Free Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) by Deborah Shlian, Linda Reid Page A

Courtney Phillips, was no surprise. But the other—
    Sammy could never forget the name of the man who’d saved her life back at Ellsford University. Pappajohn. Campus police chief Gus Pappajohn. How often had he told her she reminded him of his daughter, Ana, who’d run off years before to L.A.? Anastasia Pappajohn. Could Michelle’s patient be that Ana?
    An abandoned lanyard with a doctor’s ID lying on top of a pile of charts at the back of the lounge gave Sammy an idea. She quickly slipped it around her neck and, fingers crossed, checked the photo. Ajit Subramanian, MD, had black hair, dark skin, a full mustache, and no freckles. With no other option, Sammy flipped the card over and hoped for the best.
    Stepping into an empty hallway, she took a deep breath and adopted a confident stride toward the ER nurse’s station, her goal to locate the rooms assigned to Courtney Phillips and Anastasia Pappajohn.
    The whiteboard listing emergency patients was mounted for maximum visibility from all corners of the central area. Sammy leaned casually against the counter beside an anemic desktop Christmas tree and watched the clerk erase Courtney Phillips’s name. Turning, he said, “And may she rest in peace.”
    “Courtney died?”
    The clerk laughed. His ID badge read “Lou Costanza” and with his pudgy boyish face, wire frames, and thinning hair, he could easily have been a doppelganger for his namesake on Seinfeld. Sammy decided not to make the obvious comment.
    “Not this time. I meant she needs to rest. And the rest of us need some peace,” Lou said, chuckling. “Psych ward.” He spun his index finger next to his temple in the familiar gesture.
    Nodding politely, Sammy scanned the board for the name “Pappajohn.” It wasn’t there.
    “Who you looking for?”
    “Pappajohn. Anastasia.”
    Lou sobered up quickly. “They’ve already taken her to Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
    “Beg your pardon?”
    “You know,” he said, lowering his voice, “in the Arnold Schwarzenegger Hospital next door. The morgue.”
    Morgue? Oh, my God. I hope it isn’t Pappajohn’s daught—
    “Such a shame, young woman like that. ’Bout your age.”
    Just like the ex-cop’s Ana. Oh, my God.
     
    A pair of nondescript automatic doors several labyrinthine hallways past the nurses’ station connected LAU Med’s ER to the newly inaugurated Arnold Schwarzenegger Hospital. Maintaining her adopted air of confidence and avoiding eye contact, Sammy dodged and weaved past patients and staff until she reached the adjacent hospital tower. Assuming the morgue would be located somewhere in the basement, she entered an open elevator car and punched the buttons for all three B levels.
    While one and two lit up, Sammy noticed the B3 button had a lock beside it that failed to activate. When the doors slid back to reveal a darkened radiology center on B1, she decided to wait for B2. This time the elevator opened on a dimly lit hallway. A sign pointing straight ahead read DECEDENT AFFAIRS. That has to be it. Sammy stepped out before the doors slammed shut.
    Her footsteps echoed loudly down the deserted corridor. More than once she stopped to stare nervously back into the shadows, but saw nothing there. She was totally alone. After passing several closed and unlit offices, Sammy reached a set of large metal double doors under a small tarnished bronze sign that read MORGUE. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the automatic opener.
    The morgue resembled a large bank vault rather than the dissecting room she expected from watching TV crime shows. Fortunately no bodies lay on the half dozen metal tables. Sammy guessed the dead were all resting inside the drawers stacked like large lockers on both sides of the sterile space. Though several of these compartments had nametags, none were marked PAPPAJOHN. Dreading the idea of checking them all, Sammy glanced around the room until she spotted one unlabeled drawer, slightly ajar. Edging closer, she tried to