Chapter 32 Section 31

Dr Kent Watertrip told Hardy he was on the morning shift that day in intensive care.He had a patient with myelitis who had an incident and he was done with it around 10:15.Then he went to the clinic to see his regular patients, where he worked all day. Judith Cohen's office number was on the list, too, and to Hardy's surprise and delight he got a call back from the second person he was looking for within five minutes.He identified himself to the operator at the hospital switchboard, explained his relationship to Eric Kenson, and then asked Dr. Cohen if he could call him back when he received the message.

"I can call her right away," the operator replied in a helpful tone. "If you give me your number, I'll put her through right now." Two minutes later, Hardy was standing by his open window, looking down on Suter Street, when the telephone on the line he had assigned ahead rang.He came to the desk in two steps in three steps, reached out to grab the phone and reported his name.He heard a sharp gasp on the other end of the phone. "Eric's lawyer, right? Is he all right?" "He's fine. Thanks for calling me back so quickly. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

"Of course. If it's useful to Eric, I'm right here, just ask." "Very good." Hardy had already considered his questioning method.He didn't want to scare her away, and he wrote some bullet points about what the conversation was about.Now, he sat there with his notepad open. "I'm trying to find a way to verify Eric's activities, moment by moment, the day Tim Markham was killed." "The police still don't believe he had anything to do with that?" "I think it's safe to assume that's what they think, yes." He heard her sigh deeply. "Don't they understand this man at all? Have they talked to him?"

"Twice, at least." "My gosh, then they're a bunch of idiots." "Maybe," Hardy said, "but they're our idiots, and we're going to have to play with them. I also understand that you had your own patient in the ICU that day—it was last Tuesday." "Oh, I can vividly recall that day. It started out badly and it got worse. You know how the ICU and ER work schedules work, no Bar?" Previously, Kenson had explained Parnassus' philosophy of maximizing the use of personnel.The doctors at the Juda Clinic, who are part of the Parnassus team of doctors and the medical staff at Portola Hospital, are responsible for ensuring that at least one physician is on duty in the intensive care unit at a time, and at least one physician is sent to the Emergency room to go on duty.It has always been done this way.This roster was implemented on a rotating roster, and, according to Eric, the underlying purpose was that the company could save at least one full-time doctor's salary.It also has the effect of chronically understaffing clinics, so it's not a popular policy.

"Essentially," Hardy replied, "each ward is attended by a physician." "Yes, there are only a few patients in the intensive care unit, if any, including the patients who were seen by the on-call physician himself. Or they just received patients from the emergency room or the operating room , or some baby in critical condition, or something like that. Anyway, it was my turn to be on duty downstairs in the emergency room, and as usual, I was a little late, and just as I walked in, I ran into the Markham thing. An annoying thing—" "Wait a minute, were you in the operating room with Markham? Did you operate on him?" From this, Hardy realized that she wasn't just making a quick turn around the ICU to check on a patient, She had been in Portola all morning.

"Yes. He was crushed into a mess. To my surprise, he can still hold on to be sent to the hospital. The possibility of walking out is extremely small. Anyway, I went into the operating room and people complained about me It annoys me that I'm late, I'm not late at all—" "What's going on?" Hardy asked quickly, "Are you late?" "It's ridiculous to say that I just overslept. I suffer from insomnia. When the alarm goes off, I don't think I'm really awake, I must have pressed it off in a daze. I guess the only good news this way is that by the time Markham arrived I was rested and in the mood for surgery. I needed a good rest to regenerate, believe me. Although Phil -- Belter Dr. Rameau, huh?—he happened to be on shift from ten o'clock last night to six o'clock next morning, and he wasn't very happy about my being late."

"Then when did you finish the operation and finally send him to the intensive care unit?" "I followed Markham to the operating table when we - Eric and I - took him in and put him there, I went up there after that, I don't remember exactly, after he died There must have been four or five times before, whenever I was free. After all, I have put him through the dangerous period. He is my patient." She was silent for a while, "I didn't expect him to die. I really Didn't expect that." "He's not going to die like that, Doctor, someone killed him." Hardy tried to temper his attitude to the unexpected message, and he had to admit that Cohen would be more willing to speak up that way.He showed no false sympathy for Markham, nor was he deliberately silent about the circumstances of her actions. "The police think it may have been Eric. Were you in ICU when the green light came on in Markham?"

"No, I was down there in the emergency room. But I heard it, of course, and went straight up." "But you didn't see Eric in there, say, ten to fifteen minutes ago?" "No, the last time I saw him, he was in the hallway with Rayan Badan. Badan was a nurse there. They were dealing with a patient on a rollaway bed." The situation was exactly what he had heard so far about the minutes before Mr. Lackert's monitor blew, and it was the same as what he had heard before, except that it might imply that Cohn himself had a relationship with the It didn't help his client in any way, other than the connection.

"Let me ask you about that, doctor. Did Eric tell you about his visit to Mrs. Markham that night?" "No," she said, "I was asleep when he came back, and we haven't been together for days since. What's there to say? It must have been pretty low." But Hardy hinted at something else. "You mean, when he finally comes back?" "You mean coming back from Mrs. Markham's, don't you?" "Yeah. So you were at Eric's that night?" Cohen smiled softly. "Don't you know about it? Oh, I thought it was no secret about the two of us."

Then, her tone became more serious. "I thought, after that day, he might need a colleague. I knew I was the one who could be there for him." This newly discovered situation brought a certain psychological shock to Hardy. After recovering, Hardy restrained his emotions and tried not to let the other party feel the change in his tone. "So what happened? Did you go home together after work?" Another laugh. "No, no, we didn't really plan anything, usually on the phone. There's no pattern to how we spend time together, you can't tell. I just went there and went when I wanted to. I have his house key."

"Aha," said Hardy, urging her to continue. "But Eric stayed late at Portola and then went to Mrs. Markham's. When he got home, I was asleep." "Did you suffer from insomnia again?" "Holy shit! It's like comeuppance, probably because I slept too much that morning. I've said it a million times, if I could change anything in my life it would be nothing but my The first hair of a person's headache is my insomnia." "Hemingway said he couldn't believe there was anyone who never had insomnia." "Yeah, so look what's going on with him. Insomnia is full vampire, no good, and I should know that. You can imagine, when you want to sleep, you close your Eyes, and soon you fall asleep, what can this be? I call it a heavenly bliss. I would sell the rest of my soul for half of that bliss." "But was that on a Tuesday night?" "My God!" Suddenly, it sounded like she hated to think about it, "It was one o'clock at night, and I still couldn't sleep, and I started trying to sleep, I mean I turned out the light and lay in bed. It was about ten o'clock, and I went to bed." "And Kenson hadn't come home then?" "Yes. He's still at Mrs. Markham's. Apparently it was late when he got back." Griski showed the search warrant. "We're going to talk," he said.Marcel Lanier had come with him, and having shown the coercive thing, he'd walked straight into Kenson's apartment. "Where do I start my search, sir?" he asked. "Inside and out, but let's start with the bedroom. I'll search with you for a while." "What are you looking for?" Kenson had just returned from a run, still wearing running shoes, shorts, and a baggy top.He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking orange juice and ice water when the doorbell rang.Now he heard Lanier rummaging through boxes and boxes somewhere in the back room. "You can't make a mess of this place as soon as you come in!" Grisky waved the warrant and walked over to Kenson as if to announce it. "Judge Comoro said I could do it. Oh, and I forgot one more thing." He handed him Yash's subpoena. "what is this?" "Invitation to speak to the grand jury. Tomorrow morning, half past nine." "You can't do that," Kenson said again. "It's not right. Mr. Hardy has a deal with the D.A. I'm going to call him." "Then you call." Griski has already taken the first step, and he can't control so much, "He can't come here without our permission when we are carrying out the search mission. He may take this But if you want to call him, you can. You should have let me in, we could have talked in a more comfortable atmosphere. But you really have let me There is no choice." "What are you looking for?" Griski read the search warrant. "Medical devices, especially syringes and prescription drugs—" "I'm a doctor, Captain. If you want, I'll go and get you all those things." He turned around and wiped the sweat from his brow again, "I can't believe it, this is America, Right? We're still here doing this kind of thing?" "You better thank God that this is America, doctors, and the way we do it. It wouldn't be so pleasant anywhere else." Griski read the warrant again. Search item, "clothes with splatter or clotted blood—" "You are still going to find those things. I work with blood every day. It comes from the patient's body." Griski looked fierce and raised his eyebrows. "I'm going to call Hardy." "Of course. I never meant to stop you. But he's not coming in here." Another loud bang came from the bedroom. Grisky raised his voice and shouted. "Marcel! Slow down! Play by the rules, please. Do it well." The doctor looked down at the ground, and it took a moment before he raised his head. "It's all fucking nonsense," he said. Bracco pulls out all the stops to find Malachi Ross or Brendan.Driscoll.He left a voice message on the latter's automatic answering machine.While waiting for a call back, another call came in on their phone line.His partner picked up the phone. "I'm Fisk, and this is the Homicide Squad." "Is that Sergeant Fisk? This is Jamie Rush calling again. I'm Kara. Tea buddy from Markham. I'm calling you because something has been making me feel uneasy all day .My daughter talked about something last night, and I thought maybe you would like to ask her." "What's the matter?" "Oh, you know, she plays soccer, she's actually practicing it now, but she also does cross-country running, so every morning she gets up early and runs south down to Presidio Park. Green belt, then run north to this park and back the same way." "OK." "Oh, we're talking about Tim's accident, and I'm just a nagging mom trying to remind her how dangerous the streets are, even if you're not paying attention. She said she didn't need me to. In Tim The same day she was hit, the same thing almost happened to her, just two blocks away from the scene of his accident." Fisk snapped his fingers at his partner, indicating that he should take the other line. Mrs. Rush went on: "It terrified her. She had just turned up Twenty-fifth Street from the lake and was running home. She was about to cross the street when she saw the car coming up. But it was a red traffic light, and she was on the sidewalk crossing the road. Then, suddenly, she heard the screeching screeching of wheels grinding hard on the brakes. She took a look, took a step back, and the oncoming car slid Just in time to stop in front of her. Lexie stood there with one hand on the hood of the car, completely dumbfounded by what had just happened. She said she yelled something at the driver, Let him watch the way, then slapped the hood and lost his temper, and then ran home. But I don't need to tell her how dangerous it is, she has figured it out." "Did she say anything else about the car? Like, what color was it?" "Oh yeah, it's green, I think that's what makes me think of Tim. I read the paper and it said the car that hit him was green." Braco chimed in. "When will your daughter be home from soccer practice, Mrs. Rush?" On the couch in their living room, Lexie sits between Mom and Dad, Doug.It had been a while since she got home, she had showered and changed into jeans, tennis shoes and a thin sweater.She was a tall, thin fourteen-year-old girl with braces and not much acne.Her long brown hair was wet and still wet, she held her mother's hand in one hand and her father's in the other, making herself the center of attention, following the man who sat facing her in the upholstered chair. The police talk and get nervous. "It's really not that big of a deal. I mean," her eyes begging her mother to forgive me, "I've had this happen to me before when I was running. Maybe not as close, but it's about the same. When they drive , people avoid it, and I know that. So when I go there, I'll keep an eye out." "I'm sure you will," Fisk replied, "and also pay attention to the lines you run. Didn't you notice that there was something wrong with the car that almost hit you?" Lexie raised her eyes to the ceiling, focused on remembering, then looked at Jamie and Doug, and finally said to the agents: "I really just saw it rushing from the corner of the eye. You know, at the time There was a stop sign on the side of the road and I thought it was going to stop so I didn't stop. I guess I got to her car and she didn't see me." "So it's a woman? The driver?" "Oh, yes. I mean, yes, Sergeant, absolutely." "Is there anyone else in the car?" "No, she's the only one." "Have you seen what she looks like?" She nodded yes. "It's just a fleeting impression." Bracco had been asking Fisk to conduct this interview.From beginning to end, his words never left that car, that car, or that car.Jamie Rush had already called him by name, or at least he had returned the call she had made.He had always known that the condition of the car would be an integral part of the case.Bracco didn't mind that - Fisk was better suited to situations when gentleness and patience were called for.But Bracco believes that sometimes Fisk's words don't hit the point. "But you saw her clearly at that moment, isn't it true? Do you think you'll recognize her?" "I don't know that. Maybe. I don't know." Doug patted her leg reassuringly. "It's okay baby, you're doing well." "You've done well, Lexie," Fisk repeated. "What we're asking is that maybe we can send a painter up here and paint her like you remember. That would be okay for you." ?" She shrugged. "I think I can try." Braco asked her what time it was, and he wanted to set the time. "I knew exactly what time it was. When I stopped, she almost ran into me, and then I started running again, and that's when I just looked at my watch and wondered how long I wasted here. It was six Twenty-five minutes past." The timing coincided with the time Markham was involved in a car accident. "Well, let me ask you, Lexie. Can you close your eyes and try to picture in your head, can you recall everything about that driver? I know it was just a blink of an eye, tell us you Just see what you see." She leaned back obediently on the back of the sofa, huddled between her mother and father.She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Oh, I was at the lake, like I normally run, and I turned onto Twenty-fifth Street out of habit and crossed the street. I ran to that corner, and maybe the car—I'm not sure — was driving down the street and came to a stop sign, so I thought it would stop." "Is that car fast, you think?" Braco asked. "I don't know. Maybe not fast, maybe fast, or maybe I noticed it was a little fast." "Okay. You go on." "But just as soon as my foot was off the curb, like that one step, I heard the brakes, or the wheels rubbing against the ground. You know that sound, whatever the word is to describe it. So I turned around in a hurry and she almost ran into me, so I jumped back and was right in front of her. Luckily, she stopped the car the moment I reached out , you know, lest she run into me." "It's all right," Fisk said mildly, "so you leaned against the hood of that car. Was the car bruised? Scratched a little?" "The light, yes, I guess, it's probably the one to my left. I remember that because I didn't want to cut myself on that broken headlight." "Is it the right headlight of the car?" "Yes, I think so." She opened her eyes, as if silently asking her parents: Are you doing okay?Their nods of approval gave her confidence, so she closed her eyes again and continued to remember, but shook her head as if she was not sure about something. "I was like shaking all over at that point. It was horrible, but then I was like a maniac, banging my hands on the hood, really hard." "Do you remember what you said then?" "You almost killed me, you almost killed me, you idiot. I think, I said that twice. I was literally freaked out and yelling at her." "and then?" "Then she put her hands up as if to say it wasn't her fault, as if to apologize." "Lexi," Braco said urgently, "what does she look like?" As if in comedy, Lexie contorted her face in a grimace, but there was no sense of humor in this room at all. "Maybe younger than mother, I think. I can't quite tell the age of grown-ups. Just black hair, kind of curly." "Is there a special hairstyle?" "No, it just hangs around her face. It's the curly hair." "What race is she?" "Not black. Not Asian. Not either, but I can't tell what race." "What is she wearing? Anything that stands out?" "No. It was just a blink of an eye." She was wary for the first time, unwilling to say more, "We just stared at each other." "Okay, that's good, Lexi," Fisk said, "Thank you very much." But Bracco seemed to feel the conversation wasn't over yet. "Just a little more about that car, okay? Is it an old car or a new one? If you can remember, how would you describe it?" She closed her eyes again and tried to remember. "It's not a sports car, but it's not that big, you know, like a car, maybe, but it's not a new car, that's all I remember now. The paint isn't new. I Looks a bit old, I suppose. Not the shiny kind." Suddenly, she frowned. "That car's taillights are kind of interesting." "The taillights?" Braco asked. "What's the point? How do you see them?" "And then I ran and turned my head and looked to the right. They seemed to go out in the middle of the car, like a pair of wings, you know?" "A finned stabilizer?" Fisk asked. "Like the tail of Uncle Donald's T-plane," Mrs. Rush offered to explain. "You know what they look like in the back. They're called vertical tails." But Lexie shook her head, not agreeing with her mother's statement. "No, not quite like that. It's a little bit lower, sort of lined up on the rear window, where you lift the trunk up. Oh, and a pair of crash bumpers." "You've done a great job, Lexi," Fisk encouraged. "This is such an important situation. How about that bumper?" She closed her eyes again, closing her eyelids tightly.After a while, she opened her eyes and shook her head. "I don't know how to say it, I can't remember it, maybe I can't say it in English." At the end of the day, the two agents came to their last stop of the day—the stop sign at the lake and Twenty-fifth Street.They decided to send an expert portrait painter to Rush's house to work with Lexie on the driver's head.Fisk's family has a photo album of various models produced in the United States over the past fifty years, and he intends to take it to see if Lexie can provide him with a clear identification of the origin and model of the vehicle involved in the accident. They got out of the car and walked from the stop sign to the first traffic light.There were no traces of wheels sliding on the road, and Fisk was still hoping to find something from the traces on the ground, maybe the model of the tires.Then Bracco remembered something. "It's the storm," he said, "that saves us from trouble here." Kenson connected Hardy's cell phone.The voice on the phone made him think Hardy was in a restaurant somewhere.Jackman had already spoken to him about it, euphemistically describing the subpoena as routine.They wanted to investigate Kenson's list efficiently, and without Kenson's testimony, the grand jury would be in the dark.Thinking that there would be no harm to Kenson or his side by cooperating in this matter, Hardy agreed to the new deal.But when Kenson talked about the search warrant, he was less optimistic than before. "Is Grisky there tonight? Looking for something?" "I don't think they were really looking for anything, just to scare me, although they did take some of my clothing." "Why would they do that?" "They said they were looking for blood. It's possible they found some." "Nonsense." Hardy and Franny were out on their weekly outing, and he was supposed to turn off his phone, which was one of the rules they had agreed upon, but he forgot to do so, and what happened next was that the phone rang Yes, he answered the phone, not forgetting to explain to her that he would be done in a while.But it was almost five minutes ago that I said this, and the call has not ended yet.Once Kenson got the call, he wanted to grill him in detail about what happened on Tuesday night, how the discrepancy between him and Judith Cohen was going on.Cohen said he didn't get home until at least one o'clock in the morning, but he said he was home at about 10:30. They went on and on, and they ended up talking about the burglary, and then they talked about tomorrow's grand jury testimony.Then the waiter who greeted them came over and gave him the wink that he had talked long enough for Hardy to realize that he should really hang up.They don't approve of customers calling here, for fear of affecting other customers.Hardy hated being on the phone in the restaurant, too, but not this time because the call was so important to him. He made a long story short, and seized the time to say another sentence. "But we really need to talk before you go to the grand jury to testify." If Griski or his agents had talked to Cohen like Hardy did, they would have reported to Marlene Ash that Kenson didn't get home until one o'clock in the morning that night, and Kenson was in front of the grand jury tomorrow. Showing up will be more troublesome.With his multiple motives and Grisky's hostility, that flimsy alibi defense was enough to get him charged.At least he had to know what his girlfriend said on this matter in advance, otherwise he would fall into their trap. So they agreed to meet tomorrow at Kenson's house at a quarter past eight. At this moment, Franny picked up her glass of white wine without sugar and bumped Hardy's glass with a bang. "Sounds like a pleasant conversation," she said. Hardy turned off the phone dramatically, as if Franny hadn't seen it, and put it in his coat pocket. "It's an honest mistake, I swear," he said, "as much as Kenson's mistake talking to Abramovich, or the lie he lied about when he got home last Tuesday. and." Franny put the glass to her mouth and took half a sip before stopping. "I don't like hearing about that client who lied to you." "Neither do I, in fact, I usually ignore my clients' lies." "Just now, did Abu search his house?" Hardy took a piece of sourdough bread and dipped it in a dish of olive oil, sprinkled a pinch of sea salt all over it. "That's the impression it gave me." "But last night Abramovich seemed to think maybe Kenson didn't do it." "True, but last night we were preoccupied with Mrs. Rowling, and we knew for a fact that Eric wasn't there when she died, so it didn't look like he had anything to do with it. But today, unfortunately. Well, it turned out that the other deaths in Portola probably had nothing to do with Markham or his wife. Basically, it seemed like there was no way in the world that anyone who knew Kara Markham would kill Mrs. Rowling, much less Don't talk about going to her house. In this case, they are not connected." "From this situation, your client is back on Abramovich's list of suspects." "If he really left that list. But you know Abramovich, he likes to start investigations from a wide range of suspects, and then continue to reduce the list and narrow the scope." "You mean he has a bunch of suspects in his possession?" "Yes, it's still early." "there's a few?" "Two, maybe three." Franny whistled softly. "Large list. Is there anyone else who likes Abramovich like Kensen?" Hardy picked up the menu in front of him, buried his head in it, then looked up at her, grinning. "Enough with the legal matter, I'm going to have flounder tonight. There's no fish as tender as Pacific flounder, and they make it wonderful here, with lemon, butter, and capers, really Fantastic. You should really try it."