Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

Susanne held out the paper she'd picked up. "What room is this inventory list for?"

Jane refocused on matters at hand. "Oh, that's from the supply room beside re-sus. I did it to keep busy."

Susanne shook her head. "I hate to tell you, but I did the place this morning. And you must have miscounted the syringes." She handed over the list, tapping where Jane had totaled the ten-cc size.

"What's wrong with it? That's the count I got."

Susanne frowned. "Do you mind checking with me again?"

"Not at all."

Five minutes later they'd confirmed Jane's numbers were correct.

Susanne's frown deepened. "Shit!"

Jane couldn't remember her ever using the word. "What's the matter?"

"This morning I got fifty more than you did."

"Maybe you lost track? It's easy enough to do. Besides, how can you remember so exactly what you got?"

Susanne sighed. "Keep this under your hat, but I've been keeping a close watch on syringes that size."

"Why?"

"Because I think someone's stealing them."

"What?"

Jane spent the next fifteen minutes quietly verifying that none of the other nurses had grabbed a handful of needles from the storeroom to replenish one of the many bins they kept them in, ready to grab on the fly. As she worked, her mind wandered back to Susanne's unusually candid remarks about Father Jimmy and why she felt Jane should know that he could marry.

A crude attempt at matchmaking? No, that would go totally against Susanne's own fastidious insistence on privacy. Besides, she already knew about Thomas and seemed to approve. So what then?

"Because I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable about finding him attractive," Susanne explained when Jane asked her.

"But I didn't find him attractive."

Susanne laughed. "Then that would make you the only woman in the department who hasn't."

"But-"

"Relax. He's never indicated a willingness to date anyone he works with. But let's just say men and women give out subliminal signals about their sexuality in spite of themselves. On that front he's liable to seem as available as the next man. This is why I think he let the rest of us know he can have a woman in his life, so none of us would feel guilty about normal chemistry and an innocent, unspiritual 'what-if* or two. In anyone else, I'd call that kind of thinking the height of conceit. But with him, I figure it's just his way of keeping unnecessary tensions out of an already charged work space."

"Well, he needn't worry about me," Jane insisted, still not willing to admit she'd had her own moment of attraction to him. But finding out that he hadn't been sworn to celibacy somehow helped her feel a little less weird about what happened.

"Now how about my needle count?"

Jane shook her head. "No sign of the missing fifty."

Minutes before the end of her shift at three, a half dozen ambulances arrived within minutes of each other.

"Figures," she muttered, running into the supply room to find more IV bags. Grabbing them, she noticed that Father Jimmy had forgotten his specimen cup on the counter. Odd, it being what he'd come for in the first place.

That night, 11:45 p.m.

I let myself in the basement door and closed it softly behind me.

A piercing squeak in a hinge sounded inches from my ear, and I froze, listening for any response upstairs.

Standing in pitch darkness, I heard the soft purr of a freezer somewhere nearby, but otherwise the muffled silence of being belowground remained intact.

Then a slight creak came from the floorboards above my head.

The dog?

I held my breath not daring to move.

Nothing else stirred.

I strained to hear the telltale click of her claws on wood or linoleum.

Still nothing.

The freezer clicked off.

Now absolute quiet reigned.

I exhaled through my mouth, careful to make no noise at all, still alert for a hint of anything stirring, man or beast.

The house seemed reassuringly dead.

I snapped on a penlight and tiptoed to the foot of the stairs leading up to the kitchen, then paused.

The steady dry click of an electric clock ticking off the minutes came somewhere on the ground floor. Otherwise, the rest of the house remained as hushed as the basement.

I'd have to be extra careful if I didn't want to wake the dog.

I sat down on the cement floor and played my light around the room, looking for what I'd need, checking the diameter of the pipes overhead, and fine-tuning my plan.

Yes, this would work well.

Very well indeed.

Wednesday, July 9, 1:30 a.m.

Janet rose, unable to sleep, and pulled on her housecoat. She heard Muffy stir in the dark at the foot of the bed, then the soft sound of her paws hitting the carpet. The dog would routinely accompany her to the door when she left on a delivery, and be waiting there on her return. Earl, having trained himself to sleep through such nocturnal excursions a lifetime ago, didn't so much as vary his breathing.

Their bedroom remained pitch-black, the usual glow from the street lamps unable to penetrate a fog thick as silt.

She went down to the kitchen, made herself a mug of hot chocolate, and curled up on the living room couch. Despite the murk outside, she cranked open a window and let the sweet scent of her nicotinia bed waft through the darkness.

Muffy came up and gave her a puzzled look. After receiving a reassuring kitzle behind the ear, she plopped on top of Janet's feet and emitted a little groan.

"You getting stiff, old girl?" Janet said, working her toes into the dog's woolly coat.

A long canine sigh greeted her effort.

She'd decided. Not only would she stop work, but her leave would begin as soon as she could farm out her patients.

She tried to tell herself what had happened at the hospital last night didn't affect her, that her body had been telling her for weeks to slow down, that this pregnancy would be different, demand she rest more. And now she finally found the common sense to listen.

But something had changed. Her nothing-stops-me bravado wore a little thin in the face of what could have been if Susanne hadn't set the rescue in motion.

Remembering the iciness of the morgue, she shivered and clasped her cup with both hands so its warmth would flow into her.

A chill completely separate from the night air remained.

Hunching up inside her robe, she adjusted some throw cushions at her back in a vain attempt to get comfortable, and received a kick from within for her trouble.

"Sorry, little man," she murmured. Knowing her voice would sound like talking underwater to him, she started to hum. The random notes evolved into the tune for "Puff the Magic Dragon." His movements settled, and she giggled. "In another five weeks you'll hear your momma's real singing voice. That'll be a shocker."

He gave her another little nudge.

"Let you sleep, right?" she whispered, and quietly resumed the song, this time with words.

He settled again and stayed quiet.

Her thoughts drifted.

To Brendan, whose young eyes had ignited with delight when he found Mommy and Daddy at home after school. She would give him more of those days with her. Many, many more.

She stretched and rested the nape of her neck against the top of the sofa, savoring images of all the fun they'd have- setting up his old crib, preparing the tiny bedding, digging out all the stuffed animals that he still loved but carefully hid away so his six-year-old friends wouldn't see them when they came to play.

Smiling, she also experienced a hint of relief. For once he could be her little boy, she'd be his mom, and there wouldn't be the demands of an obstetrical practice competing for her attention. Maybe, she thought, just maybe, she'd be able to create a magic interlude for him, an oasis where he could store up on all he'd missed from not having her around. "Yeah, right," she said aloud, having counseled enough mothers through the demands of career and kids to recognize a guilt fantasy when she conjured one up for herself. Still, she liked the idea. A couple of months stretched like a lifetime for a six-year-old. Not that he didn't already feel safe, confident, and loved. But you can't ever have too much of that stuff, she thought, then laughed out loud.