Oath of Office

CHAPTER 19

Nearly five hours had passed since the hand team had taken Joey Alderson to the OR. Lou and Millie Neuland regularly checked the empty corridor beyond the picture window wall for any sign of his surgeon. Eisenhower Memorial’s interior designers had made the family room as homelike as possible, given the restrictions of a hospital. A forty-eight-inch flat-screen TV covered much of one wall, and according to the laminated instructions tacked beside it, could even stream Netflix. The bookshelves offered a collection of paperbacks, children’s books, and magazines. There were also two computer workstations with wireless Internet access, and a kitchenette-everything needed to pass the anxious hours.

Whatever doubt Millie harbored regarding bringing Joey to Eisenhower Memorial seemed to have vanished before the sheer magnitude of the place, and the attention to detail and family needs. But it was the quiet confidence of hand surgeon Dr. Rafe Kurdi, speaking to her hours ago in the ER, that sealed the deal-especially when he shared glowingly that he, his wife, and kids had once, a year or so ago, eaten at her restaurant.

“This is going to be a long and complicated operation,” Kurdi explained. “But just as preparing wonderful food is what you do, fixing damaged hands is what I do. Saving Joey’s thumb, while preserving as much function as possible, is our goal. We have been aided in this effort by the exceptional work that Dr. Welcome, here, performed at the scene. He has a well-deserved reputation in this place for knowing what he is doing. Joey is a very lucky young man that he was there.”

“I’m figuring that out,” Millie said. “Dr. Welcome insisted that we come here rather than to our local hospital.”

Lou could hear the unasked question in her voice, and knew that sooner or later, he might have to explain why he believed there was something terribly wrong in Kings Ridge and also at her beloved DeLand Regional. Lou pictured Joey Alderson twitching with anticipation as he timed his lunge beneath the huge chopping knife, going for a single, bright orange slice of carrot. Was he yet another example?

Lou checked the wall-mounted clock. Nearly eight. The stress was showing on Millie’s face. She hadn’t appeared at all frail until now. Lou took hold of her hand, which was surprisingly callused.

The woman smiled grimly. “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said, pulling a tissue from her purse to dab at her tears.

“He’s going to do fine. After all these years in the ER, I can tell a battler when I see one.”

“Do you have any idea what could have happened back there in my kitchen?”

“I saw most of it developing, and right up until the last second, I didn’t believe he was going to do it. Has he ever done anything that impetuous or poorly thought out before?”

“Joey’s a little what you might call accident prone. That’s why they know him so well at DeLand.”

“I see.”

“But he’s not really reckless-certainly not in this way.”

“Back at the restaurant, you used the word ‘limited’ when you spoke of him. What did you mean by that?”

Millie sank down on a sofa, and Lou did the same on the far side.

“Joey came to my office one day when he was just thirteen,” she said. “He told me he was looking for a job. I still have no idea how he found me or how he got out to the restaurant. I tracked down his family-what there was of it, anyhow. No father. Alcoholic mother. Joey was the oldest of four. They lived in a dump of a place in Baxter. Family Services was about to move in and dole out the kids to foster homes. I talked them into letting me have Joey. Even though he had some learning issues, and an attention problem, he graduated from high school when he was nineteen. A few years after that, I set him up in a small apartment in the Dorms. That’s what I call the place out behind the restaurant where some of the staff stays. He does a good day’s work, and the rest of the staff really likes him and sort of protects him, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Lou was unable to reconcile anything in the boy’s history with what he and Dennis had witnessed, and this hardly seemed like the time to start barraging Millie Neuland with probing questions. Still, she continued her narrative with no prompting.

“Now, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Joey is hardly a regular guy. He’s sort of, I don’t know, quirky sometimes.”

Lou perked up at the word.

“Quirky?” he asked.

“You know, odd, strange. He’s not exactly obsessive, but he gets onto a hobby and goes overboard with it. It’s sort of like he gets fixated on things.”

Like that piece of carrot?

Lou began ticking off what he knew about conditions that featured fixations without dominating obsessive compulsive behavior. His list, as might be expected from an ER doc, was a short one-variants of autism such as Asperger’s syndrome, and …

“Can you give me some examples of things that Joey’s gotten locked in on?” he asked, wondering about Carolyn Meacham and her nearly deadly fixation on a busted taillight.

“The last thing Joey really got into,” Millie said, “was learning how to tie knots. I once bought him a book of over a hundred different knots, thinking he probably wouldn’t have enough of an attention span to do much with it. It took him two or three months, but he learned to tie every one of them. Eventually he could even do a bunch of them blindfolded. It was amazing to watch.

“How long ago was that?” asked Lou.

“Maybe two Christmases. And before that, it was puzzles. And before that, radio-controlled cars. Using a kit, the boy built one that went faster than I’m comfortable driving. Then he just lost interest and went on to something else.”

“So he’s been like that for a long time?”

Lou tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. If Joey’s behavior had been a recent development, it might have been an interesting avenue to explore. Instead, it appeared to be just another in a string of dead ends.

“Oh, he’s been that way ever since I’ve known him,” Millie said. “Now, I can’t be certain I’ve touched on all his hobbies. Joey’s a very private person, and not a boy anymore. I make it my business to keep out of his world. He has a driver’s license and an old Ford pickup, and pretty much comes and goes as he pleases. I don’t go traipsing about his apartment at the Dorm, and he doesn’t invite me over for dinner.” Millie said that with a laugh, and then added, “’Cause everybody eats at Millie’s.”

“And to your knowledge, he’s never behaved irrationally? Done anything dangerous?”

“No. Oh, no. Joey’s a stickler for the rules. My only demands of him beside honoring the Ten Commandments are that he’s on time for work and polite to everybody. He’s never let me down on either regard.”

Their conversation drifted off, and for a time, Millie dozed and Lou read some articles in an emergency medicine journal.

They were startled upright when the door to the family room swung open and Dr. Kurdi entered. He appeared as fresh as he had when he left to do the case, and he was smiling pleasantly, almost ecstatically.

“It went as well as we could have hoped,” he said. “I’m optimistic that we’re going to get a significant amount of function back.”

Lou had been imagining what Joey’s life of hobbies would have been like missing a functional thumb.

“That’s great news, Rafe,” he said.

“You get as much credit for the success as we do.”

Millie squeezed Lou’s arm.

“Can we go see him?” she asked.

“In a little while, one of the recovery room nurses will be in to get you. He’s still pretty out of it from the anesthesia. He’ll need to stay here for a couple days. We want to keep a close eye on him and give him pain meds and IV antibiotics.”

“Well, that’s fine,” Millie said, a note of disappointment in her voice. “I’m not much for driving any distance, but there are plenty of folks at the restaurant who will come and get him. In fact, someone will come and get me tonight. I’m just glad he’s going to be all right.”

Lou put his hand on Millie’s shoulder.

“It’s no problem for me to bring him back to Kings Ridge when it’s time,” he said. “In fact, it would be my pleasure. I’ll drive you home later tonight, too. I have a couple of new CDs I want to listen to on the way back home. Also, I work right down the street at the Annex, so I can pop in as much as I want. And I’ll phone you with progress reports. How would that be?”

Most of Millie’s wrinkles vanished around a bright smile. “How would that be?” she echoed. “Let me put it this way. Neither you nor Dr. Kurdi will ever have to pay for another meal at Millie’s again.”