Ginny swallowed hard. “According to these records, no one else entered or left the restroom at that time.”
“Which explains why they spent so much time with you at first.”
Ginny felt her chest constrict. “But I didn’t do it!”
“And Tran knows that. Calm down.”
“But Jim! That means the murderer was right there! Not ten feet away.”
He rose and came over, pulling her to her feet. “I know. But whoever it was probably didn’t know it was you. He or she would be hiding in the handicap stall with the door closed. They couldn’t see anything and I don’t know anyone who can identify a person from the noises they make in the bathroom. Not unless you have a distinctive walk or perfume or you sang to yourself, something of that sort.” He drew her into his arms.
She closed her eyes and leaned against him until the shaking eased. He was right. All the murderer had heard was someone using the bathroom and washing her hands and leaving. Nothing there to tell him who might have seen or heard something. Besides which, she hadn’t.
Jim bent down and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m sure Detective Tran will understand if you want to back out of this investigation.”
Ginny pushed herself out of his arms, threw her shoulders back, and took a deep breath.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “Mother is betting we’ll catch this murderer before he can hurt anyone else, and she has the De’il’s own luck. She never loses.”
* * *
Chapter 30
Day 12 – Tuesday afternoon
Forbes residence
After lunch, Jim settled into the chair Ginny had provided for his use and tried to focus. His eyes were on the information supplied by Detective Tran, but his mind was elsewhere. While she was here, at home, and he could keep an eye on her, he was all right. The minute she had to go somewhere, somewhere he couldn’t follow, he found himself unable to think.
They were both in danger. No one denied that. It was rational to be worried. It was irrational to think she was safe as long as she was with him. What could he possibly do to protect her the police couldn’t do better? The DEA actually, but it amounted to the same thing, an armed escort everywhere they went. Until the cartel decided to show itself. Which might not happen. In which case, he would be completely mad before the year was out.
“Jim? Jim!”
He looked up and found her eyes on him.
“I can finish this alone, if you need to be somewhere else.”
He shook his head. “Not until tonight.” They were both scheduled to work tonight. He would drive and make sure their discreet tail would be able to see them safely into the building. After that, he would have to let her go up to the ICU. The same ICU where Phyllis had been murdered, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
He hadn’t anticipated being jealous of his grandfather, but he could see there might be advantages to being Laird. If he got that job, Ginny would have to do what he told her.
He took a deep breath. “Let’s see how far we can get before I go blind from looking at these images.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Do you want a magnifying glass?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Okay. We have a list of people we know went into the break room between three and six a.m.”
“And we’ve been able to eliminate Code Team 2, the House Supervisor, the guy taking publicity pictures, the security guard, the patients, and the families.”
She nodded. “Let’s see who’s left.” She ran her finger down the list.
“There was a lab tech who came and went as part of the Codes, but he never went into the break room and he seems to have been in and out in ten minutes or less with each visit. Eliminate him. That still leaves Code Team One.”
“Who was on that team?” Jim made notes as she read out the names.
“Dr. Jones, the ICU nurses, the ER nurses, and the two RTs. According to their badges, none of the ER nurses needed to pee while in the ICU. Let’s see if we can eliminate any of them based on image records.”
There were five nurses to be considered. Two male nurses, both assigned to chest compressions. Three female nurses; one on IV access and medications (assisted by Alice); one scribe (the person responsible for the Code record); and one who managed the crash cart, locating and handing over supplies. The last just happened to be Lisa Braden.
Jim blinked, reminding himself that the night Phyllis died was before Lisa had made her advances on him.
“I’ve just thought of something,” he said. “If Lisa killed Phyllis, so she could marry John, she didn’t need to chase me.”
Ginny’s brow furrowed. “Unless John told her to get lost, I agree with you. It weakens her motive. So did he?”
Jim shook his head. “I don’t know.” He added a note to the yellow pad.
“And,” Ginny added, “the whole thing falls apart if Mary Jo is right and Lisa and Isaac are a couple.”
The two male nurses were easy to eliminate. The patient hadn’t needed cardiac compressions for more than a few minutes. They both left the ICU long before Phyllis disappeared, without visiting the break room, and were tracked from three to six a.m. in the ER in their proper places doing (one assumed) their proper jobs. Not murdering ICU nurses in any case.
The other three nurses, along with Alice, had continued to work on the patient right up until the transfer to the surgical suite, at which point two of the three (the scribe and the med nurse) had helped push the bed out of the Unit and down the hall, then gone back to the ER without returning to the ICU. Since that happened forty-five minutes before Phyllis entered the break room, all of the regular ER nurses could be eliminated. The police records again confirmed (badge and image data) that the ER people were located in the ER and not elsewhere for the remainder of the night.
Lisa was in charge of the Code cart, and the cart belonged to the Medical ICU, and it had to be restocked immediately after using it, so as to be ready for the next Code. She was, perforce, left behind to deal with that task.
Comparing image date/time stamps, they were able to track her movements (with the crash cart) from the patient’s room to the supply room (first) and the med room (second) and confirm that she finished the task and re-locked the crash cart at two fifty-five a.m.
Ginny peered at the image on the screen. “I can’t find Lisa’s badge in this picture.”
“According to the tracking data, it’s in ICU Five.”
“When does it move again?”
“Not until four forty-five a.m.”
“Which means she left it in the patient’s room and went back downstairs without it, missed it at some point, came back up to retrieve it, and we can’t eliminate her.”
Jim shook his head. “All these abandoned ID badges must mean something. Are they too heavy? Are the photos so bad people are hoping to lose them? Are they being used as a way to pass national secrets?”
Ginny looked over at him. “All good questions, but not on topic. Shall we continue?”
He bent to the task. “The police records for the ER say Lisa was definitely there by three forty-five, but that leaves plenty of time for her to nip into the bathroom, kill Phyllis, then get downstairs.”
“Isaac Zimmerman told me he knew Lisa could not have done the murder, but he wouldn’t tell me how he knew. Said it would be a breach of confidence.”
“If he’s the latest boyfriend, he might be making it up, to cover for her.”
“True. I’m hoping I can get Lisa to tell me what he meant, or at least something that will make telling Detective Tran necessary.”
Jim sighed. “Normally, there would be hallway images of everyone who came and went from the Medical ICU that night, but the lens on that camera was so dirty all they could see was blobs of color.”
“Well, that’s no help.”
“It’s also no help in identifying any stranger who might have snuck in.” Jim leaned back in his cha
ir for a moment. “If I were an assassin, coming to kill Phyllis, I’d disable as much of the surveillance as I could and dirtying the lens wouldn’t set off any alarms.”
Ginny met his eyes. “You’re suggesting someone cased the joint?”
“It’s possible. Disabling the hall camera in that way wouldn’t require special access. No badge, no escort. Just ride up in the elevator, use a pole to reach up to the camera and dab some oily dirt on the lens. It could even be done in disguise, as a janitor or something like that.”
Ginny nodded. “That’s a lot of planning ahead.”
“But if I’m a professional, I want to control as many of the variables as possible.” Jim suddenly sat up and reached for his pad. “Let’s ask Tran to follow up on visitors who had access to the ICU in the weeks before the murder. She’ll love that. It widens the field to a few thousand or so.”
“You’re still thinking it was someone who came in from outside.”
Jim nodded. “You don’t like my idea?”
“What if the paid assassin was someone already on the staff? Someone with easy access to everywhere he needed to go.”
Jim’s brow wrinkled. “Did you have someone in mind?”
“Not really. I’m just thinking it would be easy to sneak someone into the ICU in all that bedlam, but getting out again would be harder. Someone might wonder why the stranger was leaving, rather than staying to help out. And they might remember. They’d remember maintenance, too. Anyone who got underfoot.”
Jim nodded slowly. “It’s a good point.” He thought for a moment, then sighed. “Who’s next?”
“Devlin Jones.”
They weren’t able to do as well with him. Try as they might, there were still large enough gaps in the visual record to allow him to slip into the break room, kill, and return before appearing in the next image.
Ginny made a face. “No location data, because he left his badge in the ER. Inconclusive video evidence because he wanders, until the moment we see him on the elevator camera, going back down to the ER. Which brings us to the written record. If we believe the Code record is accurate—and I have no reason not to—he was barking orders to the nurses right up until the neurosurgeon arrived.”
“What time did they record as the end of that Code?”
“Two thirty-five.”
“So DJ could have waved goodbye as they pushed the patient out the door, popped into the break room, then made his way back to the ER with no one the wiser.”
“Except he didn’t. The images suggest—and the documentation backs it up—that he sat down at the nurses’ station, logged onto the computer, completed his charting, then strode out into the hall and down to the elevator. The computer entries all have date/time stamps that place him at the nurses’ station until three-ten and the elevator image shows him heading down at three-fifteen. What’s more, the computers are all tagged so we know which computer he was using.”
She shook her head. “It’s not really proof, but it’s probably good enough to eliminate him. For Dr. Jones to be in two places at the same time, he’d need a helper on staff—one able to chart like an ER doc, and who knew how to read the Code record. No good murderer brings an accomplice with him.”
Jim felt a weight lift within his breast. He hadn’t wanted to believe Devlin Jones was a killer. “All right. Scratch Dr. Jones. Who does that leave us?”
Ginny looked at her list. “Both of the respiratory therapists, and four nurses. Alice took her craniotomy patient to surgery and didn’t get back until almost four a.m. Susan and Grace never left the Unit. Neither did Dee. Peter helped to push the craniotomy patient’s bed so he’s in the same boat as Alice. And, according to the badge data, all of our remaining suspects (except, perhaps, Lisa) used the facilities between three-thirty and six a.m. at least once.”
Jim pricked up his ears. “At least once? Someone went in more than once? That would be suspicious, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s possible someone had a stomach problem we know nothing about, or they just wanted to wash their hands and those sinks were closest.”
“Who went in more than once?”
“Peter goes in twice, once at three-ten, just after the end of the first Code, to which he was assigned, then again around five-thirty.”
“There might be something in the witness statements about it.”
“Okay. I’ll look. What’s next?”
Jim sighed. “We’re going to have to match images with location data for the remaining suspects. I’ll do the two RTs and Lisa. You take Alice, Susan, Grace, and your boss.”
They worked for the next two hours, comparing notes, cross-referencing, and brainstorming. None of the remaining suspects was completely accounted for, but none looked as if they were behaving suspiciously, either.
Jim tossed his pencil on the desk and stretched. “I need to go get ready for work.”
“I had hoped to finish today," Ginny sighed. "But it’s just too big a job.” She gathered up the scattered papers. “We got something accomplished, though. We’ve narrowed the list down to seven people.”
“Unless the murderer really did come in from outside.” Jim’s brow descended. “Either way, we’re not close enough to point a finger at anyone in particular. He or she is still out there.”
* * *
Chapter 31
Day 13 – Wednesday, two a.m.
Hillcrest Medical ICU
At two a.m. the next morning Ginny was still going through the witness statements, making notes and trying to compare them to the location data.
The police had spotted Peter’s two trips to the rest room between three and six a.m. and asked him about it. He explained he’d just been diagnosed with high blood pressure and started on a diuretic. Since the point of a diuretic was to pull extra fluid out of the system, he was still getting used to the effects. He’d actually visited the men’s room five times during that twelve-hour shift. In each case, he was located (badge data) in the men’s rest room. On no occasion did his badge linger or enter the ladies’ room. There was, of course, no video record to confirm that he was the one wearing his badge when he went in, while he was using the facilities, and as he came out again. The images didn’t cover that part of the Unit. They just didn’t. So he had to stay on the list.
Dee (the other Respiratory Therapist) bounced around in the records like a ping pong ball. This made sense, considering what she was trying to do that night, but made it impossible either to include or exclude her from suspicion based on the images and badge tracking. Ginny would have to ask Jim if he had looked at Dee’s charting with an eye to tracking her movements. Her testimony should match—did match, as far as it went, but, like Peter, the job had proved seriously challenging that night and neither had stood still long enough to be caught on camera during the critical two hours.
Alice’s images lined up exactly with her testimony. She had (within a minute or two) graphic evidence that she had been where her tracking data and official statement said she was. She had stayed in the Surgical Suite to finish her charting and was vouched for by the staff. She had visited the ladies’ room, once, around four a.m., on her return to the ICU, then not again until the shift was over. So Alice could be eliminated.
“Ginny, have you seen Grace?”
Ginny looked up at the charge nurse. “Not since the beginning of shift. Is there a problem?”
Margot frowned. “I’ve got some family members that would like to talk to her and so would I. This disappearing during a shift is getting old. If you see her, tell her I’m looking for her.”
“Will do.”
Grace, like Alice, was accounted for, if you accepted the documentation as evidence she was where she said she was. Most of the nurses’ charting was done on the computer and some of the room cameras caught the nurses making entries, but Hillcrest had both wall-mounted computers and computers on wheels, so the data wasn’t consistent. She could have been doing something else for part of the time. Furthermore, her badg
e showed Grace entering the ladies’ room at three-ten and not leaving again until four-eighteen.
When questioned by the police, Grace reported having left her ID badge in the bathroom (attached to her scrub jacket, which she had left hanging on the back of the door in the stall—NOT, she had emphasized, the handicap stall). She realized it was missing at four a.m. when she tried to swipe access to the medication system, and found it fifteen minutes later when she back-tracked her movements. The only image taken of her between those two times showed her not wearing her badge, which supported her testimony, and the next image after that showed her wearing both her scrub jacket and her badge.
Susan was easy to exclude. From the moment her cocaine-abusing admission hit the door at three a.m. until he was pronounced dead of his own lifestyle choices at six-ten a.m., Susan hadn’t left the room. The gaps in her record could be explained by her moving out of camera range in the room, but she never darkened the door.
The last candidate on Ginny’s list, the ICU Head Nurse, Marjorie Hawkins, was much harder to pin down. For one thing, she’d been doing quadruple duty. She spent some time in her office (presumably doing head nurse stuff), came out to help with the two Codes and the three admissions (charge nurse stuff), got a patient of her own, for whom she had to care (ICU nurse stuff), and dealt with Isaac Zimmerman, facilitating the publicity shots until he was thrown out at two-thirty (public relations stuff).
Ginny spent more than two hours studying the records on the Head Nurse and found just one discrepancy. Ms. Hawkins had reported to the police that she was in her office between three-fifteen and four-fifty a.m., working on charge and head nurse tasks, and her ID badge confirmed this. Which would have been fine, except that she appeared in the background on one of the photos taken in Susan’s room during that time.
Ginny considered this. Ms. Hawkins could easily have sat down to write something and pulled her jacket off, which she might then have draped over the back of her chair. Then had come (perhaps) a plea for help from Susan, still dealing with the cocaine abuser, but not yet in full Code status, and the head nurse had gone to help for a moment, then gone back to her office. That could explain the discrepancy. But there was something else.
The Swick and the Dead Page 21