by JA Schneider
David drew a weary breath. “I’m from Denver. Out there they give prizes to kids for marksmanship. Then when I was sixteen, a jerk and a geek, my folks sent me to an Israeli kibbutz – a summer camp thing to toughen up spoiled kids.” The memory almost made him smile. “Everyone else picked oranges all day. I made friends at a nearby army base, spent time there doing more target practice.”
“We’ve got NYPD guys there now learning anti-terrorist stuff.” Brand paused again. “Do you own a gun? Have a gun permit here?”
“No to both,” David said. “Why, you think I should?”
“We’re not fans of civilians carrying guns, but…then comes Newtown. Impossible question but…you’re responsible, it’s your choice.”
“Wouldn’t work anyway,” David said. “Doctors always have their backs turned.” He didn’t see Jill next to him squinch her eyes shut.
Brand’s voice had warmed a lot, showed concern. “The rapes are the same guy, and…yeah…that theory about the letter spacing could be personal, a taunt.” He was silent a moment. “Be careful, you two.”
“We’ll do our best.”
David hung up and sat, motionless, staring at Brand’s card.
“David?”
He exhaled and looked at Jill. “They’re nowhere and we’re nowhere,” he said. “They’re sending male and female plainclothes people who look like everybody else downstairs.”
They exchanged troubled looks.
“Let’s go see Lainey,” Jill said quietly.
11
Elaine Wheeler lay on a thick white pillow, with her bed slanted up and the top of her head swathed in bandages. A blue sheet and a light blanket covered her up to her chin. Wires protruded from under her blanket to a beeping heart monitor. An IV pole stood by the monitor, its tubing reaching down and taped to a vein on the back of her hand.
At the foot of the bed, they read the nurses’ vital signs chart: pulse, temp, respiration rate and blood pressure. All looked good.
They went to the head of the bed. “Hi,” Jill said gently.
Lainey Wheeler opened her swollen eyes. Seemed to recognize Jill. Tried to smile.
“Hi,” she managed. She was still woozy from pain medication. Her face was ghastly pale.
David patted Lainey’s shoulder. “Remember me too?” he asked.
“Yes.” A whisper. “From the E.R.”
Connecting, Jill thought. Thank goodness.
But the expression on Lainey’s face was that of bewilderment…the sick bewilderment of a child.
“That man…” she breathed, closing her eyes again.
“They’ll get him,” David said vehemently. “They’ll hang him high, let the buzzards get him.”
Behind the closed eyelids, something stirred, connected further. Lainey’s eyebrows puckered with fear.
“Feather,” she breathed.
They traded glances.
“Feather?” Jill said.
Silence. And then, softly, “Little pink one…stuck in…his ski mask.”
David frowned, clearly startled. “Where on the mask?”
“Above his eye.”
Their faces both pinched, trying to visualize it. A little pink feather stuck to a brutal rapist’s ski mask? It was crazy! Didn’t make sense! Unless…it was accidental. The guy had…feathers? One got stuck to his mask by accident?
“That first attack,” Jill whispered to David.
“Thought of that,” he murmured as he checked Lainey’s IV tape. She smiled weakly at him, and he smiled encouragingly back, giving no sign that he might be thinking of the first attack’s mask, its feathers bigger, exotic, scary; not little pink ones.
But it was something, and Jill felt cold shock go through her. She saw David straighten and glance at Lainey’s blanketed belly, no doubt picturing the HI D there. This was so terrible. His gun talk with Brand had upset her terribly, though she’d tried not to show it. Did Psycho HI D have a gun?
Of course he did, idiot. David had to be thinking about that too: he looked worried and thoroughly depressed.
A nurse came in. Greeted them, and went to change the water pitcher on the bedside table.
“She’s tired,” the nurse said diplomatically.
They knew. Jill hugged Lainey, and David squeezed her hand. “We’ll be back,” he told her. “To visit, see how you’re doing.”
Feebly, she squeezed both their hands.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Somberly walking the hall, they ran into Wally Hutch, third-year resident neurosurgeon who’d operated on Lainey and was headed her way.
After greetings, he said he was pissed.
“At the cops! That poor kid. I keep checking on her.” His speech was like Woody’s: hurried and fretful. “Anyway, while operating I found a weird kinda grit in her laceration. I cleaned it, and found more of it in her hair we cut before shaving for the skull flap.”
“So…the cops?” David prompted.
Wally rolled his eyes. “I called, got connected to forensics something or other, told them about the grit and that I had more of it in hair from her laceration. They said they already had hair samples. But this crazy grit’s from her laceration, I said! Oh they were sure the victim had been well combed, thank you, their rape kit was complete. The whole conversation was like ‘Who’s On First.’”
Jill said, “Some tech late for dinner, you think?”
“Somebody late, period! I’ve still got the hair sample. Couldn’t throw it out. You want it?”
They went with Wally to the surgical lab, a narrow room tucked between two operating rooms. He went straight to the fridge, stood with the door open and started rummaging through small, labeled jars. “This one’s the gunshot…this one’s the appendix…this one’s the gall bladder - jeez haven’t they sent that to Pathology yet?”
Jill turned for a second and glanced up at a wall photo of Albert Einstein, riding a too-small bike with his knees sticking out and grinning like a loon. Below Albert was a desk with a phone, pens, stacks of lab sheets, and a flirty-sweet photo of Marilyn Monroe.
“Here we are!” Wally handed a small, plastic specimen bag to David. It had been under somebody’s sandwich. The hair in the chilled bag was heavily matted, like the bottom of a bird’s nest.
David turned it in his hands. “If the cops don’t want it…”
Wally mimicked, sing-songy, “’Our rape kit is complete, our rape kit is complete.’” He turned to Jill. “Hey, from what I hear you’re getting good at pathology.”
“It fascinates me.” She barely heard herself. Some “weird kinda grit” in Lainey’s laceration? A little pink feather stuck incongruously in the rapist’s ski mask? Jill rubbed goose bumps on her arm. Who was this guy?
They thanked Wally and returned to the dimly lit OB floor.
There, at the nurses’ desk, David filled out a lab form with the date, time, and source of the specimen (scalp hair). In the space titled Comments he wrote: “Laceration on scalp during assault, gritty particles noted, please identify.” He attached the lab form to the specimen bag, then called for an orderly to take it to Pathology.
The orderly turned out to be the same one who’d brought Lainey up with them to surgery.
“Oh hi,” he smiled. His name tag read Sandy Haig.
Jill said, “You’re working this floor now?”
A self-conscious nod. “Couldn’t take Emergency any more. Too much grief.”
He’d hit a nerve. “My feelings exactly,” Jill said vehemently, letting out a huge, pent-up breath.
Haig’s thin, reedy voice strained higher. “It was draining. I figured nights here would be happier. Babies, right?” His expression changed. “Oh, how’s that girl doing?”
“Hanging in,” David said.
He made a gesture, glad to hear it. David gave him the lab form and specimen bag, and he headed for the elevators.
It was 11:15. They lay in bed in Jill’s on call room. In a heavy sigh she said, “So much for t
he first easy day.”
David’s breathing was already getting heavy. “Supposed to ease us back gently,” he mumbled. “Tomorrow…”
“Back to running faster.”
He pulled her closer to him on the pillow; his brow was against hers. “Sleep,” he said. “The damned alarm goes off at six.”
“I can’t stop fretting.”
A silence. “About Mr. HI D?”
“Yeah.”
“Being exhausted doesn’t help.”
Jill closed her eyes, but in the dark, worries deepen and old scars reopen. Hesitantly, she breathed, “My worst fear is…”
“What?”
She opened her eyes again, stared at the dim outline of David’s shoulder. “Being alone again,” she said.
He squeezed her tight. “Ain’t gonna happen.”
She said nothing, feeling suddenly crying bad, her mind replaying the last few weeks, the last few years.
During their three days of quiet together, she had told David of her past. Pretty cold, pretty lonely. Her parents had divorced when she was six. Her father basically disappeared from her life, and her mother, a New York prosecutor, hadn’t been there much during her busy heyday. Then, three years ago, she had died after a long struggle with leukemia. Belatedly, she and Jill had grown closer. Jill helped and tended her, soldiered through that pain while simultaneously struggling through med school, losing sleep, losing heart. She had nobody. She was an only child. Her father had started a new family in California with a “new” daughter, six years younger. Jill had seen her twice, when they were very young. Their father had died five years ago, and Jill had seen her again at the funeral. How depressing it felt, to meet someone and know that that person is your half-sibling…and yet a complete stranger. Jill had invited her to her med school graduation hoping to make friends, feel connected. Half-sister never answered.
Only Tricia knew all of this, and had helped Jill. But David…
How rare it is to find someone who will listen, and hold you, calm your fears, be there for you. Jill remembered, during their crisis, committing professional suicide by practically quitting, just walking out of the hospital. She’d just been told that her snooping into OB casualties had also endangered David’s career: he was her boss, supposed to be keeping interns in line. But he’d never told her he’d be in trouble too. She had felt so guilty. Figured she was a liability to him, had left a message breaking her date with him, had gone trudging out and back to her apartment - and he had come running after her! Hugged her and calmed her and spent their first night together loving her.
Once in a lifetime you find someone like that…if you’re lucky.
Now she had a gnawing fear of losing him.
What came abruptly to her lips surprised her. “I wish you’d get a gun. Your father would want you to have a gun.” David’s family owned a sports store in Denver. Everything from fishing tackle to high-powered rifles.
He swallowed. “Cops get shot too. And docs carrying wouldn’t work…”
“I know,” she sighed. “They always have their backs turned.”
David inhaled in resignation, holding her.
At last Jill’s mind started to drift, shut down a little. Wistfully she murmured, “I wish we could sleep in your apartment.”
Their one outing during their three days of quiet was to see David’s apartment. It was a block from the hospital, a one bedroom in a safe new building with security, cameras in the lobby and elevators, and a nice little kitchen Jill loved.
“Just a few nights here.” His voice in the pillow was muffled. “The cops will get the bad guy. You getting sleepy yet?”
She was, in spite of herself. Drifted more, found herself yearning to cook something wonderful in his little kitchen. Shish kebobs on skewers? Pretty colors. Nice…
“Think I’ll have that dream again?” she asked sleepily.
“If you do, I’m here.”
Five minutes later she was asleep.
And David’s eyes opened, looking grave.
12
Wrought iron spikes topped the old iron fence. “Shish kebob” laughed Clifford Arnett as she plunged toward the spikes and the museum grass. She jerked awake, trembling.
David’s arms went around her. “The dream?”
A faint nod against his warmth. Her heart throbbed, but less than it had after previous dreams. In a muffled voice she told him that.
“It’s letting go,” he whispered.
Within sixty minutes they had showered, pulled on new scrubs and white jackets, bolted down breakfast, and were back on the OB floor. Seven a.m. The other interns waited by the nurses’ station for David to lead rounds. None of them had been at breakfast. Tricia was munching a frosted Pop Tart and Charlie Ortega worked on a bagel.
During the night five babies had been born. Healthy babies, healthy moms except for one who’d lost a lot of blood, and was being treated. David flipped through patient charts, put them back on the chart rack, and gave it a shove. The interns followed.
“You eat lousy,” he told Charlie as they walked the hall.
“Twenty minutes’ extra sleep!” Ortega said. “Sleep is the greatest luxury! So is having cold pizza in your room.”
“I keep donuts,” said Ramu Chitkara, pointing at the rolling charts. “Charlie and I helped deliver one of these kids.”
“I helped MacIntyre and Holloway deliver one too,” said Gary Phipps, usually smart-ass funny but today drooping. He quick-stopped at a vending machine and bought some Mounds bars. Clunk! Clunk! Two of them bumped down.
David scanned them all, shaking his head. “Okay, hide the Pop Tarts, donuts, bagels, candy, and put on The Face. We gotta check on happy moms. Another great day begins.”
The group trooped into the first room where David greeted a Christine Fraser. Asked her how she felt. Did the physical, checked the pulse and blood pressure, and felt the belly to make sure the uterus was contracting on schedule. It wasn’t.
“So?” he asked the interns. “What do we do about that?”
“Ergotrate intramuscular,” Ramu and Charlie both said.
“Right.” David wrote an order for the nurse and clamped it to the outside of the chart.
“Stat,” Jill and Tricia said simultaneously. David grinned at them. “Already done,” he said, red-flagging the note with a red stickie.
Meanwhile, Christine Fraser was staring from David to Jill and back again. “Oh!” she said. “I saw you two on TV. Aren’t you…?”
“Yeah, it’s them,” Gary smirked.
Fraser emoted. She had Jill and David on her Tivo. Had watched it over and over. Thought they were so wonderful, romantic…
David smiled uneasily, thanked the patient, and led his group out. Was this going to be a pattern? This diversion from teaching the interns?
By the third patient, he had his answer down pat. Again he thanked and jerked his thumb to the interns. “Next time they go to the roof.”
Laughter. Oh, the stitches, the stitches.
The fifth patient, named Curry, was the one who had lost a lot of blood. She was pale, woozy. David frowned, scanned the lab section of the chart, and saw that the hemoglobin and hematocrit ordered for her weren’t back yet. Alarmed, he checked her pulse and blood pressure. Her pulse was up and her blood pressure was down.
Hurriedly, he gestured the group out to the hall where he called Hematology, who insisted that they’d done the tests and called and sent a written report to the floor nurse.
“Down here there’s no record of having received it,” he said.
When he hung up Ramu frowned at Charlie and said, “That’s the delivery we helped with! So who was the floor nurse?”
“Somebody sleeping their 11 to 7 shift,” Gary Phipps said dryly.
“Could it have gotten misfiled?” Jill wondered, peering back into Curry’s room.
David swore. Turned the group back to the patient’s room just as raised voices caught their attention. They looked down the ha
ll to the nurses’ station.
Someone was loudly crying.
A resident has to keep his floor calm. David sent Jill and Tricia to investigate. With the others he went back into Curry’s room.
The day shift charge nurse was looking seriously troubled, incredulous.
“You just can’t make mistakes with controlled drugs. You know I’ll have to refer this to the nursing supervisor.”
Behind the counter, in a chair toward the rear, hunched a young nurse. She was weeping as if the world had come crashing down on her.
“I’m so…sorry! So sorry!”
Her Kleenex was in tatters. From a box near the controlled drug cabinet the charge nurse handed her another tissue.
“I just don’t understand,” said the older woman. “You’ve been terrific, a good nurse until-”
“The divorce,” the young nurse cried. “I’ve tried to hang tough but it’s killing me!”
The charge nurse frowned back up at the controlled drug cabinet, then down to a logbook on the counter beneath it. She flipped a page.
“You signed out a 30 mg. vial of morphine per Dr. Ganon’s order for room 611, the ovarian cancer, but you never signed it back in.”
The young nurse wiped tears, nodding. “I remember…signing out for it, and taking it to inject into the IV drip…” She burst into sobs. “But then his latest trick with the custody got to me, and I just…don’t remember what I did with the vial. It’s all a blank.”
“The vial is missing.” The charge nurse drew a troubled breath. “Morphine doesn’t stay missing for long. We’ve had everyone looking, and it’s gone. Someone obviously took it!”
Up front, leaning on the long counter, Jill and Tricia pretended to scrutinize a day old chart. They raised their eyes and traded looks: Oh, missing drugs…and were about to leave when two different nurses approached. One of them went straight to the rear and spoke low with the charge nurse, shaking her head.