they?”
John was looking less pleased by the minute. “I gotta talk to B.J. ’bout sharin’ information wid’ you, don’ I?”
Kate didn’t pay any attention. “So she reallywas murdered. I should have figured it out the minute B.J. mentioned the carbamazepine. Nobody with two working brain cells would give a patient on MAO inhibitors carbamazepine unless they were looking to reconstruct Mount Saint Helens. There are warnings about mixing those two in everything but The New York Times .”
“What do you mean you should have figured it out?”
Her back protesting almost as much as her backside, Kate retrieved her crutches and the earrings with the big rhinestone palm trees to go with the pink flamingo on her head. “I didn’t kill Mrs. Warner. Now can we walk around, John?”
“Only if you promise to ’splain ’bout dis figured-out stuff, and maybe ’bout why I should Mirandize you for somet’in’ I didn’ even know you did.”
The floor nurse caught them coming around the corner.
“Where are you going?” she demanded over her half glasses.
Kate never slowed down. “Anywhere.”
“You have PT at ten, Martinson wants another tidal volume on you, and the lawyer wants to see you again.”
Kate was doing all right until that last part.
“The lawyer?” she countered, slowing to a halt right in front of the elevator banks.
The nurse, one of the vets who made floor work look easy, just smiled, charts clutched to ample middle-aged chest like schoolbooks. “I got the message from one of the Administration secretaries. He needs to see you this morning. Something about Mr. Peabody.”
Kate’s stomach plummeted. The chickens had come home to roost after all. “I’ll go quietly, officer,” she all but begged of John. “Just take me quickly.”
John’s gaze was measured. “You a bad girl again, huh?”
“She’s always a bad girl,” the nurse assured him brightly. “It’s what makes her our hero.”
Kate just snorted. “Never again. In fact, I’m thinking of going back for a degree in hospital administration and making everybody else’s lives miserable for a change.”
The elevators dinged, doors slid open, and a couple of lab techs stepped off, their hands full of equipment to draw blood. Before they had a chance to realize it was Kate they were after, she stepped on and punched the button for second sublevel: emergency, surgery, X ray, and all points between. Kate headed for it like a rabbit going to ground.
“Come on, John,” she urged. “You’re the one who wanted to talk.”
John just made it on board before the doors closed.
The doors opened again to the cool echo of tiled hallway, the purposeful shuffle of feet, and the steady whine of wheels. The bracing aromas of disinfectant and fresh wax, real hospital smells, were barricaded behind doors decorated in diagnostic jargon. Kate didn’t even wait for John as she turned for the back door to the ER.
Morning was usually a quiet time here: cleaning and stocking and organization, long breakfasts and in-service training sessions. Most people didn’t really begin noticing their discomforts until they were up and moving around. Even with the notoriously short-staffed shifts at St. Simon’s, day shift eased into the chaos. Evenings jumped in up to their armpits the minute they stepped through the automatic doors.
For some reason, this morning the night shift had never stopped. Debris littered the floors and laundry carts spilled over. Lights blinked, alarms buzzed, and radios stuttered and squawked. The nurses working the day shift, so used to being able to stoke their fires before needing them, sputtered about like bumper cars, their orders just a little harsher, their faces tight.
Within a minute of stepping in the back door, Kate spotted the signs of a multivehicle accident with injuries, two asthmatics, a croup, and a possible stroke. And that simply by the equipment she saw in the halls, the ancillary personnel popping
John was looking less pleased by the minute. “I gotta talk to B.J. ’bout sharin’ information wid’ you, don’ I?”
Kate didn’t pay any attention. “So she reallywas murdered. I should have figured it out the minute B.J. mentioned the carbamazepine. Nobody with two working brain cells would give a patient on MAO inhibitors carbamazepine unless they were looking to reconstruct Mount Saint Helens. There are warnings about mixing those two in everything but The New York Times .”
“What do you mean you should have figured it out?”
Her back protesting almost as much as her backside, Kate retrieved her crutches and the earrings with the big rhinestone palm trees to go with the pink flamingo on her head. “I didn’t kill Mrs. Warner. Now can we walk around, John?”
“Only if you promise to ’splain ’bout dis figured-out stuff, and maybe ’bout why I should Mirandize you for somet’in’ I didn’ even know you did.”
The floor nurse caught them coming around the corner.
“Where are you going?” she demanded over her half glasses.
Kate never slowed down. “Anywhere.”
“You have PT at ten, Martinson wants another tidal volume on you, and the lawyer wants to see you again.”
Kate was doing all right until that last part.
“The lawyer?” she countered, slowing to a halt right in front of the elevator banks.
The nurse, one of the vets who made floor work look easy, just smiled, charts clutched to ample middle-aged chest like schoolbooks. “I got the message from one of the Administration secretaries. He needs to see you this morning. Something about Mr. Peabody.”
Kate’s stomach plummeted. The chickens had come home to roost after all. “I’ll go quietly, officer,” she all but begged of John. “Just take me quickly.”
John’s gaze was measured. “You a bad girl again, huh?”
“She’s always a bad girl,” the nurse assured him brightly. “It’s what makes her our hero.”
Kate just snorted. “Never again. In fact, I’m thinking of going back for a degree in hospital administration and making everybody else’s lives miserable for a change.”
The elevators dinged, doors slid open, and a couple of lab techs stepped off, their hands full of equipment to draw blood. Before they had a chance to realize it was Kate they were after, she stepped on and punched the button for second sublevel: emergency, surgery, X ray, and all points between. Kate headed for it like a rabbit going to ground.
“Come on, John,” she urged. “You’re the one who wanted to talk.”
John just made it on board before the doors closed.
The doors opened again to the cool echo of tiled hallway, the purposeful shuffle of feet, and the steady whine of wheels. The bracing aromas of disinfectant and fresh wax, real hospital smells, were barricaded behind doors decorated in diagnostic jargon. Kate didn’t even wait for John as she turned for the back door to the ER.
Morning was usually a quiet time here: cleaning and stocking and organization, long breakfasts and in-service training sessions. Most people didn’t really begin noticing their discomforts until they were up and moving around. Even with the notoriously short-staffed shifts at St. Simon’s, day shift eased into the chaos. Evenings jumped in up to their armpits the minute they stepped through the automatic doors.
For some reason, this morning the night shift had never stopped. Debris littered the floors and laundry carts spilled over. Lights blinked, alarms buzzed, and radios stuttered and squawked. The nurses working the day shift, so used to being able to stoke their fires before needing them, sputtered about like bumper cars, their orders just a little harsher, their faces tight.
Within a minute of stepping in the back door, Kate spotted the signs of a multivehicle accident with injuries, two asthmatics, a croup, and a possible stroke. And that simply by the equipment she saw in the halls, the ancillary personnel popping
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