“Pray that my friend Laurie Montgomery comes. If she doesn’t come, I truly don’t know what I’ll do. Meanwhile, this afternoon I’m going back to the hospital. I’m going to ask Mrs. Varini why she lied to me, and I’m going to make it absolutely clear, if I haven’t already, they are not to touch Granny. What about you? Would you like to have dinner tonight?”
“What a thoughtful invitation. Can I let you know later? I just don’t know where my emotions are going to be.”
“You can let me know whenever you like. It probably will have to be early. I think what’s going to happen is that I’ll just run out of gas and then sleep for twelve hours. But what are you going to do about the hospital? Are you just going to wait until your sons get here and let them make the decisions?”
“That is exactly what I am going to do.”
“Maybe you should give our friend Mrs. Varini a call and make sure she can’t claim a misunderstanding and do something without your expressed approval. When the next of kin are grieving, it’s easy to bully them. Ironically, it’s usually about doing an autopsy, not about not doing one.”
“I think I’ll take your advice. Last night I wasn’t myself.”
“Are you done with lunch?” Jennifer asked. “I’m going to head back to the hospital. I was going to go to the embassy, but I think I’ll put that off. I want to pose a few questions to the case manager, like why she lied to me. I’ll let you know if I learn anything startling.”
Having already signed their respective checks, the women stood, and several busboys ran over and pulled out their chairs. The restaurant was now full, forcing them to weave among a crowd of people waiting for tables. Out in the lobby, they said their good-byes with a promise to talk later. Just as they were about to separate, Jennifer thought of something else. “I think I’m going to look into the CNN connection if possible. Would you mind terribly finding out from your New York friend exactly when he saw the segment about your husband, New York time?”
“I’d be happy to. I’d planned to call him back. I know he felt terrible about having broken the news.”
They were about to separate again when Lucinda said, “Thank you for encouraging me to come out of my room. I think this was a lot healthier, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t have if left to my own devices.”
“It was my pleasure,” Jennifer responded. She was holding her phone in preparation for calling her car and driver.
Chapter 14
October 17, 2007
Wednesday, 1:42 p.m.
New Delhi, India
“How long will you be, madam?” the driver asked. He was holding the car door as Jennifer climbed out. During the ride from the hotel to the hospital she had managed to fall asleep for some twenty minutes or so, and now felt distinctly worse than she had when she’d started. Still, she wanted to talk with Kashmira Varini.
“I’m not sure,” Jennifer said, looking up at the hospital. She’d just gotten the idea to go up to the fourth floor where she’d been told her grandmother’s room had been and see if she could find the day nurse who’d been assigned to her case. “But it won’t be long, not the way I feel.”
“I’ll try to stay here,” the driver said, pointing down at the ground, “but if the doormen chase me, you’ll have to call my mobile.”
“No problem,” Jennifer said.
As had been the case on the earlier visit, the two colorful doormen opened the double doors without Jennifer having to say a word. Because it was hotter outside than it had been that morning, it felt colder inside. As far as she was concerned, it was definitely over-air-conditioned.
At that time there were forty to fifty people in the lobby, all either upper-middle-class Indians or well-to-do foreigners. Near the admitting desk were a handful of prospective patients, some sitting in wheelchairs. A number of hospital staff were in evidence with their charges in varying stages of the admitting process. Glancing into the coffee shop, Jennifer could see it was full, with some people standing and waiting for tables.
With the aplomb garnered from all the hours she’d spent in a hospital, Jennifer didn’t hesitate in the slightest from making her way over to the elevators. When she boarded, she made certain the button for the fourth floor had been pressed, and then melted into the background.
For Jennifer, the patient floor was one of the most pleasant she’d seen, and she’d seen her share. The floor itself was covered with attractively colored high-quality sound-absorbing industrial carpet, and combining it with a high-tech acoustic ceiling and walls constructed of sound-dampening material, the ambient noise was muffled down to almost nothing. Even the sound of a large, fully loaded food tray cart was minimal as it passed behind Jennifer while she walked over to the nursing station.
Several patients had just returned from surgery, so most everyone was busy, including the floor clerk. Jennifer just watched. She was impressed how similar the protocols for running the floor seemed to be to what she’d experienced at UCLA Med Center, despite her being halfway around the world in a developing country.
In a relatively short time the immediately postoperative patients had been settled in their rooms, stabilized, and returned to the company of their next of kin. As abruptly as it had started, the flurry of activity dissipated. It was then that the floor clerk, whose nametag said merely “Kamna,” happened to notice Jennifer. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“I believe you can,” Jennifer responded. She wondered if Kamna was a proper name or meant something like clerk. “My name is Jennifer Hernandez, and I am Maria Hernandez’s granddaughter. I believe she was a patient on this floor.”
“You are correct,” Kamna said. “She was in room four-oh-eight. I’m very sorry.”
“I am, too. Is this a common problem here?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Are deaths relatively frequent?”
Kamna jerked almost as if Jennifer had hit her. Even the head of one of the nurses using a computer terminal bobbed up with a shocked expression on her face.
“No, it is very rare,” Kamna said.
“But there was another one just last night around the same time. That’s two in a row.”
“That’s true,” Kamna agreed nervously. She looked down at the nurse for support.
“I’m Nurse Kumar,” the woman said. “I’m the head nurse on this floor. Can I be of assistance?”
“I wanted to speak to whoever was taking care of my grandmother.”
“There were actually two. First there was Ms. Veena Chandra, who is new to our staff, and since she is new, a senior nurse by the name of Shruti Aggrawal was assigned to supervise.”
“I suppose it would be safe to say that Ms. Chandra would have been the person actually interacting with my grandmother.”
“That’s correct. Everything had gone entirely normally. There had been no problems whatsoever. Mrs. Hernandez had been doing excellently.”
“Is Ms. Chandra available?”
Nurse Kumar paused while giving Jennifer a moment of scrutiny, perhaps worried that Jennifer could possibly have been a deranged woman in the hospital to exact revenge. Everyone was acutely aware of the Hernandez demise. But apparently, Jennifer had passed muster. “I don’t see why not. I’ll see if she can speak with you now.”
“Perfect,” Jennifer said.
Nurse Kumar got up, walked down the corridor a way, and after a quick glance back at Jennifer, disappeared into a patient’s room.
Jennifer glanced back at Kamna, who’d not moved a muscle. She was clearly still unsure of Jennifer’s mind-set and intentions. Jennifer flashed a smile, intending to calm the woman, who appeared like a rabbit ready to flee. The woman flashed a smile back, one even more fake and fleeting than Jennifer’s. Before Jennifer could try to put the woman at ease, she saw Nurse Kumar emerge from the patient room with a young nurse in tow. Jennifer blinked. Even in a nursing uniform, the newly hired nurse looked like a beauty queen or a movie star, or even more irritating, as far as Jennifer was concerned, a lingerie model. She was the kind of female who never failed to make Jennifer feel fat. She had a perfect body and a photographer’s dream face.