Hour Game

"We haven't even had time to get the one on Hinson," complained Williams. "Why Bobby Battle? Why would the killer want to add him to the list? It was damn risky, coming in here like this."

However, as they quickly learned after consulting once more with the head nurse, coming in the rear door was not as difficult as they'd originally thought. The code was a simple one, 4-3-2-1, and hadn't been changed in years. There were numerous people in the hospital who knew it and quite probably had let others know.

"Do we have any idea of what was shot into the IV bag?" asked Michelle.

"The lab will analyze and run tox on the contents," said Williams. "Luckily, somebody had sharp eyes and discovered the hole in the bag before everything was taken down and discarded."

"Where's Sylvia?" asked King.

Williams shook his head. "Home sick as a dog. She finished up Hinson last night, caught a bug and is right now throwing up into the toilet. At least that's what she planned to do when I hung up. She'll be here as soon as she can."

Bailey spoke up. "The FBI too. This is the fifth connected death, at least that we know of. We're going to take a more active presence, Todd. Sorry."

"Then maybeyou can talk to Remmy. When that woman finds out about this, she's going to have a piece of my hide."

King said, "I wouldn't do that until we receive a letter from the killer. The presence of the watch and feather makes it seem certain Bobby was another victim, but we need to be absolutely sure before we open that can of worms with Remmy."

"Good point," agreed Bailey.

"Were there any items missing from Bobby's room?" asked Michelle. "The guy we're looking for took something from all the other victims."

"We really won't know for sure until we talk to Remmy," said Williams. "Now I want to nail down the chain of events." He stepped out for a moment and returned once more with the attending physician and head nurse.

"Can you run over the timeline again for us?" Williams asked.

"Yes, sir," the nurse answered. "Mrs. Battle was here from four until right around ten. She was in the room the whole time. Mr. Battle was alive and doing fine at a few minutes after ten when his nurse last checked him. There were no other visitors during that time."

"How about before Mrs. Battle got here?" asked Michelle.

"His daughter, Savannah, came and stayed for a while early in the afternoon. I don't know the exact times. And also Dorothea Battle came in after that, say around two-thirty."

"Did they come through the rear entrance?" asked Bailey.

" Savannah did, Dorothea Battle came in the front," answered the nurse.

"We'll need exact times on those visits," Williams told them.

"Fine, we'll get them," said the doctor stiffly. "Now, can you excuse me? I have other patients to attend to." The man was surely contemplating the lawsuit that was heading right at his and the hospital's wallets, thought King.

"Hope you have better luck with them," fired back Williams, who'd obviously read the same message in the man's tone.

After he'd left, Williams continued questioning the nurse. "So at ten-fifteen Battle 's condition changed."

The nurse nodded. "He went into cardiac arrest. He was flatlined when the first nurse arrived. The crash team tried to resuscitate but was unsuccessful."

King said, "So in the ten or so minutes between the nurse's checking him and his flatlining, the killer struck and the poison, if that's what we're looking at here, took effect."

"Looks that way," agreed Bailey.

"I noticed that the room has a video camera," said King.

"They all do. That way we can monitor all the patients from the nurse's station."

"But no one saw anyone else come in the room after Mrs. Battle left?"

The nurse looked nervous. "Sometimes the nurse's station isn't manned."

"Like during shift change?" said King.

"Yes. Now, if someone did come in after Mrs. Battle left, they had to come through the rear door, or else someone would have seen them."

"Understood," answered King.

"Pretty ballsy to do it with people all over the place," commented Williams.

"Well, if someone were going to try something like that," said the nurse, "they picked the right time to do it."

"Yes, they certainly did," said King.

As King and Michelle were leaving the unit, King stopped at the nurse's station.

"Mind if I take a look?" he asked the head nurse.

He went behind the large console and studied the live video feeds appearing on the monitors. "These aren't on tape, are they?" he asked.

"No. It's not for security, just for the welfare of the patients."

"Well, you might want to rethink that philosophy."

"What was that about?" Michelle asked after they'd left the hospital unit.