T Wave (16 page)

CHAPTER 41

Alton arrived at the hospital and used the vacant desk of William Cline’s administrative assistant to continue his research.

As he uncovered more information about the deaths and their unsatisfactory explanations, Alton became more convinced of the legitimacy of Nancy Goins’ concerns. He consequently felt a growing sense of urgency to discover the murderer’s identity before another patient joined the deadly list.

Alton sat lost in concentration as he studied a patient chart, splayed fingers on the side of his head sending his closely-cropped hair almost straight up. The sound of approaching footsteps broke his reverie. He glanced up to see William Cline.

“Did you learn anything new?” asked Cline.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” replied Alton with a nod of excitement. “The patients didn’t share the same doctors, but oddly enough, they were all in the same section in the hospital, even the two who didn’t die until they were in the hospice: Five South.”

Cline seemed to think about that fact for a moment. “Well, that’s not as unlikely as you might think. Five South does have some specialty patients, but for the most part, it’s a med surg floor.”

“‘Med surg’?”

“Medical-surgical. The patients on Five South have a wide variety of underlying conditions or are recovering from surgery—or both. The floor is a bit of a hodgepodge of all types of hospital patients.”

“I see.”

“You don’t seem too thrilled with that information,” said Cline.

“You’re right. I was hoping for more. But solving this case is actually quite similar to cracking the encryption used on an encoded message; every cipher that doesn’t work eliminates an incorrect solution. Eventually, the correct code is exposed via the process of elimination.

“Mr. Cline, maybe the patients’ location on Five South is coincidental, but I’d like to rule out the possibility of staff involvement. Can you give me a list of the employees who work on that floor and access to their HR records?”

Cline looked like he had swallowed a lemon. “Is the violation of our patients’ privacy not enough for you? Now you need to scour the records of our employees?”

“Mr. Cline, I’ve been looking into this case for several days now. Have I wandered from our agreement to keep a low profile on this investigation?”

“No.”

“Right, and I promise you the same level of confidentiality with the staff records, at least as long as I can.”

“What do you mean, as long as you can?” asked Cline with narrowed eyes.

“Remember that I’m investigating by authority of the FBI. Any wrongdoing I uncover will have to be passed along to them. If and when that happens, you might not be able to keep this investigation out of the press. If the press
does
learn anything, though, it won’t be from me, now or in the future.”

“I guess I’ll have to live with that,” said Cline. “If I say no, you’ll just get a subpoena, right?”

Alton squared his shoulders. “Yes, I would. People’s lives could be at stake. As a senior hospital administrator, I would expect you to be leading the charge to discover the truth and protect your patients.”

Cline sighed. “You’re right. Let me get you that employee list—and their HR records.”

As Alton relaxed with Mallory that evening, he shared his latest findings with her.

“So did Cline give you the list of five South employees before you left?” asked Mallory.

“Yep. Now that I have that information, can you run a background check on those employees?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea—criminal and psychological checks. It’s all public records anyway—no warrant needed. Did Cline give you their social-security numbers?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, it should be pretty easy to run a standard background check. Who knows? Maybe a bad apple will fall out of the tree if we shake it a little.”

“You know,” said Alton, “perhaps we shouldn’t confine the search to just Five South employees. I mean, how many people—like housekeeping, for example—perform work on that floor without actually being assigned to it?”

“I see what you’re saying. If some evil or deranged employee is on the loose, they may work on a lot of floors.” She pondered for a moment. “Although in that case, I wonder why they’ve only attacked Five South patients.”

“Good point, and the fact that two of the patients died in the hospice obfuscates the solution even more. I guess an off-shift hospital worker could be sneaking over there, but why? Could they have struck up an acquaintance with the patients while they were on Five South and followed them to Serenity?”

“You know, that’s another parallel with my drug case,” added Mallory. “Just like the murders, the thefts are occurring at both the hospital and the hospice. It still makes me wonder if there’s a connection.”

Alton shrugged. “It’s still too early to say.”

“So if we’re going to expand the background checks,” said Mallory, “will you need to go back to Cline for the hospital’s full list of employees?”

“No. Cline sent me the list in an Excel file that contains all the hospital’s employees in it. He filtered the file to show only those employees who worked on Five South. I’ll just unfilter it before I send it to you.”

“Perfect,” said Mallory. “Why don’t you send it to me now, and I’ll forward it along to our reporting guys.”

“Okay. How long do you think it will take to get the records back for that many people?”

“Probably tomorrow afternoon.” Alton raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Mallory continued, “The FBI has standard templates for these types of background requests, so once we plug in the social security numbers, it’s really just a matter of pulling information out of databases and dumping it into an output file. If and when we uncover someone whose background seems suspicious, we’ll start digging deeper.”

MONDAY, JULY 23

CHAPTER 42

The next morning, William Cline arrived at Stokely Hospital’s parking deck in a pleasant mood. He hadn’t heard from Blackwell, the FBI researcher, since providing the HR records over twenty-four hours ago. He hoped this lack of contact indicated a commensurate lack of evidence. He would be glad when the investigation was put to bed.

As he arrived at his desk, Cline noticed the blinking light of his desk phone, indicating a voice-mail message. After listening to the recording, he placed a return call to Leo Jacobin, his manager and CEO of the company. “You called, Doctor Jacobin?”

“Yes. You promised me an update on Serenity’s turnaround plan by Wednesday. I’m just checking in to see how that’s going.”

“I’ll have the report ready by then as promised, but I can tell you now that we’ve already taken significant steps to improve Serenity’s profitability.”

“What steps are those?”

Cline hesitated for a moment. “I’m happy to share that information if you want. However, I’m not sure you’d…um…feel entirely in accord with the actions I’ve undertaken. In the spirit of keeping you insulated from any future criticism, shall you and I agree that our mutual objective is improving Serenity’s profitability and leave the details to me? I’ll let the financials speak for themselves.”

It was Jacobin’s turn to hesitate. “That’d be acceptable to me. But…you’re not breaking the law, are you?” After a moment of silence, he cut in again. “You know what? Don’t answer that. You know what your responsibilities are, and I trust you to execute them. How you do that is up to you.”

Cline ended the call and replaced the phone in its cradle, smiling mirthlessly as he slowly rocked in his chair. “You trust me, huh? That’s why you called to check up on me before the deadline, ‘cause you’re such a trusting guy. You’re simply covering your ass with a cloak of deniability, just as I knew you would.”

He tapped his fingers on the rich burgundy wood of his desk. “Works for me, though. Your ignorance makes my life a whole lot easier.”

CHAPTER 43

The next evening, David and Fahima joined Alton and Mallory for dinner. The latter were careful to avoid discussing their investigations, knowing such conversations might stir up the ragged emotions from which the former had just begun to recover.

After bidding their friends adieux, Alton stooped over to fasten a leash onto Buster’s collar. Mallory joined Alton for an after-dinner walk, a nightly ritual in which they both found a measure of comfort. Mallory slipped her hand through Alton’s free arm, and he smiled at her without speaking.

After the walk, they reclined on the couch and only then began to discuss their investigatory work.

“Any news on your thefts case?” asked Alton.

“No. Remember how I had to go to court this morning for that other case? Well, the prosecutor never called me up, but I had to be present just in case he needed me. So, I ended up sitting in court all day. What about you?”

“Honestly, I’ve been heads-down on Kruptos work all day. Anyway, I figured I wouldn’t make much progress until we got the background checks.”

“Speaking of that,” said Mallory, “let’s see if those files came back.” She booted up her laptop and opened her e-mail program. After scrolling for a moment, she issued a grunt of satisfaction. “Here it is.”

She and Alton reviewed the list together. “Randy Abernathy,” said Mallory. “That’s the same last name as one of the Serenity nurses.”

“Yes, I know. I spoke with both the husband and wife on my first day. He goes by ‘Scrubs,’ by the way.”

“Nice,” said Mallory with a roll of her eyes. She bent over to study the list again. “Under the floor assignment, it says, ‘general.’ Do you know what kind of job Scrubs has?”

“Yes—he’s an orderly. In fact, you know him, too. He’s the guy who brought Jacob back from his endoscopy. Kind of a scruffy guy with some kind of wound on his cheek.”

“I remember him. I’m just thinking…if he’s an orderly, he could work all over the hospital, right? Including Five South.”

“Yes. We saw him on Five South, so we know he spends at least part of his time there.”

“And his wife works in the hospice,” said Mallory, musing. “It kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“Yes—maybe we should look a little more into their backgrounds.”

“Oh, I’ve been looking into Jeanette’s. I guess I can spill the beans now, since I’m pretty close to wrapping up my case. Jeanette is my primary suspect for the hospice thefts. The patients assigned to her and the family complaints all line up with her culpability. Now I’m wondering if Randy is connected with the hospital thefts.”

“That seems like a reasonable supposition, but do you have any evidence to support it?”

“No, none,” admitted Mallory, “but perhaps the bait bottles will solve that dilemma.”

Alton nodded. “Let’s see who else is on this report.”

They spent the next few minutes leaning their heads together over Mallory’s laptop.

“Look, there’s William Cline himself,” said Mallory. “Let’s see what this says. ‘Chief Financial Officer, Stokely Medical Group. Employed seven years.’”

By this time, Alton had booted up his own laptop. “Since he’s the CFO, he’d be included in Stokely’s quarterly filings with the SEC. Let’s just see what they have to say about Cline.”

For two minutes, the only sound in the room was the clatter of rapid keystrokes. Buster wandered up and nuzzled Alton’s leg with a wet snout, drawing a moment of affection from both of the room’s human occupants.

“Look at this,” said Alton. “Here are Stokely’s latest quarterly filings. It says Cline owns over ten thousand stock options, at least he did at that moment.”

“Do you think he still has them?”

“Yeah. The stock price isn’t high enough for them to be worth anything—yet. However, that many options could be worth a small fortune if Stokely’s stock price could find a way to rise.”

“Good for him,” said Mallory, “but I don’t see how that helps us with your investigation. Unless…”

“Do you have an idea?”

“Not a fair one, no.”

“Come on,” urged Alton. “You’re thinking of something.”

“Well, wouldn’t all those stock options make him highly motivated to bump up Stokely stock?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why he’d want to bump off…” began Alton, trailing off into silence.

“What is it?” asked Mallory.

“I’m just remembering the conversation you told me about—the one between Nancy Goins and William Cline concerning Serenity’s vacancy rate. It’s probably nothing, but I think I’ll have a talk with Cline’s wife, just to satisfy my mind on the issue.”

“Okay. As I think about it, Cline seems like an unlikely suspect, unless your conversation with his wife uncovers something new. He has too much to lose by getting mixed up in murder.” Turning back to Alton’s laptop, she continued, “So, let’s see if anyone else pops out on this list.”

Alton and Mallory scanned the employee file for another thirty minutes. Although they encountered a number of employees with minor convictions and a few who had undergone treatment for stress or depression, there were no employees whose records shouted cold-blooded killer.

“Do you have any other suspects?” asked Mallory.

“It’s the usual dilemma,” replied Alton. “I have just enough information to consider several people possibilities but not enough to be certain about any of them. So I don’t really have a suspect as much as a weird feeling.”

“More often than not, your weird feelings are on the money. Who’s on your list?”

“Well, besides William Cline, there’s Nancy Goins.”

“Nancy? Why? She’s the one who called for the investigation in the first place.”

“True. As I said, it’s more of a vague suspicion…a few things that don’t add up.”

“Such as?” asked Malloy.

“Well, right off the bat, she doesn’t seem to be too heartbroken over her husband’s death.”

Mallory picked up a teaspoon and stirred the coffee in her mug. “That doesn’t make her a murderer, though.”

“No, it doesn’t. But I also heard from Pearl that on top of Nancy and Ken not being on good terms, there appeared to be someone else with whom Nancy
did
get along. Pearl said she heard Nancy on the phone a few times in friendly conversations.”

“Okay, so maybe she was seeing someone else. I could see that being a motivation for murder, perhaps, but how does that fit in with the rest of the murders?”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” said Alton. “It could be completely unrelated. She wanted him out of her life and used his surgery as an opportunity to make his death look like a tragic accident. There’s another, similar possibility that’s a little more disturbing. Did you notice that Nancy made an extra effort to point out the string of curious patient deaths to both of us? Without her, we might never have noticed them. Now, that could have been the result of a legitimate concern on her part. On the other hand, if you wanted to bump off your husband and knew you’d naturally fall under suspicion as a disenfranchised wife, how could you pull it off? You’d make your husband the latest murder in that string, that’s how.”

“I see what you’re saying,” said Mallory, “but that still doesn’t shed any light on who committed the murders preceding Ken’s. It could have been Nancy herself, setting the stage for Ken’s murder, or she might have simply noticed them and figured she’d take advantage of the opportunity.”

“Exactly. The fact that Nancy, of all people, would be the person to notice the first six murders makes me lean towards your first theory—that she committed them herself.”

“Every good theory needs proof. Do you have any?”

Alton shook his head in frustration. “Not really. Remember the interview I had with Nancy yesterday?”

Mallory nodded.

“Well,” said Alton. “She didn’t seem too enthused about performing an autopsy on Ken’s body. Also, as I was leaving, I turned to say goodbye, and she had an odd look in her eye. I just get the feeling that there’s more going on with her than we know.”

“But no proof?”

“No—none,” admitted Alton. He stirred his coffee for a minute. “We’ve noted several times that the drug thefts and murders could be interconnected. Let’s go back to Randy and Jeanette Abernathy for a minute. We know they’re mixed up in the drugs, at least Jeanette is. Since they’re involved in the drug thefts, the Abernathys could be involved in the murders, too.”

“Yes, but what would be their reason?” pondered Mallory. “Money? That’s probably why they’re stealing the drugs, considering the quantities Jeanette has taken.”

“But how would bumping off patients help them make money?” asked Alton. “Unless…” He shook his head grimly. “You’d have to be a cold-hearted bastard to send someone on the road to death simply to increase your drug supply.”

“Drug dealers aren’t known for their touchy-feely side.”

“True, but we’re not talking about the typical corner drug dealer here. It’s hard to imagine a nurse going to those extremes just for money.”

Mallory leaned back in her chair. “Between the background checks and your interviews, we have several legitimate suspects for the murders. But the question is, who is really responsible? Only one of our theories—or none—is correct.”

She glanced at Alton from the corner of her eye. “I think I’d be able to focus on this problem a little better if I had a shoulder massage. You wouldn’t know anyone interested in volunteering, would you?”

Alton grinned. “I think I can round someone up.”

Moments later, as Alton’s powerful hands kneaded the knotted muscles at the base of her neck, Mallory leaned her head forward and murmured, “Oh, my! I’m focusing all right, but it’s not on the case.”