Executive Sick Days

by Maria E. Schneider

  “Yes, I remember him.”

  She reached for a stack of x-rays and grabbed two out of the pile. “I made copies yesterday.” She held them up. They were washed out and a couple looked crooked.

  "Those are the ones we did?"

  "Heavens no." She pointed to a machine over in the far corner. "It's just a fancy copy machine. We use that whenever we get requests from another hospital rather than give up the originals. I almost forgot I was supposed to send these."

  I was stunned and had a moment of hope, but the shots, from what I could see, looked nowhere near as good as originals, and not anywhere close to the quality of the ones in the patient folders I had taken to Dr. Dan. "You mean, you can make copies any old time you want?"

  "Some people want copies. They're good enough if another radiologist needs to look at them for comparison to a newer shot. I think this guy only wants them to hang on his wall."

  I studied the x-ray, but it wasn't likely to be confused with an original. Even to my untrained eye, it didn't look as sharp as the ones in the patient folders. "Do they always come out that faded or can you make them better?"

  "A photocopy is a photocopy. If it were important, I might darken them some, but honestly, this guy won't care. I'm sure he's after war stories."

  I wished Dr. Dan were around or that I had been able to find the x-rays in his home office. Maybe the ones in the folder had been photocopies, but wouldn't he have noticed that right away? On his phone message he sounded like he thought they were duplicates because the two were sitting next to each other, not because the quality varied. One of them had been light, but not this bad.

  Maybe the technician did the original shots twice. The patients were sick. How many of them were going to argue with Holly if double shots were taken? She could always lie and say the first shot didn't come out right. Holly had done a few extra shots when I was down here with Mrs. O.

  Or maybe Holly waited until she had a cooperative candidate, a patient who didn't mind waiting on the table for long periods of time. Then she could shoot a few extra prints with a different name on each one.

  That theory held up right until we had to do x-rays of a patient who had taken a barium enema. It was far worse than a bedpan episode. We're talking reverse fill, clog the pipes with white smarmy stuff, try to keep it corked and take pictures.

  Barium slime leaked everywhere. Dr. Burns went in and out of the x-ray room, talked to the patient, and did whatever it was he needed to do. He didn't eat a scrap of food either, not that there was any around.

  Holly ran back and forth as much as Dr. Burns. It was all I could do to keep up with the development of the slides Holly put through the door.

  We did eight shots, only one of which we had to do over. When that was finished, since I was low-woman on the totem poll, Holly had me clean the smarm off the x-ray table while she, "organized the x-rays and made sure everything was in the computer."

  My love of technology took a fast right turn and went down the toilet, so to speak. I was going to demand a pay raise from Huntington.

  If memory served, some of the x-rays I had given Dr. Dan were of this lovely BE procedure. But after seeing how it was done and how much time it took, I couldn't figure out how the duplicates were done. The technician couldn't do every single shot twice because, my God, the patient wasn't likely to wait calmly, and the doctor had been present for half the exam.

  Still, I made sure I knew the patient name so that I could give it to Radar. If this patient stayed in overnight like the other suspicious ones had, Radar could find out right away.

  Just before lunch, Paul brought down a patient. He started an IV contrast in preparation for the x-ray. "I didn't know you were working down here. Do you like it?"

  "I don't know yet. I thought it would beat bedpans, but I gotta tell you, we did a BE, and it was gross."

  Paul laughed. He wheezed so badly, it sounded as though he were laughing around his gills.

  By the time I came back out from developing the shots, Paul had disappeared. I rushed Mr. Telman back upstairs.

  When I returned, Holly hadn't finished entering the computer information for Telman's report, but a car accident victim rolled in. He was very, very difficult to x-ray. His ribs were broken, two parts of his leg, and something didn't look right in the shoulder shot either, but with the collarbone where it was, everything looked strange. He groaned and whimpered. I was glad to be behind closed doors doing the development.

  Holly wasn't fazed by all the excitement. She took pictures, and I developed. We didn't have to do any of them over either. I stared at the line-up of x-rays. I knew how the labeling had been done, because I could have labeled these with "Star Trek Man," if I wanted, but I didn't know how the x-rays had been duplicated.

  Lunchtime was late, but quiet. No one stole my lunch either, but since I brought peanut butter and jelly, I didn't need to put it in a fridge. I pulled it from my trusty backpack, which had been in Holly's partition all morning. I thought about the fact that Dr. Burns had been down here with the BE. He could have stolen my lunch, and I would never have known. But then, with a BE, who wanted to eat? I shuddered.

  "Lunch no good?" Holly asked.

  "No, not that. I was just thinking about some of the work that I don't like."

  "You'll get used to it." She patted me on the shoulder. "All we are is blood and gore inside. People that come in here have some of that rearranged and out of place for a time."

  She was disgustingly cheerful about it.

  Holly was such a nice person. She could easily explain how a duplicate could be made. If I told her what I was looking for…but what if she was the person Dr. Dan had called? I'd have to ask Amy if Dr. Dan knew any of the technicians. Of course Amy probably wouldn't know one way or the other so asking her wouldn't prove Holly was a safe confidant.

  Since doctors and nurses didn't do darkroom work, one of the x-ray technicians had to be involved. Who would benefit enough that they were able to talk one of the technicians into doing duplicates? Or were the x-ray technicians innocent? Were they somehow doing duplicates because one of the doctors ordered them done twice?

  But then how did the wrong labels get applied?

  Bottom line was that unless a doctor were creeping in here at night and running his own x-rays, one of the technicians had to be helping.

  But which doctor?

  Sadly, nothing I had seen today helped answer any of my questions.

  Chapter 26

  I hadn't seen Mark since Christmas. I never did much on New Year's anyway, but since I didn't have the week off, the holiday was even less important than usual. I was pretty much ignoring the holiday until Mark showed up after work on New Year's Eve.

  "I meant to call yesterday," he mumbled. He had flowers, a big arrangement of dried wildflowers that he could almost hide behind.

  "Where did you get this?" I tried without any success to get the dopey smile off my face.

  He blinked and looked embarrassed. "Ah, uh."

  "Did you make it?" I couldn't believe it. It didn't fit his bad-boy persona, not at all.

  "My mom made it."

  "Oh!" It was my turn to hide behind the flowers. I was thoroughly touched. "These are fabulous. I didn't know you had a mother." It was a stupid thing to say, but guys like Mark didn't…I mean, I couldn't really see him riding up to his mother's porch on his motorcycle and getting flowers from a delicate little lady. He was way too mysterious to have a mom.

  He was also very amused. He laughed. "What is that supposed to mean?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. You and Huntington, you don't seem like…" There was no way to explain it. "You're independent. Removed from society, like you're outside of it all. A mom means, that, well, you're normal or something."

  He roared and the happy sound filled my living room. "Normal? I like that." He gave me a kiss hello, but was still chuckling. "Normal," he said thoughtfully, staring down at me.

  Whenever he looked at me like that,
it was impossible to breathe. We were caught by each other, neither wanting to move, questions that needed to be answered and something else, the beating of passion, drawing us close again.

  The flowers crinkled when he reached for me. The sound stopped him, and he took a deep breath before closing his eyes. "I don't think you're very normal. And I've met your mom."

  I had no idea what that meant. "I need a vase." I stood there, not moving for a while. We watched each other.

  Then, like a robot, I made my way to the sink. I dug out a white vase that had once held cut flowers and arranged the bouquet. Mark's mother had tied them well so they stayed together beautifully. "These are awesome."

  "I should have called before stopping by," he said. "I could say I was in the neighborhood, but I guess the flowers make it pretty obvious I was headed here."

  I smiled. "It's not a problem." Because that sounded a little too enthusiastic, I added, "I wouldn't want to give you the impression you're the only guy in my life, of course. I am very busy with all my other dates." I looked around. "I had best get rid of any evidence too."

  He smiled. Mark was the only one I was seeing. He knew it too, assuming he had gotten over his ridiculous ideas about Huntington.

  "I don't want you to think I take you for granted because I didn't call."

  "It's okay." I hadn't really expected him to stop by for New Year's Eve, but I was glad he had.

  "Are you free for dinner tonight? I completely forgot about New Year’s. It's been a while since I dated anyone and had to pay attention to that sort of thing."

  My foolish grin came back. He had just admitted we were dating!

  "What's so funny?"

  "Nothing. I'm an idiot." I looked up at him. He was so damn sexy. I took a deep breath. "Do you want me to fix dinner?" I had already eaten, but he didn't need to know that.

  "Do you have any food?"

  "Hmm." That was a problem. "Steaks would be good."

  "You have steaks?"

  "No, but they would be good for the occasion. I can make a chicken casserole, but that isn't very exciting." I checked the freezer. "I have some egg rolls from Happy Family Chinese."

  "Good start."

  "How about clam linguine?" I always had pasta and canned clams in the cupboard.

  Mark said dubiously, "Goes with the egg rolls."

  I pulled ingredients out of the fridge. "We could skip the egg rolls. I have some frozen garlic bread instead."

  "We could go out for Chinese. Then you wouldn't have to cook at all."

  I checked my watch. "New Year's is a pretty big holiday. It will be packed."

  "Everywhere is crowded on New Year's Eve."

  I had a sudden, brilliant idea. "You know, it might not be crowded at The Pavilion." I focused on mincing garlic with more attention than was really necessary.

  "The Pavilion? Is that a restaurant? I thought it was the name of the doctor's office across from the hospital."

  "Well, no it's not a restaurant. Just the doctor's office." I peeked covertly in his direction.

  "I doubt the food there would be very good then."

  "No, probably not." I started water boiling for the pasta. "Holly mentioned that they have an x-ray machine over there. The setup has to be more private than the one at the hospital. I'd like to take a look at the quality of the x-rays. I'd also like to see if there are any duplicates lying around in anyone's office waiting to be put to use."

  "You sure know how to throw a New Year's party, don't you?" But he was grinning.

  The linguine didn't take long at all. I snacked on an egg roll since I had already eaten dinner, but Mark went after the linguine and toasted garlic bread with enthusiasm.

  After we ate, I got dressed in black again.

  "You're going to need some proper tools," Mark told me when I came out of the bedroom dressed in a black turtleneck and black jeans. "A good flashlight that you can hook on a belt, maybe your own set of lock picks, a digital camera and some sort of pry tool like a knife."

  "You have all that?" I couldn't see any of it on him. His long-sleeved t-shirt molded quite well to his body. His jeans were tight enough that he couldn't have managed to hide much there.

  "In the truck." He gave me a return once-over in response to my admiring up and down inspection. "With you, it seems I always have to be prepared."

  "Hmm."

  He laughed softly and led the way to his SUV.

  The man honestly did have a tool belt with all sorts of gadgets stashed in the back. Since he was now wearing his jacket, he took what he wanted off the belt and put it in his pockets. He supplied me with a flashlight. I had already grabbed my pocketknife, but wasn't sure what good it would do.

  "There shouldn't be anyone there this time of night," he said.

  It was nearing eleven o'clock on New Year's Eve. We should have plenty of private time to nose around.

  The streets were almost empty because normal people were already at their destination, awaiting midnight. As we drove into the parking lot at The Pavilion, I looked over at the hospital. It looked plenty busy.

  The front door to The Pavilion faced the street and the hospital, but there were two other doors located at either side of the long glass building. Large, reflective windows made the building look high tech and modern during the day, but at night, it meant our flashlights would show up a little too easily. Mark backed up behind the building in a narrow alley that housed a large garbage bin. The only streetlight was in the front of the building.

  We sat quietly in the Lexus and watched for several minutes. There didn't appear to be any roaming security. My heart was a little bird fluttering in my chest.

  Even by the door farthest from the streetlight, there was enough light that if anyone looked, we would be seen.

  We got out of the SUV. I stayed behind Mark where I was least visible. Hopefully he would look like a lone doctor struggling to get a key in the lock.

  This lock must have been a higher quality one than those at the hospital. He worked on it, cursed lightly under his breath and pulled more picks from his pocket. “Let me know if you see anyone.”

  I stopped watching him and started paying more attention to the surroundings. A car passed on the street, but it was impossible to know whether anyone noticed us. No one jumped out of the shadows, but they certainly had time to do so.

  It took a little doing, but Mark eventually got it. “Those aren’t fun. Leaves too much damage if anyone looks closely.”

  We ducked inside and stayed still while the door clicked closed behind us. It was hard to tell if I was breathing loudly enough to give away our position because I couldn't hear anything over the beating of my heart. I needed more practice at this breaking and entering--or less.

  A long hallway stretched across to the other side of the building and the other door that led to the outside. Offices graced each side until the middle, where a lobby branched outward like a giant belly. We made our way to the belly of the beast to make sure it was empty.

  The waiting area, unlike the hallway, was open to the second floor. The windows created an atrium that would be light and airy in the daytime. Live plants, some reaching the domed ceiling, decorated the lobby. The windows creaked.

  There were no storage places in the open space other than a few shelves behind the reception desk that guarded the corridor. From the waiting area, looking up, I could see part of the second floor walkway exposed. Like a giant porch, it was open on the waiting room side. The doors to the offices were all on the other side of the hallway. Anyone on the second floor could look straight down and see us.

  Mark frowned. "Any idea which offices you want to look in?"

  I shook my head. "There's supposedly an x-ray room, and there must be some sort of storage for the files. There are at least four doctor offices with their own waiting rooms, in addition to this lobby." Dr. Evans had talked about the shared hallways and having to clean them.

  We ducked back inside the first floor hallway. "Ups
tairs or down?" Mark asked.

  "Downstairs." There was no reason to pick one over the other, but we were already down here so starting here made sense.

  The first door near where we came in was a stairwell. Mark worked the lock on the next door that faced the back of the building. "Let's start with one at the back so you can use your flashlight. I'll do the front ones."

  I didn't argue. I was too pleased to find that the door he had opened had an x-ray machine! "X-ray, it is," I proclaimed happily.

  "What are we looking for again?" Mark asked.

  "Dr. Dan said the x-rays inside the patient folders were duplicates. That means there has to be a spare set ready for false labels. If a doctor is doing all of this on his own, he could be doing it here or at the hospital after hours."

  "You're assuming that one of the doctors in this office is guilty."

  "Not really. We're just looking to see what we find."

  "I'll check across the hall and note any x-rays."

  It was a good thing he was taking the street side because it would require more stealth. He was used to this work, and I was not. The building noises made me nervous. The dark made me nervous. My hands were sweating so badly, I was in danger of dropping my flashlight.

  The x-ray room contained a small darkroom, a table and a digital mammogram machine. The rest of the setup was similar to that of the hospital. I poked around hoping to find x-ray cassettes. The hospital had several lying around, but I could only find one here. It was empty, rather than storing fifty duplicate x-rays just waiting to be placed in patient folders.

  There were two more x-ray cassettes in the darkroom, but they were both empty as well. The drawer with unexposed films contained only small sizes, unlike the hospital, which had several shapes and sizes and cassettes for them all.

  It was eerie hearing my own breathing in the darkness of the room. Normally I wouldn't even notice, but every creak of the hopefully empty building sounded like someone about to discover my presence.