the magazine and letting out a weight-of-the-world sigh. “I can tell you have something you want to say. Spit it out.”
She giggles like a schoolgirl and says, “Sorry, but I just have to know. Is it true David has a heart-shaped birthmark on his whatsit?”
I give her the evil eye but it’s a wasted effort. People like Celia are born with a force field in place.
“’Cause if he does,” she sniggers, “then you could say he walks around with a heart-on all the time.” She slaps her thigh and barks out a laugh, obviously pleased with herself.
“Shouldn’t you be typing something?” I ask.
She dismisses my question with a wave of her hand. “Nothing urgent. I can bang it out in no time.”
I roll my eyes and bite my tongue.
“Hey, Nancy just hung up. Let me tell her you’re here.” She picks up the phone and buzzes the intercom. “You’ll never guess who’s here to see you,” she says. Then she giggles. “Nope, it’s Mattie Winston.” A pause, then, “No kidding!” followed by “Okay.” She hangs up the phone. “Go on in,” she says, rubbing her hands together with glee. She follows close on my heels as I head for Nancy’s office and I know she’ll be parked outside the door as soon as I close it, her ear to the wood.
As are many directors of nursing, Nancy Molinaro is often referred to as the DON. The term derives from the initials in the title but it’s used on Molinaro for a totally different reason. Rumor has it she’s a former mob boss who underwent a botched sex change operation before entering the witness protection program. She has a broad stocky build and unusually long sideburns. The dark hair on her head is both shorter and thinner than that on her arms and legs. Bleach does little to hide the push broom on her upper lip and a broken jaw that never healed properly gives her a whispering lisp. There are those who swear that a horse’s head is her favorite bedtime companion.
People she doesn’t like or who cross her in any way have an odd habit of disappearing. Though no one has actually seen it, everyone knows she maintains a hit list, which is sometimes called the shit list, but more often referred to as the Molinaro Fecal Roster. Anyone who makes it onto the list will eventually get a Friday afternoon summons to the nursing office, then never be heard from again. Some think the Friday timing is so administration will have an entire weekend to find a replacement. Personally, I think it’s so Molinaro will have an entire weekend to hide the body.
“Hello, Mattie.” She greets me with a phony-looking smile and a suspicious gleam in her eye. “What a nice surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Actually, I’m here to see David, but I figure they won’t let me into the OR on my own. I want to talk to him about Karen Owenby.”
“Karen Owenby?” Molinaro sits up straighter, her tone as wary as her expression. “What business do you have with Karen?” She probably thinks I’m here to exact some sort of revenge. Apparently she doesn’t know someone beat me to it.
“None. I need to see David.”
“Karen’s not here today, anyway,” she adds quickly. “She took a few personal days.”
More than a few, I think. “I guess you haven’t heard yet. Karen’s dead. Someone broke into her house last night and shot her.”
Molinaro’s reaction surprises me. There isn’t one. Finally she says, “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious,” I answer, an admittedly bad choice of words.
“How do you know about it already?” Molinaro asks, her eyes narrowing.
“I was there.”
Molinaro’s right hand drops off the desk toward her lap. I imagine she is fingering the revolver she keeps strapped to her leg, trying to get it loose without snagging any hairs.
“I was there officially,” I explain. “I work in the ME’s office now.” I pull out my badge and flash it at her.
She weighs the facts a moment and apparently finds something amusing in them, because a hint of a smile curls her mustache.
“Anyway, I need to talk to David.”
“Why?”
I don’t think telling her I need to rule him out as the killer will open many doors for me, so I opt for evasiveness. “Official business. Part of my new job and all. You know.”
Molinaro stares at me for the longest time and I find myself feeling relieved it isn’t a Friday. “He’s not in the OR,” she says finally. “He’s down in the ER. We had a multicar pileup this morning and there are several surgical candidates in the aftermath.”
There is an undeniable tone of glee in Molinaro’s voice. No doubt she hears the ka-ching of dollar signs adding up. Multiple trauma on young patients with insurance is good business for a hospital, especially if they end up in the OR, where the rooms are rented by the minute and the average markup on items is somewhere around 2,000 percent. For the price of one OR Band-Aid you can buy ten cases of the suckers at Wal-Mart.
“Come on,” Molinaro says, rising from her chair. “I’ll take you down there.”
Walking into the hustle and bustle of the ER is like a ride in a time machine. Izzy was right, damn it. I hadn’t merely liked working in the ER, I’d loved it. The sounds and smells of the place bring back a delicious feeling of anticipation.
As I follow Molinaro toward the main desk, the curtain on one of the cubicles we pass is flung aside and Phyllis Malone steps out. “Mets!” she hollers when she sees me. “Good to see you again.”
“You, too, Syph.”
Syph is short for syphilis. Nurses in the ER have a tendency to refer to patients by their disease or diagnosis rather than their name. Instead of Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith, it’s “the Leg Fracture in Bed Two” or “the Kidney Stone in Bed Six.” Back when I worked in the ER, we sat around one night discussing this habit, then decided to pick out nicknames for ourselves that were both a disease and somewhat close to our real names. It took a while but eventually everyone had a nickname and, over time, they stuck. The best we came up with for Mattie was Mets—short for metastases, the term used for the spread of cancer. It isn’t great—not nearly as good as Ricky’s Rickets or Lucy’s Lupus—but at least I fared better than Phyllis.
“We’re looking for Dr. Winston,” Molinaro announces in her haughty, lisping tone.
Syph says, “I think he’s in Bed One with the Blunt Abdominal Trauma, Probable Ruptured Spleen.”
“Thanks,” says Molinaro. “Do you have an empty room anywhere?”
“I don’t think anyone is in the ENT room,” Syph says, her gaze bouncing back and forth between me and Molinaro.
I hear the sliding doors to the ambulance bay open, look over, and see Hurley stroll in. I quickly step to one side, hoping to hide behind Molinaro, but it’s like trying to hide a redwood behind a rose bush.
David chooses that moment to appear from behind curtain number one like the booby prize in Let’s Make A Deal. He sees me right away and freezes to the spot. He
