Solemn Oath (16 page)

“Is she breathing yet? Can they feel a pulse?”

The driver conferred, then came back on the line. “No, they can't! What do we do now?”

“Keep going. I'll hold.” Lukas saw someone step up to the desk and recognized the curly-haired E.R. tech Amanda. He pivoted the mouthpiece of the phone and put a hand across it. “What are you doing here, Amanda?” he asked softly. “I thought you called in sick.”

She nodded and leaned against the desk. Her narrow face was flushed, and beads of perspiration coated her brow, moistening the soft brown bangs. “Guess I got the flu everybody had last week. I'm really weak and shaky, and I have diarrhea. Can you check me out, Dr. Bower? I feel bad.” Her breaths came in rapid succession.

Lukas cradled the receiver against his shoulder and stepped over to take her pulse. Her skin felt hot, and her heart rate felt rapid and weak. “You're not still taking the ma huang for your diet, are you?”

She shot him a quick, guilty glance and nodded.

“Still drinking caffeine?”

“Not as much. But, Dr. Bower, I'm sick to my stomach. It's the flu. I know it is.”

“How long did you say you've been taking the ma huang?”

“Since I started working here. A month.”

Lukas shook his head. “You'd better go lie down in exam room seven. I'll have Carol check you in as soon as she gets off the phone, and we'll see if we can get you feeling better.” He glanced in Carol's direction and found her still juggling two separate calls.

A deep phone voice shouted out at him from the receiver on his shoulder. “I see lights up in the fog! It's the ambulance. I think they've found us!”

Lukas sat back with relief. “Keep your flashers going. Pull well over to the side of the road and get out and wave them down, but let your buddies keep doing CPR until the crew can take over.”

Lukas held the line open until the ambulance crew rendezvoused with the three amateur rescuers, and then he thanked the men and disconnected. A cordless headset would be nice for situations like this when he had other patients to treat and other calls coming in.

To his relief, he saw Buck come back into the E.R., along with Lauren and Cherra Garcias. He also glanced through the window that overlooked the parking lot and saw another car pull into an Emergency Patient Only spot.

Carol turned around. “Dr. Bower, Claudia says she'll be here as soon as she can get here.”

“Thank you, Carol.” He stepped forward and greeted the new doctor with an outstretched hand. “Hello, Cherra.” Her grip was as firm as he remembered. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.” Her smile was as bright as he remembered, too.

“You're welcome. I'm sorry I'll only be able to do a few shifts these next few weeks, but my contract in Arkansas ends in October. Then I can come full-time.”

Carol finally disengaged from the phone and began
checking in the three new patients who had come in. It wasn't even eight in the morning.

“Is it always this busy here?” Cherra asked Lukas.

“The numbers fluctuate. Mondays can be pretty hectic, and overall volume has been increasing steadily since I came in April.”

Cherra smiled again. “So you're a popular doctor.”

“No, that's not—”

“He's a great doctor,” Lauren said as she stepped up beside them at the desk. “Some of our frequent flyers call to make sure he's on duty before they come in. Some of them recognize his Jeep in the parking lot, and word gets around the neighborhood.”

Lukas felt his face flush. “My presence here is not the reason volume has increased.”

Lauren shrugged. “You have your theories, I have mine.”

Cherra's dark-eyed gaze went from Lauren to Lukas and back again, and she grinned. Lukas felt his flush deepen. He picked up a clipboard, went to the case template stand, with all its different pockets that held forms covering only a small gamut of human suffering, and pulled out the proper form for the flu, even though he didn't think that was Amanda's problem. The rest could be added later.

He placed the T-sheet on the clipboard and handed it to Lauren. “Would you please assess Amanda? She's in room seven.” He jotted down orders for blood tests and a urine drug screen. He also gave orders for a tilt test on the tech to see how dehydrated she was. “She might need IV fluids. Be on the lookout for reaction to ephedrine.”

“You think it's that ma huang she's been taking, don't you?” Lauren asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Lauren shook her head. “I told her that stuff was bad news. Nice to meet you, Dr. Garcias. I'm looking forward to working with you.” She left them and went to tend her patient.

Another patient came in the door to be seen, and Lukas and Cherra overheard him telling Carol he'd had a rash for a month and finally decided to get it checked out. Lukas met Cherra's wry expression and saw her shrug. It was going to be one of those days.

The E.R. entrance door opened again, and Lukas looked over to find Theodore Zimmerman walk through, wearing jeans and a chambray work shirt. He was apparently on his way to work at Jack's Print Shop downtown on the square. His steps were hesitant, and his tense gaze darted around the room until he caught sight of Lukas at the central station.

“Dr. Bower,” he said, walking over to the station. “Can I talk to you for a minute? I won't take much of your time.”

His voice cracked, and Lukas noticed that his eyes were bloodshot, his face puffy. “I'm sorry, Theodore, but I can't talk now.” Lukas gestured toward the patients coming in. “I'm just beginning what looks like a busy shift. Perhaps—”

“Why don't you let me take them for you, Dr. Bower?” Cherra interrupted. “I need to break in sometime, and I might as well make my trip up here worthwhile for you, too.”

Lukas shrugged, trying not to allow frustration to show on his face. “Thank you, Dr. Garcias. I would appreciate it if you would take exam room seven first.” He took her arm and walked with her a few steps away from any listening ears. “She's one of our techs, and she's been taking ma huang and caffeine to lose weight for the past month or so. I suspect she's overdosed. I warned her to slow it down, but apparently she hasn't. Maybe she'll listen to you.”

Cherra nodded and headed toward the exam room, and Lukas turned back toward Theo.

“I'm sorry, Dr. Bower,” Theo said. “I was on my way to work, and I thought I'd better stop by and apologize for last Thursday night. I probably got you into trouble with Mercy.”

With anyone else, this wouldn't irritate Lukas. “You didn't ‘get me into trouble' with anybody.”

Theo paused. “I also need to talk with you about something else.”

Lukas watched the man's face for a moment. What was he up to now?

“What do you want to talk about, Theodore? And please, call me Lukas.”

Theo took a deep breath and let it out and reached up to push his short blond hair back from his forehead. “Thanks, Lukas. Could you come outside with me?” He glanced around at the filling E.R. waiting room, and at Carol, who was looking their way. “What I've got to say is kind of…personal.”

“If it's about Mercy again, I don't—”

“It isn't. Honest. Please.” Theo held his gaze.

Lukas relented and turned to the secretary. “Carol, we'll be in the private waiting room. Call me immediately when the ambulance contacts us about the drowning victim.” He turned to lead the way without waiting to see if Theodore followed.

The thick carpet and comfortably overstuffed chairs and sofa were decorated in peaceful shades of green and blue, and the windows overlooked a small rose garden. Soft classical music drifted through speakers in the ceiling. Lukas stepped in and took a chair across from the sofa.

Theodore paused at the threshold and peered around. “I'll never forget this room. It's where I waited the night I hit Tedi. It's where Estelle sat with me and bullied me into telling you what I'd done.” He shook his head and walked across to the sofa. His step was steady as he sat down with slow, deliberate movements, as if wary of disturbing too many painful memories, or maybe a headache.

“I wasn't always this way, Lukas,” Theodore said. “I didn't drink much when Mercy and I first started dating.” He gestured around the room. “I spent a lot of time here
at the hospital then, when she was first in practice with her father in his office. She had a lot of spare time back then, and when she wasn't busy we would sit in the cafeteria between her appointments and talk for hours.” He sounded so wistful and sad. “I was working as a real estate agent then, and when I didn't have to be in the office I was here. There was something about Mercy that…” He glanced swiftly at Lukas. “Well, anyway, I know this hospital well. I was here when they did the remodeling in this wing, and I even helped nail Sheetrock. But what I really wanted to do was X-ray. I loved it. It got to where I thought I knew those machines as well as anybody, just because I spent so much time watching and learning. I thought I might make a good X-ray technologist.”

“So why didn't you?”

Theo shrugged. “I was already a real estate agent, even though I didn't like it. I thought if I sold a lot of property Mercy might consider marrying me. I mean, how much can an X-ray tech make compared to a family practice physician?”

Lukas watched him and felt a tug of pity.

“Mercy was right Thursday night,” Theo said softly. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his light blue eyes filled with self-reproach. “I haven't changed. I still treat her the same way, building my case against her with the people closest to her. I've always done that. I even used Tedi against her when I could.” He looked down and rubbed his face with his hands. “She hates it.”

“Wouldn't you?”

Theo looked back up at him. “Yeah. I do it even when I don't know I'm doing it, just like with the booze. My apartment's about three blocks from a liquor store, and about ten times this weekend I had myself convinced that one little drink would actually be a good thing, just to prove to myself that I was cured of it.” Theo slumped back into the soft cushions and laid his head back with a sigh. “I was lying to myself.”

Lukas waited.
I don't know what it's like to be addicted, and I can't identify with him. Why can't he get what he needs with all the A.A. meetings they have around Knolls?
Lukas cleared his throat and started to mention that very thing, when Theo sat back up.

“You said something the other night about this guy in the Bible who couldn't straighten out his own life and just got worse. Whatever happened to him?”

So that's it.
“The Bible doesn't say, but I gather from the words that he died still lying to himself.”

Theodore stared at him. “That's all?”

“It was a warning. Jesus was telling the people that they couldn't just keep evil out of their lives by the force of their own will. Evil is stronger than we are, and it will control us. Even if we manage to extricate ourselves from bad situations, like alcohol or drug abuse or child abuse or manipulative behavior, we can't keep ourselves from doing it again, or from doing something worse. We are susceptible to the control of Satan and his evil spirits unless we allow a stronger Spirit to control us, and that can only be the Spirit of Christ, God's Son.”

Theo did not break eye contact, but his gaze intensified, grew pleading. “That's what I want.”

Lukas stared at him.
Just like that?

Theo spread his hands. “Can't you see? That's my only hope.”

Lukas took a moment to digest what Theo was saying. As though Christ were just some tool for Theodore to use, to manipulate the way he manipulated everyone else? Once, when Lukas was in his third year at UMC, another student had pretended to seek out his friendship. He'd attended worship services with Lukas, listened to him tell about Christ and feigned interest in learning more. Then he had hit Lukas up for money, saying he needed help to buy textbooks. And Lukas had lent him the money. Later he discov
ered the money had been used to buy pornographic magazines.

Was Theo setting him up the same way?

Theo dropped his hands to his lap and bent his head. “I can't live like this anymore.”

Lukas took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He thought of Mercy and her continuing struggle to accept God's offer of salvation because of her own feelings of unworthiness—much of which came from the way this man had treated her for the past ten years. Why should Theo's sins drive him to Christ before his victim could bring herself to come?

“Please, Lukas,” Theo said. “Tell me what I need to do. My own daughter tried to tell me about Christ, but I wouldn't listen. I want to listen now.” He leaned forward, and his reddened eyes filled with tears. “I'm drinking again.” His face contorted, and a sob shook his broad shoulders. He looked down and covered his face, and for a moment he cried. His nose ran. His neck reddened. He wasn't manipulating anyone.