Richard Mabry: Diagnosis Death

"Are you sure? That would be so out of character," Elena said. "I stopped praying when Mark died."

Samuels's hand moved toward the recorder. "Want to hear it?"

"No, I believe you." There it was. She hadn't removed Pulliam's life support while in a fugue state. She wasn't really a danger to terminally ill patients. Elena couldn't process all the implications yet, but she would eventually. "What about Mark?"

"Before we go there, you mentioned one more thing that might be important. As you left the ICU, you felt for your pager at your waist but didn't find it. You turned back toward Pulliam's room, thinking it might have slipped off in there. Just as you found it in the pocket of your white coat, you saw a nurse going into that room. Your words, as I recall, were 'I wonder what Karri is doing in there?' "

Even after the puzzle piece marked "Karri" dropped into place, Elena still had more questions than answers. But she could think about that later. Right now, all she felt was a sense of relief.

Samuels leaned toward her. "Are you all right?"

"I'll take that water now, if you don't mind."

The therapist disappeared through a side door and returned in a moment with two frosty bottles of water. Elena drained hers fast enough to make her temples hurt. Samuels uncapped his bottle and sipped, his eyes never leaving her.

"Do you want to go on?" he asked.

"Yes. Obviously, it's a relief to hear that I wasn't responsible for Chester Pulliam's death, but I need to know for sure about Mark."

He put his almost-full bottle on the table. "By your recollection, you sat with Mark as you had done for two weeks, holding his hand and talking to him, hoping he could hear you. You'd decided there was no hope of recovery for him, so you told him what was coming. You kissed him and said, 'May God give you peace. May God give both of us peace.'

"

"Is that when I turned off the ventilator?"

"No, that's when you went to the family room to cry. That's where they found you to tell you Mark was dead."

Elena couldn't hold back the tears.

"Does this help?" Samuels asked.

"More than you can ever know," Elena said. "I didn't act in a fugue state. I'm not a threat to patients. The only thing I did wrong was write Mark's DNR order when I couldn't find Dr. Matney to tell him I'd finally reached that decision. Oh, yes. It helps."

Samuels remained silent, apparently waiting for her to say more. What more was there to say? She felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

He sipped once more from his water. "Don't you wonder who actually was responsible for these deaths? And why?"

And with those words, she felt her shoulders sag once more.

Summer days were long in Texas, and daylight savings time added yet another hour of sunlight. When Elena pulled out of the parking garage, the setting sun was low on the horizon, almost blinding her. She looked at the dashboard clock and did some fast calculation before she pulled into the parking lot of a steak house near Samuels's professional building. If she took her time over dinner, the sun wouldn't interfere with her drive home.

An hour later, Elena climbed into her car, started the engine, and cranked up the air conditioner to high. There was no reason to hurry home, and this was probably as good a time as any to try the call. She pulled her phone from her bag and checked the display: three-fourths charged.

The yellow slip was still in her purse. Elena's fingers hovered over the phone keys like a scared diver peering over the edge of the high board. She took a deep breath and punched in the number.

One ring. Two. Three. Four. Then a soft voice answered. "Hello?"

Even if Elena hadn't been aware of the number she'd dialed, she would have recognized that husky alto from the single word. She'd never thought much about the expression "her blood boiled," but it was as though she could feel it roiling through her veins at this moment.

Again, "Hello?"

"Karri, this is Elena." She rushed on, anxious to get the words out. "Don't hang up. I'll just keep calling. We have to talk."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I know you've called every week to torment me. I suspect the letters came from you too. And now I know that you took Chester Pulliam off life support. Tell me why."

There was the click of a lighter, the sound of a deep inhalation, a satisfied exhalation. Elena pictured Karri drawing on the cigarette, blowing smoke into the phone. Her next words dripped with venom. "You poor sap. You never knew, did you?"

"Knew that you and Mark were having an affair? No, I didn't know until after his death. That's when I found the note he'd written, the one telling me it was over between us."

Karri's cackle was right out of the story of Hansel and Gretel, the wicked witch enjoying the confusion of her victim. "Like I said, you never knew. I met Mark when he was working on some computer issues at the hospital. We seemed to click. For a while I thought something might come of it. Then I asked him to leave you."

Elena struggled to keep control of her voice. "What happened?"

"He told me he loved you. He planned to beg your forgiveness. It was over between us. That note you found was meant for me."

"So Mark-"

"Mark was unfaithful to you a couple of times. Big deal. When it came down to it, he wanted you, not me. Then he had that stroke and died." Another puff of the cigarette. Elena could almost smell the smoke. "When I couldn't take my anger out on him, I decided to vent it against you. That's the reason for the calls and the notes. I wanted you to worry that you'd ended his life without knowing it. I wanted to wreck your life, the way Mark wrecked mine when he got my hopes up and then dashed them."

"And Chester Pulliam?"

"Same thing. I thought it would really mess up your head if you were accused of that one as well. I even transferred from Zale to St. Paul to get the opportunity." Elena heard another puff.

Elena remembered the dark-haired nurse who ducked into a room in the ICU to avoid her. "How could you know I wasn't the one who took Mark off life support?"

"Because I did! I waited until you left. Then I sneaked into his room, shot him full of some morphine I'd been saving out of patient shots, and turned off his respirator. As much as he hurt me, I couldn't stand to see him go on the way he was. He was going to die anyway. And I figured I might as well use it to hurt you."

A car pulled up beside Elena. A couple got out, favored her with a curious glance, then walked side-by-side into the restaurant.

"One more question," Elena said. "How did you manage to get into the ICU here at Summers County General? How could you arrange the patient death here?"

Karri seemed genuinely puzzled by the question. "I don't know what you mean. I don't even know where Summers County is. All I know is you must not have changed your cell phone, because I used the number we had in the ICU at the hospital."

Karri was still talking when Elena broke the connection. She'd solved one mystery, but another one remained. Who killed Charlie Lambert? And why did they want to blame it on her?

The insistent tapping roused Elena. She raised her head from its resting place on the steering wheel of her car and turned to look at the couple she'd seen enter the restaurant earlier. The man tapped once more, and Elena lowered the window.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm all right. I've just had some disturbing news."

The woman leaned over her husband's shoulder. "Is there anything we can do? Are you okay to drive?"

"I'm fine. Thank you."

Elena watched them climb into their car and pull away. She'd have to stop using parking lots for her private pity parties. Having strangers stop to offer assistance was embarrassing.