Dead Wrong (38 page)

The officer’s face softened. “Well, see, if you had called I would’ve let you in without you having to go to all that funny business with that card.” He jangled a key ring from his black leather belt, making McCarthy feel like a real shit for lying to him.

M
CCARTHY DROPPED INTO Donna’s oversized vinyl chair and studied her computer. And couldn’t believe his luck: Sisters of Mercy was running the same electronic medical record system he was familiar with, one of the few he knew how to navigate easily. He moused the
SEARCH
button.

The computer responded with
PASSWORD
.

Shit. Either she’d logged off before leaving or the computer timed out. Now what? He rubbed his sweating palms together, acutely aware of the seconds flying by. He couldn’t begin to guess what the password might be. It could be anything from her pet anaconda to some nonsense alphanumeric case-dependent string.

He caught the
slap slap slap
of sandals approaching the door and dove for the foot well of a nearby desk. He dropped out of sight just as a key scraped in the lock.

Curling into the small space, he went perfectly still.

He heard the chair springs groan from her weight, followed by the
clickity click click
of a keyboard.

Shit, trapped like a rat. No telling how long before he’d get the opportunity to make a break for it. And Sarah was waiting in the car. Christ!

He waited.

Ten minutes passed.

The phone rang. Donna answered a few questions and chatted with the caller before hanging up. The chair springs squeaked relief, followed by more sandal slaps. The door clicked, then came the snap of a deadbolt locking.

He quickly crawled out of the cramped position and headed for the door. As he passed her desk, he cast a final glance at her monitor. And stopped.

Whoa, wait a minute. Right there were several Post-its pasted to its lower edge. Sometimes people did the stupidest things, like displaying password on sticky notes. He bent down to scan them. One did look suspiciously like a password.

Aw Christ, where did she go and how long before she returned?

He glanced from the door to the glowing screen saver of a Siamese cat.
Hurry up
,
if you’re going to do something, do it now
. What the hell—in for a pound, or whatever the saying was. He dropped into her chair. This time she hadn’t logged out, probably because she wasn’t expecting to be gone long. Maybe only a quick restroom run.

He started by sorting for all admissions on April 12 two years ago. The list scrolled down the screen. Next, he narrowed it to admissions to only the newborn nursery. Then typed J
ORDAN
into the first-name data field, hit
SEARCH
, then
ENTER
. The screen filled with data.

Tom froze, blinked, and reread the response.

His heart rate began racing. He checked his watch. Shit, she could be back any second.

He scribbled two lines on a Post-It, dumped the screen, and was out the door, halfway down the hall when he heard her distinctive footsteps from around the corner. He ducked into the first office on his right.

“May I help you?” A young man stared up at him from a desk, a large computer printout spread out in front of him.

“Ah, yes … matter of fact you can.” McCarthy’s brain felt like it was working overtime making up so many lies. “I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Doctor Rush.” He held out his hand.

Caught off guard, the man rose from his desk and shook hands.

In awkward silence McCarthy let the seconds tick past so Donna could return to her desk.

“And?” the man asked.

“Just got paged and I left my cell phone at home. May I could use your phone?”

“Sure,” and rolled his chair away from the desk.

D
ONNA GLANCED UP when he came back through the door. “One thing I can say about you, Doc, you sure are a persistent one. What now?”

“I’d like you to pull a chart on one other patient, Nora Young. Here’s the release.” He handed her a signed consent. “And here’s her Social Security number.”

Donna turned a doubtful eye to the consent. “You didn’t forge this, by any chance?” she asked, before drilling him a dubious look.

“Donna, would I do that to you?” Another pang of guilt hit. Would she actually check the signature against the previous one for similarity? He hoped not.

Donna studied him a moment. “Guess not. You look like too nice a fellow to stoop to something as low as conning me into walking all the way over to the newborn nursery on a wild goose chase.” She pushed up out of the chair.

Eyes twinkling good-naturedly, she said, “It should take me only a minute. I’ll get you the paper chart. Nora Young was admitted before we migrated our records to be all electronic. We haven’t converted any of simple OB admissions yet. Probably never will since it’s her only admit. Coffee’s over there. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” Relief washed over him.

T
EN MINUTES LATER, Tom stopped taking notes and sat back to stare at the acoustical tile ceiling. On April 12, two years ago, Nora Young gave birth to a male she and her husband, Don, had named Jordan. Every detail of Bobbie Baker’s story, from the names of the OB physician, anesthesiologist, down to the nurses, was perfectly accurate. Even the tiniest details, such as her room number.

So what? Bobbie and Nora might be friends, making Bobbie’s memories nothing more than a recitation of Nora’s story. Meaning Bobbie was a liar.

Okay, Bobbie was a liar. So what?

One rule he’d learned practicing neurosurgery was to verify of every detail of a case before making a critical decision. Meaning, he should make the extra effort and talk to Nora Young in person to confirm her relationship with Bobbie Baker. But why bother? Because confirming that the two women knew each other was the only way to explain how Bobbie might know Nora’s story.

“I’
M IMPRESSED,” SARAH said.

Tom pulled the Civic’s door shut. “Because?” he asked, as he settled in, securing the seat belt across his chest. He missed the ease of using his car’s GPS system. He fired the ignition. It was his turn to drive while Sarah navigated in their quest to find Nora Young’s home in Mill Creek, a growing bedroom community between Everett and Seattle in the Cascade foothills. They were parked to the side of a busy Exxon station at the intersection of two four-lane roads with surprisingly heavy traffic for this hour of the morning.

“You actually stopped to ask directions.” She grinned, accentuating the cute overbite he found attractive.

“What’d you expect? We’re lost.”

“Exactly my point.”

He shook his head in disappointment. “I hate female stereotypes of males. Especially that one.” Instead of leaning over to kiss her like he wanted, he nosed the Honda out onto the street.

“That’s because you don’t fit the stereotypes.”

“Nor do you.” Then, to change the subject, he said, “The guy said take the second right a half mile up.”

T
EN MINUTES LATER, he turned onto the residential street they were searching for, slowed, and began checking for suspicious cars. Paranoid, maybe, but in the unlikely event Sikes had somehow anticipated this, he didn’t want to walk into a trap.

“There it is,” Sarah said, pointing at a house on the right.

He dropped the speed even more and continued looking for surveillance. He drove past the house to the end of the block and turned around so the car headed back in the direction they had just come. With such winding irregular streets, the only sure way of finding their way out would be to retrace their path. Especially if they needed to do so in a hurry.

Young’s home was nestled in a housing development of suspiciously similar structures painted shades of earth tones, beauty bark flower beds, and Weed-and-Feed yards. A waist-high fence encircled a modest single-level house with a black Ford pickup in the driveway. There were no toys in the yard, McCarthy noticed—which surprised him. He thumbed the doorbell, triggering Big Ben to ring inside.

A moment later the door was opened by a muscular man, about six foot one, wearing a bright blue tank top and denim cutoffs. McCarthy pegged him for mid-thirties.

“Mr. Young?”

“Yes, sir. You the doc called a while back?” Young leaned forward, one hand on the jamb, the other on the door.

“I’m Dr. Rush and this is Dr. Hamilton,” Tom said, with a nod toward Sarah. McCarthy offered his hand. Young’s hand was rough with journeyman’s calluses.

“What can I do for you? You mentioned you wanted to ask some questions? About Nora?” He remained in the doorway.

“Mind if we come in to talk?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Young stepped aside and yelled over his shoulder, “Nora, that doc’s here, wants to see you,” then extended a hand to Sarah. “Don Young.”

Don? McCarthy looked at Sarah to see if she picked up on the name. She glanced at him, eyebrows raised slightly. She caught it. According to Bobbie, Don was the name of Jordan’s father. Bobbie’s husband’s name was Trent.

McCarthy followed Sarah into a living room with oversized brown corduroy sectionals and a glass-top coffee table littered with outdoor magazines. Again, there were no toys in sight. In particular, no red fire engine like the one Bobbie had described. A large-screen television occupied one corner, and a matching corduroy recliner was within easy remote control range. The salty smell of fried bacon remained in the air.

Young asked, “So, what’s up? You guys work with Dr. Wyse?”

The question caught McCarthy by surprise. “No, why?”

Young looked confused. “He called maybe an hour ago. Said that Dr. Hamilton,” looking at Sarah, “might come by with that guy the cops are looking for. The doctor who shot those people?” Then to McCarthy, “But you’re not that guy, right?”

Without missing a beat, Sarah asked, “Did you mention we called?”

A thin pale woman, about late twenties, in a short-sleeve cotton blouse, denim cutoffs, and flip-flops entered from another room, wiping her hands with a paper towel.