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“Why was he here?”
“Hernia operation. I inherited a file on him.”
“Can I see it?”
“No,” Briggs said.
“I’ll scream rape and tell everyone you grabbed my boob.”
“That’s ridiculous. I can’t even reach your boob.” He jumped off his booster seat and went to the file cabinet behind his desk. “In the past three years this hospital has had four people go AWOL in the middle of the night. No one seems to think that’s unusual. Turns out people don’t like being here.” He pulled four files and handed them over to me. “Read them fast. They’re supposed to be confidential.”
I flipped through Geoffrey Cubbin and Floyd Dugan. Both men had been accused of crimes and released on a bail bond. They got sick while they were bonded out, went to the hospital, and were never seen again. Didn’t show up for court. Never returned home, made any credit card charges, or withdrew money from a bank account. Craig Fish was their surgeon.
The third guy was a homeless man who was hit by a car, kept overnight for observation, and disappeared before day-break.
Willie Hernandez disappeared hours after having a kidney stone removed. He’d been arrested for domestic violence and was awaiting trial. And he was in the country illegally. Craig Fish was the surgeon.
“They all had a reason to disappear,” I said. “And three out of the four were operated on by Dr. Fish.”
“You’ve heard of lawyers chasing ambulances? He’s the medical equivalent. Behind his back they call him ‘Dr. Stalk’ and ‘Slash.’ And it’s rumored he isn’t above removing a healthy appendix if business is slow.”
“I met him. He seemed nice.”
“Who said he wasn’t nice? Everyone loves him. He’s just a little aggressive about acquiring patients.”
I gave the files back to Briggs. “Thanks for letting me see these. They’re all open cases, right?”
“Right.”
“And no one ever figured out how the patients left the hospital?”
“No. I don’t think anyone cares a lot. They’re gone. End of story.”
“It’s weird.”
“It could be ingenious. Someone’s in the hospital, and he’s in trouble. He wants to disappear. And some sympathetic nurse or orderly is happy to make it happen for a price.”
“What about the homeless guy?”
“I don’t know about the homeless guy. He doesn’t fit my profile.”
“So we might have a theory on how three out of the four got help disappearing, but that doesn’t explain why none of these people got caught on a security camera when they left.”
“I looked at the tapes. I even looked to see if Cubbin could have been disguised as a nurse, but I didn’t see anything.”
“Did you look at any of the other tapes?”
“They aren’t available. The hospital only keeps the tapes for six months.”
I stood and turned to go. “Thanks again.”
“Don’t mention it. And I mean don’t mention it. I’ll swear on a Bible I never showed you the files. In fact, I never even talked to you. You weren’t here.”
“Understood.”
I left Briggs and took the elevator to the fourth floor. I walked past the nurses’ station and slowly made my way down the hall, glancing into the rooms. They were standard semi-private hospital rooms. Privacy curtains, a chair for each bed, hospital tray tables. Painted a bilious green and tan. Many of the rooms had only one patient.
“This must be a slow time of the year for you,” I said to an aide. “A lot of the rooms are only half full.”
