Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

Earl struggled for something to say, but the phone rang again, once more bailing him out of an embarrassing silence.

Stewart frowned, hesitated, then picked it up and repeated the same bravura performance he'd put on minutes earlier, except this time he offered to buy dinner and suggested Chinese.

When he hung up, Earl asked, "Was the show you put on at death rounds about Matthews your idea, or did Hurst approach you?"

He didn't answer, choosing instead to peer at the tropical fish that languidly swam across the screen of his computer.

"Stewart?"

He took a deep breath, as if he were a diver about to take a plunge. "I approached Hurst to warn him that there might be strange stories floating around Palliative Care about near-death experiences that wouldn't do St. Paul's, or me, any good. Up until then, near as I could determine, any nurse who reported the patients' experiences to a doctor or supervisor had been told they had to be hallucinations and not to take them seriously. But I still wanted to make sure no one said anything to implicate me. He promised to silence any such insinuations, but suggested I also put an end to your poking around and stirring up trouble on the ward by making the Matthews inquiry end in a draw. That would be good for St. Paul's, and with no clear wrongdoing, he said, you wouldn't have cause to investigate any further, which would reduce the chances of you also turning up the near-death stories, which would be good for me."

"You were that naive?"

"I was that desperate."

Earl said nothing.

The phone interrupted them again.

Earl watched as he sweated through another frayed showing of high spirits- eyeballs bulging with fear, squirming in his seat, rattling off yet more futile reassurances, his free hand ceaselessly searching for a place to light.

As if babbling frantic lies to a few people could save him, Earl mused. Not in the age of the Internet. After a lifetime of scientific toil, he would be pilloried around the globe with a push of a key.

Stewart issued yet another invitation, jovially suggesting drinks at a nearby Italian bistro this time, then hung up the phone and pulled the cord out of the jack. "Fuck 'em!" he muttered in a bleak attempt at defiance.

Earl lost patience with the bullshit. "What's next, Stewart? You buy me off with a cup of coffee and breakfast? You can't schmooze your way out of this mess by plying everyone who hears about it with food and booze."

Stewart shot out from behind his desk and in two strides stood nose to nose with him. "How can you be as stupid as the rest of those idiots to believe I had something to do with those patients?"

"I don't know what to believe just yet."

"Well, smarten up, damn it. You of all people should realize that none of this mess rings true. Ask yourself why I'd be so idiotic as to risk my career in some clumsy scam to fabricate data about near-death experiences. I mean, it'd be like pointing a finger at myself. Let's get real here."

"You don't get it, do you, Stewart?"

"Get what?"

"Whether or not you committed ethical hanky-panky as a scientist isn't the big question here."

"Oh, no?"

"No. It's whether you'd kill three people and slip two others into a coma to prevent them from saying you did."

Stewart turned crimson again, and up this close, Earl could see the individual beads of sweat that filled his pores.

"You bastard!" he said, his voice guttural, as if gathering phlegm from the back of his throat to spit in his face. "Get out! Get the fuck out of my office."

Thomas spotted him the minute Earl entered the ER. "Dr. Garnet!" he called out, and excused himself from a woman who clutched a gauze pad soaked with blood to the palm of her hand. A couple of medical students, circling nearby in hopes of picking up a suturing job, eagerly moved in to fill the void.

"Walk with me," Earl told him, keeping a brisk pace toward his office at the back of the department.

"About death rounds-"

"Sorry, I'm in no mood to discuss that goddamn meltdown, and officially it's out of my hands."

"But that's why I wanted to talk to you. If I could help in any way, check things out on the QT, the sort of stuff you might not be able to do since Hurst suspended-"

"It won't be necessary." Earl was in no mood for an overly earnest resident in his way right now, however well-meaning Thomas might be. He had his own plan. "Thanks anyway."

Thomas continued to trot beside him. "I just thought… well… what Hurst did to you sucks, sir. You, and this hospital, deserve better. And how else can we get to the bottom of what's going on?"

Earl straight-armed the door leading to the administration wing and strode on through. "Look, I appreciate the offer, Thomas, but I'm not going to involve house staff in cleaning up a hospital mess. The academic requirements of the R-three program are plenty enough to fill your time."

Thomas stuck at his side. "But that's what I mean, sir. I've got to write a research paper as part of my curriculum. Why couldn't it be on clusters of unexplained deaths?"

Earl slowed his pace. "Why, that's…" He didn't know what to say.

"Think of it. The topic is legitimate, exciting, and I hope intriguing enough to get me published so I can pursue more research with my ER work. The result might also provide the key to what's going on in Palliative Care. The beauty of it is that no one, Dr. Hurst included, would know. Who on staff pays attention to a resident doing a project? At this point we don't have to tell a soul what it's about. I could sit at a computer or in medical records, look at anything I wanted, and no one would even notice, let alone get nervous."

Interesting, Earl thought. So far Janet had done exactly that without anybody being the wiser. But she still had another three months of data to check, and with Hurst bound to be on the lookout for an end run, it might become more difficult for her to continue undetected. Hell, she'd be the first one he'd keep watch on. A resident, on the other hand, just might fly under his radar. Thomas could pull charts from all over the hospital as a subterfuge to keep anyone in records from realizing that he'd zeroed in on palliative care.

"Let's talk about it," he said, and continued toward his office. He unlocked his door, threw himself into his high-backed chair, and gestured Thomas to take a visitor's seat. "You'd check everything you plan to do with me first?" he asked.

Thomas quickly sat and leaned forward, his arms on Earl's desk. "Absolutely."

"And you'd have to keep this totally confidential. Tell no one, understand. You heard about the run-in I had early Saturday morning? I don't want whoever decked me coming after you."

"Understood. Not a word."

Earl switched on his computer. "And as your director, I'd have the final say over what we publish."

He looked puzzled. "Sure, except you wouldn't cover up anything we found, would you?"

"I'm saying we stick to the definite stuff- a classic cluster study, correlating times of death with staffing coverage. What has no place anywhere, let alone in a scientific paper, is unsubstantiated, poisonous insinuations like the one Yablonsky threw at Stewart this morning."

Thomas recoiled as if he'd been slapped. "Don't tell me you think he's innocent?"

"I don't like lynchings," Earl continued, ignoring the question. "That's exactly what the person who blabbed about the proceedings this morning did, probably Yablonsky, and the wolves are already tearing Stewart apart." As he talked, he clicked up a popular search engine for medical topics. "I just came from his office. It's not a pretty sight, seeing a man have his reputation shredded. Especially if it's not deserved. Might as well skin him alive."

"My God. From the way you tore into him, I thought you agreed with her-"