Suture Self : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery

“But I’m his wife,” Judith protested. “I’m next of kin.”

“Very sorry,” the man repeated. “We must follow

strict orders.”

“Tell me this much,” she persisted. “Would they

have moved him if he’d still been on the critical list?”

“No word on that patient. Good-bye.” The man hung

up.

“Damn!” Judith cried. “Is this some kind of conspiracy?”

“I don’t know,” Renie said in an exhausted voice.

“But at least you found out Joe’s still in one piece.”

“That’s not a great deal of comfort,” Judith moaned.

“And why move him at all?”

“It gets zanier,” Renie declared. “Didn’t you wonder

how Torchy Magee arrived so fast after Bertha hit the

alarm button?”

“No,” Judith admitted. “I didn’t even think about it.

I was too upset about Joe.”

“Torchy may run hard, but he doesn’t run fast,”

Renie pointed out. “He’s too bulky. Anyway, I figured

that the only place he could have come from in that

short period of time was the room we saw Robbie the

Robot enter. After giving Bertha the third degree, I

peeked inside the door. Robbie was still there, all

beeped out. The room is where they keep some of their

records, and it has a paper shredder that had been left

on. I figured that Torchy was in there shredding documents, maybe some that Robbie had delivered. Sure

enough, Torchy had left a couple of undamaged pages

next to the shredder.” Renie looked hard at Judith.

“They bore the name ‘Joe Flynn.’ ”

At first, Judith was baffled. According to Renie, the

two sheets appeared to be only the standard admitting

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Mary Daheim

forms. Except for Joe’s identification, the date, the

time, the type of injury, and the signature of the hospital staff member who had signed him in, there was

nothing of interest.

“That’s why I didn’t swipe them,” Renie explained.

“As long as they didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, I thought that stealing the two pages

would cause more trouble than it was worth.”

Judith frowned. “I wonder how many records from

this place have gone through that shredder in the past

month or so?”

“You mean like Joaquin Somosa’s and Joan Fremont’s and Bob Randall’s?” Renie suggested.

“Exactly.” Judith was silent for a few moments, then

turned to Renie again. “There is a cover-up, but I’m beginning to think it doesn’t have anything to do with the

hospital’s reputation per se.”

“What do you mean?” Renie asked.

Judith shook her head. “I’m not sure. I just have this

feeling that maybe it’s more personal than professional.”