T Wave (15 page)

CHAPTER 38

Alton continued his discussion with Nurse Proffitt for a few more minutes, but as the conversation ended, he hadn’t experienced any flashes of insight.

He retreated to a small, empty conference room and placed a call to Nancy Goins.

“Hello, Mrs. Goins?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” replied Nancy.

“Mrs. Goins, my name is Alton Blackwell. Let me express my sympathy for your loss. Nothing I can say will reduce the reality of the pain you’re experiencing, so I’ll simply state that I’m sorry for the unexpected trial you’ve been forced to endure.” The anguish of his own grim experiences in Afghanistan lent his voice a tone of sincerity he hoped Nancy could detect.

“Thank you, Mr. Blackwell,” said Nancy is a flat voice. “And…did you call simply to express your condolences?”

“No, Mrs. Goins. I’m investigating the details of your husband’s death. I’d like to spend a few minutes discussing it with you, if you don’t mind.”

Several seconds of silence elapsed before Nancy answered. “Mr. Blackwell, I appreciate your enthusiasm to get to the bottom of this, but can we defer our conversation to a later date? I’m sure you can appreciate my wanting some alone time right now. The past eighteen hours have been unbelievably stressful.”

“I understand your distress, Mrs. Goins, and I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t feel it to be absolutely necessary. I need to be sure I understand all the details surrounding your husband’s death in case there was any type of foul play involved. If there was, time could be of the essence. Could I swing by your house for a few minutes later today?”

“Fine, Mr. Blackwell,” replied Nancy with a resigned sigh. “How about two o’clock?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Goins. I’ll see you then.”

At the appointed time, Alton rang the doorbell to Nancy’s house, and she admitted him to her richly-appointed abode. Alton followed his host down a long hallway to a cozy breakfast nook.

“Thanks again for taking time to meet with me today,” said Alton as he sat opposite her at a solid-oak table.

“So you’re investigating Ken’s death, you said?” asked Nancy.

“That’s right.”

“Mr. Blackwell, I know I was a little…short earlier, but I’m actually glad you came. I have to tell you that there’s been a string of suspicious deaths at the hospice and at Stokely Hospital. I personally observed all but one of the hospice deaths and have details on good authority about the hospital ones. Given how bizarre Ken’s death was, I can’t help but wonder if it was part of the same pattern. Could there be some maniac going around killing patients, including Ken?”

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Goins, I’m assisting the FBI with the investigation into those patient deaths and was wondering the same thing. The biggest difference with Ken’s death from the others, though, is the relatively minor nature of his surgery. The other patients were dying or acutely sick. Ken’s wasn’t.”

“That’s true,” admitted Nancy. “But if someone is bumping off patients, perhaps the severity of their condition is irrelevant.”

“That could be,” said Alton. “That’s why I need to know all the details about Ken’s surgery. Any information you can provide could help me track down the pattern behind all the deaths and—possibly—a killer.”

“I see.”

“So, Ken was in the hospital for rhinoplasty, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“How far in advance did he schedule the surgery?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Ken only told me about it the day before, but I have to imagine for elective surgery like that, he’d have to schedule it several months in advance for his doctor to reserve the OR time. You could ask his plastic surgeon how long ago he made the surgery reservation.”

“Who was his surgeon?”

“Robert Burns.”

“Okay—I’ll touch bases with him. I’ll also see if Doctor Burns was involved with any of the other patients who died.”

“You don’t think he personally had something to do with Ken’s death, do you?”

“I’m not ruling anything out,” replied Alton, “but I doubt he’d be involved. Even if I assumed him to be motivated by selfish purposes, I don’t see how killing a patient helps his practice.”

Nancy nodded.

“We should probably examine Ken’s passing from an entirely different angle, too,” said Alton. “Was there anyone who was angry with him, who might have wanted to see him dead?”

“No, not really. He worked in advertising, a very cutthroat industry. He’s traded strong words with some of his competitors in the past, but surely they wouldn’t kill him just for that, would they? Plus, how would that fit in with the other murders?”

“It might not. His death could be a murder, but one that has nothing to do with the other patients’ deaths.”

“True,” said Nancy.

“Speaking of the other patients, can you describe specifically what you observed about their deaths that made them seem suspicious? I want to ensure I’m not overlooking any key details.”

Nancy took several minutes to share her observations. It all corresponded with the body of knowledge Alton had accumulated but didn’t add to it. He felt a little disappointed that no new information had come to light.

Alton leaned back in his chair. “Before I leave, can you think of any other information I should know about Ken’s surgery? Anything that might help us determine the facts surrounding his death?”

“No. It’s just…,” Nancy appeared to struggle with her next statement. “I understand your curiosity, Mr. Blackwell, but really…what’s the point in digging deeper? It won’t bring Ken back.”

“No, it won’t. But if you’re right about the unexplained deaths, don’t we need to know what’s happening? If someone
is
killing patients, don’t we need to put a stop to it?”

“Yes…of course, when you put it like that.”

Alton wrapped up the conversation and prepared to leave the house. Nancy walked him back to the front door and opened it. He handed her his business card. “If you think of any other pertinent details, could you call or send me an e-mail?”

“Certainly, Mr. Blackwell.” She took his card and continued to hold her outstretched hand perfectly still as Alton turned towards his Explorer.

After limping down the sidewalk a few paces, Alton turned to wave goodbye and caught Nancy eying him warily. The look unsettled him, but he couldn’t exactly say why.

CHAPTER 39

During his afternoon smoke break, Scrubs headed to the privacy of his car. Actually, it was Jeanette’s car. His ride was back in the body shop undergoing the last round of repairs for the bullet holes.

After closing and locking the doors, he placed a call.

“Hey, buddy,” said Scrubs when the other party answered. “I heard you was in the market for some…
entertainment products
.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“My wife, Jeanette. You work with her, right?”

“Yep.” Again the wary answer.

“Don’t worry, dude. I ain’t gonna say nothing to no one else. I don’t know if Jeanette’s ever mentioned it before, but we have a little retail trade going on. I thought maybe you’d be interested in getting in on the flow.”

“What kind of stuff? Weed?”

Now Scrubs was getting somewhere. “Naw, man. Prescription stuff. I thought it might be right up your alley.”

“Hmmm. How much are you trying to move?”

“It depends. Sometimes I can’t get none. But when I do have it, it’s usually a lot. This ain’t just for personal consumption.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’d be interested. I have some friends who know what I do for a living. They’re always asking me if we have any leftovers. I know I’d have a few buyers, at least.”

“Awesome. But there’s one condition. I don’t want Jeanette to get tangled up in this, so don’t say nothing to her about it. It would keep her from having legal problems if we ever got busted.”

“Sure, no problem,” replied the male nurse. “I can keep it to myself.”

“So, you wanna get together?” asked Scrubs. “I can show you what I got. We don’t have much right now, but I expect the flow to pick up again soon. I’m seeing to that personally.”

“Yeah, I’ll check out what you have. Can you meet tonight?”

“Sure, man,” said Scrubs.

“Cool. I’ll call you when I get off-shift.”

Scrubs ended the call and stared at the wall. He hadn’t told the man all the details. In fact, sharing everything would have been counterproductive, since Scrubs’ plan rested on keeping some details quite secret from both the buyer and Jeanette They couldn’t interfere with clandestine strategies if they didn’t know about them.

CHAPTER 40

After his interview with Nancy Goins, Alton headed to Serenity Hospice to meet Mallory.

Once there, he recounted to Mallory his conversation with Nancy.

“So,” said Alton, “any updates on your case?”

“Yeah,” replied Mallory, “Wiggins came through in a big way. The lab guys rigged up four bait bottles, and we’ve already planted them in the rooms of three hospice patients and in Ken Goins’ old room.”

“Awesome.”

“It gets better. The lab boys also set up each bottle with a motion sensor. As soon as the bottle moves, it’ll send a text to my cell with the number assigned to that specific bottle. We’ll know exactly what room it came from. And I downloaded a tracking app that’ll let me keep tabs on it when it’s on the move, as long as I’m in range of the bottle’s signal, which is about a hundred yards. The hospice isn’t quite a hundred yards long, so I’ll know when any of the bottles move.”

“Like you said, even better,” said Alton. “So, what’s the plan for Ken Goins’ room? Do we open it up tomorrow?”

“Yep, assuming Wiggins can line up a plainclothes agent to come to the floor to monitor it. It’ll do us no good to set up the bait bottle if we can’t track it. We need someone on scene to follow the thief.”

“Is there someone lined up yet?”

“No. Wiggins said he’ll take care of it. But I’ll make sure we have someone in place before I open up the room.”

“Good,” replied Alton. “The next question is, how do we get the word out in the hospital in a way our thief will hear about it?”

Mallory rubbed her ear in the cute way she often did when she was thinking. “We can make a show of taking down the yellow tape off the door tomorrow. Maybe I can even go back into the room and take some ‘official’ pictures. We’ll have to hope the hospital thief didn’t already hit up that room before we sealed it off.”

“That sounds good. I can also mention it as I’m following up on the patient deaths. I became acquainted with the floor secretary, Donna White, yesterday, so maybe I can mention it to her, too.”

“Acquainted?” asked Mallory with an arched eyebrow.

“Yep,” said Alton, wearing his best angelic face. “She advised me on the best mani/pedi shop in town.”

After a moment of puzzled silence, Mallory broke out into a laugh. “You’ll have to tell me more about that one over dinner.”

Alton grinned. “Dinner, huh? Good—that’ll give me more time to think up a plausible story.

“Before I forget,” said Mallory, growing serious, “I wanted to confirm something with you. How long ago was the first patient death?”

Alton looked at the ceiling as he performed a bit of mental math. “Just under two months ago. Why?”

“Well, the narcotics thefts started about three months ago—not quite the same time but pretty close, don’t you think?”

Alton rubbed his chin. “Yeah. It does seem coincidental that two crime sprees started just a month apart. So you’re thinking they may be connected?”

“Possibly. I know we don’t yet have enough details to know one way or another, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. In fact, I should probably head on over to the hospital so we can start answering some of those questions. How much longer are you going to work?”

“A couple more hours. I’ll meet you back at my place.”

“Okay,” said Alton, checking his watch. “That should give me a chance to make a reasonable amount of progress.” He gave Mallory a quick peck and left her to her work.

As Alton passed by the nurses’ station on his way out, he spotted Pearl and waved.

“Hey, Honey!” she called out. “How’s your neck?”

“Much better, thanks to your TLC.” Alton stopped at the desk to exchange a hug with his impromptu Florence Nightingale.

“That’s wonderful. I was so worried about you.”

He touched the nape of his neck. “It’s a tad sore but really not all that bad. How are you doing?”

“Oh, you know us. There’s always something going on around here. But we’re good.”

Alton pursed his lips in thought. “Say, you see a lot of what goes on around here, right?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, I’m looking into the details of Ken Goins’ death. What can you tell me about Ken? Did you know him?”

“No, not too good. He only came here once or twice. I know that he and Nancy weren’t doing so good.”

“What do you mean?” asked Alton.

“I heard her on the phone with him a few times, fighting.”

“So they didn’t get along very well?”

“I don’t think so. Sometimes when Nancy called Ken, he was yelling so loud, you could hear it over the phone out in the hall plain as day. He was so mean to her. It wasn’t just that, neither, that made me think him and Nancy was having problems. Sometimes Nancy would be on the phone in her office and forget to close the door. She’d talk really quiet so you couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying, but in a friendly kind of voice, if you know what I mean.”

“So you think she may have been seeing someone else?”

“I don’t know for sure, but it makes you wonder, don’t it?”

Alton shrugged but thought better about speculating on Nancy’s extra-marital affairs in front of her staff.

“Thanks, Pearl. You’ve given me a lot to think about. You’re aptly named, you know that? You really are a jewel.”

She scrunched up her nose in appreciation and laughed. “Get yourself out of here, you sweet talker!”

In contrast to his adventure the previous evening, Alton safely completed the journey from the nurses’ station to his SUV. As he made the drive from Serenity to the hospital, he mulled over the patient-death cases. If someone really was bumping off patients, who would do such a thing, and why? In a flash, an idea illuminated a corner of his mind. Surely she wouldn’t go that far…