Stephen White - Critical Conditions

She looked surprised, then offended. “What do you mean?”

“The fingernail? Remember? The red one? The police found it.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”

What she meant was that she forgot I knew about that. I said, “Do you know where they discovered it?” I wanted her to tell me.

She shook her head. Her ignorance seemed genuine. But then again, picking liars out of the soup of life wasn’t one of my more developed talents.

“They found it in the master bathroom. On the second floor. You were upstairs in the bedrooms?”

She looked at the door and played with her hair before she said, “Yeah.”

The police had found no blood on the stairs. “That same day? Before you found his body?”

She nodded. “When I first went inside, I went looking for him. I went upstairs, all over.”

“And the nail?”

“I broke it.”

“How?”

It was beginning to register that Merritt was much more adept at omissions than she was at lying. She said, “I, I don’t know. I guess I, um, I hit it on something.”

This was painful. “What? What did you hit it on?”

“I, I don’t know.”

“Come on, Merritt, tell me. Let’s finish this tonight.”

In all my years doing this work I’d come to recognize that many patients have a need to secrete something away, to protect it from the harsh light of examination and confrontation. Early in my career, I was puzzled to learn that the secret was often not necessarily of much consequence, but instead that the motive had to do with my patients’ need to retain one safe place, to underscore their independence, their separation from me.

I waited.

“Do I have to?”

I didn’t answer. My lips felt rusty, my tongue uncooperative.

“This is Maddy’s secret. Not mine. I don’t want to tell it.”

I felt heaviness above my eyes. I was done arguing.

“Okay, okay. Maddy was with me, you know, when I went back to see him, Dr. Robilio, to show him the tape. We both thought it would be better. At first, she went upstairs looking for him. I checked the first floor, the kitchen and living room, you know. Then I went upstairs and I caught her up in his bedroom stealing stuff. Jewelry, perfume. I mean she was looking through drawers, everything. We had a fight about it. That’s how I broke my nail, fighting with Maddy. I made her put everything back.”

Fighting? That could explain the blood in Merritt’s urine in the ER. “Did she hit you in the gut?”

She narrowed her eyes and said, “I don’t know. Why?”

“Never mind. Did Madison put everything back?”

“At first.”

“What do you mean?”

“A few minutes later I found him, downstairs, just like I said-dead. Maddy was still prowling around on the first floor. When I screamed she came downstairs, too, and saw me with him, you know, all bloody and everything. She stood in the doorway and then she ran back upstairs. I didn’t know where she went. After…you know, we got out of there. On the way back to my house, she was really cool, like level. Not panicking like me. She showed me she had stolen his keys. She kept saying these may come in handy. I was going nuts over what I’d just seen, I didn’t care that much about his keys. I mean he was dead, right? What good were his keys? What good was he to me anymore? What good was he going to be to Chaney?”

I offered her my silence as a host might offer a guest a tray of hors d’oeuvres. She could choose anything she wished, or she could choose nothing at all.

She said, “I’d like to go to bed now.”

It was almost two. I said, “Yes.”

The night was cold, even for April. My car was cold. Boulder was forty minutes away. My house was empty. My dog was well cared for.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t afford it, and without much second thought, I drove a few blocks downtown, turned my car over to a valet, and checked into the Brown Palace Hotel. A bemused bellman who was dressed much more nicely than me led me to an elegant corner room on the eighth floor. I called Lauren and left another message on her parents’ machine. I drank all the cognac from the minibar and fell asleep to something nasty on Spectravision.

The next morning I ordered coffee and juice from room service. I signed the chit the waiter handed me without even glancing at it. I was not at all interested in knowing how much my indulgence was costing.

After begging a disposable razor and toothbrush from housekeeping, I dressed in yesterday’s clothes and enjoyed an hour alone with CNN, reading the New York Times, and sipping the Brown Palace’s good coffee.

Then I called Sam’s pager.

A minute later, the phone rang by the bed. He said, “Detective Purdy returning a page.”

“Hi, Sam, it’s Alan.”

“What is this number? Where the hell are you? Adrienne said you never came home. Nurse said you left Children’s around two-thirty.”

Sam is a good detective. “I’m at the Brown Palace.”

“The Brown Palace?”

“The hotel.”

“I know it’s a hotel. What the hell are you doing at the goddamn Brown Palace?”

“Treating myself.”

A pregnant pause. “You alone?”

I laughed. “Not that kind of treat, Sam. Where are you? Boulder?”

“Right down the street at the hospital. MedExcel faxed a financial approval to the Seattle hospital first thing this morning. Maybe half an hour ago. MedExcel’s execs are shitting bricks over the possibility of Gusman’s role in this whole thing getting public. Your friend Adrienne was marvelous, she left them thinking she was doing them some huge favor. Docs here at Children’s are talking with the docs in Seattle about whether Chaney is still a candidate for the procedure. The Seattle docs want some new tests done before they accept her. That’s all happening right now.”

“How long will it take?”

“Midday if things go well. Air ambulance has already been ordered. They’re standing by for an afternoon departure. MedExcel is paying for that, too. It’s amazing how cooperative they are all of a sudden.”

“Is Chaney stable?”

“I don’t get this lung thing. She looks like death to me. But they say she’s no worse than before.”

“How are Sherry and Brenda doing?”

“So far so good. Sherry’s coming back here this morning to be with Brenda. She’s talking about going to Washington, too. So Simon and I may be spending some extra quality time together in Boulder.” He made a noise, a little cough. “Listen, it seems like you were with Merritt a long time last night.”

“Yeah. It felt like an eternity.”

“She’s talking about Robilio?”

“Sam.”

“You can’t tell me anything?”

“Sorry. I wish I could.”

“I can’t tell you how much I hate your goddamn profession sometimes. Most of the time, even.”

“I know. Sam, how do I find out what the DA plans to do if I let her out of the hospital?”

“Your wife’s a DA, Alan. Start there.”

“My wife is temporarily out of the loop. I’m serious; I need to know.”

“Have Maitlin feel things out with Mitchell Crest. This one is a PR nightmare for everyone involved in Boulder. Everybody in the department and at the DA’s office is afraid of screwing up. Right now I think the DA is happiest knowing Merritt’s in the hospital. It’s almost as good as having her in custody but they don’t really have to arrest her, which if they’re wrong and she’s innocent leaves them looking impolite. You ready to let her go?”

“Sam, don’t put me on the spot like that. Just read between the lines a little bit, okay?”

“Sorry, habit.”

“I’m going to head over to see Merritt in a little while. You need me for anything?”