Third Strike (13 page)
There was a sudden knock on the door and Bill Rendelson stuck his head round without waiting for an invitation, his expression sour.
“You got calls stacking up, boss,” he said shortly. His eyes slid to Sean and me and, if anything, his face grew even more thunderous. “And they’re ready for you to go back in.”
“Cards on the table time,” Sean said, and his coolly indifferent tone was a challenge all by itself. “I assume you don’t have a significant drinking problem?” The wording was a nicely irritant touch, implying as it did that the older man did indeed have an issue with alcohol and the only subject under discussion was the severity.
My father didn’t so much glare at Sean as subject him to a withering scrutiny most people would have shriveled under. Probably me included.
“Of course I don’t.”
He and my mother had seated themselves in two of the client chairs, side by side, forming a united front. Parker had taken his customary seat behind the desk and I wondered if he was trying to reassert his authority by such a move. I hovered in between, leaning on a corner of the desk as though ready to play for either side, depending how things were going.
“In view of your somewhat public confession, there’s no ‘of course’ about it,” Sean said with a deadly smile. He sat down in one of the client chairs opposite my parents and crossed his legs, apparently totally at ease, before adding quietly, “So, are you going to tell us what the real story is here? What really happened to this patient of yours who died in Boston?”
For a moment my father didn’t speak, then he gave an audible sigh, as though gathering his inner resources. “Jeremy Lee had severe spinal osteoporosis,” he said at last.
“Osteoporosis?” Parker queried as we exchanged blank looks. “That’s the kind of thing little old ladies get, isn’t it? Makes them fall down and break their hips.”
My father gave a pained nod at this somewhat simplistic view. “In essence, yes,” he allowed. “But it affects in excess of two hundred million people worldwide—twenty percent of whom are men. That’s more than forty million, and the problem is growing.”
“What causes it?” I asked. “And what caused it in this case?”
“It’s a popular misconception that it’s down to calcium deficiency, but that’s not the whole story. We have an aging population, more sedentary lifestyles.” My father shrugged. “But in half the cases of osteoporosis in men, the cause is unknown,” he said. “Although smoking can affect bone cells, and drinking inhibits the body’s absorption of calcium, Jeremy did neither.”
“If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Foxcroft,” Parker said, “we have a lot of homegrown medical talent over here. Why were you called in?”
My father favored him with an austere smile. “To begin with, Jeremy was misdiagnosed and had lost a certain amount of faith in his colleagues,” he said. “By the time he contacted me—or rather, his wife did—he was very ill. Miranda was hopeful that there might be a surgical option that would offer him some relief, and I think it’s fair to say I have a recognized level of expertise in that area.”
At this point it seemed to occur to him that the events of the last few days might have sullied that spotless reputation somewhat. A shadow, no more than a flicker, passed across his face. My mother, sitting next to him, snuck her fingers through his and squeezed. For a moment he squeezed back, then disengaged his hand. He never once looked at her directly.
“Miranda called me and asked for my help,” he added simply. “So I went.”
It must be nice,
I thought with fierce jealousy,
to have the kind of friendship with my father that motivates such an instant response.
I thought with fierce jealousy,
to have the kind of friendship with my father that motivates such an instant response.
“And was there anything you could do?” Sean asked.
My father shook his head. “I did some tests to see if there was the possibility of installing titanium cages to support Jeremy’s vertebrae, but it was too late for that. His bones were like chalk. By the time I got there he was in a wheelchair, his spine had almost totally collapsed and he was in constant pain.” That shadow again, darker this time. “It was … difficult to see him like that.”
I felt the transfer of his anger. “And what was being done for him?”
“Not much beyond palliative care,” he said, dismissive. “They’d tried him on synthetic bone-stimulating hormones in an attempt to increase his bone density, but without success. According to his notes, over the past few months his condition had deteriorated at a rate I would normally have expected to take years. I ruled out anything environmental, went back several generations to eliminate the hereditary angle. It seemed to me that the hospital was making little attempt to find out the root cause of his illness.”
“Surely,” Sean said, frowning, “if he was getting older—”
“Jeremy was in his early forties,” my father cut in. “I met him when he was a young student over in London. Hardly an old man, would you say?”
“So, what happened?”
“I discovered that the hospital was involved in clinical trials for a new treatment for osteoporosis developed by the pharmaceutical giant, Storax. It’s not yet licensed, but they’ve had some remarkable successes so far. I contacted them to see if it might be possible to use it in this case.”
“I didn’t think you were such a risk taker, Richard,” Sean said.
“Sean,” my mother said in quiet censure. “A man’s life was at stake.”
My father acknowledged her intervention with a faint nod. “Miranda voiced her doubts but, by that stage I felt there was very little to lose and I convinced her we should give it a try. I felt we had few options left open to us.”
“And what did Jeremy Lee feel about this?”
“Jeremy had picked up an infection and lapsed into a coma,” he said, no emotion in his voice. “Storax were reluctant to extend their trial at this stage, but in the end I … persuaded them.” He gave another small smile. “They sent two of their people up to Boston to administer the treatment. And that’s when we discovered that Jeremy had already received it.”
“Hold on,” Parker said. “You mean he’d already been given this Storax treatment and was still getting worse?”
“That’s how it appeared. My suspicion was that the hospital had been using him as an unwitting guinea pig.” He took a moment that might have been to calm himself, and his expression afterwards was almost rueful. “I’m afraid I may have made my dissatisfaction with this state of affairs somewhat clear.”
I suppressed a smile. My father in full righteous flow would be a sight to behold.
“Can you prove any of this?” Sean asked, and although his tone was absolutely neutral, my father bristled anyway.
“Sadly, no,” he said sharply. “The Storax people were doing more tests to confirm it when I was asked to leave—politely, of course—by the hospital administrators.”
“And you agreed?”
He shrugged. “I had no choice. My position there was afforded as a courtesy, not a right. Before I left, I made it clear to the hospital that I was intending to take the matter further. Unfortunately, I never got the chance.”
“What happened?”
“Jeremy died that night. Miranda got the call around midnight and I drove her to the hospital, but it was already too late.”
Again, he paused, took a breath—the only outward sign of his distress. He was talking about the death of a friend and he might have been discussing having missed a bus.
“What actually killed him in the end?” Parker asked quietly.
“In my opinion, a hundred milligrams of intravenous morphine,” my father said.
“Are you sure?”
“As I can be—and before you ask, no, I can’t prove that, either,” he said, glancing at Sean. “Not without access to his notes. Maybe not even then.”
“But you were sure enough at one point to make a public accusation to that effect,” Sean said, quirking one eyebrow. “Wasn’t that somewhat … foolish if you didn’t have any proof?”
My father’s chin came up. “Yes, as it turned out,” he said calmly. “The following morning I received a telephone call informing me of my so-called drink problem and telling me what would happen to Elizabeth if I didn’t participate in my own downfall.” His eyes flickered closed for a moment. “They were rather graphic and very detailed,” he added with grim restraint.
“Oh, Richard,” my mother said softly, her eyes on his face.
“We have to take this to the police,” Parker said, reaching for the phone on his desk. “If we—”
“No.”
There it was again, that quiet command. It was enough to bring Parker up short. His hand stilled and he regarded my father in steady silence for a few moments before he asked in a level tone, “Why not?”
My father didn’t reply immediately. He leaned forwards in his seat, clasping his hands and seeming absorbed by the way his fingers linked together. Eventually he looked up, his gaze taking in the three of us, ranged against him.
“You must think I inhabit a very rarefied little world,” he said, his voice reflective and almost a little remote. “And I suppose that in some ways, I do. I am not accustomed to being manhandled, to having my family threatened, and I find I … don’t care for it.”
“They won’t do it again,” I said, fast and low. “Trust me. They won’t get the chance.”
“No, they won’t,” my father said with a brittle smile. “But not because you’ll be there to take on all comers, Charlotte, I assure you.” He straightened the crease in his suit trousers and brushed away a piece of lint from the fine cloth before he looked up again. “When I was a medical student I had a bit of a reputation as a poker player,” he said. “I always knew when to bluff and when to fold a bad hand.”
“And you feel this is a bad hand,” Sean said. “So you’re going to fold, is that it?” He couldn’t quite keep the sneer out of his voice, but my father didn’t rise to it.
“I don’t know who was behind my coercion and Elizabeth’s unfortunate experience, but I can only assume they have some connection to the hospital,” my father said. “They had a major civil action brought against them last year for medical negligence, which they lost—somewhat disastrously—and they can’t afford another. It would appear they’re prepared to go to extreme lengths to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Sean ducked his head in acknowledgment of the point. “That’s a fair description,” he said. “But what about your supposed friend, Jeremy Lee? What about his widow? You’re just going to walk away and leave things as they are?”
My father’s face whitened. “The longer I stay, the worse I’m making the situation for Miranda,” he said. “I’ve been totally discredited as any kind of expert witness. Trying to redress things now will only make them worse still. My best course of action is to go home as soon as possible, so we can try to put this whole thing behind us.”
My father rose, automatically buttoning the jacket of that immaculately tailored suit, and helped my mother out of her chair. She clung to his arm. He turned to face us.
“Thank you—all of you—for your assistance,” he said, not quite meeting my eye. His gaze just seemed to scutter across me from Sean to Parker and back again. “But there is nothing more you can do here.”
Until the arrangements could be made for them to go home to the UK, my father booked a room for himself and my mother at the Grand Hyatt, which was somewhat more in keeping with his tastes and made me realize I should have questioned who’d chosen his previous hotel.
There were a lot of things I should have questioned.
My father refused Parker’s offer of the use of McGregor and the Navigator while they were in New York. Instead, much to my mother’s obvious disappointment, he insisted that they would catch a cab on the street, and Sean and I went down with them to the lobby. It was a good opportunity to have one last go at getting my father to make a stand, but he’d fallen back on frosty formality.
My mother did her best to fill the awkward silence with nervous, inconsequential chatter that put nobody at ease. I wasn’t the only one who was glad when we reached ground level.
Sean nodded to the doorman, who whisked outside to summon a cab, something he seemed to achieve almost instantly.
“You should have told me you were in trouble,” I said, making one last effort at getting through, aware even as I spoke of the stiffness in my voice that would prevent me from doing so. “Whatever you may think of me, this is what I do.”
My father looked down his nose at me. “I’m well aware of your capabilities, Charlotte,” he said curtly. “That is precisely why I didn’t.”
We saw the yellow Crown Victoria pull up smartly outside, and moved towards the doors. My mother seemed to have some spring back in her step, as though now she was reunited with her husband, all was right with the world again. With a sense of panic, I felt my parents slipping away from me. Unwilling to let it end like this, I walked with them, out into the pale slanted sunshine.
Sean had carried my mother’s heavy suitcase as far down as the lobby without apparent effort, setting it down while he tipped the doorman. My father picked it up, clearly surprised by the unexpected weight, and began lugging it across the sidewalk to the waiting cab while my mother paused in the doorway to rifle through her handbag for her sunglasses.
I had started to follow him when I heard an engine, away to our left, even above the normal background sounds of traffic. American engines are generally big and torquey. They don’t need to rev in order to provide power unless you want a lot of it, and you want it now. This was being thrashed and I turned instinctively towards the noise.
I was just in time to see another taxicab mount the curb about ten meters away, trailing sparks as it graunched over the concrete, front suspension taking the hit. It came barreling along the sidewalk towards us.
Like the one idling by the curb, the second cab was a yellow Crown Victoria. The big car leapt towards us, seeming wide enough to totally fill the space between the building and the street, engine roaring. The front wing grazed off the front façade, striking yet more sparks like it was breathing fire, and it kept on coming.
My father froze in its path, still clutching the handle of the suitcase. Adrenaline fired into my system like a shot of nitrous. I took three or four rapid, boosted strides and hit him shoulder against shoulder, the force of my momentum enough to send him pitching clear of the cab’s flight path.
Spinning halfway towards the threat, I saw nothing but the black plastic of the front grille and a vast sea of yellow steel that made up the car’s bonnet. I even had time to notice the taxi medallion riveted to the center.
In that weird, slowed-down way things have, I recognized that I didn’t have time to run, and nowhere to run to. My only thought was to minimize the hit.
Years of falling off horses as a kid taught me not to try and break a fall with my limbs outstretched. Later, years of martial arts training of one form or another taught me how to use them to slow my descent much more scientifically.
So I jumped, straight up, tucking my knees in like I was dive-bombing into a swimming pool. I didn’t have nearly enough height to clear the Crown Vic’s front grille, which clipped my left leg halfway down my calf as the car shot underneath me, causing me to tumble violently. As I somersaulted across the expanse of yellow bonnet, I slapped my hand and forearm down hard onto the steel to lessen the impact, but hit the windscreen hip and elbow first with enough force to break the laminated glass anyway.
I had visions of continuing to roll right up over the roof, at which point the huge slant-sided advertising hoarding that ran full length along it would probably have broken my back. Then the driver of the rogue cab slammed on his brakes.
The Crown Vic lurched, slithering, to a stop, jolting as it hit something that I could only pray wasn’t my father’s body. The sudden deceleration was enough to spit me straight off the front edge of the bonnet and send me thumping back down onto the ground, knocking the wind out of me. The last time I’d been hit by a moving vehicle while on foot, I recalled whimsically, at least I’d had the forethought to be wearing bike leathers.
Rid of his inconvenient hood ornament, the cabdriver punched the accelerator before I’d even hit the deck. I flinched, trying to roll out of the way of the fat front tire that was now heading straight for my chest, and knowing I didn’t stand a hope in hell of doing so. All I could smell was hot oil and burned rubber and rust.
Game over.
Just when I knew he couldn’t possibly miss me, the cab jolted to a stop again, engine revving high enough to send all the hairs up on the back of my neck. I realized, to my amazement, that my mother’s heavy-duty suitcase was rammed between the opposite front wheel and a mammoth concrete tree planter at the edge of the curb. I started scrabbling backwards on my bruised backside, arms flailing. The cab’s rear wheels spun up more smoke as the driver forced it on. The planter trembled. The suitcase began to buckle and twist.
The shell of the case gave up its last breath and collapsed completely. As it did so I felt a hand grab my shoulder and another hook under my armpit to wrench me up and out of the way. I was peripherally aware of a yellow blur flashing past as I flew through the air, before I slammed up against a solid male body, robbing me of what little air I’d managed to draw back into my lungs.
Dazed, I looked up, met Sean’s near-black eyes only a few inches from my own. The sheer fury in them shocked me back into life. I wrenched myself out of his grasp and staggered back a pace.
I turned. For a moment everything was imprinted on my brain in minute detail and total silence.
The doorman was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring after the disappearing cab with an expression of outraged disbelief on his face. The driver of the cab he’d summoned had leapt out and was gesticulating wildly. I could see his mouth moving, but could hear no sound coming out. My mother was crouched in the shelter of the doorway where Sean must have practically thrown her to keep her out of harm’s way. She was clutching her handbag to her chest like it was her sole means of protection, knuckles white around the straps.
But my father was the one who worried me. All I could see of him, sticking out from between the planter and the cab waiting by the curb, were his legs from the knee downwards, good dark gray socks and highly polished black lace-up shoes. For a moment, I felt a dreadful cold leap of fear, then his feet twitched and he sat up abruptly, brushing the dirt from his suit jacket. He looked annoyed rather than hurt, and pale as dust.
The world kicked back into gear. I heard our cabdriver’s raucous shouts in what sounded like Ukrainian, the squeal of brakes and the blowing of horns all the way up the next two blocks as the cab that had tried to hit us swerved through traffic. I could only hope the crazed windscreen was making it harder for him.
Sean brushed past me to bend over my father and his eyes were everywhere.
“Can you move?” he demanded.
My father glanced up at him with irritation. “Of course I can.”
Sean yanked him to his feet without another word and hauled him back inside the building, covering his back all the way. I did the same with my mother, depositing her onto one of the low sofas on the other side of the entrance lobby, well back from the doors. She threw herself at my father and held on tight, sobbing.
The reception staff were fluttering with shock, telling each other in loud voices what it was they thought they’d seen. A moment later the doorman dragged the sorry-looking remains of my mother’s suitcase into the lobby and jerked his head at the Ukrainian cabbie.
“The driver says he thinks the other cab was stolen,” the doorman told Sean. “Says one of their guys got’jacked in Murray Hill’bout an hour ago. The word was out to the other drivers to keep an eye out for his ride.”
“Looks like they found it,” Sean said.
The doorman nodded, eyes flicking over my shocked parents and the ruined case. “You want I should call the cops, Mr. Meyer, or is this a … private matter?”
“I think this was too public for that. You’d better call them.’
“Got it.” He paused. “What about a medic?”
I turned fast at that, scanning my father. He’d moved awkwardly when Sean had rushed him inside, but he’d seemed basically okay—no obvious injuries, no blood, and I didn’t think he’d hit his head or lost consciousness when he fell.
“No, he seems fine,” I said, turning back to find the doorman staring at me like I’d totally lost it.
“Er, I meant for you, ma’am.”
I followed his gaze and looked down, realizing for the first time that I was the one with blood on my hands. I turned them over to find I’d scraped the palm of one and cut the other. I’d put a hole in the knee of my trousers as well. The blood didn’t show up much against the dark brown fabric, but I could see grit stuck to the wetness around the torn edges. I swore under my breath.
My jacket was ripped, too, one sleeve almost hanging by a thread where Sean had grabbed at it. When I went to step forwards I realized my left leg was already stiffening up, and by the feel of it I was going to have a bruise the size of Wales from hip to ankle.
I glanced at my father again. He was staring at me over the top of my mother’s weeping head with an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite decipher, and didn’t have the patience to try.
“You may think it’s all over,” I said bitterly, jerking my head in the direction the cab had taken, “but nobody seems to have told the opposition.”
Parker’s office had its own private bathroom and that’s where I stripped off. The designers had lined the place with mirrors, so I practically had a three-sixty view of my injuries, such as they were. One scraped knee and elbow, two scraped hands, and a sizable grazed bruise that started in a remarkably neat line halfway up my left calf and was spreading rapidly. Nothing that wouldn’t heal up or scab over in a few days.
All in all, I reckoned I’d got away pretty lightly.
I fumbled with the mixer tap to sluice the dirt out of my hands, and had just wadded up tissue paper to wipe the worst of the grit out of my knee when there was a knock at the door.
I expected Sean, but it was my father who stood in the gap.
For a moment we stared at each other. I saw him survey me with a professional gaze and I was suddenly very aware of standing there in just my underwear with all my scars, ancient and modern, on show for him to judge me by. I resisted the urge to reach for one of the large towels hanging by the shower, and faced him with as much pride as I could muster. Not much, under the circumstances.
“Was there something you wanted?” I asked, icy.
“I brought you this.” He lifted his right hand and I noticed for the first time there was a first-aid kit in it. His voice was cool for the intended victim of a hit-and-run. “And I thought you might appreciate my professional expertise, if nothing else.”
I’d been through enough emergency medical training, military and civilian, to deal with such minor injuries myself, but I shrugged and turned back to the sink, wringing out another piece of paper towel and shaking the excess water out of it. “Feel free,” I said.
In the mirror, I saw him approach and put the case down on the marble surface. I’d half-filled the sink with lukewarm water, which was now a grubby pink color and had disgusting mushy clumps of tissue floating in it. For a moment he stood there, watching my efforts, then he reached into his jacket to pull out his gold-framed glasses.
“Sit down, Charlotte,” he said with quiet authority, and snapped open the first-aid kit.
For once, I didn’t put up a fight. Pointless to cobble something together myself when there was an expert on tap. I sank onto the closed lid of the toilet and let him empty the sink in order to wash his hands.
“I’m assuming you didn’t hit your head?” he said when he was done, tipping my chin up to watch the way my pupils reacted to the strong overhead spots.
“I’m not concussed and there’s nothing broken,” I said, twisting my face out of his grasp. “Trust me, I know what broken bones feel like.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “So you do.”
“Where’s Sean?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
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