care unit, the isolation unit, the waiting room, and the
chapel.
“To the left,” Judith said, steering herself. “Everything but the ORs are that way.”
Heavy glass-and-steel double doors bore a sign that
read “No Admittance—Staff Only.” Perplexed, Judith
paused. “Now what?” she asked.
“There’s some kind of buzzer system on the wall to
punch in what must be a code,” Renie replied. “As you
may have guessed, we don’t know what it is.”
“Drat.” Judith gripped the arms of the wheelchair
and peered through the glass. She could see nothing
248
Mary Daheim
except for a short hallway and another set of doors
about ten yards away. “Double drat.”
Behind them, they heard the elevator doors open and
close, followed by a beeping sound. “Robbie!” Renie
exclaimed. “He’s headed this way.”
The robot cruised down the hall, swerving to avoid
the cousins. The double doors swung open at his approach. Hurriedly, Renie pushed Judith inside. Instead
of going straight ahead, Robbie swung to the right
where a single wood-frame door said “Keep Out.”
Again, Robbie was given access and disappeared as
the door swung shut behind him.
“What’s that, I wonder?” Judith murmured.
“How should I know?” Renie replied. “Hey, this
second set of double doors doesn’t have a code system.
Shall we?”
The cousins passed through, using the wheelchair for
leverage to open the heavy doors. Almost immediately
they came upon a nurses’ station that looked out through
glass at the patients in the ICU.
“Oh!” Judith gasped. “Joe must be in there. Where
is he?”
A middle-aged nurse with a jutting jaw stared at the
cousins. “What are you doing here?” she demanded,
whipping off her glasses.
“Where’s Joe Flynn?” Judith asked, refusing to be
put off by the nurse’s fierce countenance.
“You don’t belong in this area,” the nurse retorted.
“This is off-limits to anyone but medical staff. Please
leave at once.”
“Where’s Joe Flynn?” Judith persisted as Renie tried
to angle the wheelchair so that they could see into the
dimly lighted ward that lay behind the glass windows.
Some half-dozen patients lay in small cubicles with
SUTURE SELF
249
elaborate lighted monitors that looked as if they belonged in the cockpit of a jumbo jet.
“If you don’t get out,” the nurse growled, “I’m calling Security.”
“Look,” Renie said in the voice she reserved for
dealing with dimwitted CEOs and obstinate public relations directors, “this is Mrs. Flynn, and the least you
can do is point her husband out to her.”
“That does it!” the nurse cried, and reached under
the desk. A soft but persistent alarm sounded, making
Judith jump.
“Come on, you old crone,” Renie railed at the nurse.
“Give this poor woman a break! She’s just had hip surgery and her husband may be at death’s—”
Torchy Magee appeared as if from nowhere, huffing
and puffing through the near set of double doors. “What’s
up?” he wheezed, practically falling against the desk.
“Get these two out of here,” the nurse ordered.
“They’ve broken into the ICU without permission.”
If Torchy had still had his eyebrows, he probably
would have raised them. Instead, he merely stared at
the cousins. “I know you two. Aren’t you from the
third floor?”
“Y-e-s,” Judith said, as something moving in the
shadows of the ICU caught her eye. Probably a busy
nurse, prompting Judith to worry that Joe was in there,
requiring immediate medical attention.
Torchy shook his head. “Now, now, you should
know better than to come into an area like this. It’s
staff only. Didn’t you see the sign?”
“Yes,” Judith began, “but—”
“In fact,” Torchy said, scratching his bald head,
“how did you get in here?” He gave the nurse a questioning look.
250
Mary Daheim
“I didn’t let them in,” the nurse snapped. “They must
have tripped the code somehow and opened the outer
doors.”
“Is that what happened?” Torchy asked, looking
stumped.
“Something like that,” Renie answered. “Look, as
long as we’re here, couldn’t Hatchet-Face at least point
out to Mrs. Flynn where her husband is in the ICU?”
The nurse fingered her glasses, scowled at Torchy,
then looked down at her charts. “If I do, will you leave
right away?”
“Yes,” Judith promised. “Just point him out and tell
me how he’s doing.”
The nurse turned to her computer screen. “What was
the name again?”
“Joe Flynn,” Judith said with emphasis.
There was a long pause. The nurse scrolled the
screen up and then down. She slowly shuffled through
the charts on her desk. “Sorry,” she said with an expression of supreme satisfaction, “you must be mistaken. There’s no Joe Flynn here.”
SIXTEEN
JUDITH WILLED HERSELF not to faint twice in one day,
but she definitely felt light-headed. She couldn’t
find her voice. The words formed in her brain but
wouldn’t come out.
“You’re crazy,” Renie yelled at the nurse, banging
her left fist on the desk. “Joe Flynn had surgery this
afternoon and was moved to the intensive care unit.
Dr. Garnett operated on him. Look again.”
“Look for yourself,” the nurse smirked, turning the
computer monitor so that Renie could view the
screen. “Do you see any Flynn?”
“No,” Renie gulped after carefully eyeballing the
patient list, which included a Kyota, a Fairbanks, a
Diaz, a Gustafson, a Littlejohn, and a McNamara—
but no Flynn. “When did you come on duty?” she
demanded with a lowering stare.
“Tonight.” The nurse still seemed smug. “Ten
o’clock.”
“You mean you just got here?” Renie asked.
“That’s right,” the nurse replied. “About fifteen
minutes before you two showed up.” She leaned
past Renie to look at Torchy Magee. “Can you get
these pests out of here? I’ve got patients to monitor.”
“I’ll see these ladies home,” Torchy said with a
252
Mary Daheim
chuckle. “Come on, let’s head back to the old corral.”
He grasped the wheelchair firmly and steered Judith
through the double doors.
She regained her speech only when they got to the
elevator. “Mr. Magee,” she said, sounding weak, “can
you check this whole thing out for me? I swear to you,
my husband was in ICU until . . . until whenever he
was moved.”
“I’ll try,” Torchy replied as the elevator doors
opened, “but I’m the only one on duty tonight. My
backup couldn’t get here in this snow.”
“Please.” Judith sounded pitiful. Then, summoning
up all her courage, she asked the question that had
been uppermost on her mind: “If something happened—that is, if my husband didn’t make it—
wouldn’t they tell me right away?”
“Oh, sure,” Torchy replied breezily, hitting the button for the third floor. “Say,” he said, looking around
the car, “where’s the other one?”
Judith gave a start. For the first time, she realized