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Did the kids really believe Hugh was at his cabin? Or were they lying?
The key person here was Marlinchen. She was the only person in the equation who’d sought help. For that very reason, paradoxically, I wasn’t going to call Marlinchen He
Then I realized something else. My left ear was still hurting, and it wasn’t the outer shell, sore from having a receiver pressed against it. This was more of a throb, deeper, in the ear canal itself. It was actually fairly painful.
I’m not real happy with the way your left ear looks, Cisco had said. Oh, great. Who’d have predicted this guy would be a real, competent physician?
I’d have to write my report on Cisco soon. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for him. I didn’t know how he’d gotten into whatever desperate situation made him see patients in a public high-rise, but he was clearly a highly intelligent person. He was smart enough to know that if he wanted to break the law, he’d go to jail like anyone else.
Still, I wondered how long a sentence he’d get.
6
Two days later, the pain in my ear was worse, but I kept it in abeyance with aspirin. The cold had passed, I told myself, so this would pass too. I tried to ignore the fact that Cisco had suggested otherwise, warning that I might need an antibiotic prescription.
Stop worrying about his goddamned advice, I thought. This will go away on its own, most things do. Doctors can’t admit that, because if they did, they’d be out of a job.
But the day after that, my ear was refusing to be ignored. The aspirin I’d taken had worn off in the night, and when I woke, my eardrum pulsed like a second, painful heartbeat. I lifted myself to a sitting position very slowly. I didn’t want to cause even the smallest rise in blood pressure that might make the throbbing worse.
When I was ready, I went to the bathroom. My face was a study in contrast, pale with spots of high, febrile color. I swallowed the last three aspirin and pitched the bottle into the trash. Come on, this is probably the worst of it. One more day and you’ll turn a corner, I told myself.
I took a fifteen-minute shower with the door and window tightly closed, inhaling steam. After that, and a cup of tea and two slices of toast, the aspirin started to kick in. I felt marginally better, good enough to get dressed and go out.
I suppose some people would think it strange that someone with a blistering earache and a fever wouldn’t call in sick, but in fact, I went in early. I didn’t want to sit around the house with nothing to think about but how much my ear hurt and how long it might take to heal if I kept refusing to see a doctor. I wanted the distraction of work, and if my shift was still hours away, then Hugh He
“Sarah.” Tyesha looked up in mild surprise from her desk. “I was just about to call you. Prewitt wanted you to come in a little early today. Not this early, though. Around three-thirty, he said.”
“That’s fine.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my good ear. “Did he say why?”
Tyesha shook her head. “Sorry, he didn’t.”
No one else commented on my presence downtown at midday. I didn’t socialize, just drank tea and looked at the official data on Hugh He
911 Recap, where they can look up calls dating back for years, was my last stop, and required an in-person visit.
The He
Even as I gave the clerk the He
“We sent an ambulance out there three weeks ago,” the young clerk told me.
“You did?” I said, startled. It never pays to assume. “What for?”
He read from the brief narrative. “Possible brain attack, male 43 years old, collapsed and nonresponsive,” he read. “He went to HCMC.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“That’s all I know,” he said.
“Did you find any other calls to that address?”
“No,” he said. “Just the one.”
“Thanks for your help,” I said. Then I added, “Brain attack?” The terminology wasn’t familiar.
“In other words, stroke.”
At He
“Not here,” the man said.
“Was he discharged, or…” I didn’t want to use the word died. “What was the resolution of his treatment here?”
“I don’t have that information,” he said. “You’d need to go to Medical Records.”
The elevator I rode down in was outsized, made to handle wheelchairs and stretchers. At the records office, a young red-haired woman was behind the computer. I laid my shield on the counter for her to see. “I need to know where a patient named Hugh He
“Sorry,” she said. “Badge or no badge, I can’t give out patient information without a subpoena.”
“They brought him in on a stroke,” I said. “If he died here, I need to know that.”
She shook her head, wordlessly apologizing.
I sighed, or tried to. My lungs felt as though they’d shrunk to a child’s size, and I couldn’t get a full breath.
Maybe I sounded more exasperated than I realized, or looked more pathetic. The clerk’s hands tapped against her keyboard. I took it for a dismissal- she was getting back to work, from what I could see- but she said, “You know, Park Christian is an excellent rehab facility for stroke patients.” Her smile was guileless.
“Is it?” I said, realizing what she was really telling me. “Thank you very much.”
Park Christian Hospital was outside Mi
“Can I help you?” the receptionist said.
“I’d like to see Hugh He
I expected a runaround. You’re not on the visitors’ list, or some similar refusal. Instead the woman said, “I’ll have Freddy take you back.”
I almost said, You will? I’d just wanted to confirm where Hugh He