by Wally Duff
The guards came out and checked up and down the hallway. When they saw me staring their direction, they sprinted toward me. The white coat made it impossible to reach my Glock, effectively eliminating it as a choice if I needed it to defend myself. I had nowhere to go.
“Dr. Lee?” the guard said, glancing down at the nametag on my white coat.
“Yes?” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering.
“Did you see a female janitor come by here? She’s wearing a green jumpsuit.”
I slid the plastic glasses on top of my head and undid the ties to the top of my scrub mask, causing it to slip down partway off my face but not enough so they would recognize me.
“As a matter of fact I did. It was weird that she was running. None of them ever move that fast. But anyway, she came flying out of that bathroom and ran toward the emergency room.”
He yelled into his phone. “We got her! She’s headed toward the ER. Get everyone down there!”
They sped off. I pulled up my scrub mask and went the opposite direction toward the security office.
I called Frankie. “I’m going to the security office to see if I can find Linda. I might need some help.”
“Already rollin’,” he said.
52
Several more security guards ran past me toward the ER. With my head down, I walked in the opposite direction toward the security office. When I opened the door into the office, I saw one guard monitoring a bank of security TV screens. He had his back to me and fiddled with the dials, but all he had on the screens were wiggling lines. Frankie’s guy had come through.
“Jack, do you have anything on the screens?” a voice asked over the speakers.
“Not yet,” he said. “I have to reboot the system. Give me a couple of minutes.”
“Better hurry. We can’t find Thomas, and the boss lady is pissed.”
Pulling the surgery mask down, I walked up behind him.
“Jack,” I said, as I pressed the Glock into his right ear, “I think it would be a good idea if you leave the security system alone.”
I saw the muscles in his shoulders tense up.
“Not a good idea, Jack,” I said. “Put your hands on the table in front of you.”
He begin to lean back against me.
“You probably think you can move before I decide if I want to use this gun or not, but that would be wrong. Ask the guy who is missing several of his fingers.”
He moved forward, preparing to jump up. I stepped to his side and pointed the Glock at his crotch. “I can shoot off other things than fingers. I told you to put your hands on the table in front of you.”
This time he complied. I moved the Glock back toward his chest.
“You’ll never get out of here,” he said.
“Oh, I think I will, but I’m curious. How did you make us?”
He hesitated. I pointed the Glock back toward his crotch.
“We have facial recognition software on our security cameras. The one in the breakroom identified Misle. We lost you when you got to the ground floor, and then the cameras went down.” He studied the screens, which now were back to normal. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Screw up the security cameras.”
“Must be a computer error. I didn’t do anything to your precious system.” I waved the gun at him. “Where is Linda?”
He hesitated again. I was running out of time. I fired the Glock into his chair about two inches in front of his crotch.
He lurched backwards and fell out of his chair onto his side. The noise from the gun blast was deafening in the small room. When he turned back toward me, I was pleased to see that he had peed in his pants.
“Where is Linda Misle?” I asked again.
He stared at me. I pointed the Glock back down at his crotch. He curled into the fetal position and put his hands in front of his private parts.
“Ease off, lady. She’s in the back room.”
“Show me, and move slowly or else you’ll be singing soprano in the church choir for the rest of your life.”
53
The guard rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up on all fours. Standing up, he walked to a closed door at the end of the hallway. I followed.
I raised the Glock and got into a shooter’s stance in case it was a trap. “Open it.”
He used his ID card to unlock it and pulled open the door. Linda sat in a chair in the center of a small, windowless room. She jumped up when she saw me.
“Tina, thank God you’re here!” she exclaimed.
I shoved the gun in his back. “Get in there.”
Jack complied. I took his ID card and the radio from his belt.
“Linda, wait for me in the hall,” I said. “I have to do something.”
She walked out. I shut the door and raised the gun. Jack’s face blanched as he held up his hands. “Lady, I did what you wanted. Give me a break here.”
“Only if you answer a question for me.”
“Anything. But please don’t shoot me.”
I lowered my gun slightly. “The guy with missing fingers tried to blow us up with an RPG. Was he following orders, or was he working on his own?”
“He told us he was leaving town, but before he left, he said he was going to settle a score with you bitches.”
I raised the gun. “Bitches?”
“His word, not mine.”
“Diane Warren didn’t order the visit?”
“Not so far as I know.”
I backed up toward the open door.
“I gotta question,” he said.
I waited.
“What happened to Bobby?” he asked.
“Bobby?”
“The guy with the missing fingers.”
“He told you he was leaving town, right?”
“Yeah, he did,” he said.
“He told you the truth,” I said. “He’s gone and won’t be coming back.”
I locked the door and left.
Frankie and Enzo stood outside of the security office when we came out. Linda was with them.
“Before Linda came out, I heard a gunshot,” Frankie said. “Got another body to get rid of?”
We began speed-walking toward the exit.
“No,” I said. “The guy needed some encouragement to tell me where to find Linda.”
“A finger?”
I pointed at his crotch. “Something more valuable to him. A guy has ten fingers but only one set of those.”
“I can see why he talked.”
I turned left to go to the garage. Linda followed me. Frankie and Enzo went to the right.
“Guys, my van is in the garage,” I said.
“It was,” Frankie said. “I figured the security guys might be waiting for you down there. Luca and a couple of my boys are there to discourage them from doing that.”
“How are we getting home?” I asked.
“With me. Luca will bring your van.”
“He doesn’t have a key.”
Frankie peered at me over the top of his designer sunglasses. “Luca has unique skills. Boosting cars is one of them. He won’t even leave a scratch.”
54
In the hospital’s outdoor parking lot, Frankie opened the driver’s rear door to his black Mercedes AMG GT. Enzo did the same on the passenger side. Linda and I climbed into the back seat. Enzo and Frankie climbed in the front. Frankie was at the wheel and called Luca on his car’s Bluetooth as we drove away. He spoke to him in Italian. I talked to Linda.
“Are you okay?” I asked, patting her hand.
“I’m not too bad,” she said.
What!?
“You have got to be kidding. You’re not mad at me?”
“Not at all. This was exciting.”
“The first time something like this happened, when I shot the man’s hands, you wouldn’t speak to me for weeks.” I paused. “And do I need to remind you about what happened last night at David and Rick’s condo?”
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“No, but when I went to bed after that was over, I realized that, even though I was scared to death both times, I enjoyed the experience. Kind of like being on stage playing the piano or giving an opening argument in the courtroom. I miss that adrenaline rush.”
“This was a little more rush than I needed. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to save you.”
“I had complete confidence in you.”
“More than I had in myself, but I guess it worked out okay.”
“Did that security guard really urinate in his pants?”
“He did. Having me shoot a bullet close to his private parts might have had something to do with that.”
Frankie disconnected and pulled onto the Kennedy Freeway.
“How did they know we were there?” Linda asked.
“They made us with facial recognition software,” I said.
“Good to know,” Frankie said. “I’ll talk to my guy about that. If you do this again, it shouldn’t be a problem next time.”
“I hope we’re done with this,” Linda said.
I’m not sure about that until this story is finished.
“What did you guys figure out?” he asked.
“Before the security guards arrived, the nurses in the break room talked about how hard they were working,” Linda said.
“I heard the same thing,” I said. “Something about autoimmune diseases.”
“Sounds like you need a doctor to help you figure this out,” Frankie said.
I had one in mind.
Eddie.
Frankie drove me home first before he dropped off Linda. An hour later, Luca parked my mommy van in our garage. Carter had already put Macy down for her nap. He was in the family room helping Kerry with her preschool homework.
I went down to the lower level and sat in front of my computer with the Nanit beside me on the tabletop. I had three potential stories to work on. Zhukov stealing his client’s funds, which was followed by his murder and the disappearance of his body. Diane Warren’s financial problems and the possibility that she wanted to harm the Irregulars because she blamed us for it. And Charlie Sullivan, the unreliable builder whom David and Rick wanted to kill.
I began a file on each one of them.
The immediate danger the vindictive Mrs. Warren presented to our group put her at the top of the list. If we were going to stop her, we needed to see if she was doing anything illegal to make more money at the MidAmerica Hospital.
And if she was, why? I had an idea. I called an old journalism friend.
“Jeff, this is Tina Thomas.”
Jeff Taylor is a topflight reporter for Bloomberg. He might know about Diane’s hospital business. I told him what I needed.
“And you would be spot on,” Jeff said, when I finished. “We were going to do a major feature on her as the CEO and owner of the most profitable hospital in the world.”
“But…?”
“I researched her financials. Since Dr. Fertig died, she has been propping up her hospital’s income with her own money. If I wrote the story, she would have been exposed. Since our original story was, therefore, changed completely, we elected not to do it without being able to investigate more thoroughly.”
There it was. Diane’s ego was driving her to do anything she could to save her hospital. A shiver ran down my spine. We needed to be careful. We are moms with little kids and no superhero skills. She has money and the ability to hire killers.
Hold it.
There was a MidAmerica Hospital Foundation, and Fertig’s patients contributed over one hundred million dollars to the fund. Diane and Fertig were the directors. Fertig was dead. Diane had access to those funds in addition to her family money.
Big bucks.
If she was illegally using the foundation’s money to keep her hospital solvent, she was breaking too many local, state, and federal laws to count. This might be the real story.
I thought of Dr. Edward Wallace, an ENT doctor in Omaha. Next to my husband, Carter, and my brother, Jimmy Edwards, Eddie is my closest male friend.
I called Eddie and explained to him my concerns about Diane Warren.
“Is this is about the doctor who cured all of his breast cancer patients?” Eddie asked.
“It is,” I said.
“You said he brought in three quarters of the total revenue to his hospital.”
“A little more than that, but yes, that’s correct.”
“With him gone, she has a massive hole in her income stream.”
“No kidding. I need to know more about hospital financing.”
“Are the Irregulars involved in this?”
“They are.”
“How about this? I’ll fly to Chicago and discuss it with you.”
“Done.”
“Set it up and let me know when you want me there.”
55
I spent all day Sunday being a mommy and wife while I processed all that had happened since Friday night. I had to remember my family came first above any story. All I wanted to do was cuddle Kerry and Macy and hug Carter.
By Monday morning, I had my emotions mostly back together, but I didn’t recognize my van when I opened the door. It was spotless and smelled like a new car, not dirty diapers, spilled food and drink, and baby spit-up.
I called Frankie as I drove to my hair appointment with Rick to have him color my hair. Kerry was in preschool, and Macy was with Alicia.
“What did Luca do to my van?” I asked.
“Got it detailed,” Frankie said. “Said it was so dirty inside there was no reason to ever lock it. No carjacker would ever steal a van that smelled like that.”
I disconnected, parked, and walked into Creative Hair. This hair color appointment was a new experience for me. I’d never needed to have any color done, but now my mother’s gray hair genes were cropping up.
Mom was my age when she began to turn gray, and she never did anything about it. By the time I was in junior high, she was almost completely gray. When I graduated from Indiana, the gray had been replaced by white. It looks great on her now, at age sixty-eight, but I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. At least not yet.
I sat down in Rick’s chair. He didn’t say anything as he walked around me. He crossed his right arm in front of his chest, rested his left elbow on his right palm, and tapped his lips with his left index finger. He then slid his finger to his left cheek and sighed.
“Jack Benny,” I said.
“Who, sweetie?” he asked.
“My parents had black and white DVDs of Jack Benny’s TV shows. We used to watch them on Sunday nights when I was a kid. He used to stand like that after he told a joke.”
“And?”
“Is my hair color a joke?”
“Oh, my, no, but it does need a lot of work.” He fingered my hair. “A whole lot of work.”
“Then let’s get to it. Macy is with Alicia, and I promised her this wouldn’t take too long.”
“You might want to rethink that. Better text her so she doesn’t worry.”
I did, as he began mixing up his magic ingredients. Marcia Peebler sat down in David’s chair. Her abnormally black hair was wet. She wore a black and white tweed Escada suit with black, sling-back, patent leather pumps. David was at another station finishing up a woman with red hair.
Marcia turned to me. “Shot anyone recently, honey?”
My heart began racing. “I... ah... no, not exactly. Why, have you heard anything?”
She nodded toward David. “He knows I adore gossip.”
“He told you?”
“He did. What’s it feel like, killing someone?”
Rick stepped into the back for more potions and couldn’t hear our discussion.
I felt tears well up in my eyes. “Can you keep this between us?”
“I most certainly can. God knows I’ve been through enough family issues which I don’t want anyone to know about. My lips are sealed.”
The tears started to flow. “Honest
ly, even though it was in self-defense, it sucks. I’m having nightmares about it.”
