Dead Certain

phone in disgust. The truth is I was not used to having so much of what was happening being completely outside of my control, and I didn’t like it.
    As I parked the car I found myself wondering when they were going to do the autopsy on Mrs. Estrada and what they were going to find. Had Claudia somehow actually made a mistake? Even the premier surgeons are just people doing the best job they can on any given day. Over the course of a career every surgeon makes mistakes. But even if Claudia had made a mistake, the hospital and McDermott stood to take the blame in all but the most blatant cases of negligence. I remembered what Farah Davies had said about prima donnas like McDermott feeling the need to rush in and save the day. If all she’d needed was another pair of hands, then McDermott should have sent Claudia in to help Davies and done the appendectomy himself. Once again I found myself thinking about the strange chemistry between Davies and McDermott and wondered if there was something else that had prompted him to come rushing to her aid.
    And what about the other deaths? How were they related to Mrs. Estrada? Claudia and I had talked long into the night about how someone could go about killing off patients, but we hadn’t talked about why. Most cases that Claudia had heard about involved deranged individuals whose motives were beyond understanding. But would someone who was mentally unstable go about systematically killing off the patients of only one particular surgeon? Claudia had mentioned a well-known case where a surgeon had murdered the patients of a rival surgeon in order to drive him from the hospital. But there was no competition for patients at Prescott Memorial. Physicians there worked for the prestige of affiliation and a token salary. The whole thing made no sense.
    When I arrived upstairs at Callahan Ross the receptionist informed me gravely that Skip Tillman, the firm’s managing partner, wanted to see me right away. I supressed a groan.
    This wasn’t exactly good news. Tillman’s wife and my mother are best friends, which means that ever since my first day at Callahan Ross I have found myself with a bad case of in loco parentis. The worst part is that my peers routinely misconstrue his concern for interest, mistakenly assuming that he is my mentor. For some reason they think that what he doles out behind closed doors is guidance, whereas its much more likely to be disapproval.
    I stopped by my own office only long enough to hand my briefcase to my secretary, who reiterated that Tillman wanted to see me.
    “Why do you always have to make him mad?” Cheryl demanded rhetorically.
    “I didn’t make Skip mad,” I pointed out, ramming loose bobby pins back into my hair. “I happen to know on good authority that he was born that way. Listen, I need you to do something for me while I’m upstairs visiting the spanking machine.”
    “You speak and I obey. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
    “Page Claudia at Prescott Memorial every five minutes.” I rattled off her pager number. “As soon as you get her on the phone, come and get me. I don’t care if I’m still in with Tillman. I don’t care if you have to break the door down. I absolutely, positively have to speak to her as soon as possible.”
    “Why? What’s up?”
    “I’ll explain it all later. But it’s really important. Call her every five minutes.”
    “Consider it done,” replied my secretary. As I turned the corner and headed down the hall toward the stairs, she called out after me. “Do me a favor and try not to get fired. I still haven’t finished paying off my last semester’s tuition.”
     
    When I arrived at the double mahogany doors that led to Tillman’s office, Doris, his secretary told me to go right in. She didn’t smile, and the fact that he didn’t keep me waiting boded no good. Tillman was very much a lawyer of the old school, a product of the time when men were men, women were scarce, and cocktails were lunch. His office was a shrine to that golden era, with its massive mahogany desk, beaded paneling, and antique globe depicting the vast borders of the British Empire. On the wall behind him hung his three Harvard diplomas—known within the firm as the holy trinity—B.A., M.Div., J.D.
    “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Tillman demanded before I’d even crossed the threshold. He was a patrician prototype, white haired and perennially annoyed.
    “I’m not sure I understand