Chapter 74

One of the cops finally came back from the bathroom.

"Everything come out okay?" the other cop joked.

"Well, yeah, smartass. But that wasn't what took me so long."

The first cop stepped back to the other side of the door, and the one who had just returned took up his position beside the other.

"Are you going to make me ask?"

"Huh. Yeah, I guess I am. Hey, you know the three guys that went with the group to talk to the administrator?"

"You mean the ones that are coming toward us," the other cop whispered.

"Uh, yeah. Tell you in a minute."

As Wainwright, Dave and Madison spoke to the cops and went on inside the room, the cop glanced at his buddy. "When I came out of the bathroom — uh, it's right next to that little waiting room — they were standing in the waiting room and that guy who just went in first was talking to someone on the phone..."

"His name is Wainwright. He's some big muckety-muck that owns a bunch of companies. Uh, at least that's what the talking head for the TV station told me."

"Yeah, well. Knowing you, you were probably talking to her tits, anyway."

"I was not. Well ... mostly," he admitted. "But damn, she's pretty."

"Anyway, this, uh, Wainwright guy was talking to someone on his cell. Whoever it was, he must be some kind of 'get it done' guy that works for Wainwright..."

"Will you get to the fucking point? You sound like my old man."

"He hired the helicopter pilot," the cop blurted.

"He what? The one that got fired by the hospital?"

"Yep. I heard him tell whoever he was talking to on the phone to find out what the pilot was making and offer him double, and if that didn't work, to, and I quote, 'fucking triple it.' He said that those medevac pilots make crap, anyway."

"You're shittin' me."

"Nope. Honest truth. He told the guy on the phone to set the pilot up with a nice place to live until they could find him a house, and get all his stuff moved. Hell, he went on and on. Damn, I wish he had been talking about me. That pilot just fell out of the shit and into a bed of roses. They were still talking, but one of the guys saw me listening and winked at me. I got the hell on back here before I pissed them off."

"My idea didn't work, even though all those people went to talk to the hospital administrator. But it worked out better, anyway. I'd like to shake that pilot's hand, though, before he goes. We're going to have to find out where he lives and go see him."

"Good idea," the other cop said, grinning. "Somebody here will have his number, and maybe his address. If not, we can get his address from his home phone number. All else fails, we'll just call him up and thank him, but I'm with you. I'd rather see him in person."

They continued to plan.

A little later, Deputy Goodman, tired, was hugged again by Joyce, Diana and Caitlin, then Wainwright and Dave almost shook his hand off. Totally surprising the young deputy, Jeff hugged him so hard he could feel his back pop.

Finally extracting himself, he stepped into the hallway. Yeah, something is going on. Joyce didn't know these people when we went up there to tell them thank you. Now Mr. Matthews almost broke me in half hugging me. And it only takes one look to tell he is about as hetero as a person gets. He wasn't trying to feel me up; he was honestly thanking me for helping Cramer. Why is she staying with them? Suddenly his curious mind — one of the reasons he was a good deputy — began to assemble things. Nah, there's got to be some other reason. But all those women and girls look at him a special way, and Joyce is doing it now.

He saw a gaggle of news media people and what he took to be paparazzi getting off the elevator.

"We'll block them," one of the cops said. "Go the other way. Make the first left and there's another set of elevators, unless you want to be on TV."

"Fuck, no," Goodman said. "Thanks, guys. I owe you one."

"We'll take you up on that," one answered as the cops stepped into the hallway, grinning at their prey.

Goodman jogged away, heedless of the stares of visitors as they saw his gun belt and pistol. Screw 'em, he thought. If they see my gun then they see my badge since it's on my belt by my holster. So accustomed to wearing it while in uniform, he had forgotten he had the equipment belt on until he saw a woman start as her eyes focused on it.

Now where is that damn elevator? There!

He got on the elevator, punched both 2 and 1, getting off on the second floor. Walking up to the nursing station, he saw the charge nurse. "I've got a bunch of paparazzi trying to take pictures of me. Can you get me out of here? They're bound to be waiting on the first floor for me."

The nurse eyed his bloody hat, taking in his gun belt and jeans. Nice ass, she thought. I don't see a wedding ring.

"You bet, cowboy," she teased, knowing full well who he was. "This way. I'll get you on the elevators that come out on the loading dock. Where's your car?" she asked as they quickly walked down a different hall.

"It's in the emergency room parking lot."

"Okay, I'll ride down with you and show you the way to go." Taking a unit phone out of her pocket, she briefly talked with one of the nurses on her floor telling the nurse that she would be back after showing the deputy out.

On the loading dock, she gave careful directions to get back to the parking lot. As Goodman thanked her, she took a small pad out of her pocket. After writing her name and number on it, she handed the note to him. "Nurses and cops get along well together. If you get bored, call me."

With that, she was gone.

The deputy stood for a moment looking at the closed doors of the elevator. She's a looker. She must have guys fighting to get to her. Why would she want to go out with me? Oh, well, maybe she was just being nice. Turning, he peeked around the corner to make sure he had lost the paparazzi before striking out for the parking lot.

A little later, Caitlin returned after visiting with the nurses in her unit, CICU. Obviously furious, she sat near the bed after kissing Joyce. Jeff was sitting on the couch, while Diana sat on the other side of the bed.

"What gives?" Jeff asked. "Who got on your bad side?"

Caitlin patted Joyce's hand, then relaxed back into her chair. "Oh, it's just a continuation of being pissed at the administrator after he refused to reconsider the thing with the pilot. I had already heard a rumor about this asshole coming in last week about three o'clock in the morning trying to show his authority. I knew he had fired someone but didn't know who."

Absently, she picked up Jeff's coke and took a drink, trying to fight the tears of frustration and anger that were welling up in her eyes. "He walked into SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit) at three in the morning, saw Lee Ann drinking a cup of coffee as she was charting at the North desk, and fired her on the spot. He had security 'escort' her out of the hospital and to her car. He wouldn't even let her get her personal stuff out of her locker. Told her to come back the next day after he had inventoried her locker for any 'stolen' items it might contain."

Caitlin swiped angrily at the tears leaking from her eyes. "She was my mentor. There isn't a better nurse, anywhere. She worked extra all the time. She helped the other nurses in the unit and really believes in teamwork. Heck, she's been a charge nurse for years. She's a fountain of information, not just about nursing, but she knows hospital procedures forward and backward. She knows where everything is kept. If you need something unusual — some type of unusual equipment that the doctor has ordered — she always knows where to find it.

"And this asshole fired her for drinking a cup of coffee at the desk. Everybody gets sleepy now and then. Sometimes, we're too busy to take breaks and occasionally even miss lunch. But if things slow down at the wrong time, it's sometimes very hard to stay awake. But OSHA (Occupational Safety Health Act) rules say we can't drink coffee in the unit or at the desk, because we might somehow transfer a disease to a patient or something from them to us, I suppose. Maybe our administrator thinks it doesn't look professional, or we might spill something on a keyboard. But it's always been a rule that's just grinned at, and has never been enforced at our hospital, let alone fire someone for violating it."

Jeff snorted. "You mean those fifteen dollar keyboards they're using? Heck, fifteen dollars is bragging on them. Besides, if someone spills a drink on them, deduct it from their pay. As big as this place is, they probably buy them by the gross," he exaggerated. "I've seen some just like them on the net for ten bucks a piece if you buy ten or more."

"My feelings, exactly," Caitlin continued. "That's a rule that is constantly broken all over the hospital, and most certainly on night shift. How else are you going to stay awake when you're unlucky enough to have a slow shift? And the first thing day shift does when they get here in the mornings, is get a cup of coffee.

"Anyway, this asshole came strutting into SICU, saw Lee Ann at the North desk, asked her name, took her badge, wrote in his little pad, and told her she was fired. Then he called security and had them take her to her car. I'm told that he fired one of the floor nurses on Six West a few minutes later for the same thing. I don't know her, but it's totally ridiculous to fire someone for drinking a cup of coffee at three o'clock in the morning. At worst, it's a counseling offense. If he just has to be an asshole, then take her in the office and give her an oral reprimand. Even that is way beyond ridiculous. Lee Ann has given twenty years of her life to this hospital. Not only is she out of a job, but this will wreck her pension."

Caitlin sat up straight. "Yes. I think I'm beginning to see. I was told that the other nurse he fired was an older nurse, too. They each probably made half again more than I do, since I've only been here two years. He's been on a save-money crusade ever since he was hired six months ago. We now have to pay for parking, many of our supplies are cheap junk that is hard to use and is outdated. I wonder how many other very experienced nurses he has fired that I don't know about?"

Jeff, thinking aloud, said, "I was going to give a donation to the hospital since the doctors and nurses have treated Joyce so well, but with this guy firing the pilot and being so arrogant with you guys when you went to see him, plus this..."

Caitlin looked over at Jeff. "This is an excellent hospital, and most of the nurses really care about their patients, but he's the boss. Corporate fired the other administrator because he spent a large amount of money on some things that didn't work out as planned. At least that is what everyone is saying. We were supposed to get two big name sports medicine doctors. The administrator supposedly made a deal with them. He updated a wing of the hospital and put in a lot of new sports injury related equipment. Something happened and the doctors, and their rich patients, didn't show. Corporate moved him to a desk at corporate headquarters, before easing him out the door. They hired the hatchet man to replace the old administrator and to cut back on expenses.

"The new administrator put a notice on the board that there would be no more overtime, but rescinded it a week later when there weren't enough people to fill the nursing slots. I guess his latest brainstorm is to fire all the nurses with seniority and fill their positions with new grads. It probably looks good on paper, but the patients will be the ones to suffer. Guaranteed the hospital will lose all they have saved and then some when they lose the first lawsuit because a patient has died needlessly."

Caitlin thought for a moment. "I've been in the unit for two years, and I learn something new almost daily. I did a short orientation in SICU before coming to CICU. I saw Lee Ann walk into a room where the patient was suddenly having difficulty breathing. The patient had many things wrong with her, and her nurse was trying to treat those things while calling the doctor. Lee Ann took one look at her and said, 'Sit her up.' Like magic, the patient was breathing a lot better almost instantly. That doesn't work, of course, with every patient, but in a second Lee Ann recognized what was wrong and reacted. That's experience. Nothing will replace that."

Caitlin crossed her legs, swinging one absently while she thought. "Two of the nurses in CICU just told me that they had put in applications somewhere else. If this keeps up, it will be like rats leaving a sinking ship. No one wants to work, spend years putting money into their retirement, then be fired so the hospital can hire new grads at entry-level wages."

Frowning again, she continued, "I need to get in touch with my friend and see what she's going to do."

Jeff cleared his throat before approaching a touchy subject that he had already hinted at. "Maybe this is a good time to consider getting a job that's a little closer to the retreat..."

"She certainly doesn't have to work at all, unless she just wants to," Diana interrupted.

"Yeah, we've already covered that, and I got spanked a bit," Jeff teased.

Turning back to Caitlin, he continued, "What about Winter Park Memorial?"

"Oh, come on, Jeff. I'm an intensive care nurse accustomed to working in a big hospital. We've got equipment here that they can only dream of. I don't want to work somewhere where the policy is to patch up the patients and send them to Denver."

"So, maybe their hospital needs an expansion," Jeff said a little more forcefully than he meant to. Shaking his head, he continued, "Look, I'm sorry. I know that you and Joyce," he said, squeezing Joyce's hand, "have your careers, but please consider a closer hospital. We're going to have to give a certain amount of money each year to charity, anyway. Why not expand the local hospital. It's bound to save lives. Look what a difference it would have made if Joyce could have gone there instead of that long ride to Denver."

Caitlin sighed. "No matter how much money you put into a local hospital, they wouldn't have a trauma unit, anyway. Many big hospitals don't. A trauma unit isn't just a place, it's an expensive on-site team as well."

"Okay, granted," Jeff said, "But you don't work in a trauma unit, you work in a cardiac intensive care unit. Don't smaller hospitals have those, too?"

Caitlin took another sip from her (Jeff's) soda. "Well, it depends on the hospital, the doctors and how much equipment the hospital has, among other things. Some smaller hospitals have, I guess you would call them, combination units. In other words, all surgeries go to their intensive care unit. But cardiologists don't tend to like to have their heart surgery patients in with other surgery patients because of the risk of infection. They wind up with a tradeoff at the smaller hospitals. The larger hospitals are more specialized with the intensive care units. And before you even mention it, I am not going to be a floor nurse. I've studied too much, gone to too many extra schools and classes. I would be bored out of my mine carrying pills to patients.

"I'm not belittling nurses that work on floors. It's just a different kind of nursing, and I love the challenge of an intensive care unit. I know that there are people out there who are alive today because of me. Like Joyce says about being a deputy, I can make a difference."

Jeff looked steadily at Caitlin for a moment. "Nevertheless, please just think about what a difference a few million dollars would make to our little hospital. And I'll bet that they would fall all over themselves to hire an experienced CICU nurse to show them how to do things. With modern up-to-date facilities, it would attract surgeons to the area. Don't try to tell me that there aren't some doctors out there that wouldn't love to live in the Winter Park area if their clientele and the equipment were there. Instead of the golf course, they could go skiing, or snowmobiling," he finished, chuckling. "And ... we've got golf courses aplenty in the summer."