Collingswood could occasionally look as if she’d been on a bender. Her skin was pale in the unflattering light, her face drawn, her eyes sunken and bloodshot. I’d heard they put doctors through hell just to see if they can take it. I guess it’s true. No wonder so many of them are jerks; like being a freaking Marine or something.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. It would have been a demand if she’d had the energy.
“Looking for you,” I said, walking around the table and taking a seat across from her. She frowned, the motion of her jaw pulling lines on her skin. Her eyes darkened, and she shook her head slightly.
“Mr.… what was your name again?”
“Harry.”
“Well, Mr. Harry, I’m thirty-three hours into a seventy-two hour pull. I’m trying to get a little time alone because tonight’s Friday night, and sometime around ten thirty this evening we expect to see some casualties.”
“I don’t know how you docs do this stuff,” I said. “I didn’t sleep last night, and I feel like somebody stuffed me in a microwave and punched all the buttons at once.”
She almost smiled, but the weight of her lips was too heavy a burden to manage. “Right now, Mr. Harry, I don’t know how we manage either. But I certainly don’t have time to fool with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I thought for a second. Even if she killed Fletcher, and I was beginning to think she had just enough inner strength to do it, I sympathized with her. But I needed to push.
“Tell me about you and Conrad Fletcher.”
The magazine fell from her hands, slid down her lap, and onto the floor. “What makes you think there’s anything to tell?”
“C’mon, Jane. I like you. You’re bright, determined, dedicated. And not to sound too much like a sexist, you’re damnably attractive. Trust me, I know these things.”
This time, she did smile. “You can flatter me all you like. There’s nothing to tell.”
“I know he was harassing you. I know he wanted to sleep with you. And I know he was threatening your position here at the hospital.”
She blanched. “How did you-”
“And I know that Albert Zitin’s in love with you. And I know he wanted to protect you from Fletcher. What I don’t know is how much he protected you. Or, for that matter, did you need protecting at all? Frankly, you look like you can pretty well take care of yourself.”
“I can’t believe you’d think-”
“Okay, so I don’t know how medical school works, and I don’t know how doctors become doctors, at least not every little step of the way. But I do know that supervisors in residencies have a lot of stroke, and a recommendation from a doctor, who’s a respected member of the staff as well as chief of something or other, that you get kicked out of a program will-”
“Get you kicked out of the program.” She finished the sentence for me, then sighed exhaustedly. She folded her arms on the table in front of her and nestled her head in the crooks of her arms. Her black hair splayed out over the table, long and straight. I resisted the urge to pat her on the head.
“And sooner or later, if they haven’t already, the Metro detectives will learn what’s been going on. And when they do, they’ll ask questions you won’t have any option about answering.”
She leaned back in the chair. She seemed, more than anything else, weary, beyond feeling, beyond pain, even, perhaps, beyond anguish.
“And they will find out, won’t they?” she whispered, so low I could barely hear her.
“Yes.”
“This is one of the largest university hospital medical center complexes in this part of the country, and the way gossip travels, you’d think it was a neighborhood bridge group.”
“Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
“Not so funny. Not when you think about it,” she sighed. She looked off toward the other two sleeping doctors. “I used to love being a doctor until I came down here and met him. Now, I think he may have ruined it all for me.”
“Let me get you some more coffee,” I offered.
She smiled at me, pushed her cup forward on the table. “Thanks. Black, one sugar.”
I fixed myself a cup as well and brought them back to the table. We both needed help staying awake.
“I went to medical school down in Memphis, at UT. I wanted to be a chest cutter-thoracic surgeon, you know. The residency here was my perfect chance.
“Then I met Fletcher. Good old Dr. Fletcher, who decided that his incredibly gifted hands could best be used pawing anything that would stand still for him. When I met him he was very nice to me. Supportive, attentive, friendly. Not at all like he usually was with students. Surgery’s like anything else, you know. It’s not perfect. Mistakes happen, but you correct the mistakes and learn from them.”
She paused and sipped the coffee. “I’m rambling, I know. I’m too tired to think straight.”
“It’s okay. Do the best you can,” I said.
“Conrad Fletcher asked me out on a date about six weeks after we met. At the time, I didn’t even know he was married. I went to dinner with him, but that’s all. I’ve spent my whole adult life preparing to be a doctor. I’m human; I have the same needs as everyone else. What I don’t have is time for relationships. Someday maybe, but not now.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
“So when it became clear that Fletch the Lech wanted more, I put a stop to it quickly. There was no choice; it had to be that way.”
“What happened after that?”
“As you can guess, the situation changed. Suddenly, the minor mistakes were huge screwups. He got cold, angry, resentful that I’d rejected him. Every day, it seemed, he’d find some new reason to criticize me.”
Jane Collingswood, even in her fatigue and discomfort at relating what could not have been a pleasant story, sat with an air of propriety and dignity. It made me like her even more, which made me even more suspicious. Just the cynic in me, I guess.
“Eventually, we had a big blowup right in front of a group of fourth-year students. He called me incompetent, threatened to bust me out of the program. Wanted to know if I’d taken my medical training at Auschwitz.”
“He said that to you?”
“In front of patients, nurses, and students. And yelled it, not said it. That’s when Albert got into it. Albert’s very sweet, very protective of me. He said no one had to take that kind of abuse and he wasn’t going to watch Fletcher hand it out. He said he’d file a complaint with the dean of the medical school, go all the way to the university president if he had to.”
“What did Fletcher say?”
“He said that if Albert didn’t watch himself, he’d wind up a salesman for a pharmaceutical firm just like me.”
I rubbed the sides of my forehead with my hands. Jeez, Conrad had a real style with people. “When was this?”
She paused, her lips tightening almost unconsciously. When I sensed her hesitation, I looked up. Her tired eyes were strained, even darker than before. “The day before he was killed.”
“So the day before Conrad was killed, you and Albert Zitin had a public blowup with him. And in this blowup, everybody wound up threatening everybody. I’m surprised the police haven’t already questioned you.”
She picked up her coffee cup and drained the last inch. “They have, Mr. Harry,” she said, placing the cup in front of her. “They have. Only no one really knows why it all happened. You’re the first one I’ve told.”
I looked at her closely. “Are you in love with Albert Zitin?”
She smiled, looked down almost shyly. “Albert’s very sweet, and he cares deeply for me. In my own way, I care very much for him. But am I in love with him?” She stood up, pushing the chair behind her. “I don’t know.”
