Chapter 187

Wanting to tell her husband in person about their good luck, the young architect, bubbling with happiness, had left to go surprise him with her news. Jeff, his women, Dave and his women, and Selina, had remained in the new school. Some of the girls made final adjustments or rearranged various things in their study cubicles while others checked out the lab or project areas.

A little later, Jeff and Diana were sitting on what had appeared to be a boulder until they reclined on it. The Queen had snuggled to her husband's shoulder as they watched the others hurry from one study area to another, disappearing into the foliage, only to reappear again to go and check out someone else's area. A few minutes later, Arlene walked over to her dad with all his younger wives following close behind her. Almost meekly, she stood with her hands clasped low in front of her.

"Humble, you are not," Jeff laughed, "although I do like the pose."

"Daddeee," she quietly said, trying to hold back a giggle. "We've all said thank you for the school, and we've tried to think of something that we could get for you to help say our thanks, but ... what can we possibly buy for you? We don't know enough about what you do in the lab to order something you might like that you don't already have, and Mom takes care of your clothes and other things. You have at least one of almost every gun there is..."

Jeff reached out to take her hands, pulling her closer to him, moved by her obvious sincerity. "I have everything I need or want, far more than most men could ever dream of, and that doesn't even include having all of you. I literally could not be any happier. Watching my loved ones checking out the school is more than enough thanks. Besides, everyone had input into this, and your mom, Helen and Laura did the most of it..."

"Wrong," Diana laughed. "You're the one who said this particular architect was the one. I thought the older guy would be the better of the ones we checked out."

"And..." Jeff continued, trying to divert what was quickly becoming an avenue of embarrassment to him, "the architect is the one responsible for furthering your basic idea. I had little to do with it."

"We know that Mom's idea started everything," Arlene agreed, "but I also know that you're deflecting me from finishing what I started to say. We, all of us," she said, indicating all the Prime's wives as everyone had now gathered around, "have decided that the only way we can even start to thank you is to give you a night of love." As Jeff started to say something, Arlene went quickly on. "Oh, we all make love almost every night, but tonight, we want it to be just us making love to you. We need you to..."

But then it started.

A series of events began when Solomon, the assistant to Greg McMasters, head of procurement at the hospital in Winter Park, decided that he wanted out. Remembering McMasters' threat made the assistant even more nervous about the association with his boss. On the way home from the park yesterday, Solomon had remembered the comments and innuendoes that had come from McMasters while they had worked together, then the open threat at the park. Solomon suspected that McMasters could be vicious in his personal life, and thinking back, Solomon remembered his many comments and half-completed sentences about revenge. At the time, he had thought that McMasters was exaggerating or bragging, but now he was wondering more and more.

Solomon couldn't get McMasters or the thefts off his mind. Sooner or later, he's going to see me as a liability, and he's going to kill me. Hmmm, that contractor he said screwed him? His comments about the guy never screwing over another customer could have meant anything. At the time, I thought McMasters had just not paid him, or maybe sued the guy, but thinking back, I wonder if I was just being naive. How long will it be before he decides that I'm too great a risk? Fuck! I told him that I would tell everything I knew if I got arrested. Shit. That was fucking dumb. Now the bastard will kill me for sure. He's probably already thinking about it – maybe even planning it. Oh, shit. I'm fucked.

Continuing to worry about the situation at work, Solomon had barely slept Sunday night, getting up this morning more tired than when he went to bed. The worry built as he sat brooding and looking out his kitchen window. Finally, he glanced at his watch, sighed, and got up. It was time to go. Grabbing a cinnamon roll and filling his go cup with coffee, he hurried out to his car. Halfway to the hospital, his worries still escalating, he suddenly pulled to the side of the road and threw up his breakfast, barely getting his window down before the roll came back with a vengeance.

After his stomach settled somewhat, he rinsed his mouth with coffee and just sat there. He could run, or he could go in and try to convince McMasters that he was fine with the thefts and his part in them, or...

He made up his mind.

Instead of parking in the back and coming in the usual way, which was much closer to their office, Solomon parked in the front. Entering through the main entrance, he didn't have to go by the Procurement office and could go straight to the Administrator's office without McMasters seeing him.

Solomon felt his pocket, yet again, to make sure the money was still there. I took two grand from McMasters. How fucking stupid is that? Two grand, and now my life is going to shit because of my greed. At least I got worried and didn't spend it, but that won't keep me from getting fired, or worse. Maybe much worse. No matter. I'm done with this, one way or the other. If they don't send me to jail, I'll find a job somewhere. At least I'm not married, and I have a little saved. I can move out of state and start over again – if they'll let me, and if McMasters doesn't kill me. And... if they don't seize my savings account. Oh, shit. I'm fucked, but I'm not getting in any deeper – this has to stop.

As he stood in front of the desk of the Administrator's secretary, she tried to put him off. "Mr. Adair told me he was not to be disturbed, and in addition to that, he has a meeting scheduled in thirty minutes, so you need to come back this afternoon."

"I need to see him now. Right now. It's serious."

Frustrated, sighing, she frowned at him. "All right. Just have a seat and I'll..."

But Solomon had already walked past her and was opening the Administrator's door.

Charles Adair, the hospital Administrator, was in over his head. He had worried that he might be when he took the job, and recent weeks had made him almost certain. He wondered why anybody would want to take on a job with so many headaches, not to mention the potential conflicts between nursing personnel and management. If he had realized it would be this way, he would have never even interviewed for the job. His procurement people had assured him that they were diligently seeking the best price for quality merchandise, but the hospital was spending more each month.

He had thought it had been a good idea to hire Caitlin Hughes. She had considerable experience at the biggest hospital in Denver and came with outstanding recommendations from all her supervisors. Her change of employment was logical also, since she had moved to the Winter Park area. What better person to help alleviate some of the nurses' complaints about inferior equipment?

In her first days here, she had provided him with a list of equipment that was inferior, or "dangerous" according to her, yet Procurement quickly produced documentation that seemed to negate her claims. The new foundation had suddenly appeared and provided much-needed funds for his hospital, or at least had begun to, but after a few weeks, abruptly, the money had been cut off. No matter what he did, he couldn't get anyone at this mysterious foundation to respond to his calls.

He had supervisory access to any of the programs in the hospital. A couple of weeks ago, desperate, he began his own snooping. Unfortunately, he didn't know enough to be able to find anything of consequence. He had spent hours going over Central's records as they received equipment, no matter how minor the purchase, then he had tried to compare those transactions with Procurement's records. He had long since given up on the accounting software; he just didn't know enough about the system. But while he was searching almost fruitlessly through Procurement's records, he had found some files that he was blocked from accessing.

His son had gotten into trouble for breaking into the school's computer system. Adair had grounded him for two months and taken away his allowance for the same period of time, but ... even though his son had eventually gotten caught, he did have enough knowledge to break into the school's system.

He and his son had another "prayer meeting." The end result was that daddy now had a key logger that he quickly installed on Procurement's computers, and he had removed two weeks of his son's grounding and allowance suspension as payment for the logger. Saturday, Adair had easily accessed those blocked files and copied them to a USB drive, hopefully leaving no sign he had been in the system, locked up the Procurement office, and went back to his own office. Studying the files had not shed a lot of light on the subject of his search, however, but it was becoming obvious that there were two sets of procurement records.

The hospital expenditures for equipment went far beyond the requisitions such as the catheters and other small pieces of equipment that the nurses were bitching about, and ... Procurement had quickly ordered better equipment when he brought Hughes' complaints to their attention. But ... what about the enormous expense of the larger pieces of equipment? Now, with what seemed like duplicate procurement records with totally different figures, even he could see that something was drastically wrong.

Who could he trust? How deep did this go? Saturday afternoon, he had sat thinking for a time, unconsciously drumming his fingers on his desk as he wondered what to do. Getting up, still undecided, he had locked up and gone home.

When he entered his office this morning, his mind was made up. After giving his secretary instructions, he closed his office door, picked up the phone and dialed the Sheriff's office, telling dispatch that it was vitally important he speak personally with the Sheriff. He wouldn't be put off when the Sheriff's secretary suggested that a deputy could respond, but he demanded again to see the Sheriff, himself.

Sheriff Tate wasn't far away, but he had much rather be at home with his new wives. He had seriously thought about taking a couple weeks of vacation, but ... he dare not take any more time just yet. Better to wait until his new deputies had time to settle in.

He was scheduled to be in a meeting in twenty minutes, then later he was to speak at some type of Women's Auxiliary luncheon. This usually turned out to be in a meeting room of one of the hotels. Small, intimate. From past experience, he knew that the small meeting room would give some of the women an opportunity to rub his butt as he walked by. Oh, it would appear accidental, but it had happened too many times in the past to be anything other than deliberate. Still, he had to grin and bear it – they were voters, and in addition to that, had a lot of influence in the county. He hated being a politician. Why did the Sheriff's position have to be an elected one? Even though no one had run against him in the last election, that could change. Grin and bear it, he told himself again. But first, I have to see what the Administrator at the hospital wants. Probably has to do with some sort of function to make the hospital money, he grumbled to himself.

It was a typical Monday morning in Procurement. The phone seemed to be locked in ring mode. McMasters already had two people waiting to see him, and Solomon hadn't shown up yet. McMasters was muttering about Solomon, when the clerk sitting by his desk waiting for him to get off the phone, commented, "I saw him going into the administrator's office about twenty minutes ago."

McMasters jerked his head to stare at her. "You sure?" he asked, slamming the phone down. "He hasn't been in here, yet."

"Sure I'm sure," she said. "He was frowning and his face was pale. I assumed he was sick and stopped by to tell the administrator's secretary he was going home."

"That doesn't make sense. I'm his boss. He should tell me if he's leaving, or not coming in. He's never called off sick," he finished, almost to himself.

The first block of doubt slid into place.

McMasters, now worried that Solomon had decided to squeal on him, got up and left his office without asking what the clerks wanted, which pissed them off bigtime. "Asshole," one muttered. The two looked at each other, then left through the other door in disgust, tired of waiting.

As McMasters stepped into the hallway, he paused to think. After a moment, he turned right to start down the hall. As he did so, he noticed Caitlin turn the corner from the intersecting hallway that went toward the Administrator's office. The frown on her face and the tight set of her lips further worried him. Glancing to his left, he saw Sheriff Tate coming through the back door with a look on his face that McMasters interpreted as determination. To top it off, Tate put his hands on his gun belt for an instant, settling it more comfortably on his hips after riding in his vehicle, but McMasters interpreted the movement as Tate getting his weapon ready in case he needed it.

Blocks number two and three slid into place in McMasters' mind, and the doubts were quickly turning to a certainty that things were going bad for him – really bad.

Fuck that damn Solomon. That bastard has squealed on me.

Solomon had walked into the Administrator's office and tossed the roll of money he had received from McMasters onto Adair's desk, blurting out everything he knew about McMasters' kickbacks and double-dealing while the Administrator sat stunned. The one thing Adair was sure of was that he had done the right thing by calling for the Sheriff. He'll straighten this mess out, and there will be at least one of my procurement people in jail, shortly, he thought as he finally managed to get Solomon to sit.

In the hallway, as Caitlin drew near to McMasters, her thoughts on a patient that wasn't doing well, she finally looked up to see Quinton Tate. Just as she took a breath to ask who he had come to visit, McMasters mind dropped the last block into place and he reached out to grab an unsuspecting Caitlin.

Non-uniform supervisory personnel at the hospital were required to wear business apparel. With the men, this was a suit. Now McMasters was glad of the suit, irritation or not, because the jacket concealed the Beretta 92 FS he always carried.

He snatched Caitlin to him, locking his left arm around her neck and pushing the barrel of the 9 mm against her temple. "Stop right fucking there!" he screamed out at Tate.

Sheriff Tate's Monday suddenly took a nosedive from irritation to chaos. Training took over. His .45 was in his hand without conscious thought as he keyed his mike, said, "Clear channel!" in a command voice, then locked the mike button down. (He had liked what Joyce had done when she had faced the maniac who was holding Alesha at gunpoint, and Tate had instituted the new policy the next day. Now he followed that very same policy to transmit what was going on to everyone on the frequency.)

"I'll kill this meddling bitch if you take one step closer."

"That gun isn't the answer, my friend," Tate said in a calm voice, not only speaking to McMasters, but via the radio to all the deputies on the channel.

The Sergeant in charge of dispatch had just poured his second cup of coffee of the morning when the Sheriff's voice came over the radio. Throwing the full cup in the general direction of a waste can, he took the two steps to the nearest dispatcher, opening his mouth to tell her what to do, but she was already on Tact 2 giving Tate's location and repeating that he had called for a clear channel and there was a gun involved.

The county came alive. Deputies out taking reports slammed their pads closed and sprinted for their vehicles. Other deputies turned their vehicles toward Winter Park and accelerated. A second dispatcher was notifying the Winter Park police department what was going on. As the Shift Lieutenant came on the radio to determine who was nearest the hospital, and began giving out orders, the distinct sound of the cruiser's big motor winding up in the background was a backdrop to those calm orders. "Cut your sirens and lights a half mile away. Go in quietly," he continued. "We don't want to make the perp any more nervous than he probably already is."