Too Near the Edge (15 page)

Suddenly, the wind picked up and we noticed
some flat dark clouds signaling an evening thunderstorm, so we
scurried around collecting the dishes and leftover food. We got
everything inside just as the storm rumbled in, bringing streaks of
lightening and fat raindrops splatting on the deck. I took this as
a natural transition and turned the conversation to the topic at
the top of my mind as we cleaned up the kitchen.

“I have another problem that I need your help
with,” I said, as Elisa rinsed the dishes before loading them into
the dishwasher. “Gramma’s doctor—he’s the medical director at Shady
Terrace—is way too quick to drug the residents. And I also think he
may be involved in something illegal. But I don’t know how to find
out more or do anything to stop him.”

Elisa has spent a lot of time in nursing
homes doing her research on memory, so she knows how they operate.
I told her what I had overheard from Dr. Ahmed’s office, why I
wasn’t happy about him being in charge of Gramma’s care, and what
Sharon had told me about all the drugs he prescribes at his pain
clinic.

“You can bet it’s all about drugs,” Elisa
said, tossing me a wet sponge to wipe the countertops. “Drug
diversion is huge in nursing homes. They have staff stealing
prescription narcotics for their own use or to sell on the street.
It’s tough to catch them at it, but you could call the state health
department or the police, tell them what you heard and request an
investigation.”

“Maybe I’ll start with the health department.
I know I don’t have enough facts for the police to do anything,” I
said, thinking I didn’t want to give Pablo any more grounds for
thinking I was flaky. “You know, Sharon told me that Adam did some
website development work for Ahmed’s clinic, and he had some
suspicions that it wasn’t all on the up and up. Now I’m wondering
whether Ahmed was somehow involved in Adam’s death, but Sharon
doesn’t know what Adam knew or whether he said anything to
Ahmed.”

Neither of us had any good ideas as to how to
investigate that. But on the way home, it occurred to me I might
find some information about Ahmed by using an internet search
engine.

Maybe his past held some secrets. What had he
been doing wherever he worked before he came here?

On Monday morning I Googled Dr. Ahmed to see
what I could get. Over 12 million hits. When I put Dr. Ahmed in
quotes, I still got over 400,000. Lots of Dr. Ahmeds out there on
faculties around the world, as well as in government, institutes,
and such. Most of what I got were people whose first name was
Ahmed. Clearly I needed to know his first name, which turned out to
be Fahim according to the Boulder yellow pages. I got 58,000+ hits
for Fahim Ahmed, MD, but only two when I put it in quotes—one of
which was a listing for his clinic with a link to his website. I
clicked on that link and found myself at the We Feel Your Pain
clinic site.

Lots of information about the types of pain
they treat and how important it is to get your pain treated so you
can enjoy life again, but not much about Ahmed himself. Nothing
about where he’d practiced before, except that he completed
anesthesiology training in Tampa, FLand did a one-year fellowship
in Pain Management. No dates for any of that.

I figured Fahim might actually be his middle
name or even a pseudonym, so it could be worth following some of
the 58,000 hits I got when I searched for Fahim Ahmed or some of
the 400,000 I got for Dr. Ahmed. But my first client was due in 20
minutes so I’d have to put that off until later.

I did make a quick call to the state health
department to explore making a complaint. They explained the
procedure, but said I needed specifics for them to initiate an
investigation. I didn’t know how to get specifics, but I thought
maybe Sharon or Erik would have some ideas. I had a full morning of
clients, so I went over to Shady Terrace when I had a break in the
early afternoon.

I found Gramma painting in the activity room.
A very dark picture of people and pills. “Hi Gramma, are you
feeling better?” I asked.

“Pills, pills, pills,” she muttered, keeping
her eyes on her painting.

“Are the pills making you feel better?”

She looked up sharply. “I need to paint now.
Come back later.” At least she wasn’t groggy—maybe she was
adjusting to the meds.

I went over to Sharon’s office and found Erik
there with her. I was struck by what a fit looking pair they were.
Not that trim athletic people are unusual in Boulder where fitness
is our creed. But together they exuded energy like runners ready
for a race.

They were talking about Joel. Sharon had
decided to let Nathan meet him, as long as Waycroft wasn’t part of
the meeting. Erik thought it was a bad idea.

“Cleo, don’t you think it would be confusing
for Nathan to meet this guy—especially when he’s still grieving
over Adam?” Erik sounded truly concerned. “Doesn’t he need time to
get used to losing the man he thought of as his father before he
replaces him with his birth father?”

Sharon gave me a pleading look. “The thing
is, Nathan is crazy to meet Joel. It’s all he can talk about.
Shouldn’t that count for something? He says he has a right to meet
his father.”

I didn’t want to take sides. I stared at the
floor for a minute, then looked at Sharon. “It’s hard to say what
effect meeting Joel will have on Nathan right now,” I said. “But if
they are going to meet, I’d suggest you be with them, Sharon, so
you know what happens and can be supportive to Nathan
afterwards.”

“Maybe I’ll invite Joel over to the house,”
Sharon said. “Then we can….”

“Neither one of you is thinking straight,”
Erik interrupted impatiently. “This guy is manipulating you, and
you can’t see it at all.”

I decided to change the subject, and get to
the issue I came there to discuss. I brought up Dr. Ahmed, what I
had overheard on Saturday, what Elisa had said about drug
diversion, what I hadn’t found on the web, and what the state
health department had said they needed to process a complaint.

“I don’t know much about Ahmed’s background,”
Sharon said, “I think he’s originally from Pakistan, but I don’t
know where he got his medical degree or where he practiced before
this. But I agree that he gives out too many drugs, especially to
staff.” She turned to Erik, “Didn’t he give Jenny some Xanax and
other stuff, even though he wasn’t actually her doctor?”

“Look, I told you both he’s a jerk,” Erik
sounded annoyed. “But he’s a smart one. Doesn’t show his hand. The
best thing is to forget about him until he hangs himself.” With
that, Erik got up and walked out.

Sharon looked uncomfortable. “Erik never
wants to talk about Jenny,” she said. “It’s strange. I talk about
Adam all the time.”

“I know what you mean,” I said carefully, not
wanting to contradict her, but at the same time not wanting to
judge Erik. “It’s hard to help someone when they shut down. But
people grieve differently. Men are less likely than women to share
their feelings.”

“There may be more to it. I don’t know,”
Sharon said tentatively. A couple of times Jenny told me about
problems she and Erik were having in their marriage. She said he
lied to her, criticized her, and blamed her for everything that
went wrong. Then she said if she raised her voice or told him she
was angry at him for something, he would tell her she was going
crazy.”

I hadn’t seen that side of Erik, but, as
always, I was curious. “So what do you think? You’ve been spending
a lot of time with Erik.”

“I’ve never seen that side of him. He’s
always been helpful and considerate with us. And Jenny also told me
she was depressed a lot and sometimes had panic attacks, so I guess
I figured her picture of their relationship was distorted.”

Someone knocked on Sharon’s door. It was a
family member there for a meeting, so I left and went back over to
the Alzheimer’s unit. After I punched in the code that opens the
door, I discovered one of the confused residents, Maxwell Kohn,
standing right inside it, trying to get out. He looked disheveled,
as if he were wearing yesterday’s clothes, and his thin gray hair
was standing on end. “Let me out. I need to get out,” he implored.
I managed to squeeze in past him and shut the door before he
escaped.

An aide came along to entice Mr. Kohn over to
an exercise group meeting in the Fireside Lounge. Noticing me, she
said, “Oh, Cleo, Martha has been painting all afternoon. Have you
looked at what she’s done?”

I checked the activity room, and found Gramma
still painting. The dark one—depicting a forlorn woman sitting in a
sea of pills—was finished, lying on a table to dry. The one she was
working on showed three lumpy old people, each clutching an
upside-down pill bottle with white tablets raining down to the
ground around them. The eyes were wide multi-colored spinning
wheels.

“Interesting, Gramma,” I said. “I like the
eyes.”

“I see everything,” she said.

Who knows what she sees, I thought. I
wondered if I could take some message from the paintings. I’d been
to a workshop the Alzheimer’s Association put on promoting art as
therapy for dementia patients. They said that art gives Alzheimer
artists an additional way of processing feelings when words fail
them because of the disease. So even though she was very confused
most of the time, I thought she might be trying to give us a
signal. After all, medications did seem to be an issue at Shady
Terrace.

Just then Tanya came in. “Nice paintings,
Martha,” she said.

“Do you think she’s trying to tell us
something?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” Tanya said. “She’s not that
cognitive any more.”

“But all those pills must mean something,” I
protested. “Do you think it’s possible that Dr. Ahmed is
overmedicating the residents, and they know it?”

“Cleo, you have a bad habit of looking for
problems. You’re reading too much into Martha’s pictures—probably
because it’s hard for you to accept her limitations.”

Thanks for the analysis, I thought, but
managed not to say it out loud. It was a good time to leave before
I said something I would regret, so I said good-bye to Gramma, who
barely looked up when I left.

Back at my office, I finished with a couple
of clients, and went to my computer to continue my Google search on
Dr. Ahmed. But nothing I found fit him. I stared off into space,
trying to think of another approach. All at once I noticed Tyler
perched on a table in the corner.

“Tyler!” I almost jumped up, but remembered
he might disappear if I made any sudden moves. “What’s going on
with this Dr. Ahmed? Is he a crook or what?”

“Take it easy, Cleo. When the surf’s lousy,
chill.”

“So are you saying this web search is a waste
of time?”

“You can’t always stand up the first
day.”

“Tyler, that means nothing to me. Can’t you
say something that makes sense?”

“Don’t choke, Cleo. You need to watch out for
sharks.”

“Do you mean Dr. Ahmed is a shark? Or Erik?
Or someone else?”

But Tyler faded away without answering.
Arggh! He’d given me a warning, but it was as meaningless as one of
those Homeland Security orange alerts, or instructions to report
any suspicious activity at the airport.

I knew I should be looking in to something.
But, what?

Wednesday morning, I got a big surprise by
registered mail. The Colorado Mental Health Section of the
Department of Regulatory Agencies sent me a notice of a complaint
filed against me, to which I had 20 days to respond in writing.
This is the agency that licenses me as a psychologist, so I took it
very seriously. The notice included a copy of the complaint, which
had been filed by Dr. Donald Waycroft, alleging I’d engaged in
fraudulent and unsafe practice that placed my clients’ safety and
welfare in danger. He also charged that I was mentally ill, and
delusional and should submit to a mental examination to determine
whether I was fit to practice as a psychologist. I felt sick and
furious at the same time.

I’d been way off on my assessment of the
trouble Waycroft could create for me. I wanted to kick him in the
butt or wring his beefy neck, but settled on a more achievable
approach—giving him a piece of my mind in person. I called the
university Psych Department, got Waycroft’s office hours, and
headed up there for a chat.

Despite the drought, the university grounds
were green and fresh, thanks to water from the campus lake that
irrigates the extensive lawn areas. But I was too steamed to enjoy
walking through campus the way I usually do. My stomach was in
knots, and part of me wanted nothing more than to lie on the grass
by the lake, watch the ducks paddle, and forget all about Waycroft,
Sharon, my project—all of it. But the stronger part of me said
there was no way I would let Waycroft get away with calling me
mentally ill and delusional. I had worked damn hard to get where I
was professionally, and I’d match my training and ethics against
his before any professional tribunal.

Waycroft’s office was in a sandstone and
red-tile-roofed building that looked like an Italian villa from the
outside, but fit any definition of an old university building on
the inside. The halls were lined with bulletin boards jam-packed
with fliers advertising study-abroad opportunities, graduate
programs in the social and behavioral sciences, and commercial
courses to improve your GRE score. Faculty office doors, mostly
closed, were bedecked with clever cartoons, class syllabi, and
signs detailing the occupant’s current office hours.

The halls were quiet except for the dull hum
from the florescent lights above and an occasional comment floating
out through the open door of the computer lab. Waycroft’s door was
mostly closed, but through the crack I could see his broad back
facing me as he typed away on his computer.