A Night at the Operation (4 page)

Sophie’s eyebrows dropped about a foot, and her head drooped a little, like a bull about to charge. I involuntarily moved closer to my office door. “I’m not quitting work,
Mother
,” she said audibly, but not loudly.

“Of course you are,” Ilsa breezed on, oblivious to the storm clouds gathering overhead. “I don’t know why you stayed here this long. But now you have much more important work to do.”

“We’ve had this discussion,” Sophie countered. “I’m staying here at least until I leave for college. I like the work, and I like the people.” She glanced at Jonathan, who seemed to take some solace from that. “I have a responsibility here, and I’m going to live up to it.”

Ilsa looked at her the way you would at a four-year-old who has just spelled the word “inadvertently” correctly—in indelible ink on the kitchen wall. “Don’t be silly, dear,” she said. “You don’t need a part-time job anymore. Someone else can sell your little candies.”

I was spared the coming explosion because the phone in my office started to ring. This gave me the excuse I needed to go inside and close the door behind me, never happier to be interrupted.

But the caller didn’t sound happy. “Elliot, this is Chief Dutton at the police department,” he said, as if I knew a Chief Dutton who worked at the Exxon station.

“Hi, Chief.” We hadn’t talked in a while, as Comedy Tonight was going through an unusual crime-free period. The chief and I have a professional relationship.

“Elliot, do you know where your ex-wife might be?”

That was a strange question, but I wasn’t going to show that it had thrown me. “Not right this minute,” I told Dutton. “Why do you ask?” My throat was suddenly dry.

“Well, she appears to be missing. No one at her office has seen her since yesterday afternoon.”

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

 

 

 

 

CHIEF
Barry Dutton’s office is one of the least attractive rooms in Midland Heights, and he knows it. He tries to dress up the municipal uniformity of the chipped cinder block and peeling wood veneer with plants, an area rug, and a window curtain, but it’s like putting an Armani gown on a hippopotamus—it really doesn’t make the hippo any lovelier, and you’re not fooling anybody.

I wasn’t worried about aesthetics at the moment, anyway. It was one thing when Gregory thought Sharon was missing after less than a day, but if Dutton was concerned enough to call, it clearly justified having a knot in your stomach, so I did. It’s never fun to hear from the police about a loved one, even an ex-loved-one.

“I thought you guys didn’t get involved in missing persons cases until at least twenty-four hours had gone by,” I said. Dutton was sitting behind his desk, and I was pacing where the area rug wasn’t helping the room much. So I could notice the aesthetics and worry at the same time; I’m a multitasker.

“We don’t,” Dutton answered, his basso even more bass than usual. Without leaving me any time to ask about that statement, he added, “Do you have any idea where she might be right now?”

I thought of answering as Bob Hoskins did in the underrated
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
, and saying “Cucamonga? Walla Walla? I hear Kokomo is nice this time of year.” But given the gravity of the situation, I stuck with, “No. I saw her yesterday, and she didn’t say anything about going anywhere.”

“Is that typical?”

I shrugged. “It’s not atypical. We have lunch together once a week, and then sometimes we talk on the phone a few days later, and sometimes we don’t. This time was a ‘don’t.’ ”

Dutton’s lips pursed out, then in, which I did not take to be a good sign. There was something he wasn’t telling me, and I’m never crazy about that, especially when it comes from the cops. “What’s going on, Chief?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me. “Who would have typically heard from her, besides her husband, Dr. Sandoval?”

“Soon-to-be ex-husband,” I noted, then thought about his question. “Best guess: the other doctors at her practice, Toni Westphal and Lennon Dickinson.”

Dutton’s eyebrows rose. “Lennon?” he asked.

“He was born in the seventies to parents who came of age in the sixties,” I explained. “How come Dylan is all right for a first name, but Lennon isn’t?”

“Sorry. Who else?”

“There is the nurse, Grace—I don’t remember her last name—and the receptionist, Betty. And whatever patients she saw yesterday. Gregory says he hasn’t seen her, and they still share that house.”

“A typical New Jersey divorce. Everybody’s afraid to leave the house because they think that means they’ll lose it.” Dutton sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, thinking.

“What’s going on, Chief?” I repeated. “Sharon’s a grown woman who’s been gone for less than a day, and you’re already investigating.” The knot in my stomach turned into a noose. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Yes, but it’s not what you think,” Dutton answered. He opened his eyes, and looked kindly at me. “I don’t think your ex is in danger, but what’s bothering me is that she was last seen—”

“Don’t say ‘last,’ ” I warned.

“—at her office a little after seven last evening, and never went home. Her car is not in the driveway at her house or in the parking lot at her office. She hasn’t called in to her practice. She hasn’t been home, at least not according to the man living in her house. She isn’t answering her cell phone or responding to e-mail. Does that sound like Dr. Simon-Freed to you?”

My lips were pressed tightly together, but I managed to squeeze out, “No.”

“So you see my dilemma.”

I stopped pacing and considered Dutton. I hadn’t known him long, but had discovered, on a number of occasions now, that he was an honest man in a difficult job, and he cared. He could be a little manipulative when the situation called for it, but he always had a solid reason, and his judgment usually turned out to be sound. So I couldn’t understand why he was being so cagey about Sharon’s predicament.

“No, I can’t see your dilemma,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense that you’re even bothering with this until there’s some imminent danger or a crime has been committed. Has anyone contacted Gregory with ransom demands? Have you found some evidence that Sharon’s been hurt, or . . .” I didn’t want to say it, so I didn’t. Sharon couldn’t be hurt, or . . .
anything
. Sharon was too important to my sanity.

“No, Elliot. I told you,” Dutton said. “I don’t believe the doctor is in any danger right now.”

“Then I don’t get it. If you don’t think she’s the victim of a crime, what do you think she is?”

Chief Dutton let out a good deal of air. “A suspect in one,” he said softly.

 

 

 

 

“IT
seems there’s a man named Russell Chapman, a patient of your ex’s.” Dutton was driving and I was looking out the window.

I don’t own a car; I’m probably the last New Jerseyan left who doesn’t express his personality through a choice of automotive transportation. I try not to contribute to the global environmental crisis and the stranglehold of the big oil companies on the American consumer. So I ride a bicycle most of the time, and I get other people to drive me around, or borrow a car when necessary. We all make compromises.

“Okay, so he’s a patient of Sharon’s,” I said. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Mostly, what’s wrong with him is that he’s dead,” Dutton answered. “He died last night.”

Suddenly, the view of Edison Avenue approaching Comedy Tonight wasn’t all that fascinating; I swiveled my head toward Dutton and looked for some clue to his thoughts. He was watching the road.

“Doctors have patients die all the time,” I told him. “It’s a hazard of the profession.”

“This one didn’t die of natural causes,” Dutton said.

That took a second to sink in. “You think Sharon killed this guy Chapman?” I asked, and my voice was unusually high, just on the south side of screechy.

“No, and stop doing a Julie Andrews impression.” Dutton has a
Sound of Music
fetish. “Chapman killed himself last night. Took a bottle of Valium.”

“He must have been
really
tense,” I said. When I’m nervous, my natural sarcasm comes closer to the surface. Forgive me.

“Yeah.” Dutton wasn’t so forgiving.

We pulled up in front of Comedy Tonight and Dutton, although in an unmarked car, stopped illegally at the curb. I sat there and looked at him. “I don’t get it. If this guy OD’ed in his own home, why are you concerned where Sharon is? Come clean, Chief.”

Dutton put the car in park and didn’t so much sigh as simply exhaled. When I’d first met him, Dutton had reminded me of Yaphet Kotto, but today he was much more in a Ving Rhames mode.

“The thing is, Elliot, that Chapman’s daughter says Dr. Simon-Freed had given her father a diagnosis yesterday. Inoperable, incurable brain cancer. No chance, virtually no treatment, very little time. And she prescribed the Valium to take the edge off.”

People walked by on Edison Avenue, walking a little faster because the early December chill was being accompanied by a nice strong northeasterly wind. Riding home tonight on the bicycle after midnight would be a real treat.

I saw a sinister picture forming, but I couldn’t quite make it out yet. “That happens,” I told Dutton. “I lived with Sharon for years. Doctors have to give people bad news. And then they try to help with something that will help the patient calm down and deal with it more rationally. There’s nothing criminal about it.”

Dutton nodded. “That’s true. But here’s the thing: the diagnosis was wrong.”

“What do you mean, wrong?” I asked.

“Wrong, as in, there wasn’t anything growing in Russell Chapman’s brain. The records at Dr. Simon-Freed’s office confirmed it. Chapman was clean as a whistle. Something got screwed up. He wasn’t dying, but Sharon told him he was, according to Chapman’s daughter. And then he went home and killed himself. You might see the problem.”

“Problem, yes. Crime, no. At worst—and I’m willing to bet this isn’t the case—that might constitute malpractice. But it sure as hell isn’t murder, and there would be no reason for Sharon to skip out. It’s not her nature. I think you’re fishing here, and you’re looking in the wrong pond. A guy swallowed some pills because he had a wrong diagnosis. Maybe it’s Sharon’s fault and maybe it isn’t, but it’s not a crime. My guess is that she heard about the suicide and went someplace overnight to decompress. It would be more her style to do that. She’ll be back to see patients by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Dutton said.

“She’s got hours on Saturday, Chief. People still get sick on the weekend.”

I got out of Dutton’s town-issued Crown Victoria (his personal car is a Honda) and closed the door. He lowered the passenger window from his side so I could hear him.

“It’s not that simple, Elliot. The receptionist at Sharon’s office said Sharon hadn’t heard the news of Chapman’s suicide before she left. And when they called, her cell phone was already turned off. So she’s not somewhere trying to get past the consequences of her diagnosis, unless she knew what effect it would have before she gave it to him.”

I leaned into the car, giving the people on the sidewalk the best possible view of my butt, but also giving me a chance to warm my already freezing ears. “Okay, riddle me this, Batman. What possible reason could Sharon have had to want to get Chapman to kill himself? You’re saying she knew before she told him he was dying that he would be suicidal. Why would she do that?”

“Chapman had a lot of money,” Dutton said. “Made himself a pile when he invented a new kind of tortilla.”

“A new kind of . . .”

“It’s better not to think about it. Anyway, he was pretty loaded, in the many millions, and there’s talk that he had promised some of it to Dr. Simon-Freed in his will. Going to build her a children’s clinic, or something.”

The voice that came out of my mouth sounded like a rusty oboe played by a man with an upper respiratory infection. “Are you serious?” I asked. “You think Sharon manipulated this guy into killing himself so she could have some of his money? Because she’s not doing well enough on her own yet?” Sharon had a house about sixteen times fancier than the mostly empty town house in which I “lived,” and was in fact paying me alimony. I’d never heard her complain or worry out loud about money.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that,” Dutton told me. “But there are people who do, and I have to investigate. It’s very suspicious that your ex-wife isn’t answering her phone right now, Elliot.”

I tried to look nonchalant. I’m not very good at that when I don’t mean it, so I suppose I appeared as chalant as the next guy. “It’s not a mystery, Chief,” I said. “I told you: Sharon’s upset about what happened, and she’s off somewhere regrouping. If you don’t hear from her by tomorrow,
then
I’d be worried. But you will. Thanks for the ride, though, and thanks for easing my fears. For a while there, I thought this really was going to be a bad day.”

I turned and walked to the theatre. I didn’t look back, but I could hear the window on Dutton’s Crown Vic going back up, and I could picture the look on his face as he undoubtedly shook his head at my naivete. But he didn’t know Sharon like I knew Sharon. And I was glad of that.

In truth, it was a little weird that she hadn’t called back yet, but maybe there would be a message waiting when I got inside. Sharon really does need some time to rebound after bad news, especially about a patient, but I had exaggerated the extent to which she normally went to get it. Usually, just going home and not answering the phone would be enough. But she couldn’t do that this time. Gregory was there. So I’d hear from her tomorrow, for sure.

Certain that I’d already passed the worst part of my day, I set foot inside my nice, warm theatre, where the “crowd” was already starting to gather for tonight’s showing. Leo Munson, our one-and-only regular customer, was in his accustomed seat, absolutely dead center in the auditorium, ready to see
Sullivan’s Travels
, a film he’d probably committed to memory.