Stephen White - Critical Conditions

He was quiet for a few seconds longer than I expected. Finally, he said, “No, I have nothing new.”

I wanted to keep him talking. I didn’t want to feel as alone as I suspected I would as soon as I hung up the phone. “Why are they waiting to arrest her, Sam? Do you know that? It seems odd to me.”

Sam Purdy could lie to me as seamlessly as Houdini could pick my pocket. It meant something important that I could tell from his voice that his next words were untrue. “Oh, you know-PR, mostly. Don’t want to pull a kid out of the hospital to put her in jail. Looks bad, especially with Chaney and all.”

“It’s not an evidence problem?”

“I’m out of the loop, you know that. But there may be a couple of loose ends they would like to line up before they pick her up. They’re not in a rush. She’s safe. They’re not too worried.”

“What loose ends?”

“There’re always anomalies. You know that. But nobody’s talking to me.”

“You mean Lucy’s not keeping you informed? That’s hard to believe.”

He was done fencing with me. “Listen, Edmonton game is tomorrow night. They’re only two points back. See you around six. You’ll be at your house? I’ll drive.”

“No, I’ll already be in Denver, seeing Merritt. I’ll need to meet you at McNichols. Top of the stairs on the east side, let’s say ten to seven or so? I’m looking forward to it.”

We hung up.

I’d been up since four o’clock that morning and the day felt as long as a bad week. I called Lauren and once again got her parents’ machine.

Two minutes later I stripped and crawled into bed. It’s not often I remember my dreams. And this night was no exception.

I woke still missing Lauren and still worried about Madison. It was too early to call Washington, but I phoned Miggy Monroe to check on her daughter before I left for the office to see my eight-fifteen patient.

“Ms. Monroe? Miggy? It’s Dr. Gregory. Did you hear anything from Madison overnight? Did she come home?”

“No, not a word. I haven’t slept a wink; I’m worried sick. The police won’t help me at all. Some of her clothes are gone, I’m pretty sure. I checked real carefully, like you said. Why would she run away? She and I do okay. I’m not a bad mom. Why would she leave me? Do you think it’s the boy? I have to think it’s him. I bet it’s the boy.”

I asked if there was anything I could do to help. She said there wasn’t.

“Would you please call me when you hear from her? I’m concerned about her, too, and would like to know that she’s okay. Would you do that?”

She said she would call.

Diane Estevez came into my office at nine-forty-five, after I had seen two morning patients and she had seen one. She said, “You want coffee? I made a fresh pot.”

“That would be great, thanks.”

She disappeared for a moment and returned with two mugs. Handing me one, she said, “You saw the news.”

“Thanks for the coffee. Yes, I saw the news.”

“They’re not releasing her name to the news media. How am I supposed to get John Trent’s custody eval thrown out if I can’t tell the court what the hell the kid is supposed to have done?”

“It’s not your problem, Diane. It’s a lawyer problem. Let your patient’s lawyer worry about it. You know it’s all going to come out in the wash eventually. You know what I think? I think you just don’t like being out of the loop.” I raised my mug. “Good coffee, is it something new?” The coffee tasted the same as always to me, but Diane had a predilection for trying exotic blends and was scornful of me when I didn’t notice her efforts.

She nodded about the coffee being novel. I could tell she also knew I was right about what would happen with the custody eval. The question was merely one of following form. For Diane, that meant protesting.

“Why are you so sure? And what do you mean I don’t like being out of the loop?”

“Being right isn’t good enough for you, you know that. You always want to be sure that you can influence the universe whenever and however you see fit. You should find a red cape to wear to work.”

“I have a red cape. It’s cute.”

“There you go, then.”

She adopted a civilized tone and asked, “How’s your patient?”

“Same, thanks for asking. You know anything you can tell me about Edward Robilio? Other than the basics, I mean. I’m still trying to figure out how this whole crazy situation came down the way it did.”

“What happened to ‘Dead Ed’? Raoul thought it was a hilarious nickname, by the way. Said it fit dear Dr. Robilio in real life, too.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“Raoul met him a few times on the hundred-dollar-a-plate muckety-muck circuit. Says he was a total boor. Tedious, always talking about his money, or his toys, or both. Big toys. He had an airplane, some big ski boat, and condos here and there and a-”

“Big freaking RV.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that too. How did you know about the RV?”

“Mitchell Crest lives in the low-rent end of the same neighborhood where Dead Ed lived. Mitch said the RV is like the size of a nuclear submarine or something. Caused a neighborhood uproar when Ed tried to park it semipermanently in the driveway. Apparently it’s bad form in Boulder’s new suburbs.”

“Raoul said that Dead Ed loved the thing, had pictures of it in his wallet. Had a name for it, too, oh, oh, I can’t remember. You have any idea what it cost?”

“No. No clue.”

She paused for effect. “After he gilded it, three-ninety. That’s what he told Raoul over cocktails. Raoul says Ed lowered his voice reverentially when he said the number.”

“No way. Three hundred and ninety thousand dollars? For a Winnebago? That’s more than my house. That’s more than two of my houses.”

“You don’t have two houses; the other one belongs to Lauren. And your one house is not exactly a yardstick by which wealth is measured.”

“True, but-”

“Apparently the thing has a marble bathroom and cherry cabinetry and leather everywhere and a surround-sound home theatre and gold-plated this and that. If you can believe it, it even has a satellite dish on the roof that automatically rotates to find its signal.”

I thought about an RV like that and wondered aloud, “What do you do with one, Diane? I mean, sure, you can drive it around to pretty places, but at the end of the day, you have to plug it in somewhere, right? For water and power and sewer, correct? Which means, half a million or no half a million, you end up spending the night in a trailer park. Am I right?”

“Raoul would probably tell you that spending the night in a trailer park would make Dead Ed feel right at home. And that it’s right where he belonged.”

“Anything else you can tell me about him?”

“No. He wasn’t popular, even among his peers. He apparently wasn’t much of a physician when he was practicing-I think he was a dermatologist-and he didn’t do much to endear himself to others in the health care industry after he founded MedExcel. Pissed off a lot of other doctors and the other insurers. He sounds ruthless, in a business sense.”

“You have him diagnosed?” I knew she had. For Diane it was a hobby, like presumptive astrological forecasting for a hairdresser. The fact that she had never met Dr. Robilio wouldn’t impede her musings for even a moment.

“Narcissistic personality with borderline features.”

Tough assessment. You don’t go through life with those diagnostic characteristics without pissing people off. Plenty. “So he had enemies?”

“Going fishing for alternative suspects, Alan? Well, not to worry, the pond is probably well stocked. Half the doctors in Colorado wanted him dead. The trouble is that none of the other fish swimming around have Dead Ed’s bloody clothes stashed under their bed.”