Page 29 of Like the Season
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
He tapped the preview square and played the video back. Rick was clearly visible in the frame, and his words perfectly played, completely audible. “Not sure if this would be admissible in court, but your HR rep will probably find it very interesting. Let’s go talk to them.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Pre-emptive strike. Right now. You need this noted in your files before he has time to get his ‘buddies’ together to get their stories straight. This way, once they try that shit, they’ll all drop his ass to save their own. He might be a doctor and older than me, but I’ve had experiencing managing a complex team for years at the county level. He’s a fucking amateur.”
* * * *
Ella looked stunned and Boyd didn’t blame her. They headed over to the hospital and she led him to the administrative wing. Lorena Calgary, the head of HR, was an older black woman who impassively listened as Boyd summed up the situation twenty minutes after their confrontation with Rick.
Then he played her the video.
Her lips pressed into a severe line when it finished. “Well, this is certainly an interesting turn of events.”
“How so?” Boyd asked.
“Because this is not the first time someone’s approached us about similar behavior. Unfortunately, in the other cases, it was always he said-she said, and we had no proof either way.”
She leaned back in her chair and removed her glasses, laying them on her desk as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “And I didn’t tell you that. They were cases handled by my predecessor, who retired a couple of months ago. So what do you want as the outcome here, Ms. Stinton? A consensual romantic encounter outside of work isn’t territory we enforce, although the fact that he’s a doctor does complicate the matter.”
“I don’t want him trashing my reputation here, for starters. I want my file noted, and his, that he threatened me. I want you to drag him in here, lay down the law to him, and tell him if he doesn’t keep his mouth closed, he’s fired.”
“Do you wish to retain an attorney? Because if they were to subpoena the hospital’s records, especially from my predecessor’s era, they would uncover an interesting pattern of collusion and coverups regarding Dr. McDorman.”
“And you didn’t say that, either?” Boyd snarked.
Ms. Calgary smiled. “I didn’t say a word.”
Ella shook her head. “No. I’m not looking for anything from him, or the hospital. I only want to keep my job. That’s all.”
“Fair enough.” She put her glasses back on and started typing. When she finished, she turned her monitor so they could see it.
It was a basic, no-nonsense statement about the facts of what had happened, as they’d told her, and included the fact that they’d shown Ms. Calgary a video of the confrontation which corroborated Ella’s version of events.
“Is that satisfactory?”
Ella nodded. “Yeah,” she quietly said. “Thanks.”
Ms. Calgary turned her monitor back to face her, tapped a few keys, then passed a tablet and stylus over to Ella. “Signing this means you’ve read it and understand it and that it is your statement of the events.”
Ella signed her name. “Will this go in both our files?”
“Yes. I’ll be calling Dr. McDorman into my office once you’ve left. When is your next shift?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll talk to the head of Emergency Medicine and we’ll transfer him into another department.”
She blanched. “I just want him to leave me alone.”
“Unfortunately, based on that video, that’s not what’s going to happen. And based on his comments, I suspect there are other victims who were too scared to file HR complaints against him. I’ll be scheduling personnel interviews for the whole department.”
Ella’s face paled further. “Why?”
“Because I am morally obligated to make sure this isn’t a hostile work environment, and he’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.” She nodded in Boyd’s direction. “I suspect your father wants to hire an attorney for you.”
“Damn right, I do,” he muttered. “He’s a serial predator.”
