Trial By Fury

And with each shake of the head, with each negative answer, the icy knot in my gut got bigger. I wasn't getting any closer. A terrible clock was ticking in my head, telling me that time was ru

The lady at Fred Hutchison had given me a list of board-approved cancer units. I visited them one by one and came up empty-handed each time. By the time I reached the last one, I was pretty discouraged.

Instead of leaving the lights flashing, I searched around and found a real parking place in the lot outside Northgate General Hospital. I ignored the noisy horde of teenyboppers on their way to the latest teenybopper movie. They were having a great time, laughing and joking and shoving one another around. I wanted to tell them to shut up and pay attention, that there was a real world out there waiting for them.

Back in my car with yet another failure, I sat for a moment, resting my head on the steering wheel. I had struck out. Tired beyond bearing, I was determined to go on, if I could just figure out where I ought to go.

I tried to collect my thoughts. It was like corralling a herd of frightened, milling sheep. I kept after it, though, and gradually, as I sat there, order returned.

Going over every conversation with Candace Wy

I got out of the car and walked back through the movie-going kids and into the waiting room at Northgate General Hospital. I walked up to the main desk.

"What's the closest hospital to Seattle Center?" I asked the young black receptionist. She turned to a much older lady sitting next to her.

"What do you think, Irene?"

Irene shrugged. "Group Health up at the end of De

I felt a faint surge of hope. Ballard Community wasn't that far from Seattle Center, and it wasn't that far from Fremont, where Candace Wy

Parking on N.W. Fifty-third, I dashed into the hospital and was directed to their medical/surgical floor, 5-E. There, I tackled a lady in a bright pink jacket pushing a cart full of paperback books and newspapers down the hall. Her name tag said Mrs. Rasmussen-a good, old-fashioned Scandinavian name.

"Excuse me," I said. "I'm with Seattle P.D. I'm trying to locate a patient."

She pointed down the hall. "If you'll just go down to the nurses' station, they have a list of all the patients there."

"No, you don't understand. I don't know the patient's name." I had conducted the same conversation over and over the whole afternoon. I opened the yearbook to where a piece of paper marked Candace Wy

Mrs. Rasmussen fumbled in the pocket of her pink jacket and brought out a pair of goldframed glasses. She perched them on her nose and peered down at the picture. "Oh, her!" she said. The disgust in her voice was unmistakable.

"Her? You mean you recognize her?"

"You say you're from the police? Well, it's about time, that's all I have to say."

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

"I was telling Betty just the other day that somebody should see to it that girl goes to jail."

"But why?" I was sure that if I ever got Mrs. Rasmussen on track, she was going to tell me everything I needed to know and then some.

"You know, some of the patients complain about their kids, that they do stuff behind their backs, give away their things, move into their houses whether they want them there or not. But I was there the day she made her mother agree to sell the house. It was awful. It made me sick. Mrs. Scarborough cried and cried about it afterward."

"That's her name? Mrs. Scarborough?"

"Yes. Elaine Scarborough. Second room on the left. The bed by the window." Mrs. Rasmussen took off her glasses and patted them back into her pocket. "That's not all, either."

"It isn't?"

"She kept saying that at home her daughter sometimes wouldn't let her have her pain medication."

"Did anyone do anything about it?"

"The doctor said he was sure the visiting nurses made certain that kind of thing didn't happen. But you should have seen how happy she was to be in a hospital so she could get medication when she needed it. She was in such pain! What kind of a monster would do a thing like that? I just can't understand it!"

Mrs. Rasmussen stood there glaring at me with one hand on her hip as though she expected me to come up with an instant explanation. What kind of monster indeed! There's no understanding that kind of human aberration.

A hefty nurse came rustling officiously down the hall. Mrs. Rasmussen beat a hasty retreat into the nearest doorway, saying a cheerful "Good afternoon" to whomever was inside.

Uncertainly, I paused in the hallway for a moment too long. The nurse, observing my indecisiveness, stopped beside me. "May I help you?"

"Yes. I wanted to see Mrs. Scarborough."

"Are you a family member?" the nurse inquired.

"No. Not really." I stopped short of pulling out my badge and identifying myself. It didn't make any difference.

"I'm sorry. Mrs. Scarborough is gravely ill. Her doctors have limited visitors to family members only, and even those are allowed to stay for just a few minutes at a time."

"But it's important…"

The nurse took my arm and guided me firmly back toward the elevator. "There is nothing more important than our patients' well-being," she said stiffly. "If the information you have for her is so important, then it would be best if you would contact one of the family members to deliver a message."

"Could you give me the names on the approved list?"

The nurse looked at me disapprovingly and shook her head. "Now if we really were a friend of the family, we'd know those names, wouldn't we."

Yes, we certainly would.

The elevator door opened, and I got on. The nurse made sure of it. I was surprised she didn't ride all the way down to the lobby and see me out onto the street. I would have made more of an issue out of it, but I figured having the family name was enough.

I made one stop before I left the building, at the pay phone in the lobby. A frayed Seattle phone book lay on the shelf under the phone. Unfortunately, there were six Scarboroughs listed. None of them said Elaine.

Rummaging through my pockets, I dredged out a collection of quarters. I dialed the first three numbers and asked for Elaine, only to be told no one by that name lived there. On the fourth call, Candace Wy

"Hello?"

"Wrong number," I mumbled, disguising my voice as best I could. I hung up the phone, made a note of the address, and raced toward I the hospital exit door, almost smashing into the glass when the electric door in the lobby I didn't open quite fast enough to let me I through.

Hospital doors aren't generally timed for people moving on foot at a dead run.