Harvest (22 page)

Aunt Mary had not made things easy for herself. She had not joined in prayer, had not asked Him for forgiveness, had not even glanced at the Bible Brenda had left at her bedside. Aunt Mary had been entirely too indifferent, Brenda thought. One could not be indifferent in such a situation.

Brenda had seen it before, in other dying friends and relatives, that mindless serenity as the end approached. She was the only one who dared address the salvation of their souls, the only one who seemed at all concerned about which way their elevator might be heading. And a good thing she was concerned. So concerned, in fact, she had made it her business to know who in the family might be seriously ailing. Wherever they were in the country, she would go to them, stay with them until the end. It had become her calling, and there were those who considered her the family saint because of it. She was too modest to accept such a title. No, she was simply doing His bidding, as any good servant would do.

In Aunt Mary's case, though, she had failed. Death had come too soon, before her aunt had accepted Him into her heart. That was why, as the taxi pulled away from Bayside Hospital at 5:45 a.m., Brenda had felt such a sense of failure. Her aunt was dead, her soul beyond salvation. She, Brenda, had not been persuasive enough. If Aunt Mary had lived only another day, perhaps there would have been time.

The taxi passed a church. It was an Episcopal church, not Brenda's denomination, but it was a church all the same.

"Stop," she'd ordered the driver. "I want to get off here."

And so, at 6 a.m., Brenda had found herself sitting in a pew at St Andrew's. She sat there for two and a half hours, her head bent, her lips moving silently. Praying for Aunt Mary, praying that the woman's sins, whatever they might be, would be forgiven. That her aunt's soul would no longer be stuck between floors and that the elevator she was riding would be heading not down, but up. When at last Brenda raised her head, it was eight-thirty. The church was still empty. Morning light was cascading down in a mosaic of blues and golds through the stained glass windows. As she focused on the altar, she saw the shape of Christ's head emblazoned there. It was just the projected figure from the window, she knew that, but it seemed at that moment to be a sign. A sign that her prayers had been answered.

Aunt Mary was saved.

Brenda had risen from the bench feeling lightheaded with hunger, but joyous. Another soul turned to the light, and all because of her efforts. How fortunate that He had listened!

She'd left St Andrew's feeling wondrously buoyant, as though there were little cloud slippers on her feet. Outside, she found a taxi that just happened to be idling at the curb, waiting for her. Another sign.

She rode home in a trance of contentment.

Climbing the steps to her front porch, she looked forward to a quiet breakfast and then a long and deserved nap. Even His servants needed rest. She unlocked the door.

A scattering of mail lay on the floor, deposited that morning through the door slot. Bills and church newsletters and appeals for donations. So many needy people in the world! Brenda gathered up the mail and shuffled through the stack as she went into the kitchen. At the very bottom of the pile, she found an envelope with her name on it. That's all there was written there, just her name. No return address.

She broke the seal and unfolded the enclosed slip of paper. There was one typewritten line:

Your aunt did not die a natural death.

It was signed: A friend.

The stack of mail slipped from Brenda's grasp, the bills and newsletters scattering across the kitchen floor. She sank into a chair. She was no longer hungry, no longer serene.

She heard a cawing outside her window. She looked up and saw a crow perched on a nearby tree branch, its yellow eye staring straight at her.

It was another sign.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Frank Zwick glanced up from the patient on the operating table and said, "I understand congratulations are in order."

Abby, her hands dripping from the obligatory ten-minute scrub, had just walked into the OR to find Zwick and the two nurses grinning at her.

"I never thought that one would get hooked. Not in a million years," said the scrub nurse, handing Abby a towel. "Just goes to show you, bachelorhood is a curable illness. When did he pop the question, Dr. D?"

Abby slipped her arms into the sterile gown and snapped on gloves. "Two days ago."

"You kept it a secret for two whole days?"

Abby laughed. "I wanted to make sure he wasn't going to suddenly change his mind." And he hasn't. If anything, we're more sure of each other than ever before. Smiling, she moved to the table. The patient, already anaesthetized, lay with chest exposed and skin stained a yellow-brown from Betadine. It was to be a simple thoracotomy, a wedge resection of a peripheral pulmonary nodule. Her hands moved through the pre-op routine with the ease of one who's done it many times before. She lay down sterile cloths. Fastened clamps.

Lay down the blue drapes and fastened more clamps.

"So when's the big day?" asked Zwick.

"We're still talking about it." In fact, she and Mark had done little but talk about it. How big a wedding?Whom to invite. Outdoors or indoors? Only one thing had been decided for certain. Their honeymoon would be spent on a beach. Any beach, as long as there were palm trees in the vicinity.

She could feel her smile broadening at the prospect of warm sand and blue water. And Mark.

"I bet Mark's thinking boat," said Zwick. "That's where he'll want to get married."

"Not the boat."

"Uh oh. That sounds definite."

She finished draping the patient and looked up as Mark, freshly scrubbed, pushed through the doors. He donned gown and gloves and took his place across the table from her.

They grinned at each other. Then she picked up the scalpel.

The intercom buzzed. A voice over the speaker said, "Is Dr. DiMatteo in there?"

"Yes she is," said the circulating nurse.

"Could you have her break scrub and come out?"

"They're just about to open. Can't this wait till later?"

There was a pause. Then: "Mr Parr needs her out of the OR."

"Tell him we're in surgery!" said Mark.

"He knows that. We need Dr. DiMatteo out here," repeated the intercom. "Now."

Mark looked at Abby. "Go ahead. I'll have them call one of the interns to assist."

Abby backed away from the table and nervously stripped off her gown. Something was wrong. Parr wouldn't pull her out of surgery unless there was some kind of crisis.

Her heart was already racing as she pushed through the OR doors and walked to the front desk.

Jeremiah Parr was standing there. Beside him were two hospital security guards and the nursing supervisor. No one was smiling. "Dr. DiMatteo," said Parr, 'could you come with us?"

Abby looked at the guards. They had fanned out to either side of her. The nursing supervisor, too, had shifted position, taking a step back.

"What's this all about?" said Abby. "Where are we going?"

"Your locker."

"I don't understand."

"It's just a routine check, Doctor."

There's nothing routine about this. Flanked by the two guards, Abby had no choice but to follow Parr up the hall to the women's locker room. The nursing supervisor went in first, to clear the area of personnel. Then she beckoned Parr and the others inside. "Your locker is number seventy-two?" said Parr. "Yes."

"Could you open it please?"

Abby reached for the combination padlock. She made one spin of the dial, then stopped and turned to Parr. "I want to know what this is all about first."

"It's just a check."

"I think I'm a little beyond the stage of high school locker inspections. What are you looking for?"

"Just open the locker."

Abby glanced at the guards, then at the nursing supervisor. They were watching her with heightened suspicion. She thought: I can't win this one. If I refuse to open it, they'll think I'm hiding something. The best way to defuse this crazy situation was to cooperate.

She reached for the lock, spun the combination, and tugged it open.

Parr stepped closer. So did the guards. They were standing right beside him as she swung open the locker door.

Inside were her streetclothes, her stethoscope, her purse, a flowered toilet bag for on-call nights, and the long white coat she used for attending rounds. They wanted cooperation, she'd damn well give them cooperation. She unzipped the flowered bag and held it open for everyone to see. It was a show and tell of intimate feminine toiletries. Toothbrush and tampons and Midol. One of the male guards flushed. He'd gotten his thrill for the day. She zipped up the bag and opened her purse. No surprises in there either. A wallet, chequebook, car keys, more tampons. Women and their specialized plumbing. The guards were looking uncomfortable now, and a little sheepish.

Abby was starting to enjoy this.

She put the purse back in the locker and took the white coat off the hook. The instant she did, she knew there was something different about it. It was heavier. She reached into the pocket and felt something cylindrical and smooth. A glass vial. She took it out and stared at the label.

Morphine sulphate. The vial was almost empty.

"Dr. DiMatteo," said Parr, "Please give that to me."

She looked up at him. Slowly she shook her head. "I don't know what it's doing there."

"Give me the vial."

Too stunned to think of an alternative action, she simply handed it to him. "I don't know how it got there," she said. "I've never seen it before."

Parr handed the vial to the nursing supervisor. Then he turned to the guards. "Please escort Dr. DiMatteo to my office."

"This is bullshit," said Mark. "Someone set her up and we all know it ."

"We don't know any such thing," said Parr.

"It's part of the same pattern of harassment! The lawsuits. The

HARVEST

bloody organs in her car. And now this."

"This is entirely different, Dr. Hodell. This is a dead patient." Parr looked at Abby. "Dr. DiMatteo, why don't you just tell us the truth and make things easier for all of us?"

A confession was what he wanted. A clean and simple admission of guilt. Abby glanced around the table, at Parr and Susan Casado and the nursing supervisor. The only person she couldn't look at was Mark. She was afraid to look at him, afraid to see any doubt in his eyes.

She said, "I told you, ! don't know anything about it. I don't know how the morphine got in my locker. I don't know how Mary Allen died."

"You pronounced her death," said Parr. "Two nights ago."

"The nurses found her. She'd already expired."

"That was the night you were on call."

"Yes."

"You were in the hospital all night."

"Of course. That's what being on call means."

"So you were here on the very night Mrs Allen expired of a morphine OD. And today we find this in your locker." He set the vial on the table where it sat, centre stage, on the gleaming mahogany surface. "A controlled substance. Just the fact it's in your possession is serious enough."

Abby stared at Parr. "You just said Mrs Allen died of a morphine OD. How do you know that?"

"A post-mortem drug level. It was sky high."

"She was on a therapeutic dose, titrated to comfort."

"I have the report right here. It came back this morning. 0.4

per litre. A level of 0.2 is considered fatal."

"Let me see that," said Mark. "Certainly."

Mark scanned the lab slip. "Why would anyone order a postmortem morphine level? She was a terminal cancer patient."

"It was ordered. That's all you need to know."

"I need to know a hell of a lot more."

Parr looked at Susan Casado, who said: "There was reason to suspect this was not a natural death."

"What reason?"

"That's not the point of this--'

' What reason?"

Susan released a sharp breath. "One of Mrs Allen's relatives asked us to look into it. She received some kind of note implying the death was suspicious. We notified Dr. Wetfig, of course, and he ordered an autopsy."

Mark handed Abby the lab slip. She stared at it, recognizing the indecipherable scrawl on the line Ordering Physician. It was, indeed, the General's signature. He'd ordered a quantitative drug screen at 11 a.m. yesterday morning. Eight hours after Mary Allen's death.

"I had nothing to do with this," said Abby. "I don't know how she got all this morphine. It could be a lab error. A nursing error--'

"I can speak for my staff," said the nursing supervisor. "We follow strict controls on narcotics administration.You all know that. There's no nursing error here."

"Then what you're saying," said Mark, 'is that the patient was deliberately overdosed."

There was a long silence. Parr said, "Yes."

"This is ridiculous! I was with Abby that night, in the call room!" "All night?" said Susan.

"Yes. It was her birthday, and we, uh..." Mark cleared his throat and glanced at Abby. We slept together was what they were both thinking. "We celebrated," he said.

"You were together the whole time?" said Parr.

Mark hesitated. He doesn't really know, thoughtAbby. He'd slept through all her phone calls, hadn't even stirred when she'd left to pronounce Mrs Allen at three o'clock, nor when she'd left again to restart an IV at four. He was about to lie for her, and she knew that it wouldn't work because Mark had no idea what she'd done that night. Parr did. He had it from the nurses. From the notes and orders she'd written, each one recorded with the time.

She said, "Mark was in the call room with me. But he slept all night." She looked at him. We have to stick to the truth. It's the only thing that'll save me.

"What about you, Dr. DiMatteo?" said Parr. "Did you stay in the room?"

"I was called to the wards several times. But you know that already, don't you?"

Parr nodded.

"You think you know everything!" said Mark. "So tell me this. Why would she do it?Why would she kill her own patient?"