“Would you give me permission to record you while you explain that finding, and how you could determine that it was the result of a razor?”
The doctor looked up from his notes. “A twin-blade razor, I noted.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. I don’t mind if you record.”
* * *
Her phone battery was at 1 percent and she had no bars of service as the cabdriver shuttled her south through the mountains of St. Lucia and toward Vieux Fort. She hated being disconnected, but having spent the life of her phone capturing video of Dr. Mundi’s explanation of the laceration he had documented ten years ago on Julian Crist’s chin, coupled with what Grace had told her earlier while she recorded their conversation, being cut off from the world was worth the footage. That the video was raw, recorded on a combination of her iPhone and a small handheld camcorder, was sure to add to the urgency of the episode she was imagining. She had stumbled across evidence overlooked during Grace’s original trial and was now haphazardly recording her findings without the assistance of her camera crew. Coupled with the professional footage Derrick had shot of Dr. Cutty’s demonstrations, Friday’s episode had the potential to be a blockbuster.
When they finally reached Charlery’s Inn, back near the airport, where she had met her driver earlier in the day, Sidney handed over the fare. He’d had a good day and never saw an island resort. She wheeled her small suitcase into her room and locked the door. After setting her phone to charge, she opened her laptop and booked a flight home for the next morning.
She found a Piton beer in the minibar and sat on the edge of the bed. Pastel hues of soft salmon and green covered the walls of the cheap hotel. Sidney took a long swallow of beer and picked up the hotel telephone, listening to the series ofprompts until her call was finally patched through to New York.
“Hello,” Leslie Martin said.
“It’s me,” Sidney said.
“Jesus, I thought your plane crashed. Where have you been?”
“I took a detour. I’m in St. Lucia.”
“What? Why?”
“Because she didn’t do it.”
JURY DELIBERATION DAY 2
“We need to discuss the blood evidence,” Harold said from the head of the table.
“I don’t believe her,” the retired schoolteacher said almost before Harold was finished with his sentence. “How could that much blood be present in the room, yet she has no idea how it got there?”
“Well,” Harold said in his calm, understanding voice. “That’s not exactly what was argued in court. But again, this is a good start to the discussion. Let’s reread the transcripts from her testimony and the cross-examination. We’ll put the facts about the blood and the cleanup onto the chalkboard, like we did during our discussion of the murder weapon.” Harold pointed to the green board behind them, covered now by white chalk dust after yesterday’s spirited debate.
“And then,” he said, “we’ll have a more accurate discussion about the blood, the body, and the cleanup.”
PART III
A RATINGS JUGGERNAUT
CHAPTER 27
Friday, June 23, 2017
ASEARING PAIN SHOT THROUGH HIS HIP AS HE REACHED FOR THEremote control. He turned up the volume and fumbled with his glasses before righting them on his face and staring at the flat screen that hung on the wall. A reporter’s face filled the television as she offered a tutorial on skull fractures. The scene flashed to a pathologist dressed in scrubs as she explained on a skull model what was happening to the cadaver as they struck the back of the head with an oar. It was a chilling and engrossing sight that brought Gus back to his past, vicariously reliving through television the moments of his career when he spent time with medical examiners in the morgue.
He pressed a button on the guardrail and the bed hummed as it pushed him upright. A few deep breaths and the pain in his hip settled as he squinted at the television. He’d requested a larger one weeks ago, even offered to purchase it himself, but “Nurse Ratched” ignored him.
“If we giveyoua bigger television, then we’d have to giveeveryonea bigger television, Mr. Morelli,” she had said in her condescending voice.
“Then do it,” he had responded. “Damn things are practically free nowadays. And I’m sure most poor folks in this place are half blind. Don’t you want them to be able to see Alex Trebek’s face each evening?”
His request went over about as well as when he refused to use the bedpan just after surgery. Now, weeks from the night he lost his right leg—a difficult choice between his lower limb and cancer—the pain was more manageable, his health no longer on the brink, and his attitude toward the staff, although far from pleasant, was certainly less hostile. Except for Nurse Ratched. She was a cruel woman the day he met her, and would continue to be counted as such until the day she died.
“What’re you watching, Gus?”
The young physical therapist named Jason walked into the room in his purple scrubs. Out of every miserable person he’d encountered on this road to hell, Jason was a standout. Young and vibrant, he appeared to be, besides Riki the Friday-night nurse, the only one in this godforsaken place who enjoyed his job. And evidenced by his muscular biceps and forearms, Gus guessed that Jason pushed himself as hard in the weight room as he pushed his patients in therapy sessions. Handsome and charismatic, he reminded Gus of himself decades ago before the job and life and cancer had turned him bitter to the world.
Jason stood in stark contrast to the robots that strolled from room to room, jabbing needles and yanking catheters on their way to five o’clock. Gus Morelli had spent his fair share of time in prisons during his career, and these ladies would fit in just as well barking at inmates at the local penitentiary as they would screaming at the elderly patients here at Alcove Manor.
Most patients were here to rehabilitate from some catastrophic disease that had placed them at death’s door. Many,Gus determined as he snooped through the hallways in his wheelchair, would be better off if someone had answered.
