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It was a small office furnished with a desk and some uncomfortable-looking chairs. There was a dinosaur computer, a phone, a stack of files in manila folders, and a couple walkie-talkies. There were a bunch of handwritten notes and several photographs tacked to a bulletin board behind the desk. It looked to me like one of the photographs was of Geoffrey Cubbin.
“Are those the ones who got away?” I asked Briggs.
“That’s what they tell me. I haven’t been on the job that long. I’ve only had one go south on my watch.”
“Geoffrey Cubbin.”
“Yep. The night nurse checked him at two A.M. and reported him sleeping. The next entry on his chart was at six A.M. and he was gone, along with his clothes and personal effects.”
“Is that what his chart says?” I asked Briggs.
“No. That’s what the paper said. Jesus, don’t you read the paper?”
“So how’s this dude manage to walk out of here if he just had his appendix yanked out?” Lula asked. “That gotta hurt. Maybe it was that he died and got rolled down to the meat locker and no one thought to look there. Oh no, wait a minute, he wouldn’t have gotten dressed to die.”
“Cubbin was looking at about ten years of eating prison food and stamping out license plates,” Briggs said. “You could get past a little pain to walk away from that.”
“I’d like to talk to his doctor and the night nurse,” I said to Briggs. “Do you have their names?”
“No. And I’m not getting them for you either. I’m here to uphold hospital confidentiality. I’m the top cop.”
“Looks to me like you’re the bottom half of the top cop,” Lula said.
Briggs cut his eyes to Lula. “Looks to me like you’re fat enough to be a whole police force.”
“You watch your mouth,” Lula said. “I could sit on you and squash you like a bug. Be nothing left of you but a grease spot on the floor.”
“There’ll be no squashing,” I said to Lula. “And you,” I said to Briggs, pointing my finger at him. “You need to get a grip.”
I whirled around and swished out of Briggs’s office with Lula close on my heels. I returned to the lobby and called Connie.
“Do we know who operated on Cubbin?” I asked her. “I want to talk to the doctor.”
“Hang tight. I’ll make some phone calls.”
Lula and I browsed through the gift shop, took a turn around the lobby, and Connie called back.
“The doctor’s name is Craig Fish,” Connie said. “I got his name from your grandmother. She’s plugged into the Metamucil Medicare Gossip Hotline. He’s a general surgeon in private practice, with privileges at St. Francis and Central. His office is in the Medical Arts Building two blocks from Central. He’s married with two kids in college. One in California and the other in Texas. No litigation against him. No derogatory information on file.”
We drove to the Medical Arts Building, and Lula dropped me off at the door.
“There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in that gas station on the corner,” she said. “I might have to get some donuts on account of I feel weak after being in the hospital and getting the cooties and all.”
“I thought you were trying to lose weight.”
“Yeah, but this could be an emergency situation. The cooties might have eaten up all my sugar, and I need to shovel some more in.”
“That’s so lame,” I said to her. “Why don’t you just admit you want donuts and you have no willpower?”
“Yeah, but that don’t sound as good. You want any donuts?”
“Get me a Boston Kreme.”
I took the elevator to the fourth floor and found Fish’s office. There were two people in the waiting room. A man and a woman. Neither of them looked happy. Probably contemplating having something essential removed from their bodies in the near future. I flashed my credentials at the receptionist and told her I’d like to have a moment with the doctor.
“Of course,” she said. “He’s with a patient right now, but I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Ten minutes and three dog-eared magazines later I was ushered into Fish’s small, cluttered office.
