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Karen entered the emergency room entrance of Baystate Franklin Medical Center. Officer Weems was drinking coffee from a mug while guarding the double doors leading to the treatment area. “Anything?” Karen asked.
“Nothing yet,” said Weems. “Scarecrow showed up, and I told her no comment and suggested that she wouldn’t get any information here tonight.”
“I’ll see if I can talk to the doc.” Karen went to the guy at the front desk, showed her badge, and said, “Hi, I’m Detective Tindall. I’d like to talk to somebody about our fire victim.”
The man at the front desk was a small, skinny guy named Robert, and he looked like he knew what he was doing. “I’ll call back and get someone. Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure, that’d be great! Cream and no sugar, please.”
Robert made a call on his headset, then brought Karen an ugly green mug that read “Green Wave”—the high school’s sports team. The coffee was good, though. After a few minutes, a doctor came out looking for a detective. Karen waved, showed her badge, and introduced herself.
“I’m Doctor Kappas. Do you have any information on our fire victim?”
“Nothing yet. We’re looking through the scene to try and find an ID.”
“She’s very dirty. Might be homeless.”
“Will she survive? Can I talk to her?”
“She has some bad burns on her skin and respiratory tract damage due to smoke inhalation. We’ve sedated her. I’d say she eventually will be okay, even with those burns, but that would be my assessment of a normal, healthy person. I’d need to know her medical history. I don’t know yet when you’ll be able to talk to her.”
“Okay, here’s my card. Please give me a call, day or night, when I can talk to her. Someone is out there trying to kill people. I’ll be by in the morning to hopefully give you guys more information, but I need to take her picture now so we can talk to Developmental Services and see if they can ID her.” Doctor Kappas led Karen back to the fire victim so she could take her picture.
Karen went back to the office and looked at her email, but there weren‘t any security videos from the DPW yet. She called Chief Reyes, gave him an update on the fire victim, and told him she’d be back in the morning.