Journaled to Death

by Heather Redmond

  ‘Did he have a quad shot earlier in the day?’

  ‘Not when I was working,’ Mandy said. ‘But if there is going to be an investigation, they’ll have to talk to Kit and Fannah as well.’

  ‘He’s being forced to take a blood test,’ Jeanie told her.

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Certainly they’ll order a Theophylline and Caffeine Blood Test,’ the nurse said, ‘but also a basic blood workup to see what else is wrong.’

  ‘He’s been a little erratic lately,’ Dr Nguyen whispered. She pulled her surgical cap lower on her forehead as if to help herself hide. ‘The chief’s policy for an incident like this is a drug screen, then a medical exam, and maybe even a chat with a psychiatrist, depending on what happened.’

  ‘Wow.’ Mandy’s hands shook. Could she be fired for making a surgeon the wrong order? Why did all the bad things in her work life suddenly seem to revolve around Dr O’Halloran?

  SIXTEEN

  The next morning, Mandy arrived just before seven. She opened on Wednesdays, and unless someone had contacted Fannah outside of work, the boss lady wouldn’t hear the latest Dr O’Halloran story until she came in at nine-thirty.

  Kit arrived at eight-thirty. As she tied on her apron, Mandy gave her a passing glance and saw Kit had applied makeup around her eyes to hide the damage.

  ‘So glad you’re here,’ Mandy said out of the side of her mouth. She’d been run off her feet since she turned on the lights. Most of the customers had been visiting patients.

  ‘Full moon,’ Kit told her, and bumped Mandy’s shoulder so she could take over the cash register. ‘Makes everyone hungry.’

  Mandy moved aside to the espresso machine to make the drinks she’d just rung up. ‘Donuts are sold out and there are only two muffins left.’

  ‘Cool,’ Kit said. ‘Make some cookies as soon as you’re done with that order. I’ll hold down the fort.’ She moved her jaw as if it ached, then forced a smile as she took a five-dollar bill from a customer.

  An hour later, Mandy had just pulled cookies out of their toaster oven when Fannah clocked in. ‘Running late?’ Usually she appeared a few minutes before clock-in time.

  ‘Accident on Broadway has everything snarled up.’ Fannah was at the sink washing her hands when Kit poked her head into the doorway.

  ‘You need to get back out here. There’s a line four deep.’ Kit dashed back to the cash register.

  When Mandy saw Fannah’s glare, she said, ‘We don’t have any baked goods to sell.’ She quickly moved the cooling cookies to a tray, careful not to bend or break them, and rushed out to put them in the display.

  Fifteen minutes later, all the cookies were sold. They sold even faster than black coffee, though Kit had more brewing. Fannah came out with another batch of ginger thins, an uncharacteristic smile on her face.

  Fannah gestured at Mandy then returned to the back room. Mandy leaned through the doorway as Fannah pulled off her disposable gloves. ‘I’m glad business is up again. I was getting worried.’

  ‘It’s been crazy since yesterday.’

  ‘Full moon?’ Fannah said.

  ‘Too cloudy for me to tell but Kit says so,’ Mandy said, remembering she had created a journal-sized lunar calendar for her online shop. Even though science had basically disproved lunar involvement in things like births, people still believed the old wives’ tales.

  ‘Hmmm. I hope it keeps up.’

  ‘I need to get back out there.’

  ‘I just want you to mix up more cookies. All the batter is gone,’ Fannah said. ‘I’ll take over the register.’

  Mandy cleared her throat. ‘I need to give you a head’s up.’

  ‘On what?’ Fannah dropped her gloves into the garbage can.

  Mandy told her about Dr O’Halloran’s quad shot claim.

  ‘I can run a report and see what he paid for,’ Fannah said. ‘But someone who is used to quad shots shouldn’t react so severely as to be removed from a surgery.’

  Mandy nodded her agreement. ‘Probably he’s just coming down with something. I’ve seen signs of another flu outbreak.’

  ‘Those surgeons like to believe they are superheroes,’ Fannah said disdainfully. ‘Hopefully Doctor O’s craziness won’t get out and hurt him, or us. But I’ll run a full report on his employee payments from yesterday, since we don’t know if he ordered multiple times.’

  ‘I had better tell you something else,’ Mandy said, wishing she didn’t have to. ‘You know about the biscotti betrayal, but the thing is, he asked me out recently and I said no. I feel like I have a target on my back where’s he’s concerned.’

  ‘These alpha males love to cause trouble when we say no,’ Fannah said. ‘Look at Scott.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘The security camera drama? He’s jerking us around because I shot him down,’ she said with an expressive roll of her eyes.

  ‘Right.’ Mandy hadn’t even considered that possibility. ‘I should have figured that out.’

  ‘Men.’ Fannah clicked her tongue against her teeth.

  ‘Men,’ Mandy echoed.

  Fannah pointed toward the toaster oven and stepped around her.

  Mandy realized their scant moment of bonding had ended, and headed into the prep room. ‘Right. Cookies.’

  When Mandy returned from her lunch break, she found Fannah in the back room, leaning against their cubbies while the ER’s chief medical resident took her desk chair. Zvonimir Krygier wore a thick gold wedding ring and spoke of his wife often, which kept him from receiving too much attention from female staff, so he wasn’t there to flirt with Fannah. Mandy thought he looked younger than Dr O’Halloran, who reported to him, and wondered why her surgeon frenemy was still a resident.

  ‘Doctor Krygier came to give us an update on the O’Halloran matter,’ Fannah announced.

  Mandy nodded, all pleasure from her excellent salad lunch vanishing.

  The doctor’s gaze narrowed on her. Mandy shifted uncomfortably as he considered her for a long moment before speaking.

  ‘Fannah tells me that you informed her of the gossip regarding our surgical incident yesterday.’

  Mandy rubbed at her eye. ‘This morning.’

  ‘In the ER, we follow a three-step policy when surgeons have been involved in an incident of this magnitude, which includes blood tests.’

  She nodded.

  The doctor continued. ‘Doctor O’Halloran’s blood test showed a therapeutic dose of Adderall, but he does not have a prescription.’

  ‘What is that?’ Mandy asked.

  ‘It is a central nervous system stimulant. It is used to treat ADHD, among other conditions. It is also commonly abused.’

  Mandy didn’t want to ask the question. ‘It’s like an amphetamine, then? He was taking it to stay awake?’

  ‘It is an amphetamine,’ Fannah clarified.

  ‘It can increase alertness, attention and energy level,’ Dr Krygier confirmed. ‘Which is why people abuse it. But the side effects include shaking, dizziness and paranoia.’

  ‘Paranoia?’ Mandy queried.

  Dr Krygier stared hard at her. ‘I’m telling you this because Doctor O’Halloran blames you for the medication being in his system.’

  Mandy clutched one hand in the other. ‘Me! What on earth …?’

  ‘He claims you somehow gave it to him in his drink.’

  She stared at the chief resident. ‘I’m flummoxed. I’m just one of the baristas.’

  ‘I told Doctor Krygier about Doctor O’Halloran asking you out,’ Fannah said.

  Mandy’s memory flashed through a few high-school dramas, but she’d been with Cory so long that a lot of dating problems had not been part of her life. She could not fathom why someone she’d rejected in such a casual manner could have betrayed her so completely that he could cause her to be fired.

  ‘Did you give Doctor O’Halloran Adderall in any way?’ the resident asked.

  ‘Of course not. I don’t have access to it,�
�� Mandy said. ‘I’ve never given anyone anything except what they ordered from the coffee bar.’

  ‘Very well,’ the doctor said, in that calm surgeon’s voice. ‘We’re done here for now.’

  ‘Go give Kit her break,’ Fannah said.

  Mandy felt like her face had been frozen in confused horror as she turned back around. How was she supposed to hear these accusations and then return to work, helping customers, like nothing had happened?

  On the other hand, she was lucky to have the opportunity to serve them. Dr O’Halloran could still cost her this job.

  Mandy felt absolutely wrung out by the time she arrived home. They had worked double time all afternoon, serving many more customers than usual, and nearly all beverages because she couldn’t keep up with cookie production. Even the string cheese and hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerated case were gone. On her way home, an accident on Madison had cost her twenty minutes. After a stop at Safeway to pick up a few groceries, she finally trundled home.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Vellum demanded, grabbing one of the bags from her mother’s hand when she struggled into the mudroom at almost six.

  ‘Long day,’ Mandy said. ‘But I have soup fixings.’

  ‘You don’t have time to cook tonight,’ Vellum said impatiently. ‘It’s the eighteenth. We need to get the March ‘Plan With Me’ up and then the sticker orders will start pouring in.’

  Mandy yawned, only covering her mouth with her hand halfway through. ‘We’ll fulfill orders all weekend. I do need to cook tonight or we’re going to be living on pizza. I’ll start the upload and then get that veggie quinoa soup together. It’s mostly cans.’ She waited for her daughter to say pizza was fine, but she didn’t. Either Vellum actually wanted to eat healthy, or she knew money was tight.

  ‘Fine, Mom, but don’t wait, OK? I have a paper due Monday. I’m going to be busy at least half the weekend.’

  ‘I thought you had an early-release day tomorrow? Some teacher in-service?’

  ‘Yeah, but I have a test on Friday, so I’ll use that time to study.’

  Mandy regarded her. ‘Will you be OK here alone all afternoon? If the traffic gods are kind I’ll be home by four, but that’s at least a couple of hours here alone. Do you want to go to Grandma’s? Or the library?’

  ‘I’ll lock myself in my room,’ Vellum said. ‘And put my headphones on while I study. No ghosts in my bedroom.’

  ‘I haven’t seen anything in the laundry room, either,’ Mandy said.

  Vellum fixed her with a stare, then flipped her thick hair over her shoulder. ‘Would you rather believe I saw an intruder? The murderer returning?’

  ‘Ghost it is.’ Wearily, Mandy saluted her, waved her hands vaguely at the grocery bags, and went to her computer. Even if there really had been an intruder, they’d have been after Ryan’s possessions, which were long gone now. And she had all those new locks, too.

  Mandy woke at five a.m. to the sound of her phone alerting her to a text. She struggled to a sitting position and blinked until her eyes focused.

  I’ll pay OT if you come in early, said the text from Fannah. We need to restock.

  Mandy groaned and texted back. On my way. At least she’d pay off all the excess groceries from yesterday. When had the price of everything gone up?

  Mandy arrived in the parking garage just as Fannah exited her car. They entered the back room together and clocked in. A full hour of overtime.

  ‘Cookies,’ Fannah ordered. ‘I’ll restock the cases.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Mandy croaked. She hadn’t been able to get anything into her system at home.

  ‘I’ll do that first,’ Fannah agreed. ‘Who knows what today is going to be like.’

  They worked frantically until Fannah turned on the lights at six-thirty. A line had already formed of nurses still gossiping about Dr O’Halloran. The general consensus seemed to be that he needed to be nursed back to health, since he was simply too good-looking to forget.

  Mandy hid her revulsion and continued to take orders on autopilot. Fannah went around with a smile on her high-cheekboned face, looking more like a catalog model than a high-fashion one because of her expression.

  ‘What’s got her so happy?’ Kit muttered, as Mandy walked past for her lunch break hours later.

  ‘Ka-ching,’ Mandy said in her ear. ‘I think she gets a monthly bonus if our sales reach a certain point.’

  By the time she arrived back from lunch, the coffee bar had slowed down. Mandy took the time in the prep room to change her USea T-shirt, which had acquired a coffee stain. When she walked into the back room to clock in, she found Fannah standing with two suit-wearing middle-aged men.

  Fannah glared at her, all geniality vanished. Mandy clocked in, pretending to ignore the meeting, then went to take over the cash register from Kit.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered.

  ‘They’re from administration,’ Kit said. ‘I saw their titles on the badges when they walked by.’

  ‘More about O’Hottie?’

  ‘Probably.’ Kit smiled as a harried young couple appeared at the cash register, holding balloons and a pink teddy bear.

  After the pair was gone, Fannah appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Put up the closed sign,’ she snapped, and then turned off the coffee bar lights.

  Mandy’s pulse jumped. This couldn’t be good.

  Fannah gestured impatiently. As Kit walked forward, Mandy saw Scott and one of his jump-suited minions walking their way. She shrugged in their direction and went into the backroom.

  The space wasn’t tiny, but with five people in there it felt it. The aftershave one of the administrators wore filled up the space, instead of the usual delicious cookie smells. Mandy hoped it didn’t infuse her precious baked goods.

  ‘I’m Jason Cho, assistant hospital administrator,’ one of them said.

  The other man didn’t speak, but Mandy spotted the word ‘director’ on his badge, though she couldn’t read of what. ‘Hello,’ Mandy said.

  Jason cleared his throat. Maybe the other man’s overpowering cologne was bothering him too. ‘A few nurses are ill. All of them reported coming here to the coffee bar.’

  ‘We’ve had hundreds of customers this week,’ Fannah said.

  Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘All of these nurses have been vomiting about half an hour after they visited the coffee bar.’

  ‘Is it one group of people?’ Mandy asked. ‘Like they all drank from a single coffee urn?’

  ‘They all ordered cookies,’ the director said, wafting fresh cologne in her direction as he turned.

  Mandy squeezed her eyes closed. ‘I cleaned out the oven just this morning.’

  ‘Cleaning supply residue?’ Fannah said.

  Mandy shook her head. ‘I clean it the same way every time. The products are the same. I wore gloves. I’m not ill, nor is my daughter.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Jason said. ‘We’re going to bring in a team to disinfect your prep room and the bakery case. All the ingredients will be thrown out. Your supervisor will do the reordering.’

  ‘Are we being laid off?’ Kit asked.

  ‘I’ll be in touch when you can return to work,’ Fannah said. ‘But there has to be an investigation.’

  ‘How many nurses?’ Mandy asked. ‘Why just nurses?’

  ‘Three. We might not know if non-hospital employees became ill,’ Jason said. ‘Nurses are a specific population.’

  ‘Yes, but we serve cookies to doctors, technicians, administrative personnel. Only nurses becoming ill makes no sense.’ Mandy squeezed her fingers around the hem of her T-shirt, as if she could anchor herself to the bar. Hearing she might have made people sick made her own lunch sit uneasily in her stomach.

  ‘We’re investigating,’ Jason said.

  Mandy locked her muscles together to keep from trembling. ‘I apologize if I did anything to make people sick, sir. But I genuinely can’t think of anything.’

  ‘We’ll b
e in touch if we need to interview you further,’ Fannah said formally. ‘But I’ve been here with you all day and saw no sign of anything amiss.’

  Mandy nodded, glad at least that Fannah wasn’t turning her back on her employees in order to save herself.

  ‘Keep the lights off,’ Jason said. He and the odiferous director stepped around them. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  ‘We should empty the urns and do the cleanup,’ Mandy said.

  ‘Clock out,’ Fannah said. ‘I’m not in charge right now.’

  ‘Fine,’ Kit said. ‘This is crazy. But I need to get my ID out of the till. I left it there for safekeeping.’

  ‘Why?’ Fannah asked.

  Kit shrugged. ‘I always do that. Remember when that janitor was stealing from desks a couple of years ago?’

  Fannah handed her the cash register override key. ‘Clock out first, then get your ID. And don’t leave it there again.’

  ‘I guess I’ll head out,’ Mandy said. ‘Kit, do you want me to wait for you?’

  ‘Don’t bother. I took the bus today,’ Kit said, not looking at her.

  Mandy wanted to ask if she’d still receive overtime pay for her first hour, but she knew the answer was no. She was only getting a seven-hour shift today, and who knew when she’d get more hours.

  Or if she had a job at all after today. After she clocked out, she grabbed her bag from her cubby and went out the back way, heading for the parking garage. Her emotions felt muted, maybe by the onslaught of cologne, but still, tears welled up in her eyes as she headed into the sky bridge that led to the parking garage.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Mandy glanced up to see Dr Burrell, his eyes kind behind his glasses. He wore a plaid-lined jacket that looked like it belonged in a lumber camp, but it fit tightly enough to display his wide shoulders. They looked perfect to cry on, and she wished she could lean her head against the rough-looking coat and hide from the world.

  ‘I was just coming to get coffee. You’re off early.’

  ‘We’re shut down. Some nurses reported getting sick after they ate our cookies.’