Marcia Muller - Vanishing Point

“What things?” I asked, keeping my voice level, the tone casual.

“Well, I’ll need to look it over carefully, but-”

Shouting erupted from the area where the pool tables were. Alarmed, I swiveled around. A crowd blocked my view.

Both of us stood. I still couldn’t see what was going on. I grasped Hy’s arm. “What’s happened?”

More commotion, and then one of the bartenders shouldered his way through the crowd. Hy moved forward in his wake. After a moment he came back and said, “I suspect Patrick and I will be making a visit to the Sutter Coast Hospital emergency room. I don’t know what he said or did to her, but his pool-shark friend just decked him with her cue.”

Sutter Coast Hospital was reasonably well staffed for six-thirty on Sunday morning. I stood near the cafeteria doorway, surveying the various tables, and after a moment spotted one at which two women wearing nametags and dressed in scrubs were seated. They looked fresh and rested, probably having breakfast before going on the day shift, and they were old enough to have been working here at the same time as Laurel Greenwood, a.k.a. Josie Smith.

I crossed to the food line and got an English muffin and a cup of coffee, paid the cashier, and went over to the table. Plopped down and said, “Hi.”

One of them, a short brunette in pink, nodded to me.

I asked, “Are either of you in Pediatrics?”

“No,” they both replied.

“Can you direct me? I just came from registry. I don’t know where anything is.”

The other woman, tall and blonde, sighed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

I’d been warned by Patrick’s friend that some RNs were unfriendly to the registry nurses, considering them more trouble than they were worth because they were unfamiliar with the hospitals they were sent to, and always asking questions. It also didn’t help that they earned top dollar.

Quickly I said, “I felt the same way you do when I was on staff at Santa Rosa Memorial, but, hey, I’ve got two kids at home and need to make a living.”

“Sorry. Yesterday was a rotten day, and I’m not expecting today to be any better.” She looked back at the brunette. “As I was telling you, I said to him, ‘Dr. Strauss, this patient is very anxious.’ And he says to me, ‘You think the patient’s anxious? I’m the one who’s anxious. If I don’t finish my rounds in ten minutes, I’ll miss my tee time.’ The worst thing was, he meant it.”

The other woman rolled her eyes.

In the vernacular provided by Patrick’s friend, I said, “Docs!”

“Yeah.” The woman in pink nodded emphatically. “Dedicated, huh?”

I sipped coffee, then asked, “How long have you worked here?”

“Twelve years.”

“Then you might’ve known my aunt, Josie Smith. She was an RN in the ER.”

She thought, shook her head. “Name’s not familiar. When was she on staff?”

“She started in ninety-two, when the hospital was brand-new.”

“Then she must’ve left before I came. Hey, Linda,” she said to the woman on the other side of the table, who was staring into her coffee cup, “were you here in ninety-two?”

“I didn’t move here till ninety-four.”

“And you never heard of a Josie Smith?”

“No.”

“Sorry,” the brunette said, glancing at her watch. “Got to run. You want, I’ll walk you toward Pediatrics.”

Well, at least I’d proved to myself that I could walk the walk and talk the talk-even if I hadn’t found out anything.

After the nurse had pointed the way to Pediatrics, I left the hospital, went to Patrick’s car, which I’d parked a couple of blocks away, and read the morning paper. It was still too early to go back to the hospital, so I did the crossword puzzle, then took a walk. The morning was clear, but strong offshore winds gusted through the town and, from long experience with the vagaries of coastal weather, I sensed the fog would be in by evening.

When I got back to the car, I still had time to kill. One of my occupational hazards: too much waiting. Fortunately, I’d brought my briefcase along, so I opened it and reviewed the Laurel Greenwood files until lunchtime. Then I returned to the cafeteria, where I struck up conversations with various personnel, and in the process learned some interesting and not-so-interesting things.

Dr. Martin was getting a divorce from his wife of twenty-three years; she had run off with her personal trainer. Diane, in the pharmacy, was marrying her ex-husband-for the third time. Judy, one of the receptionists in the ER, was having an affair with an EMT, but nobody knew which one. An unnamed advice nurse spent her lunch hours in her van in the parking lot, working on a novel on her laptop; it was rumored to be something involving knives and guns. Marie was developing bunions; Nell had sold her home at a fifty percent profit; Dan had bought a new motorcycle; Trisha’s cat had puked again-but on the hardwood floor, not on the white rug, thank God; Mike was goddamn glad to be starting his vacation tomorrow; Kim’s mother-in-law was coming to dinner next Sunday, and she was considering seasoning the roast with strychnine.

I learned nothing about Laurel/Josie. Most of the people I spoke with hadn’t been on staff in 1992.

When the cafeteria began to clear out, I escaped the hospital and drove to a city park, where I sat on the grass, leaning against a tree trunk; I’d go back at two-thirty before the swing shift started. My mind was cluttered with idle chatter, and I tried to clear it.

Usually I found nothing wrong with idle chatter: we indulged in plenty of it at the pier, over coffee and sandwiches or just hanging out on the catwalk; it helped us get through the days that were mundane, boring, or just plain tedious. But today my ears were ringing with voice-noise, and it kept me from focusing. After a while it faded, but something worse took its place.

I’ve been thinking about your house, and I just may have come up with a solution to our living-space problems.

And what’s that?

I don’t want to go into it until I check some things out.

What things?

Well, I’ll need to look it over carefully, but-

My God, what had I gotten myself into?

I shook my head to clear it, tried a few deep-breathing exercises. They didn’t work. I was glad when it was time to go back to the hospital.

“Just leave me the hell alone,” the thin, poorly kempt woman said.

All I’d done was set down my tray-more coffee, another snack-across the table from her. I looked closely at her face, saw eyes with dilated pupils and facial muscles drawn taut with strain. A relative of a patient with a life-threatening condition? No, she wore scrubs and a nametag.

“Sorry.” I picked up the tray, turned.

She muttered something unintelligible.

A hand on my arm. I looked around at a kind-eyed, dark-haired woman in blue scrubs. “Come sit with me,” she said, and led me to a nearby table.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

She sighed, sat down, nodded at the place opposite her. “What d’you think?”

“I don’t know. I only came today from the registry.”

“Well, she’s up to her old tricks, and pretty soon she’ll be outta here for good.”

“Drugs?”

The woman hesitated, then her eyes flashed with anger. “Yeah. She’s been through the rehab program once, and one chance is all you get.”

“Too bad.” I glanced over at the thin woman. She was crumbling the bread from a sandwich into tiny pieces and casting narrow-eyed glances at us.

“Yeah, it’s too bad. She used to be a good nurse, till she started forging prescriptions.” The dark-haired woman’s mouth closed firmly; she’d realized she’d said too much to an outsider.