Chapter 4

I hadn't been gone from the tearoom long when an unfamiliar number called. "Is this Examiner Winfield? I'm a doctor at Farhaven Hospital. My name is Gerard Finch."

"I have information about Ann Henson's surgical records that I need to report to you."

"There's more. Luke Whitney, the on-call doctor the night your mother passed, is here with me too. He wants to tell you some things."

"Would you be willing to meet?"

……

The afternoon before the hearing, Ann showed up outside my building.

Her eyes were red, and she looked worn down to nothing.

When she saw me approach, her voice came out hoarse. "Evangeline, I need to ask you something."

"Those twelve surgeries in my file. Is there really a problem with them?"

"My father told me it was a system migration, that the data got logged in late."

"But I went to the records room to check, and I couldn't find a single original anesthesia record."

"And Dr. Finch's surgery. Why is my name listed as the lead surgeon?"

I looked at her, calm. "Don't you already have the answer to that?"

"Ann, you're smart. You have talent."

"Everything you thought you earned yourself, he was paving the way behind you, forging it for you."

Ann shook her head, tears sliding down. "I scrubbed in on every one of those surgeries. I worked so hard…"

"You did work hard," I said. "But you still hadn't met the standard for promotion."

"Your father was too impatient. He wanted you climbing up fast."

"But he forgot, in this profession, you can't fake a single thing."

Ann sank down, wrapped her arms around her knees, and wept.

"Why would he do this? I thought everything I had was mine, that I earned it. And it was all fake."

Watching her fall apart, I felt no satisfaction at all.

She was someone to be pitied too, kept in the dark by her own father, living inside a halo that was never real.

But people you pity usually give you a reason to hate them.

She had enjoyed honors and resources that weren't hers, and she should bear the consequences.

I asked her, "The hearing tomorrow. What do you plan to do?"

She lifted her head, her face streaked with tears. "My father told me to stay out of it, that he'd handle everything."

"But now I don't know which of the things he says are true and which are lies."

I was quiet for a moment, then said, "There's one more thing you probably don't know."

"Your real birthday is May twenty-third, not March seventeenth."

"March seventeenth is my parents' wedding anniversary."

Ann froze. "What did you say?"

I said it coldly. "Myra changed your birthday to that day on purpose, just to provoke my mother."

"Eighteen years ago, on March seventeenth, my mother was in the hospital fighting for her life. Your father was throwing you a birthday party."

"That day was my parents' wedding anniversary. And it's the day my mother died."

The color drained from Ann's face, her lips trembling. "That's not possible. My mother wouldn't do that."

I said it cold and flat. "You can go ask her yourself."

Then I turned and walked away.

Ann's voice came from behind me. "Evangeline, your mother's death back then, did it really have something to do with my father?"

My steps paused. I didn't turn around. "Tomorrow, you'll know."

Back home, I organized every piece of evidence and packed it into my briefcase.

Eighteen years of waiting was finally about to end.

The next morning I put on a suit, took the briefcase, and arrived at the State Department of Health hearing hall right on time.

The hall was full. Reporters, representatives from various hospitals, and plenty of onlookers.

Peter and Myra were already there, seated at the complainants' table.

Peter still had that refined, unruffled look about him. Myra, though, seemed unable to sit still.

Ann sat in a corner of the observers' seats, head down, her face impossible to read.

Joseph, head of the disciplinary review board, rapped the gavel. "The hearing is now in session. First, Farhaven Hospital will state the grounds for its complaint."

Craig stood and cleared his throat. "We are filing a complaint against medical credentialing examiner Evangeline Winfield for abuse of authority and using her office to settle a personal grudge."

"She rejected without cause the legitimate promotion application of our hospital's Dr. Ann Henson, causing serious harm to Dr. Henson's reputation and severe emotional distress."

"We demand that the rejection be overturned, that Dr. Henson's reputation be restored, and that Evangeline Winfield face serious disciplinary action."

After Craig sat down, Peter rose.

His tone was heavy. "Members of the board, honored guests, my name is Peter Henson. I am also Evangeline Winfield's biological father."

"Before anything else, I owe everyone an apology."

"Eighteen years ago, Evangeline's mother and I divorced when our marriage broke down. I failed in my duty to raise my daughter, and it left Evangeline resenting me."

"That was my fault. I wronged Evangeline, and I wronged her mother."

He looked at me and said, with feigned heartbreak, "Lynn, if you're angry, come after me. Why go after Ann?"

"Ann is innocent. You can't destroy your sister's future just because of the conflict between the two of us."

A ripple of whispers ran through the room, and many of the looks turned my way carried contempt.

Right on cue, Myra pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes, the picture of a wronged woman.

Joseph looked at me. "Evangeline Winfield, please state your defense and present your evidence."

I stood, picked up my briefcase, and walked to the projector.

"First, my rejection of Ann Henson's promotion application was done strictly by the rules. There was no personal grudge involved whatsoever."

"The reason is this: Ann Henson's promotion file contains serious fraud. All twelve of the lead-surgeon procedures have no original case records, and they were all backfilled in a single batch right before the application deadline."

I brought up the projection and displayed a screenshot of the backend log. "This is the operations log from the backend of Farhaven Hospital's medical records system. It shows that the electronic records for these twelve surgeries were all uploaded in one batch, between two and two forty-five in the morning on March tenth, from the director's office account."

"So I'll ask you, Director Lambert. What kind of system migration only migrates one person's surgical records, and just happens to land the day before the promotion deadline?"

Craig's face was stunned, as if he couldn't believe I had evidence like this.

His color went pale, and he stammered, "That was probably records room staff working overtime to fill in the entries."