Page 19 of So Lethal

Bacon grease and egg yolk ran down his chin, and Faith rolled her eyes and looked away. “Oh yeah. That’s attractive.”

“All for you, pumpkin,” he retorted genially.

“You want to maybe finish that at the hotel?” Faith asked. “We are trying to solve a case.”

“I need fuel, just like any other well-oiled machine,” Michael said.

He put the car into gear, though, and pulled out of the parking lot back onto the busy street. “You should try your burger while it’s fresh,” he suggested. “It’s good stuff.”

“Seeing as how this is important to you, I will give it a try,” Faith relented, pulling the burger from her bag.

A copious amount of grease drained from the wrapping when she opened it, and she looked dubiously at the soggy slab of meat coated liberally with the kind of pasteurized processed cheese food that sold for a dollar-ninety-nine a pack. Even without the bacon, fried egg, and extra patty, it still looked big enough to choke a horse. She took a bite and managed to minimize the amount of grease that ran down her face by leaning forward and holding the burger over the bag.

“Well?” Michael said. “What did I tell you?”

“It’s pretty good,” she admitted. “Still a little greasy, but I like the char on the meat.”

“Real meat too, not that bullshit soy filler crap you get from other places. That’s why it’s greasy.”

“It’s a good burger.”

Turk whined, and Faith tossed him his three plain patties. He ate all three of them in quick snaps and whined again.

“I’ll give you some food at the hotel,” Faith promised. She held up her burger. “You don’t want this. This’ll clog your arteries faster than you can say, ‘who needs all that grease anyway.’”

Thankfully, they pulled into the hotel parking lot a minute later, so Faith was able to stop thinking about tinnitus and burgers and pour her attention back to the case. A few minutes of work revealed that Dr. Crane had moved to Washington State shortly after his board certification was revoked. Prior to that, his practice was located in Louisiana.

The real interesting news came when she searched for that practice. A news story came up about a twenty-three-year-old deaf woman who had died after suffering a seizure during Dr. Crane’s trial.

“Hey, check this out,” Faith said, showing Michael the news story. “Looks like Dr. Crane has experience killing people.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s interesting. I wonder if Monica and James might have found out about this case and threatened to expose him.”

“The case is public information, so they’d need to know more than just that,” Faith said. “Why don’t you call the board and see if they’ll tell you why his certification was only suspended and not revoked? I’ll talk to the DA for Rapides Parish, Louisiana and see if they can tell me why he wasn’t charged with negligent homicide.”

Michael pushed the last of his hamburger into his mouth and gave her a thumbs up. He looked like an overgrown kid wolfing down a burger, and she couldn’t help but chuckle. “If only Ellie could see you now.”

She dialed the number, and after going through the process of confirming her identity, she found herself on the phone with Alcide Dubois, the Parish Attorney for Rapides Parish.

“It’s been a while since I’ve heard that case brought up,” Alcide told her. “Sad stuff. The girl was… let’s see… Lauren Poitier. She suffered profound hearing loss as a result of a soccer injury in college. She joined Dr. Crane’s trial and suffered a seizure due to the sound waves.”

“Sound waves?”

“Yes. I’m a little foggy on the medical details, but the trial was intended to test the efficacy of using targeted subsonic and ultrasonic sound waves to stimulate the auditory organs so they could hear again. Like I said, I’m not sure of the medical details, but I am sure that Lauren died as a result of negligence on the part of Dr. Crane. Unfortunately, I was only the assistant Parish Attorney at the time. My superior didn’t believe we had enough evidence to convict and dropped the case.”

The gears in Faith’s head were turning now. “I see. Thank you, Mr. Dubois. I think I have what I need.”

“Of course. Good luck to you, Special Agent. I truly hope you bring that man to justice.”

She hung up and turned to Michael just as he ended his own call.

“The Board declined to say anything more than that they felt their decision was appropriate given the circumstances,” Michael said. “I’m guessing they didn’t have enough to pin malpractice on him.”

“Or murder,” Faith added. “I just talked to the Parish Attorney. He had a nice tidbit of information for me, though.”

“Oh yeah? I like tidbits.”

“It seems that Dr. Crane’s trial involved using sound waves to heal hearing loss.”

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