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Authors: Lawrence Gold

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No Cure for Murder

BOOK: No Cure for Murder
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No Cure for Murder

 

 

Lawrence W. Gold, M.D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dedication

 

To my wife, Dorlis, for incredible dedication and support
.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In memory of Charles M. Gold

(1908-2008)

He loved life, his family, and taught us not to fear aging.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgments

 

Donna Eastman of Parkeast Literary, a great editor who made this possible.

 

Joseph Barron, a true renaissance man, my writing buddy. Gone but not forgotten.

 

Writers groups on both coasts. WOW in Palm Coast, Florida and Sierra Writers in Grass Valley.

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

Julie Kramer pulled off her sweat-soaked green surgical cap as she entered the recovery room at Brier Hospital. “Where is Mrs. Hogan?”

The recovery nurse checked her clipboard. “She’s in bed one, Doctor.”
Julie walked to the gurney and placed her hand on Shannon’s cheek. “Are you awake?”
Shannon Hogan drew the thin sheet up to her neck. “I think so. It’s freezing in here.”
Julie brought a heated blanket to Shannon and reviewed the results of the colonoscopy just completed.
Shannon heard the cold words and felt Julie’s warm hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I wish there were other words than tumor or cancer...they spark our primal fear like shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater.”
Shannon held her face between both hands and cried.

Half listening to Julie’s explanation, Shannon tried to absorb the surgeon’s meaning. Like a drowning woman, she fought for the surface and gulped for the essence of life just in time to hear the reassuring words. “Thirty years ago, cancer was a death sentence. Not anymore.”

Julie grasped Shannon’s hands. “We found it early, that means you’re going to be around for a long time.”

Shannon and Peter Hogan were deeply religious people and had their faith tested through a lifetime of loss. First came the tragic death of their six-year-old daughter Mandy to leukemia. Then the business failures, the loss of their home in the Berkeley Hills fires of 1991, Peter’s heart attack and bypass surgery, and Shannon’s cranky, stubborn mother who lived with them for twenty years, proving that misery, indeed, loved company. With her mother gone, the kids settled and Pete’s retirement in sight, Shannon made a tragic error; she forgot that providence had not lost its special interest in her.

With retirement a year away, Pete came home one night with a pile of brochures.
Shannon scanned the colorful photos. “Mexico! We can’t move to Mexico.”
“South of the border, we can live like royalty. They have everything we’ll ever need.”

After several trips, they settled on San Miguel de Allende for their retirement. It had perfect weather, a large American community, and cultural richness...their dream come true. They’d sell their home and be on their way.

So much for that, Shannon thought one morning, three weeks before they were to leave. It began with non-stop cramps in her abdomen, followed by the shocking bright red blood in the toilet. Colonoscopy and the dreadful diagnosis followed, bad news delivered with blinding speed.

Peter walked alongside the gurney as they wheeled Shannon toward the elevator and surgery. “You must get her through this, Julie.”

Julie placed her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Pete, Shannon will be just fine.”

After the fourth hour, Julie came into the surgical waiting room. Her smiling face was the most beautiful thing Pete had seen in his lifetime.

Naturally, that wasn’t the end of it. Weeks of complications followed. Cycles of desperation and relief, then more despair, and finally the answer to their prayers, Shannon was nearing discharge.

 

As I enter 502, Shannon Hogan’s room, I see my hazy outline cast against the wall from the subdued indirect lighting. I blend with the shadows and move in silence to her bedside.

Her face reflects the peace of untroubled sleep, a few moments of respite from her pain. She’s caught in a dream, ignorant of the futility of it all, as if her denial could stem the inevitability of the final release—the ultimate freedom to a life everlasting.

I smile in anticipation, feeling the force of my will over her existence, a power reserved to the few.

When I reach into the pocket of my white coat, I feel the syringe. It’s warm from my body heat. It’s 30ccs of a milky fluid—my special gift.

Sterile syringe...what a joke.

It’s time.

I withdraw the syringe, rub it against my cheek, and then caress it as if it were a chess piece, a captured queen. The clear plastic IV line is within my reach as I find the intravenous injection port. The pink cover over the hypodermic slides off exposing the shiny stainless steel needle. It sparkles gaily as its razor sharp tip pierces the rubber stopper of Shannon’s IV line.

I look up, staring at the heavens through the two floors above and say my silent prayer.

I grasp Shannon’s sleep-warmed hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Her eyes flutter then open. Shannon looks around and tries to focus on my silhouette. With the light behind, I know that all she can see is my outline.


What...” she begins, but I silence her with a whisper. “It’s going to be all right. He is with us tonight.”

Shannon trembles. I’m certain she’s not sure if this is a nightmare.

I feel warm as I push the plunger slowly, inexorably down the barrel toward the syringe’s base. Shannon grimaces as the fluid burns the veins of her arm. Then her lips part to scream. I quickly cover her mouth with my leather-gloved hand. She grasps my arm trying to escape, but I hold her still with my other hand. She’s remarkably strong until the medication forces her muscles to relax, to twitch, then they refuse to respond to her commands to contract. Finally, the muscles surrender to the potent power of the paralyzing potion.

She’s awake, I can tell, a silent witness to her death, but she’s unable to move a muscle.

Her pupils widen in panic.

Her heart pounds.

She tries to breathe...smothering...gasping in her mind, but frozen.

Shannon’s conscious brain cries, please...please...no...no...Pete...Mandy...My God, no... no...no!

I take a serene sigh of satisfaction, raise the sheet to her neck, and caress her face. A single small tear streaks over her cheeks from the corners of her pleading eyes.

My work done, I stroll to her door and depart.

 

 

 


Chapter Two

 

Ginny Harrison stared at the clock—just minutes left to make a final dash through her assigned patients before morning report. Although exhausted from a busy, understaffed night shift, she felt satisfied. She’d handled each curve ball pitched by her difficult patients during the eight-hour inning.

When Ginny reached Shannon Hogan’s room, she sensed it at once.

Something is wrong.

She pushed the door open, rushed to the bedside, touched Shannon’s cold hand, and felt the throbbing terror pass through her abdomen. She flipped on the overhead light. Shannon’s rosy face had turned an ashen purple-blue in the bright fluorescence. Ginny’s hand hovered over the Code Blue button at the head of the bed...

Is it too late? she thought.
She pushed the button.
Code Blue 5th Floor, Code Blue 5th Floor, Code Blue 5th Floor, screamed the PA system throughout the hospital.

Ginny applied her mouth to Shannon’s cold lips, gave three quick deep breaths, then placed both hands, one above the other, on the lower part of the breastbone and began cardiac compressions. She felt Shannon’s sternum groan under her pressure. She counted each compression...one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand. In moments, the room filled with members of the Code Blue team.

Too late, Ginny thought. Shannon’s gone.

“Jack!” Ginny shouted, as Dr. Jack Byrnes entered the room followed by Ahmad Kadir, his resident from UC San Francisco. “She was fine just two hours ago.”

Jack Byrnes had consulted on Shannon’s case and as the medical director of the Intensive Care Unit, he supervised the code. When he placed the defibrillator paddles on her chest, the monitor traced a listless line across the screen. The cooling body, fixed and dilated pupils told it all. He turned to Ahmad. “Let’s call it. We’re too late.”

Ginny clutched Jack’s arm. “No...please.”

Jack’s head swung in a pendulum of hopelessness.

The team’s reaction to Jack’s announcement was like opening a beautifully wrapped gift box and finding it empty. Their energy and enthusiasm, like that of the disappointed child, evaporated in an instant.

Jack looked across the room. “Has anyone called Dr. Weizman?”
“No,” said Ginny.
Jack dreaded the need to awaken the old-timer so early in the morning. “I’ll do it.”
“Get me Dr. Weizman,” Jack asked the hospital operator. Seconds later, he heard the phone click.
“Dr. Spelling here.”
Zoe Spelling had joined Jacob in Family Practice two years ago.
“Oh, Zoe, I was trying to reach Jacob.”
“I’m on call tonight. Can I help you?”
“It’s about Shannon Hogan. The nurses found her dead this morning.”
“My God. What happened?”
“Don’t know.”
“I’ll have the answering service put you through to Jacob. He’s cared for that family for years. He’ll want to know.”

Jack waited on hold for several seconds, when the phone clicked. “Dr. Weizman, here. So what’s so important it can’t wait a little longer?” came the words with a hint of an Austrian accent.

“Jacob, it’s Jack Byrnes. I have bad news for you.”
“Say it.”
“Shannon Hogan’s dead. Her nurse found her thirty minutes ago. It was too late to try to resuscitate her.”
“My God...the expected, I can deal with, but surprises like this, I hate. Have you called her husband Pete?”
“No. I’ll do it now.”
“I’ll be right in.”
“That really isn’t necessary, Jacob. I’ll deal with him.”
“Thanks for the thought, Jack, but after sixty years of practice, I know my responsibilities. I may be old, but that I remember.”
Jack smiled. “I’ll have the orderly meet you at Brier’s front door with your walker.”
“For a nice guy, Jack, you can be a real...what’s the technical term…oh yes, a schmuck.”
BOOK: No Cure for Murder
4.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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