The Girl Without a Name (19 page)

S
o I have some news,” the detective starts, “but it's not necessarily good news.”

“Okay.” I'm on the phone, walking through Delaware Park by the zoo, and a pair of giraffes goggle at me over the fence. Like maybe I'm the one in the zoo and they're in this nice, grassy place where people keep feeding them freshly killed prey and the one lion in there just paces behind a fence without trying to eat them once.

“We got the scoop on Raymond Donner. A little bit at least.”

“Did you find him yet?” A Rollerblader whizzes by me in a red fleece jacket.

“No, we're looking. He left New Promises two months ago, and they haven't updated the website.”

“Huh.”

“But the Canadians are finally on board, and we got some more info on this New Promises place.”

“Yeah?” I quicken my pace.

“So you know Raymond Donner was a social worker there. Turns out he's got the best placement record out there, especially for girls. Ninety-nine percent of his girls and forty-three percent of his boys get adopted within a year. He's a real outlier, so we looked into it.”

“And?” A golfer smacks the ball off the tee, and I jump.

“And all his kids seem to get lost.”

“Lost? What do you mean, lost?”

“They all get adopted, and that's that. Then they just fall off the radar. Most of these kids didn't have anyone looking for them anyway. Their parents were in jail or on drugs, et cetera.”

“Like Heaven.”

“Exactly, like Heaven. Janita and Candy were both in his caseload. So was Eliza Sapierski.”

“And no one can find the people that adopted them?”

“Every name listed is either wrong or disconnected.”

“Which means?”

“Which means, number one, they're probably fake names. And number two, they're probably not even getting adopted.”

“What's happening to them then?”

“We don't know for sure. But we think they're being sold. They figure twenty-eight of his kids have gone missing in the last five years.”

“Sold? But why would he sell them?”

There is a pause. Up ahead, a brother and sister are laughing on the swings, their dirt-streaked sneakers reaching higher and higher into the sky. The swings croak out a rhythm as one swoops up and the other sails down.

“When kids get sold, Zoe, it's not usually for a very happy reason.”

Bile rises in my throat. Of course.
These white dudes trying to rape me and nobody believes me.
“Human trafficking?”

“Yes, human trafficking. Pedophilia. Sick fucking stuff that nobody likes to believe is happening. Least of all in their own backyard.”

I stand there, watching the kids swing up and down, up and down.

“Easy trade route from Toronto to Buffalo and then to God knows where,” he adds.

“New York City,” I say.

He pauses. “What makes you say that?”

“I don't know. It might not be. It's just, that's where Candy thought she was when she first woke up.”

“It's plausible,” he says. “We can certainly look into it.”

The kids are laughing now. Up swing, down swing. Up swing, down swing. “Jesus Christ. We have to find Janita.” There is panic in my voice.

“We will, Zoe. I promise we will.”

I don't know if I believe him. The parents by the swing are watching me watching their children, and I decide to move on. A woman jogs by me in black spandex, her cheeks ruddy, and I wish I were her. Running, not talking about men who sell children.

“There is a silver lining here, you know,” he says.

“Oh yeah? What could that possibly be?”

“She's got a value to them. Pimps don't usually like to kill their product.”

“How's Candy doing?” Sam asks. “Any more appearances by Daneesha?”

“No, just Candy. She's not doing great, actually.”

“Still catatonic?”

“I'm not sure, to be honest. But I don't think so. She just sits there and moans. And she's stiff as a board, sweating…”

“Doesn't really sound like catatonia.” He clears his throat. “But I don't know,” he adds, like he may have overstepped his bounds. “It's hard to say when you're not the one treating the patient.”

“Sounds like serotonin syndrome, though, doesn't it?” I ply him.

He sits up archly in his chair. “Hard to say. Any more nightmares?” he asks, changing the subject.

“No. Thank God. Actually, work's been so busy, I haven't had time to worry about insomnia.”

“What's your call?”

“Every fourth.”

He leans back with a smile and looks out the window. A dusting of snow lines the windowpane. “Back in my day…” he starts.

“When you walked ten miles uphill both ways?”

“That's right.” He nods. “We were on call every other. Not sleeping was just part of the training.”

I finger the brass knobs on the chair. “You think that was better or worse?”

He ponders this one. “I don't know. Better in some ways, worse in others. I learned a ton. Things became second nature just from sheer volume. But we made mistakes. We all did.” He takes off his glasses and starts cleaning them with his coat sleeve. “That's how the Bell Commission came into being, you know.” He is referring to regulations that monitor resident work hours. “Some ER resident made a mistake, gave a girl Demerol when he shouldn't have. And she died. Serotonin syndrome, probably.”

“Demerol?” I ask.

“Yeah. Do you know the case?”

“Sort of.” My head is whirling.
Did any of you guys write a Demerol order yesterday? Someone took it from the Pyxis.
“I guess I never knew all the details.”

He picks a white thread off his blazer. “I think she was on phenelzine back in the good ol' days of psychiatry. I still use it, time to time,” he remarks, like he's talking to himself. “And she was on cocaine, too, so it's hard to know what did what, but the parents rightly sued and now we've got the Bell Commission, for better or worse.”

“Demerol,” I repeat.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at me oddly.

“Wait a second.” I start rummaging through my satchel.

“What? What are you looking for?”

“It's this guy…this priest…”

“A priest?”

I finally spot the tattered corner of the copy and yank it out. It's a blurry, shadowy picture but it's the same white beard, the same broad chest. I can't say for sure, but the priest looks a hell of a lot like Raymond Donner.

“Is he giving her Demerol?” I ask, aloud.

The psych ward is moribund tonight. As I emerge from the elevator, the unit is dimly lit, muted, and gloomy. Nancy, the head nurse, spies me heading down the hall.

“Are you on call? I have Dr. Chang listed here.”

“Yeah. I switched with Jason.”

“Oh.” She looks puzzled. “I think he and Dr. B already rounded this morning.”

“Yeah, I guess he forgot some things, so I'm tying up some loose ends.” My face goes warm. I've never been a good liar.

“That's how men are, right? Always forgetting something,” Nancy says.

I smile, grabbing some charts from the rack for show. They tremble in my arms, and I drop them down on the desk. “Hey, any more word on that missing Demerol?”

“Not really,” she answers. “They did tox screens on all the night staff, but I haven't heard anyone turning up positive.”

I flip through a chart. “What about that priest guy?”

She laughs and pulls the med drawer open with a squeak. “No one's seen hide nor hair of him again.” She steers her cart into the hallway. “Have a good one.”

I nod in response and start reading through the patient notes, deciding on the next step. Candy is still listed as catatonic. But Dr. Berringer's wrong, no matter what he and his committee think. And if Raymond Donner's been slipping her Demerol, she's got serotonin syndrome. I could order a tox screen, but I would rather go under the radar in case Bad Santa is still out there somewhere. Who knows, he might even be going through her chart.

I fumble through a nurse's cart for a blood draw kit and have no idea if I'm supposed to use a red top or purple top, so I grab both. Of course, I haven't actually drawn blood since medical school, but I'm hoping it's like riding a bicycle—just with needles. As I step into Candy's room, the blinds throw stripes on the wall. Her IV pole whirs, the bag nearly bottomed out.

“Here goes nothing,” I whisper to myself, girding my courage as I loop the rubber tourniquet around her arm and mumble an apology. Candy isn't feeling anything, though, which is a cold comfort at least. I push down for the rubbery feel of the vein and stick the needle in her arm and get nothing. Redirect, nothing. No blood return. I never was much good at drawing blood in the first place, and her arm looks like a pincushion. Bruises and needle marks everywhere, and with the IV running out, the veins are likely all collapsed. Slipping the tourniquet off, I hear footsteps coming down the hall. They pause a moment, while I hold my breath and invent a story about why on earth I'm drawing blood on a catatonic patient in the middle of the night, but they carry on again. A bead of sweat drips down my back.

Whipping the tourniquet on the other arm, I slap the skin a bit to get some blood moving, press down on where the vein should be, make a quick wish to God or whoever is listening, and stick the needle in.

God answers. The maroon color shoots into the test tube, and I fill one tube up halfway and shove the other one on. Then I rip off the tourniquet, toss my gloves in the garbage, and stash the tubes in my lab coat pocket. The hallway is empty, the head nurse bent over a cart at the other end. In the elevator, I tear a crumpled script off my pad, scribble down
tox screen
, and walk to the lab.

If the psych ward is moribund, the lab is way past dead. “Proud Mary” is playing from a dusty boom box in the corner, the bass jangling through a crappy amplifier.

“Hello?” I call out to the cavernous room filled with centrifuges, rows of test tubes, and petri dishes growing all sorts of nefarious things.

“Yup?” a guy calls out from the other side of the room. He takes his time coming over. He's over fifty with faded, bled-out tattoos covering his arms under his scrubs. I can make out a skull that somehow morphs into a mermaid. “Can I help you?”

“I have a tox screen to run,” I say, pulling the tubes out of my pocket.

“Personal delivery?” he asks skeptically.

I don't answer.

He takes the script and tubes and reads them, again with open suspicion. “So which is it then? The purple top or the red top?”

I debate an instant and decide stupid medical student would be the best play right now. “I—I don't know. We got called in on an emergency tonight. The attending told me to get this done stat. The resident told me to bring it down to the lab. It took me thirty minutes to find the lab, and I'm afraid if the blood needs to be cooled or anything. And they are seeing the other patients without me.” I let my voice grow to a fevered pitch.

“Here,” he says, taking pity on the gangly, clueless medical student and relishing the role as the savior, no doubt. “It's a red top,” he chides me. “Red top for your tox screen. Purple top for CBC.” He points to the striped tubes from a rack. “Tiger top for chem. That's your basics. If you know that as a medical student, you're good to go.”

I nod as supplicantly as possible.

“Hell,” he adds, “if you know that as a
doctor
, you're good to go.” He tosses the purple top into a hazards-only bin and places the red top into his rack with a squeak. “You got a label?”

A label. Shit. My face registers unmanufactured dismay.

“Don't worry,” he says, like he could be my big brother now. “Write down the patient's name on the script. I'll get one.”

I write down the name and room number with care, planning to drop off a label later to be on the safe side. “Okay, I better go,” I say, peering at my watch for effect.

“Off you go, chickadee,” he says.

A name I've never been called in my life. Stork, dodo. Emu once, by a boy even nerdier than I. Tall birds mostly. I've never brought to mind a chickadee.

“Thanks,” I yell out in my best thankful-med-student voice, without laying it on too thick, and tear out of there before he can think to ask any more questions.

I
don't know, Zoe. It would take some doing.”

I drive past a row of cinnamon birch trees, the bark peeling in scrolls. “I'm worried about her, though.”

“I understand,” Detective Adams says. “But unless I have hard evidence she's in danger, it won't be easy to get uniforms in the room.”

“Doesn't he look like Donner, though? The priest guy?”

“Sort of. The picture's rotten, though. He could just be a fat, white guy with a beard.”

“Yeah, but he could be giving her Demerol.”

“Who's to say he's giving her Demerol? You said he
might
be because of some serotonin thing.”

A convertible races by me with a cold-looking teenager inside. A convertible in Buffalo is just an act of denial. “The tox screen should be back this morning anyway.”

“Good. I've notified security at the hospital just in case.”

I curve into the hospital parking lot, swiping my badge. “Any word on Janita?”

“No. We're following some leads in New York City just in case.” There's a pause. “We'll find her,” he says with a confidence that sounds forced.

After hanging up, I walk over to the hospital, the chalk-gray sky looming above me. As soon as I hit the floor, I call the lab.

“What's the name again?” the lab technician asks.

“Candy Jones. J-O-N-E-S. MR 00098764.”

“One sec.” The phone goes on hold, spouting a Muzak version of “Spirits in the Material World.” They're midway through crucifying the keyboard solo when the voice breaks back in.

“Okay, we did find a label with her name lying around, but no blood sample. So it must have gotten thrown out.”

I try to control my voice. “It got thrown out?”

“Listen, you can't just toss a label on some desk down here and think the test will get done,” she shoots back, taking the offensive. “You'll just have to send another one.”

“Yeah, I guess I will.” I hang up, holding back every four-letter word I know, when Jason walks in.

“What's up?”

“Nothing.” I sigh. “How's your floridly psychotic patient?”

“Connors? I would say he's gone down from florid to euphuistic.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“Google it,” he yawns, starting his note. “Hey, are you heading down to EEG by any chance?”

“I wasn't, why?”

“I have a ton of charts to catch up on, and I need to grab Connors's report. Fax is messed up for some reason.”

“Sure, I can do it,” I say, happy to stretch my legs and ponder my tox screen fiasco. When I get to the EEG office, the secretary comes out with overdone facial powder as if she just came offstage from
Rashomon
. “Bet you're here for Jeremy Connors,” she says.

“You got it.” Mr. Euphuistically Psychotic.

“Here it is,” she says, handing it to me. “Normal as usual.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Don't you get any abnormal ones?”

“Not from psych,” she says so matter-of-factly that I choose not to take her insinuation that we only order bullshit EEGs as an insult.

“Oh, while I'm here. Could I see if you have one more from the floor. A Candy Jones?”

She opens up the file cabinet and peers in. “Okay.” She ruffles through papers. “We have a million Joneses. Ah!” She grabs one, glances at it unsurely. “Candy with a Y?”

“Yes, that's it.”

“We have two under her MR number. One is Jane Doe. The other is Candy Jones.”

“That's right.” The Jane Doe one is from when she first was admitted.

“Here.” She hands me both.

I glance over them. Jane Doe, normal, awake and asleep. When she was catatonic. And Candy Jones.

I read it one more time. “Is it possible they got switched? Like the Jane Doe report got sent up to the floor instead of the newest one?”

She shrugs. “It's possible. Stranger things have happened.”

“Can I have a copy?”

“No problemo.”

I pocket the copy, along with Jason's EEG, and make my way back to the psych floor. Encephalopathic, not catatonic. Candy may have just dodged a bullet. “Here.” I hand Jason his EEG.

“Danke.”

I grab Candy's chart to replace the wrong EEG with the correct one and flip through to the report section. It is indeed the wrong, “normal” report. The one from when she first got admitted.

“What's up there, Zoe?” Dr. Berringer asks, walking into the room with his long, white coat swaying like a wizard's robe.

“I have some good news, I think.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?”

“The EEG on Candy. It turns out they faxed down the wrong one, from when she first was admitted with catatonia.” I show him the newest report. “This is the correct one, consistent with encephalopathy.”

“Huh,” he says, looking it over. “You're right.” He looks straight ahead, thinking. “Doesn't change the overall picture, though,” he says, though he sounds undecided. “You can get slowing with catatonia, too.”

“True.” He has a point; that is reported in the literature. “But then again, maybe it's serotonin syndrome after all.” I feel like a broken record.

“Maybe,” he says, but I can tell he's appeasing me. “Let's round.”

“It's just, if it's serotonin syndrome,” I go on, “then ECT would be the wrong move, could be dangerous.”

He nods. “I note your concern, Zoe. But if it is catatonia, and we wait any longer, we're taking a chance. Overcaution can be just as bad as undercaution sometimes.” He drops the chart on the cart and starts to walk.

“And I had one other thought,” I add, racing to keep up with him.

“Yes.”

“You remember that guy they thought was stealing Demerol?”

He crinkles his eyes. “The priest?”

“Yeah. I talked with the detective, and that guy may be connected to this case. He looks an awful lot like the social worker at Candy's adoption agency. And if he's giving her Demerol, that could be causing serotonin syndrome.”

Once verbalized, I'll admit it does sound a bit delusional.

“Um,” Dr. Berringer says, then closes his mouth. I have actually rendered him speechless. He and Jason are staring at me like I should consider a quick admission to our unit.

“Okay.” I laugh. “I know it sounds a little crazy but can we just do a urine tox to make me feel better?”

“By all means,” Dr. Berringer says, walking ahead with the cart. “Whatever we can do to make Dr. Goldman feel better.”

Hey, it's Mike here. Leave a message and I'll call you back.

I hang up, brooding, while Arthur slurps away at his water bowl. I left Mike two messages already today, as well as a casual
what's up?
text, and still haven't heard back, which isn't like him. He doesn't play games, so I don't think he's purposefully ignoring me. But then again, he's also a classic conflict avoider. I told him this once, and he didn't disagree with my assessment. I postulated it was the product of his parents' divorce; he postulated it was just him. But part of me wonders, is this the way a conflict avoider breaks up?

I call again but hang up before it goes to voice mail. I don't want to come off as a stalker, but the truth is, I desperately want his advice on calling the Chair. I know what he said before, but things are different now. We've got a sick girl and an attending who, wunderkind or not, might be impaired. It's a gray line, but…I text Jason, a distant second choice.

should I call the Chair about Berringer or not?

The answer comes right back.
NOT!!!

So I decide to call the Chair. It could throw me right off probation and into the unemployment line (in which case, Scotty's magical bonds would come in handy), but I've never been one for self-preservation. And Candy's worth the risk.

We finished rounding early, and it's 4:30 p.m., leaving me some time to call before the offices close. As I dial, my mouth feels papery. The secretary answers after two rings. “Hello, Dr. Connor's office.”

“Yes, hi. It's Dr. Goldman. I'm just trying to get a word with Dr. Connor.”

“Oh, hi, Zoe.” Dawn, the secretary, is a motherly type, always bringing in peanut butter cookies and talking about her Zumba class. “She's out right now, but she'll be in tomorrow. Would you like to set up a meeting?”

“Oh, well, sure. Okay.”

“Nine o'clock all right?”

If the Chair says nine o'clock, it's nine o'clock. “Sounds good to me.”

I hear the keyboard tapping away. “Can I tell her what it's about?”

“Um…it's probably easier if I just explain it to her directly.”

The keyboard pauses. “She usually likes to have at least some idea of what it's about, if that's okay.”

Arthur knees me with his slobbery red rubber ball. I yank it out of his teeth and throw it. “Just tell her it's a concern about Dr. Berringer and my patient. Candy Jones.”

“Perfect. Will do.”

That settled, Arthur reappears at my knee with his ball, when my phone quacks.

nervous about wedding

Jesus, just what I need right now. My ex voicing doubts about his stupid fucking wedding. Though I don't blame him. I would be terrified to marry that monster.

that's natural, right?
I text.

I guess

I pause, wondering how much further to go with this. He's obviously worried, but it doesn't really seem like an appropriate text conversation.

call me sometime if u want. Or talk w melanie abt it

My cheapo grandfather clock gongs five times, then my phone quacks again.

prob just having bad day. ttyl.

“Whatever,” I say to no one, and Arthur runs back to me, perhaps thinking his name is Whatever. I scroll through some gossip sites to kill time before dinner. Not that I have any great dinner plans. Mighty Taco maybe. Checking my e-mail, I see no word from Mike. No Facebook posts from him either.

hellooooo out there?

I text to Mike, pausing right after I hit send as I think better of it. But it's too late; the text is already hurtling out to a satellite and landing on his phone. No app to retract second-thought texts. I sit for a while staring outside, hungry but too lazy to go anywhere. My RITE review book sits on the coffee table with my phone next to it, sullen and silent, as Arthur plops his faceless monkey on my lap.

My mood hovers around 1.7, in case anyone's keeping track.