to hear.
“SO YOU’VE STARTED working at KidClub?”
Shawn, sitting casually in the small but luxuriously appointed hospital administrator’s office, nodded at Louis Paxler.
The hospital administrator, fiftyish, had a sweep of hair several shades darker than his thin brown brows. It looked real but not natural, probably dyed rather than a hairpiece. He wore a dark suit, and the red tie fastened over his white shirt appeared to lift up the extra flesh beneath his chin.
“I got there early this morning.” Shawn leaned back in the tall leather chair facing Paxler’s mahogany desk. “Marge showed me around.” Marge Ralston, head of KidClub, had no sooner arrived than there was a minor emergency in the kitchen. She had hurriedly left Shawn in charge of greeting the children. The way his credentials had been presented to her, she’d obviously had no concern about dumping that small responsibility on him.
If only she’d known…
Louis Paxler knew the truth—a version of it. He watched Shawn as if trying to analyze him from beneath his gold-rimmed glasses. “Does she suspect who you are?”
“If so, she didn’t let on.”
“Fine. So…who did you meet there?”
Shawn hid his amusement at the administrator’s thinly veiled question. He knew who Paxler meant. He decided to play him for a minute. “Well, there were about a dozen kids. Can’t tell you their names offhand, but I’ll learn them. And—”
“Any of their parents?”
“A couple.” Enough of this game, Shawn told himself. Stringing the administrator along wouldn’t get him answers he needed. “One was Dr. Kelley Stanton.” The lovely, sexy Dr. Kelley Stanton….
“Ah, yes, Dr. Stanton.” Paxler’s tone was decidedly chilly. “I’m not sure how much you know, Mr. Jameson, but—”
“Call me Shawn. And I was told you relayed your suspicions about Dr. Stanton and her involvement with the blaze to the fire department’s Fire Investigation Bureau. Right?”
Paxler nodded, grim satisfaction narrowing his mouth. “Of course, they first thought it was an accident, but then decided it could be arson. They didn’t find enough evidence to accuse anyone, though.”
“And you thought it might be Dr. Stanton? Why don’t you fill me in?”
“Of course, Mr.—er, Shawn. Except…the hospital will still collect on its insurance claim, won’t it?”
“As long as you cooperate,” Shawn assured him. “But if an arsonist is found, the insurance company may be able to recoup the damages.” Which was probably correct, although Shawn wouldn’t have anything to do with that decision. But Paxler had been told only that Shawn was an investigator for Investigations, Confidential and Undercover, a private agency whose nickname seemed appropriate for an inquiry at a hospital. ICU was supposedly looking into the fire for the insurance carrier. The administrator had been told nothing about Colorado Confidential—or that the flu epidemic was the subject of deeper inquiry.
At first Paxler had resisted, but then had agreed to cooperate, particularly after getting an official call telling him that the more helpful he was, the faster the hospital’s claim—already delayed—was likely to be processed.
Colleen had contacts in a lot of useful places.
“Okay, then,” Paxler said. “About five months ago, the hospital was besieged by cases of flu transported from Silver Rapids, a town just north of here. It’s too small to have a major hospital of its own, so the people who were most ill were brought here for treatment. Two died. Older folk who had a harder time fighting off the illness. But…”
“But what?” Shawn prompted.
Paxler stood, pushing aside his desk chair, which appeared too modern to fit with the rest of the ornate furnishings. Shawn glanced around and wondered where the three doors at the room’s perimeter led to.
The administrator walked to a window, peered out as if looking for an answer on the Denver street below, then turned back. His gut made his belt protrude, but he otherwise did not appear heavy. “Look, Shawn. Though I expressed my concerns to the authorities, I didn’t intend to. Not exactly. I mean, if what I fear is correct, the hospital could have liability here. But if I am right… Well, it just can’t happen again. In my position, I simply can’t allow it.”
“And your fear is…?”
“That Dr. Kelley Stanton was negligent in her treatment of those patients. Now, look.” He raised his hands as if trying to halt Shawn, though Shawn hadn’t moved. “I can’t prove anything, but the couple who died, their course of treatment—well, I think the most telling thing is the fire in the records office.”
“It’s why you can’t prove Dr. Stanton was negligent?” Shawn knew the background. But after having met Kelley Stanton, even briefly, he couldn’t believe she was less than an excellent doctor. Yet he had nothing to base that feeling on other than a first impression that had left him wanting to get to know her better. Much better. And not entirely because she was a suspect.
Which meant he had to pay attention to what Paxler said, to steer his irrelevant, unscientific impressions back on track.
Paxler nodded. “I’d begun to make inquiries. Randall… Are you aware Dr. Kelley Stanton was previously married to one of our most esteemed physicians, Dr. Randall Stanton?”
Shawn nodded. He hadn’t met the man yet but he already despised him—the esteemed Dr. Stanton.
What man in his right mind would have let Kelley Stanton go?
Stay objective, Jameson.
“Of course there’s bound to be some animosity,” Paxler continued, “and I certainly don’t know the reasons for their marital difficulties, but since their divorce Randall has hinted that it was at least partly due to his concern over Kelley’s…er, her lack of abilities. At first I chalked that up to hard feelings. I had no reason—then—to doubt Kelley’s skill. But after the deaths I couldn’t ignore Randall’s intimations. I had just begun to conduct an inquiry when the fire occurred.”
“And Dr. Kelley Stanton was aware of the investigation?”
“Of course. I questioned her and began to put together a panel of her peers to look into the situation. I personally don’t have the medical expertise to determine whether the treatment she prescribed was substandard.”
“Would the medical records have supplied the answers?” They might also have contained other answers Shawn needed.
“Possibly.” Paxler resumed his seat and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “Now we’ll have to rely on Kelley’s recollection of what she prescribed, plus the memories of the attending nurses. Those can get colored by time—and by personal relationships, since Kelley has friends here who might protect her.”
“I see.” And Shawn could see that someone who seemed as warm a mother and as friendly a person as Kelley Stanton could have a cheering section. But looks could be deceiving. And if Paxler was right, the warmth he thought he’d seen in Kelley could instead be a tendency toward playing with fire.
