The Inquisitor

Chapter 3

Friday, July 4, 11:45 p.m. Palliative Care, St. Paul's Hospital, Buffalo, New York

I crept up the back stairwell and let myself into the darkened hallway.

Empty.

So far so good. Still, better wait to see if a nurse emerged from one of the rooms.

I shrank back in the shadows.

The possibility of being spotted always worried me. I could make up a story to explain my presence, but people could see through that sort of thing, and it might invite questions.

My cover all the other times remained bulletproof. Then I became the person everyone knew me as. Not pretended it, but, like a Method actor, inhabited the role so completely that even the character's memories emerged as my own. It helped that I had invented up a past based on mine, and now that I'd lived my created history so long, it often seemed more vivid than the reality. But the real trick had been learning to believe my own lie. During those hours no one could trip me up, because I had banished my secret self to the point that what I'd been no longer existed, and the new me reigned supreme. Sometimes I even inherited the peace of mind that went with my created persona, and for those precious moments I fooled myself so completely that anyone could have read my thoughts and never guessed me to be other than what I seemed. I loved those times. They let me experience hope. After they passed, I knew, once I finished what must be done, I would enter that realm forever, pull on a fresh skin, and the thing that had eaten at me for so long would be dead.

The usual chorus of muffled cries drifted toward me, stoking a sense of dread that soured the pit of my stomach.

I also heard the distant sounds of nurses talking at the far end of the corridor, their carefree voices erupting into laughter.

But no one appeared.

Occasionally a flicker from a late reveler's fireworks came through the window and illuminated the floor in front of my hiding spot, but where I stood remained pitch-black. Nevertheless, the sooner I got in the room and completely out of sight, the easier I'd feel.

I started forward, having already chosen tonight's victim. I figured the holiday meant fewer doctors, and with rookies all over the place, the nurses in other parts of the hospital should be preoccupied, riding herd on the newcomers. They'd never notice me prowling about; the bunch on duty here would be their usual lazy selves. Perfect conditions to run another subject.

Locating the room number, I slipped inside the door and softly closed it behind me.

I stood perfectly still, letting my eyes adjust to the lack of light. Someone, presumably those idiotic nurses outside, had closed the Venetian blinds, blocking out the possibility that even a glimmer of illumination from the city, moon, or stars would reach the inhabitant who lay dying in the bed.

Fools, I thought. Cut off all sense of day or night, and a patient could become confused, perhaps psychotic. The observation came as a reflex, my training completely at odds with what I intended to do. The incongruity set my stomach churning, and bilious hot juices rose to the back of my tongue. I swallowed repeatedly and managed to send the acidic mix down the way it'd come up.

The ragged breathing of the woman I'd come for filled my ears. Sometimes the sound caught in her throat and ceased altogether, only to restart seconds later, when she would gasp, then exhale with a soft moan.

I tiptoed over to the blinds and opened them a sliver, just enough to admit an orange glow reflected from sodium lamps in the parking lot below. It cast her thin face in garish pumpkin shades, as if she'd applied too much makeup, and I could see that her mask had slipped down to her chest like a bib. She continued to breathe fitfully, yet remained asleep, completely unaware of my presence. But she could be roused awake. I'd made sure of that before picking her.

A cold loathing seeped through me.

I stepped over to the IV line that kept her hydrated and got to work. Even though she might die as a result of the drugs I would give her, I held with techniques instilled by years of practice and sterilized the side port with an alcohol swab so as not to risk infection. The maneuver also allowed me to think I'd given the subjects their best chance should they survive. Somehow that indulgence made it easier to get through what I did to them.

I pulled out the first of the two syringes I'd brought, removed the cap, and jabbed it in.

Slowly I began to empty half the contents, fifty milligrams of esmolol, a potent, short-acting drug that doctors used to lower pulse and pressure. It would bring her into a state of near shock. With my free hand I gently reached for her wrist and monitored her pulse with my fingers. The skin already felt clammy. She gave no reaction to my touch.

The beat slowed and grew weaker, then disappeared altogether, as it usually did once the systolic pressure fell below 90. Shifting my hand to her neck, I palpated for the carotid artery.

She stirred in protest and made little cries that sounded like mewing.

Ignoring her, I picked up the throb of the larger vessel, then continued the injection until that impulse nearly disappeared as well, which meant her pressure had fallen to just above 60.

I quickly switched syringes, and slowly gave the second ingredient, a hundred milligrams of ketamine. Normally used to induce awake anesthesia, this agent would also offset the fall in pulse and blood pressure, though not enough to reverse the near shock state. But what I really used it for had to do with a unique side effect: the blockade of certain neuroreceptors in the brain.

I finished delivering the dose, capped and pocketed both syringes so there'd be no accidents if she struggled- I'd taken that precaution ever since the Algreave woman- and waited a minute by my watch, giving time for the ketamine to have its full effect.

It felt like an hour.

The woman's breathing seemed to grow deafening as sputum rattled deep in her airway. In a treatment situation I would have suctioned her out to prevent her from choking on her own spit, an act of basic nursing. Instead I switched on the microcassette, shook her, and whispered, "Can you hear me?"

She moaned.

"Can you hear me?" I repeated.

Her reply was little more than a breath. But I could make it out.

"Yes," she said.

Show time.

I took the microcassette out of my pocket, brought it close to her mouth, and began to coax her along with the usual questions, following my format in the same methodical way a doctor would take a medical history.

"Any more pain?"

"No…"

"Do you see anything?"

"No…"

"Look harder."

Her gravelly, faint voice seemed to exhale from a corpse.

After a few minutes more she abruptly released a shrill cry, and her limbs thrashed about under the bedclothes.

"There're worms…"

"What?"

"They're all over me…"

"What are?"

"Oh, God, help me…"

"Take it easy."

"They're under my skin…"

"No, they're not."

"In my mouth… my nose…"

"You're imagining-"

"… behind my eyes… coming in through my ears…"

"Stop it!"

"They're eating me…" Her voice became a high-pitched shriek, piercing the dark like the cry of a hawk.

I snatched the syringe of ketamine from my pocket, plunged it into her IV, and pushed the plunger, giving her another twenty milligrams.

The scream died in her throat.

When they talked of heaven, it all sounded the same. But each one had a unique vision of hell.

I listened for the approach of running feet.

None came.

Would she remember? Most didn't. But some did, and that could be trouble. Already the nurses were starting to talk.

Anyway, I had enough material from her.

Snapping off the microcassette and retrieving the syringe, I closed the blinds, once more plunging myself into complete darkness. I felt my way to the door, stood there a moment, and, steadying my own breathing, listened for any sounds in the corridor.

Only the usual cries.

Behind me the old woman's respirations reverted to the fragmentary volleys of before, tapering out or choking off abruptly, then starting again. The gurgling noises made my skin crawl.

I opened the door a crack.

Nobody.

But I could still hear the nurses' voices from the far end of the hallway. No surprise there. They'd be sitting on their asses drinking coffee all night. I got ready to slip out of the room and make for the back staircase. I swung the door open another foot and carefully glanced in both directions.

The linoleum gleamed in the half-light, completely empty.

Toward the stairwell, there was only welcoming darkness.

I went to step out, and froze.

Something had moved down there, along the far wall. It had been little more than a dark shape gliding through black.

Then nothing.

Had I imagined it?

No, there it went again.

A figure emerged from the murk, tall and amorphous. It crept slowly from door to door on the opposite side of the hallway, pausing now and then, the way I had done coming in.

What the hell?

I stayed absolutely motionless and remained inside the room, watching, not moving the door, hoping the shadows would shield me as much as they did the form in the corridor. Except as the person drew closer, compared to the darker shroud of protective clothing, the white mask and upper face emanated as a pale smudge and appeared to float along by itself, like a bodiless head. Which meant I might become visible too. And behind me the noises from the old woman grew louder, certainly enough to attract attention.

My mouth went dry, and in a flash of panic I nearly leapt back into the room.

But no. This had to be done slowly.

The figure, paying no attention to the doorways on my side, continued to hug the opposite wall, focused only on the end of the passageway where the nurses' voices kept up a steady patter.

Apparently it was someone who didn't want to get caught either. It might be a man or woman. Everybody looked androgynous these days. I tried to see the eyes well enough to make an ID but couldn't with the distance and semidarkness.

The figure stopped and glanced back toward the stairs, as if making sure no one followed.

Definitely up to no good.

Nevertheless, I couldn't afford to be caught by whoever it might be, creep or not.

The person disappeared into a room twenty feet away.

I couldn't believe my luck.

But neither did I dare risk making a break now.

Whoever it had been might come back out.

I slowly closed my door, leaving a crack wide enough to see when he, or she, left.

It took me a few minutes to realize the old woman was no longer making any noise.

Her breathing had stopped completely.

Shit!

When the nurses found her, they'd call a code. It shouldn't matter, but the prospect of some eager-to-be-a-star resident getting suspicious always worried me.

Total silence now reigned at my back, and the quiet thickened around me, making it difficult to get enough air.

At that moment the person who had snuck into the far room slipped back out and stole away into the darkness, heading for the back steps.

Five minutes later I did the same.

What could be going on? I wondered once I reached the stairwell. Hearing no one below, I started downstairs.

Newspapers had accounts of the sick things male orderlies, nurses, or doctors sometimes did to comatose female patients of any age.

But this could be anyone doing anything to the patient in that room. In the morning I'd check whether an incident of some kind had been reported. No question I had to find out. If some other scam was in the works, crossed paths might increase my own chances of getting caught. Hell, St. Paul's, with over five thousand employees, including doctors, had the population of a small town. Like any community that size, it would have its share of weirdos with black secrets. Who knew what perverted stuff went on in this place?

Saturday, July 5, 11:00 a.m. Buffalo, New York

Earl loved it when doctors decided to party.

For a few hours they sloughed off the demands on them from a never-ending maze of corridors filled with patients, pain, and loss to become as goofy as schoolkids let out for vacation. The decompression- extreme at the best of times, because all physicians believed if anyone had a God-given right to play, they did- felt even more of a release than usual. Out here, away from work, they also felt freed from the threat of SARS.

But the public didn't. Despite the makings of a perfect day for another successful St. Paul's Annual Hospital Bed and Bedpan Run for Fun- blue sky, a steady breeze off Lake Erie to cool the downtown core, the good turnout by staff and residents alike- the ranks of spectators lining the curb remained sparse. Hospitals had come to be seen as reservoirs of the virus. No one wanted to be around the people who staffed them.

"At least nobody tied bells around our necks," Sean Carrington quipped, referring to the historical treatment of lepers.

Rules for the event were simple. Contestants gathered at the starting line in Buffalo's so-called theater district- two playhouses, one multiplex- and chose a standard-issue, regulation-size hospital bed from a collection slated for the scrap heap. Divided into teams of five- one to ride, four to push- they attempted to safely transport their passenger and the contents of a half-full bedpan (apple juice being the fluid of choice) over a circuit comprising two complete city blocks.

Prior to the race, local politicians and business leaders backed their favorite teams, grandiosely presenting checks the size of air mattresses bearing five-figure amounts while the various competitors christened their chariots with flying banners intended to draw in the cash donors. The Go-Go Train was Urology's entry; the Cutting Edge carried the colors for Surgery; Janet's department would attempt to do itself proud on the Baby Bucket. Earl's crew had simply called their entrant ER, blatantly capitalizing on the popular TV show. But the favorite and champion for the last five years, Jimmy's Flying Angels, brought in the most bucks. Nobody minded, because he invariably divided up the loot with the fairness of a saint. "God bless St. Paul's," he called out to the small crowd after graciously receiving a check for fifty thousand dollars from a beaming, red-faced little man who ran a well-known pest extermination company called Hasta La Vista, Baby.

Then Jimmy rivaled the sun with a flashing grin and added, "For the course of the race, however, I will not be showing Christian kindness."

The other team leaders protested and strutted their feigned indignation in a show worthy of pro wrestlers.

"Hey, Father, unfair!"

"I'll tell your boss!"

"Divine tampering!"

But they evoked only strained laughter from the audience.

"Either our jokes are worse than ever," Thomas Biggs whispered to Earl, "or the few good citizens brave enough to show up aren't that happy to be here."

"Bit of both, I'd say," muttered Sean from behind them. "I tell ya again, we'll all be in cowbells before long."

As the presentations to other teams continued, Earl mugged for the hospital photographer, pulling deranged faces and using a grease gun like a syringe to lubricate the wheels of his team's bed.

"Set to get whipped?" Jimmy said with a sweet smile, sidling up to him.

Earl pretended to cower before him, and Jimmy flexed his muscles Atlas style, showing off a physique that most bodybuilders would die for. The photographer snapped away. "How about a quote?" she asked.

"In a two-K race, chaplains who run ten K a day ought to carry rocks as a handicap," Earl said.

"Nan, you're thinking of Hippomenes, and he was carrying golden apples to distract a woman he was chasing," Jimmy retorted. As soon as the woman left, his smile vanished and he glanced to where, a few feet away, Susanne Roberts, Michael Popovitch, Thomas, and J.S. were passing floppy straw hats to a half dozen spectators, enticing them to empty their pockets of small change.

"Can I have just a word with you in private?" Jimmy asked. "It won't take more than a minute."

Earl had already discovered that being VP, medical meant he'd never be lonely. He couldn't go to a hospital function without somebody collaring him for "just a word in private." But he'd hoped a zany affair where they all turned into clowns would somehow protect him from politics for at least a few hours. No such luck. And Jimmy, though on the side of the angels, could be a veritable Cardinal Richelieu when it came to exerting influence on the powers that be at St. Paul's.

"Sure."

They walked to a quiet alcove between a Starbucks and a wannabe Irish tavern with leprechauns painted on the windows.

Jimmy eyed the half-empty street. "Not the best turnout from our good citizenry."

"What's up?" Earl was impatient to dispense with whatever business the man had in mind so he could get back to his team. He'd few enough opportunities to shed his role as big boss and just be good old Earl with them.

"First let me say I thought you handled the Baxter case really well," the priest began. "That had to be the roughest case of that kind I've seen."

"Thanks, Jimmy."

"Are you going to use it for teaching rounds?"

"Of course."

"Will you invite the oncology department?"

"Anyone's welcome. Now, Where's this leading?"

"Just that seeing the way you were willing to sedate Baxter so he wouldn't suffer, I knew I could come to you without being accused of overstepping my bounds."

Earl bristled at being buttered up. "Cut the stroking, Jimmy. I know you're after something," he said, comfortable enough with the man to be blunt. Although they were not close friends- they only socialized in the context of hospital business- he liked Jimmy, and sensed that Jimmy liked him. But neither man offered to extend their relationship, as if they both knew intuitively to leave their friendship within boundaries where it could remain comfortable.

The priest's face sagged, and a sadness he rarely showed settled into his eyes. "You're going to get a complaint about me from some of our oncologist colleagues."

"What?"

"These last few days I've been holding up what you did for Baxter, or at least were prepared to do, as an example of what they might well emulate, and some of them got a tad upset about it."

"You didn't."

"I just wanted to warn you-"

"Jimmy, you know damn well not to interfere in how doctors practice."

"Who's interfering? When someone does the right thing, as you did, I simply make a joyful noise about it."

"A joyful noise?"

"Right. Jesus always went on about the need to make a joyful noise. I take him at his word."

"And which doctors, specifically, did you see fit to make this joyful noise to?"

"Well, Peter Wyatt, the chief of that bunch, for one. I always figure it's best to deal with the top man…"

Earl groaned. Wyatt personified the old-boy network at St. Paul's, though he himself hadn't yet reached sixty. But mentally Wyatt allied himself with those from an era where doctors were above mere mortals and not to be questioned, especially by underlings outside the medical hierarchy. "Jimmy, don't give me that naive crap. You knew going to him would stir up a hornet's nest."

"It needed doing."

"What did you say exactly?"

"That a dozen or so members of his department were dinosaurs who sucked at managing pain, and then I suggested an audit on the subject might be in order. I waited until today, of course, figuring it safer to express my opinion in a crowd, where he'd be forced to behave."

"You've got to be kidding."

Jimmy, now looking more defiant than sad, shook his head.

Earl's stomach did a pirouette at the thought of how Peter Wyatt would react, crowd or no crowd, to such a frontal assault, especially since the charge hit home. No greater hot-button issue existed in palliative care than proper pain management. The dilemma was, the more potent an analgesic and the bigger the dose, the more likely the medication would stop a person's breathing as well as the pain. Though some enlightened doctors advocated sufficient amounts to make a patient comfortable, even if they inadvertently hastened the person's inevitable death, some didn't. They administered instead rote, inadequate quantities rather than risk an accusation that they'd committed active euthanasia.

Then he thought Jimmy had to be ribbing him. He wouldn't be so crazy as to pull such a stunt with Wyatt. "Come on. This is a joke, right?"

Jimmy's gaze shifted to a point behind Earl and his eyes widened. "Oh, sweet Jesus, I see the man himself headed this way."

"Quit kidding me, Jimmy, not about this."

"Oh, but I'm not. And he's flushed purple as an eggplant."

Of course Peter Wyatt wouldn't be behind him. Maybe Jimmy had never said anything to him at all, the story being just a way of making a point about a problem that he thought deserved attention from the new VP, medical. Earl loved how the priest could quick-shift from the serious to quirky, off-the-wall teasing. Delivered at the right moment, his jokes could lift the spirits of an entire ER staff and keep the craziness of what came in the door from eating at their minds. What's more, fun could be had in playing along with the man, calling his bluff, throwing out even nuttier nonsense, the game being to top him. Earl relaxed. "Yeah, right, Jimmy. And were I to turn around, there'd be the Pope as well, the pair of them coming to admonish you for sticking your nose where it had no business."

"Dr. Garnet!" rattled the gravelly voice of Dr. Peter Wyatt, the sound running down Earl's spine like knuckles on a washtub.

Jimmy winced. "Want me to stay? I will, but my presence might inflame things."

"Jesus Christ, you really did tell him off!" Earl still couldn't believe it.

Jimmy's gaze hardened, completely devoid of the sadness from minutes ago. "As I said, it needed doing. Do you want me to stay or not?"

"Garnet, I want a word with you!" Wyatt's bellow sounded twice as close as before.

"Jimmy, I swear I'll get you for this. But right now, just get out of here."

"See ya." He flashed that magic grin, gave his hamstrings a quick stretch, and jogged off.

Earl, fuming, turned to confront the chief of oncology, and had to stifle a nervous laugh at the sight of the man descending on him. Bushy eyebrows and a furrowed forehead always endowed Wyatt's grim face with more horizontal lines than the mug of an onrushing bulldog. Normally he stuffed his stocky frame into a three-piece suit, giving himself the formidable air of a Winston Churchill. Today, however, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, he looked more like a knobby-kneed drug dealer. "Peter, good to see you." Earl force-marched his mouth into a genteel smile and held out a hand in greeting. "Fine day for a race, isn't it?"

Wyatt huffed up to where he stood and ignored the gesture. "I see that priest's already gotten to you."

Oh, brother. "Jimmy? He just promised to leave me in his dust during today's race, as usual."

"He didn't tell you what he said to me?"

At close range, Earl could see droplets of perspiration appear across Wyatt's beefy forehead despite the cool breeze. He almost suggested the man sit down somewhere but figured Wyatt would take it as an insult, he being a staunch practitioner of middle-age macho. "He never mentioned you at all, Peter. And why would he? Today's a time for fun, not business."

"Fun, my ass. That comedian in a collar had the nerve to tell me and my physicians how to treat dying patients. Even suggested that there ought to be an audit of how we practice. I never liked these modern types of chaplains, always going on about 'interfacing' and 'holistic care,' as if that's going to shrink a tumor. But Fitzpatrick crossed the line today, and I don't want him in my department anymore. You make sure he stays away."

"Now, wait a minute. I can't do that."

"No?" Wyatt drew in a sharp breath, the kind meant to show indignation, except the wheeze in his nose ruined the effect. "If you won't, then I'll go to the CEO, the board of directors, whoever it takes to get rid of him."

The man's angry voice had started to attract passersby. "Peter, this isn't the time or place."

Wyatt looked uneasily around and broke into a professional smile. "I want him to leave oncology patients alone." His voice had dropped to a whisper but had the sibilance of an angry snake.

Earl maintained the show grin he'd started with, but his cheek muscles had started to burn. "I won't do that, Peter. Jimmy's the only person some patients have to talk with, especially the terminal ones. They'd die alone if it weren't for him."

Wyatt's smile congealed a little, like cold grease. "Garnet, I didn't want you as

VP, medical in the first place, and you sure as hell aren't changing my opinion any-"

"Well, I'm sure I can work with you, Peter," Earl interrupted. Despite the pain, he attempted to widen his grin, determined to take control of the situation. It felt more like a show of teeth than a smile. "How about I issue a formal reminder to him and all other Pastoral Service personnel? Something to make it clear that while their insights into patient needs are always valued, final decisions on issues of pain control and medication have forever been and forever will be the exclusive domain of doctors? A kind of 'render unto God what is God's and unto Caesar what is Caesar's' memo."

Wyatt turned a deeper shade of purple. "You're making fun of me."

Earl imagined him in a toga and sporting a crown of leaves around his head. If anyone had an emperor's complex and fantasized about possessing the power to make all of St. Paul's do his bidding with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, it had to be Peter Wyatt. "Not at all, Peter," Earl quickly reassured him. He knew that Wyatt also held considerable sway over the other dinosaurs who'd led the anybody-but-Garnet lobby and opposed his appointment of Earl Garnet to his current post. They couldn't wait to engineer his downfall. The best defense against this bunch would be copious stroking and keeping them busy. "The truth is, Peter, you just gave me a brilliant idea."

Wyatt's heavy jaw slowly opened, as if about to swallow something whole. "Me? What kind of idea?"

"Who better to lead a hospital-wide audit on pain management than yourself? You've always showed the way in making sure St. Paul's was on the cutting edge of such protocols." And he had. The protocols gathered dust on shelves at every nursing station. "But do we really know if all of us are using them properly? It's a flaming-hot topic right now, as you're well aware, and I can't think of a better person to guide us through the minefield it's become than yourself."

"Conduct a hospital-wide audit? Why, that's a huge undertaking-"

"As far as I'm concerned, you inspired the idea, and the job's rightly yours. The Wyatt Inquiry, we could call it. You'd have the power to appoint anyone you wanted to help you, and I'd order the full cooperation of all the other chiefs. It would be your show, start to finish."

"But I'm so busy-"

"With or without you, it goes ahead, Peter. And that could be a hell of an ordeal if you have to live under somebody else making a mess of a matter you're naturally passionate about. A lot harder than doing it right yourself. Isn't that why any of us take these crazy jobs in the first place?"

Wyatt hesitated, a look of alarm pushing its way onto his thick features. "Yes, that would be hard…"

Earl watched the fight go out of him.

During the man's early days in the late sixties, Wyatt had possessed the courage to take on malignant diseases at a time when they had 80 percent mortality rates. His research had even helped develop the treatments that stood the statistic on its head for lymphomas. In that category, now it was survival rates that stood at 80 percent.

How sad it was to see this tiger so diminished, his once heroic passions for epic cancer work diverted to such puny issues as perceived turf incursions by an overzealous chaplain. "So what do you say, Peter? Will you think about it?"

No answer. He looked overwhelmed.

Earl moved in with the clincher, knowing the one sweetener Wyatt wouldn't be able to resist. "There might even be a paper in it for you, Peter. After all, if you were to develop a road map that would help other hospitals actually implement current protocols in pain management, leading journals would fight to publish it."

Wyatt hadn't had anything accepted for publication for over a decade. What's more, he'd been a victim of one of the crueler spectacles in academic research. Five years ago, still chafing under his dry spell, he'd finally received an invitation to present a paper at a national conference. He'd attended, proudly presented his latest work, and then sat down, ready for questions from the audience. But the moderator, legend had it, instead of inviting inquiries, had stood, pointed at Wyatt, and declared, "This man has demonstrated exactly the type of research we don't want."

Earl had anticipated that the chance of a comeback would kindle a glow in Wyatt's eye.

It didn't.

Instead he remained stone-faced and said, "If you insist, I've no choice."

Wyatt's attitude puzzled Earl. The man he knew had an ego the size of Antarctica, and the lure of any stage generally lit him up so brightly he could be his own spotlight. "Does that mean you accept?"

"I suppose I'll have to." He might have consented to have a leg amputated, for all the enthusiasm he showed.

Weird. But what the hell, as long as the situation with Jimmy seemed defused.

"Good! Then let's join the rest and enjoy the race."

"Wait! There's something else you need to hear."

Oh, God. Earl glanced at his watch, hoping Wyatt would get the message to keep this short. "I'm listening."

"The nurses tell me we've had patients complaining about near-death experiences."

"What?"

"You know. That out-of-body phenomenon, the thing Deloram wrote a paper about."

Now Earl felt really puzzled. "Peter, I don't understand the reason you're telling me this." His tone, he realized, sounded more cross than he intended, but patience had limits.

"We never got reports like that before, at least not so many. The first few months the nurses thought nothing of them. Then more patients continued to describe similar ordeals. Some, I'm told, were quite terrified. I swear it's that priest's fault. He's probably talking too much about God, heaven, and the afterlife, making his charges have nightmares about it."

Earl groaned inwardly, incredulous that Wyatt could remain so fixated on Jimmy. "Probably they're just vocalizing that kind of thing more, Peter," he said, trying to hide his exasperation, and started to walk back toward the crowd.

Wyatt followed behind. "Damn it, Garnet, it's not that simple-"

"Similar accounts have been in the media lately, thanks largely to Stewart's research," Earl cut in. If he could somehow trivialize the matter, Wyatt might drop it. "Could be that the phenomenon's been occurring with greater frequency than we knew, and patients, having seen the publicity, realize it's not just them. As a result, they feel open to talk about it now." In the distance he saw Michael wave impatiently, beckoning him to rejoin the ER crew. They were already pushing their bed into the coveted inside post position. Definitely time to ditch Wyatt. He walked faster. "Anyway, it's race time."

"But something's funny," Wyatt went on, easily picking up the pace. "Most of the people it's happened to weren't that near death yet. Oh, they're terminal, in pain, and not in good shape, but their vitals were still stable, not at all what I'd expect for a person who's seeing angels, tunnels, and bright lights."

So much for diplomacy. "Jesus, Peter. They're dying. Many of them will want to talk about that stuff. Patients always have, even atheists. It's human nature. But here isn't the place to discuss it."

"Hey!" Michael Popovitch shouted from the middle of the street thirty yards away. "We're ready to begin." He wore an industrial-strength scowl and sounded pissed.

Sheesh, what's eating him? Earl wondered. The rest of the team settled on give-it-a-break glances and tapped their watches, a far more gentle and appropriate rebuke. Michael should lighten up. "Relax! I'm coming," he shouted, and started to jog toward them.

Wyatt matched him stride for stride, clearly determined to continue their conversation.

Earl didn't intend to let him. "Look, Peter, obviously we'll have to talk about this another time. But I don't think you should make much out of it." He accelerated, pulling a few yards in front, and called over his shoulder, "Why not ask Stewart what he thinks? After all, he's the specialist in that kind of thing."

At the starting line Thomas, Susanne, and J.S. were starting to jostle good-naturedly with members of the Baby Bucket team, who'd tried to steal their spot.

"Earl Garnet," Janet yelled, eyeing him from her perch on the bed, "I'm pregnant with your baby. Chivalry demands you yield the post." She placed a hand to her forehead, adopting the melodramatic pose of a damsel in distress.

Earl laughed. He and Janet always lent their talents to the campy theatrics that were a highlight of these fund-raisers. "All's fair in love and war," he called back. "That's been my plan all along. You pregnant, us on the inside track."

"You're a scoundrel, Earl Garnet," she cried, to the delight of all.

He gave an appropriately wicked leer as he shouldered through a last-minute rush of other competitors who were late to take their positions.

Wyatt caught up to him. "The nurses already did that, a few days ago."

Piss off, damn it! Earl nearly screamed. But they were jammed together, and rather than risk angering him again, he tried to be civil through clenched teeth. "Already did what?"

"Asked Stewart Deloram to check out the accounts that our patients have been giving. I'm told he suggested the same explanations as you did, but agreed to interview the people who were still alive."

Overhead loudspeakers crackled to life. "Ladies and gentlemen, take your marks."

Cheers broke out around them.

Teams scrambled into position.

"Let's go, Dr. G.," J.S. hollered.

Susanne and Thomas joined in.

Someone blew charge on a trumpet.

But Wyatt remained so wrapped up in his crazy story, he didn't even react to the excitement swirling around them. He just leaned in toward Earl to make himself heard. "I don't know what happened. He burst into my office yesterday, mad as hell, and accused me of trying to set him up as a fraud, then stormed out."

Oh, brother, Earl thought. Not another feud. "Peter, I'm sick as hell of being asked to sort out these kind of kindergarten spats, especially the ones involving Stewart. Now both of you act like adults and sort it out yourselves." He'd ended up shouting far more loudly than necessary to be heard above the din around him.

The rolls of flesh in Wyatt's face shifted as he assumed an injured look. "But the man refuses to even talk with me now."

Earl waved him off in exasperation and joined the welcoming arms of his ER team- all except Michael's; he still seemed upset about something as well- and mounted the bed they would push to victory. At least that's how he lustily predicted the outcome during a crude exchange of triumphant gestures with Janet, and beyond her, the surgeons in Sean Carrington's Cutting Edge mob.

God, it felt delightful- the sanest moment of his morning, when he was responsible for nothing more than the safe passage of a bedpan filled with apple juice.