When I got off the elevator, I heard a low buzzing sound over the loudspeaker, excited voices, and running.
“What’s happening?” I asked the nurse at the desk.
“Coding in 828.”
Phyllida’s room.
A Visitor
I charged down the hall, sliding the final few feet, stopping abruptly outside the room, where a spillover of nurses and orderlies, two with a gurney between them, prevented my entering.
“Can’t go in there.”
“What happened?”
“Patient’s coding. Doctor and three nurses are trying to revive her, along with the coding coach and a few others, but you’d better prepare for the worst.” Two guys, one carrying a defibrillator, rushed into the room, sending us scurrying to get out of the way.
My heart changed places with my stomach. “I’ve got to see if her granddaughter’s in there.”
“She left earlier, something about a study fest with a few of her friends,” a nurse said. “We’ve called the patient’s emergency contact. She’s on her way.”
That would be Lorraine. I could feel the blood rushing to my face.
“When did this happen?” I asked the officer on duty.
“Just now. Well, a few minutes ago. I was standing here when all of a sudden I heard a machine in her room beeping rapidly and the loudspeaker coming on—‘Coding,’ a voice said, or something like that. Repeated it. Gave the room number. Medics rushed in, nurses, doctors. All in there now.”
“Did anyone come to her room on your watch? She wasn’t supposed to have visitors.”
He shrugged. “Just family. About thirty minutes after the young girl left.”
“She wasn’t to have visitors,” I repeated, insistent.
“Said she was family. I couldn’t stop family, not when the young girl had been there all day.”
“Describe her.”
“Tall, red hair, lighter than yours. An old lady, well-heeled, I’d say. Looked like she’d been to the theater or something, dressed like she was meeting the president. She brought flowers and a book. The book was for Phyllida when she woke up, she said.”
“How long did she stay?”
“Five minutes, maybe seven. Not long. A pleasant woman. Admired my uniform as she left. In a hurry, she said. She told me she was meeting someone for a late supper.”
From outside the room, I could hear the voices, hurried movement. It wasn’t letting up. “Two hundred jules delivered.” I heard the sharp pound of the defibrillator, a pause, and all the while, the low continuous hum of a machine like a phone off the hook only deeper, sadder, and the rhythmic sound of someone giving her CPR.
“Again,” came from inside the room, and I heard the whine of the defibrillator followed by the shock. A pause. Someone said, “Go up to 360.” The windup again. Hushed voices coming from inside the room, all business, someone giving direction to the team. It seemed almost like a game with all team members on one wavelength, but I knew it to be a desperate fight to save Phyllida Oxley.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Lorraine’s cell, hoping against hope she’d pick up and I could talk to her over the ether, say something, anything, before I’d have to face her. It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. The blood pounded in my ears, and I began to see white spots.
In Phyllida’s room, they continued with resuscitation, and the NYPD uniform stood there looking at his shoes. The call went to voice mail, and I clutched my cell, thinking maybe she wasn’t answering because she’d heard about me and Denny, but as I started leaving my message, Call Waiting flashed on my screen. Lorraine.
I heard street noise, the hum of an engine. “They called me. I told them to intubate and keep her hooked up if she didn’t start breathing on her own.”
“But—”
“Parking. Be there in a minute. Call Kat.”
“She’s so young.”
“Do it. She’s got to know. She’s got to see her grandmother.” White noise at the other end. I felt Lorraine’s sadness, her otherness, and my heart squeezed.
In a few minutes Lorraine appeared. She stopped before me. In her paleness, I could see she knew about me and Denny, but she had another weight to bear, the slipping away of her dearest friend. Tears glistened behind her thick lenses as she gave me a hug. I breathed out, relieved. Why, I don’t know, but my brain slid past reason and focused on the magic powers of Lorraine. She had them, I knew, and if anyone could save Phyllida, could save me and Denny, it was Lorraine. I couldn’t deny it, tears trickled down my cheeks as she entered Phyllida’s room.
I heard the click of the door shut behind her, and in a few moments, a rush of footsteps, the rustle of coats coming toward me. Kat and another girl, Charlotte, of course, her parents following a few feet behind. A nurse told Kat she could go in. “Me, too?” Charlotte asked. “Better stay outside,” her mother said. “Kat won’t be long.”
The new visitors brought relief, a welcome diversion. They introduced themselves as the parents of Kat’s friend. Charlotte was almost as tall as Kat. Her blonde curls formed a halo around her head.
“Kat will be staying with us until her grandmother recovers,” her mother said, arms around the shoulders of her daughter. I straightened at the force of her resolve. She was a trim woman wrapped in a full-length down coat, maybe in her mid-thirties with eyes the color of rich amber. Her husband stood beside her, his arm around her waist.
“Kat will be staying with us for the long term,” her husband said. “She’s petrified she’ll have to live with the Goncourts. We’ll go to court if need be. Our daughter’s happiness is involved, too.”
I could have kissed them both. Instead, I started to say something about the Goncourts, but thought better of it. I needed to focus on what had just happened to Phyllida Oxley. The hospital would tell me some kind of far-fetched story, I could feel it. They’d talk about her weak heart and other medical complications I wouldn’t understand, but I knew what had happened, knew it without a shred of doubt. Or evidence. Liese Goncourt, for whatever reason, had finished the job she set out to do the other night. It took her three attempts, but she’d succeeded in bringing Phyllida Oxley’s sentient life to an end. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. But I’d find out, by God I would.
In a while Lorraine emerged, her arms around Kat, who when she saw them, ran sobbing to her friend, and we watched, not saying anything as they walked down the hall on their way home.
Jane and Willoughby
Lights on the Brooklyn Bridge winked in the distance as Jane pulled over and waited while Willoughby got himself another hot dog from the all-night stand near Tillary Street. Sally must not feed him. Or maybe she did, and he had that metabolism thing going on. Jane wished she had some.
“Did you get extra napkins like I said?” she asked as he folded himself back into the passenger seat, holding not one but two dogs in his left fist.
She swiveled her eyes to the side and couldn’t help smirking as she watched him glom onto a huge bite of dog, taking half the napkin with it before swallowing. Men are like pigs, her mother told her once. They eat anything and everything and then wallow in their own mess. Never failed, she thought, as he spilled a blob onto the floor mat.
“Hog.”
They rode in silence while he gulped the rest of the hot dog and tried to wipe up his mess.
“Anything on the Bensonhurst massage parlor?” Willoughby asked.
“Once again Fina pulled herself out of the pit. She called this afternoon, gloating, of course. Said her surveillance team—by which she means that blonde with the lips—got pictures of the wiseguys entering. Even got a description of their car and the tags. Chief’s thrilled. Says she also got a picture of one of the Goncourts entering.”
“Who?”
“Not worth explaining. It’s pure Fina fantasy.” But Jane explained anyway, summarizing what Fina had told her about the Goncourts and their connection to Lorraine’s friend. “We’ll see what Lorraine has to say about it. S
he’s the one with the reason in that detective agency.”
“Figures. Denny’s mother.” Willoughby swiped something off his shirt.
Jane stole another look at her partner. Life was dull enough if you didn’t find a little amusement. His tie was so full of spots they looked like a pattern. Now he’d gotten mustard on his shirt. She made the turn onto Gold Street and parked in front of the precinct when her phone rang. It was Fina Fitzgibbons.
“What do you mean, I screwed up?” Jane listened to the red raccoon talk while Willoughby sat and she held the phone away from her ear, her fingers drumming on the dash. Fina’s trying to scare me. And that wasn’t the worst of it. She had other news. The Oxley woman was coding. The call was a bad ending to a fruitless day.
In case he hadn’t caught all of the conversation, Jane told Willoughby about Phyllida Oxley and how the guard let in a visitor. “Fina’s lying, I know she is. This is just a ploy. Nothing wrong with the patient, I know it.”
“Where are we going?” Willoughby asked as they sped away. “Sally expected me home four hours ago, and I still need to file my report. My dinner will be cold.”
“Tell her to eat it herself. The food, that is.”
Jane made a U-turn, sirens screaming. She parked in front.
“Your back tire’s on the curb,” Willoughby said.
They rushed into the hospital, brushing past a family of four walking toward the parking lot.
“Isn’t that the Oxley woman’s granddaughter?” Willoughby asked. “Looks like she’s been crying.”
“Can’t talk to them now. Got to find out what really happened. According to Fina, Phyllida Oxley’s on a resuscitator.”
A Glimmer of Hope
Jane, Willoughby, Lorraine and I were sitting in the waiting room when the doctor entered. The nurse clad in pink scrubs I’d interviewed almost twenty-four hours earlier stood next to him while he tried to explain what happened to Phyllida. He looked uncomfortable, and it wasn’t just because of his tight pants. Because something out of the ordinary had happened once again to Phyllida Oxley, that’s for sure. I couldn’t call it murder, not yet, but the woman was as good as dead.
“There was a large amount of potassium in her system. We’re flushing it out now.”
“And she’ll be all right?”
“She’s being kept alive by machine.”
Lorraine’s hand flew to her heart. “Her chances of recovery?”
He worried his lips and said nothing for a while until there was a faint murmur from one of us, probably Lorraine, who said something about hope.
She brought tissues to her eyes and began weeping. “This has been a horrible experience—the abusive drugs in her system, the rush to the hospital, her fall, if that’s what we’re calling it. Have you no respect for patients? You can’t even provide them with decent security. At least tell me you’ve sent for her cardiologist.”
To his credit, the doctor stood still, saying nothing, but nodding his head in understanding while Lorraine said what was on her mind.
The nurse kept crossing and uncrossing her arms. Although the bun on the back of her hair was securely fastened, her cheeks were like inflamed apples. “Her cardiologist should be here any minute,” she said.
Willoughby looked at his shoes. Jane, subdued except for the dagger looks she was sending me, said nothing.
“I’d like to hear more detail about what you think happened,” Jane said.
The doctor explained that it was normal to give patients potassium through their IV, but in a limited amount. In Phyllida Oxley’s case, the amount delivered was a massive overdose, enough to stop her heart. At best, a mistake. At worst, a deliberate attempt to kill an innocent. To his credit, he defended the staff. He pointed to the nurse and told us she was quick thinking when a machine monitoring the patient’s levels began flashing an alert. She immediately disconnected the IV after finding an insulin syringe inserted into the line, an unorthodox procedure unless a patient was severely dehydrated.
“The syringe contained a large amount of potassium chloride. I knew her chart by heart; there was no order for a potassium delivery, so I stopped the drip immediately,” she said. “It looked like it had discharged only a small portion of its load.”
“You’ve kept the syringe?” I asked.
The nurse nodded.
“We’d like to take it with us,” Jane said.
“You’ll find no prints,” I murmured.
“How could something like this have occurred?” Lorraine asked. “This is an intensive care unit. Phyllida has round-the-clock nursing, sophisticated machines monitoring every function of her body.”
I looked at Jane, holding my tongue with effort, but my scathing words, unsaid, were beginning to burn my tongue. I asked the nurse if hospital personnel attended Phyllida in the room all the time.
She shrugged. “I stepped out for just a minute to give the visitor a moment alone with the patient.”
“A visitor?” I asked, my eyes fixed on Jane.
“Nice lady. Older. She seemed overcome. She said they were close, related by marriage, that she’d be brief, but asked for five minutes alone with Phyllida. She seemed shocked to see her in a coma.”
“Arrest her for murder,” I blurted.
“There you go, jumping again,” Jane said, shaking a finger at me. “Arrest who for murder? What murder?”
“Liese Goncourt, of course.”
Lorraine looked from me to Jane. “I’m sure Jane intends to question the woman, don’t you, Jane? We understand from the guard she was the last visitor in the room, unauthorized as it turned out, although I can understand the guard’s mistake. But tell me you will act.”
“Of course,” Jane said.
“And we want to go with you,” I said.
Jane lowered her head, just like a bull does before they charge. She sent me a down-from-under look, and I swear I saw smoke coming out of her nostrils. She was forming the word no with her mouth, but Lorraine, who had some magical sway over the blonde detective, smiled.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Jane said.
Lorraine turned to the nurse, who stood slightly apart, her mouth trembling. “We don’t blame you. You acted so quickly. Perhaps you’ve saved my friend’s life.”
“If anything can.”
“I’d like to talk to your head of security,” I said.
The nurse went to check on other patients, and the rest of us waited in silence for the hospital security chief to arrive. When he did, he confirmed what I’d suspected. “NYPD stationed one man outside her room, but patient security is our responsibility, no exceptions. We’ll know more when we interview staff and examine our records, including CCTV footage, but she did have one visitor, which, I am told, was against orders in her case.”
I couldn’t help myself, I frowned at Jane.
“Don’t forget, we made an exception for the granddaughter—obviously family—so why shouldn’t the guard have made an exception for Liese Goncourt, also family?” the doctor asked.
I could feel Lorraine’s disapproval as I started my rant. “Sloppy on the guard’s part, at best. He should have phoned you for your approval,” I said to Jane.
Willoughby’s face reddened, and he looked away, his brows furrowed.
I went on. “Liese Goncourt’s the one who inserted the needle into the IV line.”
“You don’t know that,” Willoughby said. “It could have been staff error.”
“That’s a huge stretch and you’d better not say that again or innocent and competent nurses will lose their jobs. Liese Goncourt was the last visitor Phyllida had, minutes before she started coding.”
Jane turned to Lorraine, who slowly nodded.
“All right. We’ll talk to her.”
“That’s all? You need to arrest her tonight for attempted murder.”
“Now you’re jumping mountains,” Jane said, looking straight at me. “I’ll give you this, we’ll check security footage. If there’s
evidence of this Goncourt woman’s tampering with the patient’s IV line, we will confront her later this morning, not before.”
Why was Jane holding back? If I hadn’t demanded it, she’d have been at the Goncourts’ doorstep ten minutes ago.
“We want to come with you, don’t we, Lorraine?”
“Why do you listen to her?” Willoughby asked.
There was a knock on the door and a tall but slight man entered. His eyes, a deep blue, were gentle. He wore a dark blue suit underneath his white coat. The nurse introduced him as Phyllida’s cardiologist.
“Phyllida Oxley’s intubated. Some coloring in her cheeks, but it’s too soon to know if she’ll pull through.”
“Can you quantify her chances?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Some doctors play that game, but I don’t. I don’t know enough about dying, just that I see it every day. Some patients come in complaining of chest pains, but otherwise in robust health, good vital signs. You turn around and they’re dead. Others, like your friend, are just plain unlucky.”
“Have you ever seen anyone like Phyllida, I mean, a patient hooked up to machines to keep her alive, have you seen her pull through? I have to know,” Lorraine said.
“It’s rare.”
Lorraine and Fina Talk
It was well after midnight when Jane and Willoughby left with the security chief. Jane promised me she’d keep in touch about interviewing Liese Goncourt. She told us she’d asked the hospital to send the syringe to the lab and would update us as soon as she heard, but I didn’t plan on waiting by the phone for her call—I’d heard Jane’s promises before.
Lorraine and I were once again alone, except of course for the sound of machines, the soft footfalls of nurses and orderlies in scrubs going about their work. We stood for a moment outside Phyllida’s room, but I thought Lorraine was going to faint. There were circles underneath her eyes, magnified by her thick lenses, and her hair looked stringier than usual. She shut her eyes and leaned against the wall, wanting perhaps to say something to me, because there was so much more to be said. I suggested we sit in a waiting room across the hall.
The Brooklyn Drop (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 4) Page 10
