Cheri Amos, Nurse Sleuth – A Serial Novel

Edna Leary had never married, but she came from a big family. The funeral home was packed. While I was standing in line to sign the condolence book, the woman behind me introduced herself as Arlene, a friend of Edna's and a member of her nursing school class.

"Class of '60," she said, scanning the crowd. "Oh, there's Charlie Wentworth. He was an intern when we were seniors. Look at that … hasn't changed a bit."

Handsome as ever, Wentworth was standing not far from the casket, speaking earnestly to a frail old woman.

"That's Edna's mother," Arlene said. "Poor old soul."

"So," I said. "Was Dr. Wentworth a good friend of Edna's?"

Some people might think I was out of line, snooping like that, with Edna laid out right there in her mauve shirtwaist. But I felt I'd been charged with the task. Hadn't Edna put her own keys in my hand the night before she died?

Arlene smiled. "You'll probably be surprised to know that once upon a time Miss Leary was quite the gadabout. Wentworth wasn't the only one she dated from that intern class." She shook her head. "The nuns could barely keep Edna in line."

Bingo. I had found me a talker. Arlene gabbed away about how Edna had run with a clique – a set of student nurses and interns who used to hang out in the Pigeon Bar up the street from the old Accident Room. "It was the same year that intern disappeared," she said, frowning, as though the memory were gradually taking focus. "All these years … I think Edna's the only one who is still working full time. Sixty-five, and she's still running around in the ER." She sighed. "Or rather, was."

"An intern disappeared?" I asked.

"You're probably too young to remember," she said. "I forget his name, but it was something Russian-sounding. He was a brooding sort, under a lot of pressure apparently, and suddenly he just vanished. It was in the paper for weeks."

"Wow," I said. "Some story. Was the Russian guy a friend of Edna's?"

Arlene frowned. "Well, I don't think they dated, if that's what you mean. He wasn't her type. But I think he was Charlie Wentworth's roommate."

*   *   *   *   *

Soon as I got home I hit the computer and looked up the archived news from 1960. The intern who disappeared was named Ivan Horbak. Charles Wentworth, the "worried roommate," was quoted as saying that Horbak had been "depressed and drinking heavily for weeks" and that he'd gone out around midnight and never returned.

So here's what I was thinking: say Edna Leary and Charles Wentworth had shared a terrible secret all these years, a secret that might have had something to do with the disappearance of Horbak. So then Edna decides not to keep secrets anymore, and then – barely a week after I see her arguing with Wentworth – she's dead. OK, maybe Wentworth wasn't involved in the mugging on the street. Still he might easily – coldly, clinically – have done away with Edna while she was lying in ICU with a convenient central line. I couldn't sleep for turning these things over in my head.

Next day, I had lunch with Maria in the hospital coffee shop. Like everybody else at The Saints, we were still talking about Edna.

"Do you think it's possible somebody killed her?" I said.

Maria dug into her salad and didn't bat an eye. "Yup. I mean she came in here with a lousy little concussion and a broken wrist. Then boom, she arrests and they can't pull her out. Looks to me like somebody screwed up. I bet they're sweating bullets about a lawsuit as we speak."

"Looks to me like murder," I said.

Maria put down her fork and stared at me. "Jeez, Cheri," she said, shaking her head. "You've been watching too much Court TV. I mean, Edna could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I don't think anybody wanted her dead."

And then her cell phone went off, and while she was telling her husband how to get the amoxicillin in the baby I went back to the counter for a couple of those chocolate chip cookies I'm addicted to. I had to stand in line to pay, and that's when I saw Dr. Wentworth out by the elevator, talking to two other men in expensive-looking suits. Wentworth looked so powerful and at ease – so alive. But poor Edna was dead, and I swear I could hear her voice: I'm scared … Bad things can happen. Suddenly Wentworth glanced over his shoulder and stared right back at me. The rage just surged through me, blowing out any good sense I might have had. Come hell or high water, I was going to get that heartless killer – all by myself.

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