Standing up as the doctor entered the waiting room, Bracco went back into the hallway. One of the nurses-he didn't know which one-still sat at the console, facing away from him, working at a computer terminal. The other was nowhere to be seen.
He crossed the hall and in ten steps was at the door to the ICU. A wired-glass pane afforded a clear view inside the room. He saw nothing but beds. A last look at the typing nurse, a glance toward the waiting room-no one was visible. In an instant he was inside.
He checked his watch and moved. Forcing himself to an almost leisurely pace, he walked the periphery marked by the beds, stopping while he counted to five-the most he could bear-at each one. The entire circuit took him forty-eight seconds.
Again, he checked the door's central windowpane. Then he pushed at it, was back in the hall, and let it close behind him.
At the nurses' station, he cleared his throat and the same woman he'd originally spoken to turned from her work at the computer. "Did your partner come back out yet? I notice that a doctor just came into the waiting room. I was wondering if she'd come out with him?"
The nurse smiled at him. "I think she may have just run to the bathroom for a minute. She ought to be right back." She, too, glanced down the hall to where the doctor had gone. "When she does, it might be a good time for those questions you said you had for us."
"That's what I was just working on back there." He motioned to the waiting room. "As it turns out, I don't think I'm going to need them after all. But thanks for your time. Sorry to have bothered you."
"No problem," she said. "Anytime."
Downstairs, Bracco learned that Connie Rowe had returned from lunch and that she and Inspector Fisk had gone back to the cafeteria where they could talk without too much interruption. By the time he sat down with them, Fisk had started. They sat kitty-corner to one another and the tiny tape recorder was on the table between them. Praying that Fisk had remembered to turn it on, Bracco pulled up his chair.
Q: You know Inspector Bracco? From last week? Ms. Rowe was just telling me about her partner, Rajan is it?
A: Rajan Bhutan.
Q: What about him?
A: Well, as I was telling Inspector Fisk, it's nothing really specific. The way the shifts break, I only wind up working with him in the ICU about ten times a year, but it seems as though every time he's on, something bad happens.
Q: Do you mean somebody dies?
A: No, not just that. People are always dying there because they're usually critical when they come in. But
I haven't worked a shift with Rajan without incident in at least the last year. I don't mean to speak badly of him, but…it's just really creepy. He's really creepy, just skulking around, never talking to anybody really.
Q: Do you think he had anything to do with Mr. Markham's death?
A: I don't know about that. That's such a strong accusation. But then when you all came in on Friday and started asking us questions, and you notice he barely said a word? Didn't it seem that way to you? And he knows how the shifts work as well as anybody. And what happened that day. Who was there.
Q: Ms. Rowe, excuse me for butting in, but when Inspector Fisk asked you if you meant that people died in the ICU when Rajan was on, you said 'not just that,' isn't that right? What did you mean by that? Not just what?
A: Not just dying.
Q: But that, too.
A: Yes, but as I say, a week doesn't go by without that.
But things-supplies, I mean-they go missing. And he hovers. Do you know what I'm saying? He lurks, and he hovers. You'll be coming around a corner and he'll suddenly just be there. Standing there. It's very creepy. Nobody can stand him.
Q: Was he there last Tuesday? In the ICU when Mr. Markham died? Is that what you're saying?
A: We were both in there for both the code blues. I know that. Before that, I was at the desk-
Q: Were you at the computer?
A: I think so, it's a little jumbled now, but I think I was placing some orders, but I don't know where he was.
Q: Ms. Rowe, when you got the signal-the code blue, is it?-and you went into the ICU, was he already there?
A: Yes. By Mr. Lector. The other man that died.
Q: Was there anybody else in the room?
A: Just Dr. Kensing.
Q: And where was he?
A: With Rajan. By Mr. Lector. He was the first code blue.
Q: In other words, they were not by Mr. Markham.
A: No. His monitor went off a few seconds later.
At one o'clock, Hardy picked up the phone on his desk and heard the drawl of the medical examiner. "Y'all owe me a thousand dollars. I assumed you were in some kind of hurry, seein' as you had the body delivered straight from the wake, so I worked all day yesterday, Sunday, an' brought in my best lab person. Then a couple of hours this morning. Mr. Lector died because his heart stopped beatin' and nothin' more."
"No potassium?"
"Nothin', Diz. I ran all the scans down to the C level. There wasn't so much as a wayward aspirin he shouldn't'a had in him."
"That wasn't exactly what I'd hoped."
"I know that, you made it clear enough. But look at the bright side. No matter what, your client didn't kill Mr. Lector."
This brought a dry chuckle. "Thanks, John. That eases my mind considerably."
"You're welcome. And Diz?"
"Yo."
"While I do love my work, there don't seem to be no shortage. This here is your wild-goose allotment for the year."
Rajan Bhutan spoke through his hang-dog face with the clipped, singsong formality of the subcontinent's accent. "The woman is an idiot," he said with resignation in his tone. He was alone in the nurses' lounge with Bracco and Fisk. "I've had nothing but trouble from her from when she began here, because she is lazy and prejudiced against me. And now you tell me she accuses me of killing these gentlemen? This is really intolerable. I will have to speak with her. And perhaps with the administration."
In his inexperience, Fisk had mentioned that they'd talked to Ms. Rowe and his name had come up. Now of course, Bhutan was angry with Rowe, and wanted to talk about her failings as a nurse and human being, rather than what he had done last Tuesday night. And naturally Bhutan also figured that these same police would repeat everything that he said to his coworkers. It wasn't the best way to approach an interview. It wasn't even the second best way.
Bracco had taken over the lead in the questioning, trying to get back on point. "Are you telling us you were not in the room when the monitors for Markham went off?"
"Yes. For him. I had rushed in for Mr. Lector, who was first."
"And where were you just before then?"
A disgusted look settled on his features. "You may believe this or not, but even Dr. Ross must have seen me as he came out of the waiting room when the first monitor called. I was with one of the gurneys in the hall, right away there. I believe there were two or three of them, backed up. This is intolerable," he repeated.
"So let me get this straight," Bracco prodded. "You're telling us that when the code blue went off for Mr. Lector, there wasn't anybody in the ICU?"
"Except that it wasn't yet a code blue. Dr. Kensing had just gone in again before; then when I got to Mr. Lector's bedside, he had me call it up."
"And then you were all working on Mr. Lector when Mr. Markham's monitors started to do whatever they do?"
"They screech continually. But yes."
"Nobody had just gone near him?"
"Not that I saw, no."
Hardy and Freeman were walking uphill on Sutter Street. The sun had never quite cut through the cloud cover and now the fitful breeze of the morning had freshened into steady wind, as well. It wasn't, all in all, a great day for a stroll, but Freeman had told Hardy that he could only take some time to talk if they could combine it with a shopping trip to Freeman's cigar supplier. He was almost out of them-meaning, Hardy supposed, that he was down to his last dozen or so.