Stephen White - Critical Conditions

“Exactly. That’s what I was thinking, too. But see, I asked Brenda about it when we had lunch yesterday and she said that the threats and harassment stopped a few days before she went public with the insurance problem. So if the asshole who was after her stopped because he figured that Brenda had gotten hers, you know, with Chaney being so sick-”

“How did they know?”

“Exactly. How did the asshole know? He cooled his heels before Chaney’s story was on the news.”

“You’re speculating here, aren’t you, Sam?”

“No, I’m theorizing. Civilians speculate.”

“You working this on the side?”

“I’m talking to some people. You know, unofficially.”

“Are there suspects?”

“The Denver police had some leads.”

I smiled as I hung up the phone. Sam was searching the bottom of the bag for that last remaining french fry.

My first patient was a thirty-four-year-old gay firefighter named Roland who, over the past eight months, had lost his partner of six years and his two closest friends to AIDS. Over the weekend he had discovered that another good friend was HIV-positive. We talked mostly about the promise of protease inhibitors. How Roland found the will to continue to believe that each new day would start with a fresh sunrise baffled me. But he did. Each week as we talked I permitted myself to be inspired by him.

My first scheduled break of the morning came at eleven. I called Cozier Maitlin’s office to leave him a message. His sweet secretary answered, and I convinced her that my news was probably more urgent than whatever it was Cozy was doing at the moment.

“Alan? What’s up?”

Well, your girlfriend is about to dump you for the chance to have a go at your ex-wife…

“Lots, Cozy, but I just have a minute now. Can I meet you somewhere at one-thirty? Your office? Coffee?”

“Come here. No clients on Saturday. ’Bye. I’m on the eighth floor.”

If you said you were on the eighth floor in downtown Boulder, you didn’t need to use an address. There was only one building that tall in the center of the city and it is such an architectural abomination that its construction resulted in an ordinance prohibiting any copycat developers from building their own brick-and-glass privacy fences between the rest of the city and the mountains.

One of Cozy’s building’s glass facades faced the mountains, and one faced the eastern plains. I wasn’t surprised that Cozy’s office had the western view.

It’s easy to find views of Boulder from on high. Many hiking trails and roads leave town to the west and provide stunning views of the city and the endless plains to the east. But a view of the city from this height with the mountains as a backdrop was breathtaking and novel.

I said, “Nice office, Cozy.”

Cozy barely looked up from his desk. “That’s what people say. It’s my turn to be running tight on time. Sit.”

My back was to the view as I filled him in on the developments with Madison and Brad, my helicopter trip over the Divide, and Madison’s murder.

The news I was providing caused him to sit back on his chair while he air-drummed an imaginary snare with two pencils. He said, “What’s it all mean?”

“I was hoping you would tell me that.”

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

I said, “I have a patient soon and I know you have limited time and there’s more for you to consider. First, and maybe most important, Merritt started talking to me.”

“What?” His voice was a sandwich of elation and alarm. The alarm part, I supposed, was his recognition that as long as Merritt wasn’t opening her mouth, she couldn’t very well stick her foot in it.

“Initially she insisted on total confidence. From everyone, you included, Cozy. I finally managed to get her to agree to let me fill you and the hospital staff in on what she was telling me.”

He slapped the pencils on the desk. “You need to be incredibly careful what you put in the chart.”

I said, “I know. No facts, Cozy.”

“And? Come on, Alan, what’d she say? I’m not big on suspense. There’re lawyers who are calm waiting for juries to come back; I’m not one of them.”

“Nothing yet. We were interrupted before she told me much. Her little sister is critical again. All Merritt’s told me so far is that she followed her stepfather when he went to Dead Ed’s house and that she thinks he went in and that she and her girlfriend were cooking up a scheme to save her sister. That’s it.”

“A scheme? What kind of scheme?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“And now the girlfriend is dead?”

“Yes. Merritt says that Brad-the boyfriend-had a mean streak. She didn’t seem surprised.”

“If I go to Denver, will Merritt talk to me?”

“I don’t know, Cozy. But I don’t recommend trying. Clinically, I mean. The trust level between her and me is fragile. I think it’s important to give her control of this now that she’s decided to talk. If we press her, she could clam up again.”

“Hell.” That was as close as Cozier Maitlin ever came to cursing.

I looked at my watch. I had eight minutes to get four blocks. “I almost forgot. It seems that Merritt broke a fingernail during some part of this affair. I saw the broken nail on her hand that first day when she was in the hospital. The cops have it. The broken nail.”

“You’re sure the cops have it? Who told you? And where did they recover it?”

“I don’t know where they recovered it. And you’ll just have to accept my word that I heard it from a reliable source that…should remain anonymous.”

“Oh.” Cozy knew immediately that my source was Sam. He put down his drumsticks. It was his turn to look at his watch. He said, “I should go, too. I’m having a late lunch with Adrienne. She can get irritable when I’m late.”

I smiled meekly, bit my tongue, and told him to enjoy his meal.

My afternoon was relatively uneventful. Before returning to Denver, I stopped home long enough to amuse Emily for a while and give her an early dinner. I was being a neglectful parent and still she greeted me as gleefully as a child greets Christmas morning.

The situation hadn’t changed much at Children’s. Chaney remained stable. Critical, but stable. Merritt was camped out two inches from her sister’s bed. When I arrived, she was reading a dog-eared copy of Catcher in the Rye. She waved at me and smiled a greeting. Brenda was sitting in a rocking chair, keeping vigil with her daughter. John was pacing in the hall and saw me enter.

With a wave, he beckoned me over to the nursing station door. He said, “Merritt won’t talk to anyone but Chaney. And when Chaney stirs she won’t shut up, just puts her mouth next to Chaney’s ear and whispers to her.”

“How is she, John? Chaney?”

“Same. The transplant team repeated their imaging this afternoon. Her primary has been on the phone with Seattle. Chaney’s eligibility for the procedure is now questionable. If her lung function deteriorates much more they won’t take her even if we get the insurance approval.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He was looking at the floor, sliding the toe of one shoe back and forth. “I’m an old hippie, Alan. Stuff doesn’t mean much to me. It just doesn’t. I can honestly say that this is the only time in my life I’ve ever been envious of rich men. And today, I want to be a rich man, too. My baby’s dying in that room, in that bed, and I can’t do anything about it. A rich man could do something about it. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

I wanted to touch him, but he had wrapped himself in his grief. I said, “No, John, I don’t. I can only imagine.”

“Merritt’s calm as can be. She seems absolutely convinced that her sister’s going to be fine. I worry about what it’s going to be like for her when she realizes the gravity of what’s happened, what’s going on.” He looked up from the floor. “She’s going to need you then. You know that?”