The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [55]
As hospital chief of staff, Dr. Margaret Armstrong sat behind a heavy oak table facing the arc of seats. Beside her, attempting to bring some order to the room, was Detective Lieutenant John Dockerty. Dockerty was a thin, rumpled man in his late forties. He wore a gabardine suit that appeared large for him by at least two sizes. His limp green eyes scanned the hall, then turned to a sheaf of papers on the table in front of him. As he looked down, an errant wisp of thinning, reddish brown hair dropped over one eye. He absently swept the strands back in place, only to repeat the ritual moments later.
His languid, almost distracted air suggested he had encountered most of what there was in life to see. In fact, he had spent more than fifteen years on the Boston police force carefully cultivating that demeanor and learning how best to utilize it.
He looked over the hall again, then spoke to Margaret Armstrong out of the corner of his mouth. “This group is obviously much more adept at giving orders than they are at taking them.”
Armstrong laughed her agreement, then banged a notebook on the table several times. “Would you all please sit down,” she called out. “If we can’t show Lieutenant Dockerty cooperation, at least we can show him manners.” In less than a minute, everyone had found a place.
The hospital administrator sat to one side of the hall surrounded by his assistants. He was a paunchy, foppish man who had run away from his Brooklyn home at age seventeen and changed his name from Isaac Lifshitz to Edward Lipton III. For years he had kept his job by pitting his enemies against one another in a way so skillful that none of them ever had the unified backing needed to push for his ouster.
On the other side of the room were clustered the men and women who comprised the hospital board of trustees. The men, a homogeneous, patrician lot, were vastly more concerned with the impact that their trustee position might have on their Who’s Who listings than with the influence that they might have on Boston Doctors Hospital. The token black on the board was distinguishable from the others only by color, and the four women were not distinguishable at all. The inquiry marked the first time in recent memory that the entire twenty-four-member board was present for a meeting.
Midway up the center aisle, Wallace Huttner sat with Ahmed Hadawi and the other members of the Medical Staff Executive Committee. Joining that group, occupying the chair just to Huttner’s right, was Peter Thomas.
The back of the amphitheater was the domain of the nurses. Eight of them, all in street clothes, formed a rosette around Dotty Dalrymple, who appeared volcanic in a plain black dress. Janet Poulos was there, along with Christine Beall, Winnie Edgerly, and several other nurses from Four South, including Angela Martin.
On the right-hand side of the hall, several rows behind Edward Lipton III, sat David. He sat alone until the very last minute, when Howard Kim, the anesthesiologist who had helped with Charlotte’s unsuccessful resuscitation, lumbered down the stairs and squeezed into the chair next to him.
John Dockerty had drawn up the guest list for the evening. Dr. Armstrong had made the arrangements.
“I want to thank you all for coming,” Dockerty began. “You must believe me that inquiries such as the one I have requested tonight occur much more frequently on Columbo and in Agatha Christie novels than they do in actual police work. However, I want to move forward as quickly as possible on the matter of Charlotte Thomas, a matter involving all of you in one way or another. Theatrics have never been my bag, so to speak, but this meeting seemed like the most effective way for me to gather the preliminary information I need, while at the same time keeping all interested parties informed.