Right before lunch Bruce Buxton walked in. "How's my patient?"
"Okay."
He inspected his handiwork. "A nice tight stitch if I do say so myself."
As luck would have it, Sam Mahanes dropped in. As no one had thought to tell Bruce to keep his mouth shut, he told Sam what happened to Harry.
"You stitched her up, discharged her, and didn't inform me?" Sam was aghast, and then wondered why Rick Shaw hadn't told him immediately.
"I'm telling you now," Bruce coolly responded, secretly delighted at Sam's distress.
"Buxton, you should have been on the phone the minute this happened. And whoever was down there"-he waited for a name to be forthcoming but Bruce was not about to finger Booty Weyman so Sam continued-"should have reported to me, too."
"First off, I gave the order to the orderlies that carried her up, to the nurse, to shut up. I said that I'd talk to you. I'm talking to you right now. I was going to call you this morning." He checked his watch. "In twenty minutes to be exact. Don't blow this out of proportion."
"I don't see how it could be any worse." Sam's jaw clapped shut.
"Oh, trust me, Sam Mahanes. It could be a lot worse."
This comment so enraged the hospital director that he turned on his heel, didn't even say good-bye to the ladies, and strode out of the post office, slamming the door hard behind him.
20
Sam, still angry, cut off Tussie Logan as she was trying to back into a space in the parking lot reserved for staff.
He lurched into his space, slammed the door, and locked his car as she finally backed in, avoiding his eyes.
Tussie knew the director's rages only too well. She didn't want to cross him and she didn't want her new Volkswagen Passat station wagon scratched.
Larry Johnson, who had been driving behind Sam at a distance, observed the incident.
Sam strode toward the hospital without a hello or wave of acknowledgment.
After parking, Larry stepped out of his car as Tussie reached into hers, retrieving her worn leather satchel.
"Good morning, Dr. Johnson." She put her arm through the leather strap while closing her car door.
"Morning, Tussie. He damn near knocked you out of the box."
"One of his funks."
"I don't remember Sam being such a moody man." The older doctor fell into step next to Tussie.
"The last month, I don't know, maybe it's been longer. He's tense, critical, nothing we do is right. Maybe he's having problems at home."
"Perhaps, but Sally seems happy enough. I've always prided myself on being able to read people but Sam eludes me."
"I know what you mean." She turned up the collar of her coat, an expensive Jaeger three-quarter-length that flowed when she walked. "I guess you've seen everything and everybody in this burg."
"Oh-some," he modestly replied. "But you still get surprised. Hank Brevard. I wouldn't think he could have aroused enough passion in another person to kill him."
"Maybe he got the better of someone in a car deal." She said this with little conviction.
Hank had put his mechanical skills to work in fixing up old cars and trucks. His hobby became an obsession and occasionally a source of income, as he'd repair and sell a DeSoto or Morgan.
"God knows, he had his own car lot. This last year he must have gone on a buying spree. I don't remember him having so many cars. I'd love to buy the 1938 Plymouth. No such luck." Larry laughed.
"I bet once the dust settles, Lisa will sell his collection."
"Ah, Tussie, even if she did, I couldn't afford the Plymouth."
"Maybe you could. You've got to treat yourself every now and then. And what we do is draining. There are days when I love it as much as my first day out of nursing school and there are other days when I'm tired of being on my feet."
"Tussie, you're a wonderful nurse."
"Why, thank you, Doctor."
He smiled. "Here we are." He opened the front door. "Into the fray." He paused a moment, then said, "If you see anything off track, please tell me. In confidence. If there is something wrong here we've got to get to the bottom of it. This is too good of a hospital to be smeared with mud."
Surprised, she shrank back a moment, caught herself, and relaxed. "I agree. I'm a little touchy right now. A little watchful."
"We all are, Tussie. We all are."
21
Four medium-sized smooth river stones anchored the corners of the large blueprint that covered Sheriff Shaw's desk. He leaned over with a magnifying glass, puffing away like a furnace on his cigarette. The smoke stung his eyes as he took the cigarette out, peered closely, then stuck the weed back in his mouth.
Cynthia, also smoking, stood next to him. She told herself she was smoking in self-defense but she was smoking because that little hit of nicotine coated her frayed nerve endings.
He pointed a stubby finger at the boiler room, put down the magnifying glass, and placed his left forefinger on the incinerator room. This meant his cigarette dangled from his mouth, a pillar of smoke rising into his eyes.
Coop took the cigarette out of his mouth, putting it in an ashtray.
"Thanks." He breathed deeply. "The two easiest spots to destroy evidence."
"Right but I don't think that's our problem."
"Oh?" His eyebrows arched upward. "I wouldn't mind finding the damned knife."
She shook her head. "That's not what I mean. We aren't going to find the knife. It's burned to a crisp or he could have taken it right back up to where those things are steamed or boiled or whatever they do. Fruitless."
"I like that word, fruitless." He reached for his cigarette again with his right hand but kept his left forefinger square on the incinerator room. "What's cooking in your brain?"
"You know, Harry had some good ideas last night."
"Oh." He snorted. "This I've got to hear."
"She thought maybe someone is pirating body parts, organs."
He paused a long time, lifted up his left finger. "Uh-huh."
"Or stealing drugs."
He stubbed out his cigarette, which he'd smoked to a nub. "The other angle is that his killer was an enemy and knew this would be the best place to find him. The killer knew his habits but then most killers do know the habits of their victims. Until Harry got clunked on the head I was not convinced the crime was tied to the hospital. Now I am."
"Me, too," Cooper agreed. "Now the trick is to find out what is at the hospital. What doesn't add up for me about Hank is-if he were in on a crooked deal, wouldn't he have lived higher on the hog? He didn't appear to live beyond his means."
Rick rubbed his chin. "Maybe not. Maybe not. Wait for retirement and then whoosh." He put his hands together and fluttered his fingers like a flyaway bird.
"He was in a position to take kickbacks from the fuel company, the electrical supply company, from everybody. For instance, those low-wattage lightbulbs. I noticed that when we answered Bobby Minifee's call. How do we know he didn't charge for a hundred watts but put in sixty? Now I went over those records and know that he didn't but I mean, for example. He was in the perfect position to skim."
"Wouldn't have been killed for that, I wouldn't reckon. But if he was corrupt it would have been damned hard to pin down. Those records, he could have falsified them, tossed the originals in the incinerator." He rubbed his palms together. "Right now, Coop, we're grasping at straws. We've got a hundred theories and not one hard piece of evidence."
"Let's go back to the basement. Don't tell Sam Mahanes when we're there. Call and tell him our people will be there next Tuesday. Then you and I go in Monday night. Someone might be tempted to move something out. But even if that isn't the case we'd be down there without Sam or anyone knowing except for the maintenance man on duty and we can take care of him."
"That's not a bad idea."
"A light hammer might help. To tap walls."
Rick smiled. She was good. She was good.
22
The sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains arced out like a pinwheel of fire, oriflamme radiating from the mountaintops, an edge of pink gold on each spoke.