never should have been called."
Yablonsky's cheeks burned red at the rebuke.
As the others cleaned up their equipment, Thomas Biggs led her to the corner of the room. "Why'd you do it?" he asked.
He may have intended their conversation to be private, but Jane easily overheard them.
A flicker of alarm shot through Mrs. Yablonsky's eyes. "I beg your pardon?" she puffed with indignation.
"Why'd you call the code? You could feel and see her as well as I did. The skin had gone cold. The lividity formed where she lay."
Mrs. Yablonsky's face flamed further, and the cords of her neck muscles tightened.
Oh, boy, thought Jane, who knew from other visits up here that the woman had a temper. And Thomas could be less than diplomatic when pointing out someone else's mistakes.
But thankfully, this morning Yablonsky seemed set on avoiding a fight. Her rigid posture relaxed a notch. "Sorry," she said, "I should have checked."
Thomas studied her, then his eyes crinkled good-naturedly as he gave her a smile. "That's okay. We can all forget something sometimes. It just surprised me. Calling a code on her"- he gestured at Matthews's body-"is a rookie move."
Yablonsky's eyes hardened.
Ah, shit! Jane thought. Now why did he have to add that? He seems set on provoking her.
The supervisor adopted a time-to-put-this-smartass-on-the-defensive look. "Oh, really? Well, I'd advise you to write it up by the book, Dr. Biggs, because Dr. Earl Garnet himself is going to be taking a big interest in her death."
The merriment in the corners of his eyes slipped a notch. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. Dr. Garnet will want to know what happened here, believe me."
"Why would Dr. Garnet be interested in a terminal cancer case?" he asked. The cockiness in his voice had faded a bit more.
"Because he personally doubled her morphine dose last night without her physician's knowledge."
Thomas's mask elongated as his jaw sagged in disbelief. "What made him do that?"
The other residents had started to pay attention.
"Ask the man yourself," she answered, making no attempt to lower her voice. "All I know is, he intended to jump-start some kind of audit into how we medicate pain. Well, it backfired. He'll get his audit, but now it'll be him on the hot seat."
"But surely a terminal patient's death won't be questioned." Thomas sounded more incredulous by the second.
"Oh, but it will, Dr. Biggs, because according to her doctor, she still had months to live."
"Nobody can predict that sort of thing with any certainty."
"That may be. But I advise you to write this one up without skipping any details. It's going to be gone over with a microscope, I promise you."
The ridges in Thomas's forehead thickened a little. "I see," he said.
"I should hope you all do," she added, addressing everyone in the room as if they'd all been errant schoolchildren.
The bitch! Jane thought, as wide-eyed with astonishment as everyone else at what she'd just heard. But the part that most shocked her was not that the woman had pulled a classic shift-the-focus-and-cover-your-own-behind move but that she'd done it specifically at Dr. G.'s expense. Thanks to her big mouth, rumors of his having possibly overmedicated the woman would be the talk of the hospital by breakfast. In the court of innuendo, he'd be convicted before noon. Getting out from under that kind of cloud, even if the official verdict cleared him, could be a struggle, and Yablonsky had been around long enough to know it. So why the hell would she do something so vicious?
If anyone hadn't heard about his connection to Elizabeth Matthews, Earl Garnet didn't run into them on his way to the eighth floor.
Among the groups of nurses, residents, or doctors he passed in the corridors, conversations stopped dead as he rushed by, replaced by whispers and embarrassed glances in his direction. Some he encountered avoided eye contact altogether. Even the janitors looked away. But everybody had a good gawk at him behind his
Yablonsky's cheeks burned red at the rebuke.
As the others cleaned up their equipment, Thomas Biggs led her to the corner of the room. "Why'd you do it?" he asked.
He may have intended their conversation to be private, but Jane easily overheard them.
A flicker of alarm shot through Mrs. Yablonsky's eyes. "I beg your pardon?" she puffed with indignation.
"Why'd you call the code? You could feel and see her as well as I did. The skin had gone cold. The lividity formed where she lay."
Mrs. Yablonsky's face flamed further, and the cords of her neck muscles tightened.
Oh, boy, thought Jane, who knew from other visits up here that the woman had a temper. And Thomas could be less than diplomatic when pointing out someone else's mistakes.
But thankfully, this morning Yablonsky seemed set on avoiding a fight. Her rigid posture relaxed a notch. "Sorry," she said, "I should have checked."
Thomas studied her, then his eyes crinkled good-naturedly as he gave her a smile. "That's okay. We can all forget something sometimes. It just surprised me. Calling a code on her"- he gestured at Matthews's body-"is a rookie move."
Yablonsky's eyes hardened.
Ah, shit! Jane thought. Now why did he have to add that? He seems set on provoking her.
The supervisor adopted a time-to-put-this-smartass-on-the-defensive look. "Oh, really? Well, I'd advise you to write it up by the book, Dr. Biggs, because Dr. Earl Garnet himself is going to be taking a big interest in her death."
The merriment in the corners of his eyes slipped a notch. "What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. Dr. Garnet will want to know what happened here, believe me."
"Why would Dr. Garnet be interested in a terminal cancer case?" he asked. The cockiness in his voice had faded a bit more.
"Because he personally doubled her morphine dose last night without her physician's knowledge."
Thomas's mask elongated as his jaw sagged in disbelief. "What made him do that?"
The other residents had started to pay attention.
"Ask the man yourself," she answered, making no attempt to lower her voice. "All I know is, he intended to jump-start some kind of audit into how we medicate pain. Well, it backfired. He'll get his audit, but now it'll be him on the hot seat."
"But surely a terminal patient's death won't be questioned." Thomas sounded more incredulous by the second.
"Oh, but it will, Dr. Biggs, because according to her doctor, she still had months to live."
"Nobody can predict that sort of thing with any certainty."
"That may be. But I advise you to write this one up without skipping any details. It's going to be gone over with a microscope, I promise you."
The ridges in Thomas's forehead thickened a little. "I see," he said.
"I should hope you all do," she added, addressing everyone in the room as if they'd all been errant schoolchildren.
The bitch! Jane thought, as wide-eyed with astonishment as everyone else at what she'd just heard. But the part that most shocked her was not that the woman had pulled a classic shift-the-focus-and-cover-your-own-behind move but that she'd done it specifically at Dr. G.'s expense. Thanks to her big mouth, rumors of his having possibly overmedicated the woman would be the talk of the hospital by breakfast. In the court of innuendo, he'd be convicted before noon. Getting out from under that kind of cloud, even if the official verdict cleared him, could be a struggle, and Yablonsky had been around long enough to know it. So why the hell would she do something so vicious?
If anyone hadn't heard about his connection to Elizabeth Matthews, Earl Garnet didn't run into them on his way to the eighth floor.
Among the groups of nurses, residents, or doctors he passed in the corridors, conversations stopped dead as he rushed by, replaced by whispers and embarrassed glances in his direction. Some he encountered avoided eye contact altogether. Even the janitors looked away. But everybody had a good gawk at him behind his
Similar Books
