Doing Harm (40 page)

It’s an empty syringe.

The exact type and size of syringe, common and readily available in supply rooms on every floor of University Hospital, that the cardiac surgeon had used to pull the air out of Mrs. Samuelson’s dying heart.

Or the kind of syringe that someone could have used to inject a massive amount of air
into
her heart.

A note, handwritten in gentle and familiar feminine sweeps, is taped to the syringe. It reads, “S: Thanks for playing the game after all. But you guessed wrong. Remember. The Dome. Next Thursday. After M&M.” There’s a smiley face drawn on the bottom of the page.

An intense wave of dizziness sweeps over me. I brace myself unsteadily against the counter at the nurses’ station. Carol rushes over and grabs my arm.

“Are you okay, Dr. Mitchell? Maybe you should come and sit back down.”

She seems really worried; I must look like complete shit right now.

Slowly, painfully, I pull myself back up to a standing position. The dizziness passes.

“Yeah, Carol. Thanks. I’m okay,” I say, smiling at her weakly. Skepticism is written all over her face. “Really, Carol. I just need some breakfast. Maybe a nap, too.”

She reluctantly releases my arm and urges me to go home and get some sleep. I thank her and, distracted by the syringe, which I’m still clutching in my hand, forget completely about my plan to escape from Mrs. Samuelson’s family through the back door. Instead, I shuffle slowly away from Carol (who watches my progress, hands on her hips, like a disapproving mother) through the main doors of the SICU …

… and stumble right into Mrs. Samuelson’s entire family: husband, daughters, sons-in-law. They’re all there in the waiting room, hugging each other, crying, and praying. I spin around and immediately reverse course, hoping none of them will see me.

“Dr. Mitchell!”

Too late.

Cursing silently, I rotate back toward Mr. Samuelson, who has disengaged himself from the main group and is approaching decisively.

“Dr. Mitchell.” He takes my hand hard and holds it for a long time in both of his own, gazing into my face. His eyes are wet around the edges.

“I just can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us. From the beginning, you’ve just been … well, terrific. And now you’re here, at the end, when, well … well, when most doctors wouldn’t be.”

“I … uh … I just wish I could have done more for her.”

“You did what you could.” He grasps my shoulders, one in each of his thick hands. “It was her time,” he says sternly. “God called her home. When God calls, there’s nothing else to be done.”

He smiles, sadly but kindly, and releases my shoulders.

“You know, you’re one of the finest doctors I’ve ever known. Don’t think I haven’t seen you in here at all hours, keeping an eye on her. Sitting at her bedside. Standing vigil.” A single tear paints a silvery line down his cheek. “Don’t ever change, son. You’re still young, God knows, and I want you always to stay this way. Don’t lose your compassion. It’s a gift from God. Please don’t ever forget that, no matter what the world does to you.”

The rest of the family and a man I’ve never met gather around us. Mr. Samuelson introduces me to the newcomer as their minister, a stooped man with an elongated frame, kind face, and sparse, greasy-looking gray hair. The men shake my hand. The women embrace me. One of the daughters presents me with a thank-you card and a basketful of fresh vegetables from their farm.

“We brought this today to give to you in gratitude,” she explains. “Now it’s even more important to us that you take it.”

Clutching the card and vegetables, I stammer my thanks, then leave them in the waiting room, hugging and crying, to be alone with one another, and with their memories of Mrs. Samuelson.

It doesn’t hit me until I’m driving home from the hospital a few hours later. I’m a few blocks from my house, the basket of vegetables sitting on the seat next to me, thinking about nothing in particular, when both my hands suddenly start shaking violently, and I have trouble gripping the steering wheel. My heart slams against my chest, my ears roar, and my stomach flips over.

I jerk the car over toward the side of the road and, before it’s even lurched to a stop, I’m opening the driver’s-side door, leaning my head out, and puking into the street. A young mother pushing an infant in a stroller toward me on the sidewalk stops and watches me for a moment, then heaves the stroller over the curb and crosses the street, casting a few worried glances over her shoulder as she hurries away.

When I’m finished, I yank the car door closed, groaning. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, crank up the air-conditioning, and press my face against the vent. I gaze at my hands, which are still shaking, then at the basket of vegetables sitting on the seat next to me, and then again at my trembling hands.

Now what?

CHAPTER 22

Saturday, August 22

“What’s this?” I ask, blinking away sleep and the sharp rays of morning sunlight knifing through the open front door. “I didn’t order … I mean—I’m not expecting anything.” I have trouble wrapping my tongue around the words. My head feels like a walnut squeezed between the serrated edges of a nutcracker, and the taste in my mouth is as foul as an open sewer.

The burly FedEx guy checks his watch and makes a face. “Whatever. Just sign here, okay, pal?”

I scribble my name on the electronic tablet, and he hands me a slim package before dashing back to the delivery truck idling at the curb.

Frowning, standing at my front door in boxers and T-shirt, I examine the mailing label on the package. It’s addressed to me. An overnight package. The return address is …

Bratislava, Slovakia?

What the hell?

My stomach tightens into a knot as a flood of adrenaline washes away the last vestiges of sleep. I nervously survey my surroundings, squinting in the bright sun.
Why the hell would someone send me a random package from Eastern Europe?

Aside from a few neighborhood kids I recognize, riding their scooters under the watchful eyes of their parents a few houses down, there’s no one else around, and I don’t spot any unfamiliar cars parked along our cul-de-sac.

I hesitantly run my hands over the cardboard envelope, gnawing on my lower lip, as the knot in my stomach tightens.
Irrational. Stupid. The game is over. I lost.
She played me, everyone around her, like pieces on a chessboard. The package is nothing. Completely unrelated. It’s probably a mistake, or some weird marketing campaign, or a scam.

I retreat inside, bolt the door, and double-check to make sure the curtains are still drawn from last night before taking a closer look. It’s thin, no thicker than several pieces of paper stacked together, and featherlight. I momentarily consider sitting down on the sofa in the living room, right next to the front door, which is where I slept last night. But the sickly-sweet smell seeping from the empty beer bottles, Chinese takeout boxes, and a half-full bottle of scotch strewn on the coffee table opposite it almost makes me puke, so I walk into the kitchen. I glance out the back window before closing the curtains.

I place the package on the middle of the table, next to the basket of vegetables from Mrs. Samuelson’s family, and stare at it for a full minute. I start to reach for it, hesitate, then draw my hands back.

What the hell are you waiting for?

I rip it open and tip out the contents.

A single, small metallic key spills onto the table.

I gingerly pick it up and take a closer look. The key is silver, with a five-digit number, the words
CONSTITUTION SAVINGS BANK
, and an address carved in small, neat lettering into the handle.

A safe deposit box key.

I check the envelope to see if there’s anything else inside. There isn’t.

I lay the envelope aside, prop my chin on my hand, and stare at the key.

I’m pretty certain GG doesn’t have anything to do with this. Why should she? The game is over; she made good on her threat by killing Mrs. Samuelson. Is it from Luis, then? A grim token from beyond the grave? Maybe the key is some kind of fail-safe plan he had in place, just in case something happened to him. It certainly fits his style. But if it is from him, why didn’t he tell me about it ahead of time? And how did he pull it off? I mean—Bratislava? Who does he know in Bratislava?

A guy like me, doing the kind of work I used to do, has a lot of useful professional connections with a lot of very interesting people.

People with unusual skill sets. People who don’t ask questions.

Not that these acquaintances were enough to save him from GG. Besides, will I be able to access the box with just a key? I’ve never had a safe deposit box, but I don’t think you can just show up with a key—I’m pretty sure you need to have identification, or something. Will they think I’m Luis? Will my name be on some kind of a list? But, then, why would he have arranged for the key to be sent to me? Why not just send me a note telling me to go to the bank?

Luis.
I wince. Thinking about him makes my head hurt even more. He shouldn’t be dead, and what makes it worse is that he deserved better, much better, than some frame job that besmirched his legacy, making it look like he had succumbed to the same demons he had conquered long ago in his climb out of East LA. It’s not fair that he had to die that way.

If the key is from Luis, and he wanted me to use it, he would have found a way. He would have found a way to make it work.

I force some coffee, toast, and ibuprofen into my unhappy stomach, shower, and drive to Constitution Savings Bank, which is on State Street downtown, close to University Hospital. The bank is mostly empty, the expansive, marbled lobby still and foreboding and echoing, like a museum or old college library. A smattering of patrons converse in hushed tones with the employees, who outnumber the customers two to one, so I have no trouble identifying an available teller.

The formal and forbidding atmosphere only stokes a creeping sense of unease. I felt a lot more courageous at home. What if this doesn’t work? I could get into some
serious
trouble, much worse than what I’m dealing with already. I have a feeling that the bank, and the police, and Luis’s family (if he has one) would be extremely interested in someone snooping around the safe deposit box of a man who recently killed himself. So each step toward the teller’s window pushes my toast and coffee a little closer to my mouth.

The teller looks up as I approach the window. She’s a bookish, severe-looking woman in her late forties, with gaunt cheeks, half-moon spectacles, and coal black hair tied in a bun. She reminds me of my grade-school librarian, only more intimidating. She smiles politely; but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are light blue, and, like the surface of the Arctic Ocean, remain frosty.

“May I help you?”

I clear my throat, which seems loud as a gunshot in the ornate stillness, and hand her the key. “I’m here to, uh, check my box.”

“Identification?” she asks, examining the key with one hand while tapping on a computer keyboard in front of her with the other.

I push my driver’s license across the counter. I wish I knew a few prayers because right now I sure could use one. Her head swivels purposely from the computer screen, to my license, to me, and then back again to the screen. It takes maybe ten seconds. It seems like ten hours.

“Very good, Mr. Mitchell,” she finally says. “Your first time back since you rented the box, I see.”

“Hmm?”

“As the co-renter for this box. Your first time back.”

“Oh. Um, yeah.” Inwardly, I heave a sigh of relief.

“Sign here, please.”

“Hmm?”

“Sign. Here.” She points to a small electronic signature pad on the counter between us and regards me over the top of her spectacles. “So we can match your signature with the one we have on file.”

My signature? The one on file?

I suck in my breath and hesitate, stylus in hand.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Mitchell?”

I shake my head, purse my lips, sign the screen with the stylus, and tap the
ENTER
icon.

The scanner buzzes disagreeably.

My heart catches in my throat, and I feel several beads of sweat gathering on my brow, marshaling for a run down my face.

The empty smile disappears. The thin line of her mouth now matches the cold indifference in her eyes as she hits a few more buttons on her keyboard. And did she just glance over at the security guard standing watch by the door?

“One more time, please,” she says, waving curtly at the signature pad and regarding me over the top of her spectacles.

I hold my breath and try again.

This time the tablet answers with a soft, friendly
ping.

The teller’s polite smile returns.

“Very good, Mr. Mitchell. I’ll have Cynthia accompany you into the vault.” She waves over a plain young woman, who by the rapidity with which she responds to Librarian Lady’s summons and anxious demeanor is clearly a subordinate. Librarian Lady hands her my key and whispers something quietly into her ear. The woman nods and wordlessly escorts me into the vault adjacent to the counter, which is lined by rows of safe deposit boxes. She produces a second key, expertly unlocks the corresponding box using both keys, slides the box out of its slot, and guides me to a small office off the lobby that’s furnished with a spare wooden desk and a few metal chairs. She leaves the box on the table and closes the door behind her as she leaves.

My breakfast tickles the back of my throat as I sit down and open the box.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. Irrefutable evidence of GG’s guilt? A signed confession? Whatever I was expecting, it certainly isn’t what I find.

I reach into the box and pull out …

… a cell phone.

A cheap one. It could be the twin of the one Luis gave me. In fact, I note, turning it over in my hand, it
is
the twin of the phone Luis gave me—obviously, the one he was using to send me texts.