The Groaning Board

checking.
    “You girls leave this to me.”
Huberman’s face was florid. Sweat dripped as if someone had poured a bucket of
water over him. “I’ll take the stairs. The elevators in this place are a mess.”
    Wetzon lost sight of him immediately,
but hell, he seemed to know what he was doing.
    “I’m sorry,” the woman at the desk
said. “Only the family is allowed up. His sister is with him now. She just went
up.”
    “His sister?” Wetzon said. “Todd has
no sister.”
    “Oh, dear me.”
    “Don’t ‘oh, dear me,’ lady,” Smith
said severely. “Call hospital security at once. We are Todd’s aunts. We just
flew in from California and his dear mother is expecting us.”
    “There’s really nothing to worry
about,” the information woman said, somewhat agitated. She picked up the phone.
“Security, please.” To Smith she said, “Now don’t you worry, dear. There’s a
policeman right outside his door.”
    “How long is this going to take?”
someone yelled. An impatient line had formed behind them.
    “We’ve been waiting a half hour,”
complained another voice.
    “Liar,” Smith sneered.
    “Okay, okay.” The woman behind the
desk was growing more and more distressed. She hung up the phone. “Go on up,”
she told Smith.
    Hordes of people stood in front of
the elevators, and when one arrived and emptied, everyone rushed on at once.
And, of course, it was a local and stopped at every floor. People pushed off,
staff pushed on. Wetzon said, “Good thing Huberman took the stairs.”
    Even before the elevator doors opened
on the fourth floor, they heard the thumping sound of footsteps. They were
immediately gathered into the turmoil, buzzers going off, nurses and doctors
running from all directions.
    “We’re too late,” Wetzon told Smith.
She felt faint. “Go see. You can make it faster than I can right now. I’ll wait
here.”
    Wetzon watched Smith go off down the
hall. She leaned against the wall, her knees quavering. She was never going to
make it. She’d been running on adrenaline; now it had caught up with her.
    A candy machine stood near the bank
of elevators. Chocolate. She groped in her purse for some change.
    Smith came rushing back. She was
wearing a white coat with a hospital ID tag clinging to the lapel. “Somebody
pulled his plug.”
    “Is he dead?”
    “They’re trying to resuscitate him.”
    “Where was the cop?”
    “The cop stepped away to pee.”
    “Did you see Huberman?”
    “No. He probably went to the wrong
floor.”
    “Why are you wearing that coat?”
    “It looks rather nice on me, doesn’t
it?” Smith pulled a stethoscope from the pocket and hung it around her neck.
    “Jesus, Smith. You’d better give the
costume back to Dr.
    S. Grover.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “That’s the ID pinned to the coat.”
    “Oh, for pity sakes. What you should
be doing instead of criticizing me is seeing if Ellen’s still around. Don’t these
serial murderers usually lurk in the crowd to watch what hap-pens:
    “Sometimes, I guess.” Wetzon was
clutching the candy machine like a lover. One day, she thought, she would have
to bail Smith out of jail for one of her crazy stunts.
    “What’s the matter with you?”
    “I feel a little light-headed.”
    “Well, don’t just stand there hugging
that machine. Get a candy bar.” She threw those last words over her shoulder,
then took off to continue her impersonation of Dr. S. Grover.
    Wetzon’s head began to throb. Silvestri
was right. She shouldn’t try to do cop work. At least not when she was feeling
so rotten. Where the hell had Huberman gotten to?
    She put coins into the machine and
punched the button for Hershey. The bar slid right out. She propped herself up
in the small space between the machine and the doors leading to the east wing,
which was the opposite direction from where Todd Cameron lay dead or dying, and
tore the paper off the candy bar. She took a big bite.
    Out of the corner of her eye she saw
a door on the other side of the elevator bank edge open. Someone peered out.
Wetzon flattened herself against the vending machine.
    Ellen Moore, wearing a scarf over her
hair and dark glasses, stepped out of the ladies’ room and headed for the door
marked EXIT. She opened the door and slipped through.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

     
     
     
    “Oh no you
don’t,” Wetzon said. “You are not going to get away with this.”
    Two nurses went by, giving her only a
casual look.
    If only, Wetzon thought, she had