"I've gone over it a hundred times," the nurse said. "I can't figure it out. None of us can. It mostly happens on late shifts, but that's when most of our patients pass anyway."
"Clients," Mary Jane ground out.
Die, Timmie wanted to say. But it wasn't exactly the time to dip Gladys's toes in the reality bath.
Gladys was way beyond caring. "Patients. There isn't a pattern we can figure out. No one nurse who was on every time. There wasn't anything obvious we could point a finger to."
"And nobody asked you about it?"
"We've been told it's being looked into. It's not, is it?"
"Of course it is," Mary Jane insisted instinctively.
Timmie had had enough experience with middle management to know that Mary Jane wasn't going to admit anything in front of her staff. Besides, a good threat was always best made in private. If Ms. Arlington wasn't the murderer, then Timmie needed her acquiescence. If she was, Timmie needed her to feel pressured.
"Ms. Arlington," she said in the most supplicating tone she could manage, "could I talk to you alone for a minute? Please. I think it will help Alex."
Mary Jane took a couple of looks around and then nodded. Timmie followed her into Alice's room, where the bright yellow-and-blue coverlet was still spilled off the side of the bed from the frantic fight for Alice's flickering life.
Timmie had been in plenty of rooms in which patients had died. In some, she'd been able to feel a sense that somebody was still around, maybe dragging their heels before departure or just keeping an eye on things. Probably checking her procedures. Alice, evidently, hadn't been interested. The room was as empty as Timmie's bank account.
Mary Jane didn't bother to make either of them comfortable before Timmie shut the door. "I know this must make you nervous," she began, a hand up to corral a wisp of wayward hair. "With your father up here and all. I just want to assure you—"
"Something has to be done," Timmie said. Her heart was pounding and her hands were sweaty, and all she could think about was that she hoped Mary Jane didn't notice. "Ms. Arlington, I know what's going on here. The whole hospital knows. If the public finds out before it's stopped, Alex will be ruined."
Mary Jane did everything but shudder. She stood as straight as a deb, her hands at her sides, her breathing controlled. "You would only hurt Alex if you let this out," she accused. "You wouldn't do that."
Timmie raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't do something, I could be hurting my father."
"That's absurd! He's perfectly safe."
"How do you know that? I thought Alice was perfectly safe."
Mary Jane looked away, as if Timmie's argument were simply beneath her. "What did you want to ask?"
Timmie sucked in a slow breath. Organized her thoughts. She wasn't stupid enough to ask for what she already had, so she made a stab at what she suspected.
"We need to act, Ms. Arlington," Timmie insisted quietly. "Or it's going to happen again. You need to ask Alex to request a postmortem on Alice."
Mary Jane was already shaking her head. "I can't. He's busy. He isn't even in town."
"You mean you don't call him when he's out of town to tell him a patient died?"
Mary Jane couldn't quite look at her. "All you're doing is making trouble for yourself. You're making wild accusations that threaten the viability of this unit, and I won't have it."
Timmie didn't move. "I won't stop, Ms. Arlington."
Mary Jane closed her eyes. Timmie held her breath, because she couldn't manage anything more. Was Mary Jane simply protecting Alex, or was she protecting herself?
"I can't." The woman moaned. "I just can't."
"Then I'll do it."
That got Mary Jane's eyes open, and Timmie once again saw that instinctive fear. That protective reflex that made her wonder if Mary Jane wasn't just protecting Alex, but pretending she didn't suspect him.
Alex.
It couldn't be Alex. Timmie wouldn't let it.
So she asked the most difficult question she had ever asked in her life. "Do you think Alex is involved?"
"No!"
Too sudden, too certain. Way too frightened. Timmie wanted to vomit.
"Can you think of anyone else it might be?" she asked instead, and realized that her fingers hurt. She looked down to see white knuckles from where she'd clamped her hands together around the hidden box.
"There isn't any problem," Mary Jane said, again too quickly. "But if there were, Alice's main nurse was Gladys. Or Trudy, or, uh, Penelope."
Ah, ever the administrator, Timmie thought with new disgust. When in doubt, jettison the faithful staff.
"May I talk to them?"
Mary Jane damn near sneered. "You don't need my permission for that. You'll just find out where they live and harass them there."
"And the postmortem."
Mary Jane blinked, looked away. "Maybe. I'll see."
Nothing definite. At least the seed was sown. "Bertha Worthmueller," Timmie said. "I think the hospital should give her a private-duty nurse for a few days. Maybe somebody from outside the hospital, just to be sure."
Mary Jane turned for the door. "Bertha is perfectly safe."
"There is one other thing," Timmie said, figuring this would be her last chance. "I'm sure you've already asked Mr. Landry about my trip into orbit the other day. I found out it was to keep me from sharing a directive I'd stumbled on. I just don't know why."
Mary Jane arched an eyebrow, once again the supervisor. "I'm not giving you information just so you can take it back to your lawyer."
"I'm not taking it anywhere. I just want to know if it has anything to do with this."
Mary Jane shook her head. "Certainly not. It was just a schedule for the next level of streamlining we need to implement to strengthen the hospital's financial future."
Streamlining. Read "downsizing." Layoffs. No wonder it was hot stuff. The staff found out early and all hell could break loose. Still not enough to ruin her car, Timmie thought.
"I don't suppose this stage includes the introduction of GerySys to the family, does it?" she asked, looking for a reaction.
The reaction was Timmie's, because Mary Jane just nodded briskly. "As a matter of fact, it does."
"You don't look upset about it."
"Why should I? It's a logical business decision. GerySys has the capital and we have the reputation."
It made Timmie even angrier. "What would Alex say?"
Mary Jane smiled, almost fondly. "If we're lucky, Alex will never lift his head from his workload long enough to figure it out. He doesn't understand finances, Ms. Leary. He shouldn't have to. But a unit like ours simply can't survive now without additional funding. It's as simple as that."
Go figure. Timmie clamped her evidence box under her arm and prepared to get the hell out of Dodge.
She didn't get out fast enough. She'd just made it out Alice's door when she heard skidding footsteps.
"Oh, Ms. Leary, there you are!"
Timmie looked up to see Tracy rush from her father's wing and slide to a halt in the unit doorway, looking almost as frazzled as the bunch on this end. Amazing what a person could block out of her receptors if she really tried. The minute Timmie saw Tracy, she heard what she knew had probably been going on for at least ten minutes over on the other hall.
"Where's my daughter? Timmie, help! Help me, Timmie!"
The evidence box became a football on a forty-yard run as Timmie took off toward the smell of popcorn and certain disaster.