Death on the Diagonal - By Nero Blanc Page 0,10

her my phone number and told her she could call me anytime she wanted, night or day.”

“And did she?”

“No. I didn’t hear anything from her. But about a week later I saw her again at the food court. She still seemed in pretty bad shape when she sat down. Very pale. She didn’t look healthy at all. This time I refused to let her leave until she told me what was going on. She finally broke down; she must have sobbed for five minutes before she regained enough composure to speak clearly. It seems she’d been on a kidney dialysis treatment for the last two years and was waiting for a donor kidney. The treatments had exhausted nearly all of her savings. At any rate, Newcastle Memorial had informed her that they’d found a matching donor, but that since she’d recently let her health insurance premiums lapse, and now had no way to pay for the surgery, they were going to have to move to the next person on their list. I mean, it was just a horrible situation.”

“Did you offer to help out?”

Gudgeon rubbed at a small vein that protruded on the left side of his forehead. “I did, but Dawn refused. Steadfastly refused. Wouldn’t even hear of such a notion. She told me the operation alone was going to cost close to $250,000. She knew there was no way she would ever be able to pay me back.”

“What about family? Wasn’t there anyone else Ms. Davis could turn to?”

“An ex-boyfriend was all she had, but he’d ditched her early on in the treatment process; a completely unsupportive jerk from what I could tell.” Gudgeon stopped and looked down at his hands, which were again resting in his lap. “I mean . . . I had the cash. It seemed stupid to have it sitting in the bank when this girl was in such trouble. By the end of the day . . . well, I was able to convince her that it was the right thing to do, for her to take the money. If the kidney was available . . . I mean, hell, it might’ve been a long time before another one came within reach.”

“That was extremely generous of you, Walt,” was Rosco’s sole response. Whether the vanished Dawn Davis had pulled a fast one or not, Gudgeon had made a kind and noble gesture.

“It’s just money,” was the shy reply. “My kids might not agree if they knew. But you can’t take it with you, can you? I mean, aren’t we supposed to help people in need if we can? Everyone just wants to get rich; and they could give a hoot about their fellow man.”

“You’re right, the world would be a better place if other folks believed as you do, Walt,” Rosco told him. The opinion that the gullible might also be poorer, Rosco kept to himself. “How did you give her the money? Was it a check or cash?”

“It was a wire transfer from my bank into her account.”

“And you have that account number, I take it.”

“No.”

Rosco reached for his pad and pen. “Not a problem; your bank will have it on file. So I gather you haven’t seen Ms. Davis since you gave her the money?”

Gudgeon held up his hands. “Wait, hold on there, Rosco. Dawn didn’t steal this money from me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I saw her quite a few times after the funds were transferred. She was very insistent about telling me how she was doing: what the prognosis was and so forth, how much better she was feeling knowing she was going to be cured . . . And she kept telling me how bad she felt about taking the money. She . . . she wanted to make it up to me . . . had all sorts of payment schedules she’d made up—every one of which would have outlasted me.” He stopped and smiled, and again Rosco noted the tenderness of the expression. “Anyway, the operation wasn’t scheduled until a little over three weeks ago. I drove Dawn to the hospital myself. She’d had the money in her account for almost a month by then. If I was being conned, she would have skipped town long before that.”

“Okay,” Rosco said. “I’m just not convinced that Newcastle Memorial plays that kind of hardball in situations such as you described. Failing kidneys aren’t anything to fool around with. I don’t see them turning a patient away for