Chapter 17 Section 16

Kenson arrived at the nurses' station after finishing his morning routine in Portola Hospital's intensive care unit.Waiting for him here was a tall, thin man named Michael Andreotti, the superintendent of Portola Hospital, who wanted to speak to him in private.They walked silently down a long corridor and took the elevator down to the first floor.Then Andreotti took him to the administrative office area, entered an empty conference room next to his office, and closed the door behind him. At this moment, Kenson knew exactly what was going to happen next, but he still couldn't help asking, "What is it about?"

There was little love between the two men, and the manager wasted no time in red tape. "I'm afraid the board of directors has made a decision to arrange for you to be temporarily suspended from work." "I don't think that's the case. They can't do that. I'm under contract." Andreotti more or less expected Kenson's reaction.He was the clerical man himself, and the correspondence about the decision was entrusted to him. "It's not my decision, doctor. I've said it, and the board has made its decision." Kenson snorted mockingly and said, "The board? You mean Ross? He finally got his chance."

Andreotti didn't think he needed to say anything about it. "What's his excuse this time?" "The letter is quite clear, but it appears that you are involved in many of the questions relating to Mr. Markham's death." "Shit! I have nothing to do with that." Andreotti opened his mouth to refute Kensen's ill-timed swearing. "That's not the opinion of the board. On the surface, that's the way it is," Andreotti said bureaucratically.He may be a puppet who is ordered to act in front of the stage, and his role here is to deliver letters and convey information, and to check the implementation of the board's intentions.

"What surface? There is no surface at all." Andreotti spread his hands and said helplessly: "That's really beyond my control, doctor. If you plan to protest this decision, I suggest you call Mr. Ross and talk about it. At the same time, you I can no longer stay here, and I can no longer work in the clinic." "What about my patients? I have to see them." "We have arranged for another doctor to take over your patient." "Since when?" "It's starting now, I'm afraid." "I'm afraid that's the case. I dare say you have a guilty conscience." Kenson's temper broke out immediately, "You should have such a face in the first place."

Andreotti took a step back. "Are you threatening me?" Kenson intends to go on the rampage on this matter and make the clown in his eyes genuinely frightened, but since Griski's door visit last night, he has a feeling that in this murder investigation, the police Suspicion of him would get him into no small trouble.So, out of a sense of self-preservation, he restrained his urge. "This decision is wrong." He just said such a sentence, then glanced down at the letter in his hand, turned his head and walked out of the meeting room. It was not yet nine o'clock in the morning, and the storm had finally passed.The sky was washed clean, there was no cloud in the blue sky, and it was a scene of clear skies.

Kenson went home, went into the living room of his apartment, went straight to the window, and threw open a window to let some fresh air in.Then he turned back to the kitchen, where Griski had made him sit on pins and needles last night, tossed and roasted like meat on a spit.The captain's used teacup was still thrown in the sink.It was part of a tea set he had inherited from his parents when his father died, and now he just wanted to turn on the tap and focus on rinsing it out.Thinking this way, he carefully reached out and picked up the small and exquisite cup.There is also a window over the sink.Kensen suddenly stopped what he was doing, and he froze there, staring out the window at the west of the city, his eyes were confused and empty.

The cup in his hand was inadvertently broken into a pile of fragments. He looked down numbly and annoyed to see what was going on.Blood flowed all over his hand from where the teacup shards had cut him.The porcelain cup holder in the middle of the sink was covered with debris, and the blood dripped smoothly, and it was already bloody. Jeff Elliott had known Kenson's home phone number around the time of the Baby Emily incident, and had called Kenson twenty minutes after learning what had happened to Kenson this morning.After the Baby Emily incident, he has been following up on the Parnassus Group and has heard the news this morning about the suspension of Kensen from his job. Maybe he knew soon after Kenson received the letter. over this matter.Elliott offered to let Kenson tell him everything he knew as a reporter, because he had been following Parnassus's movements from beginning to end and expressed sympathy for him.If Kenson could spare some time, he could pay a visit right away.

After Elliott arrived at Kenson's house, he went straight into the kitchen familiarly.He'd been here during the Baby Emily incident and knew the way to go.After sitting down, the first thing he said was to ask Kenson what happened to the band-aids wrapped around his hands. "In desperation, I tried to vent my unhappiness by slapping my wrist. I think I made the wrong target." The doctor smiled pretentiously, and gave a reluctant explanation, "Don't pick up the butcher with the blade. Knife. As you can imagine, I should have understood this truth a long time ago." He tactfully changed the subject. "Hey, by the way, I liked that piece you wrote about Ross. You did a really good job of writing him."

Elliott nodded eagerly. "What drove this guy to become a doctor in the first place I'll never understand. He cares about his patients as much as a lumber company does for a rainforest." With that said, he entered On topic, "So they ended up suspending you anyway?" Gradually, they chatted about those famous characters in the Parnassus Group, those players in this game.Elliott said he had talked a lot about Parnassus with Tim Markham's executive assistant, a young man named Brendan Driscoll who was apparently about to lose his job soon. "Yes, I know Brendan. Everyone knows Brendan."

"Obviously, he knows you too. Did you contradict him at the hospital?" Kenson shrugged, making a look of resignation. "Markham was in ICU at the time and Brendan didn't want to get out of there and I had to kick him out. He was very annoyed about it." "He's just a secretary, why is he there?" "Slap yourself in the mouth for saying that wrong, Jeff. Brendan is the executive assistant, don't you forget?" "Then is there anything to say about his affairs? Why does he dislike you so much?" "It must be like a virus that's going around, I'm surprised you haven't caught it. But the real answer is that Brendan is the kind of secretary who is very capable and his work is all about his life. Coming to Pana Before Seth, he was with Markham. Anyway, he planned and arranged every aspect of Markham's life. Including Ann, but let's not put this in your transcript. "

"Your wife, Ann?" He nodded in acknowledgment. "She...now she really doesn't like him. But Brendan is the type of person who is totally glued to their bosses and really thinks they can do whatever they want. All words are held with a half-believing attitude.” "But he could be against you. He wants everyone to know that Markham is going to fire you soon, and why are you his real enemy." "Well, he's half right about what he said," Kenson replied. "We didn't get along, but he wasn't going to fire me. In fact, if anything, he'd be on my side." He knows what he did to me with Ann. What would happen if he fired me? I would sue him and the company for a billion dollars and I would win the case. This result He knows." "What about all the warning letters about you?" Kenson shrugged dismissively. "Markham's the boardroom, that's all. He's trying to keep costs down and he's forcing doctors who are as pompous as I am to work with him, but they don't listen to me, especially me. I take a non-cooperative approach to it. attitude. I'm not one of their gangs, but it's impossible for Tim to touch me." "But it's different now? When Ross was in power?" Kenson's expression became more serious. "Ross is a big deal. In fact, I should have told my lawyer that there was a good reason for it, and that killing Markham was the worst thing I could do if I wanted to keep my job. The reality is that Markham is the only person who can ease the conflict between me and Ross. Because of him, Ross can't do whatever he wants with me. Now he is gone. If I listen carefully, I can even hear myself now The ice underfoot is cracking." At this time, there was a faint sound of someone unlocking the door with a key, and then the door was closed with a bang.They heard a woman's voice in the hallway: "Fucking hell, people still use this. Oh!" At this point, Kenson lifted his hips and stood up. A middle-aged woman in her mid-thirties with curly hair was standing at the kitchen door.Seeing Elliot sitting at the table, she put her hand over her mouth in surprise. "Oh shit." She turned to Kenson and gave him a "what can you do" look and raised her hands dramatically. "Well, this might be a good opportunity to introduce you guys." Kenson straightened up and walked over to the woman, "Judith, this is Jeff Elliott of the San Francisco Chronicle. Husband, this is Judith Cohen." "Sorry," she said sheepishly, avoiding Elliott's gaze, "now I just want to find a crack in the ground." "I don't mind," said Elliott, "I do myself occasionally." As it turns out, Cohen wasn't a Ross supporter either. "That son of a bitch, he can't fire you," she said angrily. "You're supposed to be working there." Kenson stood by the sink again, shaking his head helplessly. "Andreotti has already told the company's security department that I am not allowed to go to work. If I don't want to leave by myself, they said they will send someone to send me out." Cohen stood up in the kitchen, walked to the entrance, slapped the wall with his hands, and turned to face the two men. "Those bloody idiots! They can't—" Elliott snapped her fingers suddenly, interrupting her. "Judith Cohen? Are you that Judith Cohen?" She stopped and looked at him with angry but wary eyes. "I thought, I must be. Is there another one?" But Elliott was not overwhelmed by her aggressive air.As a reporter, he was used to asking unpleasant questions. "Are you the Judith Cohen of the Lopez affair?" "It's me," she suppressed the anger in her heart, pretending to be calm, "a notorious doctor, or a child killer." Kenson walked over to Judith. "Judith," he said sympathetically, "come on, come on." Suddenly, the guts hidden in her seemed to be bursting out.She walked back to the dining table, pulled out a chair and sat down. "It doesn't just go by, does it? And I guess you're right, maybe it shouldn't just go by." "It wasn't...," Kenson said, "It wasn't your fault." "Stop, stop," said Elliott, "wait a minute!" Leaning back on the back of the wheelchair, he looked from side to side at the doctors, looking from one to the other, and finally to the doctor. on Cohen. "Listen, I'm sorry, you have a bad reputation, and I didn't mean to embarrass you." Cohn's face tensed up, looking ugly. "But fame has always been like that, hasn't it?" "It wasn't that long ago," Elliott said apologetically. "I'm a journalist. I remember a lot of names." He stroked his beard. "And that kid's name was Ramiro, right? " "Let's not bring it up again, Jeff, it's not something that's on the table." But Cohen blocked him with his hand. "It's all right, Eric, it's over." "It hasn't been long, and Markham's definitely not done with it." "He doesn't have it now." Cohen obviously felt a little happy when he thought of this, "To be honest, this may be a good time to tell others the truth." She turned to Elliott, "You know that this matter probably What happened, right? This kid went down to the emergency room with his mom. He had a fever, a sore throat, and a horrific-looking gash on his lip." Elliott nodded, recalling what she had said in her mind. "A few days ago, a doctor had seen him and told him that he was infected with a virus." Kenson spoke up. "That's right! Judith happened to be on duty that night and was so busy she couldn't handle it. Really. She looked at Ramiro and gave him some amoxicillin and painkillers and told him to go home. home." "Two days later," Elliot concluded, "he was admitted to the intensive care unit with gangrene." Kenson nodded. "Myofibrillar necrosis." Elliot recalled everything clearly now.Gangrene was always a piece of interesting news for people, especially if there was a community of people in this area who were keen to spread such news, and it was easy to stir up enthusiasm in this case.So he'd heard about it, and even heard some rumors about Judith Cohen -- among many others -- that it was taken as part of this tragic event.However, her name is not mentioned in the official version of the event description.At the same time, the results of Elliott's follow-up investigation on the hospital confirmed his original judgment on this matter: this is a typical childish and ridiculous behavior of the Parnassus management who is accustomed to shirking responsibility. The technical aspects are infallible and all administrative decisions impeccable.He never took his views on the matter to extremes because he never thought he had it all figured out. But Cohen is now telling him, with regret, solemnly: "They were right. I should have diagnosed him with this disease." Kenson shrugged helplessly. "Perhaps the first doctor who saw him should have figured it out. But none of your diagnoses were the cause of his death." "What do you mean, Eric?" Elliot asked. "I mean, like every step of the treatment, it took Parnasses a long time to decide how much they could afford to save him. Ramiro's health insurance has Question. There's a glitch in a form in his personal file. Is this test covered? Is oxygen covered? Who's going to pay for it?" He shook his head angrily. It's just unfortunate that money is on the table, every penny counts, and doing so jeopardizes effective treatment for him." Cohen's eyes have become a little dull, empty and lifeless, it seems that he is still immersed in painful memories.Elliott asked her softly, "Have you not treated him since he left the clinic?" "Yes, I never saw him again, except at his funeral." Kenson took up the topic. "Was the basic fact that medical treatment failed to prevent Markham from singleing her out from the ranks of physicians and chastising her?" "I had the impression it was that way," Elliott admitted, "but nobody's going after medical records." "Everyone had that impression," Kenson said. "Of course, the fact of the matter is that Markham was looking for a scapegoat. He was the one who was in the spotlight when it came to what we didn't do and why we didn't do it." There was no convincing explanation for what happened. Judith was a way for him to escape the stress he was facing. Fortunately, the medical team stood up for her." "This way at least I won't lose my job." She added sadly, "The only thing that comforts me is that I saw Luz at the funeral, it was the mother, and she seemed to understand The reason for her son's death. She didn't blame me, she blamed Markham." Cohen apparently thought it was a good question. "You remember that bragging piece they wrote about him in San Francisco magazine? It was everywhere in the hospital, and that poor woman with her sick son was everywhere in the hospital. In the magazine It featured Markham's beaming, happy face and how deeply he cared for each of his patients. She showed me that cover at the funeral." "So you want to know the most ironic thing at the hospital?" Kenson asked, "That's not what Markham himself meant, actually those were Ross's decisions. Ross is the group's medical director. He was in charge, he gave the orders. The real thing is that Rose caused the child's death, and nobody seemed to know about it." Then, all three fell into a momentary silence.After a while, Elliott spoke. "Do you live here, Judith?" "She sleeps over occasionally," Kenson said quickly, before adding, "Why do you ask that?" "I've been wondering if she was here last Tuesday morning." This time it was Judith's turn to ask, "Why?" Elliott thought it was over, and he had to tell them that, talking to hospital staff and reviewing work records, he discovered that Eric was more than an hour late for work the morning Markham was hit by a car. Kenson closed his eyes, squeezed his temple with one hand, and looked across at Elliott. "I don't even remember. Was it like that? If so, what would it mean?" "That would mean you didn't have an alibi when the hit-and-run accident happened," Elliott said, turning his head to Judith, "and you'd be able to verify the time he left for work." "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" she said. "Now does anybody think Eric was driving that hit-and-run car?" "Not necessarily anyone thinks that way," Elliott said. "I've just heard the question, that's all." "Those idiots," Judith said. "Well, idiot or not," Elliott said, "you should know exactly what other people will say about it." "I guess I'm getting used to it," Eric said wearily. "I'm here on Tuesday night," said Judith, "does this help?" "Yes," Kenson said, "but it was midnight." He turned to Jeff and said, "I stopped near the Markham house for a while. Judith was sleeping when I got home." This topic made Cohen ponder for a while before he realized it, and then shook his head. "Come on, you're in the hospital, doing your job, and that means you're not some kind of criminal. You're a well-behaved person with a legitimate job, and all of a sudden an accident victim comes in, And there's a good chance he's dying. Now it turns out you know the guy. Not only that, but he's the guy you hate so much you want to get rid of it. The guy you want to kill! And that's the way it is , he was sent right in front of you, and you decided on a whim to take this huge and probably unnecessary risk, convinced that his death might make them come back and track you down." Judith sat up straight, using the Said in a mocking tone, "Please tell me." "Except for what I've heard in your institutes, the situation is basically the same." Elliot said with a serious face. Hardy was having a bad morning.He woke up all night with Rebecca, Sims and his conversations on his mind.Those dead people he had never met before appeared in several vague dreams, which disturbed his sleep, and he got up before six o'clock.After the kids left for school, he didn't feel comfortable calling Grisky to go for a morning run with him, so he walked briskly for an hour by himself to the shore of the lake and folded again. return.But he didn't warm up beforehand, so the amount of exercise already made him feel a little strenuous and old.One of Freeman's clients had parked his car in his parking spot under the office building and had gotten a parking ticket by the time he went back to reverse the car parked on the street.Finally, before lunch, he spent the morning going through the receipts and mail that hadn't been processed in the previous week, and then left the office for the San Francisco Chronicle building, making sure that Griski would be out for lunch. In that case, another call to the homicide squad was made to confirm that Griski was in the office.The answer was fairly certain—this was his first good fortune of the day—that Griski was indeed outside. He was at the moment on the first floor of the San Francisco Chronicle building, sitting on top of a low filing cabinet in the cubicle of Elliott's office.Despite his overly rigid tone, the frustration Kenson brought him was palpable. "I admit I was a bit surprised to find out so late that he had a girlfriend. We talked on the phone for hours last night. I asked him to tell me all the important things in his life that he could think of, but He never mentioned her." "Judith," Elliott said, "is very beautiful, but maybe that's not an important relationship. Maybe it's just one of many fashionable things. They just have fantastic sex every few hours." , but other than that they don't even like each other. Isn't that scary?" "It's horrible," said Hardy, still a little distraught, "do you know when they got together?" "I don't know, why ask this?" "Because it would be nice to know if Judith had gotten involved before he broke up with Ann, and maybe his wife's departure didn't hurt him at all." "You should ask him." "I'll ask, it would be nice if he volunteered to reveal something about it. I didn't even know he was the one who leaked the baby Emily incident to the outside world." "Is it him?" Jeff's face didn't show any changes, and he looked ignorant. But Hardy has no intention of stopping talking about his client to the Chronicle.Portola Hospital experienced a rapid and large number of unexplained and unexpected patient deaths in a short period of time. He wondered if Elliott had heard any rumors. "I haven't heard of it." But this incident made the reporter's eyes light up, "How fast and massive?" "I don't know exactly what's going on. My source doesn't know the exact circumstances, let alone the truth. But she seems to be fairly objective, and she's really taken aback by it." "What did she say?" Hardy repeated what Rebecca Sims had said almost word for word.In the middle of the conversation, Elliott took out a notepad next to him and started to record.When Hardy finished, Elliott said he would like to talk to her. "I could ask her," Hardy replied, "but I feel like even talking to me would make her nervous. Apparently Portola management likes to keep their internal affairs under wraps. Discussion People who do these things will lose their jobs very quickly." "Well, help me then. Where shall I meet her?" The two almost thought of a person at the same time, and said in unison: "Kenson's family."