In the night-table drawer, they found an address book, an appointment calendar, and a budget-aid spiral notebook.
"We'd like to take these with us," Carella said, leafing through the appointment calendar.
"Nope," Harding said.
Both detectives looked at him.
"We'll give you a receipt," Brown said.
"Nope," Harding said.
The detectives looked at each other.
"That stuff ain't mine," Harding said. "I got no right to let you take it.”
Carella gave the man a look that could have melted Greenland. He sat in the easy chair, took out his pad, and began copying Mary Vincent's appointments for the two weeks preceding her murder. Then he went back to the night table, put all three books into the drawer again, gave Harding another look, and said, "We'll be back.”
In the car again, Brown said, "Son of a bitch is forcing us to get a warrant.”
"Well, I guess he's right," Carella said. "Most people would've accepted a receipt.”
'People don't like cops, is what it is. We remind them of storm troopers.”
"You and me?”
"All of us.”
"He probably understands sheriffs better," Brown said.
"Probably.”
"Want to run downtown for it now?”
"Doctor said he'd be leaving at four.”
"We don't hurry, we may miss a judge," Brown said.
"Let's do the doctor and the priest, save the cowboy for last. What do you think?”
"Sure. Either way, we have to drive half an hour downtown, the son of a bitch.”
Neither of the men noticed the little green Honda following them some six car lengths behind.
The Doctor in charge of what was euphemistically called the Extensive Care Ward at St. Margaret's Hospital was named Winston Hall, which made him sound like a college dormitory. The detectives supposed he was somewhere in his forties, a tall, suntanned, angular man with an infectious smile and a pleasant, soft-spoken manner. He was wearing a rumpled wheat-colored linen jacket over sand-colored slacks, a pale blue shirt, and a delicately hued blue and-yellow-striped cotton tie.
Sitting behind his third-floor desk at a quarter past three that Monday afternoon, he seemed dressed more for a boat ride around the island than a day at the office.
He explained that there were forty beds on the floor, most of them occupied by patients who required long-term nursing, many of whom, in fact, belonged in nursing homes rather than a hospital.
"The homes 911 'em out to us the minute there's a serious problem, hoping we'll keep them forever. Sometimes we do, but with many of our patients forever is a short-term probability.”
"What kind of patients was Mary treating?”
"We've got all kinds on this floor Hall said.
"COPD, terminal cancer, Alzheimer's ...”
"What's COPD?”
"Chronic Obstructional Pulmonary Disease. Asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis. Most of them are on oxygen. We've also got a woman with Whipple's Disease, she's been dying for the past three years, refuses to let go. She's got a PEG tube sutured into her belly, that's how we feed her and administer medi ...”
“What's a peg tube?" Brown asked.
"P, E, G, all caps," Hall said. "It's an acronym for Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy. The woman with Whipple's has a PEG in her belly and a permanent catheter in her chest wall. She has no control of her extremities, no teeth, she's balding at the back of her head because no matter how many times we turn her, she ends up on her back.
She really should be a DNR, but she refuses to sign the permission forms.”
"What's that?" Brown asked.
"DNR? Do Not Resuscitate. Big sign at the foot of the bed, DNR.
Essentially, it means let 'em die.”
Carella was thinking he wouldn't do this kind of work for five million dollars.
"One of our patients has prostate cancer that metastasized to bone,”
Hall said. "Another has lung cancer that metastasized to bone and brain. We've got a bilateral amputee on the ward, he's incontinent of stool, his skin's broken down, and he's got a permanent trache tube in his throat.”
Not for ten million dollars, Carella thought. "This isn't a fun ward,”
Hall said. Mind reader, Carella thought.
"Mary began working for me six months ago. Transferred here from a hospice in San Diego, which is where her mother house is. I believe she spoke to the major superior there, who referred her to the director of ministry. I'm glad they sent her here, believe me. Quite often, as was the case with Mary, a woman religious can be more devoted than the most dedicated doctor.”
Carella, quick study that he was, figured that "woman religious" was the politically correct term for nun. Somehow, he preferred nun. Same way he preferred cop to police officer.
"We have a hundred and ten beds here at St. Margaret's," Hall said.
"Four hundred people on the staff, including the Christ's Mercy nuns.
The other hospital run by the order is even smaller. The government's cutting back on funds, you know, and some seventy percent of our patients are either welfare or Medicaid recipients. The sisters are just scraping by, but they're really committed to serving the poor.
Last year St. Margaret's had close to twenty-five hundred admissions.
There were twelve hundred clinic visits every month, nine hundred emergency room visits, four hundred outpatient surgeries. This is a poor neighborhood. We're much needed here. I'll miss Mary sorely, I can tell you that. She was a thorough professional, and a wonderful person.”
"Know anyone who may have felt otherwise?" Carella asked.
"Not a soul. I've worked with nuns for the past ten years now, and they're as different one from the other as any other women. I'm sure some of them may, in fact, be exactly like the childish little creatures or strict disciplinarians we see portrayed on television, giggling as they carry in the sheaves or snarling as they crack a ruler over the knuckles of a schoolboy. But I've never personally met a nun who fits the stereotype. For the most part, they are complex, intelligent women who share only one trait their complete devotion to God. Mary considered her work here a divinely inspired gift. The nuns call it charism, you know, the work chosen for them by God. Mary's work was particularly difficult. She labored for God tirelessly, dutifully, and cheerfully. I'd sometimes hear her ...”
His voice broke.
"She'd ... sometimes sing to the patients on the ward, she had a beautiful voice. There wasn't anyone who didn't feel enlightened and encouraged by her very presence. Everyone here will miss her.”
"Were you working here last Friday, Doctor?" Carella asked.
"Yes, I was.”
"Did Mary seem her usual self?”
"Yes, her same sweet self." He considered this a moment, nodded, and said, "We worked on and off together all through the day. I saw no difference in her behavior.”
"Nothing strange or. “
"Nothing at all. She was her usual sweet self. I'm sorry to keep using that word. "Sweet' can sometimes be misconstrued as insipid. But Mary had a manner that somehow soothed and at the same time cheered. A certain ... sweetness, yes. In her smile, in her eyes. She seemed to be a completely realized human being, and as such she spread joy as if it were an infection. I'm sorry," he said, and turned his face away for a moment. "I was very fond of her. We all were.”
He pulled a tissue from the box on his desk, dabbed at his eyes, blew his nose. The detectives waited. "I'm sorry," he said again.
"Dr. Hall," Brown said, "did she happen to mention where she might be going after work last Friday?”
“No, she didn't.”
"When was the last time you saw her that day?”
“Let me think." They waited.
"Just before the shift ended, I would suppose.”
“What time would that have been?”