The Missing Page 0,18
twice as hard to impress him. She hoped she could impress him now.
‘I can run this thing, Leland. But if you still have some lingering doubts, if you don’t trust me, then put it on the table and talk about it. Stop denying me access to cases because you’re afraid I’m going to embarrass the lab. It’s not fair.’
Leland stared at the framed certificates and diplomas hanging on the wall behind her. Finally, after a long moment, he turned his attention back to her.
‘I want to be updated at every turn. If I’m not in my office, leave a message or call me on my cell phone.’
‘Not a problem,’ Darby said. ‘Anything else?’
‘If Banville won’t pick up the tab for the footwear specialist, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.’
Darby stepped into the office she shared with Coop. He was on the phone, flipping through a comic book. He had changed into jeans and a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Beer Is Proof That God Loves Us and Wants Us to Be Happy.’
‘I don’t remember Wonder Woman having breast implants,’ Darby said after Coop hung up.
This is the new improved Wonder Woman.’
‘Great. Now she looks like a stripper.
‘I see you’re not wearing your happy face. Would you like to play with the Play-Doh? I’m telling you, it’s great for stress.’
‘Our boss has some serious doubts about my abilities.’
‘Let me guess: the Nelson case.’
‘Bingo.’ Darby gave him the condensed version of her conversation with Leland.
‘Why are you grinning?’ Darby asked.
‘You remember that girl Angela I dated a few months back?’
The lingerie model from The Improper Bostonian?
‘No, that was Brittney. Angela was the British girl, the one with the diamond belly button ring.’
‘It’s amazing how you can keep them all straight.’
‘I know, I should belong to Mensa. Anyway, Angela and I were out for drinks one night, and I was telling her about work and mentioned Leland’s name. Seems the word prat over in the U.K. means idiot or fool. Try to keep that in mind as we move forward.’
Chapter 14
There was one stop Darby wanted to make before heading home.
Scrubbed clean, her hair still damp from the gym shower, Darby stepped into the main lobby of Mass General, Boston’s largest hospital. She didn’t need to stop by the information desk; she knew her way to the intensive care unit. She had been there once, to say good-bye to her father.
The sign posted outside ICU’s double doors read TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES BEFORE ENTERING. Darby shut off her phone, showed her ID to the male nurse sipping coffee behind the reception desk and asked about the condition of a woman brought in last night from Belham. He didn’t know – he had just come on shift – and pointed to the patrolman sitting in a chair outside a room at the end of a long corridor.
There is no privacy in ICU. Glass windows look into each room. Family members, faces shocked and scared, wait to take turns holding a loved one’s hand or, in most cases, to say good-bye.
Memories of her father crowded Darby’s thoughts, growing stronger when she passed the empty room where her father had died.
The old patrolman glanced up from his golfing magazine and examined her ID card. A web of broken blood vessels lined his nose.
‘You missed all the excitement,’ he said, stretching. ‘Porch Lady attacked a nurse.’
‘What happened?’
‘She stabbed a nurse with a pen. Doc’s in there right now. I suggest breathing through your mouth.’
The doctor was leaning over Jane Doe, listening to her heartbeat. Under the bright fluorescent light, Jane Doe appeared even more emaciated. She was on both an IV and a nasogastric tube. Her arms and legs were secured with restraints, and almost every inch of her gray-colored skin was covered with bandages or wrapped in gauze.
Darby moved closer to the bed and saw bright drops of blood on the sheets. The sick wheezing she had heard early this morning in the ambulance now seemed labored, painful.
Jane Doe’s eyes fluttered beneath the paper-thin eyelids. What are you dreaming about?
‘You’re with the crime lab,’ the doctor said in a surprisingly soft voice. It didn’t go along with her hard, plain face.
Darby introduced herself. The doctor’s name was Tina Hathcock.
‘I hope you didn’t come here for the rape kit,’ Hathcock said. ‘Someone from the lab already picked it up.’
‘No, I just stopped by to see how she’s doing.’
‘Aren’t you the one who helped her out from underneath the stairs?’
‘Yes, that’s