Title: Great Mysteries of the ER
Author: Triggersaurus
Genre: Humour
Rating: PG
Summary: Remember all those little unsolved things from episodes past? Angue
Von TrenchCote is hired to solve them, and calls the staff together at Doc
Magoo's one stormy night to reveal the truth...
Disclaimer: Most of these people aren't mine, but Angus is so don't steal
him!

http://www.geocities.com/er_trig/triggersfics.html




They had all gathered in Doc Magoo's one stormy night to hear the findings
of the detective, who had been mysteriously hired to solve the many strange
cases that had happened in the ER. Everyone wanted answers. Outside the rain
battered the windows and a bolt of lightening lit up the ambulance bay as
the door banged open and Angus Von TrenchCote swept into the restaurant.
Striding confidently towards the one occupied area, he stopped to help
himself to the coffee waiting on the counter top, took a sip, grimaced and
turned to his assembled audience.

"Good evening."
No-one responded.

"We're here tonight to solve the many mysteries of the County General ER.
After a long two months of working hard on the cases I have been
investigating, I can reveal to you who is to blame. I must say first that I
was initially surprised to be hired by..." he paused, "...a hospital
employee to look into some strange happenings. A hospital is not the sort of
place I would hope for such things to happen. But, through my
investigations, I have discovered that in fact hospitals are the ideal place
for crime, misdemeanors and strange happenings. For example, who would have
thought that a simple change in hospital attire could cause someone to
attempt suicide?"

Several people gasped and all heads turned to look at Carol. She looked back
at them all.

"You saw the colour of the scrubs we had to wear! I just couldn't face
putting those things on, day in, day out, possibly for the rest of my
career..." She tipped her head into her hands. The other nurses nodded
sympathetically and Doug Ross placed a hand on her back.

"Yes. It was not, as most believed, the disintegration of Nurse Hathaway's
relationship with Dr. Douglas Ross, but in actual fact directly related to
the management decision to change the colour of the nurses' scrubs to a vile
and cruel pink. It's no wonder Nurse Hathaway felt the desire to take her
own life when she saw them."

"I think we should sue management." Jeannie, sitting at the rear of a booth,
said.

There was a general murmuring of concensus.

"But this was not the only apparent suicide I had to investigate..."
Everyone fell silent once more, awed by the discoveries this detective was
laying down.

"Dr. Dennis Gant, a promising young surgeon who was rushed into the ER one
night, unrecognisable after being hit by a train."

Carter wiped a tear from one eye.
"It was always in question whether he had jumped or if he had fallen.
Conflicting eyewitness accounts added to the confusion. Everyone knew Dr.
Gant had been under a lot of pressure at work and received little sympathy.
His girlfriend was cheating on him. He worked enormous shifts and even
covered other people's for them." He threw a glance in the direction of
Carter, who looked away as a roll of thunder boomed.

"But no-one ever considered that maybe he neither jumped NOR fell."
Confused faces looked up at the detective, and Randi gasped, clamping a hand
over her mouth as she realised.

"No-one wondered if Dennis Gant had been PUSHED."
The staff recoiled in shock.

"And although we knew Dr. Gant had been treated in a less than favourable
way by Dr. Peter Benton, we did not know how deep it ran, did we Dr.
Benton?"

In a corner, Peter glowered from beneath lowered brows.
"I was trying to make him a better surgeon. He pushed the limits."

"But not the limits everyone else presumed, Doctor."

"He was too good. He was going to be better than me within months if I
wasn't careful. There was no way I could let that happen."

"So you crept away from your shift when you saw Dr. Gant leave, and followed
him to the El station-"

"I had no choice."

"-you found a quiet end of the platform and lured your resident there with
the promise of a good review-"

"No!" Carter cried.

"-and when the train pulled in, you gave him a gentle shove onto the
tracks."

"But the witnesses...?" Mark said.

"Dr. Benton? Would you care to tell them?"
In the same position, in the same voice, Peter said "I posed as one
eyewitness. The other was an old lady who was blind in one eye. I talked her
into saying he jumped."

"How could you?! How could you?" Carter leapt from his seat and tried to
throw a punch at his mentor and superior, but he was held back by Malik and
Jerry, finishing up a sobbing heap.

"Mu hahahahahh," laughed Peter.

"How could he indeed. A man with so much skill for saving lives, ending one
to get rid of the competition."

"I think the Gant family should sue him." Jeannie said, eyeballing her
former lover.

"Competition seems to play a large part in the ER in general it seems. It is
a quality, it seems, that can be held accountable for yet another long
standing mystery - that of Dr. Kerry Weaver's limp."

Everyone looked at Kerry, who ignored them and looked straight at Angus Von
TrenchCote.
"There has been much speculation about Dr. Weaver's need for a crutch and
what caused it. I initially jumped to the conclusion that a childhood
illness or accident was to blame, but I found no trace of polio in her
records, or indeed any disease or major accident throughout her life."

"You read my records?"

He ignored her.
"So it seemed there was no medical trace for me to follow. I couldn't help
but observe Dr. Weaver's almost obsessive compulsion to document everything
in the ER, and her infinite ability to deal with paperwork, so I began to
question whether she had not she had doctored her own records. After all,
her senior position meant that she had access to the information, and her
experience with paperwork would make it easy to simply delete the
information she didn't want anyone to know."
Everyone stared aghast at Kerry, while she still continued to stare at the
detective who was so casually implicating her.

"The distrust and dislike between Dr. Weaver and Dr. Ross was not merely a
function of their opposite attitudes to regulations."

Everyone's eyes shifted off Kerry and onto Doug, who looked into his lap.

"Dr. Ross has worked with Dr. Weaver before, as I think some of you are
already aware. But it seems there was more between them than just work."
Everyone's eyes grew to twice their normal size.

"I discovered that at one point, Dr. Ross and Dr. Weaver were a couple-"

"We dated twice." Kerry was quick to make the differentiation.

"However they were involved, one particular night found them on a cliff top
by Lake Erie, nearby the hotel that was hosting the medical conference that
they were meant to be attending. And, let us say, our two little doctors got
very...passionate."

Doug was smiling partially, still focusing his eyes on the floor, while
Kerry Weaver had gone a bright shade of red.

"Unfortunately for them both, it was during the heat of the moment that a
terrible accident occurred, and Dr. Weaver fell from the cliff top to the
small beach below-"

Someone at the back of the room giggled.
"-landing awkwardly on her leg so that it snapped in three places. As I'm
sure you can all imagine, it was not only incredibly painful, but no doubt
the embarrassment of the notes on her chart left by the local hospital was
too much to bear. Am I correct, Dr. Weaver?"

"Yes." She was still flushed.

"And since then, you have blamed Dr. Ross for the accident and the
subsequent loss of full use of your leg."

"She should sue him." Jeannie said, the only person who wasn't dumbstuck by
the relevation. Kerry suddenly got up, and left the table and Doc Magoo's.
The figure could be seen outside, limping back to the ER in the rain. Carol
turned to Doug,

"I can't believe you...and her!"

"Don't worry. It really didn't last very long."

"Covering up the past rarely works, in my experience. I'm sure you'll all
agree when you hear about the next mystery I had to solve - just who ARE Dr.
John Carter's parents? Never seen and barely heard of, it seemed very
unusual that a young man from a powerful family should never speak of them.
But in this case, I found a secret that even Dr. Carter himself does not
know."

Carter looked puzzled.

"Dr. Carter, the people you know as your parents, the jet-setting couple who
barely qualify since you grew up in the care of your grandmother and home
carers, are not in fact your parents at all."

Gasps filled the air.

"You're kidding!"

"No, I am afraid I'm not. This is no joke. Although your 'family' are far
from economically challenged, your true home means that, by birthright, you
are an heir to one of the biggest fortunes and part of the most famous
family in America."

"What?"

"Dr. John Truman Carter III, you are actually the illegitimate son of Robert
Kennedy."

Carter gripped the table while everyone looked at him in shock.

"Sorry, what? This has to be a joke..."

"It's no joke. When you were born, a family was found here in Chicago who
had enough money to bring you up comfortably and as the Kennedy's wished,
and you were given to them as soon as you were ready to leave the hospital.
But your parents, although they had accepted a large sum of money to look
after you, found it difficult to raise a child that wasn't theirs,
particularly after their eldest son died. Your grandmother felt differently,
however, and considered it a great responsibility and honour to raise a
Kennedy child."

"I can't believe this."

"You could sue the Kennedy's..." Jeannie pondered.

"Unbelievable as it may seem, I promise you this is the truth, for which I
have been searching for over the last two months. And only now does one
question still elude me. I have worked hard, sometimes 18 hours a day to try
and find the answer to this question, but to this day I still haven't been
able to answer it. Perhaps Dr. Romano can clear the matter up for me
tonight, for us all. Dr. Romano, where DO you get your dates from?"

"I must confess. I have spoken to brothels, escort agencies, even businesses termed
'executive services'. I have spoke to women on the streets. I even had a
conversation with the nurses on the female medicine ward, as a last
desperate dead end. So, please tell me."

"If only you had known the right place to look, Mr. TrenchCote, because it's
much simpler than you think. You presume that because my dates are blonde
and thin that I pay for them. You are wrong. Look a little closer to home
and you will find that I come from a large, Catholic family. I have
seventeen cousins in Chicago, let alone the rest of the country. I have five
siblings, four of them are my sisters, two of which inherited my mother's
blonde hair and my father's slim build. It doesn't take a genius to work out
where my dates come from."

"Family. Of course..." The detective rubbed his forehead.

"That leaves me with only one question for YOU, TrenchCote. Just who was it
that hired you?"

"Ah. I was hired by-"

"It was me. I just couldn't take it anymore. All these terrible things that
have happened to me since I've worked here, I wanted to know if it was
simply my bad luck that rubbed off on everyone else."

"Having investigated these cases, Dr. Greene, I think I can safely tell you
that you are NOT the cause of any of these incidents. Now, if you'll excuse
me, I have to meet another client." He swept out of Doc Magoos, into the
rain, and he swore to himself that he would never again return to County
General ER.




©Triggersaurus 2001