Probably much more. But even so, a huge piece had fallen into place in the puzzle of Toby Nelms. Zack was just finishing writing a synopsis of the interrogation when the door to his waiting room opened and closed.
'I'm here,' he called out. 'What a coincidence. So am I' Suzanne appeared at his office door, wearing a lab coat over an ivory blouse and ankle-length, madras skirt. 'Got a minute? ' she asked. 'For you?
Years.' He set the Tarberry notes in Toby Nelms's folder and pushed it to one side of the desk. 'Trouble with Annie?
'
'No, no. Nothing like that. She's doing amazingly well. I think Sam Christian's going to do her hip tomorrow.'
'Excellent. I'm so pissed off about what's happened to her. Every time I think about what Don Norman did, I want to hunt him down and flatten that pudgy little nose of his.'
'Zack, I'm as upset as you are about Annie, but I don't see how you can lay all the blame on Don. He didn't do anything with malicious intent.'
'That depends on your definition of malicious. He was sedating her so that she wouldn't object to being sent to a nursing home, so that Ultramed could continue to rake in profits from her care. If that's not malicious, I don't know what is.'
'Hey, easy does it, okay?'
'What do you mean?'
'that's your opinion. But it happens not to be everyone's. Couldn't YOU just let up on this place a bit?'
'Huh?'
'Zack, Frank just left my office.'
'So, that's where he's been. I've been trying to reach him.'
'He's really upset with you.'
'I know. Is that why he went to see you?'
'As a matter of fact, it is. He… he wanted me to talk to you-to ask you to let up on your criticism of this place.'
'He could have come and asked me himself.'
'He says he tried.'
'He was drunk. He threatened me. That's not what I would call the Optimal approach… So, now he's chosen to involve you. I can't believe this place.'
'Zachary, I didn't come up here to pick a fight. I just wanted to do what I could to smooth things over between you two. I owe Frank a lot. I thought you understood that from all I told you of what happened to me.'
'Sorry, ' Zack mumbled. 'If I'm touchy, I guess it's that I just wish things were different between me and Frank.'
'Well?'
'Suzanne, I can't help it if Frank thinks it's my fault that the Judge is pushing the board of trustees to buy back the hospital from Ultramed.'
It was clearly the first she had heard of that development. 'My God, Zack, you can't let him do that.'
'First of all, ' he said.
'I have no more control over that man than Frank or anybody else does.
And second, why not?'
'Well… well because, ' she stammered. 'If the board threw Ultramed out, Frank would be ruined.'
'Nonsense. He knows his job. He could do it just as well for a community corporation as he could for an operation like Ultramed. Better, probably. Suzanne, listen to me. Something's wrong around here.
Something's terribly wrong.'
'Dammit, Zachary, what is the matter with you? Don't you have regard for anyone but yourself? I come here to ask you to let up on a man who is partly responsible for saving my career, to say nothing of his being your brother, and all you can do is… is tear down his hospital.'
'It's not his hospital. Look, I don't want to get into a fight. I have too much on my mind.'
'Like what?'
Every instinct was clamoring for him to change the subject, to keep his theories to himself-at least as long as they were no more than that. He stared down at his hands. Darryl Tarberry's revelations about Jason Mainwaring were too fresh in his mind. 'Suzanne, ' he said slowly. 'I have reason-good reason-to believe that human experimentation is being conducted at this hospital.'
'Now that is the wildest-'
'And, ' he cut in, 'I have just as much reason to believe that you might have been one of the subjects.'
Suzanne listened in wide-eyed disbelief as he recounted his experiences with Toby Nelms and Jack Pearl, his brief study of the gallbladder surgery performed by Mainwaring and Greg Ormesby, and finally, his conversation with Tarberry. 'Apparently, a woman died of an anaphylactic reaction to a local anesthe ic she received in Mainwaring's office.
Mainwaring claimed it was Xylocaine, but there was plenty of documentation that the woman had received that drug on numerous occasions with no problems. A nurse of his, who was very upset with what happened, charged that Mainwaring had been testing something out that wasn't Xylocaine. Although investigators could never prove that was true, they did apparently discover that our friend Jason was part owner of a pharmaceutical house somewhere in the South.'
'This is crazy!' Suzanne said. 'Did that man you talked to at Hopkins happen to know what company this might have been?'
Te couldn't remember.' He… couldn't… remember… Zack, this is exactly the sort of thing Frank was protesting. These are terrible, disruptive charges you're making on very little hard evidence.'
'I'm not making any charges, ' he said, feeling his composure beginning to slip. 'I'm sharing a disturbing theory with a friend whose clinical judgment I value and trust. I would think you'd be frantic at the thought that someone might have been fooling around with your body while you were asleep.'
'Well, I'm not frantic, I'm worried-about you. Zack, you've only been here a couple of weeks.
In that time, you've clashed with Wil Marshfield, had words with Jason, fought with Don Norman, upset your brother, fostered a move to buy back the hospital, and now, on nothing more than the flimsiest circumstantial evidence, you're accusing the finest surgeon and anesthesiologist on the staff of a terrible crime.'
Zack pushed back his chair. 'Suzanne, listen to ine-'
'No, you listen. How do you explain the fact that there hasn't been one other case like Toby Nelins's?'
'I… I don't know. Maybe it's a rare complication of whatever it is they're using. Maybe people have had episodes like his but they've happened in other places, or haven't been brought to a doctor's attention. Maybe there's some sort of sensory trigger involved that Just doesn't happen to everyone. You told me yourself that you hadn't been feeling right since your operation.'
'I've been tired. That's a far cry from having a psychotic seizure.'
'What about that episode in the field?'
'What are you talking about?'
'You went blank.'
'I did nothing of the sort.'
'You did. It was as if someone threw a switch, and all of a sudden you weren't there.'
'Zack, this is crazy. You've got to back off. You've hit this place like an earthquake.'
'Suzanne, that child is dying.'
'Maybe so. But it's not from something Jason or Jack Pearl did to him.
One other case, Zachary. Just find me one other case like Toby Nelms and I'll listen. Even then I may not believe you, but I'll listen. In the meantime, I think you owe your brother, and all the rest of us for that matter, a little breathing room.' She stood up. 'Back off, Zack. Please.
Do what you can to keep your father from destroying what your brother has worked so hard to build, and give us all a rest.' She snatched up her handbag and, without waiting for a response, raced from the office.
For a time, Zack sat numbly, staring out the window at the waning afternoon. A trigger, or a sequence of triggers. Perhaps that was the key. Suzanne had no recollection of the episode at the Meadows during their picnic,
