The Common Thread Page 7

  Chapter Eight

  Best Actress

  After assuring the street in front of the house was devoid of police activity, Katie and Nan quietly slipped through the door. Floorboards groaned a welcome greeting. To their fearful ears the noise was blasting, but no one else seemed to hear. They stopped for a moment to be sure before proceeding.

  For several weeks, the streetlight in front of Nan’s house had been burned out, leaving a section of the street in semi-darkness, and for once, Katie was happy for the city’s ineptitude. A police car had blocked the entrance to the street at the corner, a hundred yards away, but no driver was to be seen. Thankfully, Nan’s old Ford LTD faced in the other direction. She didn’t want to execute a K-turn on the dark, narrow street.

  As quietly as she could, Katie descended the stairs and walked to Nan’s car. After placing the suitcase in the backseat, she turned the key in the lock and practically fell into the seat. A moment later, Nan sat beside her, smiling as the old engine roared to life. Katie knew Gerald had purchased the car before his death, and even though it was nearly as old as she was, it was still as reliable as the day he bought it.

  Katie adjusted her mirror with one hand and turned the steering wheel with the other, and easily maneuvered the car on the deserted street. They both held their breath until they reached the stop sign at the end of the block, looking around to see who lurked in the shadows, watching. But no one confronted them. No porch lights came on in warning. The police didn’t give chase. It appeared they’d made a successful escape.

  As she steered the car, the women sat in silence and Katie tried to think about her mission rather than the evening’s events. She couldn’t afford to dwell on what had happened in her apartment—Billy’s lifeless body lying in her living room or, perhaps by now, in the morgue. She couldn’t think about Simon Simms and the gun he’d fired at her, or her frightened children waiting for her. She had to transform herself into someone else, and to do that she had to find the person she wanted to be in the vast video library of her mind.

  Katie had always enjoyed playacting. In addition to music, her mother had loved musical theater, directing the church and school productions, and Katie had played bit parts from her earliest days. Becoming someone else had helped her during her darkest hours, when she was living in the streets, and still helped now when she had a difficult task to accomplish.

  Thinking of people she’d known throughout her life, she conjured up images and voices and mannerisms. She needed to transform into someone who carried herself with a certain dignity and spoke proper English, so she remembered teachers who had taught her, nurses and doctors she worked with, and the pastor at the local church. She imagined herself as any one of them, and the script began to take shape in her mind. It was just like acting in one of her mother’s musicals, only in this case there were no cuts and retakes. If she screwed up, her children would pay the price.

  Less than ten minutes after leaving Nan’s house, they pulled into the big deserted parking lot at the rear of the darkened medical clinic where Katie worked. The building was a stand-alone structure, 6,000 square feet of brick and glass, one story high. A very narrow drive separated it from the office suite next door, a five-story structure that blocked the moon from view.

  Since Nan often watched her children, and Katie sometimes got stuck at the office, she’d given Nan a house key. And then Katie realized the intelligence of giving her an entire set, complete with car key and work keys. Since Nan could no longer drive, she rarely left home, and when she did, it was usually with Katie. It was a good bet that if she ever lost her keys, Nan would be home and she could retrieve the spare set. She’d never needed them before tonight.

  “Do you wanna come in?” Katie asked. “I think you should.” Even though this was a better neighborhood, she didn’t want to invite trouble by leaving Nan in the car alone. A few cars passed on the street in front of the office, and the parking area was bordered by other businesses, all closed for the night. It wasn’t likely anyone would accost Nan, but if they did, it wasn’t likely anyone would come to her rescue, either.

  Silently and slowly, Nan exited the car and followed her. The ground sloped gently back from the street, and three steps led to a landing and the back door of the building. She waited patiently as Nan navigated them. And then they were inside, adjusting to the glow from the security lights that lit the office, and Katie punched in the security code for the alarm system.

  The clinic had been converted from an old appliance store, and in places, it showed. Large panes of glass across the front wall meant Katie had to avoid the lobby. Where she stood, near the rear door, office space was partitioned with half-walls. To the right, a kitchenette had been assembled with old furniture, mostly donated by the doctors who worked at the clinic. The central area comprised the doctors’ space, housing the exam rooms and a common area in the center for the physicians and staff to chart notes and orders. Although the design allowed easy access to all ten exam rooms, it obstructed the traffic flow from the front to the back of the building. Now Katie was happy for that, because that workstation would obstruct the view of anyone looking in the front window.

  Once their eyes adjusted, Katie sat Nan down in the kitchenette and began to gather the supplies she needed. Near the main entrance in front, the secretary’s area overlooked the lobby and front door. That was Katie’s first stop. She flipped a few switches and brought to life the sleeping electronic equipment that ran the office, mindful of the front window. While the computer went through its series of checks and balances and the photocopier warmed up, Katie kneeled behind the desk. After opening a few drawers, she found the file she needed and began to remove its contents. She pulled file folders from another cabinet and, using a Sharpie marker, began to label them. When she finished, she sat on them and then ran their edges along the carpeting to give them a worn appearance. Satisfied that she had the look she was seeking, she stood and scurried to the locker room.

  In the event of a catastrophe where one of the employees was the target of a vomiting or bleeding patient, a shower had been installed. To her knowledge, it had never been used, and over time it had become a storage cubical for surgical scrubs. The resident doctors preferred to wear them rather than real clothing. She pulled a set from the clean piles and changed her clothing. From the coat rack, she removed several different lab coats and tried them on, deciding that Dr. Erin Donoghue’s—a petite small—fit best. She ditched the ID. With her long black hair and dark skin she would never pass for the redheaded doctor. Dr. Mary Weeks’s ID offered a more credible match, so she took a moment to attach it to the coat pocket in a way that made it difficult to read. Satisfied with her pickings, she went back into the outer office where the computer was asking for a password.

  Katie entered the secret code and began typing, and after a few minutes of tapping on the keyboard, she produced a document that seemed credible. Turning the paper just a fraction of an inch, she made a photocopy, then photocopied the photocopy, and repeated the process until the paper had the telltale lines across indicating it had been copied many times. It looked genuinely awful.

  Her next document contained just one word. Katie changed the paper in the printer and pressed a button and the machine came to life again, creating multiple copies.

  She called Nan in to take her photo, and next she began printing ID badges. Since the resident physicians changed monthly, the clinic issued identification so the staff would be able to identify the doctors they worked with. Katie kept Dr. Weeks’s name but changed her job description on each one, producing several badges with different information on each. When she was satisfied that they were acceptable, she shut down the computer and copy machine and straightened the work area. The secretary wasn’t likely to know Katie was ever there.

  Katie sat back and did a mental inventory. What else did she need? She pulled open the top drawer of the desk, just for some ideas. Plenty of pens were stuck in the lab-coat pocket, so she didn’t
need any more. She pocketed a pair of reading glasses and scissors. She might need to cut something, and if things went badly, they would serve as an excellent weapon. The glasses would add to her disguise. She pulled out several ID bands the clinic used for patients, the old-fashioned clear-plastic kind with a paper slipped inside. Anyone who needed any services more than an exam was required to wear one, to prevent miscues such as drawing blood on the wrong patient.

  Back through the hall, she entered the office of the clinic’s director, Dr. Jeannie Bennett. Jeannie had a bad hip and hated to haul her briefcase home, so it often sat beside her desk in an office she never bothered to lock. Katie took its presence as a good omen.

  She sat at the desk and wrote a note to the doctor. She had to explain this pillaging—she didn’t want Jeannie to believe what Katie knew she’d be hearing on the news. Dr. Bennett was one of the few people in the world who cared about Katie, and the feeling was mutual. It was important that she know the truth.

  Dr. Bennett had been her first doctor, taking care of Katie since the day she was born. The doctor was always kind to her, no matter how stupid Katie was, but she was never afraid to speak her mind, either. She told Katie the facts—the risk of overdosing, the risk of contracting AIDS and other STDs—and showed graphic pictures to emphasize her point. Katie didn’t always listen, but it made her feel good to know that Dr. Bennett cared. And eventually, her message sank in to Katie’s somewhat thick skull.

  She could still remember the day Dr. Bennett had saved her life by giving her a job as a nursing assistant here at the clinic. With her support she’d gotten clean and transformed into a respectable woman herself. She couldn’t come in and rob the clinic without explaining. She at least owed Dr. Bennett that much.

  Sitting at the desk, Katie composed a brief note, reassuring Dr. Bennett that she hadn’t murdered Billy and promising to return everything she’d borrowed from the clinic. Satisfied, Katie made her way back through the hallway with the doctor’s briefcase in hand.

  Nan was seated at the table where Katie had left her. A nebulizer machine sat before her, connected correctly but not operational. “What is this thing?” Nan asked, fascinated. “Is this for delivering babies?”

  Katie laughed once again. “No, silly, it’s for treating asthma.” How the little compressor with a tiny chamber and three feet of plastic tubing could aid in childbirth, she couldn’t imagine, but once in the car, she planned to ask Nan her thoughts about that one. Relaxed from the light moment, Katie forgot to be scared. She forgot caution. After quickly punching in the alarm code, she opened the door and then, startled, jumped back.

  “Hands up!” the police officer warned them. He stood in the doorway, his squad car behind him with a blinking light on top, casting him in a surreal glow that was sure to make Katie’s migraine worse. Even though the light was blinding, though, she couldn’t miss the gun pointed squarely at her chest. The shiny metal reflected the light in a beam that shot painfully into her eyes.

  Katie raised her free right hand. Her briefcase was dangling from her left, and a set of spare scrubs was jammed into her armpit.

  She recognized the officer from the neighborhood. He’d been in the clinic many times and was always friendly to the staff. He surely would remember her. Her mind raced, thinking of how she could use this to her advantage.

  “Oh, hello, Officer!” Katie exclaimed with a calm she didn’t feel. “Did we set off the alarm?”

  He looked at her, and she could see the recognition register on his face. Conscious of the beeping alarm, Katie turned from him and punched in the code once again, and then once again faced him. “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed.

  Nan cleared her throat and, for the first time, the officer looked in her direction. He was unable to hide his surprise when he saw the tiny eighty-year-old would-be burglar. “I hope you aren’t going to get my neighbor into any trouble, Officer,” Nan pleaded, standing up and waddling toward him with a gait that resembled a penguin’s. Nan struggled to breath as she walked, feigning shortness of breath so well she could have won an Academy Award. Pointing at the nebulizer machine on the table, she continued. “I had an asthma attack, and since she’s such a nice doctor, I called her. She brought me here because we didn’t want to be in the ER all night. She has to be in the clinic for nine a.m.”

  Katie, still wearing the lab coat and the ID tag of Dr. Weeks, tried what she thought was an apologetic stance. A grimace on her face, she slumped a bit and held up her hands in surrender. “I confess, I did it,” she said, her tone light. “Mrs. Arlington watches my kids after school, and I can’t afford for her to be sick. So here we are. Please don’t turn me in.”

  He leaned back slightly, in a less aggressive posture, and looked from Katie to Nan, apparently thinking. Behind him that awful light continued to cast its schizophrenic pattern, and Katie began to feel sick. She did her best to hide it, but at this point vomiting was a serious possibility.

  “What’s your name, Doc?” he asked. Katie knew he’d seen her in the clinic, she had keys and the alarm code, and she was accompanied by a little gnome of a lady who was audibly wheezing. This was either one bizarre burglary or she was telling the truth. Katie hoped he’d lean toward the second possibility.

  “Mary Weeks. My friends call me Mare.” Katie extended her hand in greeting and he shook it.

  “Jack Weaver.” They shook, and then she immediately brought her small finger to her mouth and bit her cuticle. She silently chastised herself and dropped her hand to her side.

  “Whatcha got there?” he asked, pointing to the scrubs tucked under her arm.

  “Just some clean scrubs for tomorrow.” She handed him the items. No surgical instruments were hidden in the folds, no needles or syringes or drugs. He handed them back and motioned to the briefcase, and when she handed it to him, he pulled his flashlight from his belt and shone it inside, finding only the paperwork she’d pilfered from the filing cabinet.

  “I guess I can keep a lid on this.” He winked at Nan and smiled at Katie, motioning them toward the door. “I’ll wait while until you’re on your way. You never know.”

  They thanked him profusely, both for his vigilance in guarding the clinic and his understanding of their delicate situation.

  Nan discreetly winked at Katie, and while the policeman escorted her down the stairs, Katie carefully placed her briefcase and the scrubs on the backseat beside the blue suitcase.

  “Holy cow,” Nan exclaimed when they were back in the car. “This is more exciting than the television.”

  Katie chuckled. “Thank goodness for Gerald. You learned to lie like a champion, Nan.”

  Nan answered her laugh. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. We’re gonna have to put on a good show at the hospital, you know.”

  Katie maneuvered the car onto the road and, after a moment of silence, she spoke. “That was supposed to be the easy part.”

  “And it was easy. We’re doing fine. Just think of it as the dress rehearsal.”

  Katie fought the urge to bite her nail as she drove, wishing she could share Nan’s confidence. A sense of urgency overtook her as she glanced at the dashboard. It was already after midnight; almost two hours had passed since the shooting. The clock was ticking. At any minute, someone could arrive at the hospital and take her children away. If she was going to pull this off, she needed to hurry. They couldn’t afford another delay.

  “You know the drill, right?” Katie still didn’t have the whole plan together but had provisions for several different options. All of them involved Nan gaining access to the ER by feigning chest pain. Katie knew the lobby would be crowded with all kinds of people with all kinds of concerns, but none of them would have that kind of pain. It often meant a heart attack, and Medicare reimbursed hospitals and clinics based on performance in treating heart attacks. Nan would get the red-carpet treatment, no questions asked. She’d be taken right back, given oxygen, and placed on a monitor.

  “I told you, Gerald Senio
r suffered from angina pectoris. I know all about it. Squeezing pain in his heart, shortness of the breath, sick to the stomach. You just leave it to me.”

  Katie pulled the car to the ER entrance and walked around to help Nan out. The area was so well lit a movie could have been filmed there, but fortunately, no one was hanging around. The less people who saw her at this point, the less likely she was to get caught later.

  “What are you doing?” Nan asked. “Go park the car and meet me inside. I’ll be fine.”

  Finding a parking place at the ER wouldn’t be easy. If she took the risk and parked illegally, her car might be towed. And if she couldn’t find a spot within a reasonable distance, the police would pick up her and the kids before they could make their getaway. Fortunately, she’d planned for that. She found the spot she was looking for and put the car into park. Pulling her briefcase from the back, she found four of the pages she’d printed. She opened the car door and, after making sure there were no witnesses, she circled it, placing one of the decals on each front door, the rear bumper, and the hood. She stood back and admired her work. The black letters stood out against the car’s white paint. Satisfied, Katie grabbed the briefcase and the suitcase and walked just a few feet to the ER’s main entrance. For the first time she could recall, she left her car unlocked.

  Playing the role of the frantic relative, she ran up to the first hospital worker she saw and tearfully begged the security officer for directions to her grandmother, Mrs. Arlington. Katie ignored the cries of babies and the moans of people in pain, and an argument between a husband and wife. She ignored the dirty floor and the overflowing trash can, and the foul odor it emitted. She concentrated on the role she was playing—concerned granddaughter.

  After the clerk verified that Nan could have a visitor, Katie was buzzed through the locked security doors and into the inner sanctum of the emergency department. Now, her night was really about to get interesting.