"A Chance Meeting - part 3 "
He wasn't sure what to do. He wanted answers, answers that Lucy wouldn't give him. He could hound her, he knew that, but he knew she wouldn't tell him anything. He had seen it in her eyes. It was her, he had no doubt, but she had changed. There was something hard within her, something he had never seen in her. She had meant what she had said. That meant he would have to find out who "they" were on his own.
He had done his best to research back, to figure out just when Lucy Knight became Elizabeth Farrell. He hadn't found it, but he suspected that he was close. Elizabeth Farrell, or Liz, as her college yearbook called her, supposedly came from Plattsburg, New York. Small enough that no one has ever been there, but large enough that one more person would go unnoticed. She had gone to Cornell Medical School, and her career as a doctor was standard, if not terribly noticeable.
But... Before undergraduate school, Liz Farrell existed only on paper, and he had found a death certificate for a baby bearing that name. So he had proof that Liz was an assumed identity. The problem was filling in the twenty or so years between Lucy's death and Liz's appearance.
The place to start, he reasoned as he stepped out of the small library he had started his research at, is Cook County. The night Lucy Knight was killed. He had to talk to the people who had seen her last. The most obvious problem was that thirty years had passed. His witnesses were dead or scattered to the four corners of the earth. Still he had to try, and he started with the closest possible. Peter Benton.
Peter hadn't stayed at County. Carter had known that he wouldn't. The only thing that kept him in Chicago as long as he had stayed was his family and once he had gotten custody of Reese, he had gone on to bigger and better things. He was, even at the age of sixty-two, still considered one of the finest cardio-thoracic surgeons in the country. He had accepted a position at Cornell ten years back, with no real regrets as far as Carter knew. The schedule was slower than he liked, but he had wanted to stay close to Reese, who was attending the University of Rochester at the time. It was understandable, Reese was his only child. That the young man was doing just fine for himself as a computer engineer was simply a bonus. Carter knew a doting daddy when he saw one, and Reese had been Peter's greatest joy since the day he was born.
Besides, he told himself, it has been a while since I saw Peter. They were still close, Peter has even come to Jason's graduation from medical school, something that had shocked Carter to no end, even though the man was Jason's godfather. Their families had stayed close too. Peter had liked Maria from the day he met her, and sometimes Carter wondered if Peter's approval was what prompted him to propose. The last time he had seen Peter had been at Maria's funeral, and he had not really been in the mood to socialize.
Cornell was a lovely place, he thought as he drove around the picturesque campus. It was good to know that Peter had such a nice place to live and work. Over the years, though he knew Peter would never admit it, the man had mellowed. His appreciation for things had gone beyond medicine. He was even heard to remark about the scenic weather or how his family was doing. Carter almost grinned as he pulled into the staff parking lot. Peter has finally become a human being like the rest of us. It shouldn't be surprising, he told himself, but it was.
He hadn't called ahead, but he knew that Fridays was Peter's office day. The fact that Peter actually maintained an office day was another change but he could see where it was handy. You had to put time aside for the paperwork the higher you went, and even though Peter hadn't exactly climbed the admin chain, he had to give time to his students. What Carter was counting on was that medical students hadn't changed and that no one was using Peter's office hours. That and the fact that he doubted that Peter had become an easily approachable man. Peter had always been a bit hard to deal with. There was caring in the man, Carter knew that, but it was rarely expressed to anyone other than family. He could admit that there was a part of him that still trembled at the thought of talking to Peter. It had been a long time since he was a medical student and yet he still had a twinge of fear as he raised up his hand to knock on the office door.
" Come in," was the gruff response. His tone indicated that yes, he was being interrupted. Carter smiled as he opened the door.
" I was having trouble with the last assignment," he said brightly. Peter looked up from the file he was reading. Shock and surprise spread across the older man's face as he stood up.
" Carter, its good to see you. I didn't know you were in town." Peter smiled as he held out his hand. Shaking hands, Carter mused, was about as close as Peter would come to a public display of affection. " What pulled you out of the ER? Visiting Jason?"
" I was. He's doing fine. I think I make him nervous." They exchanged pleasantries about family and work for a few minutes. Carter wasn't quite sure how to raise the topic. He knew how Peter would take it. It was thirty years in the past, but he was still a recovering drug addict because of it. There was an unpleasant history. On the other hand, it was thirty years ago. The raw wounds of Lucy's death had long scabbed over and turned into scars, and those scars had faded. It was a long time ago and he could argue that he was just seeking closure. In a very real way he was.
" So what has you out here?" Peter asked after a moment. " You usually call ahead."
Carter leaned back in the office chair he had chosen to sit in. " I wanted to ask you some questions... about Lucy." As he watched, Peter stiffened in his chair. He quickly pressed forward. " Don't take it the wrong way, all right? I know it was a long time ago, but I never really asked questions about what happened. It's been bothering me lately and I wanted to know what happened... so I can put it to rest."
" Carter, " Peter said softly, " I thought you put this to rest a long time ago. Dredging it all up isn't going to help."
" You know, I don't even know who was with her when she died. Or who worked on her or when it happened. Who took her down to the morgue? Who was with her last? Why was there a closed casket?" The key, Carter had realized, was finding out who gotten the not dead Lucy Knight out of the hospital. It was obvious to him why the casket had been closed. Either there had been no body at all, or more likely, an unidentified dead person had been substituted. And, he had a rising curiosity about the whole business. In truth he remembered very little about that night. He remembered being stabbed, he remembered looking across the room as he was lying on the floor and seeing Lucy less than five feet away, looking frightened and struggling to breathe. He remembered someone screaming, and then he had been in the trauma room, where Deb Chen and Luka Kovac had talked to him, though he could never remember what they had been saying. The next thing he remembered was waking up in recovery. A whole lot must have happened in between.
" Who took her to the morgue? That's not letting it rest, that's morbid, Carter." Peter seemed annoyed.
" It was one of the most significant events of my life and I don't know what happened." He let a pleading note enter his voice. " I don't even have a timeline."
Peter frowned as he stood up and paced around the room. " Carter, it was a long time ago. A timeline isn't going to change anything, and I don't think I can tell you what you want to know. I didn't work on Lucy."
" Tell me what you do know." Carter pressed.
" Romano and Elizabeth were with Lucy when she died. It was around two in the morning. I don't know who took her down. It was probably a nurse." Peter stopped pacing for a moment. " It might have been Romano. He was upset, I'll give the bastard that. Or Kerry Weaver. She helped him close the chest incision, I think..." He put his hands down on his desk. " Carter, there's your problem. If anyone has the answers that you want, its those three. Elizabeth, Romano, and Kerry. Out of those three, only two are alive, and Robert Romano isn't long for the world."
" Really?" That was a surprise. Carter considered that for a moment. " He's not that much older than you and I. What's wrong with him?" Romano had left Cook County almost fifteen years earlier, and Carter hadn't bothered to keep with him. He hadn't liked the often nasty and mean spirited man, but he had a grudging respect for Romano's surgical skill. He was a little surprised that Peter knew anything about the man though. There had been a lot of bad blood between them.
" He's got leukemia. It wasn't caught until it was pretty advanced, and he decided to forgo treatment. He told Elizabeth that he didn't want to die the way Mark did." Peter paused. " He and Elizabeth kept in touch. She said he had about six months. " He shrugged. " I can't say I blame him. If it's advanced, chemo will just prolong the agony. Let's face it, Mark Greene died pretty badly."
" Where is Romano living anyway?" If Romano was dying then he was the one that had to be spoken with first. Hopefully, he mused, it wasn't some godforsaken hellhole, though that was pretty unlikely. Romano had always had pretty good taste.
Peter eyed him carefully. " Are you honestly considering what I think you're thinking?"
" What do you think I'm thinking?" Carter smiled and leaned back in his chair. He didn't need Peter to tell him where Romano was living, he could ask Elizabeth. That Peter was so upset about the questions surprised him. It was clear that Peter was upset. Upset and disturbed, and he suddenly realized that it wasn't just the morbid topic. Peter seemed worried.
" Carter, the man is dying. This is morbid. Morbid and sick. What difference does it make whether he took Lucy's body to the morgue? What are you hoping to accomplish with questions like that? Lucy died, Carter. It was a tragedy, but it happens. Let her go. " Peter's words were passionate, and Carter knew he had to respond.
" I saw her, Peter. I saw Lucy Knight. She lives about a half hour from here." He expected a reaction but not the one he got. Peter Benton turned ashy gray. He returned to his seat and took a deep breath.
" Carter, " He took another deep breath, and cradled his head in his hands. " I don't know how to respond to that."
" She's living under the name Elizabeth Farrell." He decided to press forward. " She went to school here. You might have had her in class. " He doubted that actually. He knew Peter would have mentioned a student that looked eerily like Lucy.
Peter chuckled mirthlessly. " Look, Carter, I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. Lucy Knight is not alive. I did not have her in class. If you want to go to Robert Romano and have him laugh in your face, be my guest, but I'm not going to help you humiliate yourself. Take my advice and see a psychiatrist. If you won't do that, then do yourself a favor, and let this fantasy go."
" I can't do that, Peter." Carter rose to his feet. " I can't ignore what I saw." He didn't mention the swords or the dead man. There was no need. Peter wasn't going to discuss it further, even though Carter was convinced he knew something more than Romano's current address. " It was good seeing you, Peter."
He wasn't sure what to do. He wanted answers, answers that Lucy wouldn't give him. He could hound her, he knew that, but he knew she wouldn't tell him anything. He had seen it in her eyes. It was her, he had no doubt, but she had changed. There was something hard within her, something he had never seen in her. She had meant what she had said. That meant he would have to find out who "they" were on his own.
He had done his best to research back, to figure out just when Lucy Knight became Elizabeth Farrell. He hadn't found it, but he suspected that he was close. Elizabeth Farrell, or Liz, as her college yearbook called her, supposedly came from Plattsburg, New York. Small enough that no one has ever been there, but large enough that one more person would go unnoticed. She had gone to Cornell Medical School, and her career as a doctor was standard, if not terribly noticeable.
But... Before undergraduate school, Liz Farrell existed only on paper, and he had found a death certificate for a baby bearing that name. So he had proof that Liz was an assumed identity. The problem was filling in the twenty or so years between Lucy's death and Liz's appearance.
The place to start, he reasoned as he stepped out of the small library he had started his research at, is Cook County. The night Lucy Knight was killed. He had to talk to the people who had seen her last. The most obvious problem was that thirty years had passed. His witnesses were dead or scattered to the four corners of the earth. Still he had to try, and he started with the closest possible. Peter Benton.
Peter hadn't stayed at County. Carter had known that he wouldn't. The only thing that kept him in Chicago as long as he had stayed was his family and once he had gotten custody of Reese, he had gone on to bigger and better things. He was, even at the age of sixty-two, still considered one of the finest cardio-thoracic surgeons in the country. He had accepted a position at Cornell ten years back, with no real regrets as far as Carter knew. The schedule was slower than he liked, but he had wanted to stay close to Reese, who was attending the University of Rochester at the time. It was understandable, Reese was his only child. That the young man was doing just fine for himself as a computer engineer was simply a bonus. Carter knew a doting daddy when he saw one, and Reese had been Peter's greatest joy since the day he was born.
Besides, he told himself, it has been a while since I saw Peter. They were still close, Peter has even come to Jason's graduation from medical school, something that had shocked Carter to no end, even though the man was Jason's godfather. Their families had stayed close too. Peter had liked Maria from the day he met her, and sometimes Carter wondered if Peter's approval was what prompted him to propose. The last time he had seen Peter had been at Maria's funeral, and he had not really been in the mood to socialize.
Cornell was a lovely place, he thought as he drove around the picturesque campus. It was good to know that Peter had such a nice place to live and work. Over the years, though he knew Peter would never admit it, the man had mellowed. His appreciation for things had gone beyond medicine. He was even heard to remark about the scenic weather or how his family was doing. Carter almost grinned as he pulled into the staff parking lot. Peter has finally become a human being like the rest of us. It shouldn't be surprising, he told himself, but it was.
He hadn't called ahead, but he knew that Fridays was Peter's office day. The fact that Peter actually maintained an office day was another change but he could see where it was handy. You had to put time aside for the paperwork the higher you went, and even though Peter hadn't exactly climbed the admin chain, he had to give time to his students. What Carter was counting on was that medical students hadn't changed and that no one was using Peter's office hours. That and the fact that he doubted that Peter had become an easily approachable man. Peter had always been a bit hard to deal with. There was caring in the man, Carter knew that, but it was rarely expressed to anyone other than family. He could admit that there was a part of him that still trembled at the thought of talking to Peter. It had been a long time since he was a medical student and yet he still had a twinge of fear as he raised up his hand to knock on the office door.
" Come in," was the gruff response. His tone indicated that yes, he was being interrupted. Carter smiled as he opened the door.
" I was having trouble with the last assignment," he said brightly. Peter looked up from the file he was reading. Shock and surprise spread across the older man's face as he stood up.
" Carter, its good to see you. I didn't know you were in town." Peter smiled as he held out his hand. Shaking hands, Carter mused, was about as close as Peter would come to a public display of affection. " What pulled you out of the ER? Visiting Jason?"
" I was. He's doing fine. I think I make him nervous." They exchanged pleasantries about family and work for a few minutes. Carter wasn't quite sure how to raise the topic. He knew how Peter would take it. It was thirty years in the past, but he was still a recovering drug addict because of it. There was an unpleasant history. On the other hand, it was thirty years ago. The raw wounds of Lucy's death had long scabbed over and turned into scars, and those scars had faded. It was a long time ago and he could argue that he was just seeking closure. In a very real way he was.
" So what has you out here?" Peter asked after a moment. " You usually call ahead."
Carter leaned back in the office chair he had chosen to sit in. " I wanted to ask you some questions... about Lucy." As he watched, Peter stiffened in his chair. He quickly pressed forward. " Don't take it the wrong way, all right? I know it was a long time ago, but I never really asked questions about what happened. It's been bothering me lately and I wanted to know what happened... so I can put it to rest."
" Carter, " Peter said softly, " I thought you put this to rest a long time ago. Dredging it all up isn't going to help."
" You know, I don't even know who was with her when she died. Or who worked on her or when it happened. Who took her down to the morgue? Who was with her last? Why was there a closed casket?" The key, Carter had realized, was finding out who gotten the not dead Lucy Knight out of the hospital. It was obvious to him why the casket had been closed. Either there had been no body at all, or more likely, an unidentified dead person had been substituted. And, he had a rising curiosity about the whole business. In truth he remembered very little about that night. He remembered being stabbed, he remembered looking across the room as he was lying on the floor and seeing Lucy less than five feet away, looking frightened and struggling to breathe. He remembered someone screaming, and then he had been in the trauma room, where Deb Chen and Luka Kovac had talked to him, though he could never remember what they had been saying. The next thing he remembered was waking up in recovery. A whole lot must have happened in between.
" Who took her to the morgue? That's not letting it rest, that's morbid, Carter." Peter seemed annoyed.
" It was one of the most significant events of my life and I don't know what happened." He let a pleading note enter his voice. " I don't even have a timeline."
Peter frowned as he stood up and paced around the room. " Carter, it was a long time ago. A timeline isn't going to change anything, and I don't think I can tell you what you want to know. I didn't work on Lucy."
" Tell me what you do know." Carter pressed.
" Romano and Elizabeth were with Lucy when she died. It was around two in the morning. I don't know who took her down. It was probably a nurse." Peter stopped pacing for a moment. " It might have been Romano. He was upset, I'll give the bastard that. Or Kerry Weaver. She helped him close the chest incision, I think..." He put his hands down on his desk. " Carter, there's your problem. If anyone has the answers that you want, its those three. Elizabeth, Romano, and Kerry. Out of those three, only two are alive, and Robert Romano isn't long for the world."
" Really?" That was a surprise. Carter considered that for a moment. " He's not that much older than you and I. What's wrong with him?" Romano had left Cook County almost fifteen years earlier, and Carter hadn't bothered to keep with him. He hadn't liked the often nasty and mean spirited man, but he had a grudging respect for Romano's surgical skill. He was a little surprised that Peter knew anything about the man though. There had been a lot of bad blood between them.
" He's got leukemia. It wasn't caught until it was pretty advanced, and he decided to forgo treatment. He told Elizabeth that he didn't want to die the way Mark did." Peter paused. " He and Elizabeth kept in touch. She said he had about six months. " He shrugged. " I can't say I blame him. If it's advanced, chemo will just prolong the agony. Let's face it, Mark Greene died pretty badly."
" Where is Romano living anyway?" If Romano was dying then he was the one that had to be spoken with first. Hopefully, he mused, it wasn't some godforsaken hellhole, though that was pretty unlikely. Romano had always had pretty good taste.
Peter eyed him carefully. " Are you honestly considering what I think you're thinking?"
" What do you think I'm thinking?" Carter smiled and leaned back in his chair. He didn't need Peter to tell him where Romano was living, he could ask Elizabeth. That Peter was so upset about the questions surprised him. It was clear that Peter was upset. Upset and disturbed, and he suddenly realized that it wasn't just the morbid topic. Peter seemed worried.
" Carter, the man is dying. This is morbid. Morbid and sick. What difference does it make whether he took Lucy's body to the morgue? What are you hoping to accomplish with questions like that? Lucy died, Carter. It was a tragedy, but it happens. Let her go. " Peter's words were passionate, and Carter knew he had to respond.
" I saw her, Peter. I saw Lucy Knight. She lives about a half hour from here." He expected a reaction but not the one he got. Peter Benton turned ashy gray. He returned to his seat and took a deep breath.
" Carter, " He took another deep breath, and cradled his head in his hands. " I don't know how to respond to that."
" She's living under the name Elizabeth Farrell." He decided to press forward. " She went to school here. You might have had her in class. " He doubted that actually. He knew Peter would have mentioned a student that looked eerily like Lucy.
Peter chuckled mirthlessly. " Look, Carter, I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. Lucy Knight is not alive. I did not have her in class. If you want to go to Robert Romano and have him laugh in your face, be my guest, but I'm not going to help you humiliate yourself. Take my advice and see a psychiatrist. If you won't do that, then do yourself a favor, and let this fantasy go."
" I can't do that, Peter." Carter rose to his feet. " I can't ignore what I saw." He didn't mention the swords or the dead man. There was no need. Peter wasn't going to discuss it further, even though Carter was convinced he knew something more than Romano's current address. " It was good seeing you, Peter."