Текст книги "Brain Dead"

Автор книги: Eileen Dreyer

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"Wise has never been a behavioral directive of mine," she assured him, twirling her still-full champagne glass in a small hand. "On the other hand, I'm real fond of 'correct,' and there wasn't anything correct about releasing Billy Mayfield today."

"Billy Mayfield?" Raymond asked. "Ellen's husband?"

There ensued a brief discussion on fellow nurses, alcoholic husbands, and inexplicable deaths that Murphy mostly didn't care to follow.

"One of the reasons I was hired was to question the status quo," Timmie finished it all by saying. "Well, I think this time questions aren't enough. I say, when in doubt, act."

"That kind of attitude will get you fired," Cindy Dunn warned with more mirth than caution.

Dr. Atkins looked far less amused. "That kind of attitude damn near got you shot."

Timmie waved an unconcerned hand. "Don't be silly. I've had more guns waved at me than Clint Eastwood. No harm done."

"But this isn't L.A.," Cindy retorted. "And you have more to worry about here, you know? Like your family?"

Said with no tact and heavy meaning. For a little woman, Timmie Leary had quite a glare on her. She leveled one on the blonde and shut her right up. "Thank you, Cindy. We'll talk later."

Cindy pouted. "It is why you came," was all she said.

Standing there at the edge of the group, Murphy felt like a Peeping Tom. Kind of like old times, except he didn't enjoy it anymore. Especially the look on Timmie's face, which made him think she'd just been squeezed into opening up private doors in a public place.

Must be the lack of alcohol. Or cocaine. Or tricyclics. As the man had said, what a lousy time to give up caffeine. Watching for uncomfortable reactions just wasn't fun anymore, especially when he had nothing left to use them on.

Obviously just as uncomfortable with the taut silence, Raymond cleared his throat. "Come to think of it," he said, "Timmie could probably give you a great story, Dan. Her father is one of Puckett's great characters. Isn't he, Timmie?"

Maybe Murphy was the only one who noticed that she tightened up even further. "He is."

"I still find myself singing one of his songs when I'm working," Raymond continued blithely. "What a voice. Do you sing too, Timmie?"

"No, I sure don't."

Murphy watched the conversation switch gears like a Volkswagen with a bad clutch and wondered. But heck, he was still wondering who'd try and shoot up a horse show. It was a cinch nobody was interested in talking about it, and that usually meant there was a story here. If anybody had the energy to find one.

"Your father's a musician?" Murphy asked instead.

"No," Timmie said. "An Irishman."

"'I will arise and go now,'" Barbara Adkins inexplicably intoned with a soft smile.

'"And go to Innisfree,'" everybody but Timmie answered like a litany, and then smiled.

"It's 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,'" the big doctor explained. "From Yeats. Timmie's dad taught me."

"It's his favorite poem," Raymond enthused with a huge smile. "Just ask him. He'll recite it at the drop of a hat."

Barbara laughed. "Heck, he'd throw down the hat, just to get the chance."

And everybody stood there sipping champagne and watching another horse canter around the ring and contemplating Irish poets. Except for Timmie Leary. She clutched her full glass like a weapon and frowned. And Murphy. Unaccountably, he found himself thinking about the fact that the most interesting statements this afternoon had remained unspoken.

* * *

Later that evening, after all the horses had been put back in their trailers and the beautiful people had climbed into their gleaming imports, Murphy sat in his living room that overlooked a weed-populated driveway and tried hard to drum up enthusiasm about what he was writing. He made it to "Saturday afternoon saw a gathering of..." before he faltered at the challenge of exactly what to call that crowd today. Sycophants? Leeches?

He hadn't minded the medical crew. Funny how after they'd been pointed out, he'd been able to spot them in the crowd, like clover in the corn. A little more solid, a little less dressed, a lot less self-involved than anyone else. Certainly more real than their shiny star, who had ended up walking away with the trophy in one hand and a profit of eighty thousand in the other.

Murphy thought about that. Thought about the expose Sherilee expected on Paul Landry, who wasn't really bad, just hungry. Thought about Alex Raymond, with his bright eyes and devoted following and indisputable good cause, and found himself itching with a faint flutter of old prejudices. A reporter's prejudices.

It must have been all that perfect hair. Murphy didn't trust perfect hair. Or it could have been that middle-class-looking guy going postal on a perfect afternoon and nobody having the decency to at least ask why. When the phone rang, Murphy was sitting there wishing he could wash away his tedium with a couple of fingers of something neat and wondering what the hell he was supposed to get out of all this.

"Mr. Murphy?" The voice was hushed, urgent.

"Oh, no, you don't," Murphy automatically protested, recognizing with deadly certainty just what the tone of voice meant. "I'm not doing exposes anymore. I don't care what company is polluting what river or who the mayor's sleeping with. Call somebody who cares."

"Then you don't want to know what's going on at Memorial?"

"Memorial?" He looked at his computer screen, where his words about Memorial should already have been glowing, both literally and figuratively. "No, I'm sure I don't."

He should have hung up. Curiosity was a hell of a lot tougher to cure than altruism, though. Not to mention the inexhaustible urge to knock down white knights, which had gotten him into this profession in the first place.

"Nobody wants to know what they're doing. Nobody cares."

He shook his head. Lit a cigarette one-handed. "Add me to the list."

"You're not from here. You can tell the truth."

"I don't want to tell the truth."

"They're killing people, Mr. Murphy. Ask Timmie Leary. And hurry. She doesn't know it, but she's in danger, too."

"What do you mean?" Murphy demanded.

But his caller had already hung up.

Son of a bitch. Son of a goddamn bitch. His palms were itching. He hated it when his palms itched. It meant he was about to do something stupid. And he couldn't think of anything that would be more stupid than figuring out what was behind that phone call, or what Timothy Leary-Parker had to do with it.

He was still cursing five minutes later when he picked the phone back up and dialed.

Chapter 3

"You really don't want to know why he did it?" Timmie asked. Leaning against the railing on Timmie's porch, Cindy shook her head emphatically. "I don't even want to know who he was."

Timmy made it all the way down the steps onto her sidewalk before faltering to a stop. Cindy remained behind on the porch, a wooden baseball bat balanced on her right shoulder.

"You' re kidding," Timmie said, squinting up at her. "Right?"

Cindy assumed a look that reminded Timmie of Mary Lincoln thinking of the theater. "I didn't sleep all night," she said in a small voice. "I'm not going to sleep again tonight. It's one of the reasons I came over. I just can't... after being that close to a shooting, I can't sit home and think about Johnny."

Timmie did her level best not to scowl. She should have expected this. She could always tell Cindy's state of mind by how high her hair was teased, and today it was no more than an inch off her scalp. A sure predictor of gloom.

Well, Timmie just wasn't in the mood for it. It was too nice an afternoon, and she already had enough on her plate to begin with. Behind her on the lawn, Meghan sat crouched over the corpses of summer flowers, and beyond the front door of the house Timmie could hear the muted notes of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." She was out of money and out of time and out of baby-sitting recommendations, and now it was somehow her fault that some idiot had decided to shoot up a horse show and remind Cindy that her husband was dead. Just the way to set off to work.

"I'm sorry," Timmie inevitably said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. But for God's sake, Billy's dead and Alex almost got shot. Shouldn't at least one person in this town ask why?"

"So you've volunteered for the job."

Timmie blinked, bemused. "Well, why not?"

"You're not in Los Angeles anymore. I mean, you escaped."

Timmie took a second to consider the tidy riot of mums ringing the tall redbrick Victorian house that now belonged to her. She noted the last green of her grass, the translucent strawberry blonde of the sugar maple tree to her right, the deepening garnet of the oak to her left. She saw the streets that transected close by, quiet, tree-laden lanes with graciously preserved homes lined up like prim aunts in dated finery.

This one had been her grandfather's, and his mother's before him. Great-grandmother Leary, an immigrant who'd stepped off the boat the day before her seventeenth birthday to find a better place in a new world. From what Timmie could see from where she stood, it certainly looked as if she'd succeeded.

"I guess it's a matter of semantics," Timmie finally admitted. "I don't think of it as escaping."

Cindy shook her head. "The difference between the two of us, I guess. Johnny was killed in the Chicago Loop, and I never want to see a big city again as long as I live."

"And I think this town needs a serious dose of big city."

Cindy sighed. "Which means you're going to play Cagney and Lacey."

"Nah. Quincy. If Alex won't talk to me, maybe I'll get Billy to talk to me. I can at least check his file when I'm at work."

"I don't baby-sit for free," Cindy reminded her. "Not even if you're kicked out of your job for a worthy cause."

Timmie tried a big "what the hell" smile. "Aw, heck, what's life without a little challenge?"

"I'll keep my calendar open just in case."

Timmie looked up to see that Cindy wasn't joking. Immature she might be. A less-than-stellar ER nurse. But she did try so hard. "Thanks, Cindy. I mean it. You're a lifesaver."

"I'm happy to do it," she said. "But only if you call Alex."

"Yeah. I will." She wouldn't. She still couldn't afford it. "And put the bat back. It's my favorite one."

Cindy pointed the Louisville slugger at Meghan. "Not until that creature's behind bars."

Timmie grinned and joined her daughter, who did, indeed, have a three-horned, goggle-eyed beast wrapped around her neck.

"Renfield isn't a creature," Timmie defended him anyway, even as he swiveled one scaly eye her way like the ball turret on the bottom of a B-24. "He's family."

"He looks like an extra from Godzilla."

"He probably was. But he won't bother you unless you're a fly." Bending over her daughter, Timmie petted the chameleon and tousled Meghan's hair. "Behave while I'm gone, both of you."

Meghan's face fell noticeably. "What about Patty's?" she asked, her voice teetering between plea and challenge.

Timmie crouched right down to eye level. "We'll go ride ponies at Patty's tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Billy's funeral," Cindy reminded her. "You told Ellen you'd go."

Timmie kept her attention on her daughter. "We'll go the minute we get back from the funeral. I promise."

Plea sank straight into mutiny. "You promised yesterday. And the day before that. I'm getting tired of promises."

Timmie swept a lock of near-black hair off her daughter's high forehead and forbore swearing. "Nothin' I can do about it, Megs. You know that."

"It's the only reason I came here," Meghan reminded her tardy. "Since there isn't a beach."

You came here because your father jacked us around enough that we had no place else to go, Timmie amended silently. Not something she chose to share with a six-year-old, however.

"Enough," Timmie commanded, even knowing why she was getting the grief. "I'll see you when I get home. Please behave for Cindy until I can find another baby-sitter."

Meghan refused to face her mother. "Yes, ma'am."

Dropping one last kiss on her daughter's forehead, Timmie resettled her nursing bag on her shoulder and turned down the street for her walk to the hospital.

"Don't forget to stop by the pharmacy on the way home," Cindy called in farewell.

Timmie just lifted a hand in answer and walked on.

The day was a beaut, all high, sharp sky and gem-colored trees. Just enough of a chill in the air for Timmie to have broken out her jacket. Leaves crunched underfoot and jack-o'-lanterns waited to be lit on front porches. The image of small-town America. The fantasy Timmie had kept with her when the streets of Los Angeles had gotten too mean. Small kids on bikes and parents raking lawns and waving hello to passersby. Sidewalks and yard sales and night sounds that didn't include the constant whine of helicopters.

On one side of her, a Mercedes purred to a stop at the sign. Two kids on skateboards in baggies and ball caps swerved right for her on the sidewalk. Weeds poked through the mat of zoysia old Mr. Bauer had once maintained with a nail clipper, and spray paint on his milk-can mailbox betrayed the gestation of a local gang.

Puckett in the nineties. A pretty, Civil War-born town rediscovered by the wealthy white-flighters of St. Louis, a Missouri River port that had supported a blue-collar trade for generations, a dying transportation hub that saw boards go up over factories and train stations become curio shops. The place Timmie had avoided like the plague for as many years as she'd been able.

Timmie might have loved it here, if it just hadn't been here. If she could have come fresh and of her own accord. It hadn't happened that way, though, so she did the best she could. Today, that meant turning her attention to the new granite-and-glass hospital four blocks ahead that shouldered its way into all the gentle red brick like an ill-mannered twentieth-century trespasser.

Without even realizing it, Timmie began walking faster. Anxious for work, where nothing mattered but her skill, her reflexes, and her sense of humor. Where, in this small town in mid-America, the load would be light and the crises manageable.

Silly her, she should have known better. Especially since she seemed to be the one always screwing up those perfect shifts.

* * *

She got her first surprise when she walked into the nurses' lounge to put her things away.

"Well, I give up," she said, staring stupidly at her locker. Between the time she'd left work the day before and gotten in this afternoon, it had somehow sprouted all manner of bouquets, cards, and balloons, bearing congratulatory messages.

"What, you don't like being a shrine?" Mattie Wilson spoke up from the next locker.

Timmie pulled off one small bunch of blue and white chrysanthemums with a card that read "It's a miracle!"

"A shrine?" she asked. "What for?"

"Word around here's how you saved the great white doc from hollow-point poisoning."

Timmie opened the locker door and rained chrysanthemum petals on to the tile floor. "All I did was dance with a tall, sweaty guy. Kind of like high school mixers."

Mattie laughed. "You went to a tough school, girl."

"Well, I was usually the one with the gun, anyway.... Oh, look, this one's obviously from my date."

Considering the amount of personal property that regularly disappeared from lockers, Timmie shouldn't have been surprised that somebody had managed to get yet another bouquet inside hers.

Only these flowers were black. And dead. And the card was sealed. Timmie had a feeling this note didn't say congrats.

Mattie gave a low whistle. "Maybe you wanna get that gun back, girl."

Timmie spent a couple of seconds standing there before picking up the brittle flowers. "I bet somebody wants me to open this card, huh?"

Mattie slammed her own locker shut and shrugged into her massive lab coat, which covered what she referred to as her colonel butt. As in, "The colonel and his damned chicken built this butt." Mattie was as short as Timmie and as wide as Barb, with cafe au lait skin, tilted amber eyes, and buzzed hair. One of the few blacks on the ER staff, Mattie made Timmie feel much more at home in this preternaturally white town.

"It's you," Mattie advised, "I'd throw that trash where it belongs."

"And not know what's inside?" Timmie still hadn't quite gotten around to opening it, however.

Mattie considered her for a minute, hand on hip. "You do have a long nose, don't you?"

Timmie grinned. "I keep getting asked that question. Yeah, okay, shoot me. I'm curious. As opposed to every other soul in this town, I might say." She waved the card at her friend. "Am I the only one asking questions here?"

"You the only one gettin' dead flowers."

"But, Mattie, if everybody's so happy I saved Dr. Raymond, why doesn't anybody try and figure out who from? I mean, that was a gun out there yesterday. Even in my old 'hood that got a mention in the coffee conversation and a couple questions from the five-oh. Especially if the guy who was saved inspired bouquets."

Mattie's laugh could be heard out on Front Street. "You serious? Girl, that wasn't Raymond that boy was after. It was Landry. You spent time out in the real world. You really think this town gonna chase after a nice middle-class white boy just 'cause he pissed some uppity black brother stole his job?"

"Landry?" Timmie asked. "Really? You know who did it?"

Mattie shrugged. "I know the brother fired more'n a few good, solid citizens hereabouts. And I know the only reason you gettin' flowers for stopping that shooter is 'cause Raymond mighta got shot 'stead of a nigger. That card probably says you shouldn't'a bothered, the nigger deserved it."

"Is he?" Timmie asked, knowing Mattie would understand.

"A nigger? Oh, yeah, girl. He jus' wear good suits, is all. Now, throw that card away and let's go do us some sick people."

Timmie did throw the flowers in the trash. The card she kept, though, stuffing it in her pocket as she walked onto the hall.

* * *

It took two hours to score Billy Mayfield's records. By then Timmie had taken care of, among other things, five flu victims, two cheerleaders involved in a senseless cartwheel accident, and a kid with a Jujube up his nose. She was definitely ready for lunch. The only thing standing in her way was the triage nurse who stood dead center in the hallway with a chart in each hand.

"Choose," he challenged.

"Hey!" the prize behind curtain number one yelled. "Hey, goddamn it! Do you know who I am?"

Catching the unmistakable roux of Jack Black and Giorgio perfume, Timmie pegged the lady long before she was officially introduced.

"Lillian Carlson," the triage nurse specified. "Wife of Puckett General Bank president Edward Carlson, charter member of the TipaFew luncheon club, and holder, evidently, of half a dozen pieces of lingerie she forgot to pay for from Dawn's Designs. Dawn pressed charges, and Lillian complained of whiplash."

"Whiplash."

"From falling off the display counter."

"Hey!" Mrs. Carlson was yelling as she swung a lovely maroon silk bra like a lariat over her salon-blond head. "Hey, damn it! I'm hurtin' in here! Somebody out there call me a nurse!"

"If I call her a nurse," Timmie asked, "does that mean she has to call me a drunk?"

"She lookin' for you, girl," Mattie informed her.

"Not me," Timmie assured her, hands up so she couldn't land the chart. "Drunks don't like me. Especially friends of Jack."

More truthfully, Timmie didn't like drunks. And bourbon drunks were much, much worse. Timmie detested bourbon drunks. She couldn't so much as smell the stuff without wanting to vomit.

"In that case, it's curtain number two," the triage nurse said with a smile, which was when Timmie heard what she should have all along, wafting over from room three like an evil miasma.

"Help!... Help!... Help!"

"Oh, no." She moaned, recognizing the sound. High, quavering, relentless.

"Mrs. Clara Winterborn," Mattie announced with a grin, her head tilted as if she were identifying a rare birdcall.

"Help!... Help!... Help!"

Timmie's stomach hit her knees. "She's a frequent flier, isn't she?"

"Memorial Med Center's Gold Ambassador Club."

Timmie grabbed the chart. "You guys set me up."

"It's hell being a hero," Mattie assured her and laughed as she walked off into Mrs. Carlson's room.

"I don't suppose there's a third option, is there?" Timmie all but begged.

"Being pulled to rehab for the shift," the triage nurse offered with a nasty grin. "They're short and we're not."

"That's obscene."

"No, it's not. Being pulled to Restcrest is obscene."

Timmie gave in with little grace. "I'm playing this game under protest."

Nobody listened. She turned around and trudged toward her penance.

Mrs. Clara Winterborn, the chart read. Eighty-nine years. Complaint: fever of unknown origin. Address, Golden Grove Nursing Home. Timmie sighed and stepped into the room, to be assailed by the stench of old urine and new bedsores. A brace of nervous, almost identically fidgety women in their sixties hovered at the head of the cart, evidently unable to do more than groom the few tufts of white hair left on the head of the creature in the bed.

A bird. A tiny, frail, bent bird. Mouth open, eyes wide and empty, body curled in on itself, wrapped in blue Chux, tied in place with Posey and wrist restraints, propped into frozen position with half a dozen pillows. The North American Gomerus decripidus, Timmie heard her first nursing supervisor intone in her head. More frequently referred to as the Common Gomer, the moniker being an acronym for Get Out of My Emergency Room. Those patients who seemed to break down faster than old Fords, never got better, and used up all of medicine's time, talent, and tenuous empathy on their decaying, brain-absent bodies. The worst nightmare in medicine.

"The nurse is here, Mother!" one of the women screamed in the creature's ear. "Everything will be all right now!"

"Help!... Help!... Help!"

"She has a fever," the other said. "Golden Grove should have called us sooner. They know how anxious we get when Mother is ill."

The old woman had bedsores and contractures and about as much meat on her brittle little bones as a picked-over Thanksgiving carcass. Timmie spent a frantic moment searching the record for some kind of signed stop-treatment form. She didn't find one. She wished she were surprised.

"How long has she been... ill?" she asked.

Another quick smile and pat. "Mother's been at Golden Grove about ten years since her first stroke, haven't you, Mother? I think we're in here about once every other month. We know some of the nurses so well, we send them birthday presents."

Timmie turned away with the excuse of getting out gloves, blood tubes, and thermometer. What she was really doing was hiding her rage. Her blind, flashing frustration at these two very nice, very sincere women who spent their waking hours torturing their mother because they loved her.

Not only that, they tortured her in a place that shouldn't even be allowed to elicit confessions from Inquisition prisoners, much less treat helpless old ladies. If Mrs. Winterborn had been a cat, the ASPCA would already have had Golden Grove up on charges of cruelty to animals for the kind of care they gave her.

"Hello, Mrs. Winterborn!" Timmie yelled close to her ear without getting any response. "What's the matter?"

"Help!... Help!... Help!"

"Timmie Leary, to the desk," Ron intoned over the PA, as if she weren't four feet and a curtain away.

"What?" she called out as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around that wasted arm.

It was Barb who stuck her head in the door. "The chief wants you. Something about Billy Mayfield's chart?"

Great. Another complication. Timmy noted a pressure of 110/56, probably high for old Mrs. Winterborn, and nodded. "In a minute. You know the Winterborns, Barb?"

"Of course she does," one sister said with delight. "I hope you liked the cookies, Dr. Adkins."

Timmie ignored the exchange to finish her quick evaluation, which produced a catheter bag full of foul-smelling, cloudy urine, atrial fibrillation on the monitor, and a definite rattle over the left chest. A couple of tubes of blood later, she traded places with Barb and prepared to face her supervisor.

"Timmie Leary, line one," Ron intoned over the PA.

Timmie stopped long enough to wash her hands before heading for the phone, all the while praying it wasn't a new problem. "Timmie Leary-Parker," she said in a rush.

Nothing.

"Hello?"

Empty space.

"Ron?" she asked, hanging up. "That wasn't Cindy, was it?"

The secretary looked up from where he was reading GQ. "Cindy?"

"She's baby-sitting for me tonight."

"Not unless she's taking testosterone, honey. That was a man."

Timmie spent a blank moment staring at the phone, her stomach doing a sudden dive. "A man. And he asked for me?"

"By name. He wasn't there?"

She shook her head, now decidedly unhappy. "It better not be who I think it was."

Ron forgot his GQ. "Mad stalker?"

"Worthless ex-husband. He calls again, get a name, okay?"

"Is it worth getting his phone number, too?"

Timmie finally laughed. "He doesn't do guys. He doesn't even do girls. He does intimidation." She did everything but shake herself off. "And on that happy note, I'm off to see Angie."

Ron rolled his very expressive eyes. "I'll pray for you."

"Help! Help! Help!" Mrs. Winterborn screamed.

"And, Ron," Timmie said on her way by. "Have Barb help that woman."

* * *

Angie McFadden had an office on the other side of the waiting room, where she couldn't be bothered by noise from the ER she allegedly supervised. Timmie knocked on the pressboard door to what had once been a supply closet and stepped in to find not just Angie waiting for her, but a middle-aged man as well. The mystery guest was in his fifties, balding, with a salt-and-pepper beard and the pocked, pasty skin of a career smoker. He wore a Mobile work shirt with Tucker sewn in script over the left pocket, and passed the time fondling an unlit cigarette.

"You wanted me?" Timmie asked her supervisor.

Not in any sense of the word, she was sure. Angie had all but hissed at Timmie from the minute it had been suggested she'd make a lovely addition to her staff. Not a thing had improved in the three weeks Timmie had worked there.

"Mr. Van Adder came in today to look at William Mayfield's chart," she said, swinging a little in her seat. "Then he heard you had it."

Timmie considered the sour look on her supervisor's flushed face and decided it wasn't a good day to piss at fences.

"As a matter of fact, I do," she admitted easily. "I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything when he was here. After all, how many forty-four-year-olds die of the flu, ya know?"

Angie squinted as if trying to assess Timmie's hidden agenda. "And all that noise about the coroner?"

Since Timmie had just remembered that Tucker was the coroner's first name, she figured it would be unwise to do anything but keep smiling. "You mean about the fact that I couldn't understand why he didn't question a death like that?" she asked. Van Adder darkened noticeably, and Timmie said agreeably, "Aw, heck, what do I know?"

So she wasn't immune to temptation. Besides, she wanted to know why Mr. Van Adder had shown up at the hospital for the chart of somebody he'd turfed off his jurisdiction like a fourth-down football.

Van Adder glared. "You're Joe's daughter?"

She smiled evenly. "Yes, sir."

One of the backroom boys, she diagnosed. The late-nighters, who always had some town function or benevolent meeting as a cover for the hours spent in smoky, beer-fogged rooms.

His scowl deepened. "I'm Tucker Van Adder."

Timmie nodded. "Yes, sir, I know."

He shook his head. "And you think you can teach me my job, little girl? That right?"

Timmie came so close to telling him off her tongue bled. This guy was an asshole. He was also a local power broker. Not to mention, evidently, close personal friends with her easily threatened supervisor.

Timmie was outspoken. She wasn't an idiot. "I was just a little perplexed, sir. It seemed so unusual."

"Find anything?" Van Adder asked with no little sarcasm.

Considering the fact that she hadn't even cracked the chart, Timmie figured she could be pretty honest. "Not a thing."

"Well, give it to me," Angie demanded. "You don't have any right to it. And Mr. Van Adder wants to review it."

"It's in my locker," Timmie lied blithely. "If I can finish my patient, I'll bring it right out to you."

"Give the patient to somebody else. And clean up all those flowers. I don't think they're funny, either."

"Okay."

And then, before she got into real trouble, she walked out.

* * *

Timmie got back to the hall and did a quick check on her patients, who were in various stages of the ER holding pattern. Mrs. Winterborn was waiting to go to X ray, the cheerleaders were still in X ray, and the man with the flu was getting IVs. Which meant Timmie had ten minutes to sneak off with Billy's chart.

She didn't go far, just the empty trauma room, where she knew nobody'd bother her. She scanned the chart once, quickly, then reread every lab result, every path report, every X-ray finding as carefully as she could, looking for some kind of anomaly that would account for what had happened.

What she found was nothing.

No arrhythmias, no toxic levels of anything. No liver failure, no heart failure, no kidney disease. Out-of-whack electrolytes, but nothing that wouldn't be expected from somebody with the two-bucket flu. Nothing, certainly, that should have killed a healthy man that fast.

It should have made her feel better. She hadn't screwed up, at least not in something obvious. Instead, it made her feel more unsettled. Especially considering the fact that the coroner was sitting in Angie's office waiting for that very chart to close it out once and for all.

"Help!... Help... He—"

Timmie lifted her head at the change in that old voice.

"Fuck! Call a code!"

She left the chart on the table and ran. Barb's voice she couldn't mistake anywhere.

"Code blue, emergency room three. Code blue, emergency room three."

"Do something!" the sisters were screaming as Timmie slammed into the room to find Mrs. Winterborn frozen in position with that last quavering "help" stuck halfway down her throat, her eyes bugged, her skin mottling. Barb was at the cart cranking up the defibrillator, and footsteps and equipment already thundered through the halls. And all Timmie could do was stand flat-footed in the middle of the room wondering just how she could maneuver those old ladies out so she could screw up a code.