They reacted with predictable indignation.
"Why, how can you say such a thing?"
"We treat these people as if they were our parents."
Then pity poor Mom and Dad, Earl thought. "Tell me, were any of the nurses away on break during the last twenty minutes?"
They looked surprised.
The younger of the two had freckles to match the wisps of brown hair that protruded from under her surgery cap. "No! Hey, what do you want to know for?" Her voice still came across in a petulant whine. "You saying one of our people knocked you down?"
He ignored her question. "What about orderlies? Would any of them have reason to come in here now?"
"Of course not," the older woman replied, working a wad of gum under her mask with the sass of a street hustler. "We stripped Sadie's bed when she left. It will be made up just before she returns Sunday night."
"Cleaners?"
"At this time of night?" the younger one asked. Her eyes said, Gimme a break.
He looked over to the night table. It contained a calendar, photos of a tanned young man whom he assumed to be Donny, and assorted pencils. He pulled open a drawer, finding only a Bible, tissues, and writing paper. "Did she keep jewelry or anything else that someone would want to steal?"
"Probably took it with her," the chewer said. "After all, she knows there won't be many more times she'll get to wear it."
Earl gritted his teeth at the coldness of the remark.
"What about residents coming here to use an empty bed for a quickie?" the younger one said, sharpening her words with a twist of insolence. "Why don't you suspect them?"
"Residents?"
"Yeah, the cheapo kind that won't spring for a motel- you get my drift. You think that doesn't happen?"
Of course he knew it did. Except would someone waiting for a cheap grope react so violently to being discovered?
He'd about had it with the sullen resentment from these two, and pointed to the one with the freckles. "Get hold of security. Tell them to look for a person without shoe coverings." It would likely be a useless exercise. There were bins all over the hospital with supplies of protective wear. His assailant had probably pulled on a new pair within a minute of leaving the floor.
"Why would someone take off his or her paper boots?" she asked.
Jimmy did a Fred Astaire shuffle, his feet sliding easily on the floor. "For traction." He still sounded tense.
She nodded and left.
Earl got up off the bed, and Jimmy moved to help him.
"Thanks." He grabbed the man's arm for support as his head did a few twirls around the room. The wooziness persisted, and he sat back down.
"Maybe I should be takin' you down to your own ER and let them check you out?"
He must really be unnerved by what happened, Earl thought. The Irish lilt appeared only when he kidded around or got shaken to the core. "No, I'll be fine. I couldn't have been out more than five minutes, tops. Anything under twenty doesn't usually even warrant a CT." Not exactly true, but close enough to get him out of here. He wanted his own bed.
"Maybe we should ask how you got in here, Father," the one with the gum asked, her tone more sour than ever. "We didn't see you come in. Hardly ever do." She looked over to Earl. "Or is it only the lower ranks who make good suspects?"
Jimmy's eyes flared like stoked embers.
Earl leapt to his feet. "That tears it-" A sudden swirl inside his skull sat him down again. He steadied his head in his hands, only to watch in disbelief as Jimmy leaned toward her, his hands up like a prizefighter's but open, not clenched, fingers spread wide and pointed right at her.
"Ya don't see me because ya never take your noses out of your coffee cups or your minds off whatever important chatter constantly fills your heads. If so, you might not only catch me walkin' by, but actually hear what's all around you." He directed his fingers skyward. The muted wailing ebbed and surged the way it always did, steady as a distant sea. "If you listened, actually listened to what you've become deaf to, just maybe you'd be finding it in your hearts to comfort a tormented soul or two as they slip away, alone and afraid."
She recoiled, eyes wide with surprise. "Now wait a minute-"
"Because if you don't"- he moved a step closer-"when it's your turn, every one of those tormented souls will be circling, waiting for you at St. Peter's gate, ready to testify as to your good works and send you down."
She flushed as crimson as if scorched by a sunburn. "How dare you threaten-"
"Threaten? Oh, no, my dear. It's called old-time preachin'- puttin' the fear of the Lord into a miserable sinner to save her soul." His eyes crinkled into the accompaniment to a smile, but their flash was as hard as diamonds.
She chewed her wad of gum a few more times, appeared to roll it from one side of her mouth to the other, then retreated to the hallway.
"God forgive me, but she needed tellin'," Jimmy said, his jaw so bulging with tension it made his mask look a size too small.
"No doubt about it," said Earl. But he'd never seen the man so steamed.
Jimmy feigned a double take. "Well, what a difference a week makes. To think just last Saturday you were tellin' me to ease up on my fight with Wyatt and his crew. Now you're cheerin' me on."
His lilt had definitely acquired an edge. Earl tried to chuckle, hoping to lower the tension a notch, but the sound came out dry and cheerless.
The fire in Jimmy's eyes died, and he let out a loud sigh. "Sorry, Earl. I guess I'm on a hair trigger as much as everyone else these days."
Earl shrugged. "It's understandable."
"I also can't help thinking that if I hadn't goaded you into coming up here last
Saturday, you wouldn't be in the mess-"
"Hey, I needed to see what goes on."
"I sure didn't mean you to get obsessed by it and go sneaking around the place at all hours."
"I'm not obsessed."
"And look what happened tonight. You could have been badly hurt. For God's sake, play it smart. There's probably nothing more to this than you interrupted a bit of petty larceny. If we know the nursing is slack up here, so must the thieves in our little community."
"Play it smart?"
"Yeah. Play it smart. We all have big enough problems to deal with as it is. Let security take care of creeps who would sneak into rooms and steal stuff from little old ladies. I'm serious about this, Earl."
It sounded like good advice.
"Maybe Sadie herself would have an idea who it could be," Jimmy added, "if she noticed anyone taking too close an interest in her stuff."
Maybe.
Except Jimmy didn't know that the creep sneaking around tonight could be killing patients. From the size it might have been anyone. Even a woman, come to think of it. Certainly Monica Yablonsky had the physique to knock him on his can. As for males, so did that bulldog Wyatt if he was involved. Even Stewart might have done it because of whatever he might be trying to keep secret up here. Or most troubling of all, it could be a person he didn't know, a cipher among the four thousand people who worked at St. Paul's and were not doctors, his or her motive totally unknown.
He shivered.
A search vast enough to discover someone like that would be hopeless. Better this attacker turn out to be just some small-time crook after all.
He declined Jimmy's offer of help and made it outside to his car by himself.
As he unlocked the door, his brain spun into overdrive, unable to shake the idea that what had happened tonight was somehow connected to the unexplained deaths on that floor. And the possible suspects expanded anywhere from those who might be on some twisted mission, seeing themselves destined to put cancer patients out of their misery, to anyone who'd stop at nothing to cover up a scandal. Anyone from Hurst on high to God knew who down low. Nor could he keep the nightmare scenario from popping up again, that it could be anyone and the motive anything.