after an accident. It’s the same soreness some accident victims can’t ever shake off and just attribute to getting tossed around. Nothing’s broken. It’ll get better. As Leslie stretched, she smiled, thinking about the tendency to call an attorney versus a doctor.
“Bet there’s the phone number of one conveniently located on the shiny back page of my telephone book.” It was the universal back page of every phone book, in almost any community she’d been to. “What the hell do they do in places where they don’t have trial lawyers? Go to a doctor? Hey, that’s a good idea. How about just wait and see if it gets better on its own.”
She picked up the phone book to look up the local rental car agency. Couldn’t resist the urge to confirm her theory. Sure enough. If a town can support an orthopedic surgeon, it can support a trial lawyer. Ed Sayers. Specializing in negligence of all sorts. Nursing homes, accidents, medical, workman’s comp.
Thumbing from back to front, auto sales, repair, rentals. Hertz. Out of the Abilene Regional Airport. She called the number and made arrangements for a new Taurus to be delivered. Gave them the information on the accident. No big deal. Too easy. She remembered that guy’s comment. “Let the insurance companies handle it.”
She got up and headed to the bathroom. Only had thirty minutes. No time to spare. She got in the shower letting the warm water hit her very sore traps and neck. The ankle was swollen. There was a little bruising along the outside. Maybe she would try to find a brace today. That shouldn’t be a problem. Being an orthopedic surgeon was handy.
Shower, shave. Towel dry her hair, massage in the anti-frizz product du jour, get dressed and go. Life with curly hair meant a never ending search for the right products and stay the hell away from blow dryers. She put on some basic black wool pants, a pullover sweater, practical shoes. Ready to go meet the Taylor County Regional Hospital administrator for breakfast at the twice recommended restaurant out front of the hotel. Does it even have a name? She walked through the door, looking at her watch. Only two minutes late, thank you very much, she thought to herself.
Terryl was four minutes early and was already working on the first of four cups of coffee, served in the little brown crock coffee cups typical of just about all country restaurants. If you could call a restaurant out front of a brand new Holiday Inn Express in Abilene, Texas, a country restaurant. He stood up and yelled to her across the dining room.
“Dr. Cohen, over here!” Just about everyone in the place turned to look at her. She was embarrassed. She didn’t like to call attention to her degree in public. People have preconceived notions regarding doctors, good or bad, and she preferred anonymity. Still, in places like Abilene, people generally respected and liked doctors. As she walked between the tables toward Mr. Wells, people smiled, tilted their heads in greeting. One old fellow touched his index finger knuckle to his ball cap bill, a salute, in his day, to the noble profession. Most likely, a doctor had saved the life of someone dear to him. Just the administration of penicillin, perhaps, no more.
“Hey, you weren’t kidding when you said you’d be ready in an hour! Terryl Wells, doc, nice to meet ya.”
“Same here.”
“You hungry?” He looked across the restaurant and signaled a waitress before Leslie had a chance to respond. A young woman came over to the table.
“Coffee, ma’am?” Now that was the second time she had been called ma’am on this assignment. She was going to have to get used to it all over again.
“Please.” There was already a little stainless steel pot of cream on the table and a box of blue and pink stuff. She was set, breakfast or no. Terryl was drinking his black and he watched her fix hers. Tons of half and half along with one blue and one pink.
“Whoa doc, have a little coffee with your cream. Okay, so tell me about this accident. Are you all right? Do you need to have a consultation with Doc Hawley before he goes under the knife?” Terryl laughed at his own joke. “Now, wouldn’t that be rich? You come here to take over his practice while he has his cancer surgery, but instead you have an accident and he has to take care of you!”
“You don’t know how close it came to being just that.” She told him the details of the accident.
“Did you wreck into a local?”
“Yes. Some guy named Regan Wakeman.”
“You’re kidding! Regan Wakeman? Big guy? Terryl held his hand about four inches above his head. “Taller than me?”
“You know him?”
“Sure, everyone around here knows Regan. Comes from an old Abilene family. Went to school here. Abilene Christian College. Played high school ball, you know, just a guy everyone knows. Good guy. Has a place about ten, fifteen miles south of here. Runs a big construction company. Can’t believe you had a wreck with him. Well anyway, I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks. So what’s the deal with Doctor Hawley? The agency didn’t give me much detail. They just tell me when and where to show up for the most part. Usually it’s just a week or so, while someone takes a vacation or something.”
“Well, this is a little different. Doc Hawley, and that’s what everyone around here calls him, just so you know. Anyway, Doc’s come down with some kind of colon cancer. Okay, now he’s taking it real good. Keeps practicing, because it’s what he does. His patients just will not let him quit, and he’s not about to quit. Hawley’s like Wakeman. Born and raised here. Went to as much school as he could in Abilene, and then took off to medical school and residency. Came back after he was done and set up his practice. He’s real popular. His practice is huge. There’s other guys in town, but he’s definitely numero uno. He’s got a couple of nurses that work with him,” Terryl turned his palms up and shrugged his shoulders, “but they can’t take over his practice while he’s out.”
“Does he have partners?”
“Nope. He’s pretty much a loner. Doesn’t even share call with the other guys in town.”
“Really.” Not in the tone of a question or doubt, just amazement that a busy orthopod could do it on his own. Never having a weekend off. Even when she had two partners, every third night on call had been rigorous.
Doc Hawley had been practicing for about twenty-five years, getting locum tenens doctors like Leslie, to cover him for extended vacations and asking the local guys to cover him for shorter periods of time. He got along well with his peers in town and they respected him. There was plenty of business to go around. No one felt threatened by his success because they were all eating too. He just didn’t want to deal with partners and their needs. His wife ran his business and did a good job of it, according to Wells. While Doc was out, she was going to keep things going from that end.
He had a general orthopedic practice, as did most of the surgeons in Abilene. There weren’t a lot of specialists in this community. He did a smattering of sports medicine, knee scopes, anterior cruciate reconstructions and so on. He did the bulk of total knee and hip replacements in town. All the athletes he took care of in the beginning were now coming back to him to get their joints replaced, bringing their wives and children with them. These were the signs of a long standing referral base which also included his extended family and all the people who called themselves his friends. He worked long hours and weekends. If you wanted to see Doc Hawley, you could. Once his son went off to school, there was nothing to keep him and Brenda from working hard. He did back surgery and trauma, two things a lot of guys just didn’t want to do. Too much risk of being sued. No one ever sued Doc Hawley. Probably wouldn’t unless they were planning on leaving town. Doc Hawley was an old fashioned “saw bones.” Definitely a dying breed. Leslie pictured a gracefully graying, elegant man in a seersucker suit.
“So Brenda talked Doc into getting his first colonoscopy a few years ago and they found some polyps or something like that. He was supposed to get a follow-up regularly but put it off. Then the next go around they found the cancer. Now he’s got to have surgery and chemo. You know better than me.” She didn’t. Not her line of work, but nodded her head in the affirmative. “He wants