Bringing All the Bad, стр. 20

While this nurse looked perfectly kind, and had behaved impeccably, Mel wasn’t going to forget that someone on this ward had probably used a sponsored phone and leaked the girls’ presence to a rather radical advocacy group. She felt her smile go from real to polite, but couldn’t help it.

Doris saw it too, and her face fell. “No, nothing like that. I promise it wasn’t me. It’s just, well, it’s just that they all seemed so lost. I don’t want to know anything more than that they’re okay. Are they recovering at all?” She trailed off there, perhaps at a loss for words.

“You want to know they aren’t lost anymore?”

Tears shone in the nurse’s eyes. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

Mel’s tone softened and she lied smoothly when she said, “They’re less lost every single day.”

Brushing away the moisture from her eyes, Doris said, “Good. That’s good.”

“Is that all you wanted?”

Mel was disappointed if that was the case. The nurse had been somewhat enigmatic on the phone, only asking her to come by in person. She said it like she had something to share that she couldn’t on the phone.

“Oh, no, that’s not it at all.” She glanced over her shoulder at the desk, then lowered her voice. “It’s about what happened to the doctor.”

Mel was confused. “What? What doctor? What happened?”

Doris looked at her for a moment, then shook her head a little. “You were here. I guess you must have left the ward by then. It happened right after you had your spell in the hallway.”

“Doris, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Can you start over?”

“Of course, yes. Well, right after you had your cookie, I went back to the desk. The doctor—actually, he’s the one that passed you right before you fell—was laying behind the desk. I’d wondered why he didn’t come when you fell. I thought he was just being rude, but he was out like a light on the floor.”

Mel remembered the man, the way he’d turned around to look at them, the slightly confused look on his face.

“He passed out at the same time as I did?” Mel asked, wanting clarification.

“He must have. But he wasn’t passed out, like we first thought. He’d had a heart attack. A bad one.” She pointed up toward the ceiling. “He’s still up in ICU. They aren’t sure he’s going to make it. I shouldn’t say anything, but when they opened him up, they said his heart looked like it belonged to a hundred year old man.”

Goose prickles ran up Mel’s back. It couldn’t be related. Absolutely could not be related. Even so, goose prickles.

“And what does that have to do with me, Doris?” she asked, her voice even.

“Well, other than you passing out at the same time, it doesn’t. It’s about the girl, the one you were with. Baby.”

Mel nodded, not saying anything.

“Well, this is going to sound silly. I’ve been trying to decide for days if I should say anything. I really don’t want you to think I’m…”

“Silly?” Mell offered, then smiled. “I won’t think that.”

Relieved, Doris went on. “Doctor Forster woke up after surgery, but he didn’t make much sense. I have a friend nursing on that ward and since the doctor is a pediatric doctor, I’ve worked with him a great deal. I went up to check on him. My friend told me that he said a little girl had done this to him. That she’d burned his hand. He said she had black wings.”

“Was his hand burned?”

Doris shook her head, “Of course not. It doesn’t even make sense, but still…”

“You thought of me because he’d just passed us in the hall.”

She nodded, blushing a little. “It sounds silly when I say it out loud.”

Mel touched the nurse’s arm, gave it a pat. “Not at all. Of course, it’s not true, but it’s good to know.”

*****

Mel made sure her badge was visible when she rang for entry into the ICU. Though the duty nurse at the big round central desk creased her brows, she let Mel in. She put her finger to her lips to urge silence, then motioned Mel forward.

“What can I do for you, Officer?” Even as she spoke, her eyes roamed over the dozen stations inset around the internal periphery of the desk. Dozens of screens with moving lines, flashing numbers, and other medical information crowded each other for attention. Mel had no idea how one person could monitor all that. Two other nurses were moving about in the space, but this nurse was manning the desk alone.

“Detective Baker. I’m here to see Doctor Forster.”

The nurse made a show of examining the badge held up for her inspection before Mel clipped it to her belt once more. The younger woman’s glance toward one of the glass ICU cubicles let Mel know where the doctor was. She looked toward the cubicle and the big bed inside.

The doctor was invisible save for the upper part of his face. Machines crowded the space around him and an astonishing array of leads, tubes, and lines led from each of the machines to the man in the bed. He looked like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.

“He doesn’t look good,” Mel said, returning her attention to the nurse.

She pursed her lips at the comment. “I can’t discuss patient progress with you. As you can see, he’s in no condition to talk to anyone. He’s not awake at the moment and I’m certainly not going to wake him. What is this about?”

“No trouble, ma’am,” Mel said. “He helped us with a recent case here in the hospital and I had hoped he might be able to speak with me about it.”

Her troubled expression smoothed. “Oh, I didn’t realize.” She glanced at him again, genuine sorrow in her eyes. “That doesn’t surprise me though. He always went above and beyond.”

“Yes, he did,” Mel agreed, though she knew nothing of the man at all. “Would it be alright