Yet now everyone was subdued and the absence of the two girls, even of Noah, was an unspoken weight as they gathered in a semicircle. She thought about leading a prayer, but settled for a moment of silence. It wasn’t much silence, with all the hospital sounds around them, but it would have to do. That only brought her back to her conversation last night with Lauren’s sister: an older bald man was stalking Lauren. The students had been here all semester for their clinical work. Was there any way he had first seen her here?
After the silence, she handed out assignments for the day. Then they listened to report, as the off-going shift briefed the oncoming shift. She tried to concentrate: what went on overnight, what of note occurred the evening shift before, the status of IVs, when the last pain meds were administered, which post-op patients had voided or eaten or been ambulated. The status of wounds. Anything to be expected this shift. She watched the young faces and knew they were struggling to focus, too. She would have to keep a close eye on them today.
She was happy to have heard from Will Borders. That was the best news of the past twenty-four hours. He sounded so shy and tentative, this man who had been so good in the worst situations. It was an attractive feature, considering the usual demeanor of doctors who hit on her and especially of the one she had foolishly had an affair with. Was it an affair? It lacked the fun of a romp. Maybe a fling. Whatever, it had been bad news. With doctors, there was always the undercurrent of power and class when they had relationships with nurses. On the other hand, she knew friends who had dated and married cops. Those hadn’t always worked out happily, either. But this man seemed different. And she realized she was getting way ahead of herself with Will.
She cocked her head at one student to make sure he was listening. They had all heard her lecture. Report was a sacred rite and a critical issue that was too often watered down or violated. When that happened, it was a sure path to get misinformation or no information or to miss vital clues about a patient’s condition. As the quality of care had deteriorated at Memorial, she traced much of it to sloppy report. But she was a stickler.
At Christ, high-caliber report wasn’t a problem. The charge nurse, a stout black woman with very short hair and blowsy purple scrubs, went methodically though each patient’s name, room number, age, reason for hospitalization, current status and vitals, and what was expected for the new shift. IV fluids were done right here. It was always bad karma for the rest of the day to tell the oncoming shift that there were still 200 cc’s in the IV fluid bag, only to have the light come on and the patient say over the intercom that the bag was dry and the machine was beeping.
“You have to run and take care of that and the rest of your planned day goes up in smoke,” Cheryl Beth had lectured her students. They couldn’t count on landing jobs at the best hospitals, but they could improve what they found by giving and insisting on getting a thorough report.
The status of wounds: the term referred to post-op patients, but it made her think of Lauren and Holly. Then she had seen the newspaper that morning, with a page one story about the murder of a Cincinnati policewoman. It said she was the star of a reality television show, but Cheryl Beth had never seen it. She was more attracted to Masterpiece Theater kinds of shows, Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse, plus some gardening and cooking shows. The title of the reality police show sounded demeaning, but the woman herself seemed very accomplished. Found in her boat on the Licking River, dead of multiple knife wounds. Cheryl Beth’s hands had turned cold as she read this. Could there be a connection with what happened in the Formal Gardens or was she reaching? Was Will Borders involved in this case? Unlike the typical crime story, his name wasn’t mentioned.
Focus on report, Cheryl Beth.
Afterward, she huddled with the students once again, being a nag about their nursing care plans.
“NCPs are the work of the devil…” one of the charge nurses said, laughing.
“Don’t listen to her,” Cheryl Beth said in good-natured dudgeon.
Her students chanted in unison: “It is a tool designed to identify the needs of the patient based on a physical assessment, the medical diagnosis, any treatments or surgical interventions past, present or future. Family, social, psychological, and spiritual needs, and the most important, the nursing interventions to meet the needs.”
Cheryl Beth laughed hard for the first time in two days. “I’ll expect them from you at the end of the week. And remember, I want one in-depth NCP on one patient of your choice at the end of semester. That’s coming right up.”
Everyone groaned. As they went off, her smile faded and she thought: what happened in the Formal Gardens is the work of the devil.
She turned to begin her day of perpetual motion when the elevators opened and a familiar figure strode purposefully in her direction. It was one of those out-of-place moments and she didn’t immediately recognize the silhouette, one the shape of a small refrigerator, coming her way.
“Hank?”
“Glad I caught you.” It was indeed Hank Brooks of the Oxford Police Department. “I need to talk to your students.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, talk? To all your students.”
“Well you picked a damned bad time, Hank.”
“You’re pretty when you’re angry.”
“That’s a cliché,” she said, frustrated that it showed. “And you’re an oaf.”
“So others have said. Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Jodie Foster?”
“Only all my life, Hank. I don’t see it.”
“So where are they?”
“Hank, they’re attending to patients, and I need to be checking on them. You can’t barge in here.”
“I can and will.” His nose was three inches away. He really was about her height. “I want to interview each student. Did they know the dead girls? Did they know Noah? Yes. I need their statements.”
“Why?”
“Because this is a homicide investigation.”
Cheryl Beth put her hands on her hips. This was her environment, not his, and in a moment the reality caused him to let out a long sigh.
He steered her to a corner by the code cart. “Cheryl Beth, this guy is a bad dude, get me? He was Army Special Forces, served in Iraq. I suspect one of his specialties was knife combat. We searched his apartment and found two different knives there.”
“So was one of them used in the attack?”
“No.” He stared at his feet like a little boy caught doing something wrong.
Her phone buzzed and she checked it: A text from one of her students: a patient was complaining about his pain meds.
“I’ve got to go, Hank.”
He held her shoulder in a firm grip. “Goddamnit, Cheryl Beth, I’m going to have to kick this guy loose by Thursday morning if I can’t get some evidence. Maybe sooner.”
“What?”
“You heard me. There’s not evidence enough to hold him. I’m going to get my ass handed to me by a public defender, no less.
“I saw the police catch him right there.”
“Yeah, I wish the real world worked like one of those TV shows, but that’s not enough. He claims he was attacked, too. He was a decorated soldier. You very helpfully found that goose egg on the back of his head. We don’t have a weapon. We don’t have a motive. The D.A. won’t file on him. So they’ll probably release him for now. And while we’re trying to make a case, this bad dude is going to be out on the street, maybe coming to a place near you.”
“Maybe he didn’t do it.”
“You know he did!” He whispered it harshly, slapping a fist in the other palm. “Do you know how those girls died? He raped them with a knife. That’s right. He cut them to pieces down there and let them bleed to death.”