Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 132 : Let Me Rest for a While

On the morning of January 2nd, Shen Zhixia spread thirty-four pages of photocopied medical records across the long table in the noodle shop, going line by line searching for one person's name.

The nursing records bore several signatures, and the death record had one at the bottom right—all of them reading Lin Qi. In the night shift column, from start to finish, hers was the only name.

"The hospital says she's on leave until next month." She looked up. "The January shift schedule—from the first to the thirty-first—doesn't have her in a single box."

He Xiufen was scraping a pot by the stove. The sound of water paused for a moment. She untied her apron, draped it over the back of a chair, and sat down at the table, pulling the photocopies toward her for a quick look.

"Schedules are posted by the department. Registration isn't." she said. "For someone to practice medicine in Jiangzhou, their practice location has to be on the public registry. Check the public one—Physician Practice Registration. It says exactly where they practice."

"I can check that too."

"You can." He Xiufen said. "If she wanted to disappear, she could shut off her phone. But her practice location can't be switched off."

"And what if we find her?" Shen Zhixia spun her pen. "A doctor who sides with the family won't survive in her department afterward."

"Which is exactly why she has to speak on her own." He Xiufen pushed a bowl toward the stove. "Every word she says now is bought with her job. Don't rush her, and don't make decisions for her."

The phone screen was small. Shen Zhixia stood by the window for over ten minutes, copying a few lines into her notebook: primary practice institution, Chengbei Hospital; and on a separate line, a secondary registration—Nanyuan Community Health Service Center in Chengbei District.

"It's Saturday." He Xiufen draped the rag over the edge of the basin. "Community clinics are usually open in the morning. Register for a number before you go in."

"What should I say?"

"Say there's a line in a family member's medical record you can't read, and you'd like to ask the doctor." she said. "If she's willing to talk, don't be eager for her to write anything down. One word from her today, and tomorrow there'll be a piece of paper waiting for her signature back in the department."

The Nanyuan Community Health Service Center sat on an old street, two storefronts knocked through into one. The entrance steps were worn with shallow grooves from all the foot traffic. The first floor handled registration, medication pickup, and IV drips. In the infusion room, six elderly people slumped in their chairs, IV tubing hanging down alongside the heating pipes. The room at the far end of the second floor bore a sign: Maternal and Child Health Clinic.

Shen Zhixia registered for a number. The plastic chairs in the corridor were full—people holding babies, an old woman with a cane, two women there for pregnancy checkups and file registration. She sat until eleven-fifteen, waiting until the last number before hers was called, then stood.

The consulting room was small: one desk, one examination bed, a curtain half drawn. Lin Qi wore her white coat over a sweater, her hair pulled back tight, her nails clipped to the quick. She was squaring up a stack of registration materials, tapping the edges against the desk. On the table sat a glass thermometer and a pair of gloves washed so many times they'd gone pale.

"What's wrong?" She didn't look up.

"I'm not here for a consultation." Shen Zhixia placed her registration slip on the corner of the desk. "My name is Shen, from Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm. The family of Chen Xiaoman retained me."

Lin Qi's hand stopped on the mouse. In the corridor, a nurse was collecting blood pressure cuffs. Someone next door was still calling numbers. She stood, pulled the door half shut, and came back to her seat.

"You've got the wrong person." she said. "I was there when she passed. Whatever happened after—that has nothing to do with me."

"I'm not asking about after." Shen Zhixia slid one photocopied page across the desk. "On the first of January, the original medical records were sealed on the spot. I have the inventory. On the twenty-seventh at six-twenty, the signature column for family consent was signed in the family's own name. The line below, for the informant's signature, is blank."

Lin Qi didn't reach for the page. She straightened the crooked medical record folder on her desk again.

"Blank is correct."

"Why."

"Because no one actually told the family." Her voice was flat. "Informing about an autopsy means the doctor speaks, the family listens, then the doctor finishes and signs. A blank line means no one said a word."

Shen Zhixia wrote down a line.

"On this page, is there anything in your handwriting?"

"No."

"Then let me ask about another page." She flipped to the electronic medical record document index. "Rescue record. Author, Lin Qi. Last modified, the twenty-seventh at six-twenty. Where were you?"

Lin Qi stared at that line for a long time, pulled the cap off her pen, then snapped it back on.

"The doctors' office." she said. "The rescue record was three pages. I wrote it alone, finished around six."

"The blue-grid notebook at the nurses' station—the six-twenty entry. Who wrote that?"

"I don't know." she said. "I was in the other room."

"Three-forty to six-twenty." Shen Zhixia set her pen down. "In those two hours and forty minutes, besides you, who else was in the delivery room?"

Lin Qi slid her hands into her coat pockets, her fingers moving inside but never emerging.

"You have the medication order sheets." she said abruptly. "Orders from midnight to three a.m.—who placed them, what time they were placed. It's all on paper. Don't ask me to rely on memory. Look at the paper."

"You still see patients here." Shen Zhixia said. "That leave form you submitted to the hospital—once it goes through, you stop?"

"My department shifts are stopped." Lin Qi said. "This clinic is my own registration, two mornings a week. If I skip a day, the pregnant women make a wasted trip."

"Then why did you let me in today?"

"Because you registered for a number."

Shen Zhixia looked down and wrote: Lin Qi still sees patients at Nanyuan Community Health Service Center, two mornings a week. When she finished, she asked: "The hospital gave the family two causes of death—heart failure, and an embolism. You were standing in that room for four hours."

Lin Qi's eyes came up, then dropped back to the desk.

"She died from bleeding." she said. "It started around three-ten. I kept applying pressure. It wouldn't stop."

Only after writing it down did Shen Zhixia look up: Lin Qi states the patient died of postpartum hemorrhage.

"Don't write that one down." Lin Qi said. "It's in the record."

"Which page of the record?"

"Count them yourself."

Shen Zhixia tapped her pen against the paper but didn't press further. On the windowsill, a small towel was drying on the radiator, dripping water into a small puddle.

"Did she say anything to you, at the end?" she asked instead.

Lin Qi pressed a finger against the edge of the desk.

"She asked how much the baby weighed." she said. "I said they were still weighing. She gave a little 'mm.'"

Two knocks at the door. A nurse called out "Doctor Lin" from the corridor. She answered but didn't get up.

"Doctor Lin." Shen Zhixia closed her pen. "I'm not asking you to sign anything today, and I'm not asking if you're willing to testify. I'll ask only one thing—that night, was there any part of it that still doesn't sit right with you, even now?"

Lin Qi pushed the medical record folder forward half an inch, then back again.

"You'll ask me sooner or later whether I'll take the stand." she said. "Let me tell you the truth up front. That night, my hands did the work. I placed the medication orders. I performed the resuscitation. My name is on everything. If you actually find out it was someone else's mistake, the hospital can still spin it as me being slow to respond. The moment I open my mouth, I'm the first one who goes down."

"Then will you speak up someday?"

"Someday depends on whether I can still earn a living at this."

"That leave form on the morning of the twenty-seventh—who told you to submit it?"

"The department head." she said. "Her exact words were 'rest for a while, and don't answer your phone during this period.'"

"Has anyone spoken to you these past two days?"

Lin Qi paused.

"Someone passed along a message, saying this had nothing to do with me and I should get some good rest." She rolled up a sleeve, then rolled it back down. "Kind words sound uglier than curses."

She stood to open the door, her hand on the handle, not moving.

"One more thing." She spoke quickly. "That night, the drug to strengthen contractions wasn't the brand we usually stock in the department cabinet. The pharmacy brought it up from somewhere else in the middle of the night. I thought about asking. I didn't."

Shen Zhixia's pen stopped.

"Don't write that."

"Already did."

"Then pretend I never said it."

She pulled the door open. In the corridor, an old woman supporting herself against the wall leaned halfway in: "Doctor Lin, still Thursday next week, right?"

"Thursday." Lin Qi said. "Come in the morning. Don't come on an empty stomach."

The old woman left. As Shen Zhixia gathered her notebook, she heard Lin Qi ask:

"How's the baby?"

"Still in the incubator. Up to thirty milliliters yesterday."

Lin Qi nodded, spun the thermometer half a turn between her fingers, and set it back on the desk.

On the way down the stairs, Shen Zhixia added the times to her notebook: entered consulting room at eleven-twenty, came out at eleven-fifty-five. She didn't ask for the visit record, and she didn't get a refund for the registration slip at the payment window.

[Thud. The drug she mentioned—it's on paper.]

At six-forty that evening, Shen Zhixia went back upstairs. He Xiufen was stewing soup by the stove, thin steam escaping around the lid.

She recounted the morning from start to finish. When she reached the part about the drug, He Xiufen reached over and turned the flame down low.

"Hold that one down for now. Write it in your own notebook; don't pull it out." she said. "She gave you half a sentence. If you take it to the hospital now to confront them, by tomorrow that half sentence becomes something she made up."

"If she keeps refusing to testify, we have no witness."

"What she gave you today is her own time." He Xiufen ladled the soup out. "When a person tells you which room she was in and what time she finished writing, the door inside her has already opened halfway. The other half—she has to walk to the door herself. You can't push her through."

At seven-ten, the phone on the table buzzed. Peng Weidong.

"Lawyer Shen, the hospital called me."

"What time did they call? What number? Who called?"

"A little after four in the afternoon. A cell number—a man—said he was from the hospital." He paused. "He said, 'We're sorry about what happened in your family. If you don't make trouble, we can discuss the funeral expenses and a certain amount of money.'"

"What did you say?"

"I said I'd discuss it with the family."

"Good." Shen Zhixia said. "Come upstairs tomorrow morning and bring that number with you. If he calls again these next few days, you say one thing: the family is still discussing. Don't commit to anything about money."

"How my wife died—to this day, not one person has explained it to me clearly." His voice was hoarse. "And they start by talking to me about money."

He Xiufen took the phone, said a few words, then hung up.

"They moved the conversation to money." She set the phone back on the table. "That means there's a hole in that paperwork."

[Thud. Once the money arrives first, the conversation gets hard.]

Shen Zhixia opened her notebook and copied the number onto the last page. At the eighth digit she stopped: it was a cell number. The hospital was using a personal phone to discuss something like this with the family.