Hey, kinda early this time! Well, to everybody who wondered what they were going to do to find the killer, here the answer. Thank you very much for the reviews, they are wonderful, each single one of them! So here we go for the next part...
(Oh, btw, I've not the slightest idea of basketball. Except for there is a ball and a basket. Everything I know about it is from the posters and newspaper articles my friend's pinned onto her wall. So I don't know if I'm right with everything, therefore I beg you this time not only to ignore my not-knowing any English, but also my not-knowing any basketball stuff. But you may read the rest of the story, though. ;) *g*)
Please R&R
************
"One hour! Can you explain to me how you wanna do that?!", Tanis Archer inquired, turning on the engine of her car. Next to her, Mark had just ended his call to Amanda, who was at the CGH, and shook his head in a tough manner.
"I have no idea, Tanis...", he stated plainly.
She rolled her eyes and kept both of her hands obsessively clunched around the wheel. "That's impossible...", she muttered with a mix of anger and fear in her voice, making sure he could hear her.
"It has to be possible!", he replied sternly. "Jesse's injured, he won't make it any longer!"
"Then why not storm the building? Harris is too scared, seeing the sharpshooters will give him the final blow he needs", she argued, taking the cars that hurried out of their police-car way so much for granted, that she didn't pay any attention to the road.
Mark glanced into the rear mirror, then back on the road, then onto his watch. 52 minutes. "Harris might be scared, but he is also desperate."
"He just wanted to vent his frustration. After all his son has died. But do you really think that he wants to die in there? I don't believe so..."
Mark cast her a short look with his blue earnest eyes. "You believe the wrong. After all Harris is still a father..."
Tanis waited for more, but it never came.
*************
"I still can't believe he really did agree to that! I mean, how does he wanna do that without using witchcraft?!", Alex Martin mused nervously, scratching his ear as he often did when he didn't know what else to do.
Amanda herself had a bad feeling about it when she said:"Mark knows what he is doing..." Hopefully, she added mentally and tried to hide her doubtful expression from the young intern. However, she didn't waste a second longer with her nagging worries and was determined to do something that would help Jesse and Steve. "We need to help Mark..."
"How!?", Alex exploded, his rational thinking heavily affected by the quickness of following events. He wasn't even sure if he had got everything the pathologist had just told him under her breath. "We don't have proofs, we don't know where to start, we don't even really know what's going on..."
"Yeah, and making a list of everything we don't know won't bring us any closer to the real murderer of Jimmy Harris!", Amanda argued back. "We must take what we have..."
Alex let out an aggressively shaken breath and calmed himself down. "Which would be?..."
"Jimmy's mother, Mrs Harris. I suggest you call her...I will go and talk to one of Jesse's patients. A Phillip Morton..."
"What makes this Morton more or less useful than any other of Dr Travis' patients?", Alex inquired impatiently.
Amanda shrugged. "His chart was the only one that Jesse didn't come to fill in and sign during his rounds..."
"Well, probably he was having other stuff on mind. Amanda, that means nothing!"
She gave him a look. "Or everything...we have to try it!"
He threw his arms into the air, somewhat helplessly. "And if we're just wasting our time with those guys, Steve and Jesse are really really deep in the soup!", he yelled, his young urge to get going evident in his voice.
"Well, what I really like about you, Dr Martin, is your indestructable optimism!", Amanda replied with sharp sarcasm, casting him a glance that didn't offer any room for objections.
***************
A slight knock on the door tore Phil out of his dozings. Even though his eyes were tired, he could see the beauty in the face of the young Afro-American woman who entered the room and almost immediatly filled it with a certain warmth of humanity. Something that easily vanished in hospital rooms, but was needed more than anything else here.
She wore a white coat and held a chart in her hands, but Phillip was sure that her pure smile was able to heal. "Mr Morton?", she asked carefully and he answered with a nod.
She came closer to the bed. "I'm Dr Amanda Bentley", she introduced herself.
A fragile grin hushed over the older man's face. "Amanda...", he repeated, as though he was enjoying it. "The lovely one", he remarked suddenly.
She raised her eyebrows. "What?"
"Amanda is Latin and means 'the lovely one'", he answered kindly and winked at her. "Are you friends with Dr Travis?", he interrogated, leaving Amanda kind of stunned how such a suffering man could be so less caught up in his own pain and rather think of something like that.
"Yes...I am...how did you...", she stammered, reaching after a chair behind her.
"I was wondering when one of you would show up...I'm only happy that it's not that horrible lawyer who is gonna question me....or that other guy, what's his name again...Darn, Dain..."
"Dawn..."
"Yes, right. He and his lawyer stormed in right when Jesse was treating me and they threw him out, just like that..." Even though his voice was dry and raspy, Amanda could clearly recognize that disgust in Morton's tone. The sick looking man made an attempt of shaking his head in indignation. "They didn't treat him very nicely...", he mumbled, then suddenly threw Amanda another look. "But you surely had other questions on mind, please ask..."
"You answered most of them already. So Dr Travis did tell you what they were holding against him?" The pathologist was gnawing her lip. Morton knew that Jesse'd been expelled and she saw no point in telling him that in the meantime there was more to it that simply saving Jesse's reputation.
He laughed out shortly and hoarsely. "He really didn't have to. When you're lying flatly on your back all day, you hear a lot of gossip..."
"Did he mention anything or anybody to you that might be able to tell us something that would help Jesse?", Amanda asked, not being able to fight the feeling that there was more about this man than she could guess.
Morton thought for a second, then shook his head. "He seemed somewhat devasted to me, but he wouldn't say much that would help you. I'm sorry..."
Amanda stood up, smiling sadly and friendly at the same time. She liked this man, he really seemed to care. When he raised his hand to take hers, she didn't hesitate a moment before taking his thin fingers into her soft, young hand. He watched her pleadingly. "Amanda...Please take care of Jesse. He wouldn't do any harm to anybody. He's a good doctor, he always was a better one than I used to be...", Phillip added regretfully. That said he found the pretty lady staring at him astonishedly.
"Does that mean, you met him before?", she asked, her dark sparkeling eyes meeting his own glazed focus.
He chuckeld knowingly. "He didn't tell you? Before he came here, he was my assigned intern...back in Minnesota, you know?"
Amanda took a deep breath. "No, I didn't know that..."
The older man grinned shyly. He couldn't believe Jesse had never told anybody what had happened then. Slowly Morton's memories drifted back into the past, crossed the lines of things that were long ago and far away. It was logical that he -Morton himself- had never lost a word about it. Even if he had wanted to confess it to anybody, Morton didn't have anyone he trusted so much that he would have told him or her. The doctor had always been a loner. After his daughter's death even more than before. But Jesse..."He hasn't changed a bit...", Phillip mumbled to himself, giving Amanda no clue what he meant by that.
**************
"Dr Travis seemed to be a nice person to me", Mrs Harris explained through thick sobs that sounded three times as loud in the receiver. "But I could see that he didn't like my decision about Jimmy...I only had to look into his eyes. He didn't get as mad as the other doctor, but I knew he was angry. He thought I was a bad mother...", she mumbled, sounding hauntedly as though she was thinking the same.
Alex frowned in the meantime. "The other doctor?"
"Yeah, a tall one with brown hair...Pads was his name or something like that..I'm sorry..."
"Potts...", Alex repeated more to himself, drawing a conclusion quickly. "You said he was mad..."
"Well, sort of. He screamed at me and asked me how I could do such a thing...he was probably right..."
"Don't say something like that", Alex soothed the seemingly distracted woman. A short look at his watch told him that he had to hurry a bit. "Mrs Harris, I thank you, you have been a big help. I'm really sorry about your son." He said and felt how empty those words were. Of course, he had meant it, but he didn't know this women personally. For him, this was a tragedy similar to a lot of others he had to face everyday. He sounded lame.
************
Mark and Tanis met Amanda at the reception desk. When the young woman had spotted them, rushing through the elevator doors, she sprinted towards them with a meltingly worried gaze on her face. Mark felt roughly affected by the intensity with which her eyes sought for reassurance in his, as she asked:"How are Steve and Jesse?"
The older doctor also felt his heart sinking into his knees when he couldn't reply anything satisfying. "I don't know", he admitted and moisted his lips to reveal the next, even worse part of information. "I could talk to Steve over the phone, he said that Jesse was injured. That's why we need to hurry..."
"Did you find out anything?", Tanis took lead of the discussion, knowing that pointless bits and pieces wouldn't help anybody right now. Amanda shook her head. She had no doubt that Morton had been telling the truth and the fact that he knew Jesse from earlier was no trace here. Morton was far too weak to get out of his bed, he couldn't be hiding a lot about the present events and he had wanted to help Jesse. The disappointment and rising despair in Mark's and Tanis' pressed sighs were evident, so she added a small, however, maybe deciding, fact. "Alex wanted to talk to Mrs Harris and see if she knows something..."
While talking, they had started marching towards the reception and by the time Alex had put down the receiver again, they had reached him. Looking up, he found three eager pairs of eyes staring at him, their mere concentrated expressions telling him more about the seriousness of the situation than he wanted to have his share of.
The grasping realization in the young man's gaze even enlargened their urge to know, but Alex seemed unable to speak as though he was fearing his own words. The intern's mind was rattering. Was that possible? Potts had been at Med School, one year lower than him. Nice guy, inconspicious, but self-confident. He wouldn't...would he?...
Alex felt as though time was pushing its thumb into his spine, his suspicion was wearing him down. He didn't have the choice to consider that he might be jumping to conclusions too fast, he didn't have the time.
Drawing a deep breath, he finally met Mark's, Amanda's and Tanis' eyes. "You remember Michael Potts?..."
****************
The ball bounced onto the ground in short, anticipating intervalls while the audience held their breath. With their eyes they starred at the round brown ball that continiously left the player's broad hands and then jumped back into them. This nerv-wrecking ordeal was repeated for two or three times. Then Dirk Novitzky stopped dead in his motions for a second, focussed on the basket and all of sudden raised his enormous height, pushed his feet up from the free shot line and directed the basketball forwards with his long right arm. The ball sailed through the air and finally touched the periphery of the basket, where it seemingly was trying to regain its balance, before it fell into the round circle with a quiet drop.
The doctor's lounge echoed from the moans and swears while about ten pairs of interns' shoulders sacked simultaneously with those of the LA Lakers and whose present audience. In the meantime the fans of the Dallas Mavericks had broken into a distinct jubilation which was, however, only short lived.
Though being protected by two Mavericks, Jamal Sampson had started an amazingly fast contra over the left boundary line. Having crossed good two thirds of the field, he seemed unsure of what to do next since he found himself running against a wall of Dallas players who were blocking his way.
"Yeah, Samp, you show them!", spurred Ben Wilson, intern in the pediatry, and jumped up from his chair.
"Hey, I'm not here to watch your butt!!", snapped Barry Townsend, whose eyesight was disturbed by Wilson's sudden outbreak in front of the TV, and brutally dragged his colleague out of his view.
Sampson appeared to have heard Benny. Obviously coming to a quick decision, he whirrled around and ducked, so that the two Mavericks who had been about to grab the ball, practically stumbled into the off. Sampson, however, saw his chance to score when he found himself on free way to the opponents' basket. So he was coming up speed suddenly, sprinted forwards and jumped. Under the chants from the Lakers fans' tribune, he virtually flew into the air, turned halfway around and landed a well-placed slam-dunk before he slid back to the ground again, grinning triumphingly.
The audience, including the one in front the TV in the lounge, went wild, applauded like mad, shouted their souls out of their bodies.
Between the roars from his friends and colleagues. Michael heard a whisper, directly next to his ear.
"Dr Potts, I need to talk to you. It's important..."
Within the general good mood, Mark had managed to sneak in, unseen, and now, having the young first year intern in tow, the two of them also got out without anyone taking notice of them.
**************
The nearby recreation room was empty when Potts and Mark entered it. Not entirely empty since Alex, Tanis and Amanda were already waiting, but their presence was nothing compared with the mob of inters whose curses and screams of happiness were still audible through the shut door.
"Dr Potts, we need to ask you a few questions...", Mark started, hoping to sound insuspicously.
The young man with the brown curly hair hung his head. "Dr Sloan, I won't say anything that would bring Dr Travis into trouble, okay? I don't know what he has done to Jimmy, but he is a good doctor and no matter what you believe..."
Mark sensed that Potts wasn't even lying in that respect. Jesse was a good doctor. But looking at this young man, hearing this euphorical, self-sacrificing speech, he couldn't help but feeling that dealing with Potts let them deal with someone who had considered himself to be a better doctor. Better than his tutor, better than every other doctor, probably better than every other man on this planet. A someone who had much more in common with his younger self than Mark wanted to admitt.
As he was hit by a wave of regrets again, the older man was happy for Amanda to continue with a far more self-confident voice than he would have been able to press through his throat right now.
"Oh, we don't believe that Jesse has done anything to Jimmy, apart from trying to save his life!", the pathologist stated, folding her arms over her chest.
Potts looked confusedly. "You...you don't?" The knowledge of that definitely threw him out of line and he suddenly began to stutter. "But...but the...then I don't understand...how I can...help y...you..."
"For a start you could confess", Tanis invited him. Her cop-mode had been gaining for the better part of her for a long time and she was tired of this game.
Once it had been spoken out, a dangerous silence filled the air in the room as no one even dared to move.
Potts was the first one to react by laughing out shortly and nervously. "What?"
Mark sighed inwardly. Tanis had taken two steps in one and saying he appreciated that would have been a lie. Though he himself felt how the thin sand of time was trickling though his shaking fingers while he was wasting his words for someone who shamelessly lied at them, he knew that it would have been saver to lure Potts into a psychological trap.
"You were angry about Mrs Harris making the 'wrong' decision. You thought she was torturing her child. So...you decided to end it...", Alex formed his suggestion that had been burning inside him into a statement.
A crease of madness was emerging on Potts' forehead as well as slight drops of fresh sweat. "I don't have to listen to this!", he hissed and was about to turn around on his heel.
But before he could reach the door, someone adressed him with a short sentiment that hit his nerves.
"You killed Jimmy Harris!", Mark spoke prudently, knowing what he was doing. Hoping that the psychological trap would snap.
For a moment, Mark could practically feel how Jesse's and Steve's fate was being decided in that moment. The air was thick with suspicion and this was the second when it turned out if it either broke into a thunderstorm or bottled itself up into a huge dark cloud. Either Mark hat aimed well and hit the nerve or not. It was like to moment when you saw a basketball lingering through the space, and you waited in anticipation if it'd hit its goal or not. Except for this wasn't a game.
Michael turned around. His face was paralysed with horror, his expressions gaunt. His brown, usually sparkeling eyes were cloudy as he faced the four of them, still acting as though none of them was actually there.
"I didn't kill him...I...I...I set it right. She did the wrong thing...her son suffered and she...she didn't even notice...I wanted to help." Saying that, he was sitting on the couch, trembling.
Then he looked up, but the way he was gazing at them, made Amanda think that he was talking to his own appearance in an invisible mirror. The pleading gesture looked as though Michael Potts was demanding an absolution from his own bad conscience.
The young doctor focussed on the blue, sad eyes in Dr Sloan's ash-gray face. "I wanted to help!", he repeated, his watery look seeking for something like forgiveness in the other one's expressions.
All of sudden, Mark did something none of them had expected. Maybe he sensed that Potts wouldn't be of much use anymore when he broke down. However, as he bent down and gently squeezed Michael's shoulder also the Head of Internal Medicine seemed to be looking into an imaginary mirror. "It's okay...I know, you wanted to help...", he said merely.
Michael ran one hand over his wet face. "I thought no one would ask questions. I mean, there was no need to...I'm sorry if I damaged Dr Travis reputation. "
"Actually", Tanis said, "this isn't about reputations anymore."
At Potts' frown, Mark was back in reality again and nodded acknowledging the Lieutenant's statement. "She is right. This is about doctor Travis' life...", he confirmed, and all of sudden felt the weight of his wrist watch again.
From the other room thundering racious singing and a collection of rude words penetrated their ears. The LA Lakers had lost the game in the very last minute.