“You’ll have to fill out these forms, sir,” she said before I had a chance to open my mouth.
“Wait,” I said.
“We can’t do anything for you, sir, until you fill out these forms.”
“I-”
“Sir, you must fill out these forms before we can help you.” She reached over, grabbed a clipboard with a Bic pen and a stack of papers already loaded, and thrust it at me. “Please cooperate.”
I must have looked desperately in need of medical care. I was sure having trouble getting through to this woman on any other level.
“Ma’am,” I said, pulling out my license, flipping my badge at her, then shutting the case before she had a chance to examine it. “Harry Denton. I’m a detective, and I’m looking for Dr. Jane Collingswood. She went on E.R. rotation last night. If she’s still here, I’d like to see her.”
She appraised me for a moment, but she didn’t ask to see the license again. “Have a seat over there, Detective, and I’ll see if I can locate her.”
I took a seat in the waiting area, my gut doing a bump and grind at the thought that I’d once again borderline impersonated a police officer. If these people assumed I was a cop, that was their problem. Spellman, however, probably wouldn’t see it that way.
For about ten minutes, I thumbed through a two-year-old copy of Reader’s Digest. Then the woman behind the counter stood up.
“Things have gotten a little quiet down here today, Detective,” she said. “Dr. Collingswood’s on a break, in the third floor doctor’s lounge.”
I stood up and flipped the magazine onto the table. “Thanks,” I said, turning my back on her before she got a better look at me than she already had.
Back inside the main building, I trekked to the lobby and up to the information desk. The fat lady behind the desk had wires coming out of her everywhere: headphones, telephone mike, Walkman.
“Third floor doctor’s lounge,” I said. “This way?” I pointed down the hall.
“Sorry, sir. Doctor’s lounge is restricted.”
“I know that,” I said irritably, “I’m Dr. Evans, Neurosurgery. I just got confused out here. Now which way is it?”
“Oh, yes, Dr. Evans. Follow the red line around to the second bank of elevators. Go up to three, take a right.”
I turned around and walked away from her. Doctor’s aren’t known for passing out polite thank-yous to just anybody. Upstairs, I stepped out of the elevators and took a right, down past the nurse’s station, a row of offices, what may have been a classroom, and stopped in front of a door with a plate on it that read DOCTOR’S LOUNGE-AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
I’d had enough of that authorized personnel crap. I took out my license and looked at it. Yep, I’m authorized.
I pushed open the door and stepped in. The room was dark, cool, with a color television, floor model, flickering silently away in the corner. It was a comfortable room: subdued, pastel-blue carpet, heavily padded and equally heavily used sofas lining the walls, with the center of the large room occupied by wooden tables and cafeteria chairs. There were two sleeping bodies on the sofas, backs to the rest of the room, the wrinkled white of lab coats rising slowly up and down in breathing rhythm.
Jane Collingswood sat at a table, back to me, sipping something out of a Styrofoam cup and flipping through a magazine. She hadn’t moved when I walked in. I padded slowly up behind her and stopped.
“What, you couldn’t sleep?” I asked, my voice low.
She twisted around in the chair. It was comforting to see that even someone as attractive as Jane Collingswood could occasionally look as if she’d been on a bender. Her skin was pale in the unflattering light, her face drawn, her eyes sunken and bloodshot. I’d heard they put doctors through hell just to see if they can take it. I guess it’s true. No wonder so many of them are jerks; like being a freaking Marine or something.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. It would have been a demand if she’d had the energy.
“Looking for you,” I said, walking around the table and taking a seat across from her. She frowned, the motion of her jaw pulling lines on her skin. Her eyes darkened, and she shook her head slightly.
“Mr.… what was your name again?”
“Harry.”
“Well, Mr. Harry, I’m thirty-three hours into a seventy-two hour pull. I’m trying to get a little time alone because tonight’s Friday night, and sometime around ten thirty this evening we expect to see some casualties.”
“I don’t know how you docs do this stuff,” I said. “I didn’t sleep last night, and I feel like somebody stuffed me in a microwave and punched all the buttons at once.”
She almost smiled, but the weight of her lips was too heavy a burden to manage. “Right now, Mr. Harry, I don’t know how we manage either. But I certainly don’t have time to fool with you. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I thought for a second. Even if she killed Fletcher, and I was beginning to think she had just enough inner strength to do it, I sympathized with her. But I needed to push.
“Tell me about you and Conrad Fletcher.”
The magazine fell from her hands, slid down her lap, and onto the floor. “What makes you think there’s anything to tell?”
“C’mon, Jane. I like you. You’re bright, determined, dedicated. And not to sound too much like a sexist, you’re damnably attractive. Trust me, I know these things.”
This time, she did smile. “You can flatter me all you like. There’s nothing to tell.”
“I know he was harassing you. I know he wanted to sleep with you. And I know he was threatening your position here at the hospital.”
She blanched. “How did you-”
“And I know that Albert Zitin’s in love with you. And I know he wanted to protect you from Fletcher. What I don’t know is how much he protected you. Or, for that matter, did you need protecting at all? Frankly, you look like you can pretty well take care of yourself.”
“I can’t believe you’d think-”
“Okay, so I don’t know how medical school works, and I don’t know how doctors become doctors, at least not every little step of the way. But I do know that supervisors in residencies have a lot of stroke, and a recommendation from a doctor, who’s a respected member of the staff as well as chief of something or other, that you get kicked out of a program will-”
“Get you kicked out of the program.” She finished the sentence for me, then sighed exhaustedly. She folded her arms on the table in front of her and nestled her head in the crooks of her arms. Her black hair splayed out over the table, long and straight. I resisted the urge to pat her on the head.
“And sooner or later, if they haven’t already, the Metro detectives will learn what’s been going on. And when they do, they’ll ask questions you won’t have any option about answering.”
She leaned back in the chair. She seemed, more than anything else, weary, beyond feeling, beyond pain, even, perhaps, beyond anguish.
“And they will find out, won’t they?” she whispered, so low I could barely hear her.
“Yes.”
“This is one of the largest university hospital medical center complexes in this part of the country, and the way gossip travels, you’d think it was a neighborhood bridge group.”
“Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
“Not so funny. Not when you think about it,” she sighed. She looked off toward the other two sleeping doctors. “I used to love being a doctor until I came down here and met him. Now, I think he may have ruined it all for me.”
“Let me get you some more coffee,” I offered.
She smiled at me, pushed her cup forward on the table. “Thanks. Black, one sugar.”
I fixed myself a cup as well and brought them back to the table. We both needed help staying awake.
“I went to medical school down in Memphis, at UT. I wanted to be a chest cutter-thoracic surgeon, you know. The residency here was my perfect chance.
“Then I met Fletcher. Good old Dr. Fletcher, who decided that his incredibly gifted hands could best be used pawing anything that would stand still for him. When I met him he was very nice to me. Supportive, attentive, friendly. Not at all like he usually was with students. Surgery’s like anything else, you know. It’s not perfect. Mistakes happen, but you correct the mistakes and learn from them.”