Dead on Arrival (19 page)

Dano and I were dressed and heading out the door when my cell phone rang. I opened it and stuck it near my ear.

“Pansy's awake. Meet me there.” Then Jagger hung up before I could scream at him about the Dano situation. In my mind though, I knew Jagger always had my back. He never would have let me come here tonight alone if he didn't really know who ER Dano was.

But did Jagger really know what Dano and I had done?

Yikes. I hoped to hell he couldn't tell about my “glow” like perceptive Lilla could. Naw. Guys were not perceptive.

“We need to get to the hospital. Pansy woke up.” Pansy woke up. Perfect.

Dano turned to look at me. “That Jagger?”

Oh, yeah. Jagger had known. I'd kill him for sure and not with a cell phone but a real knife!

“Yep,” I said as Dano threw his keys at me.

“You drive. I'm indisposed as far as night vision. My truck will get us there faster than your yuppie Volvo.”

I wanted to argue that it was not yuppie, but that'd be a losing battle since my car, in fact, was. Hey, I bought it second-hand from a financial advisor in suburban Glastonbury, CT. Couldn't get anymore yuppie than that.

On the way to the hospital, I kept apologizing to Dano about the pepper spray until he made me pull over and said, “Stop that. You did the right thing. I wouldn't have expected anything less out of you, Nightingale. You've got guts and chutzpah. That, my dear, is why you make a fantastic nurse, investigator, and…sex—”

“I get it. Thanks.” Phew. I really didn't want him going into
that
—even if it sounded like a good compliment coming on. There was that Catholic school induced conscience thing, and once you heard something out
loud
, it became all too real.

Premarital sex. Or pre no plans for marriage sex. Yikes.

We drove off, and soon were pulling into the parking lot of Saint Greg's.

“There's Jagger's SUV,” Dano said, pointing to the left side of the parking lot.

At first it surprised me that Dano'd recognize Jagger's SUV, but working with Jagger, I'd learn not to be bowled over by Jagger-induced-shockers any longer, and that obviously pertained to Dano-induced-shockers too. “Let's see if he waited for us in it.”

I opened my own door since even after having sex with ER Dano, I wasn't expecting any changes. Truthfully, I didn't want any. He was hot and perfect the way he was, and there was enough chemistry between us to blow up a small building. Nope. I liked ER “as is,” and no amount of wishing and hoping could produce that amount of chemistry—and apparently, I liked it.

And, hey, since he was still talking to me after pepper spraying him—he had to feel something close to it too.

Jagger got out and walked toward us.

I could swear he looked at me as if he
knew
about…you know. But then I told myself that was my stupid conscience acting up again. No way could he tell—but when we got closer, he stepped next to me and touched my arm. “Let's go inside,” he said.

Wow.

Was that a possessive kind of touch?

I decided to concentrate on the case at hand and not try to figure out my romantic involvements/non-involvements. Besides, a thirty-something who, up until now, hadn't had a date or sex in X (truthfully I didn't want to know the real number because it'd be too embarrassing) number of months was in no position to figure anything out.

Walking between these two though proved more difficult than I thought—especially when they both went to put their arms around my shoulders—at the same time!

We made it up to Pansy's floor without any more physical contact on anyone's part and not a word of explanation either.

I, however, smiled to myself all the way up on the elevator.

We stopped at the desk, and ER Dano explained that we were all employees who came to visit their boss.

The stern looking nurse leaned forward glaring at me.

Geez! At first I worried that she might have recognized me as a past employee from there. But she didn't look familiar. I let my hair slip forward to partially cover my face and took a step backward.

As if he read my mind, Jagger leaned forward until I was nearly covered from Nurse Ratchet's view. She did have a similar looking expression as the nasty nurse always had in the moviea.

“Visiting hours are over.” She stepped back and folded her arms across her chest.

I started to turn around, but both Jagger and Dano pulled out the charm—non-stop—and before I knew it and in quite a whirlwind of confusion, we were walking down the hallway to where the guard sat.

I could only shake my head in amazement at these two hunks.

Not only could these two hunks sweet-talk their way into a patient's room after visiting hours, but they could also talk an armed guard into letting us get by.

I figured he knew who Jagger was anyway, so this time I didn't let myself get too impressed.

“Lieutenant Shatley's in there,” the guard said, mostly to Jagger, who nodded.

“Maybe we should wait?” I suggested.

But they were both putting on their isolation outfits, and damn, but they both looked so tasty in Johnny coats (unfortunately over their clothes) and masks.

Couldn't decide whose eyes were sexier.

Then I concluded—both were.

“Okay. Okay.” I dressed up and followed them into the room, certain they didn't want any discussion out in the hallway and in front of Barney Fife.

When Jagger stepped aside, and Dano walked toward the bed, I got a glimpse of Pansy. Yikes. She looked awful. Then again she had been stabbed and suffered quite a blood loss, survived surgery and a whopper of an infection and a temperature, not to mention the trauma her body had endured.

What struck me most was the glassy look in her eyes. For some reason, Pansy didn't look back to normal. Normal for her that was. She and her brother were pips and often had the most unusual looks on their faces. Ones that no one got except them. I chalked it up to “twin telepathy.”

Right now she was glaring at…me!

I moved to the side behind the lieutenant. “Hey,” I said.

He nodded and turned toward Jagger, who was next to me. “Not much useful stuff yet. She's hopped up on meds is my guess.”

Or hiding something was mine.

But I didn't want to say anything that was accusatory, as I really didn't have any evidence. I looked around the room of masked professionals and decided I'd need ironclad proof for this gang.

Jagger stepped forward. “Hey, Pansy. Jagger here. Remember me?”

She nodded, but I don't think she meant it, and I'm sure Jagger realized that. “Jagger.”

“Yeah, I'm a new paramedic, Pansy. I'm still on orientation.” He touched her hand, which was holding onto the side rail.

Actually, I wondered what she was thinking with this group in here. Pansy probably was frightened. Yeah, that made sense when I looked at her face.

I walked next to Jagger. “Hi, Pansy,” I said in my softest, friendliest voice. I'd reverted back to my old nursing tricks, and before long I seemed to have her trusting me. At least she held my hand instead of the railing. I let her, thinking she wasn't going to have a baby right now, so I was safe as far as a broken hand went.

Jagger started to talk more about work, trying to get her mind into focus I assumed.

Every time she answered, she glared at me.

I caught Lieutenant Shatley looking at me and winking. He wanted me to get her into my confidence. Okay. I could do that. I'd worked psych before. And I'd worked neuro so between the two, I should be able to get Pansy's mind off the gang in the room and to tell us something.

Dano made a kind of groaning sound as if irritated or more like him, impatient. I looked to see him edge his way toward the bed, kinda pushing Jagger out of the way.

Oh…my…god!

Both looked at each other and remained calm, although
I
felt the tension!

“Hey, Pansy. It's me, Dano. ER Dano.”

Suddenly I felt as if Pansy had just returned from Oz and the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and Lion Jagger were all re-introducing themselves to gain her confidence. Only thing was, in Oz, Pansy would've only had to worry about a “non-waterproof” witch, where in Hope Valley, there was a potential killer on the loose.

She kept looking at me, and I had to admit, she got a hundred percent of the answers wrong. Didn't know who the president was. Said it was 1951, and although the guy was an enigma, she really didn't know who ER Dano was despite the longevity of his employment with TLC.

I looked at the men in the room, and we collectively frowned, and a few of them cursed.

“Pansy, do you know where you are?” I asked, hoping my femaleness might give me an upper hand on the guys.

She made some coughing noise. I checked her monitor, and her heart rate and respirations were okay, although a little fast, which I chalked up to stress. Who wouldn't be stressed with this gang in their room interrogating them right after they'd woken up from a few days of a deep sleep?

I waited until she calmed down and said, “That's all right. How do you feel?”

She looked at me. “I'm fine, Pauline.”

Well my eyes widened at that lucid statement! Everyone in the room looked hopeful, so I continued on with my line of questioning. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

“Of course. What the hell are you all doing in those stupid outfits. Is it Halloween?” She started to chuckle, but it turned into a cackle.

The hairs on my neck stood on end.

I gulped and felt myself being nudged from behind. Jagger. Natch. He'd had my back all right, but was pushing me forward as if the woman in the bed was some sweet, young thing who'd just awakened like Sleeping Beauty.

The only time Jagger touched my back was to push me into something or someone.

I looked at Pansy, and her face contorted into a shape that had me remember the witch with the poison apple in Snow White instead.

Jagger nudged.

I turned around and said, “Stop that!” Again, Stella Sokol's tone.

He didn't look as if he were smiling under the mask. “Ask her.”

Oh, great. He wanted me to ask her who had stabbed her, which was the same as asking who had killed her precious clone of a brother. Yeah, right. My luck would be that Pansy would drift off into a self-induced coma in fear of her life.

So I chatted more until she answered a few questions correctly. However, Dano looked at me and said, “Those are pretty generic. She could be just mumbling.”

“She might be,” Jagger interrupted with, “but we have nothing else. Go for it, Pauline. We could lose her again.”

Whoops. Pauline. Pauline. There it was. The serious tone. The serious name. The one word that got my knees knocking, and I stepped forward in some out-of-body experience and asked, “Who stabbed you, Pansy?”

She looked horrified. Then she turned toward me and spat!

Thank goodness for masks,
I thought. “I didn't mean to upset you, Pansy.”

She started to babble, and often I wasn't even sure it was English. Visions of the Exorcist came to mind. She yelled. She screamed, and then she whimpered like a little child all the while thrashing about and yanking on the IV tubing.

Tears streamed from her eyes, and she babbled on for a few more minutes.

I grabbed her hand and released the IV tubing, so she wouldn't pull it out. “We need to leave,” I said so the patient wouldn't relapse in front of our eyes, and it'd be my fault. “Someone get the nurse,” I ordered and Jagger shoved the call bell button.

Then Pansy started to say random names. They all seemed to be either employees or family, which was only Payne come to think of it. She repeated his name over and over.

The door opened and in walked Nurse Ratchet, who gave us all the evil eye. It didn't take us long before we were hurrying out the door and disrobing from our isolation garb.

I breathed a sigh of relief to get the hell out of there until the nurse opened the door while we were disrobing isolation gear. “Which one of you is Pauline?”

I curled my lips at her since I was the only female one there and raised my hand and waved it at her. “That'd be me.”

“Well she said she wants to talk to you and—” She stuck her head back into the room, and I heard her ask Pansy, “Who?”

The door opened a crack and all the evil nurse said was, “Jeremy.”

“Oh, Lord,” I said to Dano. “Buzz will pass out if he has to deal with
that
Pansy, the evil incarnate who's in there.”

Dano chuckled.

“It's not funny. He's such a wimp. Why on earth would she want to talk to him?”

“They're pretty tight. She hired him and kinda took him under her wing. More like a mother figure, if you can believe that a Sterling could have maternal feelings.”

“Ah.” That's why he was so upset to visit her the last time.

Before I could say a thing, Dano had his cell phone out and was ordering Buzz to get his ass over here.

I looked at Jagger. “What?”

He smiled. “This is gonna be better than Leno's monologue.”

I punched his arm, turned, and punched Dano. “You were thinking the same thing,” I said when he looked at me all confused.

But in the back of my mind, I worried that poor Buzz Lightyear would not survive on his own.

I needn't have worried about dear Buzz last night I thought as I fixed my horrible tea in the TLC lounge. By the time he'd gotten to the hospital—looking much paler than Pansy herself—curiously enough, she'd gone back into a coma.

Self-induced?

No one could be sure, but darling Buzz and I were off the hook.

Jagger, Dano, and I had waited to go in with him, and when he came down the hallway with tears in his eyes, I was glad we all had. The guys were shits at times, but each had a heart of gold, and both would rather kill themselves than admit it.

“Morning, Pauline,” Buzz said, coming up from behind me in the lounge.

I touched his arm. “Oh, hey, how are you today?”

“I'm fine, ma'am.” He spilled a droplet of coffee on my clog.

We both looked down at the same time to see it spread out like a California wildfire on my white shoe. Before he could do his usual apology, I said, “Don't worry about it,” but in seconds, he was down on all fours wiping away.

Yes, I felt stupid and sorry for him all at the same time.

“Bu…Jeremy.” I touched his shoulder.

He stood up and threw the paper towel toward the trashcan.

It landed on ER Dano's shoe.

Yikes. I hurried over and said, “Hey, morning,” so he wouldn't take it out on poor Buzz, who was now bending down to pick it off Dano's very worn black boots. They had character in themselves, and I'm sure some stories to tell.

Thank goodness Lilla sashayed into the room at that very moment before Dano punted Buzz across the room.

She gave Buzz a big smile.

He seemed more nervous than usual, but she sat next to him and gave him a big smile.

“Talk about the odd couple,” Dano muttered.

I slugged his arm and said, “Shut up,” just as #456 came over the intercom. “Ten fifty-four on 442 Lincoln Street.

Dano, Buzz, and I threw our mugs down on the table and hurried out. Lilla wished us luck, and in her Canadian accent I thought she sounded so cool.

Buzz was blushing from ear to ear when we got to the ambulance, where we all stuck on rain gear since a monsoon had decided the flowers needed watering. Dano insisted on driving—with me up front.

Darling Buzz didn't argue, and if I wasn't mistaken, I think the sweetie actually winked at me!

Dano drove #456 like it was a multi-million dollar Rolls. No one took corners as smoothly or got us to our destination as quickly. On the way, he'd explained to me that the call was a teenager who supposedly was having a panic attack of some sorts according to the caller, a neighbor.

“Might be drugs,” Dano said, as we pulled down Lincoln Street.

“Over there,” I said, pointing to a green and beige three-story, old house with two cop cars parked in front. “Cops?”

Dano jumped out, and Buzz already was there getting the bag. “Neighbors didn't tell dispatch everything,” he growled.

We ran toward the back of the house where the two cops were standing. Just our luck that the rain seemed to pour harder, which seemed impossible. I could barely see with the hood of my yellow slicker up and no windshield wipers to keep my vision clear.

Dano yelled to the cop, “What's up?”

The one nearest the door pointed toward the house. “She's in there. Be careful.”

Careful? Did he mean that she was in such bad shape that we had to take care not to let her die or—

Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream followed by ripe cursing came from the house.

Dano shook his head, “Shit. Nutcase.”

I wanted to chastise him, but we didn't have time. First he yelled to the cops to stay out in front, in case any family members came home or neighbors came by to gawk. Then we all hurried in, slipping and sliding on the hardwood floors.

“You fuckers get the hell out of my house!” the voice came from what must have been the bathroom because there was a shower running.

“You think she's going to commit suicide?” Buzz asked.

Dano looked at him for a second. “If I could see through the freaking walls, I'd let you know.”

And she said, “It's the end.”

With that he ran down the hallway and shoved open the door to the bathroom after shouting, “What's wrong, ma'am?”

Dano's shoulder must have hurt
, was all I could think as he broke the door open.

We all took a step forward and stopped.

There in the shower stall was a teenage girl, about fifteen or sixteen, with her underwear on, standing in the middle of the tub with steaming hot water pulsating down on her, holding a soggy stuffed Snoopy doll. Even her legs were beet red from the heat. In the other hand she held a knife.

God, how I hated knives.

But at least this one looked like a butter knife, which made me feel a lot better. In seconds, Dano had it out of her hand and had her in his grasp and out of the hot water.

I reached over to turn it off, and she kicked and screamed, nearly shoving me into the tub, which had the stopper in so it was full of hot water.

I felt a hand on my back and looked to see Buzz pulling me back up. “You all right, Miss Pauline?”

“Fine.” I turned to see the girl slug Dano in the groin, him yelp, and let her go—so she took off running down the hallway.

Dano looked at me. “Shit. Why is it that I always attract the whackos?”

Since I didn't have time to answer, or agree with Dano (although I did), we ran out, following Buzz who was following the patient. I wanted to throw a robe on her since her underwear had now become quite transparent.

When we got to the doorway, the cops were gone. Dano muttered a few curses and said they better just be in front as he'd told them to wait, and we both looked up.

Buzz was running and sliding in the wet grass like Bambi on ice. The girl, however, seemed to have better traction with her bare feet, which I guessed were very used to no shoes. Calluses probably helped.

“Leave me the hell alone!” she shouted.

Several neighbors came to the fence and one yelled, “Rebecca is not supposed to even be here. Her old man took her to the mental hospital yesterday. Guess she got out.”

Dano and I looked at each other.

“You go left,” he ordered.

I followed his suggestion, but when I got close enough to grab her, I ended up in a heap on top of Buzz, not even sure what went wrong other than the girl was slick. And not just because she was wet.

I could see Dano get close enough to grab her, but he hesitated. No loose clothing to grab on to. The underwear clung like a second skin, and obviously Dano didn't want to grab just
anything
.

“Can't you get one little lady?” the burly cop rounding the corner of the house called out to Dano.

I heard a new curse word this time and thought the guy was taking his life into his hands, and I wouldn't want to be in his black boots once Dano had Rebecca secure on the stretcher.

The other cop came up behind him, and they started laughing. I looked to see Dano and Buzz trying to grab the girl like a proverbial greased pig—but to no avail.

“Come on, Nightingale. Get your ass over here!” Dano shouted.

I got up, couldn't help but wipe some recently cut grass from my raincoat, and ran toward where he pointed, trying to ignore the
squish
of my shoes and the mud that dotted my outfit.

After what seemed like we'd tackled each other and not the patient until the fourth quarter of a football game, we came at Rebecca from three directions and all landed in a heap in the middle of the yard.

She looked at me and said, “Hey, my name is Rebecca. What's yours?”

I bit my tongue while Dano took off his raincoat to cover the girl.

Wow. How sweet.

And my heart did a little end zone touchdown happy dance.

We got Rebecca safely to the hospital. Dano followed the ER doctor's orders en route to medicate her since she'd freaked out. Dano and I took her in while Buzz was to clean up the ambulance. When we stood talking to the doctor, he came in and handed Dano the half vial of medication used on Rebecca to get a new one, then Buzz went back out to the ambulance.

I watched the nurse throw what was left out and give Dano the new one to replace in his box. In Room 3, I could hear poor Rebecca screaming and wanted to go hug her. I did step in and try to talk to her until she tried to bite me. With that I looked at the staff, wished them well, and was out the door to find the guys.

“Got a chest pain,” Buzz yelled in the doorway.

Dano and I hurried out the doorway and off to another run. This job was truly exhausting, and I could see how someone in it year after year could burn out. I'd been there, done that in medicine myself.

One could only take watching the suffering of human beings for so long.

Still, as evidenced by Dano covering up Rebecca, the guy had kept his smarts about him and his heart.

If he stayed at TLC much longer…who knew what he'd end up like?

Buzz seemed delighted to be driving, and when we got to the address of the eighty-four-year-old woman with chest pain, he went to call in on the radio. Dano and I jumped out and hurried to the front door where an elderly man stood—nearly in tears.

We worked on Helen, the lovely woman who didn't seem in any real distress. I gathered her chest pain was muscular, and the monitor said the same. But we still started an IV, gave her oxygen, and got her into the ambulance with the cardiac monitor attached.

Helen was a peach. She giggled like she was back in the thirties. After she said the pain was gone, she talked non-stop in the sweetest little old lady voice.

And she had a penchant for Dano.

I winked at him a few times while he carried on a conversation with the darling woman.

Thump
!

Dano and I looked at each other then toward the back door where the sound had come from.

“What the hell?” he said, staring.

A sparrow glared back at him.

Dano and I looked at each other then at the bird whose wing must have gotten caught in the crack of the doors.

Dano banged on the window and told Buzz to stop for a second. Thank goodness Helen didn't look to be in any distress. Suddenly Dano and I must have thought of the absurdity of the scene at the same time and both broke out in laughter. The bird, too, didn't seem to be in any distress.

“What's wrong, Boss?” Buzz asked.

“Stop this thing. There's a bird caught in the door.”

As usual, Buzz kept up his questioning. I'd noticed he always had to find out details. Well, I guessed being a detail man was good for this profession, but I also wondered if Buzz would really survive it.

“How do you know?” Buzz asked, still not pulling over.

I thought Dano would explode. “‘Cause he's looking at me!” he shouted then he and I started to laugh uncontrollably.

Suddenly Helen waved a knobby finger at the two of us. “You two should be ashamed!” She went into a tirade about how we shouldn't find it humorous that one of God's creatures was stuck in the door.

Even when I tried to assure her that the bird didn't look injured, she spat words at me that I don't think ER Dano even knew!

After a few minutes I was ready to medicate Helen with whatever Dano had given Rebecca just to shut Helen up!

Buzz had pulled over.

Dano opened the door.

The sparrow happily flew away.

And we hit the siren and lights to get Helen to the hospital ASAP—or I think Dano would have slugged her!

The sweet, little, old lady had turned into a tyrant right before our eyes. We dropped her off, restocked, didn't go say goodbye to her for fear we'd upset her more, and headed back to TLC—where I fixed myself a much needed cup of stale tea.

And when I sat down to sip it, I realized that life was strange, people even stranger, and looking over the room of paramedics and EMTs, wondered if there was a murderer among us.

Dano, Buzz, and I had the worst day on record. After two more calls, one for a child who had a toy hatchet stuck up his nose and couldn't breath well, and the other for a construction worker who fell off the scaffolding and broke his back, we drove down through the worst section of Hope Valley with Buzz at the wheel.

He'd bothered Dano so much about being able to drive, Dano gave in, I'm sure just to shut up the eager “Sparkie.”

I leaned against the back wall of the ambulance and shut my eyes, trying to think out the case. This one had turned out to be a doozie. Way too many types of fraud to pinpoint anyone right off the bat. And I knew, just knew, that the murder and attempt on Pansy's life were all related. I also knew money had to be the root of it all. Why else commit the fraud?

I tried to think of what I knew about the employees at TLC and whether anyone had new “toys” like a car that would warrant looking into. Just then, the ambulance jolted and my head swung forward and back, smacking the wall. “Ouch!”