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In Jane’s experience, hospitals werewhere bad things happened. The birth of her daughter, Regina, four years ago, an event that should have been joyous, had instead been both terrifying and painful, an ordeal that had ended in blood and gunfire. This is where people come to die, she thought as she and Frost walked into Pilgrim Hospital, as they rode the elevator to the sixth-floor Surgical Intensive Care Unit. During the pandemic, when COVID-19 had swept through the city, this really had been the place where people came to die, but on this Sunday evening, an eerie calmness prevailed over the ICU. A lone unit clerk staffed the desk, where six cardiac rhythms blipped across the monitors.
“Detectives Rizzoli and Frost, Boston PD,” Jane said, showing her badge to the clerk. “We need to speak to Sofia Suarez’s colleagues. Anyone who worked with her.”
The clerk nodded. “We thought you might be coming by. Iknow everyone wants to talk to you.” She reached for the telephone. “And I’ll page Dr. Antrim too.”
“Dr. Antrim?”
“Our intensive care director. He should still be in the hospital.” She looked up as a nurse emerged from one of the patient cubicles. “Mary Beth, the police are here.”
At once the nurse came toward them. She was redheaded and freckled, with flecks of black mascara on her lashes. “I’m Mary Beth Neal, the charge nurse. We’re all in shock about Sofia. Have you caught who did it yet?”
“It’s early stages,” said Jane.
One by one, more nurses joined them at the unit desk, forming a circle of somber faces. Frost quickly jotted down their names: Fran Souza, a fireplug of a woman, her dark hair cropped short as a man’s. Paula Doyle, blond ponytail, lean and tanned and fit as an L.L.Bean model. Alma Aquino, huge eyeglass frames overwhelming her delicate face.
“We couldn’t believe it when we heard the news last night,” said Mary Beth. “We don’t know anyone who’d want to hurt Sofia.”
“I’m afraid someone did,” said Jane.
“Then it was someone who didn’t know her. God, the world has gone nuts.”
The circle of nurses nodded in sad agreement. For those who pledged to save lives, the taking of a life, especially the life of one of their own, must indeed seem like an act of insanity.
The door to the unit hissed open and a doctor strode in, white coat flapping around his long legs. He made no move to shake their hands; in this postpandemic world, keeping one’s distance had become the new normal, but he stood close enough for Jane to read the name on his ID badge. He was in his midfifties withtortoiseshell glasses and an earnest face. That was what stood out most for Jane, his earnestness. She saw it in his furrowed brow, the anxious gaze.
“I’m Mike Antrim,” he said. “ICU director.”
“Detectives Rizzoli and Frost,” said Jane.
“We kept hoping they got the name wrong. That it was someone else,” said Mary Beth Neal. “A different Sofia.”
For a moment no one spoke, and the only sound was thewhooshof a ventilator in one of the patient cubicles.
“Tell us how we can help,” said Dr. Antrim.
“We’re trying to get a time line of what happened on Friday.” Jane looked around at the staff. “When did you all last see her?”
Fran Souza said: “It was the end of evening shift. We sign over our patients to the night shift at elevenp.m.We would have finished that around eleven-fifteen.”
“And then?”
“I headed home after that.”
The other nurses nodded, with echoes of “Same here.”
“And you, Dr. Antrim?” Jane asked.
“Friday I was here, covering the unit.”
“What time did you see Sofia leave the hospital?”
“Actually, I didn’t see her leave. I was busy with the patient in bed seven. He kept crashing on us. We tried for hours to stabilize him, but I’m afraid he was gone by morning.” He paused, his gaze drifting toward cubicle number seven.
“Bad luck bed,” said Mary Beth softly. “It’s where Tony died.”
Frost looked up from his notebook. “Tony?”
“Sofia’s husband,” said Dr. Antrim. “He was a patient in this unit for almost a month, after his operation. Poor Sofia, working her shifts in here, while Tony was vegetating in that cubicle. He was like part of our family.”
