Managed Murder

Marshall Goldberg MD

PROLOGUE


Pairs of strong hands swung the length of Darren Waldon's limp body between them and released it. Launched high into the air, Waldon floated, seemingly weightless, bird-like, until gravity dragged him down to be swallowed up by something wet and yielding. In diving off the high board of his swimming pool, in dreams, Waldon had experienced such sensations before. But this was no dream, he realized, as the shock of cold water against his flushed face partly revived him from his alcoholic stupor. If he had somehow fallen into his pool, his feet ought to be touching bottom by now. Yet he kept sinking.

Struggling to clear his head, connect fragments of memory into coherent thought, Waldon vaguely remembered having a lot to drink with the two men he had invited on board his cabin cruiser that evening. The pair claimed to be businessmen, representatives of some health insurance organization. But there had been something odd about them: overly polite, yet hard-faced, unable to completely conceal their New Jersey accents. What had they wanted from him? His hospital? Yes, that was it, Waldon recalled They belonged to a brokerage syndicate of some sort that, in exchange for a controlling interest in the Ben Franklin Medical Center, offered to pay off its mounting debt.

Until six months ago, the Center, its medical staff, and Darren Waldon as its CEO had all been doing well-so well that his peers had chosen him New Jersey's Hospital Executive of the Year. But then strange, unexpected things began to happen. Almost overnight, Waldon found himself besieged by unions threatening to strike, equipment shortages, federal inspectors trying to ferret out Medicare violations, and a spate of dubious malpractice suits against his doctors. So under the right circumstance, he and his Board might have been receptive to his guests' buy-out bid. But something in their manner roused Waldon's suspicion, made him wonder if they were front men for some shady outfit. And as the evening of heavy drinking continued, their language coarsened,
their pretenses wore thin, and he felt increasingly uncomfortable, if not actually threatened, by their presence on his boat. To quell his anxiety, he downed Scotch after Scotch until his speech grew slurred, unguarded, and he had apparently said something to anger his guests, propel them out of their chairs. Hovering over him and pressing him back, their hands dug into his armpits to lift him up and drag him to the edge of the railing on his deck.

As Waldon sank deeper and his need to breathe became more urgent, there was no time to remember any more. Whatever the actual events landing him in the water, he had to concentrate on getting himself out; climb back into his boat or swim for the nearest shore. Flapping his arms, he tried to rise to the surface, but kept on sinking. Feeling a painful tug on both his feet, he realized something was weighing him down. He ceased flapping and fought to break free of it. Yet it refused to yield. Mustering all his strength, he yanked his legs upward and jack-knifed his body enough to look down at whatever was pulling him under.

The light filtering into the dark waters from the spotlight on his boat was dim and Waldon's vision wavy, but the sight he managed to perceive and make sense of was totally unexpected and horrifying. Holding tight to his ankles was no heavy weight,-but a man in a scuba diver's outfit.

Oh, dear God! he thought, I'm being drowned intentionally. The two who had paid him a visit that evening were not legitimate businessmen at all, but mobsters. And by refusing an offer that, by their reckoning, he ought not to have refused, they were murdering him.

With his reserve of breath nearly exhausted, the burn from his oxygen-starved lungs grew almost unbearable. In another few moments he knew he would either pass out or open his mouth and flood his airway with water. But, as if by some divine grace, Darren Waldon felt so strangely comforted that he spent his last thoughts neither in fear nor regret. He was leaving nothing and no one of any great personal value behind: no wife, children, or close kin--only a medical center in deep trouble. Now, he would be spared its problems: no more meetings with conniving lawyers, glum-faced accountants, disgruntled doctors, or Medicare watchdogs. There was peace to be found in death, after all.