that Renie wasn’t with them. “I don’t know. Wasn’t she
right behind us?”
“If she was, she didn’t get in the elevator,” Torchy
said as the car began its ascent. “I hope she’s not still
down in the ICU, giving Bertha heat. Bertha’s pretty
tough.”
“So’s my cousin,” Judith said. But her worries rose
right along with the elevator.
“I’ll check on Mrs. Jones after I get you to your
room,” Torchy said as they exited into the hall. “Maybe
she didn’t make it into the car before the door closed.
She’ll probably show up in a few minutes.”
When Judith and Torchy passed the third-floor
nurses’ station, the nun at the desk looked up. “Your
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mind must be at rest after going to the chapel,” she said
with a smile. “Prayerful moments with our Lord before
bedtime are much better than any sedatives.”
Judith uttered a response that was supposed to come
out as “My, yes,” but sounded more like “Mess.”
Which, Judith thought dismally, was more appropriate
to her situation.
“Please,” she begged after the security guard had
gotten her back into bed, “can you find out what happened to my husband?”
“I’ll give it a try,” Torchy said. “What about your
cousin?”
“She’ll be all right,” Judith said, though not with
complete conviction. “For now, I’m more worried
about Joe.”
Torchy nodded half-heartedly. “Okay, I’m off.”
It was impossible for Judith to get comfortable. She
called the main desk and asked for Sister Jacqueline,
but the nun was unavailable. Then she dialed Woody’s
number at home.
Woody sounded half asleep when he answered. Judith briefly apologized before explaining that Joe had
gone missing.
“How can he be missing?” Woody asked, sounding
confused.
“Maybe that’s the wrong word,” Judith said as she
heard Sondra’s sleepy mumbling in the background.
“But I don’t know where he is. Which makes him
missing as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Woody said. “Frankly, I
think it’s just a mix-up. Try to calm down. It isn’t good
for you to get yourself so upset after surgery.”
Judith had confidence in Woody, but realized that
the most he could do at the moment was try to send a
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couple of patrol officers to the hospital. They might
get the runaround, too. She cudgeled her brain to
think who else she might contact for help. Feeling
impotent and distraught, Judith considered taking the
Valium to settle her nerves. But it might fuddle her
brain, so she set aside the yellow pill in its tiny
pleated cup. It was almost eleven o’clock; she considered turning on the late-night news. She might see
the story on Joe. But, she decided, that would only
upset her.
For a quarter of an hour, she twisted, tossed, and
turned—at least as much as she could without disturbing the artificial hip. She was about to ring the front
desk again when Renie staggered into the room.
“Coz!” Judith cried. “Where have you been? Did
you find Joe?”
Dragging herself to her bed, Renie shook her head.
“No. But he’s not dead. I finally got that much out of
Bertha down there in the ICU. They moved him to a
private room on the fourth floor.”
Judith clutched the bedsheet to her breast. “Does
that mean he’s better?”
“It may,” Renie replied, collapsing onto the mattress. “Bertha wouldn’t give me any details. The only
way I got any information was to grab the power cord
to her computer with my good hand and threaten to unplug her. To tell the truth, I don’t think she knew anything else. Remember, she just came on duty. Joe was
moved before she got there.”
Judith grabbed the phone. “I’m calling the nurses’ station on four.”
A man with a foreign accent answered. “Very sorry,”
he said after Judith stated her request for information.
“We cannot give out any word on that patient.”
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“But I’m his wife,” Judith protested. “I’m next of kin.”
“Very sorry,” the man repeated. “We must follow
strict orders.”
“Tell me this much,” she persisted. “Would they
have moved him if he’d still been on the critical list?”
“No word on that patient. Good-bye.” The man hung
up.
“Damn!” Judith cried. “Is this some kind of conspiracy?”
“I don’t know,” Renie said in an exhausted voice.
“But at least you found out Joe’s still in one piece.”
“That’s not a great deal of comfort,” Judith moaned.
“And why move him at all?”
“It gets zanier,” Renie declared. “Didn’t you wonder
how Torchy Magee arrived so fast after Bertha hit the
alarm button?”
“No,” Judith admitted. “I didn’t even think about it.
I was too upset about Joe.”
“Torchy may run hard, but he doesn’t run fast,”
Renie pointed out. “He’s too bulky. Anyway, I figured
that the only place he could have come from in that
short period of time was the room we saw Robbie the
Robot enter. After giving Bertha the third degree, I
peeked inside the door. Robbie was still there, all
beeped out. The room is where they keep some of their
records, and it has a paper shredder that had been left
on. I figured that Torchy was in there shredding documents, maybe some that Robbie had delivered. Sure
enough, Torchy had left a couple of undamaged pages
next to the shredder.” Renie looked hard at Judith.
“They bore the name ‘Joe Flynn.’ ”
At first, Judith was baffled. According to Renie, the
two sheets appeared to be only the standard admitting
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forms. Except for Joe’s identification, the date, the
time, the type of injury, and the signature of the hospital staff member who had signed him in, there was
nothing of interest.
“That’s why I didn’t swipe them,” Renie explained.
“As long as they didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, I thought that stealing the two pages
would cause more trouble than it was worth.”
Judith frowned. “I wonder how many records from
this place have gone through that shredder in the past
month or so?”
“You mean like Joaquin Somosa’s and Joan Fremont’s and Bob Randall’s?” Renie suggested.
“Exactly.” Judith was silent for a few moments, then
turned to Renie again. “There is a cover-up, but I’m beginning to think it doesn’t have anything to do with the
hospital’s reputation per se.”
“What do you mean?” Renie asked.
Judith shook her head. “I’m not sure. I just have this
feeling that maybe it’s more personal than professional.”
She saw that Renie looked confused. “I have to think it
through, really, I do. By the way, did you notice someone moving around in the ICU while we were there?”
Renie made a face. “I don’t think so. Why? Did
you?”
Judith hesitated. “I did, and my first reaction was
that it was a nurse, but there was something not quite
right about whoever it was. Except for all those monitors with their red, green, and yellow lights, it was
completely dark. I could only make out a form. But