“Excuse me, but we have a problem,” said Susan, addressing the plainclothes officer. “Dr. McLeary left tonight without returning some charts to 10 West. And we cannot medicate the patients without the charts. Can you people open his office?”
The security man gave Susan a tenth of a second with his eyes, then returned to the power play in progress. He spoke without looking up.
“Sure. Lou, go up with the nurse here and open the office she needs.”
“In a minute, in a minute.”
All three watched intently. Susan waited. A commercial came on. The guard leaped to his feet.
“OK, let’s get this office open. Let me know if I miss anything, you guys.”
Susan had to run a few steps to catch up with the great determined strides taken by the guard. En route he began sorting through an immense collection of keys.
“The Bruins are down by two. If they drop this one too, I’m movin’ to Philly.”
Susan didn’t answer. She hurried along with the guard, hoping that no one would recognize her. She felt a slight sense of relief as they entered the office area. It was deserted.
“Goddamn, where’s that key?” cursed the guard as he had to try almost every key on his ring before finding one which would open McLeary’s door. The delay made Susan rather nervous, and she began to look up and down the corridor, expecting the worst at any moment. As he opened the door, the guard reached in and flicked on the light.
“Just pull the door closed when you leave. It will lock by itself. I’ve got to get downstairs.”
Susan found herself alone in the outer room of McLeary’s office. Quickly she entered the inner room and turned on the light. Then switching off the light in the outer room, she closed herself in McLeary’s inner office.
To her dismay, the charts were no longer on the shelf where she had seen them in the morning. She began to search the office. The desk was first. No sign of them. As she closed the center drawer, the phone immediately under her arm began to ring. In the silence the noise seemed earsplitting and it startled her. She looked at her watch and wondered if McLeary often got calls in his office at a quarter of eight in the evening. The sound stopped after three rings, and Susan recommenced her search. The charts were of sufficient bulk so that they could not be hidden in many places. As she pulled out the last drawer of the file cabinet she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the hall. They grew louder. Susan froze, not daring to push the drawer back into the file cabinet for fear of the sound.
To her consternation she then heard the footsteps, and a key go into the lock in the outer door. Susan looked around the room in a panic. There were two doors, one to the outer office, another presumably to a closet. Susan glanced at the position of the furniture, then she snapped off the light. As she did so she heard the outer door open, and the light went on in the outer office. Susan moved toward the closet door, feeling the perspiration appear on her forehead. A metallic sound came from the outer office, then another. The closet door openly easily and Susan eased herself in as quietly as possible. With difficulty she closed the closet door. Almost simultaneously the door to the inner office opened and the light went on. Susan expected the closet door to be yanked open at any second. Instead she heard footsteps going toward the desk. Then she heard the desk chair squeak, as someone sat in it. She thought it was McLeary and she wondered what he was doing in his office at this time. What if he discovered her? The thought made her weak. If he opened the door, Susan decided she would try to bolt.
Then the phone was taken off the hook and Susan heard the familiar sound of dialing. But when the person phoning spoke, the voice confused her. It was female. And the caller was speaking in Spanish. From her own meager Spanish Susan was able to make out a part of the conversation. It was about the weather in Boston, then in Florida. All at once Susan realized that a cleaning lady was plopped down in McLeary’s office using the hospital phone to make a personal call to Florida. Maybe that explained hospital overhead.