* * *

"The flu?" Timmie demanded of the EMTs ten minutes later as she hugged the far wall of room three in an effort to escape the pungent aromas emanating from the unwashed, unshaven, middle-aged man who moaned and twisted on her cart. "That's all this is?"

"No..." her patient managed between belly-rumbling groans. "I'm dyin' here... can't even... feel my fingers and toes..."

As much air as he was sucking in to replace his lost stomach contents, Timmie wasn't in the least surprised. "How long have you been sick?" she yelled loudly enough to be heard.

Behind her, the door opened and a tech leaned in. "Didn't you hear your page?" he demanded of her. "Phone."

Timmie was busy tossing the EMTs a fresh barf bucket and trying to climb into some kind of protective gown. "I'll call back," she said without turning around.

"It's your baby-sitter," he insisted. "Says it's urgent."

Timmie yanked on gloves. "Geez, I just talked to Meghan. She couldn't have had her problem then? Ask if it involves blood, smoke, or a badge. If not, it'll wait."

The door shushed closed just as her patient swung back into his favorite refrain of "Help me..."

"You're new," the EMT said to her. "Aren't you?"

Timmie smiled and forbore telling him that she wasn't new at all. Just back. Like the proverbial bad penny. Or Freddy Krueger. "Just moved from California. Want to tell me about my patient?"

"California?"

The EMT actually looked a little disappointed. Probably expected something more exotic from a California transplant with a guy's name. Timmie had short-cropped dark-brown hair, Irish skin, and blue eyes. Short, unpolished nails, standard-issue maroon scrubs and lab coat, and unimaginative white running shoes. Timmie thought of flashing the guy her tattoo to make him feel better, but decided this wasn't the time or the place. Nor was he the man she wanted to drop her pants for.

"And you came here?" he asked, incredulous.

Timmie grinned. "And I came here. To hear all about my patient."

The EMT snapped to attention. "Claims he's been sick about a week," he offered, clamping the patient's sweaty hands around the basin and beating a hasty retreat to the sink. "Definite double bucket, from the looks of his trailer."

"Timmie Leary-Parker, coroner, line two," the secretary droned over the paging system. "Timmie Leary-Parker."

Yanking her stethoscope from around her neck, Timmie headed for ground zero. "Of course he calls me now," she said to no one in particular. "Well, he can just wait a minute."

"Leary?" her patient demanded on a moan, his watery red eyes rolling Timmie's way. "You? Any relation to Joe?"

Timmie should have been more surprised. "Yep."

He flashed a sudden smile. "How is he?"

"Fine. Just fine."

Her patient nodded, lowered his head back into the bucket. "Good. He's somethin', Joe is..." He paused for another spectacular eruption, which didn't do Timmie's stomach any good. She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm anyway.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Is Ellen here?" the patient whined instead, his voice echoing inside the bucket. "She workin'?"

"Ellen?" Timmie asked.

"His name's Mayfield," the EMT said. "Billy Mayfield."

"Ellen Mayfield," Billy whined some more. "She works here. She's my wife."

"Was his wife," came the delighted announcement from the once-again-open doorway. "Hey there, Billy. Thought that was you in here singin' the porcelain psalm. How's it hangin'?"

Timmie turned again to find not Billy's ex, Ellen, but Barb Adkins, dessert soda in hand, grin on her wide, homely face.

Not standing, actually. Slouching, eyes half closed, head to the side. Barb was deceptively lazy-looking, slumping down so that her massive size seemed less a threat, her equally impressive brain less intimidating. Barb was an inch over six feet and a couple of pounds shy of two-fifty, all solid. She'd worked her way through med school as a bouncer up at the clubs on Laclede's Landing in St. Louis, and kept the ER's noisier patients in line just by standing over them.

"It's not hangin'," another voice offered behind her. "More like flyin'."

"Launching."

"Hurling."

Timmie had been mistaken. It wasn't just Barb leaning in the doorway, but damn near the entire membership of the SSS. The Suckered Sister Sorority, as they called themselves at moments of diminished self-respect. Divorce detritus. Left-behinds who shared stories and beer on Friday and intricate revenge plots any other time. Eight members, all told, including one male who demanded equal time and a lab tech who was still trying to make that all-important choice between divorce and murder.

And the gang was almost all here to share Ellen Mayfield's finest moment since the judge had awarded her full custody of the kids and the house. All, that is, except Ellen.

"Nice to see you guys," Timmie greeted them, her attention caught by Billy's blood pressure, which was low for all the energy he was expending. "You want to come in here and do this?"

Several heads shook emphatically. "Uh-uh."

"We're just the Greek chorus," Barb assured her.

"State's witnesses," somebody else agreed. "For the appropriate documentation of punishment."

"Get the fuck outta here!" Billy growled, his sagging cheeks gray and twitching beneath small, close-set eyes.

"Barb can't get out of here," Timmie said with a cherubic smile. "She's the doctor who's going to treat you."

"Oh, shit." Billy moaned.

Barb stepped on in, still beaming brightly. "Something you seem to be uncomfortably familiar with today, huh, Billy?"

"Timmie, Mr. Van Adder on line two," the paging system droned overhead. "Mr. Van Adder, the coroner, who says he's not going to wait a minute longer?"

All heads raised. Timmie gave in and peeled off a glove. "Somebody at least get lab for Billy so I can clear Mr. Cleveland, okay? And make sure you get liver enzymes. Maybe it's the ambience in here, but he looks a weensy bit yellow to me."

"Yellow's the perfect color for him, ya ask me," Barb offered equably.

Billy shut his eyes like a man before a firing squad. Timmie tossed her gloves and squeezed past the crowd in the doorway.

The work lane was a lot quieter and smelled better. A couple of supply techs were restocking carts along one arc of the circle that made up the ER's work area, and the pediatrician stood chatting on the phone by the X-ray view box. No disasters, no showdowns, no scrambling police or screaming families. Timmie wasn't sure how long she was going to be able to stand all this peace-and-quiet shit before she lost her mind.

"What's so funny?" the secretary asked on his way by.

"Life," she said. "Don't you think life is funny?"

"Not really. But then, give me a ticket to the Mayfield-Mayfield rematch in room three, and I may change my mind."

Timmie grinned as she plopped herself down at the desk and scanned the chart of Butch Cleveland, whom she'd helped pronounce dead no more than three hours ago. The family had already been notified, the funeral home attendants were drinking nurse's lounge coffee, and Timmie had had the old man wrapped and tagged for at least two hours. The only thing missing was the okay from the coroner to release the body to the Price Health Systems research lab, to which it had been donated. Timmie pulled a pen from behind her ear and punched the blinking button to line one.