“Do you remember the doctor’s name?”
“I’ll never, ever forget it,” Haggerty said. “It was Garza. Dr. Dennis Garza.”
Part Four
SHOW GIRL
Chapter 65
SOMETIMES A BAD WIND BLOWS.
It was an eerie phrase, and the fear in Mrs. Haggerty’s voice had given me chills. I heard Yuki’s voice, too. Someone at that damn hospital murdered my mother.
I drove to the hospital alone, telling myself that I wasn’t working a case. This was just an inquiry. A courtesy call, I guess you could say.
San Francisco Municipal Hospital is a humongous stone fortress of a place with a low wall and a smattering of shade trees between the entrance to the hospital and the sidewalk.
I parked in the lot and entered the gloom of the lobby. Crossed the granite-block floor to the elevator, got out on the third floor, and followed the arrows to room 311.
I was about to open the door to Haggerty’s private room, when a nurse’s aide came out with a load of sheets in her arms. I waited for her to clear out of the way; then I stepped inside room 311.
I had pictured Mrs. Haggerty from the sound of her voice, imagined her as having a wiry frame and dark, hennaed hair.
I hadn’t imagined for a second that her bed would be empty.
I stood blinking stupidly in the doorway, astonished by what I didn’t see. Then I spun around, out into the hall.
The nurse’s aide had already stuffed the sheets into a canvas trolley and was walking away from me.
“Wait,” I said, lunging out and grabbing for her arm.
Her face stretched with surprise. Kind of jumpy for hospital personnel.
“Take your hands off me. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, showing her my badge. “Lieutenant Boxer, SFPD. I came to see Mrs. Haggerty in room 311.”
“Well, you’re too late.”
“Too late? I just spoke with her on the phone. What happened?”
I envisioned the woman hunched over the phone, scared out of her mind.
I’d just spoken with her!
“She checked herself out without doctor’s approval. I wheeled her out to the street myself. Helped her into a taxi. Yellow Cab, if that matters. You done with me now?”
I nodded, said thanks.
The nurse’s aide continued down the hallway, leaving me in the corridor alone.
I was heading toward the exit when a nurse in blue scrubs beckoned to me from a room across the hallway. She was a light-skinned black woman, about twenty-five, rounded face, her reddish hair in twists. The ID tag hanging from the ball chain around her neck read “Noddie Wilkins, RN.”
“You’re with the police?” she asked, her voice low and urgent. “I have to talk to you. I have to tell you what I know. The police should be involved with what’s happening.”
Chapter 66
WE DECIDED TO TALK somewhere outside the hospital. Noddie Wilkins and I sat together in my Explorer, sipping cafeteria coffee from paper cups.