Harvest

'It's part of the same pattern of harassment! The lawsuits. The

HARVEST

bloody organs in her car. And now this.'

'This is entirely different, Dr. Hodell. This is a dead patient.' Parr looked at Abby. 'Dr. DiMatteo, why don't you just tell us the truth and make things easier for all of us?'

A confession was what he wanted. A clean and simple admission of guilt. Abby glanced around the table, at Parr and Susan Casado and the nursing supervisor. The only person she couldn't look at was Mark. She was afraid to look at him, afraid to see any doubt in his eyes.

She said, 'I told you,! don't know anything about it. I don't know how the morphine got in my locker. I don't know how Mary Allen died.'

'You pronounced her death,' said Parr. 'Two nights ago.'

'The nurses found her. She'd already expired.'

'That was the night you were on call.'

'Yes.'

'You were in the hospital all night.'

'Of course. That's what being on call means.'

'So you were here on the very night Mrs Allen expired of a morphine OD. And today we find this in your locker.' He set the vial on the table where it sat, centre stage, on the gleaming mahogany surface. 'A controlled substance. Just the fact it's in your possession is serious enough.'

Abby stared at Parr. 'You just said Mrs Allen died of a morphine OD. How do you know that?'

'A postmortem drug level. It was sky high.'

'She was on a therapeutic dose, titrated to comfort.'

'I have the report right here. It came back this morning. 0.4

per litre. A level of 0.2 is considered fatal.'

'Let me see that,' said Mark. 'Certainly.'

Mark scanned the lab slip. 'Why would anyone order a postmortem morphine level? She was a terminal cancer patient.'

'It was ordered. That's all you need to know.'

'I need to know a hell of a lot more.'

Parr looked at Susan Casado, who said: 'There was reason to suspect this was not a natural death.'

'What reason?'

'That's not the point of this-'

' What reason?'

Susan released a sharp breath. 'One of Mrs Allen's relatives asked us to look into it. She received some kind of note implying the death was suspicious. We notified Dr. Wetfig, of course, and he ordered an autopsy.'

Mark handed Abby the lab slip. She stared at it, recognizing the indecipherable scrawl on the line Ordering Physician. It was, indeed, the General's signature. He'd ordered a quantitative drug screen at 11 a.m. yesterday morning. Eight hours after Mary Allen's death.

'I had nothing to do with this,' said Abby. 'I don't know how she got all this morphine. It could be a lab error. A nursing error-'

'I can speak for my staff,' said the nursing supervisor. 'We follow strict controls on narcotics administration.You all know that. There's no nursing error here.'

'Then what you're saying,' said Mark, 'is that the patient was deliberately overdosed.'

There was a long silence. Parr said, 'Yes.'

'This is ridiculous! I was with Abby that night, in the call room!' 'All night?' said Susan.

'Yes. It was her birthday, and we, uh…' Mark cleared his throat and glanced at Abby. We slept together was what they were both thinking. 'We celebrated,' he said.

'You were together the whole time?' said Parr.

Mark hesitated. He doesn't really know, thoughtAbby. He'd slept through all her phone calls, hadn't even stirred when she'd left to pronounce Mrs Allen at three o'clock, nor when she'd left again to restart an IV at four. He was about to lie for her, and she knew that it wouldn't work because Mark had no idea what she'd done that night. Parr did. He had it from the nurses. From the notes and orders she'd written, each one recorded with the time.

She said, 'Mark was in the call room with me. But he slept all night.' She looked at him. We have to stick to the truth. It's the only thing that'll save me.

'What about you, Dr. DiMatteo?' said Parr. 'Did you stay in the room?'

'I was called to the wards several times. But you know that already, don't you?'

Parr nodded.

'You think you know everything!' said Mark. 'So tell me this. Why would she do it?Why would she kill her own patient?'

'It's no secret she has sympathies with the euthanasia movement,' said Susan Casado.

Abby stared at her. 'What?'

'We've spoken with the nurses. On one occasion, Dr. DiMatteo was heard to say, quote…' Susan flipped through the pages of a yellow legal pad. '… 'If the morphine makes it easier, then that's what we should give her. Even if it makes the end come sooner.' Unquote.' Susan looked at Abby. 'You did say that, didn't you?'

'That had nothing to do with euthanasia! I was talking about pain control! About keeping a patient comfortable.'

'So you did say it?'

'Maybe I did! I don't remember.'

'Then there was the exchange with Mrs Allen's niece, Brenda Hainey. It was witnessed by several nurses, as well as Mrs Sperry here.' She nodded towards the nursing supervisor. And again she glanced at her legal pad. 'It was an argument. Brenda Hainey felt her aunt was getting too much morphine. And Dr. DiMatteo disagreed. To the point of using obscenities.'

It was a charge Abby couldn't deny. She had argued with Brenda. She had used an obscenity. It was all crashing in on her now, wave after giant wave. She felt unable to breathe, unable to move, as the waves just kept slamming her down.

There was a knock and Dr. Wettig walked in and carefully shut the door behind him. He didn't say anything for a moment. He just stood at the end of the table and looked at Abby. She waited for the next wave to crash.

'She says she knows nothing about it,' said Parr.

'I'm not surprised,'Wettig said. 'You really don't know anything about this, do you, DiMatteo?'

Abby met the General's gaze. It had never been easy for her to look directly at those flat blue eyes. She saw too much power there, and it was power over her future. But she was looking straight at him now, determined to make him see that she had nothing to hide.

'I didn't kill my patient,' she said. '! swear it.'

'That's what I thought you'd say.'Wettig reached in his lab coat pocket and produced a combination padlock. He set it down with a thud on the table.

'What's this?' said Parr.

'It's from Dr. DiMatteo's locker. In the last half-hour, I've become something of an expert on combination padlocks. I called a locksmith. He says it's a spring-loaded model, a piece of cake to get open. One sharp blow is all it takes. And it'll snap open. Also, there's a code on the back. Any registered locksmith can use that code to obtain the combination.'

Parr glanced at the lock, then gave a dismissive shrug. 'That doesn't prove anything. We're still left with a dead patient. And that.' He pointed to the vial of morphine.

'What's wrong with you people?' said Mark. 'Can't you see what's happening here? An anonymous note. Morphine conveniently planted in her locker. Someone's setting her up.'

'To what purpose?' said Susan. 'To discredit her. Get her fired.'

Parr snorted. 'You're suggesting someone actually murdered a patient just to ruin Dr. DiMatteo's