Deadly Diversion: A Medical Thriller (16 page)

Lisa scooted through the outer doors just ahead of me and stopped to look around. She was dressed in cutoffs and an oversize navy T-shirt. Her unfocused gaze slid over me until I called her name. She gave me a weak smile; her pupils were dilated.

“Are you all right?” I asked, taking her arm.

“Fine, fine, I’m just fine.” She giggled.

“Lisa, I think you should go home. You can’t work in your condition.”

She pulled away. “I’m not working today. Just picking up a paycheck.” She moved through the automatic doors as they slid open.

“Let me find someone to drive you home after you get your paycheck,” I said, hurrying to keep up with her. “You shouldn’t be driving.”

“I’m not. Bart’s waiting.” She flailed an arm toward the street.

A beat-up sedan sat parked at the curb.

Judyth stood in front of the public information booth in the lobby, her arms folded across her chest, a frown on her face. “Come with me,” she said, motioning to Lisa.

Lisa seemed to shrink beside me.

“Now,” Judyth added, leaving no doubt that she meant it.

“I didn’t do anything,” Lisa whined, throwing a quick glance back at me as Judyth led her toward the administrative offices.

UPSTAIRS, RUBY WAS BURSTING to tell me the latest news. I held her off until I had checked the day’s roster of patients, asked if anyone had called in sick (they hadn’t), and answered a visitor’s questions about her husband (condition unchanged) before I’d let her tell me.

She made me wait, grinning when I asked her what was going on.

“Never mind,” I said. “It must not be important.”

“Very important, Miss Monika.” She crooked her finger for me to come closer.

I scooted my chair over to her and waited.

“They found drugs,” she said, satisfaction coloring her black face. “In three nurses. Including that Lisa goes with Bart.”

“I’m not surprised. I saw her coming in. She looked high.”

“She’s been fired, too,” she added, trying to get the upper hand again.

“Judyth was waiting for her and she didn’t look pleased.”

“And...” She hesitated just long enough to annoy me. “Bart ain’t gonna be happy ’bout it. Her paycheck’s been helping pay for his school. Now what you think he gonna do?”

“You know anyone else who’s been fired?” I asked.

The phone rang.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said, picking up the receiver.

I HAD JUST FINISHED talking with the social work department about a nursing home placement for Mrs. Faust when the doors swung open and Dick Gerling, our new chief of security, came through accompanied by McNeil, the younger partner of Detective Harding. Speaking loudly, Dick demanded to see Laura, who pushed open the curtain to a patient’s room when she heard her name.

“Yes?” she asked.

“That’s her,” McNeil said.

“Over here,” Dick ordered, jerking his head for her to join them.

Several staff stood around the nurses’ station pretending to be busy, but Ruby made no pretense of eavesdropping.

“You have to come with me,” the detective said. “We have some questions for you.”

Laura clutched an empty IV bag as if it were her first-born.

“What’s going on here?” I asked them.

“This is not your affair, Monika,” Dick answered. “It’s a police matter.”

“Let’s go in here.” I took Laura’s arm firmly, steering her toward the conference room. The detective looked at Dick, who shrugged and followed us in. I shut the door and leaned back against it. “Now what do you want with Laura?”

“I told you—” Dick started to say.

“We have some questions about the death of Huey Castle,” McNeil interrupted, “and since she was his nurse, we’d like to talk to her. This is just routine.”

“What do you want to know?” I asked him.

“This is the second time this has happened, isn’t it?” McNeil asked. “That one of her patient’s died under suspicious circumstances.”

“That wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything wrong then and I’m sure she hasn’t now.”

“That’s not how I heard it,” Dick interjected. “I have knowledge that she’s on probation.”

I turned to him, feeling my face getting hot. “She did not cause anyone’s death,” I said, enunciating each word. “You weren’t even here then.”

Dick puffed himself up. “How about other patients of hers? Any of them die?”

“Of course!” I said, getting louder. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is a hospital. And this is ICU where they send the sickest patients. Lots of people die here.”

“Unexpectedly?” McNeil asked.

“Sometimes. And sometimes they live unexpectedly, too. Medicine is not an exact science,” I said.

“Do you know what time she arrived that morning?” McNeil asked me, nodding toward Laura.

“She clocked in at 6:32,” Dick said officiously.

McNeil looked at Laura. “What did you do to him before he died?”

“Uh, I only went in there for a minute.”

“He died at...” McNeil flipped open a notebook “...7:56. What’d you do all that time?”

I jumped in. “Don’t you know about the privacy laws? She can’t say anything and neither can I. You’ll have to talk to administration and our legal office.”

Dick jumped in. “It’s already been cleared. They said we don’t have anything to do with a criminal case.”

“I think you’d better come with me,” McNeil said. “We can talk better downtown.”

“She can’t go now. We need her,” I explained, biting my lip to keep from losing my temper.

“No,” Laura said firmly, startling us. She had barely moved from a spot next to the wall. Her white-blond hair, pulled back in a clip, framed her face, which had regained a faint color. She stood tall, her arms at her side now, the IV bag still clutched in one hand, its tubing dangling toward the floor. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, pushing off from the wall. “I have work to do. I have patients. I’m not leaving,” she added.

“It’s not a request,” Dick said. “This guy is a St. Louis City cop.”

“If you won’t come willingly, I don’t have a choice,” McNeil said with a quick glance at Dick. He reached behind him and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Laura Schlesinger, you’re under arrest for the murder of Huey Castle. Put your hands behind your back.” She dropped the IV bag and her newly found backbone collapsed as the detective started to read her rights.

THIRTEEN

Tuesday, 14 August, 0947 Hours

“GET BACK TO WORK,” I ordered everyone within hearing distance after Laura and the officers had gone, taking out my anger on them. Two students scurried away and the rest of the staff went back to work, but Ruby just shook her head. “I’ll be in my office,” I told her.

I tried to reach Judyth, telling her secretary I had an urgent matter. The secretary insisted Judyth was unavailable. I hung up and sat thinking. What had made the cops think Huey’s death was anything but natural? He was terminally ill with stomach cancer. Max had said he wouldn’t have expected Huey to die in a respiratory arrest, an “unusual way to die” was what he’d said. I’d never seen a cancer patient die in respiratory failure either, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. And why did Detective McNeil think Laura had anything to do with it?

Tim popped his head around the corner of the door. “You find out what they’re going to do about Laura?” The swelling on his face had gone down although the bruise remained mostly purple but was turning yellow. He looked almost normal.

I told him I couldn’t reach Judyth and motioned for him to sit. “What do they consider important?” I waved my hand across the desk, knocking a stack of envelopes onto the floor.

“What are these?” Tim asked, picking up the envelopes. He looked at them and wrinkled his brow. “These are all written to people who don’t work here anymore,” he said.

“I meant to take those back to Judyth but I keep forgetting. It must have been a mistake.”

“See what I mean, Monika? See how inept administration is? They keep crying they can’t afford more nurses. No wonder they’re overbudget when they make salary mistakes like this.”

“I’m more concerned about Laura at the moment,” I said, stacking the envelopes back on my desk.

“What made them think she did anything to Huey?”

I explained about the medical examiner’s ruling that labeled Huey’s death as suspicious.

“What does that mean? Suspicious? Sounds like they don’t have much to go on. My brother’s a defense attorney. I could call him,” Tim offered, ruffling a hand through his dark hair. He smelled like antiseptic soap.

“I don’t know if Laura could afford it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Tim said, punching in the number. “He likes nurses,” he added with a grin.

Tim spoke to his brother for a few moments. “He says he’d be glad to help her,” he told me after he hung up the phone.

“That’s terrific.”

I watched Tim head out the door, glad that he had put aside our differences about the union to help Laura.

Tim’s brother called back a few minutes later, asking me where the police had taken Laura. I reached BJ on her cell phone and she told me Laura would be downtown at headquarters on Clark Street for booking.

“Can he get her out right away?” I asked her.

“I doubt it,” BJ said.

“But she didn’t do anything. They just jumped to conclusions.”

“Even so, if he didn’t have a warrant he has to apply for one and wait to see if he gets it.”

“What does that mean?”

“They can hold her for up to twenty hours.”

“Even though they don’t have any evidence.”

“Yep. He has to cover the arrest with a warrant even if it’s refused. Any chance she did it?”

“No, BJ, I’m sure she didn’t. I’m sure it’s a mistake.”

At least I hoped so.

I called Tim’s brother back and told him where he could find

Laura, adding how much I appreciated his help. He said he was »lad to help a nurse in trouble.

“Would you get Father Rudolf on the phone for me?” I a
sked
Ruby when I returned to the unit. “Tell him I want to see tiim.”

“You got sins to confess, girl?”

“Just get him.” I was in no mood for a hassle from Ruby.

She hung up the phone and told me he was on a retreat until Thursday. “Just don’ die till then so’s you have time to confess your many sins.”

I ignored her. “I’m going to see Judyth now, Ruby, please keep quiet about Laura.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, saluting military-style.

ON THE WAY TO Judyth’s office I passed Max, who was deep in conversation with another doctor. He glanced up as I passed, but when our eyes met he creased his brow, and then his face slipped into doctor mode. He returned to his conversation without even a brief nod to me.

What was that all about?

JUDYTH’S DOOR WAS CLOSED. Norma, her secretary, smiled and asked me if I wanted anything to drink while I waited. For years Norma had been secretary to our former chief nurse, now retired. Norma knew secrets in hospital administration but, unlike Ruby, kept her own counsel. She was loyal to the position, she’d once told me, regardless of who was in the job.

Putting aside my worries about Laura and Huey’s death for a moment, I looked around the waiting area, which was tucked into a corner of the administrative suite. Norma was known for her talent for growing African violets, and the window sill held a plethora of the pink, white and purple blooms, adding an atmosphere of calm in the midst of the chaos that reined outside in the hospital. And probably inside the office, too, if my experience with Judyth was typical of her interactions with others.

After a few minutes the phone rang and Norma sent me in.

Judyth motioned me into a chair in front of her desk as she continued to study papers in front of her.

“Yes?” she said finally, looking everywhere but at me.

First Max and now Judyth. What was going on?

I pulled the three envelopes I’d stuffed in my lab coat pocket and tossed them on her desk. “You left these with me last Friday,” I said. “None of these nurses work here anymore. In fact, they haven’t worked here for a while.” I crossed my arms and released what I thought sounded like an exasperated sigh.

She stared at the envelopes as if they were tainted with anthrax. Then she pushed them into the corner of her desk with the click of a fingernail. “I’ll see that payroll gets them. And I’ll talk to whoever’s responsible,” she added. “Is that all you wanted?”

“It’s about Laura Schlesinger,” I began.

She flipped her hand in the air dismissively. “I know all about it.”

“Can you help her?”

“Monika,” she said, “Laura is in police custody. Just what is it you think I can do for her? And, anyway, she’s on suspension as of now.”

“What? She didn’t do anything that we know about. She’s innocent until proven guilty, isn’t she? Can’t you call the police and vouch for her? We need her back in ICU!”

“We can’t take any chances, Monika. She’ll get paid, but she’s on administrative leave. She won’t come back to work until we know what happened. And don’t forget that she’s already on probation with the nursing board.”

“But not with us.”

Judyth dismissed this statement with a wave of her hand.

“Did Laura test positive for drugs?” I asked her. “Is that why you won’t do anything?”

“We’re in the process of running confirmatory tests on any test that came back positive before we do anything. Unless, of course, the screening test was exceptionally high. That’s all I can tell you now.” She checked her watch pointedly.

“With Laura gone, I’ll be short another nurse. I’m already understaffed. What am I supposed to do now? What if the accreditation team shows up today?”

“I’ll get an agency nurse for you.”

“Who doesn’t know squat about intensive care. Or St. T’s.”

“Monika,” she said, “I’m doing the best I can here. I can’t create nurses out of thin air, you know.” Her eyes narrowed. “Tim. Schedule him for more overtime.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t he your best nurse?”

“One of them. Jessie actually has more experience. What’s this about, Judyth? Because Tim’s supporting the union, you want me to give him more overtime?”