The Last Surgeon

The van would be significantly late for the last two scheduled stops of the evening, but their patients would probably be waiting.

With no particular place to go, Nick’s three students, Thompson, McBean, and Riddick, sprayed and wiped down the interior of the Fleetwood while Nick and Junie worked their way through the patients who had chosen to remain in the bus stop waiting room. Outside, the rain had finally begun to taper off, and inside, the tension generated by MacCandliss, Fielding, and Campbell had begun to dissipate. Lost in the pleasure of taking care of patients, Nick felt the unique, almost indescribable rhythm of the van settle back in. Finally, with the last of the cases tended to, and Junie readying the exam room for the trip across town, he came up to the front and sat down with his class.

“If we had tuition, I’d offer to refund it,” he said, pouring himself a mug of coffee.

“If we had tuition, I’d double it,” McBean said. “It was worth the price of admission just to watch that jerk try and shake you down.”

“Don’t ever underestimate MacCandliss; people who do end up with fang marks on their butts.”

“No need to tell me. I know the man from way back.”

Nick felt his interest immediately perk up. He knew that MacCandliss had not been the one who rejected McBean’s request for increased benefits.

“What do you mean, Matthew?”

“I had a buddy named Ferris-Manny Ferris. You might have run into him.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m a little surprised because he had-has-PTSD like the rest of us. MacCandliss rejected his petition for an increase in his benefits. Ol’ Manny was depressed in the best of times. The ruling sent him onto the street and into the bottle. He went from a little room to a flophouse, and finally to a cardboard village. I used to visit him there from time to time. Then one day, after a couple of months had passed, I stopped by. The guys told me Manny was a new man. He had cut way back on his drinking and left the village. Kept talking about how the Marines had called him back and were planning to activate him for some sort of top-secret covert mission. Then he vanished.”

Top-secret covert mission.

The words hit like a missile. Umberto had been sitting right there at that table when he said them to Nick. He was a man reborn, his countenance beaming.

I’ve been called back by the Marines for a top-secret covert mission.

That’s what he said. Maybe those exact words.

Not long after that, like Manny Ferris, he disappeared.

“Matthew,” Nick said, “has Manny resurfaced since then?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know for sure, except that once, maybe a couple of years ago, one of the guys said that Manny was back on the street. I’m embarrassed that I never tried to find him, but for me life had changed. First I managed to get a job, then I met a terrific woman and we got a place together. Then I got into that eye therapy for my PTSD. I just sort of let Manny slide.”

“Listen, don’t be so hard on yourself. Life is all about living.”

“I suppose.”

“So tell me, how long has it been since you actually saw him?”

“Manny? A while. Let me think.”

Four years, Nick was thinking. It’s been four years.

“I know when,” McBean said. “It was right after I got the job at the body shop. Four years. Give or take a couple of months, it was four years ago.”

CHAPTER 8

“The police ruled it a suicide. But could it have been murder? Hello, all you Charlotte Night Owls. You’re tuned in to WMEW, 82.5 FM, home of the Rick Clemmons show, starring me, Rick Clemmons.” The rotund DJ, draped in an orange-and-white Hawaiian shirt, wearing loose-fitting cargo shorts and a straw cowboy hat, pressed a yellow button on the eight-channel mixing board, cuing his show’s signature heavy-metal guitar theme song. “For those of you just joining us, our in-studio guest this morning is Jillian Coates, from… Virginia?”

“That’s right. Arlington.”

“Jillian… do you go by Jill or Jillian?”

“Jillian… with a J.”

“Jillian with a J is a photographer and the sister of Belle Coates, the Charlotte resident and nurse at the Central Charlotte Medical Center who died three weeks ago in an apparent suicide from a drug overdose.”

“Nurse, Rick. I’m a nurse just like my sister. I just do photography as a hobby. Once in a while I sell a piece or have a show, but-”

“Yes. Well, the police called the death of Belle Coates an open-and-shut case. Our guest this morning, a nurse currently working at…?”

“Shelby Stone Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.”

“… Shelby Stone Memorial Hospital, isn’t so sure. Separating fact from fiction is what the Rick Clemmons Show is all about, and this juicy tale has more twists to it than a Twizzler. Bogus suicide? Botched investigation? Delusional sister? Psychic connection? You be the judge. But you know that Rick Clemmons always gets to the truth. So remember, our phone lines are open. Call anytime, boys and girls. Let’s get to the bottom of this thing!”

Jillian balled her fists and reminded herself that media exposure was what she was after. You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas, her mother always said.

The weeks since Belle’s death had been a living hell. With one terrible call from the Charlotte police, Jillian’s life had come to an abrupt stop, and then made a sharp right-angle turn. Nothing would ever be the same. Not an hour passed that she didn’t think about her younger sister and imagine what the final minutes of her existence must have been like. It made no sense that Belle, though hurt by her decision to break things off with the philandering jerk she was close to marrying, would be despondent enough to take her own life. She was all about adventure, discovery, and a love of people. Even in the infrequent troublesome times of her life, she had never even hinted at suicide.

Jillian was the volatile, eccentric one-the lone eagle with the spontaneity, the artist’s eye, and the unpredictable temper. Belle was a warm breeze-a zephyr, making everyone’s life she touched feel better.

You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Who in the hell could have done this to her?

When Jillian agreed to come to Charlotte for the radio show, Rick Clemmons’s producer made it clear that the host, though genuinely caring, made his living by being outspoken and feeding the insatiable schadenfreude appetite of his audience. But at this instant, having to endure the man, she wished that he could know exactly what it felt like to lose somebody whom he loved as much as she did Belle. She wanted him to feel his stomach knot up at seeing his loved one’s photograph-to endure a sadness so profound it threatened to stop his breathing.

Sadly, out of more than a hundred requests she had made to local, regional, and national media outlets, Rick Clemmons was the only broadcaster who agreed to air her story. Like it or not, she had to play by his rules. As desperate as she was, she probably still shouldn’t have come. But she had to do something. There was no way she could just turn and walk away. This was her sister… her best friend. Somebody, someplace, had to know something. What else could she do but keep looking, even if it meant having to deal with a bottom-feeder like Rick Clemmons?

Clemmons pressed Mute on his mixing board, then turned to her and asked, “You ready to keep going, little lady?”

“I am,” Jillian said, adjusting her headphones.

“We gotta share a mic, remember. The AKG is on the fritz. Means you gotta lean in real close, now.”

His gaze traveled downward and Jillian could feel him unbutton her blouse with his eyes. She was used to