John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

“I’ll say,” Warren agreed. “So, what makes you think the Bailey kid was here?”

“Well, I wish I could say it was brilliant detective work, Lieutenant,” Borsuch said good-naturedly as he led Michaels down the main hallway. “But it really was pretty easy.” He pulled open the door to the bathroom to display the pile of bloody clothes left where Nathan had dropped them.

Warren laughed. “I guess there are different levels of deductive reasoning, aren’t there? Did he take anything?”

“Yes, sir. He took some clothes belonging to one of the Nicholson kids, ate a bunch of their food, and drove off with their BMW.”

Warren’s eyebrows arched high on his forehead. “BMW, huh? Kid’s got good taste. Didn’t even think about him driving out of town. How do you suppose he got through the roadblocks?” he wondered aloud.

“There’s also this,” Borsuch said, handing over a piece of lined notebook paper. The writing was done in the studied cursive of a child’s hand.

“He left a note?” Warren asked, incredulous. It took him less than fifteen seconds to read it. “I’ll be damned,” he said when he was finished. “Are we sure this isn’t some red herring? Have we checked the facts?”

Borsuch nodded. “From what we can tell so far, he’s telling the truth. The most polite burglar in history.”

Warren read the note through again and shook his head. “Where’s the family?” he asked, looking up.

Borsuch gestured out to the yard, through the front door.

“Looks to me like they’re getting their fifteen minutes of fame.”

Warren’s eyes followed Borsuch’s arm. The random mingling of people by the curb had metamorphosed into press conference. Two more TV vans had arrived since Michaels had arrived on the scene, their transmitters elevated high into the air, ready to start beaming signals. Four people, two adults and two children, stood at the curb, their backs to the house. The press faced them, camera lenses glinting in the sun and handheld boom mikes dangling in the air like so many branches of a willow tree.

“The way this case is shaping up in the press,” Warren said, “I think the Nicholsons ought to get used to being on television.”

As he pulled his patrol car into one of the slots reserved for police officers, Harry Thompkins noted that the hospital parking lot was relatively empty. With luck, that meant he’d be able to talk to somebody right away.

He took the short cut through the ambulance entrance, smiling politely to the triage nurse as he walked past her station and entered the Emergency Department. He was right. Only about half the beds were full, mostly with older people who looked to Harry’s untrained eye like they needed a general practitioner more than they needed an emergency room.

He stopped at the trauma desk, where a frighteningly young physician’s assistant was filling out some paperwork.

“Excuse me,” Harry interrupted.

The youngster held up a finger and finished the paragraph he was writing. Finally, he looked up. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, you can. I need to speak to the doctor who treated a patient named Mark Bailey yesterday.”

“Is he in trouble?” The PA’s enthusiasm made him look even younger.

“Don’t know yet. That’s why I need to talk to the doc.”

The PA looked to the ceiling as he searched his memory. You could almost see the cartoon lightbulb go on over his head. “Hand injury, right?”

Harry couldn’t help but smile at the kid’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, right. Hand injury.”

“That would be Dr. Baker.”

“Tad Baker?”

“You know him?”

Harry shrugged. “Everybody knows Dr. Tad. Us cops bring you a ton of business, you know. Plus Tad and I played each other in a tennis tournament a couple months ago.”

“Who won?”

“Don’t ask,” Harry said and he turned away from the desk.

Tad was in the far corner, putting stitches into the back of a patient’s head.

“Afternoon, Dr. Tad,” Harry said as he approached.

Tad looked up from his work and smiled. “Well, if it isn’t Braddock County’s finest.” The patient—a teenage boy clad in swim trunks—tried to raise his head to see, but was gently kept in place by Tad’s gloved hand. “Jeeze, Harry, I’m sorry, all the doughnuts are gone.

Harry flipped him off.

“What brings you to the Band-Aid barn?” Tad inquired, returning his eyes to his work.

“Got some questions to ask you.”

“Official business?”

“Yep.”

“All right, then, let me just finish up my needlepoint on Tyler here, and I’ll be right with you.”

“Mind if I watch?” Harry asked. Unlike so many of his colleagues who could not stomach hospital scenes, Harry was fascinated by medical procedures. Maybe they’ll hire me here after Michaels fires me this afternoon, he thought.

“Not my call,” Tad said. “It’s really up to my patient here. Tyler, do you mind if my friend Harry watches me put you back together?”

“Who is he?” Tyler asked, not trying a second time to see for himself.

“He’s a cop with a big gun.”

“If I let him watch, will he promise to give me a warning instead of a ticket?”

Tad laughed. “Harry?”

Harry was laughing too. “Where do you live, Tyler?” “Fairfield.”

“Sure, no problem:’ Harry promised. Fairfield was on the far end of the county from his patrol area.

“Fine,” Tyler said. “Let’s throw a party.”

Harry wedged in close enough to see. Squarely on the back of the boy’s head, an area about the size of an index card had been shaved bald, exposing a smile-shaped laceration about four inches long. By Harry’s eye, it was sewn about half shut.

“What happened?” the cop asked.

Tad answered before Tyler had a chance. “Tyler does backflips off the diving board only slightly better than you play tennis.”

Ten minutes and as many stitches later, Tad was done. He advised the boy to take Tylenol for the pain, to take all of the antibiotics he had prescribed, and to stay out of the water for at least two weeks while the wound healed. That done, he walked with Harry into the privacy of an empty trauma room.

“What’s up?”

“Did you work on a patient named Mark Bailey yesterday?” Harry asked. “He had a broken hand.”

“Yes, he certainly did,” Tad confirmed, growing visibly uncomfortable. “Harry, you know I can’t discuss the details of patient histories.”

“I just need a little help, that’s all,” Harry said hurriedly. “Did he tell you that he was injured when his car slipped a jack?”

This was exactly the sort of legal pinch point that Tad worked so hard to avoid. Bailey was a scumbag, and everyone knew it. He was supposed to stay over for one more night in the hospital, but chose instead to check himself out against his doctor’s advice. Those were the actions of a person with something to hide. And he bore the injuries of someone with evil friends.

But the sad fact was that it was Harry’s job to catch bad guys and throw them in jail, not Tad’s. Conscience aside, the doctor wasn’t going to put everything at risk just to help a friend.

“I’m sorry, Harry, I can’t help you. All of my conversations with patients are privileged.”

“I know, I know,” Harry said. There was an edge of desperation to his voice. “But bear with me on this. My career might be riding on it. I just want to give you some opinions of mine. If you agree, you don’t say anything. But if you don’t agree, you can cough. When we’re done, we can both swear under oath that you never gave me any information. Okay?”

Tad had known Harry for a long time, seeing him in and out of the ER a thousand times, escorting victims and bad guys alike. He seemed to be an honest, hard-working, ethical guy. What he was proposing, though, beyond being a little childish, pushed the envelope of ethics and honesty to the breaking point.