“True, but it validates our feelings, and sometimes that’s more important.” She looked at him, as if gauging his reaction to see if he was grasping what she was saying. “For example, instead of saying ‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ you could say ‘I know you’re scared, this is a very frightening thing to deal with. I’ll be there for you, don’t worry.’”
Chandler stared off at the wall for a moment. “I did kind of the opposite, didn’t I?”
“She probably felt as if you were dismissing her fears as just hysterical ranting.”
“But that wasn’t my intention.”
“Don’t tell me, tell her.”
TRYING TO PUT DENISE out of his mind for a few moments proved difficult for Chandler. He stopped in at Food & More, the market where Madison and Harding had their public argument, to see if he could locate the checkout employee who was working the night the altercation occurred.
Madison had been able to give him only a loose description of the young man, but he hoped that it would be enough. With the store manager off, he was able to assemble only a partial list of employees fitting the checker’s description. To determine which ones on his list had worked the night in question, he would have to wait until the manager returned. Chandler said he would stop by tomorrow.
On his way back to his car, he phoned the crime lab in New York. He made the mistake of asking Valerie, Hennessy’s assistant, how the office was holding up. Not so well, she responded, and proceeded to tell him about the leaky roof and the tainted evidence that resulted from the water damage. “The division head blamed maintenance…which blamed scheduling and supply. But no matter whose fault it was, the evidence was ruined, and they’re gonna have to let Bobby Lee Walker go free. You can imagine what’s going on here,” she said. “Big political mess for the mayor, letting a murderer go free, Ryan, I’m telling you. Made him look bad. He was real pissed off.”
“So let me guess,” Chandler said. “Hennessy’s having a fit.”
“The director came down on him this morning. So now the captain’s walking around saying ‘I’ll wring Chandler’s neck when he gets back.’ That’s a direct quote, Ryan. But I kind of spared you all the cursing.”
“How did I get involved in this? I’m not even there.”
“He was babbling up a storm, but he said something about if you were here, the evidence already would’ve been evaluated and logged, reported on, and secured in the storage room, long before the roof leak.”
“Let me talk to him, Valerie.”
“You crazy? He hasn’t gotten over it yet. Maybe you should wait until things die down a bit.”
“I’m a big boy, Valerie. I can take it.”
A moment later, Hennessy picked up the line and launched into a continuous sea of expletives; Chandler held the phone away from his ear until he detected Hennessy’s need to take a breath.
“I’m going to be coming home in a few days,” he managed to get in.
“You understand what I’m saying? I want you back here now!”
“Fine, then beam me over. Otherwise; you’ll have to wait till I arrive on the flight I’ve got scheduled for Tuesday.”
“Chandler — you’re in deep shit. I’ll own your ass when you get back.”
“Sorry, chief, my wife’s already laid claim to that part of my anatomy.” Chandler held the phone away from his ear until Hennessy was done shouting.
“Chief,” Chandler said, trying to get a word in so that he could end the conversation. “Chief, I’ve got to go.”
“It’s captain!”
“If you want me to be on that plane, I need to get off the phone. I have leads to follow up on before I leave.”
Hennessy made some comment about Chandler caring more about his case out West than he did about those that he was being paid to work on by the City of New York.
Chandler agreed, not listening to what Hennessy was saying, and hung up. It was then that he realized that Valerie was right, he never should have bothered. Then again, this confrontation with Hennessy was no different than any other conversation they’d had over the years.
CHAPTER 43
MAURICE MATHER WAS A relative newcomer to television news reporting, with only three years of on-the-job training to his credit. But eagerness was molded into his tanned face. And while serving as a copy editor, he had learned aggressiveness from his mentor. A good reporter does not always take “no” for an answer: he does what’s necessary to obtain the story he’s after.
A precondition for this interview with hospital administrator John Stevens, however, was that it would have to be held off-camera. While this obviously did not present a problem for a newspaper reporter, it strained the patience of their television counterparts, who relied on the visual aspect of their presentation as much as the verbal information they conveyed.
“This is Tom Ingle, a copy editor and trainee at the station,” Mather said, introducing his assistant, a curly-haired twenty-five-year-old. Ingle and Stevens nodded at each other.
“So what do you want to know?” Stevens asked.
“I want to know why Phil Madison was kicked out of your hospital.”
“Dr. Madison was not kicked out. His privileges were temporarily suspended.”
“Why?”
Stevens shifted in his seat. “It was an upper-level management decision.”
“Does it have anything to do with the rape charges against him?”
“Rape charges?” Stevens sat forward in his chair. “What are you talking about?”
“The rape charges,” Mather said again, as if repeating it would stimulate Stevens’s memory. “Say two or three months ago. The charges he tried to sweep under the rug by paying off the woman who brought the complaint.”
Stevens was silent for a moment, staring off at the wall behind the reporters.
“Dr. Stevens,” Mather said. “Does it or does it not have to do with those rape charges?”
He cleared his throat. “I have no comment, other than to say that this is an unrelated matter.”
“Then this is solely a means of distancing
