Free Death Rounds by Peter Clement

smoke before he quit. “Rossit seems to be coming down on you a lot harder than you initially realized,” he stated. His frown deepened, but from what I now suspected was concern, not anger.
    “Susanne told me about the run he took at you in ICU,” he continued, speaking low and quickly, “and that you’d both put it down to his usual troublemaking. But by evening her nurses were hearing rumors that you were going to be charged with everything from missing vital signs through diagnostic errors to overprescribing antibiotics. Susanne was alarmed to the extent she thought you should be warned, yet felt uncomfortable calling you herself. I told her I’d speak to you this morning, but I’ve been lying awake half the night, unable to figure a way you can respond to what Rossit’s mounting against you. Besides that, I’ve already heard rumors here that the woman’s son. Miller, is equally stirred up and hostile as well. So for God’s sake, man, going overboard with crazy stories about phantoms is the worst thing you can do for your credibility right now!”
    I was staggered by the alarm in Michael’s voice. It was in such sharp contrast to his easy reassurances yesterday that all would be well. Nor had I expected Rossit’s lighting into me to grow into his leveling such damning broadsides against my reputation. That kind of assault was beyond the usual way he’d lit into others who’d misjudged an infection. Even Harold Miller’s being so outspoken about my incompetence shook me up, though God knows the man had cause.
    Taken together, all this bad-mouthing served as a supreme wake-up call. Rossit’s antics in ICU yesterday—his criticisms and threats of a hostile case review—were suddenly more chilling, more credible than they’d first seemed.
    Michael grasped both my shoulders and broke me out of my thoughts with a little shake. “I warn you. Earl,” he said, his voice sounding strained, “if you persist with this nonsense, you’ll hand Rossit and Miller your own head on a platter!”
    I glanced over at Janet. She now appeared more startled than angry.
     

Chapter 6
     
    I pulled away from the parking lot of University Hospital and started driving toward St. Paul’s. The wipers slapped the rain back and forth more easily than before, like a pair of metronomes keeping time as I batted my thoughts around.
    I glanced in my rearview mirror and decided I’d learned a lot during my visit to the gray building that was receding into the mist. I certainly had a whole new understanding of how much trouble I was in. I also had to admit that it was clearly going to be difficult to pursue Janet’s suspicions about the Phantom and protect myself from Rossit at the same time.
    Particularly galling was that I’d absolutely no idea why Rossit was singling me out for such particularly vicious treatment in the first place. Damn him anyway, I thought, wondering how much damage the spiteful little man could do. To be honest, as much as I’d always considered him a loathsome nuisance and a nasty troublemaker, I’d never really believed until now that he’d be able to cause lasting harm to a physician of my standing.
    Working ER—being there day after day and pulling the tough cases through year after year—gives a doctor a certain status in a hospital. In my case I’d come to take it for granted that I didn’t have to prove myself anymore. I knew my clinical judgment and diagnostic skills carried a certain weight with my colleagues, and I was used to them turning to me for help when they or their patients were in trouble.
    In other words, for years I’d presumed my track record gave me immunity against having to defend myself in front of the likes of Rossit.
    Apparently not anymore.
    Could he actually help Miller convict me for negligence in a court of law? Miller’s behavior on the stairs and his mouthing off had made it pretty clear his bitterness hadn’t subsided any. Might the conviction lead to suspension,