Day 6 – Wednesday evening
Forbes residence
Ginny slept until dinnertime. Like most night workers, she bulldozed through her assigned shifts, then collapsed, hoping to recover in time for the next round. It usually worked, but she was already beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t be looking for a less grueling schedule.
After dinner, Ginny settled down at her desk and opened her computer. She made a précis of what John Kyle had told her about Phyllis’ interest in politics, set up a timeline and a list of possible sources of information, and filled in some of the blanks on her means/motive/opportunity spreadsheet. She was soon staring at several pages of notes.
She added a few comments, then set the murder aside and turned her attention to Luis.
On the assumption that the disappearance of Maria Perez was somehow connected to Phyllis’ murder, Ginny started a mind map.
Mind maps do not follow linear formats. Instead, they allow the user to link one idea back to another (or many others) as the ideas occur to them. Ginny mapped location (both Luis and Phyllis had a connection to Hillcrest), Maria (Luis’ mom and Phyllis’ friend), occupation (both Maria and Phyllis were nurses), timing (Maria went missing after Phyllis’ death and referred to that death as if it had some importance to her), unknown enemy(ies) (Maria fled someone and appeared to think Phyllis was killed by the same or similar someone), and illicit drugs (Luis found wearing fake fentanyl patches and Phyllis’ purse found with cocaine in it).
Ginny took a moment to examine her work. Not a bad start but there were some dead ends. Why were Luis’ patches fake? What spooked Maria Perez? Was Phyllis connected, somehow, or was her death unrelated and Maria mistaken on that point? What did Phyllis have to do with the nursing shortage?
Ginny leaned back in her chair, her brow furrowing. She didn’t pay much attention to what happened in state politics. In some ways, the less she knew, the happier she was. But when it was something to do with the Board of Nursing, she had to pay attention.
Four times a year the Board published a bulletin with updates on laws affecting nurses in the State of Texas; announcements about programs, projects, and workshops; information about nursing education; articles of interest to nurses; and notices of disciplinary actions. It was always entertaining to see who had gotten into what kind of trouble.
Ginny opened a browser and pulled up the most recent issue, finding no one she knew on the ‘naughty’ list and a very dry description of some upcoming legislation having to do with expediting applications for nursing licenses for foreign nurses. She printed the article off for further study and set it aside.
There was one more thing she absolutely must do before she went back to bed and that was go through the pile of material John Kyle had given her, so she could hand the Hillcrest stuff over to Ms. Hawkins tomorrow before leaving for Austin. She sat down on the carpet, with the box beside her, and started to sort.
The files with a Hillcrest identifier were an eclectic lot. Among them were the human resources department policies on new hires, including proposed revisions to licensure verification processes (some of them fifteen years out of date), nursing department lists of continuing education dates and deadlines, and contact information directories for Hillcrest staff covering the last ten years. Interesting, but nothing that looked like a HIPAA violation. All of these went into pile number one.
The second pile was made up of things having to do with nursing reform and other political issues. Ginny went through this with attention, but found nothing more recent than last year and nothing that sounded as if it had anything to do with the nurse shortage.
The third pile addressed Phyllis’ graduate school plans. Among other things, Ginny found a stack of articles on imposters in healthcare, including a collection of Board of Nursing Bulletins, all open to the imposter alert page, and a calendar marking the class schedule with handwritten notes about which shifts Phyllis wanted to work in January.
Ginny paused, then dug out the January schedule for the Medical ICU. Phyllis was not on it, which was odd because it had been posted before Phyllis died. An oversight, perhaps?
The last pile was stuff unrelated to the hospital or nursing. Mr. Kyle had included mailings, advertisements, and some private letters in his haste. The letters would need to be returned. Ginny sorted through the junk, decided it was safe to discard most of it, put the Hillcrest files into the box and stood up, stretching.
Because of being sent out of town, she would be on day shift until the middle of next week. The sooner she got to sleep, the easier it would be to stay awake on the road tomorrow. Hillcrest first, then Tran, then drive to Austin. Then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning conference, then drive home in time to attend the Christmas party at the Jumping J ranch. Then two days off to make up for having to work through the weekend.
Not much time left for investigating. She hoped Detective Tran wouldn’t need her for a day or two.
* * *
Wednesday late evening
Hillcrest ER
“Got one!”
Jim followed the DEA agent down the corridor and into the exam room. It was a teenaged girl, just barely arousable, clearly under the influence. The nurse handed Jim the triage paperwork.
“What did she take?” The DEA agent asked.
“This.” She tossed him a baggie with a dusting of white powder inside. “The friend who brought her in said she’d injected it. She thinks it was fentanyl.”
The agent took the bag, then retired to a back room to do a field drug test on the material. He was back in five minutes.
“Positive.”
“Okay. Add fentanyl to the drug screen.” They had already medicated the patient with a second dose of naloxone.
So sophisticated had opioid drug abusers become that they carried their own supply of antidote with them when they went to shoot up. The young woman accompanying this patient had produced an auto-injector she had used to keep her friend alive while waiting for the ambulance. Jim and the DEA agent took her into a private room to talk while they waited for the patient to wake up enough to speak for herself.
“I’m Dr. Mackenzie,” Jim said. “What’s your name?”
“Keesha.”
“That was quick-thinking on your part, Keesha. You probably saved Jasmine’s life.”
“Well, like, you know, you hear things.” The young woman shrugged, her eyes darting from Jim to the agent, then back again.
“What sort of things?” Jim asked.
“You, know. Things. So we, like, got the drug.”
“You mean the naloxone?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where she got the fentanyl?”
“No.” Keesha’s eyes were no longer on Jim, focusing instead on her shoes.
Jim leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and clasping his hands loosely between his knees. He was deliberately trying to look harmless.
“It would help us to know where to look for her dealer. Do you both buy from the same person?”
Keesha was twitching now, squirming in her seat. “I don’ give up my sources. Y’all knows that.”
Jim nodded. “Normally we wouldn’t even ask, but there’s a problem.”
She swiveled a white eye in his direction.
“There’s someone targeting drug users, killing them, deliberately.” He watched Keesha’s eyes grow wider. “Whoever it is needs to be stopped.”
“I can’t tell y’all. I wouldn’t make it home tonight.”
“No one will know it was you.” Jim waited, watching the young woman squirm. “If you can help us find him—or her—you can save more lives, just like you did for Jasmine tonight.”
Keesha jumped to her feet and started pacing. “It’s not like I knows,” she said. “But I hear’d something, on the street.”
“What did you hear?”
“There’s, like, a war on. New guy says the old guy wants us dead and it ain’t safe to buy from him no more. Says his stuff is better. Safer.”
“Is it true?”
Keesha’s eyes grew wider and her cheeks taut. “Yeah. It’s true. They’s droppin’ like flies out there. It ain’t safe.” She went back to pacing, her hands moving spastically along her arms, then down the sides of her legs.
“Keesha.”
She turned abruptly to face him. “What?”
“Have you taken something tonight?”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “No. Hain’t I done told you it ain’t safe?”
“When was your last dose and what did you take?” It was clear she was in the first stages of withdrawal from something.
She stared at him, her mouth falling open.
“Let us help you.” Jim rose and stepped toward her. She backed up against the wall and stood staring at him, then, very slowly, nodded.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“We’ll take care of that.” Jim very gently took her arm and steered her out of the consultation room and into the system. When he had her settled and had checked on Jasmine, he located the DEA agent.
“Do you need me for anything else?”
“Nope. Thanks Doc. That was a real nice job in there. Maybe enough to persuade one of them to give up the dealer.”
“Let’s hope so,” Jim replied. “You heard the lady. They’re dropping like flies out there.”
* * *