“So that’s why you wanted to talk about the maternity center? You’re after the Bradens! Well, if Nell had told me that, I never would have agreed to talk with you.” The deep tones had suddenly turned shrill.
“No, Ms. Whigston, please, I’m not after anyone, just trying to gather as much information-”
“Dr. Charles Braden saved my little Ronnie’s life, period. I’ve got nothing but praise and admiration for the man.”
“I understand-”
“Ronnie wouldn’t breathe when he came out, and that man went rushing out of the delivery room with him, giving mouth-to-mouth as he ran, and drove him to the hospital himself. Didn’t even wait for an ambulance. One week later I first got to hold my baby when he personally transported my child back to me and placed him in my arms, just before I went home. I’ll never forget that day, or my gratitude to Dr. Braden. So I won’t be saying anything against him, ever.”
“Ms. Whigston, please-”
“And Ronnie wasn’t the only one he did that for. I’ve since met other mothers who say the same thing. And the nurses, they called him the miracle man when it came to saving kids. One told me he even kept an incubator in his car for just such emergencies. You won’t find many former patients or staff willing to bad-mouth him.”
“If you’ll just let me explain-”
He found himself once more talking to a dial tone.
Now he understood why Nell hadn’t told her who he was. Jesus, she could have warned him Diane Whigston was so prickly. Approached properly, the woman might have at least been willing to discuss the routine of the place.
He dialed Nell’s number again. Maybe she could make things right with her friend, and he’d get another chance.
She picked up this time.
“Nell-”
And hung up.
He thought he really hadn’t time for this when his phone rang again.
“Nell?”
“No, it’s me,” said Victor Feldt. “I wanted to say how much I enjoyed last night.”
“Victor! Sorry, I just got cut off – I mean hung up on-”
“Old Nell giving you the gears again? I’ll bet it’s about Lucy. She want to meet her, check her out?”
“No-”
The big man gave a low, knowing chuckle.
It reminded Mark why he hated living in a goldfish bowl. “What can I do for you, Victor?”
“I haven’t made much progress in tracking down who owns Nucleus, but what I found is some pretty weird stuff.”
“Weird?”
“Yeah. The information is buried in a labyrinth of registered ownerships. The amount of subterfuge here is really fishy. I’m staying on this. It’s too strange.”
“Any idea how long it will take?”
“Give me until tomorrow. I also thought of something else we should check out. What if the sudden tightening of security has to do with a request from one of the lab’s clients? Maybe it’s somebody at their end who’s suddenly gone paranoid. Were that the case, would it help you to find out why?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been talking to a few of my contacts at the companies that deal with us, telling them what happened, saying good-bye – you know, that kind of thing – and a few have said they’re not surprised.”
“Not surprised you got fired?”
“Not surprised that someone in their organization might be hypersensitive over an outsider seeing medical data about their staff.”
“Well, they should be. Information like that is supposed to be confidential.”
“What I’m talking about is above and beyond those usual types of concern.”
“How do you mean?”
“There are huge shakeups going on in a host of companies, thousands of high executives being laid off. It shows up in the health plans, their policies not being renewed.”
“So? Layoffs are happening all over the country. It’s because of the economy.”
“Not when they immediately turn around and rehire thousands more new staff. There’s an equal number of new policies on replacements for the people they fired.”
Obviously Victor was off on some wild-goose chase, probably as a way to avoid dwelling on his own firing. “And how would all that make someone freak at my visit to the lab?” Mark asked, attempting to nudge him back to the reality of their current problem.
“I don’t know. But if it were the case, would you want me to find out more about it?” he continued, sounding as eager for approval as a fawning puppy. “Tomorrow, when everybody is back to work from the holiday, I can call some additional contacts and try to get specifics on what’s up, if anything, that might have spooked one of these organizations. If you like, I could even reach a few other people at home today, where they might feel freer to talk.”
“Why not?” Mark said, thinking the whole thing was light-years removed from any connection to Kelly’s murder or Chaz Braden, but even following up leads doomed to go nowhere could be the best thing for Victor right now. Despite his obvious capacity to enjoy good company and be the life of a party, he was so very solitary out here.
“And while I was going through all those records, I found a handful of doctors in New York who had a small account with us much like the one I arranged for you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You know, puny bits of business from a few private office patients – they stand out amongst our usual giant-sized contracts. What’s really unusual, the master record of all test results ordered by this group isn’t stored here. The system’s flagged to forward them to another terminal, presumably back in New York. The point is, someone high up made the arrangements. That’s head office territory – not like out here, where a guy like me has a certain amount of leeway to pull off what you and I had going, at least, until yesterday. I was thinking you could phone some of these doctors and ask, physician to physician, who they’d made their special deal with in order to set themselves up that way. It might get us closer to the actual owner of the place.”
Not likely, Mark thought as he took down the names. He recognized some of them – a surgeon, a few internists, a gynecologist, and three very prominent family physicians who had taught him at NYCH during his residency. These were top drawer people. Yes, they would have professional ties with Chaz through the hospital, but he couldn’t imagine why they’d need to make a private arrangement with an out-of-the-way facility. Their use of Nucleus Laboratories, even if it turned out Chaz owned the place, would likely be for mundane reasons, probably having to do with the patients’ insurance companies insisting they use a specific testing center. “That’s a fabulous idea, Victor,” he said, continuing to hide his skepticism that any of it would pan out. “I’ll try and contact them tomorrow. Thank you for coming up with it. Believe me, I’m grateful for everything you’re doing.”
As he hung up, Mark made a mental note to call the phone company. The clicks on his line, a recurrent joy of country living, had become annoying.
5:35 P.M.
Snowflakes the size of cotton balls floated onto Lucy’s black hair, where they sparkled like points of a tiara before vanishing. “Battle stations,” she said to Mark under her frosty breath, a gleam in her eye as they climbed the freshly shoveled steps to where Charles Braden stood just behind his butler, who’d swung open front door.
“Lock and load,” Mark muttered back at her.
In seconds they were shaking hands with their host, and the butler took their coats.
Lucy looked stunning in a floor-length, black, body-hugging sweater. “Good evening, Dr. Braden,” she said. “Thank you for inviting me along.”
“Lucy O’Connor. Why, I had no idea you were the beauty the whole town’s been talking about. What a pleasure to see you again.”
“You already know each other?” Mark asked.
“Yes,” Braden said quickly. “I had the pleasure of chatting with Lucy shortly after her arrival at NYCH. A year ago, wasn’t it?”