After closing and locking the doors, he placed a call.
“Hey, buddy,” said Scrubs when the other party answered. “I heard you was in the market for some…entertainment products.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“My wife, Jeanette. You work with her, right?”
“Yep.” Again the wary answer.
“Don’t worry, dude. I ain’t gonna say nothing to no one else. I don’t know if Jeanette’s ever mentioned it before, but we have a little retail trade going on. I thought maybe you’d be interested in getting in on the flow.”
“What kind of stuff? Weed?”
Now Scrubs was getting somewhere. “Naw, man. Prescription stuff. I thought it might be right up your alley.”
“Hmmm. How much are you trying to move?”
“It depends. Sometimes I can’t get none. But when I do have it, it’s usually a lot. This ain’t just for personal consumption.”
“Okay. Yeah, I’d be interested. I have some friends who know what I do for a living. They’re always asking me if we have any leftovers. I know I’d have a few buyers, at least.”
“Awesome. But there’s one condition. I don’t want Jeanette to get tangled up in this, so don’t say nothing to her about it. It would keep her from having legal problems if we ever got busted.”
“Sure, no problem,” replied the male nurse. “I can keep it to myself.”
“So, you wanna get together?” asked Scrubs. “I can show you what I got. We don’t have much right now, but I expect the flow to pick up again soon. I’m seeing to that personally.”
“Yeah, I’ll check out what you have. Can you meet tonight?”
“Sure, man,” said Scrubs.
“Cool. I’ll call you when I get off-shift.”
Scrubs ended the call and stared at the wall. He hadn’t told the man all the details. In fact, sharing everything would have been counterproductive, since Scrubs’ plan rested on keeping some details quite secret from both the buyer and Jeanette They couldn’t interfere with clandestine strategies if they didn’t know about them.
CHAPTER 40
After his interview with Nancy Goins, Alton headed to Serenity Hospice to meet Mallory.
Once there, he recounted to Mallory his conversation with Nancy.
“So,” said Alton, “any updates on your case?”
“Yeah,” replied Mallory, “Wiggins came through in a big way. The lab guys rigged up four bait bottles, and we’ve already planted them in the rooms of three hospice patients and in Ken Goins’ old room.”
“Awesome.”
“It gets better. The lab boys also set up each bottle with a motion sensor. As soon as the bottle moves, it’ll send a text to my cell with the number assigned to that specific bottle. We’ll know exactly what room it came from. And I downloaded a tracking app that’ll let me keep tabs on it when it’s on the move, as long as I’m in range of the bottle’s signal, which is about a hundred yards. The hospice isn’t quite a hundred yards long, so I’ll know when any of the bottles move.”
“Like you said, even better,” said Alton. “So, what’s the plan for Ken Goins’ room? Do we open it up tomorrow?”
“Yep, assuming Wiggins can line up a plainclothes agent to come to the floor to monitor it. It’ll do us no good to set up the bait bottle if we can’t track it. We need someone on scene to follow the thief.”
“Is there someone lined up yet?”
“No. Wiggins said he’ll take care of it. But I’ll make sure we have someone in place before I open up the room.”
“Good,” replied Alton. “The next question is, how do we get the word out in the hospital in a way our thief will hear about it?”
Mallory rubbed her ear in the cute way she often did when she was thinking. “We can make a show of taking down the yellow tape off the door tomorrow. Maybe I can even go back into the room and take some ‘official’ pictures. We’ll have to hope the hospital thief didn’t already hit up that room before we sealed it off.”
“That sounds good. I can also mention it as I’m following up on the patient deaths. I became acquainted with the floor secretary, Donna White, yesterday, so maybe I can mention it to her, too.”
“Acquainted?” asked Mallory with an arched eyebrow.
“Yep,” said Alton, wearing his best angelic face. “She advised me on the best mani/pedi shop in town.”
After a moment of puzzled silence, Mallory broke out into a laugh. “You’ll have to tell me more about that one over dinner.”
Alton grinned. “Dinner, huh? Good—that’ll give me more time to think up a plausible story.
“Before I forget,” said Mallory, growing serious, “I wanted to confirm something with you. How long ago was the first patient death?”
Alton looked at the ceiling as he performed a bit of mental math. “Just under two months ago. Why?”
“Well, the narcotics thefts started about three months ago—not quite the same time but pretty close, don’t you think?”
Alton rubbed his chin. “Yeah. It does seem coincidental that two crime sprees started just a month apart. So you’re thinking they may be connected?”
“Possibly. I know we don’t yet have enough details to know one way or another, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. In fact, I should probably head on over to the hospital so we can start answering some of those questions. How much longer are you going to work?”
“A couple more hours. I’ll meet you back at my place.”
“Okay,” said Alton, checking his watch. “That should give me a chance to make a reasonable amount of progress.” He gave Mallory a quick peck and left her to her work.
As Alton passed by the nurses’ station on his way out, he spotted Pearl and waved.
“Hey, Honey!” she called out. “How’s your neck?”
“Much better, thanks to your TLC.” Alton stopped at the desk to exchange a hug with his impromptu Florence Nightingale.
“That’s wonderful. I was so worried about you.”
He touched the nape of his neck. “It’s a tad sore but really not all that bad. How are you doing?”
“Oh, you know us. There’s always something going on around here. But we’re good.”
Alton pursed his lips in thought. “Say, you see a lot of what goes on around here, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Well, I’m looking into the details of Ken Goins’ death. What can you tell me about Ken? Did you know him?”
“No, not too good. He only came here once or twice. I know that he and Nancy weren’t doing so good.”
“What do you mean?” asked Alton.
“I heard her on the phone with him a few times, fighting.”
“So they didn’t get along very well?”
“I don’t think so. Sometimes when Nancy called Ken, he was yelling so loud, you could hear it over the phone out in the hall plain as day. He was so mean to her. It wasn’t just that, neither, that made me think him and Nancy was having problems. Sometimes Nancy would be on the phone in her office and forget to close the door. She’d talk really quiet so you couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying, but in a friendly kind of voice, if you know what I mean.”
“So you think she may have been seeing someone else?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it makes you wonder, don’t it?”
Alton shrugged but thought better about speculating on Nancy’s extra-marital affairs in front of her staff.
“Thanks, Pearl. You’ve given me a lot to think about. You’re aptly named, you know that? You really are a jewel.”
She scrunched up her nose in appreciation and laughed. “Get yourself out of here, you sweet talker!”
In contrast to his adventure the previous evening, Alton safely completed the journey from the nurses’ station to his SUV. As he made the drive from Serenity to the hospital, he mulled over the patient-death cases. If someone really was bumping off patients, who would do such a thi
ng, and why? In a flash, an idea illuminated a corner of his mind. Surely she wouldn’t go that far…
CHAPTER 41
Alton arrived at the hospital and used the vacant desk of William Cline’s administrative assistant to continue his research.
As he uncovered more information about the deaths and their unsatisfactory explanations, Alton became more convinced of the legitimacy of Nancy Goins’ concerns. He consequently felt a growing sense of urgency to discover the murderer’s identity before another patient joined the deadly list.
Alton sat lost in concentration as he studied a patient chart, splayed fingers on the side of his head sending his closely-cropped hair almost straight up. The sound of approaching footsteps broke his reverie. He glanced up to see William Cline.
“Did you learn anything new?” asked Cline.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” replied Alton with a nod of excitement. “The patients didn’t share the same doctors, but oddly enough, they were all in the same section in the hospital, even the two who didn’t die until they were in the hospice: Five South.”
Cline seemed to think about that fact for a moment. “Well, that’s not as unlikely as you might think. Five South does have some specialty patients, but for the most part, it’s a med surg floor.”
“‘Med surg’?”
“Medical-surgical. The patients on Five South have a wide variety of underlying conditions or are recovering from surgery—or both. The floor is a bit of a hodgepodge of all types of hospital patients.”
“I see.”
“You don’t seem too thrilled with that information,” said Cline.
“You’re right. I was hoping for more. But solving this case is actually quite similar to cracking the encryption used on an encoded message; every cipher that doesn’t work eliminates an incorrect solution. Eventually, the correct code is exposed via the process of elimination.
“Mr. Cline, maybe the patients’ location on Five South is coincidental, but I’d like to rule out the possibility of staff involvement. Can you give me a list of the employees who work on that floor and access to their HR records?”
Cline looked like he had swallowed a lemon. “Is the violation of our patients’ privacy not enough for you? Now you need to scour the records of our employees?”
“Mr. Cline, I’ve been looking into this case for several days now. Have I wandered from our agreement to keep a low profile on this investigation?”
“No.”
“Right, and I promise you the same level of confidentiality with the staff records, at least as long as I can.”
“What do you mean, as long as you can?” asked Cline with narrowed eyes.
“Remember that I’m investigating by authority of the FBI. Any wrongdoing I uncover will have to be passed along to them. If and when that happens, you might not be able to keep this investigation out of the press. If the press does learn anything, though, it won’t be from me, now or in the future.”
“I guess I’ll have to live with that,” said Cline. “If I say no, you’ll just get a subpoena, right?”
Alton squared his shoulders. “Yes, I would. People’s lives could be at stake. As a senior hospital administrator, I would expect you to be leading the charge to discover the truth and protect your patients.”
Cline sighed. “You’re right. Let me get you that employee list—and their HR records.”
As Alton relaxed with Mallory that evening, he shared his latest findings with her.
“So did Cline give you the list of five South employees before you left?” asked Mallory.
“Yep. Now that I have that information, can you run a background check on those employees?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea—criminal and psychological checks. It’s all public records anyway—no warrant needed. Did Cline give you their social-security numbers?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, it should be pretty easy to run a standard background check. Who knows? Maybe a bad apple will fall out of the tree if we shake it a little.”
“You know,” said Alton, “perhaps we shouldn’t confine the search to just Five South employees. I mean, how many people—like housekeeping, for example—perform work on that floor without actually being assigned to it?”
“I see what you’re saying. If some evil or deranged employee is on the loose, they may work on a lot of floors.” She pondered for a moment. “Although in that case, I wonder why they’ve only attacked Five South patients.”
“Good point, and the fact that two of the patients died in the hospice obfuscates the solution even more. I guess an off-shift hospital worker could be sneaking over there, but why? Could they have struck up an acquaintance with the patients while they were on Five South and followed them to Serenity?”
“You know, that’s another parallel with my drug case,” added Mallory. “Just like the murders, the thefts are occurring at both the hospital and the hospice. It still makes me wonder if there’s a connection.”
Alton shrugged. “It’s still too early to say.”
“So if we’re going to expand the background checks,” said Mallory, “will you need to go back to Cline for the hospital’s full list of employees?”
“No. Cline sent me the list in an Excel file that contains all the hospital’s employees in it. He filtered the file to show only those employees who worked on Five South. I’ll just unfilter it before I send it to you.”
“Perfect,” said Mallory. “Why don’t you send it to me now, and I’ll forward it along to our reporting guys.”
“Okay. How long do you think it will take to get the records back for that many people?”
“Probably tomorrow afternoon.” Alton raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Mallory continued, “The FBI has standard templates for these types of background requests, so once we plug in the social security numbers, it’s really just a matter of pulling information out of databases and dumping it into an output file. If and when we uncover someone whose background seems suspicious, we’ll start digging deeper.”
MONDAY, JULY 23
CHAPTER 42
The next morning, William Cline arrived at Stokely Hospital’s parking deck in a pleasant mood. He hadn’t heard from Blackwell, the FBI researcher, since providing the HR records over twenty-four hours ago. He hoped this lack of contact indicated a commensurate lack of evidence. He would be glad when the investigation was put to bed.
As he arrived at his desk, Cline noticed the blinking light of his desk phone, indicating a voice-mail message. After listening to the recording, he placed a return call to Leo Jacobin, his manager and CEO of the company. “You called, Doctor Jacobin?”
“Yes. You promised me an update on Serenity’s turnaround plan by Wednesday. I’m just checking in to see how that’s going.”
“I’ll have the report ready by then as promised, but I can tell you now that we’ve already taken significant steps to improve Serenity’s profitability.”
“What steps are those?”
Cline hesitated for a moment. “I’m happy to share that information if you want. However, I’m not sure you’d…um…feel entirely in accord with the actions I’ve undertaken. In the spirit of keeping you insulated from any future criticism, shall you and I agree that our mutual objective is improving Serenity’s profitability and leave the details to me? I’ll let the financials speak for themselves.”
It was Jacobin’s turn to hesitate. “That’d be acceptable to me. But…you’re not breaking the law, are you?” After a moment of silence, he cut in again. “You know what? Don’t answer that. You know what your responsibilities are, and I trust you to execute them. How you do that is up to you.”
Cline ended the call and replaced the phone in its cradle, smiling mirthlessly as he slowly rocked in his chair. “You trust me, huh? That’s why you called to check up on me before the deadline, ‘cause you’re such a trusting guy. You’re simply covering your ass with a cloak of deniability, just as I knew you would.”
&
nbsp; He tapped his fingers on the rich burgundy wood of his desk. “Works for me, though. Your ignorance makes my life a whole lot easier.”
CHAPTER 43
The next evening, David and Fahima joined Alton and Mallory for dinner. The latter were careful to avoid discussing their investigations, knowing such conversations might stir up the ragged emotions from which the former had just begun to recover.
After bidding their friends adieux, Alton stooped over to fasten a leash onto Buster’s collar. Mallory joined Alton for an after-dinner walk, a nightly ritual in which they both found a measure of comfort. Mallory slipped her hand through Alton’s free arm, and he smiled at her without speaking.
After the walk, they reclined on the couch and only then began to discuss their investigatory work.
“Any news on your thefts case?” asked Alton.
“No. Remember how I had to go to court this morning for that other case? Well, the prosecutor never called me up, but I had to be present just in case he needed me. So, I ended up sitting in court all day. What about you?”
“Honestly, I’ve been heads-down on Kruptos work all day. Anyway, I figured I wouldn’t make much progress until we got the background checks.”
“Speaking of that,” said Mallory, “let’s see if those files came back.” She booted up her laptop and opened her e-mail program. After scrolling for a moment, she issued a grunt of satisfaction. “Here it is.”
She and Alton reviewed the list together. “Randy Abernathy,” said Mallory. “That’s the same last name as one of the Serenity nurses.”
“Yes, I know. I spoke with both the husband and wife on my first day. He goes by ‘Scrubs,’ by the way.”
“Nice,” said Mallory with a roll of her eyes. She bent over to study the list again. “Under the floor assignment, it says, ‘general.’ Do you know what kind of job Scrubs has?”
“Yes—he’s an orderly. In fact, you know him, too. He’s the guy who brought Jacob back from his endoscopy. Kind of a scruffy guy with some kind of wound on his cheek.”
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