Mercy 6

by David Bajo

  “I see a blood line.”

  She knew Claiborne was wagging his head.

  “She found three dried blood-cell clusters on a hospital janitor.

  On a guy who’d been doing repairs all day. And the day before. And the day before that. In fact, you’re just finding a case for Thorpe.

  Blood contact.”

  “The three form a line,” replied Mendenhall. She traced the laser along the line. It wasn’t quite perfect, with one cluster just on the other side of the line. Then she straightened to address Mullich.

  “Any two points form a line. But a third point determines, no?”

  Mullich shrugged.

  Claiborne stepped closer to her.

  “You’ve gone myopic, Dr. Mendenhall. You’ve lost the big picture. You want to argue— to Thorpe—that maybe a microscopic blade lanced a janitor while he was on a ladder? Or that an intense burst of air went off inside his neck? And what about the others?”

  He motioned to the other bodies. “A serial killer with a light saber is loose in the hospital?”

  Mendenhall passed the scope to the tech. She sighed and pressed the back of her sleeve to her brow. She badly wanted to rub her eyes with her fingers.

  “The, what did you call it? Posturing?” said Mullich, his mask thickening his accent. “She saw that.” He pointed back to the lighted displays.

  Mendenhall looked down at her gloved hands, empty. She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t really say that she had seen posturing in Dozier. We see what we are. She saw what she was.

  She was a dream-deprived trauma specialist, one who had never escaped the ER, forever moonlighting to pay off loans that no longer existed. She didn’t even want to go home. She wanted the hospital to open, to let in more, to let in the outside.

  “Can infection cause posturing?” asked Mullich. He was looking at the tech. She answered only with lifted eyes. Her eyes held still, almost black above the dark blue mask.

  “Maybe a sudden bloom against the brain stem,” Claiborne answered. “Something like that, I could imagine.”

  “Imagine?” Mullich pulled his mask down.

  “Better than I can imagine a Jedi in a hospital.”

  Mendenhall was still bowed. “I’ll go rest,” she told Claiborne.

  “I’ll come back down if you want.”

  Claiborne let his mask fall away with a simple stroke behind his neck. His expression opened to her. “If I do a bunch of digital scans before Thorpe’s work, he’ll send people down. I like it down here like this. Quiet.” He pointed back to the displays. “You led me to that. We have that to show Thorpe. To put him on his heels a bit.”

  He waved toward the other bodies and the empty bed. “You gave me something to look for in them. Later. Soon, but later.”

  7.

  Mendenhall returned to her cubicle. She fussed with papers and journals, squared them, then struck them all, swiping outward with both hands. Atop the resulting mess lay the most recent issues of Tennis Magazine and Golf Digest. She recognized the tennis player but not the golfer. She wouldn’t have guessed that he was an athlete. Despite the airbrushing, she noticed a basal cell on the edge of his left temple. He should come see her. The subscriptions were gifts from her mentor, who knew well enough to have them mailed to the ER, where they would have some chance of being noticed.

  She had played tennis in college. Maybe the golf was supposed to be her future—her present.

  She put the magazines on a stack of previous issues on the floor, all unread save for the letters-to-the-editor sections. She hunched into her space. The cafeteria had been too crowded, people gathering and lingering there during containment. She swiveled her chair to assess the bay. Pao Pao stood in the center, directing the EMTs on where to push the remaining gurneys, where to set up any new patients coming from within Mercy.

  A young woman with straight black hair interrupted the nurse.

  She wore a lab coat. Even from this distance Mendenhall could see that she was extremely pretty, exotic. The EMTs peeked back at her. She must have said something important to Pao Pao because the nurse gave her immediate attention, no back, no resistance, no hesitation in her sturdy shoulders. The woman was even shorter than Pao Pao. She tapped notes into a hand tablet. When she finished with Pao Pao she came directly to Mendenhall.

  She wore a name tag on her lab coat. The tag was porcelain with engraved black letters: Silva. She was the tech from Pathology, the tag a gift. It felt good to look at her face, oval now without the mask and cap. To look at her hands without the gloves, fingers balancing the tablet. Her expression appeared haughty, which also soothed Mendenhall. The tech was bracing herself.

  “Forget something?”

  “Dr. Claiborne sent me to gather info on the patients. Their situations.”

  “When they fell?”

  Silva nodded, chin remaining upturned. “And how they were found. And where exactly.”

  “Exactly?”

  “That was Mullich. He asked for that.” Silva cocked her head.

  “And Dr. Claiborne okayed.”

  “Doesn’t he need your help down there?”

  “This will make things faster, give him clues as he examines.

  I send him the info as I go along.” She raised the tablet. “Body to body.”

  “You and Dr. Claiborne should work with live people, Silva.

  Whole people. Up here. All that efficiency is lost on the dead and waiting.”

  Silva ignored this, looking flatly at Mendenhall.

  “I can’t tell you anything more than Pao Pao could.”

  “I didn’t know you said it that way,” Silva replied.

  “Yes. ‘Pow pow.’ Like a gun.”

  “A toy gun, you mean.” Silva straightened her gaze. “I didn’t come here to ask you about the subjects.”

  “What, then?”

  “Never mind,” said Silva. “I should continue.” She turned.

  “No,” said Mendenhall. “Tell me.”

  Silva faced her, again angled her head. “I joined Pathology to get away from what I don’t understand. About this hospital, other hospitals. I don’t understand how it’s about avoiding the sick and injured. Avoiding charts. Not touching someone wheeled in for help.”

  “You wanted to ask me about that?”

  “I thought you were different. Dr. Claiborne always said you were different. But you’re not.”

  “And you are? You and Claiborne?” Mendenhall sighed to try to stop herself but continued, “It’s a little straighter down there. The charts and the patient cha-cha are gone. But it’s still all about power.

  Who has the most. Right? You’re up here helping Dr. Claiborne keep his floor clean of Thorpe’s people.”

  “He respects you.”

  “He uses me because I function as a challenge to Thorpe.”

  “I don’t accept that. He wants your knowledge. He uses that.”

  Silva brushed the tablet, read something. “I should go.”

  “Wait.” Mendenhall almost reached for her elbow, the perfect, sharp angle of it. “Mullich.”

  “Mullich?”

  “You said he asked for where. Exactly where they were found.”

  “Yes.” Silva raised her chin. “Makes sense.”

  “To you, yes. I get that. Anything to help explain why it was so fast. Why they just collapsed, went from fine to out.” Mendenhall felt a tired gnawing, doubt, a vanishing thread. “But what’s it to Mullich, exactly?”

  “This place is sick,” replied Silva. “This place may be dead. ”

  Mendenhall appreciated the way she then just walked away. As the tech moved across the bay, the EMTs and nurses and visitors parted for her. The elevators opened as soon as her small reflection appeared on the steel doors.

  8.

  From her cubicle, she watched Pao Pao. The nurse did not once look at her as she finished ordering the floor, but she was doing everything for Mendenhall. Twenty-five

  cur
tained stalls lined two opposing walls of the bay. Pao Pao had the EMTs put nine of the new patients in the stalls on one wall and five on the other side. The nine were Mendenhall’s, all easily observed from her cubicle, all an easy walk-along. This arrangement made it a little harder on the nurses, a little more zigzagged. Mendenhall wanted the hospital to give Pao Pao another title, something other than Nurse. When the floor was completely cleared according to containment standards, Pao Pao did not stop. She proceeded to visit each bed, starting with those on Mendenhall’s line.

  Pao Pao worked her way along three patients. She spent a minute with each one, her firm expression unchanging, her arms always in motion: adjusting sheets, gowns, IVs, rails, bed angles. The motion, the flex of muscle, reassured the patients, maybe just hypnotized them. The patients would begin with lots of words.

  Mendenhall could see their mouths, their furrowed brows. Pao Pao’s words appeared spare, about one of hers for every fifty of theirs. Then the patients tapered into silence beneath Pao Pao’s tucks and pulls. All of the other nurses on the floor were gathered at the station.

  Mendenhall checked her watch and decided she had given Silva a good lead. If she let her get started with the interviews and investigations, the tech might be more at ease, might be able to stick to her own approach. Mendenhall would have to guess which floor Silva had chosen first, which subject. She would stay away from Peterson because Thorpe’s people would be on Two. Fleming, on Four, would be the most static, and the witness was still there in the room. ICU, Verdasco’s floor, would be more controlled, so it would be a bit easier to track down witnesses.

  In the elevator, Mendenhall shoved in her express key and pushed Seven, right back to Dozier. This was better than trying to rest or eat cafeteria yogurt. She felt somewhat revived, the beginning energy of a reluctant run, blood quickening. Marking Claiborne, eluding Thorpe, trusting Pao Pao.

  On Seven, Mendenhall thought perhaps she had guessed

  incorrectly. The end of the hall, beyond the last patient room, was abandoned. Dozier’s ladder was still in position beneath the broken light, the glass and powder of the shattered fluorescent still not swept. No doubt someone from physical plant was presiding over a debate regarding whose job description required subbing for Dozier. Mendenhall crouched over the glass and powder. The splash pattern formed a line at the base of the ladder, oddly neat.

  The replacement tube leaned against the riser; Dozier’s tool belt was looped over the little folding platform. There was a footprint across the line of glass, where someone had stepped to attend Dozier.

  “They were more concerned with their shoes.” Silva had appeared above her. “Than with him, I mean.”

  Mendenhall, still crouched, looked over her shoulder at Silva.

  The tech had fetched a CPR dummy and was cradling it.

  “Yes. You’d expect more shuffling over the glass.” Mendenhall looked at the dummy.

  “Still,” replied Silva. “Good for us. All this inertia.”

  “Us?”

  “Pathology.” Silva sat the dummy against the wall, readied her tablet with a brush of a middle finger. “We can use you since you’re here. Instead of him.” She nodded to the dummy.

  Mendenhall rose out of her crouch, looked once down the hall, which was empty to the nurses’ station, then out the window at the near end. The night view of the city held her for a moment. She pointed to the ladder.

  “You want me to be Dozier.”

  Silva nodded as she brushed and tapped her tablet, lips parted in concentration.

  “I interviewed the patient who found him. Her room is under containment, so I had her sketch Dozier. Had her tell me everything as she did that. She was kind of freaked by my mask and gloves, but I think that helped us get to the point. Then I interviewed the nurses to determine time as best as possible.”

  “Already?” Mendenhall was eyeing the ladder.

  “I’m on a schedule. I have an hour. Then back down to the lab.”

  Mendenhall started up the ladder.

  “Wait,” said Silva. “I can be Dozier. I just thought you were closer to his height.”

  “No. No. It’s fine.” Mendenhall ascended the ladder. “Let’s do these right. You can be the shorties.”

  “He was slumped over the top. Calmly. The witness said calmly.

  Like a rag doll.”

  Mendenhall looked around from the perch, not bending over yet. “A rag doll? You mean the arms were straight?”

  “Yes. And out a bit. We followed up on that. Like a rag doll without elbows.”

  “So there was a trace of posturing?”

  “Yes.”

  Mendenhall looked down. She could see the surface of Silva’s tablet, that she was sending and receiving. She saw the line of broken glass. “The glass and the powder.”

  Silva bent her head to see. Her black hair divided cleanly over her nape. “What about it?”

  “It’s too straight. Right below this light. It fell straight down.” Then Mendenhall pointed to the two sockets. “Look.

  The prongs are still in. Dozier didn’t drop it. It rained down from here.”

  “Yes. That would fit,” replied Silva. She brushed and tapped her tablet. “The patient strolled to the end window. Saw Dozier climbing to the burned-out fluorescent. He nodded to her, seemed fine. After she passed, she heard the glass falling on the floor, turned and saw him slumped over.”

  “His hand must’ve pulled it down as he collapsed.”

  “Yeah.” Silva tapped the ladder. “You need to slump over. Like Dozier.”

  Mendenhall did this, positioned her arms.

  “Hold still.” With a cloth measuring tape, Silva plumbed a line from Mendenhall’s waist to the floor. She marked the linoleum with a grease pencil used for skin. She then used a small digital camera to take a profile of Mendenhall. “Okay, Doctor.”

  “I feel like Claiborne’s puppet.” Mendenhall descended the ladder, flexed her shoulders.

  “More Mullich’s,” Silva replied as she measured the distance from the floor mark to the walls. “He’s the one who wants these exact locations and positions. We’re more focused on time and behavior.”

  Mendenhall looked at the window view again and this time stepped to it, about a pace and a half from the ladder. She recognized the view. She pointed up to the ceiling. “I was somewhere there above him. Right up there on the roof, looking out at this.” She waved to the nightscape of the city.

  Silva said nothing as she entered and sent information. When she started to retrieve the dummy, Mendenhall stopped her.

  “Leave him for the nurses. Which one next?”

  9.

  Fleming’s room, too, was in containment, the sliding glass door locked. All the front walls on fourth floor recovery had been converted to glass. Last year the floor had been closed for one month during conversion. Mullich. This made several things easier and better, including containment and patient monitoring. Mendenhall wondered how far Mullich would go with the glass.

  She and Silva viewed Fleming’s roommate before entering. The woman stared back, leaning forward, eyes wide. The cone of light from her bedside lamp appeared somehow domestic, yellow and shaded.

  “We’ll break her heart if we put on masks and gloves.”

  Silva put on fresh gloves and a mask. She handed Mendenhall a new set. “I’ll be Fleming.”

  The roommate rose further from her recline as Mendenhall snapped on her gloves. The sliding door produced a soft breath as it opened. The room felt cool. Silva immediately moved bedside.

  “We just have some questions. And you’ll have to help us re-create Fleming’s collapse.”

  Mendenhall would have let this approach continue, would have happily joined in, but the roommate was locking up. “Ms. Silva is a lab technician. I’m Dr. Mendenhall.” She recalled the chart she had done for Fleming. “I treated Lana when they brought her to ER.”

  She pretended to examine the screen showing the patient’s vital
s.

  Silva turned to Mendenhall, tablet raised. “I’m sorry, Doctor. Dr.

  Claiborne ordered me to ask, order, and go.” She turned back to the patient. “Tell us what happened.”

  Mendenhall took the patient’s pulse anyway, figuring the touch would offer some comfort. Comfort produced clarity. In the ER, two seconds of comfort sometimes brought all the clarity anyone needed.

  “I don’t know.” The patient stared at the empty space above her knees. “We were having some tea. From my tray. Lana was standing about where you are.” She looked at Silva.

  “Was the tray over you?”

  “No. Lana had pushed it aside and was serving us. Was saying how we’d get together and have a proper tea somewhere nice.” Her eyes widened. “Somewhere they didn’t serve Jell-O. Then . . . she kind of blew out a little breath. Just a tiny puff. Then she fell over, right across me.”

  “How did she present?” asked Silva.

  The woman stared.

  “What did she do right before she fell over?” Mendenhall offered her a bottle of water. “How did her eyes look? Her arms.”

  “It wasn’t sudden. It was calm. Like she had grown tired. Tired from something she was remembering. She just looked down and breathed that one puff. Her arms? Her arms didn’t do anything.

  She even held on to the tea mug. It spilled across my bed. Like her.

  Just. Spilled.”

  “Her elbows bent?”

  “Yes. Like when you lie down to sleep. Everything like that.

  Like lying down to sleep when you’re very, very tired.”

  “I’m going to place myself over you,” Silva told her. “You direct me. Try to place me as best you can just like Fleming was.”

  Silva laid herself over the patient. Her hair fell across her face, covering her mask. The patient reached to adjust the cool black strands, but Mendenhall caught her by the elbow. “Don’t touch, just direct. Let her do the arranging.”

  “One arm was out and over. The other was back and down. She fell more over than that, more over me.”