Mercy

CHAPTER 33

Even with all that had happened in the last couple days-months, really, going back to Sam’s accident-Julie brought 100 percent of herself to the job. She could compartmentalize with the best of them. It was how she dealt with death on an almost daily basis and still managed to cook dinner for her family with a smile on her face. Sam had found this ability of Julie’s a little unsettling.

“Sociopaths can’t turn it off like you do,” Sam once remarked.

“Who said I’m not a sociopath?” Julie had answered with a wink.

She compartmentalized for Trevor and for herself, because what happened at White Memorial did not need to follow her home like some gloomy shadow.

Today, however, Julie was having a hell of a time placing her upcoming meeting with Sherri Platt into her mental lockbox where it belonged. Loads of sick and needy patients needed Julie’s attention until three o’clock rolled around. Julie also had Jordan Cobb weighing on her heavily. He should be locked up inside another of her mental compartments, but she could not help but wonder what he might find. She also regretted his involvement with this whole affair. William Colchester’s words came back to her, and hard.

People will be hurt by what you’re doing.

What people? Julie wondered. Sleep had not come easy last night, and with so many unanswered questions tumbling about her head, three o’clock could not get here fast enough.

By quarter to three, Julie had not eaten, nor had she sat down. The day had been extremely busy with the usual array of ICU happenings: respiratory disorders, a stroke, heart failure, trauma, and a case of sepsis similar to what the BC quarterback, Max Hartsock, had experienced, only without the catheter siphon.

Julie’s legs suffered the usual midday ache. Still, the ICU was stable, and another doc, Bill Goodman, came in to work, making it easier for Julie to slip away. Arriving five minutes early at the cafeteria where she and Sherri first met, Julie made a quick check of the place. Sherri was nowhere to be seen. Julie waited fifteen minutes before calling Dr. Goodman.

“Bill, it’s Julie. I was wondering how things are going up there. I’m supposed to meet someone, but they’re running late.”

“Everyone is still sick,” Dr. Goodman said. “But your presence is not immediately required, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re supposed to be off in an hour anyway. Why don’t you just call it a day? Things here are well under control.”

Julie thanked him, ended the call, and then texted Sherri Platt, but got no response. Another ten minutes went by with no sign of the nurse. Sherri had sounded anxious to meet with her. Maybe she got caught up with some work crisis on the floor. It happened all the time in the ICU. Julie called oncology and was patched through to the duty nurse.

“I’m sorry, Sherri called in sick today,” the nurse reported.

Julie cursed under her breath and used her doctor card to get Sherri’s home address.

IF JULIE had left an hour earlier, it would have taken her half the time to get to Melrose. Now she was caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-93, stuck behind an eighteen-wheeler that spit exhaust like dragon’s breath. Sherri had not answered her phone or responded to any of Julie’s texts, so this whole journey might prove to be time wasted. She should be home with Trevor, who wound up having to go with Paul at the last minute. The guilt trip he had saddled her with was justified. Her kid had begged for some consistency, and here she was giving him the exact opposite.

Julie had a guess that Sherri’s sickness had something to do with a sudden change of heart. If Colchester could offer tax breaks for White Memorial, he could certainly come up with something compelling to purchase Sherri’s continued cooperation.

According to the GPS, Julie was five miles from Sherri’s Melrose home when Jordan Cobb called.

Julie spoke the command, “Answer phone,” and her hands-free Bluetooth system connected the call. Thinking of a certain white Honda Civic, Julie permitted herself to talk and drive only if her hands remained on the wheel at all times.

“Hey there,” she said, changing lanes.

“I’ve got one.”

Julie tightened her grip on the wheel. “And?”

“I started with people who had died recently, and whose death was classified in the system as a heart attack. I’m just getting rolling because there’s a lot of data to sift through, and it’s really slow going.”

Julie gazed out the window at the standstill traffic.

“I can relate,” she said.

“Wish I could write queries against the database, but I can’t. If I could, I might be able to pull up records for myocardial infarctions that also have a record delete transaction type in the transaction logs. That’s the pattern we’re looking for.”

“I thought you were a superuser,” Julie said.

“The superuser access is for viewing, adding, and editing records. The database stuff is with IT.”

“But you said you got one. How?”

“I was looking at names and remembered a guy I wheeled to the morgue, Tommy Grasso. He used White Memorial like a Comfort Inn. So I checked it out.”

“And?”

“And he didn’t have an echo on file, but his EKG looked a lot like our two other cases. ST-T abnormalities, QT prolongation with large negative T waves occurring in succession. So I checked the transaction log and there it was-a record of a deletion logged postmortem.”

“Any history of heart disease?”

“No. It’s the lungs that were killing him, not the heart.”

“The EKG is telling, but not telling enough. We need an echo to definitively show takotsubo type ballooning.”

“That’s gonna be tough to find.”

Julie did not disagree. Protocols for chest pain always involved an EKG. The twelve-lead setup, six on chest and four on the arms and legs, could be done in a few minutes, and computer algorithms gave interpretations immediately. Echocardiograms, by contrast, were not routine. White did not offer a twenty-four-hour echo service like some hospitals with cardiology fellowship programs staffed night and day.

“I’ll keep looking,” Jordan said. “There’s something to this, Dr. Devereux. Especially with those deleted records. It’s a pattern.”

“No, it’s a start. Look up Colchester’s file for me. Let’s compare his EKG with Tommy’s.”

“Hang on a second.”

Jordan’s second was more like a couple of minutes, in which time Julie inched her car forward maybe forty feet. She drummed her fingers restlessly on the steering wheel while waiting.

“Hey Doc, check this. That record is gone.”

Julie’s vision went white and cleared in time for her to hit the brakes before finding the bumper of the car in front.

“What do you mean gone?”

“As in, the record doesn’t exist in the EMR system anymore.”

One name came to Julie’s mind.

Dr. Coffey.

Coffey had made it clear Julie’s investigation was unwelcome, and now he was making sure it was impossible. Maybe Dr. Coffey had discovered something on his own to make him and the department look bad, or perhaps something that would make it hard to keep Colchester’s killer behind bars. A cold chill spread across the nape of Julie’s neck. Just how far was William Colchester’s reach?

Jordan checked the database and found Sam’s record was still in the system. But with Colchester’s EMR gone, Julie no longer had definitive evidence of two cases of takotsubo at White. What she had was smoke, but no fire.

“What are you thinking?” Jordan asked.

“I’m thinking I can’t get to Sherri Platt’s place soon enough.”