Читать книгу Abandoned - John Schlarbaum - Страница 11

Luke put his cell phone in his pocket and cleared the website history from the computer in the O.R. staff lounge. He didn’t dare print off the newspaper article he’d found online until he got home. He sent Maryanne the link, knowing she would read it while manning duties at the lobby security desk.

“Luke, are you there?” an Admitting Clerk asked. “Can you check the linen bags in I.C.U.?”

“I can,” Luke replied unenthusiastically. “Thanks.”

“Feel free to stretch it out until the end of your shift.”

“Will do.”

Luke exited the lounge and saw a housekeeper mopping the floor down the hallway. “Hey, James, keep up the great work!” he called out with a short wave, not waiting for a reply, as he continued walking out of the wing.

The housekeeper, who was also in his 20s, gave Luke a nod, accompanied with a half-hearted smile, before going back to cleaning the floors.

On the elevator ride to the 3^rd floor, Luke could hear Jennifer warning him not to discuss Helga with anyone else, but this call seemed like providence to do just that.

“I’ll be discreet,” he told himself.

The Intensive Care Unit (I.C.U.) and Critical Care Unit (C.C.U.) made up the west wing of the floor with nineteen beds inside. To Luke, there was no real difference between the patients; each one unlikely to survive without 24 hour monitoring of their current physical state. When someone did recover enough to leave the floor, as he wheeled them out Luke would joke, “It’s a better view going through these doors this way, isn’t it?”

Luke walked into the wing and took note of who was working. The staff who would’ve attended Helga were gone for the day, which worked out well for his plan to gather further intelligence. He changed a couple linen bags and made his way to a young nurse sitting behind the desk.

“Hi, Jess, I heard there was some excitement in here earlier,” Luke said in a confident friendly tone that belied the butterflies in his stomach.

Jess glanced up from her paperwork and smiled. “Are you talking about the woman who died twice this afternoon?”

“That’s the one,” he replied. “What’s that old line – if at first you don’t succeed ...?”

“Try, try again.”

“That’s it,” Luke said shaking his head. “I guess there were complications during her surgery. Do you know what happened?”

“I didn’t hear much at shift change. Apparently the procedure was going along as planned and then her heart stopped,” Jess said in a low tone. “They brought her back to life and sent her here, where she had another seizure. It’s so sad.”

“They always are,” Luke said slowly, deciding against adding his involvement with Helga. “Did she have any family?”

Jess looked toward a pile of medical charts on a shelf. “Her chart is already gone, so I can’t find out if she listed any family or a contact number.”

“Where do her records go?” Luke asked. “When we transfer a body to the morgue we only take the new checklist. The rest of the patient’s paperwork is taken out of the binder and held together with an elastic band.”

“That’s right. Now you’ve got me curious. Give me a sec.” Jess stood and walked out of view.

While he waited, Luke restocked isolation gowns for rooms running low.

Jess returned carrying a thin package of papers to the desk. “This Helga was a tough old bird, if this is all the medical information we have on her,” she said, removing the elastic band. “The chart starts from her admission in E.R. earlier today.”

Luke went behind Jess and scanned the information he could decipher over her shoulder. “She arrived by EMS,” he said, trying to remember the ambulance number and names of the two paramedics, “with a broken hip.”

“Life is so nonsensical,” Jess sighed as she flipped to another page. “I heard she tripped over her cat! Nothing like that should happen to an elderly person in their home on a Sunday afternoon.”

At the mention of ‘home’ Luke memorized Helga’s address. He then looked for a next of kin listing and found something strange. “Her emergency contact is a Genifer Grant, but there’s no phone number. What’s the use of that?”

Jess saw the empty box and shrugged her shoulders. “She might have been in shock and couldn’t remember. It happens. I’ve seen people in the E.R. who can’t remember the names of their children or their date of birth. The brain is on overload dealing with how to stay alive and it shuts down the pathways required to count to ten.”

“I guess,” Luke said. “What’ll happen to the cat?”

“Oh – I didn’t consider that,” Jess said with a concerned look. “Pets are the last loved ones to be cared for when a person dies. They have feelings too.”

“Except maybe fish,” Luke said, trying to lighten the mood.

A warning bell began to ring, making Jess turn her attention to a set of monitors. “Room 14 has pulled off her oxygen mask again. I gotta get this.”

“No worries. I’m heading out. My shift ends at 11:00.”

“Lucky you,” Jess said, stepping toward the room. “I’ll see you next weekend.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Luke briefly stared at Helga’s scattered records and was tempted to take them.

Walk away. You got what you needed.

As he approached the hallway exit, Luke reached out to get a handful of sanitizer from a dispenser. Rubbing his hands together, he hit the large silver button on the wall with his elbow and exited the doors.

Yes, it is definitely better going through the doors this way, he thought.

***

“I read the article you sent,” Maryanne said as Luke approached the security desk. “It’s crazy, right?”

“Only if Helga didn’t die of natural causes,” Luke responded.

Maryanne could hear the genuine concern in Luke’s voice and it didn’t surprise her that he was calling the dead woman by her first name, as if she were a family member. Unlike her job as a guard, whose main responsibility was to give directions to visitors, and the occasional restraining of unruly patients to their bed, a transporter had to establish a friendly one-on-one relationship with an unfamiliar person from the get-go. She knew Luke preferred to use the patient’s first name when entering their room to break the ice; he became an old friend dropping in for a visit. He would also use the occasional ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ with elderly patients as a sign of respect. From the way his peers spoke of him, Maryanne had heard how great Luke was before they’d started dating.

Luke filled Maryanne in on what he’d learned in I.C.U. “I’ll tell Jennifer in the morning.”

Maryanne heard a slight tone of resignation. “Is something wrong?”

“I worry that I’m making too much out of this,” Luke admitted. “I’ve transported hundreds of patients and when they’re safely back in bed I just go to my next call. Helga should be no different.”

“But she is and that’s okay,” Maryanne said reassuringly. “The odds are still high that Helga died of natural causes due to the stress of the surgery.”

“If that’s the case, I’m wasting Jennifer’s time.”

Maryanne disagreed. “As an investigative reporter that’s 90% of her job, Luke. She doesn’t have to look any further into Helga’s death, and if she does and finds nothing, she’ll be off on another story. I bet she’s trying to find the tramp who slept with that councilman. Now there’s a story to pursue.”

“I suppose. I bumped into Dr. Singh awhile ago and she said she’d given Jennifer new information about that John Doe in the morgue.”

“See, she’s already got a lot on her investigative plate,” Maryanne smiled widely, hoping one day she’d be doing the same thing. “You look tired, Luke. Go home and get some sleep.”

Maryanne got up and walked into a nearby hallway, discreetly followed by Luke. With no cameras present, Luke gave Maryanne a kiss.

“Meet me for a late breakfast?” Luke asked.

“You know it,” Maryanne replied.

Luke headed to the Admitting area to return his radio, as Maryanne sat back down in her desk chair.

A minute later, as Luke entered the lobby’s revolving doors, Maryanne waved and warned him, “Don’t watch any Forensic Files shows before bed!”

“I hear ya,” he said with a grin.