Death in the Recovery Room

By James D. Beeson MD

body in a recovery room isnt out of the ordinary at a busy hospital
unless its a corpse of an ill-tempered and lascivious general surgeon,
that is. Lieutenant Larry Garret has his work cut for him, as nearly everyone
in contact with the late Dr. Rackets had reason to dislike him. Which of
his many medical enemies fired the fatal shot or is something more
deadly going on here? When another body turns up in the recovery room
, and then a third, Garret fears that a serial killer is on the loose in the
hospital. Meanwhile , a young orderly gets swept into a racial tensions that
erupt in the low-income communities around the hospital, and a series of
domestic crimes and neighbors.
As Garret sifts through long-buried secrets and alibis, the truth behind
the murders proves to be more complex that anyone suspected. This fastpaced
mystery by a retired doctor is full of authentic details and subtle
insights to thrill those familiar with the world of medicine, as well as all
avid mystery readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483665597

James D. Beeson MD

JAMES D. BEESON, MD is an anesthesiologist with a prestigious career of over four decades, spanning three hospitals and holding several leadership positions with the American Society of Anesthesiologist. Now enjoying his retirement. Dr. Beeson is actively involved in the Rotary Club and includes philately, poker and wine tasting among his hobbies.

Book preview

Chapter 1

She screamed. She only had that one high-decibel ability, rendered the same for either a roach sighting or the end of the world. As it turned out, it did reflect the end of this world for a Dr. Racket, whose body the head operating room nurse had just discovered in the recovery room. The scream didn’t erupt initially since she first assumed him to be asleep. On closer inspection, she saw that he was stone-cold dead, and that merited a scream. The lights were on when the recovery room door was opened. They shouldn’t have been. Mrs. Clare, the operating room head nurse, usually arrived before the recovery room nurses, and she would turn the lights on.

The body in question was that of a general surgeon who was verbally abusive, loud, easily angered, and marginally competent. Racket’s rackets were the names given to his outbursts by the passive-aggressives in the area.

A Lieutenant Larry Garret was in charge of the police unit that arrived thirty minutes later. Don’t touch the body or anything else in the area, please, the lieutenant asked gently but in a loud voice. They hadn’t and they didn’t.

One younger cop, wearing rubber gloves, carefully felt one thing and then another on and about the body. He was shot, Lieutenant. It appeared that the bullet had entered tangential to the spine at chest level and that the aorta was likely sundered. Where was the blood? Probably outside the aorta and free in the chest cavity. But externally? About then, the orderly, Leon Prince, came into the area, complaining, There’s blood all over the holding area.

He had exaggerated the all over part, but there was some. Leon was sick and tired of the night shift leaving their work for him. He had a world of things to do first thing without their dumping on him.

Having noted the mass of people, including the police, Leon’s delivery rate slowed much like an old gramophone record as it unwound. Leon had grown up where guns and bullets were not uncommon, but a dead doctor here was a shocker.

Garret asked a second officer to scope out the holding area, which Leon was happy to show him since that got him out of the recovery room. The officer didn’t need to be told to cordon off that area as part of the crime scene.

What are we supposed to do about the posted cases this morning? Mrs. Clare asked the lieutenant.

Anything you want to that doesn’t include this room or that holding area, Garret answered.

Man, that’s going to be a cluster! Leon, who had just returned, figured.

Garret excused Mrs. Clare long enough for her to delegate others to call the surgeons to solicit their responses. Some surgeons immediately cancelled their cases, wanting nothing more than to distance themselves from the scene.

That damn Racket can screw up my schedule even when he’s dead! one of the surgeons complained. The late doctor had a bad habit of falsely declaring many of his cases to be emergent in nature, hence bumping the schedule and majorly inconveniencing the other surgeons. Make us ever mindful of the needs of me was the Racket’s mantra.

Those surgeons who chose to do their cases despite the murder accepted the consequences that their patients would be remanded to the obstetric recovery room after surgery. It would be a choice conversational stimulant for those patients cast with the new babies and their mothers. Instead of the prohibited holding area, patients went directly to the operating room from their room in the hospital or the outpatient area if they had not been previously admitted. It was a bit of a cluster.

Chapter 2

The nursing staff, anesthesiologists, and other relevant people milled around, not at all sure what was and what was not happening in their operating room that day. Usually, things were (sort of) a finely tuned machine. Residual cases got done without mishap.

There were few precious tears, sobs, or other signs of grief as the word of the doctor’s demise passed around. He would not be missed by many, if any, it appeared.

As obnoxious as Dr. Racket had been around his support people, he came across as an empathetic and concerned doctor in his patient interfaces. They loved him, and the recurring Don’t you just love Dr. Racket? was usually met with Yes, he’s one of a kind, thank God!

Dr. Racket had dissolved his ten-year marriage two years before so that now, at age 45, he was free to socialize in the open rather than surreptitiously, as he’d done in the previous ten years. He fancied himself to be quite the stallion, and there seemed to be an unending supply of lonely nurses and ancillary personnel who generously and kindly discounted his operating room misconduct when he treated them—initially at least. His affairs never lasted long, and there was usually a brief interlude while his most recent forsaken lady regained her composure and the next contestant was sought out. Dr. Racket never missed a beat—back to an equal-opportunity browbeating of mistresses and nonparticipants alike.

It was a medium-sized scandal that finally precipitated his divorce. His usually docile wife construed most unfavorably the loud spill-the-beans ranting of his most recently discarded and inebriated conquest at an operating room personnel party. Not being in a community property state and with a less-than-generous prenup agreement, Dr. Racket was not severely financially wounded. The judge’s scathing rebuke of his conduct bothered him not at all—sticks and stones. At least there were no children to consider. Dr. Racket had secretly seen to that, well before his wife had decided she desperately wanted a child.

He didn’t smoke, drank only moderately, exercised on occasion, and kept his weight in check as any proper stallion would do. He did have a radiant smile with perfect teeth, a smile he could command with apparent sincerity, often disarming antagonism or a patient reluctant to submit to surgery.

The people in the hospital’s administration were well aware of his lifestyle, which they murmured about disapprovingly among themselves. But he was bringing in a large number of well-insured patients. Well, boys will be boys. On those rare occasions when Dr. Racket was called in to discuss his social agenda, he easily deflected accusations: Not true, exaggerated, vindictive, and the key response, St. Marks Hospital keeps after me to move some patients there. So a weak Stop doing what you’re not doing and have a nice day ended the discussions.

Chapter 3

Lieutenant Garret was a dedicated and efficient law officer. He had a remarkable short-term memory that allowed him to omit written notes during interviews. He would record them from memory in his office later on.

He was a man’s man with classic steel-blue eyes, closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a firm chin, and a body to match that required regular exercise to maintain. These pleasing features could have made him a ladies’ man also, but he was a faithful husband, based on his ethics and his considerable love for his wife of twenty years.

Garret’s orders were terse but never imperious. He made requests rather than demands, lots of pleases and thank-yous as he was brought up to say by his middle-class churchgoing parents. Slow to anger, he could be driven to a high level of indignation on rare occasions. He had an easy laugh that was always sincere, and he had several levels of smile that ranged from the whimsical to the ever so broad.

Ray, you take Leon and get a baseline for this place and him, Garret requested of his second-in-command. And to Officer Jeff, he said, You take Ms. Baker and get a baseline. The men knew what a baseline was—mostly it meant that they should be thorough.

Ms. Baker was the youngish-looking head of the recovery room, and she had just arrived. Garret turned his attention to Mrs. Clare and asked her if there was a private place where they could talk. She offered her office, which usually had an open-door policy.

When was this recovery room last used? Legitimately, that is, Garret asked.

Saturday evening, there was an appendectomy, somewhere around ten. Patient left the recovery room about midnight, Mrs. Clare replied.

How do you know this? he asked.

"I had a call from the nurse involved who was having trouble getting the OR door to lock after the patient left the recovery room.

The lock is a four-digit sequential number device, and we’ve been having trouble with it lately. I told her to call maintenance and get it corrected before she left. Oh, and the numbers are changed every month or so.

So no business was conducted from then till this morning?

Yes.

Did Dr. Racket have any business being in the hospital or the OR later on?

Don’t know. Could have been rounding on a patient, and sometimes a staff member will come to the closed OR to retrieve a whatever.

Is this common?

No. Just once in a while.

Any security cameras?

Only in the parking lots.

Did you like Dr. Racket?

Not entirely. He was verbally abusive to my girls and often unreasonable in his demands. They had to work with him—they didn’t want to work with him.

Was he ever violent—throw hemostats?

No. An occasional door slam.

Someone mentioned that he was divorced.

Yes—a couple of years ago. He fancied himself as quite the ladies’ man and had several open affairs with some hospital employees after the divorce and not-so-open ones before.

Did he hit on you?

Mrs. Clare smiled at that. He avoided women in authority and stuck to subordinates—more easily swayed. Besides, I’m happily married and everybody knows it.

Me too, Garret added. Who might have disliked him the most?

Can’t say. Lots of candidates. My girls, the anesthesia people, many surgeons, jilted lovers, and random folks.

I take it you didn’t buy any Girl Scout cookies from him?

No.

Where’s his former wife now?

Orlando, I believe. She remarried not long after the divorce.

Anything uncommon that recently upset him or caused him to upset others?

Nothing comes to mind.

What does that Leon think of him?

Didn’t like him, I’m sure. Dr. Racket was majorly condescending with him. Leon’s a bright kid, and the rest of us like him.

Does Leon have access to the security code?

We all do, really. It’s a poorly kept secret. I can’t imagine Leon being involved, though. I’ve never seen him angry at anything—irritated, maybe, like this morning, when he thought the night crew had left a mess for him. Everybody knows Leon, and he’d be noticed at every turn.

You obviously like him, don’t you?

Not just like him. Several of us are working to get him to go to college, maybe become a nurse or a doctor. He was way up in the high school rankings when he graduated.

So do you have anybody you can suggest as a prime suspect?

No. We all have our lives to live. Dr. Racket was an irritant, but he came and went. No, nobody.

Who was his last girlfriend, if you know?

Mrs. Clare was silent for a moment, then, There’s a young nurse on the general surgery floor who I’ve been told was seen with him socially up to, say, three weeks ago. Helen French, that’s her name. I believe he dumped her. Am I being recorded? I notice you aren’t taking notes.

Broad smile.

No. I remember conversations pretty well and record them later. She works days?

Yes, I believe so. Started out on the night shift, a rite of passage sort of thing.

By this time, the hospital administrator had surfaced and was trying to work his way up the police authority ladder to get to the center of things. With Garret and Ray, Garret’s second-in-command, sequestered with their interviews, he was getting increasingly more agitated as the other officers either didn’t know much or wouldn’t tell him much. He was used to information flowing smoothly to him and was not all that adept at digging it out himself. His name was Perry Farmer, and he’d been in his position for two years, having been promoted from a smaller hospital downstate for perceived competency.

Perry knew his job. Keep the admitting doctors happy. You sure don’t make anything on the emergency room dregs. When a disagreement cropped up between a staff member and a doctor, Perry almost invariably came down on the doctor’s side, telling his employee, He pays your salary. Do you like your job? Don’t rock the boat. That was usually a compelling argument.

Perry himself had disliked Dr. Racket but liked the patient volume the doctor produced, so he didn’t allow his enmity to surface. Even when the doctor had a totally unreasonable complaint, Perry empathized, sympathized, and certainly looked into it.

Dr. Racket was like a person who had a continuous buildup of venom that, as it exuded, decreased to subclinical levels. One school of thought was that he had bipolar disorder.

Chapter 4

Garret’s office was downtown. He had a secretary who was a bouncy young lady, a computer whiz who could elicit arcane information in short order. Betsy Bosler was short, gregarious, and appeared to be a good ten years younger than her thirty years. Her ever-present ponytail furthered this impression.

What’s the story on Racket’s widow and her current husband? Garret asked.

Since he had called Betsy about the particulars barely an hour before, he was amazed when she told him, They went to church in Orlando on Sunday, ten-thirty service. No credit card or cell phone activity that day. And you’ll love this—Dr. Racket’s will leave his estate to his former wife, upward of a million dollars.

He didn’t change his will after the divorce? Garret asked.

On the contrary, he executed it a year after. His parents are deceased, no siblings except for a gay brother in San Francisco who he’s not seen in twenty years. The bank’s his executor.

A year after? That makes no sense. What was his previous will like?

Like he didn’t have one at all. The binding prenup was all that applied, and I’m sure his attorney is largely paperless in his office now.

Is all this legal? Garret asked.

Is what legal? she answered innocently.

Hacking into personal files.

Me? I’d never do such a thing, and I won’t do it at all if you say not to.

He let that drop. The brother was in SF yesterday and went to church also, she added.

Garret shook his head and gave Betsy his top-of-the-line wry smile.

How do you do it?

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, was her reply.

Any vices other than being mostly obnoxious?

Didn’t smoke, drank only moderately, had no pending liability actions, and his only debt was the balance of his home mortgage. He lived alone, though he had overnight guests from time to time.

Why not just shoot him at his home instead of a complicated hospital thing? Garret said.

That’s rhetorical, right? His lawyer is squeaky clean. There’s probably no way to find out what the Wilsons—that’s the Orlando pair—did after church. The second husband runs a successful insurance business—country-club type.

How did his first wife part company? Garret inquired.

I don’t know, a crestfallen Betsy said. She hated it when she missed a logical extension of an investigational item.

Plenty of time to find out. Don’t sweat it, hon, Garret reassured her.

Chapter 5

About that time, Ray surfaced and reported in to Garret.

Forensics finished quickly, so it’s business as usual for the St. James OR. The blood in the holding area wasn’t all that much, but it was Racket’s. Absolutely nothing to suggest a struggle or anything beyond a well-placed shot—a .38 as a guess. Caught his aorta for sure. Bell has the body, and they’ll be doing a tox spectrum on him. The blood was in a neat little puddle. A shot like that should have caused a position change over and above the impact. No restraint marks. I’ll bet he was drugged first.

Garret valued Ray’s intuitive mind, which thought outside the box. Ray was Garret’s kind of guy.

Where was security all that time? Garret asked.

One older man, flashlight, no gun. Made rounds outside with a golf cart, inside with a routine route. His only contact in the off hours would be to check OR and recovery room locks, which were intact that day. He was on duty from seven to seven. I’ll catch up with the person who relieved him, Ray replied crisply.

How about this Leon? Garret continued.

He’s worked in the OR for about five years. No suggestion of any excesses or criminal behavior. He’s better educated than some in his position—bigger vocabulary Didn’t like Racket, but that’s a big organization it seems. Avoided him when he could. Leon volunteered what he called ‘rumors’ of Racket’s love life, which, by all accounts, was lively. A Helen French is currently a floor nurse there, and she and Racket were an item for three or four months. Ended a month or so ago. Leon said Racket was discreet or tried to be when he was married, but since his divorce, he flaunted his conquests. Leon said it was common knowledge that Racket had mistresses all along. See what I mean about vocabulary? Common knowledge, mistresses? Didn’t sound like an orderly talking.

Maybe he’s just plain smart. Why didn’t the shot attract attention? Garret mused.

Ray thought for a moment and said, The holding area is in the center of things surrounded by all sorts of rooms and walls, and shooting through a pillow muffles, at least in the detective magazines.

That was worth a smile to Garret. And in real life also, he said. Reduces the sound by two-thirds.

Garret brought Ray up to speed on Orlando, attorneys, and wills.

Ray blurted out, That’s crazy, the timing of the will. He wasn’t capable of a goodness-of-his-heart action like that.

Is a puzzlement, Garret concluded in his best Siamese accent.

Chapter 6

W ho do you think did it? one of the OR nurses asked Mrs. Clare.

Where were you yesterday, Alice? Mrs. Clare answered with mock severity. Alice was briefly startled but caught up to the thrust. She had experienced a short affair with Dr. Racket three years before and thought it had been a well-kept secret. It hadn’t been.

John and I went to church in the morning, church picnic in the afternoon. You don’t really want to know, do you?

Of course not. I have simple childlike faith in your good conduct. No, I don’t have a prime suspect. I would guess if we had taken up a collection to get the job done, we’d have been oversubscribed to in no time. Alice gave her a weak smile and departed. She sure would have contributed.

If you find out, tell me first, Mrs. Clare called after her and turned her attention to the details of running an OR. She smiled as she saw Leon—always busy, never hiding out like some employees.

Leon was going about his chores as if nothing had happened. In his youth, he’d seen plenty of violence, gunshots in particular. His protective grandmother, who raised him, kept him just safe enough to keep him out of jail and the emergency room. He knew how lucky he’d been to have her between himself and oblivion. A nagging concern he had was that at current rates, he wouldn’t be able to repay her when she got old and might need help. Maybe I should have gone to college, he worried. He’d been too small for football and not tall enough for basketball. He hadn’t seen fit to try for an academic scholarship. At least he had entirely avoided the drug scene, which, as Grandma said, led to only two places: jail and the cemetery.

Leon did like his job. Except for that Dr. Racket, most everyone seemed to like him. As far as he knew, he hadn’t fathered any children—a fellow tends to hear about those things. He had drifted from girlfriend to girlfriend with no commitment other than to the here and now, and the ladies knew that upfront. His salary had increased to the point where he was able to save some, and he had about five thousand dollars in a bank. No checking or credit cards—get you in trouble, Grandma had told him.

Leon had downloaded and executed a will, leaving whatever he had to her.

Chapter 7

L ieutenant, the coroner’s on the phone for you, Garret was informed by Betsy.

Speak to me, sweet lips. Have you news for me to make my life easier?

Dr. Bell had the habit of interspersing little chuckles throughout his phone calls. Lieutenant, heh, Dr. Racket was shot at point-blank range at a strange angle that avoided the spine but caught the aorta dead center. That’s a little coroner joke. He may have bled to death internally. Haven’t cracked the chest yet. Who dunnit?

Sorry, Dr. Bell, nobody has confessed yet, but we’re water boarding all of the suspects, so it shouldn’t be long before we find out who dunnit.

To this, Dr. Bell gave his grandest