my stupefied reaction to his news, I had just demonstrated clearly to him that my work with Merritt hadn’t covered the topic of any visits she might have made to Dead Ed’s Holiday Rambler. Sam hadn’t impinged on his niece’s confidentiality at all and he knew exactly what he had come to find out from me.

“Fingerprints?” I asked.

“Yep. Plenty. Not matched yet, but they’ll be hers. You know where they found it? The earring?”

“No, where?”

“It had fallen down between the mattress and the headboard in the bedroom. Damn Winnebago has an actual bedroom, can you believe it?”

“In the bedroom?”

Sam shook his head at me disdainfully. I sat down. I wanted to protest his news. I desperately wanted to tell him that Merritt had just told me she hadn’t done it. That she had just gone over to Dead Ed’s house to beg for her sister’s welfare. That Dead Ed was already Dead Ed when she got there. That it was John Trent who had been there first.

That it was John Trent who had killed Dr. Edward Robilio.

But when I calculated in all the facts that Merritt wasn’t telling me I also realized that my faith in what she was telling me was rapidly diminishing.

Sam recognized that I was in the midst of some kind of internal struggle. He said, “What? What aren’t you telling me, Alan? Has she started talking to you?”

I said, “You know I can’t say, Sam. If she has started talking, telling anyone about it would shut her up in a second. You know that.”

He slapped the wall so hard I was surprised he didn’t crack it. “God, I hate this crap. This is my goddamned niece we’re talking about.”

“I know. You’re not alone, Sam. Right now, I hate this crap, too. She’s downstairs with her sister. Go see for yourself if she’s talking.”

“This is bullshit. I’m going to go find Sherry.”

“Good luck.”

“Piss on that. I’d need less luck if you would just tell me what the hell you know.”

With that, he headed out.

Five minutes later he had himself buzzed onto the adolescent psych unit. He found me in the nursing station struggling to write a chart note that said something without saying anything. He said, “Sherry’s still with Brenda. Merritt’s talking to Chaney. I don’t want to interrupt them. You almost done here?”

“Couple more minutes.” Sam was calm, even conciliatory. I mistrusted the change I was seeing.

He said, “Good, I want to show you something. You don’t mind?”

“No.” I finished up my note and renewed some orders and followed him to the elevator. I was surprised that he hit the button that would drop us off at the hospital lobby, not the second floor ICU. I didn’t bother asking him where he was going.

His department car was parked in a fire zone near the main entrance. We climbed in and he drove in silence, south for a while, then east across Colorado Boulevard at Sixth Avenue and south again on Birch. The neighborhood we entered is called Hilltop and is one of Denver’s finest.

He parked diagonally across the street from a huge house that had been squeezed onto its lot by a giant’s shoehorn. Sam killed his engine and doused the lights.

He pointed at the big stucco house with the faux Spanish railings and said, “Why do I think I would have liked better whatever house was here before somebody scraped it off and knocked down all the trees and built that monster?”

I said, “I don’t know, but you’re probably right. It certainly doesn’t fit in the neighborhood.” Given how distrustful I was of his mood, at that moment I probably would have agreed with him even if he was contending that Darwin was full of shit.

Sam grew silent.

I was anxious. I said, “Given their meeting tonight, this might be a good time to tell me about Sherry and Brenda, Sam. I may need to know.”

He made a noise with his throat before he said, “First time they’ve talked in, what, shit, how old is Merritt?”

“Fifteen.”

“Maybe sixteen years, then. Merritt’s important because Merritt’s father, her biological father, the oil-rig guy? He was actually Sherry’s fiancé before…well-”

“Oh.”

“Sherry says Brenda seduced him, stole him, whatever. Brenda would probably say different. Doesn’t matter now. Whatever it was, it was goofy, right?”

I digested the news. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. What can I say? Sherry holds a grudge. I’ve tried to tell her that the consolation prize wasn’t so bad.”

“You mean Simon, of course.”

“Funny, Alan.” Sam’s voice shifted an octave lower. It busted into my reverie. “Homeowner’s name across the way is Terence Gusman, Dr. Terence Gusman. Ring a bell?”

“Nope.”

“You’re sure?”

I thought about the name some more. “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t know him.”

Sam pondered something before he said, “He’s one of the suspects that the Denver PD liked for the threats and harassment of Brenda after the recycling story.”

“Ahh.”

He sighed. “Don’t be arrogant, Alan. You’re still ignorant. You don’t have a clue why I brought you here, do you?”

I knew I couldn’t rely on his improved demeanor to have a half-life of more than five minutes. “No, Sam, I don’t.”

“Then shut up and let me educate you.”

“Excuse me.” I tried to keep the sarcasm from my voice. I wasn’t sure how much more of his attitude I was going to put up with. He was already receiving a lot of slack from me for his family crisis, but the account he was rapidly using up wasn’t infinite.

“Turns out that dear Dr. Gusman is the twin brother of that woman who had the heart attack while she watched her husband hanging himself from the rafters in their garage. Remember that story? Mayor of what-Northglenn?-I don’t know, tries to kill himself after Brenda links him to the recycling scandal, his wife has a coronary when she finds him hanging from the rafters? He lives, she dies.”

“I remember the story. Ugly. I suppose it certainly gives Dr. Gusman a gold-plated reason to be angry at Brenda.”

“Yes, does that. Establishes motive. That’s always important to me. Motive.”

“You talked to him yet? Gusman?”

“No. That wouldn’t be kosher. My role’s a little unofficial on this.”

“Are the Denver cops sure that he was the person who was threatening Brenda?”

“He looked good when they interviewed him. But they have no plans to charge him. So they’re not that sure. The guy was careful. And the threats and the incidents have ended. It’s back-burner time as far as they’re concerned.”

“What do you think?”

Sam nodded at the house and, as though Dr. Gusman was standing in the front yard, said, “I like him.”

“Any reason in particular?”

“I checked out his background. Sometimes backgrounds tell you things. Knowing people’s histories, you know. Kind of like your work, in a way. Anyway, know what kind of doc he is?”

“Oh, shit, Sam. He’s not one of Chaney’s doctors, is he?”

“Not to worry. He was a general practitioner, but he doesn’t practice right now. He was disciplined by the state medical board after the Denver Post ran a series of articles accusing him of sexual improprieties with three female patients. Two female members of his own office staff even gave affidavits supporting parts of the women’s accusations.”

Now I recalled the news reports. “I remember something. This was a while ago, right?”

“June of ’87. He blamed the whole thing on the media. Said the charges were groundless, that the women made it all up. Disgruntled employees. You know how the denials go, you could probably write the lyrics.”

“Did he lose his license?”

“Please. State medical board taking away a license? Of course not, had his wrist slapped. He gave up his practice, though, decided to do other things.”

“So Dr. Gusman has a predisposition to distrust media people in general, and he has a particular reason to dislike Brenda?”

“‘Dislike’?”

“How about ‘hate’?”

“Better word. You could say hate.”

“What does he do now?”

Sam hesitated until I looked over at him. He had a piercing, amused look on his face that reminded me of how my dog gets when she’s sure she’s about to corral a squirrel. The difference is that Emily never gets her squirrel, Sam rarely misses his.

“Dr. Terence Gusman’s new line of work is in administration…what he does is he chairs the medical evaluation review board at MedExcel.”

I almost chuckled at the utter simplicity of the news. “This is the french fry you’ve been looking for? You found it, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s one of them. But all along, I’ve been working under the assumption that this meal has at least two truant french fries.”

“Go on.”

“In case you’re having difficulty counting, I have two nieces in trouble, Alan. Finding Dr. Gusman may help me influence Chaney’s situation. It’s not going to do shit for Merritt’s. I still feel compelled to goose that one as far as I can.”

“What are you going to do about Gusman?”

“I just put the pieces together a couple of hours ago and I’ve been thinking about how to proceed. Time is of the essence, right? And I think things might go better for Chaney if I give MedExcel a chance to do the right thing. For the time being, leave me, and law enforcement in general, out of it, you know. So I think I’m going to need a doctor to act as a go-between with MedExcel. Perhaps encourage them to see that they have a potential public relations crisis brewing and that it may be in their best interest to make a small humanitarian gesture, if you know what I mean.”

“Sam, I’d love to help, but I can’t. Not while I’m treating Chaney’s sister.”

He seemed to find my refusal amusing. “Not you, asshole. I’m looking for a real doctor. I was thinking one of Chaney’s doctors might help. I was going to approach them tonight when things calmed down at the hospital.”

I didn’t think it was wise to get them mixed up in this during an acute medical crisis. I suggested an alternative. “What about Adrienne? You know, my urologist friend? She treated Merritt. She knows the family, the whole situation. I bet she’d love to do it. And Adrienne’s as Machiavellian as they come.”

“She’s dating Maitlin, isn’t she?”

I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that question. “Kind of,” I said.

Sam was smiling. “You know, it’s not a bad idea. She’s relentless. She’s smart. I’d like to have a ticket to that meeting. Maybe she’d record it for me, you think?”

I stared across the street at Dr. Gusman’s front door and wondered whose idea it had been to paint it the color of cantaloupe flesh. “Sam, it’s possible that Robilio had nothing to do with any of this, isn’t it?”

“You mean that he was an innocent bystander?”

“I guess.”

“That health insurance policy he’s selling to the masses is like a car with a busted airbag. Works fine except in the most dire of emergencies. I wouldn’t exactly call him innocent.”

“But I mean, in terms of the refusal to grant the procedure for Chaney? You’re thinking that Gusman engineered that, not Robilio?”

“Looks that way. But Robilio could’ve overruled the medical board. I checked. He’s a physician, too. And he ran the company like an ayatollah. He could’ve approved it if he wanted to.”

“This changes things. Makes me wonder about other things I haven’t given much thought to.”

“Yeah? Such as?”

I said, “That day, before the hockey game, at his house. How confused everybody was. You know, Scott Truscott said the scene was a puzzle, so did Mitchell Crest. You’ve been perplexed, too. And the note we found on the computer? I haven’t thought about it much since we found the bloody clothes in Merritt’s room.”

“I think I hear the rustling sounds of someone digging around for that other french fry.”

“Is there any way you can get me a copy of Dead Ed’s suicide note? And a copy of the post?”

He laughed deeply. “Now you’re thinking. You know, I was wondering when you were going to actually begin to act intelligent about all this. Maybe the time has come. I hope so.”

“Well, when can I see the note? And the autopsy?”

“The autopsy report won’t be done for a few weeks. But I have a copy of Malloy’s notes from his meeting with the coroner. I think they’re in the backseat somewhere. While I’m looking for them, why don’t you see if you can track down your conspiratorial little urologist friend for me. Go ahead, use my phone.”