#Chapter 49: Dr. Madison

"What do you think we're looking at, here?" Dr. Madison asks me as we wait for the toxicology report to come in. "Did he accidentally ingest something? Was it a medicine mixup – maybe an accidental overdose? Could it possibly be a suicide attempt?"

My face must look uncertain, because she rushes to assure me.

"I'm not going to talk to the press, I promise," she says. "I'm not even offended to think you were worried about that, because I understand how delicate your position is. I just want to know what you think is going on, because I don't see how this has happened.

"It's rare for a mentally competent man of his age to accidentally poison himself," she goes on. "That's something I'd expect to see either in a young child, in someone with a learning disability, or in an elderly and confused patient.

"For a mentally sound man in his late 60s to come into my ER with a poisoning this severe, I have to think of a couple of different likely scenarios. One is a poisoning attempt. Another is