Jack was taken aback by the women’s vehemence and her emotion. He could see it in her dark eyes and hear it in her voice, which had grown increasingly more strident despite her effort at keeping her volume down. Jack gathered from her obvious passion that she was undoubtedly as much a reformer as Sue Passero apparently had been, meaning the two women could very well have been perceived as provocateurs or agitators. “This is all very interesting,” he said while trying to rein in his ricocheting thoughts and orient himself around this new information. He couldn’t help but recognize its potential significance if it turned out that a cause and mechanism of Sue’s death remained elusive and the idea of a homicide had to be considered. “Virginia alluded to some of what you are saying, but I don’t think she is quite aware of the details. She did mention three people who Dr. Passero bumped heads with, namely Peter Alinsky, Dr. Carl Wingate, and Dr. Henry Thomas.”
Cherine let out another brief laugh of derision. “She got that right! That’s the triumvirate, which was what Dr. Passero and I called them. But it was more than just bumping heads with them. Dr. Passero couldn’t abide any of them, and they control who gets appointed to the M and M Task Force. All three of them are serious narcissists. Funny you should mention Dr. Thomas. I was just talking with him on the phone after he finished his final case for the day. He’s an orthopedic surgeon, and I’m forced to interact with him pretty much on a daily basis. To give you an idea of what he is like, he called to inform me that his patient is a VIP, and he ordered me to treat him as such. Can you imagine? I’m a charge nurse. I treat all patients as VIPs. The nerve.”
“So, he’s in Surgery right now?” Jack asked, thinking this might be fortuitous. With what he was learning, it seemed Dr. Thomas was someone he’d love to chat with to get a sense of how the administration felt about Sue Passero’s advocacy inclinations.
“Probably,” Cherine said. “He was calling from the post-anesthesia recovery room.” She then leaned forward and, after a quick glance to make sure the attending physicians weren’t paying them any attention, she said in a lowered voice, “I can tell you a major secret that Dr. Passero recently told me, which will surprise you, as it did me. She was worried that a medical serial killer has been active in this hospital over this past year. No, let me correct that: She was more than worried. She was convinced.”
The moment Cherine made this revelation, an alarm bell sounded in Jack’s mind. All at once, the cache of articles about medical serial killers he had seen in Sue’s folder titled hospital mortality articles of interest assumed a new significance. More important, what it said to him was that if there was a serial killer and the killer found out that Sue was convinced of his or her existence, Sue surely would have been courting mortal danger. For Jack, this new information seriously raised the possibility of Sue’s death being homicidal.
“When did Dr. Passero tell you this?” Jack asked.
“Four or five days ago,” Cherine said. “It was Thursday or Friday. Probably Thursday.”
Immediately following dropping her bomb, Cherine intently stared back at Jack as if challenging him to refute what she had just revealed. After clearing his throat to help organize his thoughts, he asked in as calm a voice as he could conjure, “Well, I do find that interesting for lots of reasons. But tell me, did Dr. Passero explain to you exactly why she was convinced there was a medical serial killer on the loose?”
“Oh, yeah,” Cherine said decidedly, but keeping her volume low. “She even showed me some data she’d put together from material she’d gathered from the M and M Task Force and the Hospital Compliance Committee. I was initially quite skeptical, but she was beginning to convince me.”
“And you think you’re the only person she told about this,” he said.
“Yes,” Cherine said. “The only other possibility is Virginia Davenport. She and Dr. Passero worked as a team running the Internal Medicine Clinic, but truthfully, I would have been shocked if they discussed this subject. Dr. Passero was not the talkative type about such issues, especially something as serious as this. By any chance, did Virginia mention anything to you that might make you suspect she’d been told?”
“No, she didn’t. Not at all, and she gave me the impression of being entirely forthright.”
“She’s the only one I can imagine might possibly have known,” Cherine said. “Over the last few days, Dr. Passero and I discussed who should be told. It wasn’t an easy decision. Without hard-and-fast proof, she was afraid to bring it to the attention of the muckety-mucks for fear they would see it more as a publicity nightmare and just try to bury it. Nor did she want whoever was responsible to be forewarned in case the only way to figure out who it was, was to catch the person in the act.”
“Did she suspect anyone in particular?”
“No. That was what was the whole problem. She didn’t know if the murderer was a doctor, a nurse, an aide, or part of the housekeeping crew. All these people have frequent access to patients.”
“Okay, okay,” Jack said, his mind racing. “Tell me exactly why she was so convinced a medical serial killer was operating here.” He inwardly smiled at his ironic verb choice.
“I can’t right now,” Cherine said. “It’s a complicated story involving hospital data and statistics and policy, and it will just take too long to explain. I’m already late for report as it is, and to be honest, I’m exhausted. But this is the last day of my three-day, twelve-hour shift cycle. I’m off tomorrow, and if you are available sometime during the day after I’ve had some sleep, I can explain it all then.”
“Fair enough,” he said, although he was disappointed. He fumbled in his pocket to get out one of his business cards. He circled his mobile number and handed the card to Cherine. “Call when convenient tomorrow. I truly appreciate you talking with me, as busy as you are. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow.”
They both got to their feet.
“I think it is important someone knows,” Cherine said. “When I heard that Dr. Passero had passed away and after I got over the initial shock, I was at a complete loss of who I was going to approach, for obvious reasons. In a way, you are an unexpected savior.”
“It is a role I cherish,” Jack said. “It’s what we medical examiners do: We speak for the dead.”
Cherine nodded and then flew out the door, disappearing in a flash and leaving Jack standing by himself. He turned and looked at the three attending physicians, half expecting they would have expressions of shock from having overheard Cherine’s exposé. Instead, they were still engrossed inputting data into the hospital’s insatiable computer bank, oblivious to what he had just been told.
Checking his watch and seeing it was now just after 6:00, Jack thought it was time to head down to the Emergency Department in hopes that Ronnie Cavanaugh had shown up before his shift began, as Dr. Sidoti suggested he was wont to do. With the idea there was a possible medical serial killer on the loose, talking with Ronnie and finding out more about Sue’s death seemed even more crucial. Yet, as soon as he thought about heading down to the ED, he remembered that Dr. Henry Thomas might be serendipitously available for a quick casual chat.