False Accusations by Jacobson, Alan (great novels of all time .txt) 📕

“Just what kind of complaint are we talking about?”

“Do you know her?” Coleman pressed.

“Yes.”

“Where were you on the night of September eleventh?”

“Why?”

“We’ll ask the questions, sir,” Valentine said.

“Not without my attorney present.”

Valentine glanced over at Coleman, an I told you so look on her face.

“Fine,” Coleman said. “Call him. We’ll see you at the station in a couple of hours,” he said as he handed Madison his card. They stood up and left, leaving him sitting behind his desk, staring at the card, pondering what wonderful surprises were in store for him now.

CHAPTER 20

WHEN HE WALKED into his office through the back door to the orthopedic clinic twenty minutes later, he saw the red light blinking on his phone. He picked it up and retrieved his voicemail messages. Jeffrey had called, apologizing that he had not returned home earlier last night. He had hit three hours of traffic and did not get in the door until midnight.

As Madison moved a hand toward the phone pad to dial, his intercom buzzed. “Doctor, we have Jan Harvey, Bill McNally, and Loril Kennedy waiting. They’re in rooms and ready to go.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Thanks, Monica. I just need to make a quick call.” He glanced at the clock and, seeing that he was already running behind, buzzed her back. “Who’s first?”

“Jan. Room One.”

He walked out of his office and grabbed Jan Harvey’s file that was in the receptacle on the exam room door. He hated waiting, so he made it a policy not to do it to his patients. Their time was valuable, too.

He forced a smile and opened the exam room door. “How are we doing today, Jan?”

The busy afternoon was a welcome stimulant for him. It took his mind off his collateral personal problems, and it invigorated his spirits. Contact with his patients was one of the more rewarding parts of practice for him.

At noon, he tried Jeffrey. “He’s just walking out the door, Doctor,” said the receptionist.

“Catch him, please. This is important.”

He heard a click and he was placed on hold. He was not sure if she had hung up on him because she did not like his tone, or if she was actually retrieving Jeffrey before he was out of reach.

“Phil,” came the voice at the other end of the phone. “I got in late—”

“Yeah, I know. Listen, I’ve got a problem, and not much time to explain. What are you doing now?”

“I was on my way out to get a bite.”

“Meet me at Spinelli’s?”

“Sure, but I have to be back at one-thirty to prepare—”

“I’ll see you in ten,” he said, and hung up. He threw his lab coat on the chair behind him and buzzed Monica to tell her he was leaving.

“I was able to get the Pincer surgery rescheduled for tomorrow morning,” she said.

The Pincer surgery. He thanked Monica, then headed out the door. He had Brittany Harding and the police breathing down his neck for some godforsaken reason and he had to worry about performing major surgery in twenty hours. He rubbed hard at his temples to ease the developing headache. If only the human body had an emotional on-off switch somewhere, one that the great anatomists and physiologists of the world had long overlooked.

Madison filled Jeffrey in on the visit by the detectives and then backtracked and told him of Harding’s appearance at his home on Saturday morning.

“Sounds like it was quite a scene,” Hellman said between chews on his veal parmigiana.

“I thought attorneys avoided understatement.”

“She said, ‘What you did to me...?’” Hellman asked, confirming the wording. He received an affirmative nod from Madison. “Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”

“I assume she means firing her, but why would she threaten going to the police for that?” Madison asked, playing with, but not eating, the three-cheese ravioli on his plate. His head then shot up straight. “Wait a minute. She said something about me forcing her to sleep with her so she could keep her job.”

“0kayyy,”Hellman said, nodding his head, “now things are starting to make sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sexual harassment.”

“What sexual harassment? I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Doesn’t matter. Can you think of anything else, like maybe you told her sexually suggestive jokes or hinted at special employment considerations that could be made if she did something for you...”

“Jeffrey! What’s wrong with you? You know me better—”

Hellman was waving his hands in front of Madison, glancing side to side to see if any of the other patrons were looking. “Calm down, Phil. I was just asking a question. The police are no doubt going to ask you that question as well. If you explode like that—”

“I won’t explode. I was just...” he paused, searching for the right word, “insulted that you would even ask me that. You, of all people.”

“Me of all people is your attorney. Asking you questions like that is my job. Now, let’s get back on track. So you made no innuendoes, no remarks that could be taken the wrong way?”

“Nothing. In fact, when we went to dinner a couple of weeks ago, I even told her that she should put in an application for the position.”

“Dinner? You went to dinner with her?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Where?”

“Fifth Street Café.”

“The Fifth Street Café? Could you have picked a more trendy, romantic place?”

“Oh, come on, Jeffrey.”

“Phil, I’m just trying to point out—”

“Don’t point out. Just look at the facts. We had a meeting to discuss programming for the up-and-coming seminar. That was it. We started talking about her caustic attitude toward people, and we got into a minor disagreement. I told her that she should consider the fact that the position was going to be opened up to other applicants. I wanted her to realize that she was going to have to fight for her job, to shape up or get out.”

“Was anyone else at this meeting with you?”

“No.”

“Hmm,” was all Hellman said, falling silent, chewing on his veal.

“Look, nothing happened. She didn’t keep the