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The shift change was almost complete, so the crowd had thinned out. One man, who was dressed like an orderly, was waiting for his meal to
heat in the microwave. A nurse was talking into a pay telephone. Another was fiddling with something inside her locker. Two men wearing jumpsuits like the one Gray had on were seated at a table drinking coffee and talking about turbine engines.
No one paid her any attention. She walked through the room as though she did it every night at eleven o’clock.
Beyond that room, the hospital underwent a drastic personality change. Outside the bright sterility of the commissary was a corridor suggestive of hushed voices and stiff formality. The walls had a wainscot, embossed pastel paper above, paneling below. Brass wall sconces provided subdued lighting. The floor was carpeted. Barrie followed that hall to another that intersected it.
Left or right? Left or right? Don’t look covert, look purposeful. Eeny-meeny, miney-moe. Okay, right!
The corridor she’d selected led toward the front of the building. Along it she saw offices, dark now, a formal reception/parlor area with a baby grand piano, and a solarium filled with tropical plants and ferns among cushioned rattan furniture. All very fancy, absent anything that looked clinical.
The atrium entry was quite impressive, with its sweeping staircase and a skylight fifty feet above the marble floor. In the center of this rotunda was a round foyer table on which stood an enormous floral arrangement, the gladiolus stems upward of four feet tall.
There was no one around except a janitor who was kneeling in front of a wall socket, tinkering with a screwdriver. Barrie went around the table to speak to him. “I might become a coke-head just to have the privilege of staying here.”
“You can’t afford it,” the janitor said as he came to his feet. “There’s nothing on the first floor except offices and meeting rooms.”
“A records office?”
“Undoubtedly. But I’m sure the files are locked, and I didn’t bring the tools for picking them. Besides, it would take too much time.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“A computer terminal,” he said. “There’s bound to be a patient roster that’s constantly updated.”
“Good idea. Onward and upward?”
“You take the elevator. I’ll use the stairs.”
“Meet you on two.”
The elevator was an iron cage that had more aesthetic properties than mechanical. Barrie was grateful that it made it up one flight. She stepped through the wrought iron doors, turned to her left, and came face to face with a nurse, who was as shocked to see Barrie as Barrie was to see her.
“What are you doing in that thing? It’s a deathtrap.”
“Uh, I’m new,” Barrie said, laughing nervously, which under the circumstances wasn’t hard to fake. “Next time, I’ll take the express. Dolly Madison,” she said, sticking out her hand. “Please, no jokes about my name. Believe me, I’ve heard them all.”
“Linda Arnold.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Barrie caught a peripheral glimpse of Gray as he reached the top of the staircase. Taking advantage of the diversion she’d created, he slipped behind the charge nurse’s desk. There was no one else in sight.
“When did you start working here?” the nurse asked.
“This is my first night. I’m assisting Dr. Hadley,” she said, recalling one of the names she’d seen on the telephone roster in the commissary.
“I thought Dr. Hadley was on a six-month sabbatical.”
“Yes, he is.”
“You mean she.”
“I said she.” Barrie placed her hand on Linda Arnold’s arm and leaned in close. “Between you and me, it’s not going as the doctor planned. She’s supposed to be working on a book, although I doubt she’ll ever pull it together.”
“Really? That’s surprising. She’s already so widely published.”
“True, true,” Barrie said, wishing writer’s block upon Dr. Hadley, whoever the hell she was. “But this time, she’s struggling.”
