“How long did this go on with Eberhardt?” he asks.
“For a year after I got out of the hospital. Then Allan came along and told me I should stay away from him, that he wasn’t good for me, he wasn’t telling me the truth.”
“Allan is your husband?”
“My helper.” A dreamy smile invades the tears. “My dear friend.”
“Did Dr. Eberhardt write prescriptions?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Where did you get the prescriptions filled?”
“Bay Pharmacy on Mass Ave.”
“Great.”
Walker says, “I‘ll check it out,” and makes a note.
“Were you addicted?” I ask. “Meaning that you couldn’t stop taking the pills if you wanted to?”
“Yes.”
I fix her right in the eyes. “Then how did you stop?”
“Allan helped me. That’s what he was there for.”
“Claudia, why do you think Dr. Eberhardt prescribed these drugs if he knew they could be dangerous?”
“I was depressed. My injuries weren’t healing. Maybe he thought I would make trouble for him.” She stands. “I’d better get the baby home.”
“It’s getting cold,” Walker agrees, a Boston euphemism for the onset of hypothermia.
“We’ll be coming back in a few weeks to take your deposition,” I tell her, walking toward the gate on numb wet stubs of feet. “And then we might ask you to fly to California at government expense to testify against Dr. Eberhardt. Would you agree to that?”
“The angry woman inside me can’t wait to get on the airplane,” Claudia says with a smile.
I turn off the tape recorder and smile back. “Bring her along.”
• • •
Walker and I are running for a phone booth in Harvard Square. Because they have made the Square a pedestrian mall and closed it to traffic, our cars are double-parked three blocks away. Hordes of students and homeless people seem intent on getting in our way. My plane leaves in a matter of hours and I still need to see Eberhardt’s former supervisor at the hospital.
“Too risky,” Walker is huffing. “Why I ruled it out in the first place. He’ll just get on the horn and tell your boy you’re onto him.”
“I’ll take the chance.”
“It’s foolish when we’ve got that Van Hoven gal all sewn up.”
“She’s not sewn up until we confirm her story.”
“Let’s get out to the airport, get something to eat.” Walker is plainly ready to quit. After all, it is past noon and we haven’t had our first Bloody Mary of the day.
A middle-aged woman has set down a canvas tote that says Save the Trees in front of a pay phone. I grab the receiver off the hook before she can remove her gloves, fiercely turning on Walker at the same time: “I’ve got to come back with something hard or they’ll skin me alive, do you understand?”
Dr. Alfred Narayan, chief of staff of orthopedics, will be glad to speak with us but is scheduled for surgery in forty-five minutes. No problem. We dash back to our cars and Wild Bill ably demonstrates how he got his name, leading me with red bubble flashing on a wild charge down Memorial Drive, across the Boston University bridge to Longwood Avenue. I have noticed horseshoe tracks embedded in the sidewalks of Boston at various spots where Paul Revere passed on his famous ride; well, they should have tire tracks to commemorate ours.
Dr. Narayan is waiting for us at the nurses’ station of the cardiac care unit: tall, aquiline, black curly hair cropped close, warm brown eyes, and pale brown skin. He is wearing a red silk tie beneath the starched white lab coat. The accent is not Indian but educated Oxford and he smells like lilacs during a wet English spring.
“This must be a serious business to send federal agents,” he says over his shoulder, leading us past gurneys and IV stands to the end of a hall.
There is no time for pleasantries.
“When Dr. Eberhardt was on staff, did he prescribe a lot of drugs?”
“Only what was called for.”
“Did he ever overprescribe?”
“Of course not.”
Walker: “Did you notice any drugs missing during the time he was employed?”
“No. We’ve never had a problem.”
The doctor looks back and forth at us, astonished by this line of questioning. Walker gives me a lugubrious shrug and turns toward the window where an electric trolley is passing beneath empty trees.
“Do you recall a patient named Claudia Van Hoven?” Dr. Narayan shakes his elegant head. “Three years ago,” I prompt anxiously, “she was hit by a car. Dr. Eberhardt took care of her.”
“I can pull the record.”
“That would be terrific.”
“You seem distressed,” he says with kindness. “Why not just ask me what you really wish to know?”
What I really wish to know is whether Dr. Narayan will leave his wife and fourteen children and live with me in South Kensington, but instead: “Was there anything in Randall Eberhardt’s behavior to lead you to believe he might have been exploiting patients?”
“ ‘Exploiting’ them?”
“Overprescribing drugs. Getting them hooked. Especially women. Making them dependent on him as a doctor.”
“Completely absurd.”
“Why? Health care fraud is a multibillion-dollar industry.”
“Randall Eberhardt is a talented, dedicated physician, sought after and respected. His work is impeccable, I’ll vouch for it personally. If you don’t believe me, have one of your own experts evaluate his charts.”
“Did he have any financial problems?”
“My God, the man comes from old Cambridge money. I can’t imagine it, no.”
Walker, seeing that I’m coming up empty and eager to get to the airport bar: “Thanks, doctor. We have a plane to catch.”
Desperate now: “What about his marriage?”
We are walking back down the corridor. Some poor person with rolling eyes is wheeled past us, wired and tubed.
“His wife, Claire, was a cardiac nurse on this ward. Their liaison was certainly the talk of the town at the time, but beyond that I’m out of my depth. Look — I’m being paged.” He calls to one of the RNs in green scrubs working a computer at the nurses’ station, “Kathy Donovan! Come talk to these people.”
Kathy Donovan sticks a pencil behind her ear and gets off the stool. She is what you would politely call “ample,” big bosom, big behind, walks like a Marine.
“Kathy knew Randall and Claire Eberhardt very well. Don’t hesitate if there’s anything else I can do.” Narayan shakes hands briskly and is off.
“How do you know the Eberhardts?”
“Claire and I grew up on the same block, two houses apart,” says Kathy Donovan in a husky voice. The Boston accent is blunt and unapologetic—“Claih,” “apaht.” “I was a bridesmaid at her wedding. Who are you?”
“FBI.”
She laughs uneasily. “What’d they do? Not pay their taxes?”
“Routine check,” Walker answers, baring his yellow teeth with a phony smile. He is really suffering from withdrawal now.
“We’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m on ‘til four. I could meet you after.”
That means I will miss my plane and have to catch a later flight or spend another night in Boston, neither of
