Authors: Michael Palmer
There was inevitably a part of him unwilling to accept the simple truth that it was over.
Wait. Give me another five minutes. Just be patient. This woman’s going to get right up and walk out of here.… You’ll see
.…
“No, thank you,” he replied to a nurse who offered him coffee. “I … I’ve got to call Evie’s folks.”
He glanced at the corridor behind him. Maura Hughes seemed calmer. Her brother, a carrottop with a face too youthful for the uniform he wore, continued stroking her hand as he watched the unfolding horror in room 928. It was quarter of eleven. The CT scanner would be free in five minutes. Blood samples had been sent off to the lab for tissue typing. On the way back from the CT scan, assuming nothing had come up that would send her to the operating room, Evie would get the first of what would probably be a series of electroencephalograms. Two flat or near flat EEGs twelve hours apart were considered to be the electrophysiologic equivalent of death. Harry reached up unaware and brushed aside a tear that had worked its way to the top of one cheek.
“Corbett, what in the hell is going on here?”
Still half-dazed, Harry turned toward the voice. Caspar Sidonis stood several feet away, hands on hips, his expression pinched and angry.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry managed. “But right now I’m a little busy. You see, my—”
“I’m talking about Evie, dammit!” Sidonis snapped. “Oh, never mind.”
He pushed past Harry and into the room. Richard Cohen, the neurosurgeon, was again checking Evie’s eyes. Sue Jilson was on the other side of the bed adjusting the IV.
“Dick, what happened here?” Sidonis asked.
“Oh, hi, Caspar. This woman a patient of yours?”
“No. She’s … she’s a close friend.”
“Well, her husband is right over th—”
“I don’t want to hear from him, Dick. I want to hear from you. Tell me what happened.”
It was a demand, not a request. Cohen, taken aback by the physician’s aggressiveness, quickly regained his composure.
“You know she was pre-op for repair of a berry?”
“Yes, yes. Or course I know.”
“Well, a little while ago, Sue Jilson, here, came in and
found her unresponsive, with one blown pupil and a systolic pressure of over three hundred. We’ve thrown the whole pharmacy at her and we’ve still had a bitch of a time getting her pressure down to one-thirty, where it is now. Meanwhile, her other pupil’s blown. She has bilateral papilledema indicative of massive intracranial pressure, and she’s posturing.”
“Jesus.” Sidonis looked shaken.
From the doorway, Harry watched, stunned, as the cardiac surgeon reached down and took one of Evie’s hands gently in his. Then, with his other hand, he caressed her cheek. Richard Cohen looked on nonplussed. Sue Jilson was wide-eyed.
“Dick, does she have any chance at all?” Sidonis asked.
To any physician, let alone one of Sidonis’s pedigree, the answer to the question was inescapable. The neurosurgeon looked at him queerly.
“I … um … I don’t think so, Caspar,” he said. “We’re waiting to take her down for a CT and an EEG.”
“Was he in here with her?” Sidonis gestured toward the doorway.
“Pardon?”
It was only now that Harry shook off his own reluctant fascination with what was transpiring and moved into the room. As far as he knew, Sidonis and Evie might have met in passing at some staff party or other. But certainly she had never spoken of the man.
“Caspar, do you know my wife?”
Sidonis whirled like a startled cat. “You know damn well I do. Were you in here with her before … before this happened?”
“Of course I was with her. She’s my wife. Now, just what in the hell—”
“Dick, was anyone else in here after him?”
“What?”
“I said, was anyone else in here with Evie after Corbett?” Sidonis was nearly shouting.
“Caspar, calm down. Calm down,” Cohen said. “Let’s go out in the hall and talk.”
Leaving the respiratory technician behind, the three physicians left the room, followed by Sue Jilson.
“Now, what’s this all about?” Cohen whispered. “Does this have something to do with the meeting this morning?”
Sidonis’s fury was barely under control. He spoke loudly, without regard for Maura Hughes, her brother, or two residents standing nearby.
“All I asked was whether anyone else came into this room between the time Corbett—excuse me,
Dr
. Corbett—left, and the time Evie was found.”
“I think I can answer that question,” Sue Jilson said. “There was no one else. Dr. Corbett didn’t leave until eight-forty-seven. That’s in my notes. The only way onto the hall after eight is through the elevators and past the nurse’s station. Officer Hughes—that’s Maura’s brother, the man with her over there—arrived on the floor around nine-thirty, but we were already in with Mrs. Corbett. You can check with Alice Broglio, the other nurse on the floor, but I’m sure she’ll confirm what I’ve said.”
“I knew it.” Sidonis’s fists were clenched.
“Caspar, will you please tell us what this is all about,” Cohen demanded.
“Ask him.”
“Harry?”
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Harry said.
“Bullshit,” Sidonis snapped. “Evie was leaving you to be with me, and you know it. She told you so last night at the restaurant she took you to. The SeaGrill. See, I even know the place. Now, what did you do to her?”
“You son of a bitch—”
Harry’s burst of anger and hatred was almost immediately washed away by a consuming despair. There was no reason for him to doubt what he was hearing. Evie and goddamn Caspar Sidonis. Suddenly, so much made sense. The months and months of coolness and distance. The odd hours she kept. The trips out of town. The excuses for avoiding sex. Yesterday’s cryptic call.
“Harry, I need to talk to you”
… Sidonis!
You’re lying
, he wanted to shout.
You son of a bitch
,
you’re lying!
But he knew the man wasn’t. For months he had felt as if he was battling a persistent, inexplicable sadness. Now he understood what he was really responding to. Without another word, he left the group and walked back into room 928.
“Give me a minute, will you?” he said to the respiratory technician. “I’ll call you if there’s any problem.”
He turned off the bright overhead light, pulled a chair to Evie’s bedside, and sat down. Beside him, the ventilator whirred softly, then delivered a jet of oxygen-enriched air into Evie’s lungs, paused, then whirred again. It had been nearly ten years since they first met.
Ten years
. They had been fixed up by a mutual friend who felt certain that each was exactly what the other needed. Harry would acquire adventure, spontaneity, and some stamps in his nearly barren passport. Evie would get some desperately needed serenity and stability. She would be the sail, he the rudder. And it had worked, too. At least for a while. In the end, though, she never was able to change in the ways she had hoped to. She just … just wanted more. That’s all.
“Dammit, Evie,” he said softly, “why couldn’t you at least have talked to me? Told me what was going on? Why couldn’t you have given us a
chance?”
He reached through the bedrail and took her hand. It had been stupid and naive to believe she could become a different person—or even that she truly wanted to.
A hand settled gently on his shoulder.
“Harry, are you okay?”
Doug Atwater looked down at him with concern.
“Huh? Oh hi, Doug. Actually, no. No, I’m not okay at all.”
“What’s with Sidonis? He’s over at the nurse’s station right now, phoning the medical examiner and the police. I asked him what was going on, and he just glared at me. For a moment I thought he was going to tell me to go screw myself.”
Harry shook his head. This was a nightmare.
The medical examiner … the police
…
“Doug, I don’t know what’s going on. Evie’s aneurysm has blown. She’s not going to make it.”
“Oh, God.”
“Sidonis just announced that he’s been sleeping with her and that she was going to leave me for him. He thinks she told me so last night, but she didn’t.”
“Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry, pal.”
“Yeah. What are you doing here at this hour anyway?”
“Anneke and I were at a film. I just stopped by to pick up some papers, and the guard downstairs told me what was going on. I left Anneke in my office and came up here. Why is Sidonis calling the police?”
Harry loosened his grasp and and moved away from the bed. The thought of Caspar Sidonis touching his wife was at once saddening and repulsive.
“I was the last one in with her. He must think … actually, I don’t give a shit what he thinks.”
He left the room with Doug Atwater close behind. Transportation had just arrived to bring Evie down for her scan. Richard Cohen looked at Harry and shrugged.
“Harry, Caspar’s gone to call the ME and the police. He’s sure you gave your wife something to cause her pressure to skyrocket—some sort of pressor drug. I think maybe I should call Bob Lord and Owen, let them know what’s going on.”
Lord was the chief of the medical staff. Owen Erdman was president of the hospital.
“Call anybody you want,” Harry said. “This is ridiculous.”
“I’ll call Owen,” Atwater offered. “Is Sidonis crazy or what, Richard?”
“I don’t know about crazy,” the neurosurgeon replied, “but he’s definitely furious. Harry, he says he spoke to your wife just as you two were leaving the house last night, and that she swore she was going to tell you about the two of them.”
“She didn’t tell me anything.”
“Well, listen. We’ve got to get going. I’ll call Lord from X ray. Stick around here, will you? As soon as I’ve seen the
CT I’ll be back up to speak to you. The EEG tech is on the way in, but she lives in the Bronx.”
With the respiratory technician breathing for Evie with a rubber Ambu bag, the transportation worker guided her bed toward the elevator. Cohen and Sue Jilson followed, along with the two residents who had remained nearby at Cohen’s request.
Doug Atwater glanced over at Maura Hughes.
“Evie’s roommate,” Harry explained. “The cop’s her brother. She’s in the DTs.”
“In the DTs right now?”
“I think they’ve got her pretty heavily medicated. Doug, I just don’t believe this is happening.”
Atwater led Harry over to a molded plastic chair and motioned him to sit.
“You going to stay here in the hospital?” he asked, lowering to one knee.
“I … I guess so. At least until the studies are all back. Cohen wants my permission to have Evie donate her organs. I’m probably going to have to decide before morning.”
“Oh, shit.”
Atwater knew them as a couple about as well as anyone at the hospital did. He had been a dinner guest at their home twice, and had double-dated with them on at least two other occasions, although the last time was probably two or three years ago. He was charming, outgoing, and at times—especially when he had had a few drinks—extremely witty. More than once, Evie had spoken of fixing him up with one or another of her friends. However, Harry recalled now, as their marriage deteriorated she had stopped suggesting a fix-up, and instead frequently encouraged him to join Doug for a “boy’s night out.”
Small wonder
.
“I thought Sidonis was married,” Harry said.
“Not as long as I’ve been here. He has a kid or two somewhere. I know that much. But mostly he’s married to the OR, plus his stockbroker, his publicity agent, and of course his mirror. I had even heard rumors he was gay.”
Harry laughed bitterly.
“Guess not,” he said.
“Listen, Harry, I’d better go call Owen. I need to check on Anneke, too. Do you want me to say something to Sido—never mind. Here he comes.”
Sidonis bore down on them.
“The medical examiner’s called the lab and ordered some blood samples on Evie,” he announced triumphantly. “And there’s a Detective Dickinson on his way over. He’d like it if you could stay until he gets here.”
“I’m not going anyplace. But I have nothing to say to him or anyone else you bring in.”
“Caspar,” Doug said, “why are you doing this?”
Sidonis eyed the executive suspiciously. Clearly, he had placed Atwater among the enemy.
“You really don’t know?” he said finally. “Evie and I have been seeing each other for over a year. Last night she told Harry she was leaving him. Tonight she checks in here with perfectly normal blood pressure, and not one symptom of her aneurysm for a month. He goes into her room, she’s fine. He leaves, and not half an hour later her blood pressure’s three hundred plus and her aneurysm has blown. Wouldn’t you be suspicious?”
Atwater held the surgeon’s gaze.
“If I didn’t know Harry Corbett I might be,” he said. “But you’re way off base. And if what you say is true about you and this man’s wife, someone ought to kick the shit out of you for busting up their marriage. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to phone Owen Erdman and let him know what you’ve been up to. Harry, I’ll be back a little later. Be cool.”
“Now just a second,” Sidonis protested, hurrying after him. “If you’re calling Erdman I want to talk with him.…”
He was still railing when he and Doug Atwater disappeared around the corner of the hallway. Suddenly, the corridor was silent.
“Um … excuse me.”
“Huh?” Harry looked around. Maura Hughes’s
brother, still by her bedside, cleared his throat and self-consciously smoothed his uniform shirt. Harry noticed the three stripes on his immaculate uniform. A sergeant, then.
“I’m Tom Hughes,” he said, his speech free of all but a hint of New York. “Maura’s my sister.”
“Hi,” Harry said flatly. He felt embarrassed that the policeman had been witness to Sidonis’s outburst and disclosure. But in truth, not that much.
“I … um … I’m sorry for what you’ve been going through.”
“Thanks.”
“Maura says you’ve been very kind to her.” He looked back at where his sister lay. She was asleep and snoring somewhat unnaturally. “I guess the sedation has kicked in.”
“It would seem so.”
“Look, I don’t mean to butt in, but standing where I’ve been, it was impossible for me not to hear.”