Michael Palmer - Flashback

Did you know that shortly after they took over at the hospital, Ultramed took legal action to fire him?"

"No, " Zack said. "No, I didn't."

"He was preparing to countersue them when they backed off. According to Father, they became frightened by a court decision in Florida that ended up costing one of the other corporations millions for trying to do the same thing to a pathologist who was working in a hospital they had acquired. "Zack, Ultramed wants blind loyalty from everyone working for them-total acceptance of their policies. Father fought them at every turn. Less than a year after they dropped the suit against him, the rumors started. And within just a few months of that, a showy new surgeon was on the scene, snapping up chunks of Father's practice. i "That would be Jason Mainwaring, " Zack said. "Exactly."

"Have you any proof that Ultramed engineered all of this? " he asked.

"Only this." She reached beneath her seat, drew out a thick manila envelope and passed it across to him. "Mother and I talked it over last night. Father liked you and trusted you. And frankly, we have nowhere else to turn. This is all the information he had been able to gather in his battle against Ultramed. It doesn't prove they were behind his murder, but it does show something of how they operate-some of the things they're capable of doing to turn a profit."

"What am I to do with this?"

For the first time, Beaulieu's widow spoke. "Dr. Iverson, " she said, in a soft accent virtually identical to Guy's, "it was my husband's hope that the information contained in that envelope would convince the board of trustees, including your father, to exercise their option and order the repurchase of the hospital from Ultramed. Zack stared at her in disbelief. "Mrs. Beaulieu, are you forgetting that I work for Ultramed?

They pay my salary, my office expenses, insurance, everything. To say nothing of the administrator at the hospital being my brother. What you are asking me to do isn't really fair."

My huuand is dead. Is that fair?

Zack saw the response flash in the woman's eyes and then vanish. We are asking you, " Clothilde Beaulieu said patiently, "to do nothing more than study the contents of that envelope and use it-or not-as you see fit. I assure you there will be no hard feelings if you return the material to us after you have looked it over… or even right now."

"We mean that, Zachary, " Marie said. "We really do."

For a time, there was only silence. Zack looked first at one woman and then the other, and finally at the envelope in his lap A sucker for anybody's cause. Had Frank's terse assessment of him been so irritating because it was so close to the mark? Suzanne… the mountains… the Judge. his career. Any clash with Ultramed and Frank was almost certainly destined to be a losing proposition for him. And there was much, so very much, at stake. The envelope was a Pandora's box. A bomb that might be nothing more than a dud, or nothing less than a lethal explosion A sucker for anybody's cause. Slowly, deliberately, Zack slid the dead surgeon's legacy under his arm. Then he reached across and shook hands with both wnn Pn "I'll be in touch, " he said. h. -_, _w* ** Frank, Frank, he's our man. If he can't do it, no one can… Over the two decades since his graduation from Sterling High, not a day had passed that Frank Iverson did not hear the chant echoing in his mind.

Cheerleaders dancing on the sidelines, each one hoping Frank would at least spend a few minutes with her at the victory celebration after the game. Grandstands jammed with parents, teachers, students, and reporters, all screaming his name, all begging him for one more pass, one more score. The Judge and his mother, proudly accepting congratulations from those seated around them. Driving through the streets of Sterling toward his hospital, Frank heard the cheering as clearly as if he were standing on the field, staring across the line of scrimmage at the opposition, knowing that, in JUST a few seconds, his play would swell those cheers to a deafening roar. Frank, Frank, he's our man… They had been days of glory for him, days of strength and independence. It felt so good to realize that after all the difficult, humiliating years that had followed, after all the lousy breaks and the goddamn patronizing, demeaning lectures from his father, a return to the stature and influence of those times was so close at hand. Two weeks, that was all. Three at the most. He had done his part, and done it well.

Now, all he needed was patience-patience and constant vigilance. Three years before, he had made the mistake of complacency, of trusting, and it had cost him dearly. There would be no repeat of that fiasco this time. Nothing would be taken for granted. Nothing. Besides, he affirmed as he swung up the drive to Ultramed-Davis, there were reasons aplenty for keeping his eyes open and his guard up. A million reasons, to be exact… If he can't do it, no one can. "HELENE, I DON'T know how to tell you this, but I think it's time we moved Mr. Gerard Morris's fabulous woodland scene out of the window and more toward the back-like in the storeroom."

Suzanne propped Morris's huge oil against a display case and stepped back several paces, hoping that the change in lighting and perspective might thaw some of the feelings she had for the man and his work. "The man's a legend, " Helene Meyer called out from the back. In his own mind, he is."

"Suzanne, when are you going to come to grips with the reality that tourists don't come up to northern New Hampshire to buy abstract art?

They want mallards."

"Paint by numbers, " Suzanne muttered, remembering a tongue lashing she had received from the pompous artist for reducing the price of one of his "masterpieces" by fifty dollars. "What?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

It was nearing three in the afternoon. Suzanne and her partner had been doing inventory nonstop since her return from Guy's funeral. Outside, muted midday sunshine filtered through a row of expansive, century-old sugar maples, turning Main Street into a gentle work of art that far surpassed anything Gerard Morris had produced. Immersing herself in the inventory and spending time with Helene had helped lift some of the melancholy Suzanne was feeling, but memories of Guy Beaulieu kept her mood somber. Although she had not known the man outside the hospital, she had shared several patients with him before his practice dwindled, and more than respected him as a person and a physician. Nevertheless, the stories that had been circulating about him of late were disconcerting, and Suzanne had gradually come to agree with those who believed that it would be in everyone's best interest for Guy to retire.

Now, reflecting on Zack's opinion that the aging surgeon seemed quite capable and mentally intact, and with the realization that the man had died defending himself, she was having second thoughts. First Guy Beaulieu, and then the old woodsman Chris Gow-in both cases she had backed off, siding with Ultramed through her silence. True, the corporation had plucked her from a situation that had seemed totally hopeless and had given her a chance. For that alone she owed Ultramed her loyalty. But still, there had been a time, she knew, when she considered herself a liberal, a champion of the underdog.

There had been a time when she would have gone to the mat for either man, Just as Zack had done. It was hard to believe she had changed so much over just a few short years. As she hefted Morris's painting off the floor and replaced it in the window, Suzanne silently cursed Paul Cole for the chaos he had brought to her life. "So?"

Helene Meyer, dressed in jeans and a blue-print smock, emerged from the storeroom with a pair of ceramic vases that the had taken on consignment from a Micmac Indian potter. She was a short, dark, energetic woman with close-cut hair and just enough excess pounds to puff her cheeks and arms. "So what? " Suzanne asked. "So where are Morris's ducks?"