She told him where to find the data files, and she swore that she hadn’t spoken to anyone outside of Zenavax.
And she promised she wouldn’t tell McKenna about any of it. She was right about that.
“By the way,” Calderon said, “Tartaglia confirmed what I suspected. It was someone at the malaria lab that told her about the boy going to the clinic.”
“The University Children’s clinic?”
“Yeah. She called the clinic, pretended to be from some relief organization. She found out when the kid was coming up here. I’m telling you, that clinic is a problem.”
“We may have to do something about that.”
“Don’t wait too long to decide.” Calderon watched as one of the cops removed McKenna’s handcuffs. “What do you know about Luke McKenna?” He said the name as if it meant nothing to him. He wasn’t about to tell his client that he knew the man.
“He’s Elmer McKenna’s son,” his client said. “Like I told you, he’s one of the E.R. doctors at the hospital. He took care of the boy, that’s all.”
“Tartaglia knew him.”
“The woman worked for his father. They probably met at some point.”
“No, it’s more than that. He’s connected to her somehow.”
Oh please, Luke doesn’t know anything. Those were her words. She had called him Luke.
“Don’t worry about Luke McKenna,” his client said. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Then maybe you can explain what he’s doing at the woman’s house?”
The silence stretched for several seconds. “Where are you?” his client asked.
“Watching her house. The police are talking to McKenna right now.”
“Oh? Then shouldn’t you be someplace else?”
“I should be in Guatemala,” Calderon said, “but I’m here, taking care of your problem. Remember?”
“Why linger near her house? Why take the chance?”
“You should know the answer to that by now — looking for loose ends.”
“Seen anything that worries you?”
“Nothing,” Calderon said. “Nothing at all.”
11
“All in favor?” Barnesdale asked.
Ben Wilson watched six of the eight Medical Executive Committee members — all of whom had been handpicked by Barnesdale for their obsequious nature — raise a hand into the air. In a tiresome display of chickenhearted solidarity, the hens sitting around the conference table had just voted to place Luke McKenna on suspension.
“Opposed?”
Ben and Caleb Fagan waved their hands in a flimsy gesture that underscored its futility.
Barnesdale swiped at an unseen speck of dust on the corner of the conference table. The hens strained to catch a glimpse of the offending particle, as if to conjure its significance.
The meeting — in fact, the entire day — had grown long in the tooth. Ben had awoken that morning to a call, summoning him to this emergency meeting that for some god-rotting reason couldn’t wait until Monday. So here he was, at seven o’clock on a Saturday night.
Barnesdale hadn’t even shown the courtesy of telling them the purpose of the meeting. After hearing the scuttlebutt about Kate Tartaglia’s murder, Ben had initially wondered whether there might be some connection. It seemed odd that her name hadn’t even come up during their meeting.
Barnesdale said, “Anyone have something they want to add?”
Ben knew there was nothing left to say, but he reached inside and found something anyway. “Only a buzzard feeds on its friends.”
The outside attorney that Barnesdale had invited to the meeting said, “Let’s not forget that Dr. McKenna is being suspended with pay, and only for three weeks — just long enough for this committee to do a proper investigation of the incident.”
Ben stared at the attorney, which wasn’t easy. The man had a wandering eye that was distracting as hell. Supposedly, he was there “to clarify any legal issues that arise.” Instead, Barnesdale had used his legal henchman to frighten the committee, which, Ben conceded, was not a particularly difficult feat.
Any support for Luke had quickly wilted after Wandering Eye dropped his bomb on them. If the football player, Erickson, sued the medical group, every physician in the group would be personally liable because the group’s malpractice policy did not cover this type of situation.
A portly stenographer, courtesy of the attorney’s law firm, noiselessly punched keys on a small black steno machine that sat wedged between his thick legs.
Ben turned to the stenographer. “By the way, ‘buzzard’ is spelled B-U—”
“We’re giving Dr. McKenna every consideration under the circumstances,” Barnesdale snapped. “He’s lucky we’re not terminating him, especially after the arrogance he displayed last night — leaving the hospital knowing that we were waiting for him in my office.” He glanced at his legal lapdog, who nodded obediently.
Ben leaned into Caleb’s ear and whispered, “Can you imagine that? Those two idiots just sitting there all evening like a coupla cow patties?”
Barnesdale was glaring at Ben when he turned back. “You have something to say?”
Ben sat forward and slapped the table with both hands. “Henry, don’t pee down our backs and tell us it’s raining. The truth is, McKenna acted in self-defense. You know it, and I know it. I only wish I’d been there to see McKenna beat the cowboy crap outta that guy.”
The attorney’s left eye drifted toward Ben. “After spending all day on the phone with Erickson’s lawyer, I can assure you — they have a different view on this. They’re ready to go to war.”
Ben shot back: “You seem to be missing the point. McKenna is a damn good physician who has never been accused of anything but doing his job. And now he’s being suspended because Henry’s decided to knuckle under to some bastard who deserved what he got.”
The attorney put a hand on Barnesdale’s arm and said, “Let’s remember what happened here. Your doctor took it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner. Think about it — even if the wife’s and daughter’s injuries resulted from a physical assault, how could anyone know whether Erickson was the one who did it? The only thing we know for sure is that Mr. Erickson showed up in your E.R., upset. His wife and child had been injured. That’s reason enough for any man to be upset.”
Ben rubbed his forehead. It was pounding. “Am I the only one who sees what’s going on here? Erickson is a wife and child abuser. His attorney sees an opportunity to discredit the accuser. He’s throwing up a smoke screen, and we’re playing right into his hands.”
“The emergency room is a stressful place,” the attorney offered. “Maybe Dr. McKenna just lost his senses for a moment.”
“What a load of crap,” Ben muttered.
“Or maybe it’s a genetic trait,” Barnesdale said as he lifted a piece of lint from his sleeve with the wary concentration of someone handling toxic waste. “Luke McKenna seems to have a screw loose, like his father.”
Caleb Fagan spoke up for the first time. “Leave Luke’s father out of this.”
“Why should I?” Barnesdale said. “The man makes it his life’s work to ignore every rule in this hospital. He’s an embarrassment to this institution, and now his son appears to be following in his footsteps.”
Barnesdale never missed an opportunity to snipe at Elmer McKenna, head of Infectious Diseases, and administrative derelict. To say that Elmer wasn’t the archetypal professor of pediatrics was like saying that the Hunchback of Notre Dame lacked a certain something when it came to good looks.
“If Elmer paid half as much attention to administrative procedures as he does to his poker games and betting pools,” Barnesdale added, “this institution would be flush with money.”