'I never thought of her as attention-seeking.'
'Didn't you tell me she was some big radical in the old days, Chairman of the interns' union?'
'Sure, but she seemed sincere. Idealistic.'
'Maybe. But look at it this way: Treating Cassie puts her smack at the center of things, and the sicker the kid is, the more Stephanie gets the spotlight. Playing rescuer, big hero, rushing over to the Emergency Room and taking charge. The fact that Cassie's a big shot's kid makes it even tastier, from that standpoint. And these sudden shifts she's making-Munchausen one day, pancreatic disease the next, then back to Munchausen. Doesn't that have a hysterical feeling to it?
Your goddam waltz?'
I digested all that.
'Maybe there's a reason the kid goes nuts when she sees her, Alex.'
'But the same logic that applies to Vicki applies to her,' I said.
'Until this last seizure, all of Cassie's problems began at home. How could Stephanie have been involved?'
'Has she ever been out to the home?'
'Just early on-once or twice, setting up the sleep monitor.'
'Okay, what about this? The first problems the kid had were real-the croup, or whatever. Steph treated them and found out being doctor to the chairman of the board's grandchild was a kick.
Power trip-you yourself said she plans on being head of the department.'
'If that was her goal, curing Cassie would have made her look a lot better.'
'The parents haven't dropped her yet, have they?'
'No. They think she's great.'
'There you go. She gets them to depend on her, and tinkers with Cassie-best of both worlds. And you yourself told me Cassie gets sick soon after appointments. What if that's because Stephanie's doing something to her-dosing her up during a checkup and sending her home like a medical time bomb?'
'What could she have done with Cindy right there in the exam room?'
'How do you know she was there?'
'Because she never leaves Cassie's side. And some of those medical visits were with other doctors specialists, not Stephanie.'
'Do you know for a fact that Stephanie didn't also see the kid the same day the specialists did?'
'No. I guess I could look at the outpatient chart and find out.'
'If she even charted it. It could have been something subtlechecking the kid's throat and the tongue depressor's coated with something.
Whatever, it's something to consider, right?'
'Doctor sends baby home with more than a lollipop? That's pretty obscene.'
Any worse than a mother poisoning her own child? The other thing you might want to think of, in terms of her motivation, is revenge: She hates Grandpa because of what he's doing to the hospital, so she gets to him through Cassie.'
'Sounds like you've been doing a lot of thinking.'
'Evil mind, Alex. They used to pay me for it. Actually, what got me going was talking to Rick. He'd heard of Munchausen-the adult type.
Said he'd seen nurses and doctors with those tendencies.
