Critical Conditions

Thirty-five

I couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted. Merritt’s dark story was draining me of every bit of my vitality; I felt as though a catheter was open in my arm and I’d been donating blood the entire time she spoke.

She said, “There’s more.”

Oh God. “You sure you want to go on?” I don’t.

“Absolutely. Yes.”

Softly, I said, “I’m listening.”

“We watched the tape that night at Maddy’s apartment. It’s pretty good. I mean the quality. She caught his face in the mirror a couple of times and she got my face like she said she would. Most of the time you can only see my legs. The sounds are disgusting. Gross.” She shivered.

“The pictures, you know, the photographs, weren’t as good. She had them developed at one of those one-hour places and they’re too dark. But you can tell…you know, what’s going on.

“I went back and surprised him the next day during his walk. He was really uncomfortable. Me? I was like, totally cool, relaxed. It was my turn now, that’s the way I felt. He wouldn’t even look at me. He actually told me he was too busy to visit with me that day, he was sorry. Visit with me? Can you believe it?

“I started jogging backwards in front of him, like, facing him? I asked him how old he thought I was. He said nineteen or twenty. I said guess again. He ignored me. I said I was fifteen, I can’t even drive. He stopped and stared at me like I was this disgusting little thing. I stopped, too. ‘Fifteen,’ I said. ‘Fifteen.’ He said he didn’t believe me and he started walking again. He tried to speed up, walk past me. I wouldn’t let him. So he turned and headed the other way. I caught up with him.

“I said, ‘I have a videotape, too.’

“He looks at me real quick, then he says, ‘Of what?’ like he doesn’t really care.

“‘Our little encounter yesterday.’ That was Maddy’s word. ‘Encounter.’ I liked it.

“He didn’t look at me, he just said, ‘Bullshit.’

“‘And a witness. I have a videotape, and a witness, too,’ I tell him. ‘A friend of mine followed us up to your ranch and videotaped the whole thing. Took some pictures, too.’

“‘Bullshit,’ he says again.

“‘Dr. Robilio,’ I say, ‘I think you’re in a heck of a lot of trouble.’ That gets him. He asks me how I know his name. I tell him I know everything. I know about his company. I know what stuff he does. Who his friends are. I got all that from the research Trent did, it’s in the file at home. I’m ready, I’ve done my homework. It was sweet.

“He says I’m lying. I ask him if he wants to see the pictures.

“He does. I give him two. They’re not very good, not as good as the video. But they’re good enough. He knows it’s him. He won’t give them back to me. I say I don’t care, my friend has the negatives and the videotape.

“He wants to know who my friend is and I say no way. But I say, ‘You want to know who I am? I’m Chaney Trent’s sister. Remember her?’

“I thought he was about to croak. He gets bright red. Turns away from me, then looks back over his shoulder.

“It takes him one more second, and he asks me how much I want. I say I want a lot and not just money. I want my sister. But later, we’ll get to that later. I’d like to show him the tape first, so he can see what kind of a mess he’s in. How about five o’clock, his house?

“He turned on me then. I was afraid he was going to hit me. So I stepped back and he called me ‘a little flesh-peddling whore. How dare you do this to me?’ I couldn’t believe it.

“I said, ‘To you? You’re the one who lets babies die. You’re the one who has sex with kids.’ I almost hit him. Talk about money for flesh; he was the one who was killing my sister just to save money. I said, ‘I’ll be at your house at five o’clock, warm up your VCR,’ and I jogged away. I felt fine. My heart wasn’t even racing. His reaction told me that he knew we had him. We had him good.”

She stopped as though the story was over.

Puzzled, I said, “And you went back at five, with the tape?”

“Yeah, I did. But Trent was already there. I told you I saw his Jetta, remember?”

“Yes. But what you told me before is that you had gone to plead with Dr. Robilio for your sister’s life. But what you’re saying now is that you had actually gone back to blackmail him with the videotape?”

She seemed stunned by the bluntness of my summation. She said, “Yes, I guess that’s right.” With both hands she lifted her hair off her shoulders and twisted it into a knot above her head. “Before, when I, um-”

“Lied?”

“Okay. Lied. I guess…I wasn’t sure I was going to tell you about the videotape at all.”

“And the rest of the-”

“The rest is just the way I told you. The way I look at it now is that I feel I may have done what everybody says I’ve done. Killed him, you know. But I didn’t pull the trigger. That was…Trent.”

“You went home with Robilio’s gun? As you told me before?”

“Yeah, the same as I told you already. I really was going to shoot myself with it.”

“And the videotape, you took that with you?”

“That, too.”

“The police never found it in your room.”

She lowered her hands and her hair spilled back down past her shoulders. She swiped a few strands from her eyes. “I, um, left it outside…for Maddy. When I called her I told her where it was. I didn’t want anybody to know what I’d done. I figured she would get rid of it, the tape. I made her promise not to show it to anybody. Especially Brad.”

“You didn’t know about any scheme that they cooked up? Madison and Brad? To try to extort Robilio’s company for money?”

She shook her head. Her tone was incredulous as she asked, “You think I would do this for money?”

I dropped my chin to my chest to try to stretch the tendons in my neck. They felt like they had been surgically replaced by steel cables. When I raised my head again I focused on Merritt’s eyes and knew my heart was not in what I needed to do next. I didn’t want to confront this kid. I wanted to comfort her. But I did what my training, and not my instincts, told me to do. I said, “You’re not being totally honest with me, Merritt.”

She looked surprised, then offended. “What do you mean?”

“The fingernail? Remember? The red one? The police found it.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”

What she meant was that she forgot I knew about that. I said, “Do you know where they discovered it?” I wanted her to tell me.

She shook her head. Her ignorance seemed genuine. But then again, picking liars out of the soup of life wasn’t one of my more developed talents.

“They found it in the master bathroom. On the second floor. You were upstairs in the bedrooms?”

She looked at the door and played with her hair before she said, “Yeah.”

The police had found no blood on the stairs. “That same day? Before you found his body?”

She nodded. “When I first went inside, I went looking for him. I went upstairs, all over.”

“And the nail?”

“I broke it.”

“How?”

It was beginning to register that Merritt was much more adept at omissions than she was at lying. She said, “I, I don’t know. I guess I, um, I hit it on something.”

This was painful. “What? What did you hit it on?”

“I, I don’t know.”

“Come on, Merritt, tell me. Let’s finish this tonight.”

In all my years doing this work I’d come to recognize that many patients have a need to secrete something away, to protect it from the harsh light of examination and confrontation. Early in my career, I was puzzled to learn that the secret was often not necessarily of much consequence, but instead that the motive had to do with my patients’ need to retain one safe place, to underscore their independence, their separation from me.

I waited.

“Do I have to?”

I didn’t answer. My lips felt rusty, my tongue uncooperative.

“This is Maddy’s secret. Not mine. I don’t want to tell it.”

I felt heaviness above my eyes. I was done arguing.

“Okay, okay. Maddy was with me, you know, when I went back to see him, Dr. Robilio, to show him the tape. We both thought it would be better. At first, she went upstairs looking for him. I checked the first floor, the kitchen and living room, you know. Then I went upstairs and I caught her up in his bedroom stealing stuff. Jewelry, perfume. I mean she was looking through drawers, everything. We had a fight about it. That’s how I broke my nail, fighting with Maddy. I made her put everything back.”

Fighting? That could explain the blood in Merritt’s urine in the ER. “Did she hit you in the gut?”

She narrowed her eyes and said, “I don’t know. Why?”

“Never mind. Did Madison put everything back?”

“At first.”

“What do you mean?”

“A few minutes later I found him, downstairs, just like I said-dead. Maddy was still prowling around on the first floor. When I screamed she came downstairs, too, and saw me with him, you know, all bloody and everything. She stood in the doorway and then she ran back upstairs. I didn’t know where she went. After…you know, we got out of there. On the way back to my house, she was really cool, like level. Not panicking like me. She showed me she had stolen his keys. She kept saying these may come in handy. I was going nuts over what I’d just seen, I didn’t care that much about his keys. I mean he was dead, right? What good were his keys? What good was he to me anymore? What good was he going to be to Chaney?”

I offered her my silence as a host might offer a guest a tray of hors d’oeuvres. She could choose anything she wished, or she could choose nothing at all.

She said, “I’d like to go to bed now.”

It was almost two. I said, “Yes.”

The night was cold, even for April. My car was cold. Boulder was forty minutes away. My house was empty. My dog was well cared for.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t afford it, and without much second thought, I drove a few blocks downtown, turned my car over to a valet, and checked into the Brown Palace Hotel. A bemused bellman who was dressed much more nicely than me led me to an elegant corner room on the eighth floor. I called Lauren and left another message on her parents’ machine. I drank all the cognac from the minibar and fell asleep to something nasty on Spectravision.

The next morning I ordered coffee and juice from room service. I signed the chit the waiter handed me without even glancing at it. I was not at all interested in knowing how much my indulgence was costing.

After begging a disposable razor and toothbrush from housekeeping, I dressed in yesterday’s clothes and enjoyed an hour alone with CNN, reading the New York Times, and sipping the Brown Palace’s good coffee.

Then I called Sam’s pager.

A minute later, the phone rang by the bed. He said, “Detective Purdy returning a page.”

“Hi, Sam, it’s Alan.”

“What is this number? Where the hell are you? Adrienne said you never came home. Nurse said you left Children’s around two-thirty.”

Sam is a good detective. “I’m at the Brown Palace.”

“The Brown Palace?”

“The hotel.”

“I know it’s a hotel. What the hell are you doing at the goddamn Brown Palace?”

“Treating myself.”

A pregnant pause. “You alone?”

I laughed. “Not that kind of treat, Sam. Where are you? Boulder?”

“Right down the street at the hospital. MedExcel faxed a financial approval to the Seattle hospital first thing this morning. Maybe half an hour ago. MedExcel’s execs are shitting bricks over the possibility of Gusman’s role in this whole thing getting public. Your friend Adrienne was marvelous, she left them thinking she was doing them some huge favor. Docs here at Children’s are talking with the docs in Seattle about whether Chaney is still a candidate for the procedure. The Seattle docs want some new tests done before they accept her. That’s all happening right now.”

“How long will it take?”

“Midday if things go well. Air ambulance has already been ordered. They’re standing by for an afternoon departure. MedExcel is paying for that, too. It’s amazing how cooperative they are all of a sudden.”

“Is Chaney stable?”

“I don’t get this lung thing. She looks like death to me. But they say she’s no worse than before.”

“How are Sherry and Brenda doing?”

“So far so good. Sherry’s coming back here this morning to be with Brenda. She’s talking about going to Washington, too. So Simon and I may be spending some extra quality time together in Boulder.” He made a noise, a little cough. “Listen, it seems like you were with Merritt a long time last night.”

“Yeah. It felt like an eternity.”

“She’s talking about Robilio?”

“Sam.”

“You can’t tell me anything?”

“Sorry. I wish I could.”

“I can’t tell you how much I hate your goddamn profession sometimes. Most of the time, even.”

“I know. Sam, how do I find out what the DA plans to do if I let her out of the hospital?”

“Your wife’s a DA, Alan. Start there.”

“My wife is temporarily out of the loop. I’m serious; I need to know.”

“Have Maitlin feel things out with Mitchell Crest. This one is a PR nightmare for everyone involved in Boulder. Everybody in the department and at the DA’s office is afraid of screwing up. Right now I think the DA is happiest knowing Merritt’s in the hospital. It’s almost as good as having her in custody but they don’t really have to arrest her, which if they’re wrong and she’s innocent leaves them looking impolite. You ready to let her go?”

“Sam, don’t put me on the spot like that. Just read between the lines a little bit, okay?”

“Sorry, habit.”

“I’m going to head over to see Merritt in a little while. You need me for anything?”

“No. We did what we could. My niece’s fate now rests in the hands of a bunch of doctors I’ve never met.”

“It beats having her fate rest in the hands of a bunch of bean counters you’ve never met.”

“Amen.”

Next, I paged John Trent. When he phoned back, I invited him to meet me at Ellyngton’s in the Brown Palace lobby for breakfast. He protested that he couldn’t leave the hospital.

I was impatient with him. I said, “John, this isn’t social. I think you know what this is about.”

He said, “Oh. What time?”

Trent slid into the booth looking like a death row inmate who just received word of a pardon from the governor and then was told that there had been an error.

“Coffee, John? It’s pretty good, much better than the hospital’s.”

“Thanks, yes.” He ran his fingers back over the top of his head in a manner that suggested he had once had a head full of long hair.

I signaled to the waiter.

“Good news today, huh? You heard? It’s like a miracle. I wish I knew what changed their minds.”

“Yes, Sam told me.”

“I wonder why now.” He shook his head a little. “You know, before you called, I had a good feeling about everything for the first time. I think it’s a go today. I really do.”

I allowed him to savor the change in the winds of fortune for Chaney while the waiter delivered coffee and a menu. Without opening the menu, John ordered oatmeal, wheat toast, and a fruit plate.

He sipped his coffee. “So, you know?”

I shrugged.

He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you’re guessing.”

“And if I am?”

“Then I can enjoy my breakfast. You know, I don’t think I’ve actually tasted a bite of food in a month. Maybe this morning I can.”

“And if I’m not guessing?”

“This all gets quite complicated for me.”

It was time for me to switch to decaf. I pushed my saucer away.

I said, “You know Robilio’s daughter?”

He turned his head a little bit to the side the way my dog does when I’ve said something tantalizing but unintelligible.

He sipped from his cup before replying. “No. I don’t.”

“Her name is…I don’t remember what her name is, but they call her Sunny. She lives in Grand Junction.”

“That’s nice.”

“I spent some time with her, well, recently. She told me about her aunt and uncle. What are their names? Andrew and Abby, uh, Porter, I think.” I paused. His eyes were on the silverware. “Anyway, she went on and on about their divorce, and their custody fight. Sticky situation for the family. The extended family, you know.”

One long nod ensued. Matter-of-factly, he said, “Oh. So you do know.” He folded his napkin neatly on the table, caught my eyes, and held them. He said, “I’m out of here right now unless this stops being breakfast and starts being an adjunct family session.”

I thought about the offer for a few seconds, had half-expected it would come to this. I didn’t care much about what I could legally report to the justice system right then. I said, “Fine. This is treatment, John.”

He replaced his napkin on his lap and finished the coffee in his cup. “After I put the pieces together, and realized I was doing a custody eval on his sister-in-law, I approached Dr. Robilio with a trade. I’d make a custody recommendation to the court that was favorable to his wife’s sister if he would get MedExcel’s medical board to approve the procedure that Chaney needs. That’s it, that was the deal. I’m not proud of it, but I’d do it again in a second if I thought it would help Chaney.”

I tried to keep a straight face. I’d had no idea that Trent had proposed a bargain. “How did Robilio respond?” I reminded myself not to call him Dead Ed.

“Said he’d think about it.”

“And?”

“I went back the next day, told him time was tight for Chaney. He said okay; he’d do it for Beth, his wife.”

“And you wrote the recommendation to the court?”

“No. My report wasn’t due for a week. I called the interested parties and suggested to them what was going to happen. Call it a good will gesture to Robilio while I awaited word of the approval for Chaney.”

That was the call Diane had received from Trent. The one she was so concerned about during lunch at Jax Fish House.

“The day I told you about before? At his house. The day I got so angry, when Merritt may have overheard me? That was because Robilio reneged, said he couldn’t go through with it. Said his sister-in-law was a lush, didn’t deserve the kids.”

“But you went back one more time.”

He closed his eyes. “Do the police know?”

I didn’t know what they knew. “They know a lot.”

“Did Andrew see me?”

Andrew? Did Andrew see him do what? “This isn’t about me telling you what they know. It’s about you telling me what you know.”

“When I went back to Robilio’s house, Andrew was there. His car was in the driveway. I didn’t know it was his car, but I didn’t want to go in while Robilio had a guest. So I waited. Fifteen, twenty minutes passed before Andrew came back out of the house.”

“You saw Robilio’s brother-in-law come out of the house?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at me suspiciously. “The brother-in-law, Andrew. I immediately figured that maybe Robilio had told him about my offer to distort the custody recommendation and that Andrew was going to report me to the judge and get me yanked off the custody case and my leverage would be gone. I thought the game was up right then. I’d lose everything, including my psychology license.”

“But you waited to talk with Robilio anyway?”

“Why not? I was about to lose my daughter, and likely my license to practice psychology. What else did I have to lose? But Robilio wouldn’t answer the door. I figured he had seen my car, knew I was waiting and didn’t want to see me again.”

“You didn’t leave then, did you?”

“Huh? They know that, too? I wondered if I had left any fingerprints back there. I guess I did. Yeah, I didn’t leave. I went around back. If he wouldn’t open the door, I’d yell at him through the window if I could find him. I don’t have much pride left, Alan. But I didn’t find him anywhere. I went home.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Do you think Andrew killed him?”

“Andrew? What? No. I got the impression he was killed much later. Why are you asking me that? Merritt killed him, didn’t she?”

The circle of irony was complete. Trent thought Merritt had murdered Robilio. Merritt thought Trent had.

When I arrived at Children’s, Merritt was prowling the unit like a big cat in a small cage. Pacing, she seemed to be traversing the width of the dayroom in only two strides. I was barely able to get my key out of the lock on the door before she was in my face.

I pointed at the consultation room. “Go have a seat, I’ll be right in.” I had to fight a smile as she stamped her left foot in frustration at having to wait for news even a few moments longer.

I checked with the nursing staff and read the chart notes that had been added since my barely legible middle-of-the-night scrawls. Routine stuff, other than the fact that Merritt’s silence was a thing of the past. She was chattering now to anyone who would listen, mostly wanting to know what was going on with Chaney.

Her hands were in the pockets of her jeans. This T-shirt was black and read USA. She said, “Well?”

“It looks good. Nothing’s final. The money’s been approved for the procedure. The doctors are all discussing Chaney’s condition. They want to be certain she’s still a good candidate.”

Merritt sat and anxiety drained from her. If her tension were liquid, there would have been a pond on the floor between us. “She’ll go. I feel it.” She touched the center of her chest with her closed fist.

“We’ll know soon. Couple of hours. If it’s approved, she’ll fly out by air ambulance today.”

“Me too?”

“Sorry. Not today. Maybe tomorrow or the next day.”

She huffed. “Why not today? You still don’t trust me?”

“That’s part of it. Another piece is that I want some time to process with you all we talked about last night, how you feel about it now, you know?”

To my surprise, she wasn’t resistant. She nodded and said, “I know.”

“You’ve been through a lot.”

She closed her eyes. Didn’t disagree.

“And part of it is that we still don’t know what the DA is going to do if you’re no longer in the hospital. They may want to arrest you if I discharge you, Merritt. There’s no way to predict that yet.”

She swallowed, pulled her hair back behind her ears. “I forgot about that. The police.”

“I figured. I’m not big on advice, but can I offer you some?”

She sighed.

“Call your lawyer. Tell him what you told me last night. Tell him what you’re afraid of. You’re going to need his help, Merritt.”

“I want to be with my sister. She needs me.”

“I agree. She does. And to be with her, I’m afraid you’re going to need Mr. Maitlin’s help.”

“I can’t turn on Trent. Chaney needs Trent, too.”

“That’s a tough call for you to make, Merritt. You need to take responsibility for the things you did to help your sister. And you need to let Trent take responsibility for the things he did to help her.”

She turned her palms up and threaded her fingers together in a jumble that was at least as confused as were her choices. After a couple of minutes, she said, “Okay, I’ll call him.” She widened her eyes. “So, do you need to write an order for that, too?”

I thought the sarcasm was a great sign.