Jack’s surgery was supposed to take two hours, assuming no complications.
That gave Sam and I about ninety+ minutes for some daddy/daughter sleuthing.
I woke her up, and she still appeared tired.
“You okay, pumpkin?”
“Bad dreams.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“They’re just dreams, Dad. Mom and Uncle Harry had their surgeries?”
“Mom just left. Uncle Harry is in the recovery ward. Want to go and say hello?”
“Lemme brush my teeth first.”
After oral hygiene had been attended to, I grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer and Sam helped push me in my wheelchair to the elevator. During the trip, I told her about Blood’s palm scar.
“So we’re going to be looking for people with a scar on their hand?”
“Yep.”
“And Mom said it was okay that I help you?”
The child knew her mother well. “She did.”
“That’s cool. How do we get people to show us their hands?”
“I have an idea for that.”
“Does it have to do with that bottle of hand sanitizer you’re holding?”
“It does. Follow my lead. I’ll do right, you do left.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll understand when it happens.”
We got to the post-op ward where we found a semi-lucid Harry McGlade ranting to a bored-looking nurse about something nonsensical.
“In the infinite multiverse, there’s a world where the asteroid never hit the Earth and killed all the dinosaurs,” he said. “So the dinosaurs kept evolving, and became self-aware. You and I are on that Earth, except we’re both dinosaurs.”
The nurse, who had the name badge that read PAAVAI, was checking McGlade’s leg, which looked like a special FX prop from a Frankenstein movie. It was swollen, with lots of stitches and several steel pins jutting out like cactus needles. I glanced at Sam, wondering if she’d be grossed out, but she appeared fascinated by it.
“Do you get to pick the dinosaur we get to be?” Nurse Paavai asked.
“What? No. Maybe. Yes. If it’s an infinite multiverse, that means all possibilities must exist. So you’ll be able to pick your dino on an infinite number of them.”
“I want to be one of those huge dinosaurs,” Paavai said. “The ones with the long necks and long tails that eat the tops of trees.”
“A brachiosaurus,” Sam said. “Hi, Uncle Harry.”
“Hi, stinkypoopoofartpants. What do you think of my leg?”
“It’s pretty wild.”
I glanced at Sam, then said, “Nurse Paavai, thank you so much for the work you’re doing here. I know we’re all worried about Covid, but I just have to shake your hand.”
I made a show out of squirting some hand sanitizer onto my palms, giving Sam the bottle, rubbing my hands together, and then extending my right one to the nurse.
She nodded and reciprocated, and as she reached for my hand I noted she had no scar.
“Thank you for your service, Nurse Paavai.” Sam picked up on my ploy without prodding, sanitizing her hands and then offering her left.
Nurse Paavai shook it. No scars.
Now all we had to do is thank the entire St. Erasmus Hospital staff.
“I can’t tell you how much it means that you guys came to check on me,” Harry said. “As you know, I don’t have any blood relatives other than my son, so it’s hugely important to me that—”
“We gotta go,” I wheeled out of the room.
“Cya, Uncle Harry!”
Sam and I wandered the ward, sanitizing and shaking the hands of healthcare heroes. We had two lists. Those who didn’t have scars, and those who (unfortunately) wore latex gloves so we couldn’t verify it.
From our latest suspect list we cleared Nurse Doris, Dr. Michaels, and Elroy, who we bumped into.
“I knew you were a good guy,” Sam told him.
He popped his lips and thanked her.
“Do you know anyone with scars on their hands?” I asked.
“Funky monkey dunkers! I don’t, but I’ll be checking. I know every inch of St. Erasmus, so I eventually run into everyone. Do you want me to call or text you if I find something?”
I nodded, and we swapped cell phone numbers before he went off to do custodial stuff.
“We should check on Mr. Manx, Dad. You said he was sus.”
I wasn’t eager for my daughter to see someone who suffered from mini-strokes and was so pathetically diminished mentally, but I’d just lectured my wife that it was wrong to shield Sam from real life.
So off we went, to see the poor old man with the blood disease and the transient ischemic attacks and the alphabet soup list of medical issues.
I couldn’t tell if Mr. Manx recognized me when we came into his room, but he didn’t look like his condition had improved. When we approached his bedside, the elderly man began his familiar, unnerving rant, flopping around and beginning to thrash.
“Ugs! Iting! Iting eeeee!”
“Hi, Mr. Manx. I’m Samantha.”
My daughter reached for his bound arm—
—and he calmed down when she touched it.
“Why are his wrists tied, Dad?”
I winced. “So he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“No scars on his palms.”
“No. Let’s leave him alone, pumpkin. Let him get some rest.”
Mr. Manx strained against his bonds, wiggling his covered legs.
“Reeee eeeee!”
“Half of his body is paralyzed,” Sam deduced. “But I think he’s saying free me.”
Mr. Manx nodded, his good eye widening.
“You want us to free you?”
“Sam, that’s probably not a smart—”
But my daughter, the Good Samaritan, had already uncuffed his wrist.
Mr. Manx, celebrating his newfound freedom, made a fist and began to punch his legs. Really attack them, like he was attempting to smash both of his knees.
I reached for his hand, to try to stop him, and Sam yelled, “Dad!” and pointed.
Blood was soaking through both compression bandages. I hit the call button for the nurse, then leaned on Mr. Manx so he didn’t do more damage to himself.
Sam, following some unknown agenda, tore at the Velcro on his bleeding leg and opened it up, revealing—
“Ugs! UGS!”
His leg was, indeed, covered with bugs. Leeches.
I continued to hold him, and Sam removed his other legging.
Blood-sucking ticks. Dozens of them, many smashed like grapes from the old man’s pounding.
“What’s happening in here?” Nurse Rhonda shoved me aside and began to put on latex gloves.
No scars on her palms.
“ELP EEEEE!”
“Oh my Lord, what is going on with this poor man?” She injected something into his IV bag. “It’s okay, honey. We’re going to take care of you. We’re going to get rid of all these nasty bugs and clean you up.”
The old man began to relax, the wrinkles on his face smoothing out. His good eye focused on Sam, and half of his face smiled.
“Ank you,” he told her, his relief obvious.
She smiled back and nodded. “You’re welcome.”
Nurse Rhonda hushed us away and closed the privacy curtain, and we left the room.
“How did you know?” I asked Sam.
She shrugged. “No one was listening to him. I’m a kid. I know what that’s like.” Her face got serious. “How did Mr. Manx get all of those bugs on him?”
I had a hunch, but it was pretty gross so I kept it to myself.
“You think the Destiny Drac put the bugs on him?” Sam asked. “To munch on?”
“Yuck.”
“Clinical vampirism often involves people eating bugs.”
“Are you okay?” I asked. “That was pretty… intense.”
“It’s just bugs, Dad. No big deal. Can we check on Mom? She should be done by now.”
I’d been doing a good job of not dwelling on Jack’s surgery, and I thought I’d been distracting Sam from doomy thoughts as well, but she tugged my wrist to lead me back to the elevator.
We returned to the recovery ward and asked the nurse at the front desk about Jack.
“They just brought her in.”
Sam and I thanked her. No hand scars.
We walked by Harry’s room on the way to see Jack.
“Phin!” McGlade called through a crack in the privacy curtain. “Sam! I knew you’d be back!”
We passed him without saying anything, and popped into Jack’s room, right next to Harry’s.
She looked zonked out of her mind. Her arm was in a fiberglass cast from armpit to elbow.
But her spatial awareness, even coming of off anesthesia, was aces. Her eyelids fluttered when we stood next to her bed and she immediately focused in on us.
“Hey.” She smiled sleepily. “It’s my two favorite people.”
“I’m here too!” McGlade yelled. “I can hear you!”
We all ignored Harry.
“How do you feel, Mom?”
“Like my brain has been dipped in molasses. Everything is kind of slow and sweet.”
I held her good hand, and Sam picked up her chart.
“Your X-ray is pretty dope,” our daughter said. “Three screws and a plate. You’re going to be setting off metal detectors, Mom.”
Jack blinked. “I was missing something. I thought there was something wrong.”
“We’re right here,” I assured her. “You’re not missing anything.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. With Blood. I was missing something. But I got it now.”
I wondered if it was post-surgical nonsense, or if my super-sleuth wife had actually figured out a clue.
“What is it, Mom?”
“Blood’s victims… they were here at the hospital. As patients. Blood found them here. That’s how they were chosen. No one else was home when Blood broke in. But he didn’t break in…”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“What do you mean, Mom?”
Jack grinned. “Blood took their keys. While they were here, sleeping. Valuables aren’t locked up. Blood borrowed their keys and made copies. That’s how Blood got through the locked doors.”
“That’s brilliant, Jackie!” McGlade yelled through the partition. “I thought you got old and stupid, but you’re still smart as ever!”
She indeed was. I put my hand on her cheek.
“Nice work, Jack. I’ll check out the area,” I told her. “Call all the shops that make duplicate keys. Maybe we can see if anyone has been a repeat customer for the past seven years.”