Shattered to Death, page 13
21
The interview with David Gentle had gone better than Kenzie had expected, but it was still a big relief when he walked out of the room and she could breathe freely again. Garcia eyed Kenzie as she took a long drink of water.
“That was an interesting one.”
“Yeah. I was a little worried about him.”
“I could see that. You don’t trust me to handle it?”
“Of course I do… but he was a big guy. Obviously very strong. And you…”
“Not as big or muscular. But I assure you, I could have handled things if he had gotten violent.”
Kenzie still had her doubts about that, but she kept them to herself. “I’m sure you could have. But society has trained us to believe that women are weaker… potential prey to men like him. So it is a conditioned reaction, no matter what I believe logically.”
Garcia nodded. “I get that.”
The final patient that they were to interview arrived with the orderly. A woman, slim, with dark, slightly tangled hair. Her face was closer in shade to Garcia’s than Kenzie’s, but she couldn’t be sure whether the patient was Hispanic as well, or just tanned. She had a permanently wrinkled brow and bags under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in days. Kenzie was sure the facility would have given her a sleep aid if she weren’t sleeping well. Sleep was vital for good mental health.
The orderly had her sit down and, instead of leaving the room, just retreated to the door, shut it, and stood there like they were in a prison. Kenzie looked at him and then at Garcia to see what she thought of this.
“Is there a reason you need to stay with her?” Garcia challenged.
“She could be a danger to herself or others.”
Garcia and Kenzie looked at the woman, who seemed so far away that it was hard to imagine she could be a danger to anyone.
“Hi,” Garcia said, getting closer to the patient and trying to meet her eyes. “I’m Detective Garcia. What was your name?”
The woman didn’t answer. Did she speak? Was she even aware of their existence or the questions posed to her? It was hard to imagine that she could be a very good witness to anything. She would have no idea when Isah had been in his room. She might not even know who he was.
Garcia opened her mouth to try again when the woman said faintly, “Cara.”
“Cara? What’s your last name?”
She didn’t enlighten them on that point, even though Garcia gave her an extra long time to answer.
“Can you tell us her last name?” Garcia asked the orderly.
“Anderson.”
“Cara Anderson.” Garcia wrote it down in her notepad. “Thank you for your assistance. And is she… does she talk? I mean, there’s no point in me trying to interview her if she isn’t even verbal. Is there a better way to communicate with her?”
“She can talk,” the orderly told her, but offered no other advice.
“Cara.” Garcia continued to try to make eye contact with the woman who was obviously having none of it. “How are you today?”
Maybe it was Paul Casey’s idea of a joke. Giving them a patient to interview who clearly could not be interviewed. The woman was practically catatonic.
Kenzie’s mind wandered to Rhys, and she wondered if he were making any progress. Had they changed around his medications? Increased the dosages? Was his anxiety being addressed through therapy? From what Nurse Val had said, he was being closely monitored, someone either staying with him or checking in again every fifteen minutes. That suggested they were pretty concerned with him and taking the necessary precautions. But how long would it go on? They wouldn’t keep someone in his room for days on end.
Cara’s eyes flicked over to Garcia after a few minutes. “Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Garcia. And this is Kenzie Kirsch.”
Cara’s eyes did not move to Kenzie.
“Do you know why we are here, Cara?”
“Why am I here,” Cara countered.
“Well… to help you with the problems that you’ve been having,” Garcia offered vaguely. “They take good care of you here, don’t they?”
“I need to go.”
“Go where?”
Cara looked around the room, frowning. “I am not supposed to be here.”
“You are being treated. This is the right place for you to be. And I am here to interview you about what happened to Leander. You know Leander, right?”
“Leander.” Cara looked around, but he wasn’t there. She gave no sign of whether she was upset or disappointed by this or preferred not to have him there. But Kenzie thought there was a slight lift in her voice. Someone who liked Leander. Maybe that was why Paul Casey had picked her out to interview with them.
“Is Leander your friend?” Garcia asked.
“I’m not sure.” Cara swallowed and looked around. She started to rise from her chair, then sat back down again. “Is he here? He was hurt.”
“Yes, he was hurt,” Garcia agreed. “Did you see how he got hurt?”
Cara shook her head. “He was very upset. He was telling them to leave him alone. He wanted to go to his room. They wouldn’t let him.”
“Yes, that’s what Janice said too.”
“They should just leave him alone. They shouldn’t hurt him.”
“Do you think someone hurt him?”
“He was on the floor.” Her eyes were big and round.
Had she seen him after he had died? Or even before?
“Do you know what time he was on the floor?” Garcia prompted.
“No.” Cara’s head shook back and forth.
“Do you know what day it was? Was it the day he died?”
“They should leave him alone. He wasn’t hurting anyone. Why do they act like he is when he just wants to be left alone?”
“Why did they say?”
Cara sat quietly, thinking about it.
“Was there a reason they wouldn’t leave him alone?” Garcia tried again.
Cara rubbed the deep creases between her eyebrows. “It’s so hard to remember.”
“Are you on the experimental therapy too?”
A slight shake of her head, but Kenzie wasn’t sure whether it had been intended as an answer or was just a random movement.
“Cara? Do they have you on the drug for the experimental program?” Garcia persisted.
“No!” Cara’s voice was suddenly loud, accusatory. “That’s not my program!”
They were all riveted on her, waiting to see if she were going to escalate. Maybe the orderly was right and she could be dangerous, and he hadn’t just come to watch the entertainment of their trying to talk to a non-communicative patient. Cara didn’t stand up or get confrontational. She didn’t appear to be angry. Maybe just erratic. The occasional burst of pique, and then it was instantly gone again.
“How did Leander feel about the experimental drugs?” Garcia asked. “Did he like it?”
“No.” Cara picked at the fabric of her hospital clothes. “He wanted out. He didn’t want to take it.”
Garcia looked at Kenzie questioningly. Kenzie studied Cara. “If Leander didn’t want to take it, then why was he still in the program?”
Cara stared up at the ceiling. “He wasn’t allowed to decide.”
“If a patient doesn’t want treatment, he is allowed to refuse,” Kenzie pointed out.
“No. We can’t.” Cara looked at Kenzie for the first time and shook her head. “You’re a doctor. You know that.”
“Why aren’t you allowed to refuse?”
“Someone else says so.”
“Who says?”
She shrugged. “Whoever. Your mother. Brother. Doctor.” Her shoulders lifted again. “Whoever.”
Kenzie looked over at Garcia. “My best guess is someone holding medical power of attorney. If a patient is judged not to be competent to make their own medical decisions.”
“That makes sense. These people are—” Garcia looked at Cara and reworded. “These patients may not be capable of making those kinds of decisions for themselves.”
“But if he wanted out of the program, they should have taken him out. He was the one who knew what it was doing to him. Why was he kept in the program?”
“I guess we’ll find that out when we get his medical files. Who made medical decisions on his behalf and what they had to say about it. I can understand that sometimes patients might need treatments they don’t want, but… it seems to me that with an experimental program, there are more risks. More reasons to avoid the treatment until it has been fully approved and deemed safe. Let someone else be the guinea pig.”
Kenzie nodded. “If things were not going well for him, and all the accounts we’ve had so far are that he was reacting negatively to the therapy, then why didn’t they pull him out when he asked them to? It seems like the right thing to do.”
Garcia nodded. “But if they really believed in the program and thought that it was doing him good… maybe they could see benefits that the other patients and Mr. Isah himself did not.”
“Maybe,” Kenzie agreed. It was hard to know what anyone was thinking or feeling. Leander might have objected to all forms of treatment. He might have just wanted to go home. And he couldn’t. He still had to be treated. He wasn’t ready for the outside world yet.
“They shouldn’t have hurt him,” Cara repeated. “They shouldn’t have put him down on the floor.”
22
The video recordings Garcia had demanded and Isah’s medical records were in a box ready for them when they were finished interviewing the witnesses. Garcia looked through the box doubtfully. “This is all of the video recorded in the forty-eight hours before Mr. Isah’s death?”
The earnest receptionist raised her hands in a pleading gesture. “That was what I was given. I’m sure it’s everything that you asked for. I don’t have any way of knowing personally if that is all of the video or not.”
“And are these all of Mr. Isah’s medical records? History, current treatment protocol, everything?”
“Yes, that’s everything.”
Garcia showed the files to Kenzie. “They seem pretty slim to me.”
“Everything is digital. We’ve printed out everything we can, and it’s all in there.”
“You have digital records that are not printed?”
“I don’t know. We printed everything…”
“Everything you could.”
“Yes.”
“What about the stuff you couldn’t print? Where is it?”
“It’s… in the system.”
“Why don’t you copy it onto a USB drive for Dr. Kirsch.”
“I… don’t think I can do that.”
“We’ve subpoenaed all of the information.”
“I know. But I don’t think… I don’t think the system allows you to make a USB copy. They don’t want people taking information off the system. Just walking off with it.”
“There must be a way to make a backup copy.”
“I guess.”
“Your system is backed up every day, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then make us a backup.”
“I don’t know how to do that. We’d have to get one of the techs in to do it. I’ve got no idea how.”
Garcia rolled her eyes at Kenzie. Kenzie shook her head.
“Get your tech guys in here,” Garcia told the woman sharply. “I will be back for the backup tomorrow. It better be ready.”
“I’ll… I’ll courier it to you,” the receptionist squeaked helpfully.
“Good. Then I won’t have to come back here again. Because I’m not going to be happy if I have to come back here.”
She nodded vigorously. “I completely understand that. I’ll get it together. I promise. I’ll find out how to do it.”
Garcia nodded. She lugged the box full of recordings and files out with her. Kenzie laughed as they left the building. “I thought that poor woman was going to wet her pants. You weren’t very nice to her.”
“I’m done being nice. I’m nice the first time I ask for something. You keep stringing me along, and I’m not going to put up with it for long.”
“I guess that’s how you get things done.”
Garcia nodded. She grabbed the bundle of files from the box before putting it into her car. “I will give those to you. Review them and fill me in on anything I need to know. So far… I don’t necessarily like what these people are doing, but it doesn’t seem to be anything criminal or that directly caused Mr. Isah’s death. But I’m not the one who is qualified to make that judgment. I look forward to hearing from you.”
“Thanks.” Kenzie took the files from her. She thought that Garcia was right; the files did seem a little light. They might cover the basics, but Kenzie suspected that there was a lot more information the hospital could have given them about Mr. Isah.
She headed back to the office to read through them and find out what more she could.
Kenzie looked up from the files, her eyes sore and gritty, to see who was calling her on her cell phone. She was ready to close her eyes and take a break so, when she saw that it was Lisa Cole Kirsch, she picked up the phone and swiped to answer the call.
“Hi, Mom.”
“MacKenzie. How are you doing, dear? I’m sorry for calling you in the middle of the workday. I know you are probably swamped right now…”
“No, it’s okay. I need a short break. How are you?”
“I am just fine. Enjoying the lovely autumn weather. I don’t like the winter, but when the leaves start changing color, there is nowhere I would rather be than Vermont.”
“A lot of people would agree with you. It is very nice right now.”
The autumn weather could be wet and miserable, so Kenzie, too, had been enjoying the fact that it hadn’t yet turned. She should spend more time outside. Zachary had made a goal to spend more time outside getting some exercise and fresh air and pursuing his photography hobby—a change from taking pictures of adulterous couples, accident reconstructions, and insurance scammers—and he had done very well at following through and getting more sun and exercise during the year. Which was a pretty big accomplishment for someone with ADHD, whose natural inclination would have been to put it off or forget about it.
“And Zachary, how is he?”
“He’s doing pretty well. I was just thinking about how much he’s been enjoying the weather this year. He’s been spending a lot of time outside, and I should be following his example.”
“We should all be following his example,” Lisa agreed with a laugh. “Good for him. And his mental health? I would imagine it has improved with being outside more.”
“He’s had a pretty good year. It’s that time now, though… As it gets closer to winter, I worry about him. The days are already getting shorter, and I’m sure he’s thinking about Christmas and how he’s going to manage it this year, even if they haven’t started talking about it on TV yet.”
“I hope he has a better time of it this year. He was in the hospital for a long time last year.”
“Yes, he was. But they got him stabilized on this new med protocol, and it’s been pretty good all year. So, fingers crossed that it continues to hold out and we don’t have to make any big adjustments. And that if he does spend time in the hospital this year, it won’t be as long. He doesn’t have to be hospitalized every year so, hopefully, this will be one of his better years.”
“I certainly hope so,” Lisa agreed.
Hopefully, it would be better for all of them. They had all been through the wringer the previous year, even if it wasn’t something they wanted to discuss.
“And Walter was telling me about your young friend…?” Lisa suggested. “That has just been admitted?”
“Yes.” Kenzie sighed. She hadn’t heard an update on Rhys’s condition yet and hoped he was doing all right. “Rhys. He’s had a pretty tough time in life. I don’t know whether the trauma has resurfaced for some reason, or something new is going on, bullying or hormones maybe, but he is having a difficult time. I’m hoping his stay won’t be long, that they can deal with these new issues.”
“Rhys. That isn’t a very common name. What’s his last name?”
“Salter. Do you know him?” Kenzie couldn’t imagine Lisa would have had the opportunity to run into Rhys anywhere. It was just idle curiosity, or she knew someone else by the same name and wanted to make sure that it wasn’t him.
“Salter. No. I don’t think I know anyone by that name.”
Kenzie was glad this was not followed by, “Wasn’t that the name of the woman who was murdered?” She didn’t want to have to explain that.
“Well, I certainly hope he gets the help he needs,” Lisa continued. “I am increasingly convinced that we need to put more time and money into these issues. There are so many people who are suffering so badly from mental illness. You don’t know it until you start looking around, asking questions, and really listening to the answers.”
“Mental illness does need more attention,” Kenzie agreed. “It’s not a very sexy cause, but people desperately need the funding. Depression kills just as many people as some of the other causes you campaign for. We can’t ignore it just because we can’t see it as easily as a wheelchair or dialysis machine.”
“You know that we are now,” Lisa said. “The foundation is putting a lot more money into mental illness in the last couple of years. It has really come to the forefront now. We can’t ignore it.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Kenzie always choked up a little when Lisa started talking about how much money the Kirsch family foundation was putting toward mental illness campaigns. She knew it was because of Zachary, and she loved her parents for caring enough about Kenzie and her partner’s happiness to make such significant changes to their funding.
“I have sent you some documents to be signed. Have you had a chance to look at them yet?”
