Working Stiff

summons to the nursing office, then never be heard from again. Some think the Friday timing is so administration will have an entire weekend to find a replacement. Personally, I think it’s so Molinaro will have an entire weekend to hide the body.

“Hello, Mattie.” She greets me with a phony-looking smile and a suspicious gleam in her eye. “What a nice surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Actually, I’m here to see David, but I figure they won’t let me into the OR on my own. I want to talk to him about Karen Owenby.”

“Karen Owenby?” Molinaro sits up straighter, her tone as wary as her expression. “What business do you have with Karen?” She probably thinks I’m here to exact some sort of revenge. Apparently she doesn’t know someone beat me to it.

“None. I need to see David.”

“Karen’s not here today, anyway,” she adds quickly. “She took a few personal days.”

More than a few, I think. “I guess you haven’t heard yet. Karen’s dead. Someone broke into her house last night and shot her.”

Molinaro’s reaction surprises me. There isn’t one. Finally she says, “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious,” I answer, an admittedly bad choice of words.

“How do you know about it already?” Molinaro asks, her eyes narrowing.

“I was there.”

Molinaro’s right hand drops off the desk toward her lap. I imagine she is fingering the revolver she keeps strapped to her leg, trying to get it loose without snagging any hairs.

“I was there officially,” I explain. “I work in the ME’s office now.” I pull out my badge and flash it at her.

She weighs the facts a moment and apparently finds something amusing in them, because a hint of a smile curls her mustache.

“Anyway, I need to talk to David.”

“Why?”

I don’t think telling her I need to rule him out as the killer will open many doors for me, so I opt for evasiveness. “Official business. Part of my new job and all. You know.”

Molinaro stares at me for the longest time and I find myself feeling relieved it isn’t a Friday. “He’s not in the OR,” she says finally. “He’s down in the ER. We had a multicar pileup this morning and there are several surgical candidates in the aftermath.”

There is an undeniable tone of glee in Molinaro’s voice. No doubt she hears the ka- ching of dollar signs adding up. Multiple trauma on young patients with insurance is good business for a hospital, especially if they end up in the OR, where the rooms are rented by the minute and the average markup on items is somewhere around 2,000 percent. For the price of one OR Band-Aid you can buy ten cases of the suckers at Wal-Mart.

“Come on,” Molinaro says, rising from her chair. “I’ll take you down there.”

Walking into the hustle and bustle of the ER is like a ride in a time machine. Izzy was right, damn it. I hadn’t merely liked working in the ER, I’d loved it. The sounds and smells of the place bring back a delicious feeling of anticipation.

As I follow Molinaro toward the main desk, the curtain on one of the cubicles we pass is flung aside and Phyllis Malone steps out. “Mets!” she hollers when she sees me. “Good to see you again.”

“You, too, Syph.”

Syph is short for syphilis. Nurses in the ER have a tendency to refer to patients by their disease or diagnosis rather than their name. Instead of Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith, it’s “the Leg Fracture in Bed Two” or “the Kidney Stone in Bed Six.” Back when I worked in the ER, we sat around one night discussing this habit, then decided to pick out nicknames for ourselves that were both a disease and somewhat close to our real names. It took a while but eventually everyone had a nickname and, over time, they stuck. The best we came up with for Mattie was Mets— short for metastases, the term used for the spread of cancer. It isn’t great—not nearly as good as Ricky’s Rickets or Lucy’s Lupus—but at least I fared better than Phyllis.

“We’re looking for Dr. Winston,” Molinaro announces in her haughty, lisping tone.

Syph says, “I think he’s in Bed One with the Blunt Abdominal Trauma, Probable Ruptured Spleen.”

“Thanks,” says Molinaro. “Do you have an empty room anywhere?”

“I don’t think anyone is in the ENT room,” Syph says, her gaze bouncing back and forth between me and Molinaro.

I hear the sliding doors to the ambulance bay open, look over, and see Hurley stroll in. I quickly step to one side, hoping to hide behind Molinaro, but it’s like trying to hide a redwood behind a rose bush.

David chooses that moment to appear from behind curtain number one like the booby prize in Let’s Make A Deal. He sees me right away and freezes to the spot. He blinks and stares at me for several long seconds, then says, “Mattie?”

With that, Hurley turns and sees me, too, the expression on his face reminding me of the one my nephew Ethan gets when he sees a bug on the wall. “What are you doing here?” Hurley asks.

“I used to work here,” I tell him with as much indignation as I can muster, hoping it will disguise the fact that I am more or less avoiding the question.

Hurley studies me, his eyes giving me a head-to-toe perusal that leaves me confused about whether I want to run and hide, or wrap my legs around his waist and ride him home. He turns to David. “You are Dr. Winston?”

“I am.”

“I’d like to speak with you please. If you have a moment.” Hurley flips his detective badge out like it’s an invitation.

“Sure. But make it quick. I have a patient I need to get up to the OR.”

“In private,” Hurley says.

I realize Hurley is going to haul David away, which means I won’t be able to see David’s reaction when he finds out about Karen. Then Molinaro, of all people, saves the day. “Is this about Karen Owenby’s murder?” she asks.

Hurley shoots me a look that makes my toes curl up like the witch under the house in The Wizard of Oz. He is clearly pissed. He doesn’t stare at me for long though, because David lets out a “What?” that sounds like the yelp of a wounded dog. All the blood drains from his face and he staggers back as if he’s been hit.

Syph, who is standing across the room, looks up at the sound of David’s outburst and studies the faces in our group for a second. Then she approaches and says, “Let me guess. You told them about that nipple incident, didn’t you?”

Chapter 7

Hurley hauls David off, just as I feared he would. I try to tag along but Hurley shoots me another one of his looks and says, “Stay put. Your turn is coming.”

I take that as my cue to leave. Molinaro is in a huddle with several of the ER nurses as I make my exit through the doors to the ambulance bay, planning to walk around the outside of the building so I can avoid another encounter with Gina and her TV crew.

I head for work, where I find Izzy in his office. Sitting next to him is a man about my age with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. He’s wearing glasses so thick they make his eyes look bigger than his head.

“Ah, Mattie,” Izzy says. “We were just talking about you. I want you to meet Arnie Toffer.”

Arnie stands and gives my hand a hearty shake. He’s about six inches taller than Izzy, which still leaves him a good half-foot shy of me. I’m starting to feel like Snow White.

“Arnie just got back from a seminar on fiber analysis,” Izzy explains. “He’s an evidence technician and someone you’ll need to work closely with. His job involves processing fingerprints, tire tracks, fibers, tox screens… that sort of stuff. Snagged him from LA. He’s one of the best.”