Janet Evanovich: Notorious Nineteen

“Are those the ones who got away?” I asked Briggs.

“That’s what they tell me. I haven’t been on the job that long. I’ve only had one go south on my watch.”

“Geoffrey Cubbin.”

“Yep. The night nurse checked him at two A.M. and reported him sleeping. The next entry on his chart was at six A.M. and he was gone, along with his clothes and personal effects.”

“Is that what his chart says?” I asked Briggs.

“No. That’s what the paper said. Jesus, don’t you read the paper?”

“So how’s this dude manage to walk out of here if he just had his appendix yanked out?” Lula asked. “That gotta hurt. Maybe it was that he died and got rolled down to the meat locker and no one thought to look there. Oh no, wait a minute, he wouldn’t have gotten dressed to die.”

“Cubbin was looking at about ten years of eating prison food and stamping out license plates,” Briggs said. “You could get past a little pain to walk away from that.”

“I’d like to talk to his doctor and the night nurse,” I said to Briggs. “Do you have their names?”

“No. And I’m not getting them for you either. I’m here to uphold hospital confidentiality. I’m the top cop.”

“Looks to me like you’re the bottom half of the top cop,” Lula said.

Briggs cut his eyes to Lula. “Looks to me like you’re fat enough to be a whole police force.”

“You watch your mouth,” Lula said. “I could sit on you and squash you like a bug. Be nothing left of you but a grease spot on the floor.”

“There’ll be no squashing,” I said to Lula. “And you ,” I said to Briggs, pointing my finger at him. “You need to get a grip.”

I whirled around and swished out of Briggs’s office with Lula close on my heels. I returned to the lobby and called Connie.

“Do we know who operated on Cubbin?” I asked her. “I want to talk to the doctor.”

“Hang tight. I’ll make some phone calls.”

Lula and I browsed through the gift shop, took a turn around the lobby, and Connie called back.

“The doctor’s name is Craig Fish,” Connie said. “I got his name from your grandmother. She’s plugged into the Metamucil Medicare Gossip Hotline. He’s a general surgeon in private practice, with privileges at St. Francis and Central. His office is in the Medical Arts Building two blocks from Central. He’s married with two kids in college. One in California and the other in Texas. No litigation against him. No derogatory information on file.”

We drove to the Medical Arts Building, and Lula dropped me off at the door.

“There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in that gas station on the corner,” she said. “I might have to get some donuts on account of I feel weak after being in the hospital and getting the cooties and all.”

“I thought you were trying to lose weight.”

“Yeah, but this could be an emergency situation. The cooties might have eaten up all my sugar, and I need to shovel some more in.”

“That’s so lame,” I said to her. “Why don’t you just admit you want donuts and you have no willpower?”

“Yeah, but that don’t sound as good. You want any donuts?”

“Get me a Boston Kreme.”

I took the elevator to the fourth floor and found Fish’s office. There were two people in the waiting room. A man and a woman. Neither of them looked happy. Probably contemplating having something essential removed from their bodies in the near future. I flashed my credentials at the receptionist and told her I’d like to have a moment with the doctor.

“Of course,” she said. “He’s with a patient right now, but I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Ten minutes and three dog-eared magazines later I was ushered into Fish’s small, cluttered office.

“I only have a few minutes,” he said. “How can I help you?”

Craig Fish was a bland man in his mid-fifties. He had steel gray hair, a round cherubic face, and his blue and white striped dress shirt was stretched tight across his belly. He wasn’t fat, but he wasn’t fit either. He had some family photos on his desk. His two kids on a beach somewhere, smiling at the camera. And a picture of himself getting cozy with a blond woman who looked on the short side of thirty. She was spilling out of her slinky dress, and she had a diamond the size of Rhode Island on her finger. I assumed this was his latest wife.

“Did Geoffrey Cubbin give any indication he intended to leave early?” I asked him.

“No. He didn’t seem unusually anxious. The operation was routine, and his post-op was normal.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“Usually when patients leave prior to discharge they go home.”

“Apparently that wasn’t the case this time. Does this happen a lot?”

“Not a lot, but more often than you’d think. People get homesick, dissatisfied with care, worried about expenses, and sometimes it’s the result of a drug reaction and the patient isn’t thinking clearly.”

“Has Cubbin made an appointment for a recheck?”

“You’d have to ask my receptionist about that. I only see my patient list for the current day.”

His intercom buzzed and his receptionist reminded him Mrs. Weinstein was in Examining Room 3.

I stopped at the desk on the way out and asked if Geoffrey Cubbin had scheduled a post-op appointment. I was told he had not.

Lula was idling at the curb when I left the medical building. I buckled myself in next to her and looked into the Dunkin’ Donuts box on the floor. It was empty.

“Where’s my donut?” I asked her.

“Oops. I guess I ate it.”

Lucky me. Better on Lula’s thighs than on mine. Especially since I was going to have to squeeze into a cocktail dress tomorrow night.

“Now what?” Lula asked. “Are we done for the day? I’m not feeling so good after all those donuts. I was only going to eat two, but then I lost track of what I was doing and next thing there weren’t any more donuts. It was like I blacked out and someone came and ate the donuts.”

“You have powdered sugar and jelly stains on your tank top.”

“Hunh,” Lula said, looking down at herself. “Guess I was the one ate them.”

“It would be great if you could drive me to my parents’ house so I can borrow Big Blue.”

Big Blue is a ’53 powder blue and white Buick that got deposited in my father’s garage when my Great Uncle Sandor checked himself in to Happy Hills Nursing Home. It drives like a refrigerator on wheels, and it does nothing for my image. Only Jay Leno could look good driving this car. In its favor, it’s free.

THREE

MY PARENTS LIVEin a small mustard yellow and brown two-story house that shares a wall with an identical house that is painted lime green. I suppose the two-family house seemed like an economical idea forty years ago at the time of construction. And there are many of them in the Burg. Siamese twins conjoined at the living room downstairs and master bedroom upstairs, with separate brains. The house has a postage stamp front yard, a small front porch, and a long, narrow backyard. The floor plan is shotgun. Living room, dining room, kitchen. Three small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.

My Grandma Mazur lives with my parents. She moved in when my Grandpa Mazur’s arteries totally clogged with pork fat and he got a one-way ticket to God’s big pig roast in the sky. Grandma was at the front door when Lula eased the Firebird to a stop at the curb. I used to think Grandma had a telepathic way of knowing when I approached, but I now realize Grandma just stands at the door watching the cars roll by, like the street is a reality show. Her face lit, and she waved as we drove up.

“I like your granny,” Lula said. “She always looks like she’s happy to see us. That’s not something happens every day. Half the time we knock on a door and people shoot at us.”