The Oath (16 page)

When Bracco had gone, Glitsky pulled an arrest warrant form out of his desk and started to fill it out, but after the first few lines, his hands stopped as though of their own accord. This was new and unambiguous evidence—true—and probably strong enough by itself to arrest Eric Kensing. But given the overwhelming, multiple motives and all the political repercussions of the Parnassus question, Glitsky thought the better part of valor would be to hold his horses until the morning and go to Jackman to make the final call.

The only remaining question in his mind was whether he should include Carla’s name—and the kids’—on the warrant.

W
hen Hardy dragged himself through the front door of his dark and quiet house at 11:15, he wondered if he’d have the energy left to make it up the stairs to his bedroom. Maybe he should just let himself collapse on the couch here in the living room.

There was still a glow from the embers in the fireplace. He put down his briefcase, hit the wall switch for the dim overheads, then shrugged himself out of his raincoat and suit coat and crossed the room. On the mantel, Frannie’s new-since-the-fire collection of glass elephants caravanned around several potted cacti. He’d gotten into the habit of rearranging them almost every day—it was a chess game without rules or a board that served as some kind of connection between him and his wife. Nonverbal, somehow positive, and every little bit helped. Between the kids, her school, and his work, he sometimes thought they almost needed to make an appointment to say hello. Without their formal date nights, they would lose track of each other completely. So he made a few moves with the elephants.

The embers collapsed in a small shower of sparks. Hardy put an arm up against the mantel, rested his head on it. After a minute, he found himself on the ottoman, his elbows on his knees, staring blankly into the last of the glow.

“I thought I heard the door.” Frannie was wrapped in a white turkish towel bathrobe they’d bought in Napa on their last getaway weekend almost a year before. She came across to where he made a space for her, squeezed in next to him, rubbed her hand over his back.

“What are you doing up?” he asked.

“Moses and Susan only left a few minutes ago,” she said. “I was awake.”

“Moses and Susan? What were they doing here?”

“And Colleen and Holly. Evidently you told him we’d baby-sit for them tonight so they could go out.” It was half a question. “Which was a nice thing for them, but next time you might want to let me know. Especially if you’re not going to be here.”

He hung his head, shook it wearily. “What can I say? I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s good.” Her hand kept moving across his back. She wasn’t mad, though perhaps would prefer if he could remember commitments he’d made that involved her. “But it’s all right,” she continued. “It went fine. It was lucky I was home, that’s all. Abe called, by the way. And some woman named Rebecca, who said it might be important.”

Earlier in the day, he might have felt some spark of interest. At the moment, it only felt like more work. “She’s a nurse at Portola I talked with today. This new case.” He was still furious that Glitsky had gone behind his back to interview his client. He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. “What did Abe want?”

“He said you’d know.”

Hardy gave it a second. “He lied.” Did he want to get into a long explanation? But her hand felt good on him. They were together. He leaned slightly into her. “He took a statement from my client after I told him not to. Full court press, guns blazing. Maybe he found out my guy didn’t do it and wants to say he’s sorry. But I doubt it.”

“He must think your client did something.” This was always an issue. Since Hardy had begun working as a defense attorney, she remained uncomfortable with the fact that her husband consorted not only with people accused of crimes, but often with those who had actually committed them. When the charge was something like a DUI or some kind of thievery or fraud, it wasn’t so bad. But when it was murder, Frannie tended to worry on the not unreasonable theory that anyone who had killed once might get angry with somebody else—say, their attorney—and do it again. “So did your client do it after all?”

“He says not,” Hardy said simply. “But who doesn’t?”

“And you believe him?”

“Always.” He faced her. “My problem is Abe. I’ve got no idea what he’s doing.”

“That’s probably what he called about. To explain.”

“I’m sure.” Not, Hardy thought. He glanced at his watch. “I’m tempted to call him right now and wake up his sorry ass.” He sighed wearily. “What was the other call? Rebecca? The nurse? She said it might be important?”

He could see that Frannie hated to admit it again—she’d already done her duty by telling him once. Clearly, she hoped he’d forget. But no. Hardy didn’t forget much about his work—only baby-sitting deals he’d made with relatives. It was Frannie’s turn to sigh. “She said no matter what time it was.”

“I guess that would include now, huh?”

“I thought you might want to come to bed sometime.”

“I’ll try to keep it short.”

He felt something go out of her. “I left her number by the phone,” she said, standing up. “Have you had anything at all to eat?”

He shook his head. “My client’s finally started to figure out he’s in trouble, but it was all I could do to get him to talk to me on the phone. It was originally supposed to be his night for his kids. He thought the thing with Glitsky was going to take like a half hour. I asked him when he thought we could get a few minutes, maybe talk about some things so I didn’t have to find them all out from third parties. So he says he doesn’t know—he’s got his kids this weekend, too. He works a million hours a day. But I had him with me on the phone. There wasn’t going to be any other time. So I told him to call his ex-wife, change his plans, tell her not tonight. We had to talk.”

Frannie was just looking down at him. She’d crossed her arms over her chest, her body language expressing it all—disappointment, disapproval. Sadness. “There’s leftover spaghetti in the refrigerator,” she said.

“I don’t know if it’s anything,” Rebecca Simms said.

“That’s all right,” Hardy said. “If it’s keeping you up, it’s probably worth talking about.” He sat at his dining room table, his yellow legal pad in front of him, the portable phone at his ear. He’d poured himself a glass of orange juice and drank half of it off in a gulp. “Did you remember something about Dr. Kensing?”

“No, not exactly that. Not that at all, really.”

Hardy waited.

“I’ve been thinking about how I should say this, since I don’t really know anything specific, not for sure. I just went back on the floor after we talked and I guess the whole discussion we had—you know? The general conditions here?”

“Sure. I remember.”

The line hummed empty for another few seconds. Then Rebecca blurted it out. “The thing is, everybody on the staff knows something is really wrong here. The nurses, I mean. Probably some of the doctors, too. But nobody really talks about it. It’s more a feeling, like a ghost is hovering over the place or something.”

Hardy closed his heavy eyes. She sounded like she meant it literally. Terrific, he thought. The woman he picked at random in the hospital cafeteria, although she’d seemed like an intelligent person by the light of day, was in fact a nutcase and now she had his home phone number. Frannie was right—he shouldn’t have it on his business card.

“Well.” Hardy was ready to end the conversation. “I don’t know if a feeling—”

“No, no.” She cut him off. “That’s not it. It’s…what I’m saying is that people are dying here.”

Hardy had picked up his juice glass and now he put it down. His fatigue was suddenly gone. “What do you mean, people?”

“Patients. People who shouldn’t die.”

“What kind of patients?”

“Mostly old, I think. Mostly in the ICU.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“No, not a hundred percent.” He could hear the exasperation in her voice. “That’s what I said at the beginning. I’m not sure.”

“Okay,” he said, hoping to keep her moving along this trail. “That’s all right. I’m interested.”

“But nobody’s really sure of anything, or saying if they are…”

“Right. But I’m more interested in general conditions there anyway. It doesn’t have to be specific—the low morale and so on…”

“Well, all of that’s true, too, the tight money, the job insecurity, all that. But really, when we were talking I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was, until tonight when I got home and it hit me…”

“What did, though?” This was pulling teeth, but they seemed to be loosening.

She paused a moment. “It sounds stupid to even say.”

“Can you try? I won’t think it’s stupid, no matter what. Promise.”

A longer pause. “Well,” she said, “if people keep dying when they shouldn’t…”

Hardy finished for her. “Maybe somebody’s killing them.”

“Yes.” The relief in her voice was palpable. “That’s what I was trying to get at. That’s what it is.”

“Do you have any idea who it might be?”

“No. Well, maybe, I don’t know. As I said, I don’t even know if it’s true. But the first one I heard about was maybe a year ago, a man had had a stroke, but it was one of those situations, you know, where the family was hoping he’d recover, the prognosis was okay if he came out of his coma, and they didn’t want to pull the plug. So they were waiting. Everybody thought he’d be long term, but then two days into it, he suddenly died.”

“Okay,” Hardy said. “But doesn’t that happen?”

“Sometimes. Sure.”

“It doesn’t necessarily mean somebody killed him.”

“No, of course not.” She went silent again for a long beat. “If it was that one man, everybody would have probably forgotten about it by now. But he was something like the third patient to die in as many months. So one of the ICU nurses mentioned it in the nurses’ lounge. There’s this one weird little guy who works up there, a nurse actually. Rajan Bhutan is his name. He was on duty for all of them.”

“Somebody thinks he might be killing patients?”

“No, not really. I don’t even know why I mentioned that. I mean, nobody thought about it at the time, but then…it kept happening.”

“It kept happening,” Hardy repeated. “How often?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. But often enough.” He heard her breathe out heavily, the load off.

But Hardy put another one right on. “Do you know if anyone’s gone to the police about this? About this man Rajan?”

“No. I don’t know. If someone had, wouldn’t we have heard?”

“You’d think so.”

“And…” She chopped off the thought.

And Hardy jumped on it. “What?”

“Nothing.” A pause. “Really, nothing.”

“Rebecca, please. You were going to say something.”

The decision took a while. “Well…let’s just say that it would be hard to keep working if anybody went to the police or the newspaper or anything. I mean, look at Dr. Kensing and Baby Emily. Imagine if it got out that Portola was killing its patients. There’s a culture there that’s”—she sought the word—“self-protective, I guess.”

“Most cultures are,” he said. “But I don’t know if I can believe it about this. You’re saying the administration wouldn’t want to know if one of their staff is killing patients?”

“Oh, they’d want to know, all right. They just wouldn’t want anybody else to know. It’s like bad doctors.”

“What’s like bad doctors?”

A little laugh. “Well, basically, there are none.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means every doctor on the staff is great until they’re transferred to, say, Illinois. They get great references, maybe even a raise and moving expenses. Why? Because there are no bad doctors.”

“And no whistle-blowers.”

This was a sobering statement, and Rebecca Simms reacted to it. Her voice went hollow, nearly inaudible. “And I’m not being one now, Mr. Hardy. I’ve got three children and my husband and they all need me to keep this job. I don’t know anything for certain. I just thought it might help you to know the general conditions, as you called them. We know Mr. Markham was killed, don’t we? Maybe that changes something.”

“Maybe somebody could go to the police.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. I mean, what would they say?”

“They’d say what you just said to me.”

“But it’s all so nebulous. There isn’t any…there’s no real proof….”

“There would be bodies.” Hardy refuted her in his calmest voice. “They could autopsy the bodies. Haven’t they done postmortems anyway? At least on one or two of them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think the families usually…” She trailed off, repeated that she just didn’t know. “Anyway, you’re not part of this. I mean here at the hospital. Maybe you can do something.”

Hardy realized that this was as good as it was going to get, at least for tonight. “Maybe I can,” he said. “I’ll try, anyway.” He thanked Rebecca for the call. “You were right. It was important. And I don’t think there’s really any reason for you to be afraid. I’ll keep you out of whatever I do. You were brave to call me.”

He heard the gratitude in her voice. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re a good man. I’m sorry it was so late.”

When he hung up, he remained at the table, unmoving, for a long while. He hadn’t been able to keep the phone call very short after all, and no doubt Frannie was by now asleep. Even if she wasn’t, the mood would have passed, had already passed by the time she went upstairs. Rebecca Simms had called him a good man, but he wasn’t feeling much like one at the moment.

Eventually, he finished his juice, got up, and took the glass into the kitchen, where he rinsed it in the sink. He was drying it when he heard a recognizable something behind him. He turned to see his son, one foot resting on the other one, squinting at him in the doorway. “Hey, bud,” he said quietly. “Whatcha doin’?”

Vincent wasn’t quite a teenager yet, but most of the little boy in him was recently gone. Now his hair was buzzed short and his ears stuck out, while the frame that had tended to a round softness had become lanky, nearly skinny. “I couldn’t get to sleep.”

Hardy came over, bent down to him. “You haven’t been asleep yet all night?”

The boy sat on his knee, threw an arm around his neck. “No. I’m having bad dreams.”

“What about?”

“Where you keep disappearing. We’re all in this forest and you’re just going off for a minute to do something, and then we wait and wait until Mom says she’s going to go looking for you, but we beg her not to go because then she won’t come back, either, but then she goes and the Beck and I are left there, and we start calling after her, which is when I wake up.”

Hardy didn’t have to use much imagination to come up with the underpinnings of this scenario, although Vincent certainly wasn’t using it as a guilt trip. He hoped he wasn’t that sophisticated, yet. If it was his sister, Hardy wouldn’t have been so sure. He pulled him closer, which at this time of night his son would still accept. “Well, I’m here,” he said comfortingly, “and if you woke up, that means you were asleep, doesn’t it? Which means you could get to sleep after all, couldn’t you?” The lawyer, arguing, making his point.