Death on the Diagonal (11 page)

Belle smiled then shook her head in perplexity. “How do these people get our fax number, anyway?”

Rosco laughed. “Here’s how.” He took the kitchen phone from the wall and auto-dialed the
Crier
’s main operator. When a voice responded, he said, “Yes, could you please give me Annabella Graham’s fax number?” He held the phone at a distance, so Belle could hear the operator rattle off the number, then added an energetic “Thank you so much!” before hanging up.

“Hmmmm. Maybe you should consider becoming a private detective. You seem to know all the tricks.”

“That’s what they pay me for.”

Belle placed the hash in a frying pan and lit the gas range. “I hope I can get this as crispy as Kenny does down at Lawson’s. Do you think there’s a trick to it?”

“Hey, if you ruin the stuff, we still have plenty of Alpo.”

Belle chuckled, but her smile turned into a frown when Rosco’s cell phone rang a split-second later. He walked to the counter where he’d left it and looked at the caller ID. “I should get this. It’s the surgeon at Newcastle Memorial who operated on Dawn Davis. I’ve left him three messages since Friday. This is the first he’s called back.”

Belle’s “Fine” was less than enthusiastic; there was no disguising her irritation at having their peaceful Sunday interrupted twice in three minutes by communiqués from the outside world.

Rosco put the phone to his ear and walked into the living room, so Belle wouldn’t have to listen to the drone. When he returned two minutes later, his expression was no longer lighthearted and sunny. “Bad news, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to run over to the hospital and see this guy. It’ll take me an hour, maybe two by the time I get back.”

“Oh, Rosco, that’s not fair,” Belle protested. “We were going to have the entire day together.”

“I know, but Dr. Bownes is leaving for a two-week vacation tomorrow morning.”

“He can’t answer your questions over the phone?”

Rosco shook his head. “Information concerning patients is confidential. He may not tell me anything, even if I see him in person. It depends on how he wants to play it.”

“Well then let it wait two weeks. What difference does it make?” Even as she posed the question she realized that Rosco couldn’t let his case go cold for two weeks. His wasn’t a nine-to-five job and never would be. “I’m sorry,” she said as she moved close to him. “I’m just disappointed, that’s all.”

“Me, too.” He kissed her. “Here’s an idea: How about we save the hash for supper and have a late lunch out after we visit Sara? That way we can have our hash and eat it, too.”

“Har har . . .” But the attempt at levity fell short, and Belle cleaned the frying pan in silence, while Rosco slugged down the remnants of his coffee and spooned up dry granola.

“Think of it as trail mix,” she offered.

“I’m trying . . . any vanilla ice cream left?”

“Sorry. It’s chocolate chocolate chip or nothing.”

“Don’t say we lack for exotic cuisine.”

 

 

With Rosco gone, Belle slouched disconsolately into her office. Despite the abundant sunshine streaming in through the numerous windows, the glorious red leaves of the sugar maple in the garden, and the gold yellow of the neighbor’s birch tree, her attitude reflected the room’s decor rather than its colorful view: black and white, with the emphasis on black.

She examined this crossword-lover’s paradise with a baleful eye: the wood floor painted in black-and-white grids, the curtains and lamp shades with a similar theme, the captains chairs with mix-and-match canvas backs, the bookshelf crammed with foreign-language dictionaries as well as her beloved
OED
, and her equally revered 1911
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
At the moment, however, word games, derivations, anagrams, and other linguistic sleights-of-pencil seemed wholly irrelevant.

Belle opened what had once been the home’s back door, watching as the breeze rustled the russet leaves of the maple tree. After a moment, the draft caught the newly arrived fax and lifted it from the machine’s incoming tray and blew it onto the floor. She picked up the paper and glanced at it. “Argh, look at this stupid thing. It’s not even symmetrical. And the dope didn’t sign it. How am I supposed to respond to something like this? I sure can’t publish it.”

She crumpled the paper into a small ball and tossed it into the wastebasket.

1. Viper
4. Amazon feeder
7. Retreat
10. Mayday!
13. Ms. Hagen
14. Pond feature
16. Literary collection
17. Dangerous ___
18. Cards’ home
19. Boy
20. Beach Boys hit
22. Home to China
23. Chevy model
24. String instrument
25. Horse follower
26. Ray Charles hit
31. Type of movie
33. Sodium hydroxide symbol
34. Corn unit
37. America hit
41. Big ___
42. When doubled, antiaircraft fire
43. Creepy
44. Friends of Distinction hit
49. Grief
50. Crew member
51. Compass reading
52. Fleetwood Mac hit
58. Grow older
59. “Come and ___!”
60. Lassos
64. Mexican Mrs.
65. Comédie des ___
66. “We’ll ___ that bridge...”
67. That woman
68. Chicken general?
69. Passes over

1. BMW rival
2. Amos Alonzo ___
3. Bread and butter, in Rome
4. “Casablanca” character
5. Large lemon
6. Empty, like a candy machine
7. Whirled
8. Shelled out
9. Spots
10. Mexican heat?
11. Radio station sign
12. Nobel Peace Prize winner
of 1978
15. Ray Charles hit
21. Hammer and anvil
22. King topper
27. Map line; abbr.
28. Star Wars character,
Tsavong ___
29. Bass, ball, or drag followup
30. Blacksmith at times
31. Sighs of relief
32. Actor, McClure
34. Singer, Stacey or Steve
35. French friends
36. Pee Wee or Della
38. Bettors
39. Here, to Henri
40. Computer maker
45. ___ Jima
46. Chewy candy
47. Walking sticks
48. Shaw or Winkler; abbr.
52. Cut
53. Fairy tale baddie
54. Century part
55. Mr. Preminger

SUBMISSION

56. Bends
57. Pennsylvania town
61. Hawaiian staple

62. Sixth sense; abbr.
63. Draft org.

11

Rosco hadn’t set foot in Newcastle Memorial in several years, but the moment he stepped through the main entrance a flood of memories bombarded him. Back in the days when he worked homicide for NPD, his hospital visits had not been pleasant experiences. Generally, they’d involved getting statements from dying individuals—men or women who were soon to become manslaughter victims and additional city statistics. At times, the wounded person had been a young gang member, shot or stabbed by an acquaintance; in those instances, the shadow of
omertà
often cowed the victims into silence, making them unwilling to betray one of their own, even when faced with certain death. Then there were the hit-and-run victims, the unwitting prey of robberies gone south, or innocent bystanders who hadn’t a clue what had happened. More than once Rosco had stood at a bedside watching a life fade away without learning a single substantive fact that would aid a criminal investigation.

As he traversed the reception area and pushed the elevator button for the seventh floor, a slew of such details attacked him, and he forced himself to concentrate on the slip of paper in his hand rather than recall the ever-present past.
Dr. Saul Bownes,
the message read, followed by the physician’s emergency beeper number; it was the only information the hospital’s administration office had been willing to relinquish. Rosco had suggested to them—or lied, depending on whose point of view one chose—that he was investigating an insurance fraud complaint against Dawn Davis in conjunction with their institution.

The statement had sent the administrators into their own interpretation of
omertà
mixed with a dose of panic; a lack of transparency ensued that would have made any gangster proud. The hospital administration was permitted to release the surgeon’s name and beeper number, but that was the extent of their latitude in such cases. Details of the operation—anesthesia, length of stay, attending nurses, monetary charges, or out-patient treatment—were strictly confidential and would only be released to law enforcement personnel equipped with a proper warrant issued by a county judge. If Dr. Bownes opted to speak with Rosco, without a lawyer present, that was his business. Fortunately, the physician had been willing to talk, but only on his terms.

Rosco stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor and proceeded to the nurses’ station. Bownes had informed him that he could spare time for an interview while he did his rounds—and that the conversation would need to be brief.

Rosco affixed a warm smile and placed his business card on the high counter surrounding the hub of activity, but none of the personnel discussing medication protocols or peering wizardlike into computer screens took the slightest notice of him.

“I’m here to see Dr. Saul Bownes.” Rosco addressed the top of the head of the woman who was closest to him.

Without glancing away from her screen, she said, “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes.”

But instead of verifying whether or not this was true—or even looking up—she stated a peremptory, “You were supposed to pick up a visitors’ tag on the first floor. It should be displayed on your clothing where staff can see it.” Then she added a harried, “I’ll page him. You can wait in the hospitality lounge. Third door on your right.”

Rosco wasn’t certain how she’d determined his lack of official credentials without actually looking at him, but he answered, “They were all out,” picked up his card, and proceeded to the room she’d indicated. He was relieved to see that no other visitors were taking advantage of the facility’s “hospitality,” which seemed to consist of stale coffee, red “juice” in plastic single-serving containers, and an empty box of jelly doughnuts.

Saul Bownes arrived five minutes later. A thin man wearing green hospital scrubs with his name embroidered in red on the right breast pocket and Newcastle Memorial’s logo displayed on the left, he had a wiry and restive intensity that made his age difficult to fix. Thinning dark hair, a sallow complexion, permanent gray shadows beneath his eyes; Rosco decided the physician could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. Bownes didn’t offer his hand when he entered. He simply plunked himself in a chair upholstered in institutional blue and brown plaid and opened a manila folder.

“Okay, let’s make this quick,” were his sole words of greeting. “Dawn Davis, what’s the problem? My time is valuable.”

Rosco thought,
Like mine isn’t?
but didn’t voice the opinion. “As I explained on the phone, there’s been an unusual insurance claim submitted for Dawn Davis’s procedure here at the hospital.”

Before Rosco could continue Bownes said, “I signed off on that personally. That’s how I work, and I do so for this very reason. I don’t care to have people like
you
taking up my time; accusing me of insurance fraud.”

“No one’s accusing you of anything, Dr. Bownes.”

“Really? Then what do you call it? All charges for her procedure were submitted by me, through the hospital, directly to Healthy Life, Ms. Davis’s insurance carrier. All payments are then made directly to my practice or to the hospital. Explain to me how Ms. Davis could possibly be involved in any sort of
fraud,
as you people like to call it, if she isn’t involved in the financial end whatsoever? From where I sit it looks as though you people are targeting me, and to be honest, I don’t like it.”

Rosco held up his hands. “No one’s suggesting that you or the hospital has done anything irregular. I’m working for the Dartmouth Group, not Healthy Life.” Rosco smiled inside, since this was the one part of his story that was actually fairly close to the truth. “Ms. Davis had a secondary policy with us, for which she’s currently trying to seek adjustment. As you can imagine, if Healthy Life is paying for her procedure in full, then Dartmouth has no obligation to double pay.”

Bownes shook his head; the dark smudges beneath his eyes seemed to grow grayer and more weary looking. “I don’t buy that. Ms. Davis struck me as a very nice young woman. I don’t see her as the type who’d attempt what you’re describing.”

Rosco shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time a
nice
person tried something like this. Let me ask you; was she transferred to another location shortly after her procedure? I spoke with one of her relatives who tried to phone her here the day after her surgery, and he was told she’d already checked out.”

“That would be correct, yes. She was kept for observation overnight, then sent home.”

“I’m no doctor, and I know you’re pushed for hospital beds, but that seems a little rush-rush to me for a kidney transplant.”

“What, are you nuts?” Bownes barked out, nearly choking over his words. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon. Ms. Davis had arthroscopic surgery on her shoulder . . . to repair a damaged rotator cuff. I wouldn’t try to replace a kidney any more than I’d try to replace the carburetor on my Porsche. Where’d you get this kidney business?”