Free Death Rounds by Peter Clement Page A

even a withdrawal of hospital privileges? I shivered and again felt a cold prickle of perspiration on my back.
    I focused on threading my car through the traffic to get to St. Paul’s as fast as I could but seemed to hit every red light on the way. Listening to the wipers tick off the time only increased my impatience at each stop.
    Michael had held fast to his theory that the Legionella cases must have originated from a source or case in the hospital that had been overlooked or missed. As lightning continued to send cracks through the morning gloom, part of me wanted to agree with him, wanted to dismiss the alarming possibility of a phantom as little more than a troubling fantasy fueled by thunderstorms, lack of steep, and too much caffeine.
    But I couldn’t. Each time I recalled Janet’s unyielding insistence that the three women had been attacked, my fears for her own safety made my stomach clench like a fist. Michael’s arguing with her about a lack of proof had only increased that foreboding. He no more had proof for his position than she did for hers. Until he found hard evidence of an undetected source of Legionella, connected the three nurses with that source, then explained how they’d all contracted the disease just before leaving on vacation, I was going to find Janet’s suspicions impossible to ignore.
    But my reasons for taking her suspicions seriously weren’t going to be enough to persuade others. No one would believe a murderer was on the loose simply because Janet had seen a trait of cruelty common to the three victims which everyone else had missed.
    Except, of course, the killer.
    Predictably, Janet and Michael had equally frustrated my concern for their safety. “If you’re probing the work of a maniac, it could be lethal,” I’d argued.
    Michael had scoffed some more, and Janet, once again seething at him, snapped, “With reactions like that, who else but me could do the job?”
    For my sake, they had at least promised not to fight anymore and to be careful. I’d ended up trying to ward off visions of someone prowling after them as they worked.
    Michael had readily accepted Janet’s help. No matter how much their perspectives differed, there was a lot of work to do. Charts of the infected nurses, charts of the patients those nurses had come in contact with, records outlining the ID investigation into possible sources of the Legionella organism—all had to be reviewed. But Michael rejected my offer to stay and look through files with them.
    “Are you kidding?” he’d exclaimed. “A lot of people were edgy about letting me snoop around.”
    “You know, amalgamation paranoia,” Janet had added, sounding resigned to agree with Michael on this point. “If you got caught, they’d shut down the audit and call us all spies.”
    As if to underline their caution, when I’d stopped at Madge’s desk to use her phone on the way out, I’d noticed a stack of files placed beside me with a piece of paper bearing Michael’s name on top. Waiting for St. Paul’s to answer, I’d been trying to see what the top folder contained, when a red-faced woman in a nurse’s uniform had whipped the entire pile away from me and off the counter. “Well!” she’d exclaimed and huffed off. Even Madge had protested,“Dr.Garnet!”
    “Sorry!” I’d pleaded, putting down the phone. “Force of habit. I always check my charts when I’m on hold in my own office. I didn’t see anything—honest! Hey, Madge, please don’t tell Janet!” I’d added, backing out of the room and trying to act the harmless husband that Janet had introduced me as.
    I smiled, recalling this performance, then quickly lost patience again as I missed yet another green light. But instead of once more sitting there and fuming over the slow pace, I thought of a call I could make. I dialed the number for our ICU.
    “It’s Dr. Garnet,” I announced when one of the nurses answered. “Could you tell me the status of Phyllis Sanders,