Lie Still (42 page)

There was nothing much in there I didn’t already know.” She nodded. I said, “I even looked up poisoning. Nothing there, though, either.”

She was staring at me.

I said, “Can I buy you lunch?”

“I need to go check on some labs. I left a kid in Diarrhea Clinic. Where you going?”

“I guess the cafeteria. I kinda miss their secret sauce.”

“You’re sick.” She rose to go.

I said, “Wait. So . . . The plan for Henry?”

“Brain-death determination in the morning. He’s off all sedatives, relaxants, everything. If he’s waking up, good. If he’s not, we’ll do what’s right.”

“I know you will. But he apparently ain’t waking up.”

“Yes, but we’ve no choice,” she said.

“Well, don’t dilly-dally.”

“No, Malcolm.”

“Those little Mendoza kids are suffering.”

“So is Henry, Malcolm.”

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“No he’s not. He’s in a coma.”

“Yes, Malcolm.”

I went to the cafeteria. I’d missed the cracked vinyl seats, the buzzing fluorescent lights, the noise and the gooey arroz con pollo. All around the room interns and residents were inhaling their lunches. Talking with their mouths full. Talking too loudly about their patients’ problems. Laughing at black medical humor. Struggling with burdens and succeeding.

Just like old times.

20

From the time I could walk, I got to tag along with Dad on
rounds. Sometimes there was a reason—some family inconvenience that left me in his hands—but just as often it
seemed he wanted the company. I came to understand I was
more than welcome.

My grade-school pals said it must be yucky. I obliged
them with exaggerated tales of guts and things vomited
up, leaving out any mention of my initial queasiness. By
the time the chance to reshape the tale arose, I had mastered the queasiness. Often there were long stretches of
boredom, watching him write in charts or talk on the
phone. I learned to keep handy a coloring book or, as I
grew, a comic book, a chapter book, homework, or a
novel.

The good stuff generally happened when I was asked to
leave the room. Dad would smile in a way that said he was
sorry to have to ask, then later explain that it was only the
other people who thought I shouldn’t be there. He also explained what had gone on. I learned to look for a spot where
I could eavesdrop and sit with my face buried in a book,
staring at the same page for as long as fifteen minutes.

Once, when I was in about the fourth grade, Dad said
there was someone he had to go see. When we went into the
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hospital room he embraced a man his age—mid-forties. The
man’s eyes were tearing. In the bed was a child, asleep, but
pale and ghostly with purple blotches on her face and shoulders that made me wince. Dad turned to me and nodded toward the door. I left it ajar.

I heard this: Dad: “She’s comfortable, sleeping like an
angel.”

The man: “Yeah.” He sobbed.

Dad: “Are you sure you and Gwen are ready?”

The man sobbed.

Dad: “I’m so sorry, Ed. They did everything they could in
Lincoln. I think you made the right choice to bring her home
now, though. We can help her here. I’ll speak with the nurse.

Annie will get all the morphine she needs. We won’t let her
have any pain.”

The man: “I don’t want it to . . . go on . . .”

Dad: “No. Of course not. It won’t.”

In the car I asked Dad if she was dying. He said yes. I
asked if she was hurting. He said no. I asked what the morphine was for. He said to make the parents’ pain go away.

H E N RY RO J E L I O , DAY S I X ( C O N T I N U E D )
The Mesa PD was a boxy, four-story building, all red brick, wheelchair ramps and brown steel handrails, plopped among some older homes at the edge of the downtown district. A desk officer paged the detectives. Will Borden came out and escorted me inside a section marked “Homicide.” In their office I sidled over to the window. They had a view of a parking lot full of police cruisers and clunky, unmarked sedans.

The latter were the more intimidating.

I tried to strike a relaxed attitude, to sound calm. Borden and May probably found it amusing. I said, “No news on your missing nurse, I suppose.”

“No. Hasn’t turned up, anyway,” Will said. They looked at me like they were reading a poster.

I said, “If you’ve got any unidentified bodies, you should 318

DAVID FARRIS

know that Robin had fake breasts.” Their expression didn’t change. I went on, “I read about it in the paper. A woman’s body found in a canal. Though I guess that would be the Phoenix PD.”

I looked from face to face. They showed me nothing. Finally Will said, “Yeah. The papers are full of stuff like that.

Happens all the time.” I nodded. I felt like I was there to be milked; information was only going to move in one direction.

Ken said, “You’re gonna sit for the polygraph?”

“Sure. I mean, there’s no reason not to.”

Will said, “Right. It’ll help us all move along. You’ve never taken a polygraph test before, have you?”

“No.”

“Well, what we’ll do is keep it nice and relaxed. You and Ken and I will go through all the questions here before you even meet the polygrapher. You know, so there aren’t any surprises.”

I knew it was not as friendly as he was painting it or we all wouldn’t be sitting where we were. I nodded. Since the polygraph can measure only anxiety in the subject, I guessed they really just wanted to preload my stress level by showing me the mines I would have to step on. I just had to keep reminding myself I had nothing to lie about.

He went on. “We’ll only ask questions with a yes-or-no answer. ‘Is your name Malcolm Ishmail?’ ‘Are you a medical doctor?’ ‘Did you ever have sex with Robin Benoit?’ ”

I said, “Okay.”

He flipped some pages on a yellow legal pad and began reading questions. Their list started with the usual identifi-cation and background data. He asked if I had ever stolen anything, and later whether I had ever driven a car after drinking alcohol. I thought,
Baseline. Most people will lie.

They want to see what a lie looks like on their radar.
I decided I could afford to oblige them.

He moved to a yes/no recounting of what I’d already told them: “Did you go to Robin Benoit’s house on the night before her meeting with Sally Marquam?” “Did you LIE STILL

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forget your jacket at her house?” “Did you phone her about it?’’

To each of these I nodded.

He said, “You’re going to have to speak up, when you’re on the polygraph.”

I said, “Uh-huh.”

He read on: “Were you surprised by Miss Benoit’s report to the Glory administrators?” “Were you angry?” Again, I nodded. “Had the two of you had an argument?” “Did you cut your hand in the Glory ER?” “Did it bleed in Robin’s house?” “Did you cut your hand in Robin’s house?” I shot a scowl at him but he waved his hand and read on.

He read questions about the details of Robin’s physical makeup: height, weight, hair color, hairstyle. It got more interesting when he asked, “Was she particularly muscular?” “Did she have any bruises?” “Was she bleeding anywhere?” He went into our sexual encounter: “Was there fellatio?” “Was there cunnilingus?” “Was there actual coitus?” “Did you use contraception?” “Condoms?” “Anything besides condoms?”

I started to frown. Something wasn’t right. Robin was clearly used to sexual encounters—she had condoms and a can of sperm killer at the ready. Robin’s toy box. It was not there when I had gone to her house. Though I hadn’t thought of it at the time, the key in her nightstand drawer was gone, too. Surely she had taken her personal stash with her.

“You gotta pay attention,” May said.

“Oh, sorry. I was thinking of something. Something missing.” They looked at me. I said, “Robin left of her own accord.”

“You think so.”

“I know so. When I went to Robin’s house. That next night. To pick up my jacket . . .” I paused. “Well, you should know first. The night at Robin’s. She invited me for dinner.

She wanted to talk over our ER disaster. We drank white wine. She said it should have been champagne, but she had a thing about bubbles. She made a fish stir-fry. She gave me a massage. We went to bed. I left without my jacket. I’ve told you this.”

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They nodded.

“I called her about the jacket. She said she would leave it on the couch for me. Told me where her house key was. I asked for a date. She kind of blew me off.”

“Right.”

“I told you I went out there that night. When she had gone home sick, but she wasn’t home. The place was dark. I looked around. No jacket. I knocked some stuff off the kitchen counter. I broke a glass. I swept up the mess and put it in her trash. I looked around, like a guy who’s seen too many movies, wondering if I could find any notes or anything that might explain what was going on. Where she was.”

“And? You found something you didn’t tell us about?”

“Nothing. Literally. Her clothes and some books and most of that shit was there. But her personal stash—that was gone, too. I’m sure of it. She had this wooden box. Said she got it in San Francisco. It was made to look like a pair of old books. Peeling paint and gold leaf on the edges. Really kind of cool. She got it off her bookshelf before we had sex. Had her condom stash in it, with spermicide. And a big wad of money. Said her father insisted on giving her money but her mother didn’t approve so she got it in cash.”

Ken began making notes. “Uh-huh.”

“It was gone. It had to be.” I was hanging my mouth open between sentences. “And it would be a very rare crime victim who could get home to retrieve her most personal belongings. So Robin left of her own volition.”

Will said, “We’ll see. Where did she keep the box?”

“It was on her bookcase in her bedroom. Left wall, from the bed, left of the window. Shelf at about eye level.”

“You looked for it?”

“No. I mean I didn’t search for it. But there was a blank spot in the row of books. I noticed it at the time, but didn’t add it all up. And the key to the box was in her nightstand. I looked in that drawer for any papers. I found a blank sheet of hospital chart paper. There wasn’t any key. I would have seen it.”

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“Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“I just didn’t think of it. We were talking about all the other stuff. And he was making me nervous.” I pointed to May.

Borden nodded. “You didn’t take it? The box?”

“No.”

“The key?”

“No.”

“Because, you see, you could have taken it just as easily as she could have.”

“Right, but I didn’t.” I pointed at his notepad. “Ask me about it when I’m wired up.”

Borden started writing on his list of questions. “Okay, we’ll ask you about that, too.”

May said, “But it ain’t gonna prove much. Any house thief could have taken it when he took her.”

I said, “I suppose so.”

Borden said, “It does narrow the thing down some, though, proof or no proof.”

He finished reading the questions. When he got to “Did you ever hurt Robin Benoit?” “Did you hit Robin Benoit in the face?” and “Did you kill Robin Benoit?” I would have smiled at the bluntness, but the newspaper piece about the body in the morgue reminded me there was no room for humor, even the dark humor I was certain homicide detectives had in spades over doctors.

“Ready?” Will asked. I nodded. He said, “Let’s go meet Carole.” It sounded like a game show.

They walked me down a narrow hall to a windowless back room and introduced me to Carole, a thin strawberry blonde in the sand-colored uniform of the Department with an armload of stripes. “She’s our local technical expert,” Will said. She had a crooked smile and the smell of freshly smoked cigarettes. “Ken and I will leave you here.”

Carole pointed me to a chair beside a metal desk. She said,

“Take your shirt off and just relax now, dear.” She wrapped two cables around my chest, one high, one low. She put a 322

DAVID FARRIS

standard blood pressure cuff on my upper arm and inflated it until I could feel my pulse throbbing under it. She put my left index finger in a cup-shaped clip. “That’s it, now.”

Where I sat I couldn’t see the printout.

She read the same list, verbatim, absent all facial expression and most inflection in her voice. After each question I said “yes” or “no” as if my vindication depended on my enunciation. With each answer she scrawled something on the printout as it went by. I felt myself jerk to attention with the questions about stealing and driving drunk. I didn’t really lie, I equivocated. She dutifully made her marks and absolutely nothing changed in her face or voice.

When she finished the list she unhooked me and ushered me to the lounge for a cup of coffee
en
styrofoam. She took the printout to the detectives, then sat in the lounge with me.

She smoked.

My pager went off. It was Mary Ellen again. Carole nodded to a phone. “Just dial 9.”

“You coming back to the hospital?” Mary Ellen asked.

“I wasn’t going to. It’s not really a happy place for me right now.”

“I’ve got something for you.”

“The love I’ve missed?”

“No. You’ve always had that. These are more mundane.

Also more germane to your acute problems with a certain missing nurse.”

“You always know how to tease a guy. I’ll be there in . . .”

I looked at Carole with a questioning look.

“I think you’re about done,” she said.

I said into the phone, “About half an hour.”

A few minutes later Borden and May came back in to dismiss me. Will said, “Okay, guess you’re all done, Dr. Ishmail. Thanks for coming out.”

I looked from one to the other. “So, I’m cleared of, uh, suspicion?”

Their faces were impassive. Borden said, “We told you, there is no suspicion.”