Little Falls, page 22
Clothed in my white undershirt, I pull out my cell phone, slide it on my desk, and launch Facebook. I find that Jan Gordon has posted a new video clip of her daughter. The still image is of a blond bespectacled girl with pouting lips and dark framed glasses sitting on the edge of her bed staring solemnly at the camera. I click the play icon as I begin to don the new shirt. A horrendous rendition of some song from a Disney movie erupts from the speaker in the phone causing me to immediately lower the volume. The girl’s voice is so terrible that it is intoxicating, and I stand there listening to the words spill from her mouth as if in a trance, marveling that a mother would be so delusional to think that this performance is worth sharing with the rest of humanity. I mechanically toggle through comments submitted for the post.
“Beautiful voice,” says Robin Brooks.
“Like an angel. Love that sweetie!!!!!,” observes Rachel Prince.
“BROADWAY BOUND!” remarks Marcia Gordon.
I tuck my buttoned shirt into my slacks and plop behind my desk. When the song ends, I immediately reach out and replay it. I do so again and again until I have memorized every subtle inflection of the girl’s crackly voice, every pregnant pause as she struggles to remember the lyrics, every over-the-top, ridiculous pop-star run. Before I know it, tears fill my eyes. A moment later and I am laughing hysterically at such an embarrassing display of maudlin sentimentality. Then I am overcome once again by throat-constricting depression. It arrives like a freight train unleashing a full-on gusher. I am weeping, my head bobbing uncontrollably up and down, shoulders jerking back and forth. Dr. Wills called it “emotional lability” and said that I could expect this from time to time. I open a desk drawer and pick through the contents, coming away with a small cardboard tissue box I stole from one of the hospital supply closets and dab my eyes.
The desk phone rings. I allow it to ring four times until I am composed enough to lift the receiver.
“Yep,” I croak.
“Melvin Blatt is on the other line,” Claire says. Never a break, I grumble to myself.
“Send it back,” I reply as I remove a pill of Prozac from a plastic bag in my pocket. I conjure up some saliva and swallow it as I wait for the call to be transferred.
“Hey, Ed. It’s Melvin.”
“Hi Melvin. How are you?” I put my head in my hands.
“Great, Ed. I wanted to share some exciting news with you. I didn’t want to wait for the next meeting. I ran the financials and we’ve had the best quarter since…well...since I’ve been working here. It’s night and day. Whatever changes you have instituted, I say ‘stay the course.’” Melvin chuckles. “By the way, I ran into Ken Kearns the other day and I couldn’t resist bragging a bit about the turn-around. I hope you don’t mind. He was tickled pink to learn about it. He thinks the world of you, I might add. Says you are the savior of the system.”
“That’s nice to hear,” I respond. Usually such news would buoy my spirits. Today I cannot seem to emerge from the funk I am wallowing in.
“Thanks. Melvin, I gotta go.”
CHAPTER 41
Sam pinches me underneath the table causing me to wince. I cast an apologetic look her way and try my best to focus.
Ms. Pan, Cole’s fifth-grade teacher, sits stiffly in front of us reciting in great detail a litany of poor behavior displayed by our son over the last several weeks. With each new account she presses the tip of her spider-like index finger against the tabletop as if to emphasize the gravity of the problem in case we are too idiotic to get the point.
“Now, I don’t want to elevate this to an administrative level…at least not at this point,” Ms. Pan says, articulating every syllable. “It would be a shame. I understand that Cole has some issues with attention, but his behavior of late has been particularly disruptive and, well, it is not fair to the other students. He calls out answers without raising his hand, refuses to keep his desk remotely tidy, and spends most of his time riling his classmates into a frenzy.”
“He’s that kid?” I ask, unable to hide my embarrassment.
“Oh yes, he is that kid,” Ms. Pan somberly confirms. “And it’s worse than that. As you are likely aware, there are a handful of students who have peanut allergies. I’m sure I do not need to tell you that food allergies can be very serious…life threatening in some cases. Ashbridge Elementary School sets aside a ‘peanut free’ table in the cafeteria for their safety. Apparently, Cole thought it would be a hoot to hurl a peanut butter granola bar (fortunately wrapped) like a hand grenade onto the table while yelling ‘incoming.’”
“Oh wow,” Sam mouths.
“Wow indeed,” Ms. Pan echoes as she pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose.
Sam elbows me in the flank, causing me to grunt.
Both women stare at me as if awaiting my input. I stiffen, shuffling my buttocks on the pint-sized chair. “That’s terrible. Ms. Pan, I assure you that we will have a long discussion with Cole…once again…about his behavior…and fix it. There is no need to push this up the chain.”
Ms. Pan does not appear convinced by my pledge but nods anyway.
“Let’s hope. I would hate to have administration get involved. This kind of thing can follow a kid going forward.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sam reassures the teacher. “We will speak to his therapist. Maybe his meds need to be adjusted.”
“Something certainly needs to change. We simply cannot go on like this.” Ms. Pan slaps the table, which I interpret to mean that the conference has thankfully come to an end.
“I am resetting the Klass Kitten app so that now only five more hairballs will prompt a follow up conference,” Ms. Pan adds. “Let’s not hit that milestone.”
Sam and I drive home in uncomfortable silence. I slowly navigate the Subaru through the residential streets of Ashbridge opting to take a shortcut through a development of newly built McMansions.
“I’m dying for a huge glass of wine,” Sam remarks as she stares out the passenger window. “I’m all nerves.”
“Uh huh,” I respond as I trigger the turn signal.
“This sucks,” she continues. “I can’t believe we are dealing with this bullshit. I mean, what the fuck, Cole? Nobody I know has a kid pulling this shit. Melanie’s son is the captain of the swim team and gifted. I mean I sailed through school. The other kids… the teachers…they all loved me. I’m not sure where he gets it from?” She casts an accusatory glance my way.
I bristle at the suggestion that this delinquency originates from Teak genes.
“Could have been the pot,” I blurt out and immediately regret it. This is a sore subject. When we first got together, Sam had irregular periods. She didn’t figure out she was pregnant with Cole until nearly fourteen weeks. During those weeks she hit the weed pretty hard, as I can recall. Who knows what that stuff does to a developing embryo? Can’t be good.
Sam’s face turns bright red and she whips her head my way. “Fuck you. I stopped the minute I knew I was pregnant. The fucking minute.” She waves me off with the flick of her wrist. “Yeah, it’s my fault. Fuck you, Ed.”
Sam doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the ride home, which comes as a relief. My mind has moved on to more pressing issues, namely how I can avoid ending up in jail. Parental incarceration would certainly derail the healthy development of children.
CHAPTER 42
I find Inspector Bob shooting the shit with “Two Scoops” and “Fly” in the security office near the emergency department. “Two Scoops” and “Fly” (Terence and Clarence, respectively) are two security guards within the chronically understaffed department ostensibly employed to keep the badness from the surrounding environs from seeping into the hospital. Both Little Falls born and bred, they putter around the hospital grounds perpetually sleepy-eyed, as if they just stirred from their beds after an all-night bender. I have as much confidence in them providing security as I have in Cole brushing his teeth each morning—a low bar. In fact, I suspect these guys are more likely to hit me over the head and rob me than to actually prevent a crime on the campus. As I enter the room, the detective is regaling the guards with stories from the mean streets.
Inspector Bob is a cheerful sort of fellow—pleasantly rotund with a carefree indifference to attire and personal hygiene. As I near him, I find that he smells a bit like a wheel of cheese. His dress is not much better. His wrinkled shirt hangs loosely over his protuberant belly. The shirt is haphazardly tucked into his pants—bunched in some places while tightly packed in others. His tie, the knot poorly constructed and incompletely cinched, hangs loosely from his neck, terminating well above his prodigious waistline.
Spotting me, the inspector lowers a paper cup of coffee waves me over like we are best buds meeting at a bar. As I approach, he spears his beefy hand my way. I glance at the puffy paw with dread. I reluctantly accept the handshake, finding it as uncomfortable as I anticipated—a warm and moist encounter not unlike gripping a wet sponge left to fester in a jungle. Fortunately, the handshake is brief. When the inspector looks away, I surreptitiously wipe my hand on my slacks.
“Detective Bobsikowski. How ya doing? Everyone just calls me Detective Bob for short.” He places the cup of coffee on the edge of a nearby desk, grabs the waistband of his pants with two hands, and gives it a forceful upward heave. The top of the pants lingers over his belly before slipping back to its previous position hanging low on his waist. “I didn’t mean to drag you away from anything important. I’m sure you have a busy schedule.”
I shake my head as if I would like nothing more than to be here. “It’s no problem…absolutely no problem at all. When I heard that you needed some assistance with a case, I though I might be able to cut through the red tape by just coming down.”
“That’s very much appreciated Mr. Teak. Truly.”
“Ed.”
“Ed.”
We stare at each other in silence. I feel vaguely queasy and wonder if I am doing the best job of hiding my anxiety. The guy looks like some jovial slob, but I’ve seen enough crappy crime movies to know to never discount the goofy gumshoe. He is precisely the type of guy who turns out to be an idiot savant capable of putting the pieces together.
“How can I help you?” I offer as matter-of-factly as possible.
“You OK?” Detective Bob cocks his head and asks.
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re sweating a bit.” He points to my left sideburn. I dab my fingers against the hairline finding it wet.
“I took the stairs.” I pat my stomach. “Wife wants me to lose the gut.”
“Tell me about it,” Inspector Bob commiserates, pointing at his impressive pannus with a grin. He squints and sizes me up. Shit, I panic. He’s on to me! I nervously scratch my nose. The inspector looks away and retrieves his coffee from the desk.
“Ed, I’ll be honest. I’m just crossing my T’s and dotting some I’s, if you get my drift. I don’t want to take too much of your time. You have a hospital to run.”
I raise an eyebrow as if the request has piqued my curiosity.
“You have a janitor who works here…a fella by the name of Lucas Kowalski…” Detective Bob pauses as if to let the name simmer. I stare at him as if I never heard of the guy in my life.
“Is he in trouble?”
“I guess that is why I am here.” The man backs up and emits a grunt as he sits on the edge of the desk. The desk creaks in protest. “There was an unfortunate incident the other night. This fella’s brother, Ignatius Kowalski, got himself killed in the Falls. The way we figure is that he was casing this old guy’s house and decided to rob the place. But get this…” The detective chuckles and I watch his belly jiggle. “… somehow this old guy manages to shoot this Ignatius fella but then manages to shoot himself with a shot-gun…shoot himself dead. How does that happen?”
“You know, I think I heard about this,” I respond. “Such a tragedy.”
“Yeah…a real shame,” Detective Bob huffs before taking a drink of coffee. “…not for the perp…he got what he deserved, if you ask me. Had a rap, this Ignatius guy. One less dirtbag on the street. Turns out this Ignatius fella is tight with his brother, Lucas. And we think there was an accomplice. Makes sense it would be his bro. But this guy, this Lucas, claims he was at work that night.”
I somberly nod. “That would be easy to verify. We would just need to check the employee log.” If this constitutes an unethical deviation from the standards of conduct for a hospital administrator to share employee information without a warrant, the detective does not seem to be disturbed one iota.
“Ed, that would be great. It would save so much time,” Inspector Bob smiles over the lip of the cup.
I bend over the desk and log into the computer system. Gary had instructed me earlier on how to find the employee attendance records.
“You said Lucas Kowalksi…K-O-W-A-L-S-K-I?” I am pleased at my subterfuge.
“That’s right.”
I type in the name and stand straight as the list of Lucas’ arrivals and departures appears on the screen. The detective heaves his hefty form next to me, prompting me to step aside. He hovers his index finger next to the screen and slowly drifts it down the list until he stops at the date of Iggs’ demise.
“There it is,” the detective announces as he presses the pad of his finger against the screen, leaving a smudge behind. He runs his hand through his hair. “Looks like our Lucas was telling the truth after all. Shit…I thought for certain that fucker…uh excuse me… fella was jerking my chain.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am that one of our employees did not have anything to do with such an awful crime,” I offer.
Detective Bob merely shrugs. “Ignatius hung out with a lot of unsavory types. I’m sure there will be a number of candidates to choose from.”
“What do you do now?” I ask.
“Probably not a heck of a lot. Maybe something will turn up. Otherwise we’ll chock it up to another Falls’ tragedy. It’s got lots of company.” The detective tosses the empty cup into the wastepaper basket. I am buoyed by my prospects.
The man lingers by the desk as I take a couple of steps backwards toward the door.
“Hey, Ed…”
My legs grow rubbery.
“You did me a solid. Saved me lots of work. Thanks.”
“Just happy to help,” I smile and depart the room.
CHAPTER 43
The next morning Claire slips into my office, places a copy of The Little Falls Gazette upon my desk, and leaves without a word. The cover headline reads: “$elling (Out)?” It’s accompanied by an old photo of the exterior of Little Falls Hospital next to a cartoon depicting bags of money. I flip open the paper and locate the article detailing Modern Healthcare’s surreptitious attempt to acquire the hospital. The slant is biased to say the least. In a nutshell, the administration of the hospital has willing sacrificed the good folks of Little Falls for cash and is deceitfully seeking to sell out to a devilish for-profit chain itching to cut worker’s benefits, limit community services, and pretty much makes the lives of the miserable citizens served by the hospital even more pitiful. There are biting anonymous comments from purported nurses, technologists, and therapists bashing the administration. The article further delves into previous acquisitions by Modern Healthcare in other states and the fall-out from those purchases, including the termination of poorly performing service lines like high-risk pregnancies, an assault on union power by devising ways to employ non-union workers, and a general decline in patient safety. None of what is written surprises me, although it would have been nice if the newspaper had the common courtesy to seek our take on the matter before they took it to press. I locate the name of the reporter—Peggy Stern. Figures. Peggy is a wiry-haired gadfly with the body of a starving chicken. She has had a beef with Little Falls Hospital for ages and takes delight in spotlighting our shortcomings while providing glowing accounts of our competitor’s achievements. I suspect that good-old Peggy will be calling me shortly to get my opinion on the piece.
I barely finish the article when Ken Kerns calls asking if I have seen it.
“Yes, I am looking at it right now,” I reply.
“It’s a bit of PR nightmare,” Ken concludes.
“It’s certainly not a glowing account,” I agree. “This whole thing was bound to get out and let’s face it, the media loves to push the ‘David versus Goliath’ narrative…Big Business versus the little guy.”
“Have you heard from Modern Healthcare?” Ken asks.
“Not yet, but I can’t imagine this is the first time they had to contend with bad press.”
“I just hope they don’t get spooked by it.” Ken sounds glum. “What’s next?”
I push the paper away from me and start searching through the internet on my computer to see how many local news sites have run with the story. I find a few.
“Well, we will have to issue some sort of statement,” I suggest. “Something along the lines: Little Falls Hospital is committed to providing the best possible care for the wonderful people of Little Falls. That’s our priority, etc.”
