Vanishing Point

I’m a good liar, because I got the person I talked with to tell me that Smith was a member until nineteen ninety- three-over ten years after her death. They wouldn’t tell me how she made the payments or where she was working, though.”

“Okay, how did that bring you to Santa Rosa and Crescent City?”

“I picked my friend’s brains again, and she told me about the Board of Registered Nursing. State agency. License renewal is every two years. You have to renew whether you’re working in the profession or not-so long as you’re alive and ever plan to work again. You can track a person through the relicensing, if you have the right contact at CNA-and my friend does. Smith’s license was last renewed in nineteen ninety-one, and her address at that time was in Santa Rosa.”

Patrick’s saga fascinated me, because it mirrored so many strange, twisting investigative journeys I’d taken over the years. “So you went to Santa Rosa-a town of over a hundred and fifty thousand people and God knows how many hospitals and clinics and private practices-in the hope of getting lucky?”

“Nope.” He smiled. “You know that mantra you’ve been drumming into my head-‘Work your contacts, and your contacts’ contacts, and their contacts, too?’ That’s what I did. Happens my friend has another friend whose fiancee is a doctor on the staff of Santa Rosa Memorial. It seemed as good a starting point as any. I drove up there, exercised some of my Irish charm, and she agreed to check about Smith with Human Resources. Their records show that she was in Pediatrics and left in ninety-two. That was when I got lucky. The doctor is also in Pediatrics, so she asked around, and one of the older RNs remembered Smith. Said she’d left to take a job as an emergency-room nurse at Sutter Coast Hospital here in Crescent City. It was brand-new at the time.”

“So what’s your problem?” I asked. “Why do you need my help? You can just call them up and ask about Smith. For that matter, why did you have to go through your friend’s friend’s fiancee, rather than just calling around to Santa Rosa area hospitals?”

Patrick’s broad grin spelled out his delight in knowing something the boss didn’t. “Because large health-care facilities are very protective of their employees’ information. My friend said that any inquiry that didn’t come from someone with a legitimate need to know would be handed off to Human Resources, which then would tell me the information was confidential and turn me away.”

“Sounds like trying to find out something from Social Security.”

“Right.”

Beside me, Hy said to the waitress, “The blackberry pie with vanilla ice cream, please.”

I turned to stare at him. “You never eat pie.”

“Today it sounds good.”

“It’s lucky that Citation belongs to RKI, and not to you. If you flew it all the time, you’d get fat.”

He smiled benignly at me.

“Okay,” I said to Patrick, “you came up here…?”

“Hoping to exercise more Irish charm. Didn’t work. As predicted, I was quickly turned away at Sutter Coast. So I called my friend, and she told me that the most gossipy and informative place in a hospital is the cafeteria. If you’re there at breaks or the lunch hour dressed like an employee, and can walk the walk and talk the talk, you can find out pretty much anything.”

“So why aren’t you at the cafeteria today?”

“I don’t think I can walk the walk and talk the talk.”

“What happened to that Irish charm?”

“It’s challenged by this assignment. For one thing, the majority of nurses are female, so a male stands out. I tried to place myself in the role of a doctor, orderly, EMT, or lab technician. None of it felt right, and I’m really afraid I’ll blow it. But you can do it, Shar.”

“Me? A medical professional? I don’t know anything about those jobs.”

“People on their lunch breaks don’t necessarily talk about their work. Some of them stuff their faces”-he looked over at Hy, who was digging into his pie and ice cream-“but mostly they gossip. Besides, you can act. I’ve seen you do it. My friend gave me a perfect scenario for you, and she’s willing to go over it on the phone. But first we have to pay a visit to the uniform shop I found earlier.”

From the bathroom of Patrick’s room at the Econo Lodge I called, “Are you sure this is the kind of outfit nurses wear? Why don’t I have a starched white uniform and a little hat?”

“When was the last time you saw a nurse dressed like that?”

I thought. “In an old film on late-night TV.”

“Right; their dress code varies from place to place. Sutter Coast uses hospital scrubs and white shoes or sneakers for nursing personnel. Let’s see how you look.”

I stepped through the door, and he surveyed my light blue V-neck tunic top, loose elastic-waist slacks, and athletic shoes. The top and slacks were courtesy of the uniform shop, the shoes my own.

“Perfect.” He gestured at the plastic nametag holder that hung around my neck. “I’ll borrow the typewriter I saw in the manager’s office and put your alias on that, just in case. But remember to keep the tag twisted, so they can’t see the front. My friend says the ID tags can be a joke, because they’re always hanging the wrong way.”

“Dress rehearsal’s over?”

“Yeah. You look great.”

“Then I’ll get back into my own clothes, and we’ll grab Hy and hit that country-and-western bar he discovered.”

Patrick frowned. “You’re not gonna drink too much, are you?”

“What?”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to be hungover for your performance tomorrow.”

First I’ve got Ted worrying about my owning a gun and flying a plane. Now Patrick’s concerned about my drinking habits.

I said, “I’m only going along to watch over you. We can’t have you exercising that Irish charm on the wrong women.”

Two hours later, Patrick was definitely exercising his charm on a woman. She was tall, extremely thin, clad in tight jeans and a tank top, and she was beating him at straight pool.

“Must be true love,” I said to Hy. “He doesn’t seem to mind she’s making him look like a klutz in front of all these strangers.”

He glanced over from where we sat at the bar. “If his tongue was hanging out any farther, it’d interfere with his bank shot.”

The bar, Tex’s, was crowded and noisy. A band that was never going to make it to Nashville or even Bakersfield played-largely ignored-at the rear of the cavernous room. As they segued into a cover of one of Ricky’s songs, “The Midnight Train to Nowhere,” I grimaced. He would have, too, could he hear them.

Hy said, “So tomorrow you assume the persona of Nurse Betty.” The reference was to a movie we hadn’t much cared for.

“Nurse Patsy Newhouse, in case anyone asks.” I often assumed my sisters’ names when undercover; they were familiar enough that if someone called me by one of them I’d be likely to notice, if not immediately react.

Hy asked, “Is Sunday a good day to go to the hospital? Won’t they be short on staff on the weekend?”

“Yeah, that’s a drawback. Patrick’s friend says a Friday would be perfect because people are always more relaxed and gossipy before the weekend. But I certainly can’t wait around till Friday, so I might as well try my luck tomorrow. I can always go back on Monday.”

“How d’you explain that none of the staff have ever seen you before?”

“There’s a thing called the nurses’ registry; it’s like a temp agency, and it gives me a license to ask questions. I say I’ve just come from registry, don’t know where anything is, that kind of thing. Deflect any of their questions by asking a lot of my own.”

“Sounds tricky.”

“It isn’t going to be easy. I talked on the phone with Patrick’s friend for a long time this afternoon. She says the nurses know everything about everyone, but it’s a close-mouthed community when it comes to outsiders. They’re smart and, if they’re old enough to have known Laurel… Josie, whatever, they’ve been around long enough to know