There had been a shipment of curtain hooks that had been mutilated. And, according to the housekeeping department, the manufacturer remained adamant that no one in his company would have done such a thing. The manufacturer insisted there had been nothing wrong with the hooks on shipment. Whatever was done to them had to have been done after receipt by the hospital. At that point, the matter had remained inexplicable. No one could guess why anyone would mutilate curtain hooks.
One mystery apparently solved.
Everyone on the second floor remembered very clearly the mix-up of Millie Power’s chart. A mix-up that, had it not been caught, could have cost her life. As a matter of fact, by direct and insistent order of the CEO, an intense in-house investigation was even now being conducted to determine how and why that chart had been altered.
Another mystery apparently solved.
Koesler of course had been certain that the police investigation would bear out his eyewitness observations. So, while Lieutenant Harris was, item by item, filling Koznicki in on what the detectives had uncovered, Koesler was off in his own world of speculation.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Sister Eileen being wheeled into the operating room on a gurney. He assumed that her head would have been shaved for the operation. She would be completely helpless. In Koesler’s scenario—the only one that made sense to him—the carrier wheel had broken away earlier than was planned. Whoever had tampered with the carrier and the gas tank must have intended for the wheel to give way during the operation. It made no sense to Koesler that the wheel was intended to come off the cart before the operation.
Thus, the way the plan must have been conceived, the nitrogen tank would be delivered to the operating table. Then, during the operation, as doctors and nurses moved about the table, the tank would be jostled frequently. Not too much of that sort of bumping would be needed before the weakened wheel would collapse, tearing the valve from the tank and, in the ensuing turmoil, the neurosurgeon would inadvertently drive the drill into Sister’s brain. And that, finally, would be that.
Then Koesler tried to reverse the movie in his mind. He tried to visualize the person who would do such a thing. Who might actually plot Sister Eileen’s murder?
He had several candidates. Four, to be exact.
First to come to mind was Ethel Laidlaw. First, because she was least likely. And least likely because she was such a klutz herself. It was ludicrous to imagine that Ethel might follow behind Whitaker to correct his mistakes. To mix a metaphor, it would be a case of the blind leading the blind.
But, wait a minute! Whitaker’s first name was Bruce. And that was the name Ethel had mentioned as her new boyfriend and possible spouse. It must be the same person. With that relationship in mind, mightn’t she be the one who conclusively altered the chart and programmed the nitrogen tank?
No. Impossible. Whatever Ethel’s possible motivation, she had as good a chance as Whitaker of getting things right. Which was no chance at all.
Next in the least likely category, as far as Koesler was concerned, would be Sister Rosamunda. Of the four people he had in mind, Rosamunda probably had the strongest motive for wanting Eileen out of the way. Rosamunda’s fear of a forced retirement was almost pathological. For her, there were no gray areas in retirement. Everything was black and bleak. She seemed to envision it as a sort of burial alive.
But, while her fear of the fate Eileen was forcing upon her was morbid, Rosamunda gave no indication that she was insane. And some form of insanity would have to be present before a dedicated religious woman would seriously consider murder. It was unimaginable that Rosamunda could have plotted the death of anyone, let alone that of another religious.
In considering John Haroldson as a possible suspect, Koesler slipped away from the “least likely” category. The priest hated to consider anyone capable of premeditated murder, but someone was guilty. And of those he knew as prime suspects, Haroldson had to be seriously considered. His motive was practically identical with Sister Rosamunda’s. Each of them saw Sister Eileen as the one responsible for condemning them to retirement.
And where retirement for Rosamunda was a living death, for Haroldson, it seemingly spelled death itself. He did not consider himself capable of continued life if he were separated from the hospital for which he lived.
Added to that was his festering resentment over the fact that Eileen held the post that he coveted. And, according to Haroldson’s lights, the position of chief executive officer should, by rights, be his. His background in theology, medicine, and business qualified him as CEO to a far greater degree than Eileen. As far as he was concerned, she had gotten the job for one reason alone: She was a member of the religious community that operated this and other institutions in this section of the country. So blinded was Haroldson that he simply could not appreciate the abilities and achievements that perfectly qualified Eileen as CEO.
But, thought Koesler, even with all this perceived provocation—murder? He wondered about that. The likelihood of Haroldson’s plotting murder paled when Koesler compared him with the one who topped Koesler’s list of suspects.
Like the others, particularly Rosamunda and Haroldson, Dr. Lee Kim had a strong motive for wanting Sister Eileen out of the way. She had been on the very verge of dismissing him from St. Vincent’s staff. Few words could adequately describe how much he feared that.
As a doctor, he could have had a good life in his native South Korea. But nowhere near as good a life as he might have garnered here in this land of near limitless opportunity. He was a young man with long life promised him. He had plans for that long life. He anticipated an ever-improving lifestyle. He would make very worthwhile the sacrifice of leaving his homeland to set up shop in this foreign country. Kim could virtually taste the luxury and affluence of his future.
But at this stage of his life, very low on the rungs of the ladder he planned to climb, one person stood in his way. More than stood in his way; Sister Eileen threatened to throw him from the ladder entirely and permanently. If she moved against him, it was possible he might be forced to leave this country of his dreams. Conceivably, he might even find it difficult to set up practice in his homeland now. In sum, Dr. Kim had the very real prospect of losing not only everything he had, but all he hoped to have.
In addition, there was that attitude of Kim’s that so disturbed Koesler.
Death certainly was no stranger to doctors. Of all vocations, doctors dealt with death more than almost anyone. Surgeons, moreover, not infrequently were helpless to prevent death even during their ministrations. Koesler had suffered only momentary shock when hearing surgeons refer to a part for the whole—as in operating on a “hand” or a “head.” But Koesler had not been prepared for Dr. Kim’s elation that a “head” had expired in emergency . . . so that no extra time would have to be expended for the “hand.”
Of all four of Koesler’s suspects, Kim was, by far, the most likely. He had a motive, arguably the strongest of the four. He certainly had the means. The operating room would be to him like a second home. And of the four, Kim seemed most at home with death and most casual in his attitude toward it.
There was one person he hadn’t considered. Now that he thought about it—and he hadn’t before—Dr. Fred Scott was certainly suspectable, particularly from an opportunity standpoint. He was certainly as conversant with hospital procedures as any of the others. Although he and Koesler had established a rapport, Koesler was conscious that it was always possible that Scott’s befriending him could have an ulterior motive. And Scott was not a creampuff; he had the grit and the spine—and the stick-to-it-iveness—to carry him along any path he chose, without looking back or suffering second thoughts.