by Ray Flynt
“Can I help you?” a woman asked sharply.
“Just passing through,” Brad said. “I was in the stairwell when the fire alarm stopped.”
The woman approached, close enough that he could make out her features in the reduced light. She was about his age and wore scrubs like the other nurses he’d met.
“I’m sorry, but it’s almost 4 a.m. and visitors aren’t supposed to be here.” As if it was an afterthought, she added, “They’ve asked us to check ID on any unknown persons.”
“Works for me,” Brad said, glad to know that the hospital had stepped up its vigilance and more glad that he’d asked for a hospital ID. Brad took the lanyard holding his identification from around his neck and passed it to the nurse.
She seemed to relax as she looked at the details, and then handed it back. “Thanks,” she said. “If you’d like I can show you the elevators.”
Brad replaced the lanyard and followed her down the hall. As they reached the nurses’ station, an irritatingly familiar voice boomed, “I figured it was you.”
Brad turned and spotted Lumpy Carlton leaning against the counter with two of his security guards.
“I can see you’re all hard at work looking for suspects,” Carlton said.
“Give it a rest, Carlton,” Brad said. “Your time would be better spent looking for the person who pulled the fire alarm.”
“Why do you think I’m here? When I got a call that a strange man was prowling around on the fifth floor I figured the alarm was a diversion for a possible kidnapping.”
Brad furrowed his brow. “Kidnapping?”
“Pediatrics. We keep a pretty close eye on this floor.”
“If this is such an important floor for security,” Brad said, “why don’t I see a video camera like there is on the seventh floor?”
Carlton stared at the floor and stammered. “Uh, we got a busted camera. We’re… putting in a whole new digital recording system, and she decided,” Lumpy Carlton rolled his eyes and jerked his thumb in the direction of the ceiling, “that we could wait for the new equipment.”
“Please keep your voice down,” the nurse said from behind the counter. “I just got them settled down after the alarm.”
“Do you know where the alarm originated?” Brad asked.
Carlton frowned. “Not yet. It’s been only a couple minutes.” He pulled a radio from its holster, pressed a button on its side, and spoke. “Chief to base.”
A crackled response came a few seconds later. “Base here, Chief.”
“Wayne, what’s the twenty on the alarm pull?”
His radio hissed back, “Ground floor, door three.”
“Roger that. Over.” Carlton replaced the radio on his belt. “Go check it out,” he said to the two uniformed security guards.
After they’d left, Brad turned and faced Carlton. “The emergency room entry.”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I noticed the number above the door when I visited the emergency room last night,” Brad explained. “I’m betting the medical staff refused treatment to a person who felt like he’d taken the trouble to get to the hospital in this storm. Pulling the fire alarm was his parting shot at Strickland Memorial. Check the ER intake records. Won’t be too hard to figure out whodunit.”
Carlton batted the air with his hand. “I don’t have time to go chasing after a screwed-up malcontent.” After a sharp glance from the nurse he lowered his voice. “We’re busy as hell around here. I’ve got guys pulling triple shifts, and two more of my men called off for the day shift…”
“As Ms. Harris suggested, women would be more reliable,” Brad said. He could tell there was no love lost between Carlton and his boss, and decided to goad him.
The security chief’s body tensed. He drew in a breath before he spoke. “And you haven’t managed to catch our killer yet, so now I’ve got that to worry about too.”
Carlton’s reaction was about what he expected, and Brad figured it was time to play his trump card.
“What’s that smell?” Brad asked.
Carlton sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Neither do I,” Brad said.
Carlton eyed him warily.
Brad pointed toward the darkened 5-West corridor. “I sure don’t smell any new tile adhesive. You know, the kind that would prevent me having an office where Ms. Harris suggested.”
Carlton had been busted, and stared at the floor. Brad had caught him in a lie. It wasn’t clear if the lie was so that Carlton could keep Brad on the third floor where he could watch him, or if he got pleasure out of forcing him to work in a small windowless space.
Brad said, “I know you have issues to deal with, but don’t forget that there’s a killer loose—most likely still in this hospital. It’s time for you to remember whose side I’m on.” Brad tapped his own chest. “Now when can I meet you in your security command center so we can both have a look at security videos?”
Carlton sucked in a deep breath, and looked at his watch. “I’ll expect you at zero-six-hundred.”
Chapter Nineteen
6:00 a.m., Thursday, January 11th
Back in his temporary office, Brad had found a website with a clock timer and set an alarm for ninety minutes. When the alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. he’d found a nearby restroom, splashed water on his face and ran a comb through his hair. After slipping on his sports jacket, he showed up in Strickland Memorial’s security office precisely at 6 a.m.
“Can I help you?” a young blond with a crew cut asked from his seat facing a bank of video monitors. He guessed the man was a recent graduate of Temple’s Criminal Justice program or maybe just off a stint with the army at Fort Dix.
“Brad Frame to see Ed Carlton.”
The man picked up a phone and said, “I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Brad had observed the area through the hall window, where security looked impressive. He’d seen four 42 inch monitors mounted on the wall behind the console operator, and they changed every thirty seconds or so, displaying HD color images from different parts of the hospital, including the lobby, cafeteria, patient room hallways and even neighboring streets. Now from his vantage point inside the security room Brad saw that the operator faced a bank of four fifteen-inch monitors with grainy black and white video, though even one of those had a “Broken” sign taped to it.
Brad pointed at the color screens. “How does the system decide which images go on the large HD monitors?”
The operator never looked up from his work. “I asked the same question when I started here,” he said, softly. “Those are bogus, run from a DVD. If you watch you’ll see they repeat the same thirty-minute segment.” Pointing at the console, he added, “These are live, real time.”
Brad studied the color monitors and recognized film of an ambulance backing into the emergency room dock on screen #1 that he’d spotted earlier on screen #3. I’ll be damned.
Ed Carlton rounded the corner and extended his hand to shake Brad’s. “Sorry about the temperature,” Carlton said. “With all of the computer equipment and monitors we operate in here 24-7, we have to keep the place air conditioned even in the winter.”
Was Carlton’s magnanimous reception a sign that their confrontation on the fifth floor had chastened him? Or did he have more tricks up his sleeve and was just changing tactics?
“We’re ready for you in the conference room.” Carlton motioned for Brad to follow. They entered a room where another youthful security officer sat at the end of a table in front of a DVD player. The dark haired man nodded as they entered. He appeared to be organizing a pile of DVD’s each labeled using a black felt-tipped pen. A monitor connected to the player sat midway down the table.
“This is Mr. Frame,” Carlton said. “Meet Len, our resident equipment guru.”
Brad extended his hand. “Call me Brad.” He slipped into a chair to the left of the video operator, and Carlton sat opposite him.
“What would you lik
e to see first?” Carlton asked.
“What do you have from the seventh floor?”
Len reached for a disk labeled “7,” inserted it in the machine, and pushed play.
A grainy image materialized on the screen. Brad recognized the 7th floor nurses’ station, with Crystal Himes seated at the counter. He could picture her bright yellow uniform, even though the picture was in black and white. He’d seen the ceiling-mounted camera aimed from above the elevators. In the lower right hand corner of the screen he saw 1/10 09:45.
“I can put this player on pulse,” Len explained, “and we can see a freeze frame from every twenty seconds of video.”
“Len’s worked most of the night to transfer taped images,” Carlton said, “which is all that our system produces, to video disks.”
“I appreciate your efforts.” Although based on what he’d already seen, Brad thought viewing these videos would be an exercise in futility. They watched for a minute or so as the images shifted rapidly and the time advanced quickly until 10:30 showed on the screen. The result was that one nurse would disappear and moments later a different nurse would appear behind the counter. The jerky images rivaled anything Charlie Chaplin or the Keystone Cops ever did on-screen. If a person emerged from the elevator and approached the counter, the backs of their heads showed, but the camera angle made it possible for someone to come off the elevator and not be visible, especially if they abruptly turned right or left.
“Let’s take a look at the other cameras you have on the 7th floor,” Brad said.
Len glanced at Carlton, who broke the bad news. “We don’t have any other video from that floor.”
“But I’ve seen the cameras?”
“Yes, but they don’t work.” Carlton’s face flushed a deep pink. “We have seventy-five security cameras, but less than half of them work. Danita Harris won’t let me maintain what we’ve got, since they’ve spent almost two and a half million on a new system. Components for the new system have already arrived,” he said, pointing to a pile of boxes in the corner, “but the install ain’t gonna happen for another six weeks.”
Did that mean the killer picked the right place at the right time, Brad wondered.
After an uncomfortable silence, Len asked, “What else would you like to see?”
Brad wasn’t quite ready to give up on the 7th floor disk.
“Michael Severn’s attack happened at approximately 9:45 a.m.,” Brad said. “He was found unconscious by the nursing staff at 10 a.m. Let’s watch the 7th floor video in real time from 9:40 a.m. until 10:00 a.m.”
Carlton pointed at Len. “Do it.”
Brad hoped they’d see something… anything that would provide a clue as to who was killing transplant patients. After twenty minutes without seeing anything, Carlton said, “What’s next?”
“What do you have from the hospital’s pharmacy?” Brad asked.
Len reached for another disk, swapped it for the one already in the DVD player and pushed play. “I copied these from about twelve hours before the deaths,” Len explained. “I’ll put it on fast forward and you can let me know if you’d like me to stop.”
Brad nodded.
Another jerky black and white image flickered in front of them. The camera appeared to be aimed at the glass entry door from a point above and to the right of a service counter. Four or five notes were taped to the counter top next to a wire basket containing a short stack of papers. The resolution was too grainy to make out any text, but Brad imagined the usual bureaucratic instructions; “Make sure patient’s admission number is on the scrip.” On the wall to the left of the door hung a photograph of leaves and stones—maybe a dry creek bed—surrounded by an oversized dark matte.
“Stop there,” Brad called out. “And go back a few minutes.”
Len hit re-wind then pressed play. Outside the glass door they could see a man in light colored two-piece scrubs—what most of the nurses wore as a uniform. At least he had the physique of a man. A sign taped to the back of the door obscured a view of his face. The door opened, first a crack then wider, and the man backed into the room. He wore a Phillies baseball cap, which took courage, Brad thought, considering the season they’d had last year. The bill of the cap was drawn down over the back of his head making it impossible to tell whether he had long or short hair. He held the inside doorknob and eased the door shut. Brad noticed the date and time superimposed on the screen, from January 9th at 12:23 a.m.
“Is the time right on this video?” Brad asked.
“Yep,” Carlton replied confidently.
“But why are the lights on if it’s the middle of the night?”
“For Security,” Carlton said. “The camera records 24-7.”
“Freeze the image.” Brad asked, “This would have been at a time when the pharmacy was not normally open?”
“That’s right.”
“So the security operator monitoring the desk would have seen the unauthorized entry?”
Carlton shook his head. “I doubt it, or I would have had a report. 12:23 is just at the change of shift, which occurs at zero-thirty, zero-eight-thirty, and sixteen-thirty hours. The officer going off duty was probably briefing his relief at that time. Also remember that of the thirty-five working cameras, only three are showing at any given moment—”
Brad interrupted. “In the meantime, you’re vulnerable.”
“As hell!” Carlton said, shaking his head. “It pisses me off every time I see fuzz on one of those screens. It reminds me of the holes in our system. In our new system, the cameras will be linked to motion sensors. An unauthorized entry to the pharmacy then will alert our operator to monitor that specific camera, and send an officer to check it out. To be honest,” Carlton continued, “most of the cameras are outside the building, trained on entrances, parking, monitoring traffic on the adjacent cross streets. Here in the middle of the city, our biggest crime threat has always been from the outside. Thank God we haven’t had any rapes on the grounds or in the hospital parking lots.” Carlton said it like he’d practiced saying those foreboding words many times in front of his staff, or hospital administrators. Brad stared at the security chief, until the realization dawned on Carlton’s face that the murders they were trying to solve were just as serious.
Len excused himself. “Pit stop.”
“When I was standing near the monitoring station,” Brad said, “I noticed that some of the monitors show an image for ten or fifteen seconds, while others remain up for thirty seconds or longer.”
“Let me show you,” Carlton said, as he led the way back to the security camera monitoring station. “The sequence of which monitor shows what camera shot is random. But we set each camera for the cycle length of the shot. For example, in the parking ramps we might want a longer segment, you know, time enough to see a visitor exit his car and cross safely to the elevators. But if the operator sees something suspicious on any camera he can stay with it.” Turning to the guy at the console, Carlton directed, “Bill bring up camera one on monitor A, and camera twelve on monitor B.”
The operator nodded and pushed a few buttons on the console in front of him.
Brad recognized the main hospital entrance on the first monitor. He’d almost forgotten the snowstorm crippling Philadelphia until he saw giant flakes blowing past the camera lens like the rush of stars when the Starship Enterprise jumped to warp speed. The second monitor showed the same entrance, this time from the inside.
Carlton pointed at the monitor. “There… you can see a guy approaching the entrance. If it weren’t snowing so hard, we’d have a better look at him. But if it was the middle of the night and he was acting suspicious, we’d pick him up on the second monitor when he enters the lobby.” Carlton aimed his finger to the right. “Then if we want to track his movements and we see him turn right, we can bring up camera twenty on the first monitor. If he heads left… we go to camera nine. Okay,” Carlton waggled his finger at the second monitor, “see the guy has entered the building. Stomp
, stomp, stomp… he’s clearing the snow off his feet. He looks to his left, which most of the time means he’ll turn to the right. Uh… No. First, he takes his gloves off.” Carlton snapped his fingers. “There… see, he turned right.” Carlton beamed. “And now we’ve got a clear picture of him heading down the hallway.”
The security officer staffing the command center choreographed his push of the buttons in perfect time to Carlton’s words, bringing up the right images.
“What’s he doing here so early?” Brad said as he stared at the monitor and recognized Ken Fenimore pulling back the hood from his parka and striding confidently down the hall, oblivious that one camera and three sets of eyes were watching him.
“Who?” Carlton asked.
“Never mind,” Brad said. “Let’s get back to the pharmacy video.”
They returned to the small conference room where Len was back at the equipment.
“Start that pharmacy video again, from the moment the man is outside the door,” Brad requested.
“Okay, hold it right there. Do you have keyless entry on that door?”
“Oh shit!” Carlton ran his fingers through his hair. “I should have hired you as a consultant when we put my security proposals together. You’ve found another gaping chasm in our physical security. Some asshole decided a few years ago to use a magnetic card swipe system during the hours that the pharmacy is staffed, and a keyed system for after hours, and emergencies. You should have read the fifteen pages of procedures that college dick wrote about entry into that one area of the hospital. He must have used the phrase ‘exigent circumstances’ about a half-dozen times.”
“You’re saying that whoever entered the pharmacy at 12:23 a.m. had a key. Let’s see if we can spot it.”
