Deadly Diversion: A Medical Thriller (13 page)

“This was someone else. The detectives were there to see him.” I gave the volunteer four tickets and we took our root beers and hand-rolled soft pretzels to a picnic table under the scant shade of a scraggly tree. We arranged ourselves, sitting on the tabletop and resting our feet on the bench. BJ laid her cap beside her and scooped sweat off her face with her fingers, flinging it to the side. She wiped her hand on her pants.

“Apparently he wanted to tell them something,” I said after taking a long drink of root beer. I pulled my T-shirt out of my waistband and wished I could take it off like some teenage boys who were walking by had done.

“Do you know what it was about?” BJ asked. She broke off a piece of pretzel and dipped it in mustard.

“The patient died before Harding arrived. Just a few minutes before, as a matter of fact.”

“So you don’t know what he was going to tell the detectives?”

“No. Except Father Rudolf said something about twenty years ago.”

“Was the patient someone I know?”

“I doubt it.”

“I might. If he had something to tell Harding, he’s probably been in trouble.” When I didn’t answer, she said, “Come on, Monika, just between us.”

“Confidentiality doesn’t end with death,” I said, somewhat sanctimoniously.

“The guy’s dead. He won’t complain.”

I told her Huey’s name. “Ring a bell?”

“Not offhand. Maybe he wanted to confess. Clear his conscience before meeting his maker.”

“He’d already talked to Father Rudolf, you know, our chaplain. That’s who set up this meeting.”

“Father say what it was?”

“Nope.

“Might clear up a case.”

“I guess it died with him.”

BJ checked her watch and told me she needed to return to duty. I tossed our empty cups and napkins in a trash container and walked with her toward the police booth at the end of the midway. She told me her next job was to sit in the booth beside a target. For a donation to the fund for families of police officers and firefighters killed in action, fair-goers could throw a softball at a target. If they hit it, BJ’s seat would release and she’d drop into a tub of water. Hot as it was today, she was hoping she’d get dunked at least once.

We passed a tent-covered booth selling chances on a spinning apparatus that looked suspiciously like a roulette wheel.

“You know, they have a program.” BJ stopped, her hand on my arm. “To help people with a problem.” I tried to pull away but she held on to my arm with an iron grip. “They said family and friends should confront people. That it would help just to let someone know it’s available.”

I shook her off. “I don’t have a problem. I just don’t gamble anymore. Period.”

She looked at me for a minute, then shrugged. “Okay. Glad to hear it.”

“I’m fine, BJ, really I am.” Truth was, I did feel a familiar tug, as if I were being drawn in against my will. Someone had told me that this was how an alcoholic feels about alcohol. How could I explain it to BJ? I didn’t understand it myself.

After BJ left to be dunked, I caught up with Hannah and Roger, who were watching the girls—their faces flushed with the heat—on the Caterpillar, a snakelike ride that wiggled its way around a track. Roger sported a button that read, “WHEN YOU’RE GERMAN, IT’S HARD TO BE HUMBLE” clipped to his polo shirt. Stumbling off, the girls waved small German flags at us and pushed each other aside to show me their colorful face paintings.

Joining the crowd, we headed toward the booths with antiques and handmade items for sale, passing a German-dressed organ grinder hand-cranking a polka while a mechanical monkey danced on top. We spied Auntie O tending a booth from her church, selling hand-made quilts. Business was brisk so we gave her a wave and moved on. Hannah found a Christmas wreath she liked, and Roger studied some wooden furniture while the girls and I checked out doll clothes for their American Girl dolls. I made a mental note of what each girl liked.

Soon bored with our ambling perusal of trinkets and crafts, the girls begged their father for more rides. Hannah’s freckle- splashed fair skin was already flush with the heat so Roger told them they could each choose one more ride before they headed home. Her pigtails bouncing up and down, Gena clapped her hands. “I’m in suspenders!”

Her mother and I laughed.

Gena ducked her head, and I hugged her to me. “Sorry, sweetie. We’re not laughing at you. It’s suspense, not suspenders,” I explained as her father smiled at us.

The girls begged me to ride the scrambler with them and I let them lead me along, pretending to be afraid. Our heads were still whirling and twirling when we stumbled off. I left as the twins headed for the Ferris wheel, their parents in tow.

I caught up with BJ at the police booth as she was putting her shoes and socks back on. She stood up and pulled her wet uniform shirt away from her body and patted her blond hair, tucking loose strands back into her braid. She donned her cap and smiled at me from under its shade.

“You should try it, Monika. Go get dunked. Feels great.” She nodded to two uniformed cops who passed us. They were still dry.

“I’m ready,” I said, fanning myself with a flyer advertising the police benefit dunking station as we waited for our frozen custard at Ed Crewe’s busy stand. A preschooler ran into me, and his mother smiled an apology as she grabbed him.

“Hey, here’s a new flavor. ‘Rich chocolate sauce and tart cherries whipped together into the world’s best vanilla frozen custard,”’ I read from the hand-lettered sign above the stand. “Perfect for these days, I’m sorry to say.”

“Oh, yeah?” BJ studied two men who noticed her stare and walked away.

“‘Cardinal Sin Concrete,”’ I read.

“Yikes! That hits too close,” she said, referring to the recent spate of indicted priest molesters, including a few BJ and I had known when we were in school.

“Too much of a good thing,” BJ said. “I’ll stick with a chocolate-chip concrete.”

We had our treats in hand and were walking back toward the street when I asked her why she was working the fair that day.

“It was either this or funeral duty tomorrow.”

“Ball game tomorrow night,” I said. We had tickets to a Cardinal’s game—they were playing the Cubs—and the game was sold out. Our seats were in the bleachers, but BJ’s husband, Don, was working security. If any seats opened up after the game started he’d move us into them.

“You don’t need to remind me, Monika!” she admonished. “Even if I had signed up to work the funeral, it’s in the afternoon. I wouldn’t let a little thing like my job interfere with a ball game!”

I was a Cardinal fan, but BJ was a fanatic. She knew all the stats, taped the games she couldn’t see (not many) and wouldn’t let anyone tell her the score so that she could watch the game play out herself.

“Whose funeral?” I asked, scooping cherries, chocolate and ice cream into my mouth.

“No one we know.”

“Why do they need police if it’s not somebody important? Are they expecting trouble?” I stirred my ice cream, dragging cherry juice and chocolate into swirls.

She leaned toward me. “Connected.”

“Connected? Connected to what?”

“Shh. To the mob. In fact, they say he was the boss. Antonio Guardino.”

I stumbled, my ice cream toppled out of the cup and splattered on the hot concrete.

“You okay?” BJ asked.

I looked helplessly as the cherry juice and chocolate sauce spread like blood-tainted milk on the hot concrete. The paper cup stood upside down like a drunk’s hat sinking into the mess.

“BJ, that was our patient. The one Bart didn’t resuscitate.”

“Ohh.”

“Ohh is right. His son’s the one who hit Tim and me.” I rubbed my head where the lump had been. “Why are the police there? You expect trouble?”

“Nah. Show of force mostly. They’re all getting old, the wise guys. Dying off,” she said, signaling a rookie cop to get someone to clean up my mess on the sidewalk. She offered me a bite of her concrete and when I shook my head, she went on. “Even mobsters die of natural causes. I wouldn’t worry. Sounds like the guy died of old age, not a blast to the chest.”

“I wonder if Bart knows who Guardino was.” I chuckled. “And he was worried I’d report him to the state board. The licensing board,” I explained to BJ.

She snorted. “That’ll be the least of his problems if the Guardino family finds out what he did.”

“What he didn’t do,” I amended.

TEN

Monday, 13 August, 0722 Hours

THE SIGN WAS HANDMADE, with heavy black marker on white paper. “DO YOU KNOW WHO YOUR UNION’S IN BED WITH?” it said. An arrow pointed to a copy of a newspaper article. Several people were gathered around the placard pasted on a concrete pole on the top floor of the parking garage. I’d seen similar signs on other floors as I’d wound around looking for a parking space.

The article had been copied many times and wasn’t as readable as it had once been. But the message was clear. It told the story of the conviction of several St. Louis mobsters for fixing union votes, committing fraud with union funds, carrying out strong-arm tactics over right-to-work laws, and intimidating union candidates and employers. The story sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember the details. It had happened several years ago, as I recalled.

The temperature was already hovering around a humid ninety- five degrees so I decided to use the underground tunnel from the garage to the hospital, joining other employees. Few visitors knew they could descend to a lower level in the garage and walk under the street that ran in front of the hospital.

I had a lot on my mind. The battle over the union promised to heat up this week before voting took place on Saturday. I said a silent prayer that I and everyone else would keep our tempers until it was over.

Would anything come of Guardino’s death? We hadn’t heard any more from his son nor their lawyer, thank goodness. The funeral was today. That usually helped the family accept the reality. Maybe that would be the end of it for us.

Huey’s death puzzled me, coming so quickly. Had someone sneaked him some booze? Or marijuana? In spite of our best efforts to keep it from him? I tried not to think the worst: that he’d had too much morphine. At least he was at peace and no longer in pain.

I grabbed the door to the hospital and yanked it open. Time to go to work.

“YOU IN TROUBLE,” Ruby said when I came into the break room an hour later.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, added powdered cream and a two sugars and sat down next to her.

“Don’ you wanna know why?” she asked, reaching into a bag of bagels. She wore a shocking-pink top stretched wide over her ample frame. She dumped two bagels out of the bag, tore them apart and popped the tops back in the bag.

“Ruby! Why’d you do that? Do you expect someone else to eat the tops?”

“Sure. Everbody like those better. Anyways, I can’t eat those seeds. They get caught in my plate.” She dropped her upper false teeth down for me to see.

“Yuck, Ruby. Put those back in. I’ll eat the tops.”

“See, I told you,” she said, smirking.

After pouring the extra poppy seeds onto a napkin, I wadded up the empty bagel bag and tossed it toward the trash can. A slam dunk.

“What happened? You missed breakfast?” Ruby asked.

“Cat upchucked in my bed,” I told her as I spread the last of the cream cheese on the two bagel tops and sprinkled the seeds on top. I bit into the bagel, scattering more seeds on my napkin. Those went on the cream cheese, too. “She ate a plant during the night and made me a gift of it in the morning. I lost my appetite after that.”

“Lordy, that’s more than I wanted to know.”

That was probably the only time I’d heard her say she didn’t want to know something.

“Don’t you wanna know what’s got Miss Judyth’s underpants in a knot?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” I wet my finger and blotted up the last of the tiny black seeds.

“She scared,” Ruby said as I came back onto the unit.

“Oh?”

“Your lawyer scared her.”

“Mine? What about?” I certainly wasn’t going to tell Ruby anything more for her to add to her store of gossip.

“You’ll find out.” She flipped her head in the air, her top knot bouncing as she waddled out the door.

So she didn’t know.

A FEW MINUTES LATER Jessie and I were turning an obese comatose patient so Serena could wash her backside when I heard Judyth asking for me at the desk. Her voice was curt and sharp.

“There you are.” She motioned for me to follow her out of the patient’s room and into my office.

“There are some discrepancies,” she said when we were seated. “In our drug records.”

I moved aside the vase of roses I’d received from Mr. Guardino’s attorney. “And?”

“Some are missing. We checked all the records against patients’ charts.”

“Don’t you think it might be a mistake? Everyone’s so busy, we don’t always have time to check them out. And with the new regs about pain control—”

“Morphine is missing and I think, I think it’s nurses stealing it,” she said with reluctance in her voice.

“That’s hard to believe. In fact, it’d be hard to do, wouldn’t it? Anything missing would have been reported.”

Morphine, premixed in ten, fifteen and twenty milligram dosages, came in glass tubes with a rubber-covered needle attached called a Tubex. The tube fit into a metal applicator, and a plunger pushed the drug through the needle and into the patient. It was quick, safe and reduces the chance for theft.

“We think maybe they took a whole box of five. That way no one would notice any discrepancy in the numbers.”

“What about the pharmacy? Couldn’t it have happened there? Pharmacists steal drugs, too.”

She flushed. “You think we didn’t think of that? We’ve checked their records, and every box was signed off by two pharmacists, different ones at different times, so they’d all have to be in collusion to do it. On the other hand—” she leaned forward, tapping newly-lacquered nails on the desktop “—half the time change-of-shift counts haven’t been done, or the signatures are so scribbled we’re not sure who signed the record.”