The Chairmen Read online

  A trickle of smoke still curled up from a wastebasket in the corner of the room.

  Now, let’s see…Kurtz had no desire to add to the pile-up. If he peeled off the top two layers, he might be able to get a hand on the guy, but this seemed a tad impractical. Suddenly, he saw it. The fire-hose. It was hanging inside a glass case set into the wall.

  Yup. The fire hose. That should do it, all right.

  A large hand fell upon his shoulder.

  “Don’t,” a voice said.

  Shit. “Don’t what?” Kurtz said.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Hey,” Kurtz said, wounded.

  “No hard feelings, Doc. Just don’t.” The man holding his shoulder was large and beefy. He had huge rolling shoulders, a huge rounded belly, a red hypertensive face and a brush haircut.

  “So how are you, Patrick?” Kurtz asked.

  Patrick O’Brien was the Assistant Head of Hospital Security, a retired New York City cop. Since the titular “Head” of hospital security was the hospital COO, who knew absolutely nothing about security, this meant that O’Brien was actually in charge. “I’ve been worse. I’ve been better,” Patrick remarked, looking down at the pile of bodies with a disapproving expression. “I was hoping for a quiet night.”

  “Weren’t we all?” Kurtz said.

  Patrick grunted.

  The biker’s incoherent screams had turned into incoherent muttering. The pile wasn’t moving quite so much. The biker’s struggles had grown perhaps just a bit weaker.

  “It may come as something of a surprise to you, Doc, but the forces of law and order are perfectly capable of handling this little problem,” O’Brien said.

  “Really?” Kurtz said. He peered doubtfully down at the pile.

  “Really. We don’t need you, doc. Time for the Lone Ranger to be home in bed, don’t you think?”

  Kurtz sighed. The fire hose looked so inviting. Of course, it might make a bit of a mess, but ER’s were designed for that. They had drains in the floor so that blood and any other bodily fluids that happened to spray about could be neatly washed away. As if sensing Kurtz’ thoughts, Patrick patted him on the shoulder. “He’ll calm down soon. They got him with five hundred of ketamine in the rear end.”

  “Ah…”

  “So no drastic measures will be required. Not tonight.”

  “I see,” Kurtz said.

  “Go home, Doc.”

  The biker was by this time lying on his back, spread-eagled, with two men sitting on each limb, his breathing harsh, his eyes glazed. “I guess you’re right,” Kurtz said reluctantly.

  O’Brien grinned. “Have a good night, Doc.”

  Kurtz glanced at the clock, nearly one AM. He shook his head and sighed. “Good night, Patrick.”

  Chapter 5

  He had never had difficulty sleeping, even during the worst of times. Sleep, in fact, had always been a refuge, but now, when his life held a brand new, golden, shining purpose, sleep was difficult to come by. There was so much more to do, so much to plan, so much to look forward to. He had so much energy. Life had taken on a kind of rosy glow.

  He could feel himself changing. A new person, he reflected, with new standards: more discerning, more exacting, more demanding, both of himself and others. The easy way was no longer the best way. The standard now was perfection. Nothing less would do. Sitting by his chair was a cold tumbler containing Macallan Single Malt Scotch, 18 years old. He had bought it on an impulse. The hand holding the glass trembled, just a little. He ignored it and sipped his drink and let the dim light filter through the clear, crystal glass. Perfection.

  Was it time?

  Yes, he thought. It was. The initial ground work had been laid. It was time. It was time to move on to the next step in his campaign. Soon, he thought. The thought filled him with grim satisfaction.

  Recently, the cafeteria at Easton had put in new coffee machines, which in addition to regular and decaf, dispensed French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Cappuccino, and hot cocoa. Kurtz was partial to the French Vanilla. He filled a medium sized styrofoam cup, picked out a container of chicken tenders and a cinnamon donut and took them over to a table by the window.

  An almost new copy of the Post and a day-old copy of US News and World Report sat on the table. Kurtz picked up the Post, flipped it over and opened it to the back. Kurtz skipped the retrospective on the Jets’ previous season and barely glanced at an analysis of the Knicks’ prospects of reaching the playoffs. In Kurtz’ opinion, the Knicks had no prospects whatsoever of reaching the playoffs.

  “How’s it going, Richard?”

  Bill Werth, a psychiatrist and a friend of Kurtz’ stood smiling down at him. Werth was slightly plump, with a wide, cheerful smile and curling black hair. Next to Werth stood a man who Kurtz did not know, tall, thin and stooped, holding a leather briefcase under one arm. Both men carried trays.

  “Not bad,” Kurtz said. “Have a seat.”

  The two men sat. Werth introduced Ted Burke, another psychiatrist. Burke shook hands limply and then proceeded to eat his lunch.

  “How’s Dina?” Kurtz asked.

  “She’s good.” Werth smiled proudly. “She’s up for full professor.” Dina Werth taught English at NYU.

  “That’s great. Is there any doubt about it?”

  Werth held his hand out and made a see-sawing motion. “Probably not. Her chairman wouldn’t have put her up if he didn’t think she was ready, but there’s always politics.”

  Undoubtedly true, but Kurtz had no desire to hear about another institution’s politics. He shrugged. “How about you?” he asked.

  “How about me?”

  “When are you up for promotion?”

  Werth grimaced. “I’m on a lot of committees and the residents like me but I don’t have much time to publish.”

  Kurtz had heard this lament before. He gave a sympathetic nod and took a bite out of a piece of chicken.

  “The problem,” Werth said, “is the social workers.”

  Kurtz looked at him. “Huh?”

  Ted Burke, who had not appeared to be listening, grunted and nodded his head.

  “Social workers?” Kurtz said.

  “Yeah, social workers. Also, clinical psychologists, priests, rabbis, card readers, spiritualists and psychics. The competition. Anybody with a degree can set themselves up as a counselor these days. There are a lot of options besides seeing a psychiatrist. Social workers are a lot cheaper than psychiatrists.”

  “What does that have to do with you getting promoted?”

  “I’m seeing more patients for less money, so there’s less time to do all the other stuff.”

  “Ah,” Kurtz said.

  “We don’t get paid like we used to,” Werth said.

  “Nobody does,” Kurtz said.

  “Nope.” For a few minutes, all three men ate in silence, then Werth glanced at his watch and said, “Got to run. Patients to see.”

  Both men rose to their feet. “Nice meeting you,” Burke said. They were the first words he had spoken.

  “Sure,” Kurtz said. “See you around.”

  Burke and Werth wandered off. Kurtz picked up the paper again, briefly glanced at an article on trout streams in Putnam County, and turned the page. A white piece of paper fell out and drifted to the floor. Kurtz picked it up. It was a sheet of typing paper, containing a crude drawing done in pen, the sort that a child might make, of a male figure, smiling, wielding a long knife and stabbing another figure, this one female, with huge, exaggerated breasts and an enormous pregnant belly, in the chest. Both figures wore white lab coats. Big drops of red blood dripped down to the floor. Kurtz grimaced. The paper contained no identifiable marks. Shrugging, he crumpled the drawing up and placed it on his tray. He had a gall bladder scheduled for after lunch, hopefully, an easy one.

  “Doctor? Call for you on Line 2. It’s Mrs. Kantor, from the Dean’s office.”

  “Oh,” Kurtz said. “Mrs. Kantor. From the Dean’s office.” He glanc
ed at the clock and suppressed a sigh. “Put her on, thanks.”

  Mrs. Kantor had a bright, professional, cheery voice. “Dr. Kurtz? Dr. Kushner would appreciate it if you could drop by sometime this afternoon. He has something important to discuss with you.”

  Offhand, Kurtz couldn’t see what the Dean would want to discuss with him, unless maybe he had a hernia. “Can you give me a clue?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Mrs. Kantor’s voice grew hushed. “It’s confidential.”

  Kurtz grimaced. He didn’t have a lot of patients scheduled but the Dean’s office was at Staunton, at least twenty blocks away from his own office at Easton and he had hoped to get home early. “How about three o’clock?”

  “That would be fine.”

  The Dean stood up and smiled as Kurtz walked in, but the smile, Kurtz thought, appeared strained. “Dr. Kurtz,” he said. “Sit down.”

  Kurtz sat. The Dean frowned and glanced down at his desk, then looked up again. “There’s something that I need to discuss with you,” he said. “It has to remain absolutely confidential.”

  Kurtz blinked. “Something surgical?”

  “No,” the Dean said. “It’s more…administrative in nature.”

  “Administrative.”

  “Do I have your word?”

  The Dean was a good-looking man, with dark hair touched with gray at the temples and a lean, athletic build. He wore a suit as if he had been born in it, which was almost a requirement for the position. At the moment, however, the suit appeared a bit rumpled and The Dean’s face held a worried frown. Kurtz shrugged. “Sure,” he said.

  The Dean lightly touched a folder on his desk. “Take this,” he said. “Look it over at your leisure, then get back to me.”

  A file full of notes, all of them hand written in crayon, except for the first two, which were written in pen: Christina Pirelli’s best recollection of what they had said before she threw them in the garbage. Kurtz glanced through the file rapidly but they were all the same, tirades against the medical establishment, threats of bodily harm and formless declarations that ‘Justice’ would be done. Almost all had been directed at Christina, though recently, half a dozen had been received by assorted nurses on the Obstetrics floor and three had been received by the Dean.

  Justice, Kurtz reflected…justice was such a slippery concept.

  Each note had an attached sheet, presumably from Hospital Security, listing the recipient and the time and place that the note was received. There were twenty-six notes, dating back for almost two months. Seventeen of these had come by interoffice mail. Nine had arrived by the US postal service. All of these were still in their envelopes. The post marks showed that all had been mailed within a week of being read and all had been mailed from Manhattan, which meant nothing, really. Somebody living in the Bronx or Brooklyn or Connecticut could drop an envelope in a Manhattan mailbox and nobody would be the wiser. Smarter to do it that way, actually.

  In addition, there was a single sheet documenting the dates and specifics—so far as they could be determined—of more than twenty harassing phone calls, again, the large majority to Christina Pirelli and all the rest to various members of her department.

  The Dean, a man used to consulting experts in various fields, had decided that Richard Kurtz, MD, surgeon, was the right man for the job.

  “As you will see, we’ve gone to the police. They haven’t been helpful.” The Dean shrugged. “They seem to feel that they have better things to do than investigate stupid notes and crank calls.”

  Kurtz was not surprised. Petty harassment was certainly a crime, but the police most often had more serious crimes to solve. “How about Security? Patrick O’Brien seems to know what he’s doing.”

  The Dean raised an eyebrow. “Does he? I didn’t realize that you knew him, but then, why shouldn’t you know him?” The Dean sat back, his face grim. “The fact is that I don’t know him. I’m glad to hear you express confidence. He was here before my arrival at the school and I’ve never had much to do with Security, before. I’ve never had to. You’re one of us, a physician. I would appreciate your involvement in this case.”

  Kurtz looked at him, not allowing his face to express his doubts. “I’m not a cop. I’ve never been a cop. I’m a surgeon.” A police surgeon, though, for almost a year, with the emphasis on surgeon. A police surgeon was employed by the police to oversee the care of wounded officers. A police surgeon, though he held the official rank of “Inspector,” was definitely not a cop.

  “So? I’m a pathologist. I’m also a coin collector. If we had a problem regarding a 1932 penny from the Philadelphia mint, I would feel myself perfectly capable of dealing with it.” The Dean gave him a crooked smile. “You have a certain reputation around here. You may not be a policeman, but you have close contact with the police and somehow, you’ve managed to assist in solving three prominent crimes in the past two years.”

  True. Kurtz had managed to stumble and bumble his way through three murder investigations, in the course of which he had more than once been threatened, assaulted and nearly killed. “What exactly do you want from me, anyway?” Kurtz asked.

  The Dean cocked his head to the side. “The motivation behind these incidents is unclear but they seem obviously designed to demoralize the staff of the Obstetrics unit, to intimidate a chairman, and possibly to damage both the reputation and the finances of the institution. So far, this has been confined to OB,”—he smiled ruefully—“plus myself, of course. We’ve managed to keep a lid on publicity, but I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to do that. The press isn’t interested in a prank or two. I imagine that they would be considerably more interested in a clear pattern of intimidation.”

  “A little publicity might help,” Kurtz said. “It would make it harder for the police to ignore the situation.”

  “Maybe. In the meantime, business would undoubtedly suffer. Columbia and Cornell offer the same services that we do. So do NYU and Montefiore and Mount Sinai. Nobody is obligated to come here.

  “Please. I want you to look into this. Be a liaison between Security and my office. Deal with the police, if it should come to that.” He shrugged. “Let’s hope that it doesn’t.”

  “Why don’t you go the Pinkertons?” Kurtz said. “This is what they do.”

  “I wanted to. The Board of Trustees is unwilling to approve it. The Board is trying to pretend that this is a minor problem that is going to go away by itself. They may be right but I see no reason to assume so.”

  Kurtz frowned. “The Board, I suppose, knows nothing about me.”

  “Correct,” the Dean said.

  “And I suppose that in the event of discovery, you’ll disavow any knowledge of my actions?”

  “No,” the Dean said. “I won’t.”

  The Dean, or so Kurtz had heard, wasn’t a bad guy. He was a good administrator, and, for a good administrator, reasonably honest. That was the word on the Dean.

  “Give me the folder,” Kurtz said. “I’ll take a look at it.”

  “Thank you,” the Dean said.

  “I’m not making any promises,” Kurtz said.

  The Dean gave him a tired smile. “That’s all I can ask.”

  The sky outside was cloudy. A seagull wheeled outside the picture window, then flew off, its wings steady against the wind. “You ever watch that show, Diagnosis Murder?” Barent asked. They were sitting in Kurtz’ apartment, sipping coffee. A plate with two chocolate chip cookies was balanced on Barent’s knee.

  “The one with Dick van Dyke? No. I’ve never seen it.”

  “I have,” Lenore said. “I like it.”

  “I’ve seen it a couple of times. Not what I would call true-to-life entertainment but I sometimes get a kick out of it.”

  “I thought you didn’t like mysteries,” Kurtz said.

  “Usually I don’t, but this one, I get a kick out of. I think of it more as a parody than a mystery. I suppose that it reminds me of you.” Barent gave him a toothy grin.
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  “Oh, thanks,” Kurtz said.

  “This latest thing now, it’s almost made for TV.”

  Kurtz looked at him. “Obscene phone calls and threatening letters? Seems a little trivial for TV. Anyway, you’re on Homicide. Why do you care about petty harassment?”

  “An excellent question.” Barent grimaced. “After three murders involving Staunton and Easton, Harry and I are now considered the departmental gophers for all things medical.”

  Kurtz’ lips quirked upward. “I don’t know. Aren’t crank calls below your pay grade?”

  “You might think so, but actually, we’re paid to do what we’re told. They told us to investigate, so we’ll investigate.”

  “Crank calls,” Kurtz said.

  “And threatening letters. Don’t forget the threatening letters.” Barent shrugged. “The guy who’s doing it seems to know a lot of personal information about his victims. They’re scared.”

  “Sounds as if they have reason to be,” Lenore said.

  Barent took a bite out of a cookie and thoughtfully chewed it. “Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Most crank calls and threatening letters turn out to be nothing.”

  “Are they all going to women?” Lenore asked.

  “A few have gone to the Dean. All of the rest have gone to women,” Kurtz said.

  “Most crank calls do go to women, and most of the perps turn out to be men,” Barent said.

  “Figures,” Lenore said. “All those dominance hormones.”

  “That’s it exactly. Most of these guys have trouble with women. They resent women and they’re angry about it. The administration has done their best to keep it quiet. Publicity of this sort is not designed to stimulate confidence in the security of the medical center.”

  “That’s for sure,” Kurtz said.

  “It might, in fact, do considerable financial damage. There are a lot of hospitals in New York. Nobody has to go to Staunton. NYU and Columbia and Mount Sinai and a half a dozen others are perfectly viable choices.”