“Not tonight, Mark. I want to get a good night’s sleep and I’ve got a few more things to do. But thanks. Also, I’ve got to get these charts back to their hiding place. After that I intend to look around in OR room number eight.”
“Susan, I personally think you should get your ass out of this hospital before you really get yourself in hot water.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion, doctor. It’s just that this patient doesn’t feel like following orders.”
“I think you’re carrying all of this too far.”
“You do, do you? Well, I might not have a who, but I’ve got a number of suspects. …”
“Sure you do. …” Bellows fidgeted. “Are you going to make me guess or are you going to tell me?”
“Harris, Nelson, McLeary, and Oren.”
“You’re out of your squash!”
“They all act as guilty as hell and want me out of here.”
“Don’t confuse defensive behavior with guilt, Susan. After all, complications are hard to live with in medicine, no matter from what cause.”
Wednesday, February 25, 11:25 P.M.
Susan felt a definite sense of relief when she had returned the charts to their hiding place in McLeary’s closet. At the same time, she was very disappointed. Having finally inspected them was an anticlimax of sorts. She had placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of the charts, but after she had finished studying them, she felt no further in her mission. She had a lot more data but no correlates, no intercepts. The cases still seemed to be random and unassociated.
The elevator slowed and stopped, the door quivered, then opened. Susan stepped out into the OR area. There was still a case going on in room No. 20, a ruptured abdominal aneurysm that had been admitted through the emergency room. The operation had been in progress for over eight hours; that didn’t look so good. Otherwise the OR area was in its nightly repose. There were a few people busy cleaning the floor and restocking the supply room with freshly laundered linen. A girl in a scrub dress was behind the main desk, trying to fit the last few cases into the following day’s master schedule.
The nurse’s uniform ruse was still working well for Susan and the few people in the hall did not seem to notice her passing. She went directly to the nurses’ locker rooms and changed into a scrub dress, hanging the nurse’s uniform in an open locker.
Reentering the main hall, Susan eyed the swinging doors into the area of the operating rooms. A large sign on the right door said “Operating Rooms: Unauthorized Entry Forbidden.” The main desk was just to the side of these doors. The nurse sitting behind the desk was still hard at work. Susan had no idea if she would be challenged if she tried to enter.
In order to survey the scene in its totality, Susan walked the length of the hall several times, half-hoping the girl at the main desk would take a break and leave. But she didn’t budge, nor even look up. Susan tried to think of some appropriate explanation in case the girl questioned her. But she couldn’t think of any. It was almost midnight and she knew she’d have to have some reasonably convincing story to explain her presence.
Finally, with no cover story in mind except for some weak comment about wanting to check on progress in room No. 20, or being sent up from the lab to do random cultures for contamination, Susan made her move. Pretending not to notice the girl at the desk, she headed for the doors. As she passed, the girl did not look up. A few more steps. When Susan reached the doors, she straight-armed the one on the right. It opened and Susan was about to enter.
“Hey, just a minute.”
Susan froze, waiting for the inevitable. She turned to face the girl.
“You forgot your conductive boots.”
Susan looked down at her shoes. As it dawned on her what the nurse was concerned about, Susan felt relieved.
“Damn, you’d think this was my second time in the OR.”
The nurse’s attention went back to the master schedule. “I forget the bastards now and then myself.”