“Can I help you?” he asked, noting Cassi’s surprised reaction to the mess. His voice was neither friendly nor unfriendly.
“I was a friend of Robert Seibert,” said Cassi.
“Ah, yes,” said Dr. Frazer, rocking back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. “What a tragedy.”
“Do you happen to know anything about his papers?” asked Cassi. “We’d been working on a project together. I was hoping to get hold of the material.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. When I was offered this office, it had been completely cleaned out. I’d advise you to talk to the chief of the department, Dr …”
“I know the chief,” interrupted Cassi. “I used to be a resident here myself.”
“Sorry I can’t help you,” said Dr. Frazer, tipping forward again in his chair and going back to his work.
Cassi turned to go, but then thought of something else. “Do you know what the autopsy on Robert showed?”
“I heard that the fellow had severe valvular heart disease.”
“What about the cause of death?”
“That I don’t know. They’re waiting on the brain. Maybe they haven’t finished.”
“Do you know if he was cyanotic?”
“I think so. But I’m not the one to be asking. I’m new around here. Why don’t you talk to the chief?”
“You’re right. Thanks for your time.”
Dr. Frazer waved as Cassi left the office, closing the door silently behind her. She went to look for the chief but he was out of town at a meeting. Sadly Cassi decided to sit in Thomas’s waiting room until he was ready to go. Seeing Robert’s old office already occupied had brought his death back to her with unpleasant finality. Having been forced to miss the funeral, Cassi sometimes had trouble remembering her friend was gone.
Now she wouldn’t have that problem anymore.
When Cassi reached Thomas’s office she found the door locked. Checking her watch, she realized why. It was just after twelve and Doris was on her lunch break. Cassi got Security to open the door to the waiting room and settled herself on the rose sofa.
She tried flipping through the collection of outdated New Yorker magazines, but she couldn’t concentrate. Looking around, she noticed that the door to Thomas’s office was ajar. The one thing Cassi had been effectively denying for the past week was Thomas’s drug taking. With the change in his behavior, she wanted to believe that he’d stopped. But when she was sitting in his office, curiosity got the better of her. She got up, walked past Doris’s desk, and entered the inner office.
It was one of the few times she’d been there. She glanced at the photos of Thomas and other nationally known cardiac surgeons that were arranged on bookshelves. She couldn’t help noticing that there were no pictures of herself. There was one of Patricia, but that was with Thomas Sr. and Thomas himself when he was in college.
Nervously, Cassi seated herself behind the desk. Almost automatically her hand went to the second drawer on the right, the same one where she’d found the drugs at home. As she pulled it out, she felt like a traitor. Thomas had been behaving so wonderfully the last week. Yet there they were: a miniature pharmacy of Percodan, Demerol, Valium, morphine, Talwin, and Dexedrine. Just beyond the plastic vials was a stack of mail-order forms for an out-of-state drug firm. Cassi bent over to look more closely. The firm’s name was Generic Drugs. The prescribing doctor was an Allan Baxter, M.D., the same name that had been on the vials she’d found at home.
Suddenly she heard the waiting room door shut. Resisting a temptation to slam the drawer, she quickly eased it shut. Then, taking a deep breath, she walked out of Thomas’s office~
“My God!” exclaimed Doris with a start. “I had no idea you were here.”
“They let me out early,” said Cassi with a smile. “Good behavior.”
After recovering from her initial shock, Doris felt compelled to inform Cassi that she’d spent the entire previous afternoon canceling today’s office patients so that Thomas could take her home. Meanwhile, she glanced at the inner office, then closed the door.