Cheri Amos, Nurse Sleuth – A Serial Novel

I always have a hard time settling down after the 3-11 shift, so I was up late, watching TV and flipping idly though a pile of papers on my kitchen table, when I spied my Saints Peter and Paul New Employee Packet. There, on page one, was the handsome face of the man I'd seen arguing with Edna Leary down in the basement: Dr. Charles Wentworth. I had a hard time picturing matronly Edna having an affair with a guy who looked like Clint Eastwood, never mind a guy who happened to be the president of the hospital, but I vowed, for once in my life, to mind my own business.

But how can you mind your own business when somebody else's business comes looking for you? The very next day, Edna followed me into the supply room.

"About last night, Cheri," she said. "It's not what you think." There was panic in her eyes, and she grabbed my arm like one of us was at risk of falling. "I wish I could explain, but I can't right now."

"No explanation necessary," I said.

But you better believe that from then on I was keeping my eyes and ears open. Because if it wasn't what I was thinking, what exactly was it then?

Not one week later, Edna got mugged two blocks from the hospital and they brought her in by ambulance. I was working the night shift, and when I arrived the police were still hanging around as well as several higher-ups from administration, who were looking rather grim because it's bad press when an employee gets mugged two blocks from the hospital entrance … especially when the reason that employee was walking the street in the first place was that the parking garage was closed for construction.

Edna had a fractured wrist and a concussion. Any minute they'd be coming to take her up to ICU for observation, so I went in to see her right away.

"Thank God it's you, Cheri," Edna said, taking my hand. She looked awful. Her right eye was swollen shut and the blood was already draining into a bruise around her jaw.

"Jeez, you must have put up some fight for that purse of yours," I said, joking around.

She didn't laugh. "Listen … you've got to help me." She tried to sit up, but fell back in pain. "I think my keys are in my coat pocket."

I took her coat from under the stretcher, and sure enough, the keys were there.

"I want you to empty out my locker," she said. "Number 32."

"Sure," I said. "You want me to bring something to you?"

"No, just take it home with you. Number 32. Don't forget."

I told her everything would be OK, but she must have known even then that it wouldn't be. "I'm scared," she said. "Bad things can happen when you're in the hospital."

"Typical nurse," I said, giving her a little pat. "Relax."

Just then the curtains opened and there was Dr. Wentworth. Instinctively, I dropped Edna's keys in my pocket.

"Everything all right in here?" he asked, his eyes shifting from my pocket to my ID badge.

"Everything's fine," I said, and got out of there.

After Edna went to ICU, all hell broke loose in the ED – a wreck from the interstate, and a gunshot wound from a bar brawl on High Street. It wasn't until after change of shift at 7:30 that I got around to opening Edna's locker. There was nothing in there but a navy blue sweater, an insulated lunch bag with half a ham sandwich in it, and a 2004 Drug Handbook. I threw out the sandwich and stashed everything else in my own tote bag.

*   *   *   *   *

I went home and slept well. At four in the afternoon, I was awakened by a call from Maria, another nurse in the ED. She was working 3-11, and wondered if I'd come in early to relieve her because her baby was sick with an ear infection and her husband was freaking out. I said sure, and then she asked if I'd heard the bad news about Edna Leary.

"What news?" My heart rate had already shot up.

"She went into cardiac arrest," Maria was saying. "Nobody can believe it. Edna Leary is dead."

"Dead?" I was practically yelling. "What happened?"

"They don't know yet. But isn't that always the way it is? If something's going to get screwed up, it'll be with one of your own."

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