Every Fifteen Minutes (49 page)

Eric flashed on Virginia in the emergency department, how she had collared him and made him pay attention to Max's problem. Evidently, Virginia had been as insistent with Morris, but Morris hadn't tried to help her or Max. Eric was beginning to get a bad feeling. He knew Morris was busy, but no busier than any other chief, and Morris should have called him in on a consult, the way Laurie had that night in the ED. Eric wondered if Morris didn't refer the matter to psychiatry because of their bad blood on the Pharmacy Review Board. Eric wouldn't have ordinarily entertained that conclusion, but it did seem strange that Morris hadn't mentioned any of it to him in the breezeway.

“Hey,” Laurie said, entering the office, then closing the door behind her. “Well?”

Eric changed mental gears. “I read it, and I admit it sounds hostile, but it really doesn't change anything for me.”

“He called his mother a
whore.
” Laurie frowned and folded her arms, standing on the other side of the desk. “Doesn't that seem beyond the pale?”

“It's inappropriate, but I wouldn't extrapolate too much from it.”

“Why not? Like I said, I know I'm no psychiatrist, but do you know what my mother always told me?”

“What?”

“Men who hate their mothers hate women.”

“That's not bad,” Eric had to admit.

“Tell me about it. My mom is always right. Just ask her.”

Eric didn't interrupt her, because he could see she was on a roll, her dark eyes growing animated.

“So it would make a lot of sense to me that Max hated women. His mother is so obviously irresponsible. Marie's a drunk. Zack is actually too good for her. A kid like Max, who has such anger toward his mother, could easily lose his temper on Ren
é
e and kill her, even impulsively.”

“It's possible, but not likely—”

“Really? Plus I was thinking about what you said, that Ren
é
e had a boyfriend and this dog-walking routine. If she was meeting the boyfriend in the morning, then Max could've easily known about that routine, too. He could've known she had a boyfriend. What if she mentioned that to Max during one of her tutoring sessions?”

Eric didn't confirm that it was true, and that was how he himself knew about Ren
é
e's having a boyfriend in the first place.

“And if that's so, then maybe Max got jealous that she was rejecting him. Maybe Max knew she was meeting her boyfriend in the park, and so he went to the park that morning and killed her. It's completely possible, and it even fits with his profile. I know you don't see him that way, but I don't think you're seeing him objectively anymore.”

“I hear you, but I think I am.”

“So you're unconvinced?”

“I think so.”

“Whatever, then close down the file.” Laurie came around the desk, leaned over, and reached for the mouse, but her swipe called to the screen the log-in sheet, which showed a record of the times the EMR file had been accessed online, by anyone in the hospital. “Oops, sorry.”

“Wait, don't close it yet.” Eric glanced at the list, then did a double-take. The EMR had been accessed a slew of times during Virginia's three-day hospital stay, which was to be expected, but it had also been accessed in the two months since then—twice. “That's funny.”

“What?” Laurie looked at the screen, the white light of the monitor showing the contours of her fleshy cheeks.

“Why was somebody accessing the file after the patient's been discharged?”

“I don't know.” Laurie frowned at the screen. “Any test results or bloodwork that comes after discharge are imported into the file automatically. They don't show as accessing the file under the EMR system, do they?”

“No. The only people who would have any reason to access the file after discharge are the treating physician and his team.”

“That's what I was thinking.”

“Maybe if somebody has a question or wants to jog his memory for some reason. I've done that once, my entire career.”

Laurie snorted. “I've never done it. Who has time? In the ED, if I start looking at files, somebody bleeds out. My practice is strictly plug-and-play.”

“There's another reason I can think of for accessing the file—to alter it in some way.”

“Whoa, why?”

“And who? I don't know if they added something or deleted something, but I'm going to find out.” Eric scanned the access entries, and next to each one was a line of twelve asterisks, the encoded identities of whoever had accessed the file. Every physician, nurse, intern, and even orderlies at HGH were assigned an identity code, and the codes appeared as asterisks for security reasons, so that nobody could learn the code of another employee and use it to fraudulently access the EMR system under his name. Eric looked up at Laurie. “Would you be surprised if I told you that Morris Brexler was the treating physician?”

“Morris of Myrtle Beach?”

“Yes.” Eric had confided in her his suspicion about Morris's taking kickbacks on the Pharmacy Review Board. “Morris treated Virginia Teichner on her previous visit. He even met Max.
And
he never mentioned it to me, even though I just saw him on the way up.”

“What?” Laurie's eyebrows lifted in surprise, and Eric returned his attention to the list of access codes, a block set of asterisks, like the stars on the American flag.

“This is fishy.”

“Maybe it's a mistake?” Laurie shook her head, nonplussed.

“I'm going to find out.” Eric rose.

“What are you going to do? You're not allowed to be on the premises, officially.”

Eric crossed to the door. “Then I'll be on the premises, unofficially.”

 

Chapter Fifty-six

Eric took the stairs two steps at a time. He'd have to hurry if he wanted to catch the guys in the IT department before they went home. He raced downstairs, blew through the exit doors, then jogged down the hall. Luckily, the IT department was in the basement, consigned to an out-of-the-way location near the morgue, and only a janitor was coming toward him in the other direction, pushing an industrial-size floor polisher.

“Hello,” the janitor said, nodding as Eric hustled past.

“Hi.” Eric spotted the sign for the IT department and opened the plain gray door, but it was locked. “Anybody home? Can you give me a hand?”

“Hold on,” said a voice from inside, and in the next moment, the door was opened by a young girl with supershort purple hair, black-framed glasses, and a slouchy summer dress. She appeared to be on her way out, a red knapsack over one arm and white earphones plugged into both ears, from a wire that went into her dress pocket. “We're closed for the day,” she said, wearily.

“I work in accounting,” Eric said, since she appeared not to recognize him. He had never seen her before, but her employee ID lanyard was around her neck, with the name Julia Meehan. “I'm wondering if you could help me with something, Julia.”

“Not now, I gotta make my train.”

“Please, it's really important and I have to get it done by tonight, but I forgot about it. It won't take that long.” Eric pressed his way into the office, and Julia stepped backwards with a heavy sigh, setting her backpack on the floor and unplugging one of her earbuds.

“Okay, whatever.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. We had a patient, Virginia Teichner, who was admitted a few months ago for heart issues. She was discharged after a few days, but recently passed away.”

“That's sad.”

“Yes, it is. Her file was accessed twice after her discharge. It's kind of unusual, and we're worried it might be a mistake. As you know, the log-in sheet in the file shows the codes for the IDs but not the names of the employees. We need to know their names so we can follow up, then make sure their time and treatment gets properly billed.”

Julia nodded. “Okay, no problem. Obviously, I can't tell you which employee has which encoded identity, but I can give you the names of the employees who accessed the file after discharge.”

“That would be great.”

“I'll take a minute to get that, but it's easy. What's the patient's name again?” Julia went to the middle cubicle against the wall, which was decorated with My Little Pony posters, presumably ironically.

“Virginia Teichner,” Eric answered, spelling the last name.

“This will just be a minute.” Julia woke up her computer, and the monitor came to life with a My Little Pony screensaver, a speckled white pony with a flowing purple mane. She typed in her password, which showed as a line of ten asterisks, then started typing so quickly that it sounded like raindrops on a rooftop. “Please, don't look at my screen.”

“Sorry, I'm just in a hurry.” Eric turned away.

Suddenly the typing stopped. The room went completely quiet.

“Did you find it?” Eric asked, turning around.

“Who are you?” Julia's eyes had gone round with fear.

“What's the matter?”

“There's an alert with your photo in my email. I'm calling security.”

“No, please,” Eric said, but Julia was already reaching in her pocket for her cell phone.

He turned around, tore open the door, and bolted out.

 

Chapter Fifty-seven

Eric hurried down the hallway, his thoughts racing. If he couldn't find out from IT who had accessed the file, then the second best thing was to go to Cardiology and try to find out what had happened during Virginia's admission. The last admission wasn't that long ago, so somebody had to remember Virginia and Max, especially given what Max had done at the mall last night. He jogged past the framed landscapes.

He was about to take the stairwell but kept going, bypassing it. Fewer people worked on the basement level and he could run into the new wing of the hospital, which housed the Cardiology Department, and take the stairs from there. The security office was in the older wing, only one floor up, and the security guards would already be on their way down to IT, so he was running away from them. He ran down one hallway, then the next, passing rooms that contained the storage and the hospital's computer servers. He'd never been on this floor before.

The carpeting ended in glistening tile, and he knew he was headed toward the morgue. He kept going, spotting its stainless-steel double doors on his right. One was opening, and a morgue employee in blue scrubs emerged. Eric caught a whiff of the distinctive formaldehyde odor, then took a left turn down the hall and passed the pathology lab. A young lab technician came walking in the opposite direction, reading on his smartphone, but Eric kept his head down, jogged lightly by him, and reached the stairwell, where he went through the door.

He raced up the stairs, passing the first floor, then the second, nervous as he approached the doorway for the third. He anticipated being recognized in Cardiology because he'd been there for consults many times, since depression and anxiety were prevalent in heart patients. He didn't know how he'd deal with it, he'd have to play it by ear.

He reached the third-floor landing, opened the door, and took a left. He strode down the glistening hallway, trying to act as normal as possible as he passed into Cardiology. The hallway was empty except for a tall rolling food cart; the dinner service had begun. The nurses' station was on the left, with two nurses on computers behind the counter, and he recognized one of them, a slim, young African-American woman, Patty Allen. Patty had a lovely face, with a slight up-tilt to her eyes, and she wore her hair smoothed into a thick braid.

“Hi, Patty,” Eric said, arranging his face into a professional mask as he walked to the counter.

“Dr. Parrish?” Patty looked up from her computer, and her broad smile showed that she hadn't seen the security alert yet. “Oh my goodness, that was incredible, what you did last night at the mall. I was so worried about you! How did that happen? Was that boy a patient of yours?”

“Actually, that's what I came to see you about.” Eric slid his phone from his pocket, mindful that the other nurse, whom he hadn't met, was eyeing him warily. “His name is Max Jakubowski, and his grandmother, Virginia Teichner, was admitted here for three days, about two months ago. She had congestive heart failure, and he came with her. That's according to Dr. Brexler's notes in the file, and it makes sense to me. Max was her caretaker until she passed away last week.”

“Okay.” Patty blinked. “How can I help you?”

“Do you remember him at all, Max and his grandmother? She was in her nineties, very nice, and he's a seventeen-year-old boy. He's the one you saw on the news last night.”

“No way. He was
here
?” Patty's eyes widened. “Do you know which room she was in? My patients are usually on this hallway. We've been shorthanded since Sheila went on maternity leave, so I keep close to the station because I cover the phones.”

“Dr. Brexler was the grandmother's treating physician, but I know he's gone for the day.” Eric remembered the other names of the people on the treatment team. “The resident was Sara Stone. Is she around?”

“She left for the day, too.”

“The nurse assigned was Caleb Martieki.”

“Caleb's out sick today.”

“The social worker was Martha Girandole.”

“She's on vacation. She's due back on Monday.”

“Hmm,” Eric said, temporarily stumped. He felt the disapproving eyes of the other nurse on him. “I guess I can get their cell phones from you, but here's my problem. When I look at the file, Dr. Brexler made notes that Max was depressed and needed a consult from psychiatry, but I never got a call for a consult. Do you know what happened?”

“No, I don't. A consult on a visitor, not a patient? That would be kind of unusual.”