Mercy 6

Silva faced her, again angled her head. “I joined Pathology to get away from what I don’t understand. About this hospital, other hospitals. I don’t understand how it’s about avoiding the sick and injured. Avoiding charts. Not touching someone wheeled in for help.”

“You wanted to ask me about that?”

“I thought you were different. Dr. Claiborne always said you were different. But you’re not.”

“And you are? You and Claiborne?” Mendenhall sighed to try to stop herself but continued, “It’s a little straighter down there. The charts and the patient cha-cha are gone. But it’s still all about power.

Who has the most. Right? You’re up here helping Dr. Claiborne keep his floor clean of Thorpe’s people.”

“He respects you.”

“He uses me because I function as a challenge to Thorpe.”

“I don’t accept that. He wants your knowledge. He uses that.”

Silva brushed the tablet, read something. “I should go.”

“Wait.” Mendenhall almost reached for her elbow, the perfect, sharp angle of it. “Mullich.”

“Mullich?”

“You said he asked for where. Exactly where they were found.”

“Yes.” Silva raised her chin. “Makes sense.”

“To you, yes. I get that. Anything to help explain why it was so fast. Why they just collapsed, went from fine to out.” Mendenhall felt a tired gnawing, doubt, a vanishing thread. “But what’s it to Mullich, exactly?”

“This place is sick,” replied Silva. “This place may be dead. ”

Mendenhall appreciated the way she then just walked away. As the tech moved across the bay, the EMTs and nurses and visitors parted for her. The elevators opened as soon as her small reflection appeared on the steel doors.

8

From her cubicle, she watched Pao Pao. The nurse did not once look at her as she finished ordering the floor, but she was doing everything for Mendenhall. Twenty-five curtained stalls lined two opposing walls of the bay. Pao Pao had the EMTs put nine of the new patients in the stalls on one wall and five on the other side. The nine were Mendenhall’s, all easily observed from her cubicle, all an easy walk-along. This arrangement made it a little harder on the nurses, a little more zigzagged. Mendenhall wanted the hospital to give Pao Pao another title, something other than Nurse. When the floor was completely cleared according to containment standards, Pao Pao did not stop. She proceeded to visit each bed, starting with those on Mendenhall’s line.

Pao Pao worked her way along three patients. She spent a minute with each one, her firm expression unchanging, her arms always in motion: adjusting sheets, gowns, IVs, rails, bed angles. The motion, the flex of muscle, reassured the patients, maybe just hypnotized them. The patients would begin with lots of words.

Mendenhall could see their mouths, their furrowed brows. Pao Pao’s words appeared spare, about one of hers for every fifty of theirs. Then the patients tapered into silence beneath Pao Pao’s tucks and pulls. All of the other nurses on the floor were gathered at the station.

Mendenhall checked her watch and decided she had given Silva a good lead. If she let her get started with the interviews and investigations, the tech might be more at ease, might be able to stick to her own approach. Mendenhall would have to guess which floor Silva had chosen first, which subject. She would stay away from Peterson because Thorpe’s people would be on Two. Fleming, on Four, would be the most static, and the witness was still there in the room. ICU, Verdasco’s floor, would be more controlled, so it would be a bit easier to track down witnesses.

In the elevator, Mendenhall shoved in her express key and pushed Seven, right back to Dozier. This was better than trying to rest or eat cafeteria yogurt. She felt somewhat revived, the beginning energy of a reluctant run, blood quickening. Marking Claiborne, eluding Thorpe, trusting Pao Pao.

* * *

On Seven, Mendenhall thought perhaps she had guessed

incorrectly. The end of the hall, beyond the last patient room, was abandoned. Dozier’s ladder was still in position beneath the broken light, the glass and powder of the shattered fluorescent still not swept. No doubt someone from physical plant was presiding over a debate regarding whose job description required subbing for Dozier. Mendenhall crouched over the glass and powder. The splash pattern formed a line at the base of the ladder, oddly neat.

The replacement tube leaned against the riser; Dozier’s tool belt was looped over the little folding platform. There was a footprint across the line of glass, where someone had stepped to attend Dozier.

“They were more concerned with their shoes.” Silva had appeared above her. “Than with him, I mean.”

Mendenhall, still crouched, looked over her shoulder at Silva.

The tech had fetched a CPR dummy and was cradling it.

“Yes. You’d expect more shuffling over the glass.” Mendenhall looked at the dummy.

“Still,” replied Silva. “Good for us. All this inertia.”

“Us?”