Chapter 60

"Jessica, Alex, this is Elizabeth," Harry nodded toward the older of the two women, "and Jennifer."

Greetings exchanged, they sat down around the round table. The large booth was actually a small room with a wide door to allow access for the service staff.

Elizabeth appeared to be in her forties, Jennifer much younger.

Twenty-something I'd guess. Pretty girl.

A waitress arrived and brought glasses of water and menus.

"We got a few minutes," Harry said, "Elizabeth works in the pharmacy. She's got a lot of hospital experience. Jennifer, her brother died there about four months ago."

Damn. He must've been young, he's her brother.

"Apparently they're not just dirty but careless." Harry said. "Elizabeth saw strange stuff after just a few weeks. Lot of monkey business going on."

"What kind?" Jessica asked.

Harry nodded at Elizabeth.

"They're fooling with records," she said, "in the pharmacy anyway. The inventory is always out out of whack. We get a prescription for something that shows out of stock, Philip - he's the lead pharmacist - calls the director, they talk a couple of minutes. He has me go on and do something else. Later I check and see it was filled, but there wasn't any in the cabinet where it was supposed to be. I asked him about it later, and he said a shipment from the day before hadn't been stocked yet. I didn't think much of it the first time, but it's happened several times. They're sloppy there, but I suspect something else.

"I think there's some off-the-books stuff going on. And they use a lot of psycho drugs. A lot of them. You'd think it was a mental hospital, as much as they use. And a lot of sedatives, and they don't do anything that requires them. There's not even any minor surgery done there. They couldn't even put a feeding tube back when a patient pulled his out, they had to have an ambulance take him back to St. Bernards."

"You think they're misusing them?" asked Jessica.

"I'd say they must be. There's no use for them with people with the usual problems - respiratory system issues, diabetes-related, things like that. These are drugs used on people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. The sedatives would be used only rarely, if a violent patient has to be sedated. But a mentally ill patient, even if he needed treatment, wouldn't be in a regular long-term care facility. In fact there's no reason for them to be here at all."

The waitress returned. They hadn't looked at the menus.

"Sorry, we got distracted." Harry said. "I'll have the prime rib, medium."

"Sounds good to me," said Elizabeth. "Medium."

Jessica looked at Alex.

"In the interest of efficiency, I'm good with it if you are."

"Same for me." Jennifer spoke for the first time.

"Appetizers or salad?"

Harry opened the menu and took a look.

"Everyone good with nachos?"

They all nodded.

After getting their drink preference the waitress left.

Picking up the thread of the conversation Jessica said "I know you haven't been there long, but do you have any kind of idea what their reaoning is? Is it just incompetence or something else?"

"I have no doubts about their incompetence. I've never seen so much. I've worked in three hospitals, two of them about the size of St. Bernards, the other quite a bit larger, but nothing like a big-city hospital. Really incompetent or irresponsible staff, especially nurses, were rare. They just didn't last long. Here there may be one or two competent ones, or ones that care. I haven't talked to one of them, Kaylee is the other one."

"The one I told you about," Harry said.

"How's she?" asked Alex.

"Nice kid," Elizabeth replied. "Really nice. Twenties, mid I guess. We've talked a few times. She's pretty upset, she came here because she wouldn't take the vax. People like that are generally intelligent and have principles. No one else in that place seems to."

"How do you figure on handling her?" Harry asked.

"Carefully. She's young, as naive as the average twenty-something. I'll have to take it slow, letting her know what the situation is. Probably the best she'll be able to do is observe and make notes afterwards. Doing any detective work inside isn't feasible. I'll approach her in the next few days, have a meeting away from work."

"I know I don't need to tell you," Harry said, "but you be careful too. We're going to get enough to take them down without any unnecessary risks. I know these people seem inept and sloppy, but if they get suspicious... well, amateurs can be the most dangerous."

"Got it," Elizabeth said. "I'll be careful."

Jennifer had been silent except when ordering. Alex had glanced casually at her a few times, she was always expressionless.

Something goin' on in there. Looks like we're about to find out.

Harry looked at Jennifer.

"You want to go ahead and tell them?" he asked.

Alex looked too, saw a brief flurry of emotions pass quickly. Then the calm. A forced calm it seemed, as if she was holding something in check.

"My brother died there," she said. "Or rather, they killed him."