Author: Triggersaurus
Genre: Humour
Rating: PG
Summary: Remember all those little unsolved
things from episodes past? Angue Von TrenchCote is hired to solve
them, and calls the staff together at Doc Magoo's one stormy
night to reveal the truth...
Disclaimer: Most of these people aren't mine,
but Angus is so don't steal him!
"Good evening."
No-one responded.
"We're here tonight to solve the many mysteries of the
County General ER. After a long two months of working hard on the
cases I have been investigating, I can reveal to you who is to
blame. I must say first that I was initially surprised to be
hired by..." he paused, "...a hospital employee to look
into some strange happenings. A hospital is not the sort of place
I would hope for such things to happen. But, through my
investigations, I have discovered that in fact hospitals are the
ideal place for crime, misdemeanors and strange happenings. For
example, who would have thought that a simple change in hospital
attire could cause someone to attempt suicide?"
Several people gasped and all heads turned to look at Carol. She
looked back at them all.
"You saw the colour of the scrubs we had to wear! I just
couldn't face putting those things on, day in, day out, possibly
for the rest of my career..." She tipped her head into her
hands. The other nurses nodded sympathetically and Doug Ross
placed a hand on her back.
"Yes. It was not, as most believed, the disintegration of
Nurse Hathaway's relationship with Dr. Douglas Ross, but in
actual fact directly related to the management decision to change
the colour of the nurses' scrubs to a vile and cruel pink. It's
no wonder Nurse Hathaway felt the desire to take her own life
when she saw them."
"I think we should sue management." Jeannie, sitting at
the rear of a booth, said.
There was a general murmuring of concensus.
"But this was not the only apparent suicide I had to
investigate..." Everyone fell silent once more, awed by the
discoveries this detective was laying down.
"Dr. Dennis Gant, a promising young surgeon who was rushed
into the ER one night, unrecognisable after being hit by a
train."
Carter wiped a tear from one eye.
"It was always in question whether he had jumped or if he
had fallen. Conflicting eyewitness accounts added to the
confusion. Everyone knew Dr. Gant had been under a lot of
pressure at work and received little sympathy. His girlfriend was
cheating on him. He worked enormous shifts and even covered other
people's for them." He threw a glance in the direction of
Carter, who looked away as a roll of thunder boomed.
"But no-one ever considered that maybe he neither jumped NOR
fell."
Confused faces looked up at the detective, and Randi gasped,
clamping a hand over her mouth as she realised.
"No-one wondered if Dennis Gant had been PUSHED."
The staff recoiled in shock.
"And although we knew Dr. Gant had been treated in a less
than favourable way by Dr. Peter Benton, we did not know how deep
it ran, did we Dr. Benton?"
In a corner, Peter glowered from beneath lowered brows.
"I was trying to make him a better surgeon. He pushed the
limits."
"But not the limits everyone else presumed, Doctor."
"He was too good. He was going to be better than me within
months if I wasn't careful. There was no way I could let that
happen."
"So you crept away from your shift when you saw Dr. Gant
leave, and followed him to the El station-"
"I had no choice."
"-you found a quiet end of the platform and lured your
resident there with the promise of a good review-"
"No!" Carter cried.
"-and when the train pulled in, you gave him a gentle shove
onto the tracks."
"But the witnesses...?" Mark said.
"Dr. Benton? Would you care to tell them?"
In the same position, in the same voice, Peter said "I posed
as one eyewitness. The other was an old lady who was blind in one
eye. I talked her into saying he jumped."
"How could you?! How could you?" Carter leapt from his
seat and tried to throw a punch at his mentor and superior, but
he was held back by Malik and Jerry, finishing up a sobbing heap.
"Mu hahahahahh," laughed Peter.
"How could he indeed. A man with so much skill for saving
lives, ending one to get rid of the competition."
"I think the Gant family should sue him." Jeannie said,
eyeballing her former lover.
"Competition seems to play a large part in the ER in general
it seems. It is a quality, it seems, that can be held accountable
for yet another long standing mystery - that of Dr. Kerry
Weaver's limp."
Everyone looked at Kerry, who ignored them and looked straight at
Angus Von TrenchCote.
"There has been much speculation about Dr. Weaver's need for
a crutch and what caused it. I initially jumped to the conclusion
that a childhood illness or accident was to blame, but I found no
trace of polio in her records, or indeed any disease or major
accident throughout her life."
"You read my records?"
He ignored her.
"So it seemed there was no medical trace for me to follow. I
couldn't help but observe Dr. Weaver's almost obsessive
compulsion to document everything in the ER, and her infinite
ability to deal with paperwork, so I began to question whether
she had not she had doctored her own records. After all, her
senior position meant that she had access to the information, and
her experience with paperwork would make it easy to simply delete
the information she didn't want anyone to know."
Everyone stared aghast at Kerry, while she still continued to
stare at the detective who was so casually implicating her.
"The distrust and dislike between Dr. Weaver and Dr. Ross
was not merely a function of their opposite attitudes to
regulations."
Everyone's eyes shifted off Kerry and onto Doug, who looked into
his lap.
"Dr. Ross has worked with Dr. Weaver before, as I think some
of you are already aware. But it seems there was more between
them than just work."
Everyone's eyes grew to twice their normal size.
"I discovered that at one point, Dr. Ross and Dr. Weaver
were a couple-"
"We dated twice." Kerry was quick to make the
differentiation.
"However they were involved, one particular night found them
on a cliff top by Lake Erie, nearby the hotel that was hosting
the medical conference that they were meant to be attending. And,
let us say, our two little doctors got very...passionate."
Doug was smiling partially, still focusing his eyes on the floor,
while Kerry Weaver had gone a bright shade of red.
"Unfortunately for them both, it was during the heat of the
moment that a terrible accident occurred, and Dr. Weaver fell
from the cliff top to the small beach below-"
Someone at the back of the room giggled.
"-landing awkwardly on her leg so that it snapped in three
places. As I'm sure you can all imagine, it was not only
incredibly painful, but no doubt the embarrassment of the notes
on her chart left by the local hospital was too much to bear. Am
I correct, Dr. Weaver?"
"Yes." She was still flushed.
"And since then, you have blamed Dr. Ross for the accident
and the subsequent loss of full use of your leg."
"She should sue him." Jeannie said, the only person who
wasn't dumbstuck by the relevation. Kerry suddenly got up, and
left the table and Doc Magoo's. The figure could be seen outside,
limping back to the ER in the rain. Carol turned to Doug,
"I can't believe you...and her!"
"Don't worry. It really didn't last very long."
"Covering up the past rarely works, in my experience. I'm
sure you'll all agree when you hear about the next mystery I had
to solve - just who ARE Dr. John Carter's parents? Never seen and
barely heard of, it seemed very unusual that a young man from a
powerful family should never speak of them. But in this case, I
found a secret that even Dr. Carter himself does not know."
Carter looked puzzled.
"Dr. Carter, the people you know as your parents, the
jet-setting couple who barely qualify since you grew up in the
care of your grandmother and home carers, are not in fact your
parents at all."
Gasps filled the air.
"You're kidding!"
"No, I am afraid I'm not. This is no joke. Although your
'family' are far from economically challenged, your true home
means that, by birthright, you are an heir to one of the biggest
fortunes and part of the most famous family in America."
"What?"
"Dr. John Truman Carter III, you are actually the
illegitimate son of Robert Kennedy."
Carter gripped the table while everyone looked at him in shock.
"Sorry, what? This has to be a joke..."
"It's no joke. When you were born, a family was found here
in Chicago who had enough money to bring you up comfortably and
as the Kennedy's wished, and you were given to them as soon as
you were ready to leave the hospital. But your parents, although
they had accepted a large sum of money to look after you, found
it difficult to raise a child that wasn't theirs, particularly
after their eldest son died. Your grandmother felt differently,
however, and considered it a great responsibility and honour to
raise a Kennedy child."
"I can't believe this."
"You could sue the Kennedy's..." Jeannie pondered.
"Unbelievable as it may seem, I promise you this is the
truth, for which I have been searching for over the last two
months. And only now does one question still elude me. I have
worked hard, sometimes 18 hours a day to try and find the answer
to this question, but to this day I still haven't been able to
answer it. Perhaps Dr. Romano can clear the matter up for me
tonight, for us all. Dr. Romano, where DO you get your dates
from?"
"I must confess."
"I have spoken to brothels, escort agencies, even businesses
termed 'executive services'. I have spoke to women on the
streets. I even had a conversation with the nurses on the female
medicine ward, as a last desperate dead end. So, please tell
me."
"If only you had known the right place to look, Mr.
TrenchCote, because it's much simpler than you think. You presume
that because my dates are blonde and thin that I pay for them.
You are wrong. Look a little closer to home and you will find
that I come from a large, Catholic family. I have seventeen
cousins in Chicago, let alone the rest of the country. I have
five siblings, four of them are my sisters, two of which
inherited my mother's blonde hair and my father's slim build. It
doesn't take a genius to work out where my dates come from."
"Family. Of course..." The detective rubbed his
forehead.
"That leaves me with only one question for YOU, TrenchCote.
Just who was it that hired you?"
"Ah. I was hired by-"
"It was me. I just couldn't take it anymore. All these
terrible things that have happened to me since I've worked here,
I wanted to know if it was simply my bad luck that rubbed off on
everyone else."
"Having investigated these cases, Dr. Greene, I think I can
safely tell you that you are NOT the cause of any of these
incidents. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to meet another
client." He swept out of Doc Magoos, into the rain, and he
swore to himself that he would never again return to County
General ER.