Lie Still (53 page)

Authors: David Farris

BOOK: Lie Still

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And she said you told her we had sex but she knew you were lying. I think even the idea of it makes her blow a gasket, if that’s any kind of consolation to you.

[Another pause.] Maybe that’s why I did it.

Mom—Mee-em . . . [A deep breath.]

Don’t try to find me. You can’t. I left Arizona right after you yelled at me in the ER. That was all part of the plan. I’ve never been back. You can understand, I’m sure, why I need to be someone else. I have a pretty good life, now. I gave up nursing after all that.

I’m selling real estate. What a laugh, huh?

Henry wasn’t really much of a . . . he didn’t have a life ahead of him, from everything I read about and heard about. But that doesn’t change what we did.

Nothing would make that okay.

And I didn’t know, even when I did it, what to believe about you. When I worked with you I had a hard time believing you were so awful. You seemed like a good doctor. You did a good job and cared about people.

But I did it anyway. To you and to Henry. I went through with it because it was all I could do. And then it all . . . it all fell apart. . . . [She was crying again.]

And I could see that.

Mimi said she couldn’t wait forever for a crisis to show up in that little ER when we were both on shift.

She said we could make our own without hurting any-LIE STILL

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body. I mean, it wasn’t even supposed to be a full-CPR

code, it was just supposed to be respiratory. He was going to quit breathing, you wouldn’t believe it, you’d take a little extra time, but you would breathe for him until he could do it on his own again. Then I would write up all the little things you had missed or waited too long over, and they’d pull your license. Mimi said in a crisis everybody can be second-guessed. She called it the “basis of the whole malpractice industry.”

You picked up the epinephrine syringe like she thought you would, but . . . God, it all went to shit!

And I had done it. I needed to know what you knew.

Mom told me not to worry, but God, I was so freaked.

I thought I could feel you out, so to speak, over dinner. Then, it seemed you kind of liked me, so I figured I might as well make it all really confusing, buy time to go ahead with the report to the hospital, like Mom wanted. She had the money. She came up with the plan to get me out of town. “To lay down the cover,”

she called it. It was too late to do anything else.

[She sniffled and gulped.] Malcolm, all I wanted to say . . . to say was, I hope you’re happy. Somehow. I am sorry for what I helped do—what I did to you. I am . . .

way . . . sorrier . . . for what happened to the boy, but I wouldn’t know where to begin to apologize. . . .

I am so sorry. [Deep sniffles.]

But, all in all, I guess Mimi got her way with you, didn’t she?

[Sniffling. Clicks.]

Coming from the den, I must have looked to Mary Ellen—correctly—like someone who had heard a ghost. She said, “Robin isn’t dead after all?”

“I think I need to talk to the police.” I didn’t explain.

She bit her lip.

She kindly put me up for the night in her guest room.

Claiming exhaustion from the drive I said little.

The next morning I called Will Borden. I said I had some-402

DAVID FARRIS

thing I thought he’d be interested in. He said to come on out to Mesa.

I asked him if he knew any good lawyers.

He laughed. He said he still didn’t think I needed one, but he rattled off a few names.

That was the morning I shared my story with Gerry deLee. With his reassurances—incomplete as they were—

fresh in my ears, I drove to Mesa. I took the tape to Detective Borden, though I know what he would say. Ken May was gone—retired on disability. I walked into Will’s office bearing the cassette like a crumbling map to secret treasure.

He said the file was, of course, still open.

We got coffee and he pulled a tape player from the evidence room. He nodded all the way through the message, but after it was finished shook his head. “I don’t doubt a word of it, but it’s just more file filler. Without a real live

‘Robin’ we’re just talking to ourselves.”

As expected.

Will Borden said he knew, at least, that Mimi Lyle and her daughter, aka Robin Benoit, had committed murder.

He said he knew he could not prove it.

I nodded. “It’s where we live.”

Outside the Mesa PD, I thought about driving straight home to Stasis on the Plains.

Something—gravity—pulled me to Maricopa first.

It occurred to me to try the doctors’ parking lot again but I was drawn to a slot marked “Visitor.” It felt better.

I went up to Dr. Hebert’s office. Marie didn’t recognize me, but when Dr. Hebert heard my name in the anteroom he called out, “Gawddamn, Ishmail! They ain’t kilt you?” He was genuinely glad to see me. I told him about my stasis in Nebraska. He said, “You oughta be applyin’ again. You surely done your penance.” I told him it really wasn’t that bad.

He said he was sorry he hadn’t been able to help more. I told him he’d helped tremendously. I asked him if Dr. Lyle was still at Maricopa. He said, “Still here? Shit, she’s a frikkin’ full pro-fuckin’-fessor. Still puttin’ out her version LIE STILL

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of the Show. Lyin’ still, about why her patients are dyin’.

And ain’t nobody askin’ no questions anymore. I think that woman is half voodoo, son.”

I went back downstairs, bound only for my car and home on the plains. I was going to page Mary Ellen, tell her I was truly sorry, but I would not be sticking around, that I’d gotten old and stuck in certain habits and that I’d definitely call someday. My own ongoing lie.

But I stopped in the Lobby of the Seething Masses. It had been redecorated with a massive mural depicting the various peoples who had successively elbowed their way into the Valley of the Sun. The faces in the painting were intended to be ethnic generalizations, but to me they looked familiar. I thought I saw Henry Rojelio’s baby brother in there.

I looked around the lobby. The real live versions were bustling or creeping through, some bringing candy and cards and balloons to the ones they loved, some struggling with casts and walkers, all trusting that we’d be good enough when they needed us.

There, in the Lobby of the Seething Masses, across from the mural, I saw a new glass case with the names and office numbers of all the faculty. Miriam Lyle, MD, Professor of Neurological Surgery, was on the top floor. There, in silent defiance of Professor Lyle’s flowering career, I changed course. I chose to lose no more.

I paged Mary Ellen to see when she would be home for dinner.

Instead of driving with my head down, I went to the gro-cery and got the best food I knew how to cook.

When Mary Ellen got home I put a hot meal in front of her. I saw the magic smile I had given up. I told her I was sorry. Then I explained every detail, starting with the first time I made Mimi laugh.

She said, “I’m glad you’re back.”

I found amazing the size of the hole I had cut in my life by keeping Mary Ellen away.

I came home to Nebraska then and went back to work, different.

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DAVID FARRIS

Robin’s message, by virtue of her sending it through Mary Ellen Montgomery, achieved her intended result: It made me happier. For what she did to me, I forgave her.

Henry’s forgiveness or that from his family would, for now, remain beyond any of us.

Now, having retold, I have relived. If one is blessed he may get a reprieve. I called Mary Ellen yesterday and invited her to come visit. I offered the usual suspect excuses: I said my folks hadn’t seen her since medical school graduation. I said she needed a break from her work. I gave her a glowing preview of the wildlife at the Dismal River.

But I ended with “I’d really like to see you.”

She said, “Yes. I’d like that.”

One final thing: Yesterday after my eight hours in the Othello clinic I nearly cried to the sky before driving home. One of Dad’s old patients, a seventyish man with mild diabetes and an overgrown prostate, came in to see me. That is, his wife drove him twenty-seven miles to see me. She told me the names of two other people who were going to be doing the same thing. People I knew only vaguely as living in Hooker. They were having their records sent from Dad’s old office to the clinic in Othello. He said they’re going to be seeing me from now on.

They want me to be their doctor.

ENDNOTE

Every patient story, except those of Henry Rojelio, Keith Coles, and Susan McKenzie, is drawn from the case histories of the author.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The better parts of this work owe much of their existence to many godparents, critics, coaches, cheerleaders, and mid-wives. My courageous early readers were Nancy Reichley, Teresa Dooling, Andrea “Radar” Tworek, Tudy Brody, John Paul Blodgett, Janet Smith, and Heidi Goetz. My steadfast consultants were Detective Shirley McLaughlin, Dr. Monica Wehby, and Richard Dooling. Marianne Merola and Theron Raines gave generous professional critiques. Trish Grader found me a home at William Morrow.

Any effort to adequately acknowledge the roles of Sarah Durand, editor, and Henry Dunow, agent, etc., would likely create an embarrassing mess. Here I’ll say only that without you I’d have been four-plus DOA.

Kendra, Brian, and Nicko—you kept me
stable.

Finally, many dozen doctors, nurses, technologists, and patients at Maricopa County Hospital in Phoenix, a lot of years ago, made me—kicking and screaming—into a doctor. Along the way, I’ve learned from hundreds more. The clinicians and their charges at Portland’s Emanuel Hospital inspire me daily. Witnessing the sweating, tireless commitment of talented professionals and the painful, quiet dignity of the aggrieved is a constant reminder of what it’s all about.

About the Author

Now a pediatric anesthesiologist, DAVID FARRIS has spent more than twenty years practicing obstetrics, emergency medicine, pediatric critical care, and anesthesia for high-acuity surgery. He received his medical degree from the University of California, San Diego. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his physician wife and their two sons, and devotes his practice primarily to infants’ and children’s heart surgery. You can visit his website at
www.davidfarris.com
.

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Raves
for the electrifying debut thriller
by a sensational new voice in suspense fiction
DAVID FARRIS

LIE STILL

“
Lie Still
is a smart and suspenseful medical thriller executed with style.”

Scott Turow

“Unique . . . believable and strong . . . it pulls you in and delivers genuine suspense . . . One could say he is following in the footsteps of Michael Crichton, but Farris has a voice all his own.”

Statesman Journal
(OR)

“Both substantial and original . . . Farris’s debut is as sharp as a scalpel . . . offering more than the adrenaline rush of constant emergency room disasters.”

Publishers Weekly

“Farris’s unique blend of medical knowledge, heart-pumping suspense, and superb literary style makes this classy medical thriller impossible to put down.
Lie Still
has one of the scariest doctors—

doubly so because she’s so believable—that has ever haunted the medical mystery genre.”

Joshua Gilder, author of
Ghost Image

“A very human hero, an enjoyable immersion into the dramatic world of emergency medicine—with enough heat and suspense to keep the pages turning.”

Portland Oregonian

“Compelling. A promising debut for medical thriller fans.”

Booklist

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

LIE STILL. Copyright © 2003 by David Farris. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader May 2007

ISBN 978-0-06-144707-5

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