Timmie shook her head. "That usually doesn't involve a police cover-up."

"Even if the hospital involved is the town's biggest industry?" Murphy asked. "Awful lot of good publicity generated in that facility, not only for the hospital, but for the town and the county. It's top on the local job hit parade right now."

"Well, that would definitely explain the chamber-of-commerce angle," Timmie admitted.

"You're sure it's Restcrest?" Barb asked.

"It's sure Alex they mentioned on the phone," Timmie said.

"It's not Alex," Barb said simply. "Think of somebody else. Lie down, Mr. Murphy. I'm going to make you beautiful again."

Murphy laid down and in quick order had sterile towels draped over head and bare chest, and his forehead painted a bright Betadine orange. Settling herself on the coffee table like a ripe pumpkin waiting for a good carve, Barb set to work.

"Okay," she said, drawing up the lidocaine. "If there is something going on, what about that Mary Jane Arlington? I wouldn't put anything past her."

Just south of the sterile towels Barb had draped, Murphy's eyes followed the movements of the syringe. "How about if we wait to discuss this?" he asked in astonishingly faint tones. "I'm not sure I want you to be wielding sharp instruments close to my face if you get upset."

Barb snorted unkindly. "Oh, don't be a baby. I've sewn up screaming kids, fighting drunks, and hallucinating psychos. I even sewed up a hysterical poodle once."

Timmie grinned. "Didn't even leave a scar."

Murphy just sighed in resignation and closed his eyes. His fists were still suspiciously tight, however, as Barb first numbed, then sutured the laceration with stitches as delicate as any master seamstress.

"Mary Jane," Barb reiterated. "You see the serious Hinckley eyes she puts on Alex? I think she'd take out the town council with a machete if she thought it'd help. When was your last tetanus?"

Murphy didn't even hesitate. "Last year. Mary Jane, huh?"

Barb nodded. "Rabbit in the stew pot, you know what I mean?"

"What about Paul Landry?" Timmie asked. "Mattie doesn't like him at all."

"Who knows?" Barb asked, snipping a pair of hairlike threads. "He's sure a big-time player in a nasty league."

"Would people be upset that he's involved with GerySys?" Murphy asked, bringing the proceedings to a screeching halt.

"What?" Timmie demanded before Barb could.

"You know about GerySys?" he asked, opening his eyes.

"You are talking about the worst nursing home chain since the invention of the bedsore," Barb informed him. "Parent of the notorious Gulag Golden Grove. That GerySys? Why?"

"Because Paul Landry is negotiating with them to cosponsor Restcrest. I found out today from a contact at the Post."

Murphy almost ended up with a pierced eyebrow. "Alex would never let him do that," Barb informed him tightly.

"Alex has no say," Murphy said. "It was part of the deal. Landry's in charge. And Landry's talking GerySys into helping defray a much more expensive unit than anybody at Price had anticipated."

"Oh, God." It was a chorus now. Distress, disgust. Disbelief.

"This'll kill Alex for sure," Timmie said.

"So they—Landry or Mary Jane or whoever—killed Victor because he found out people were dying at the home," Murphy said. "And maybe it had something to do with this new deal with Golden Grove—"

"Or maybe they're keeping it quiet so GerySys won't be scared off," Timmie said.

"And somehow they have Van Adder involved so the deaths go virtually unnoticed."

"If they killed Vic," Barb said, "why not just kill Murphy, too?"

Murphy was once again eyeing the instruments. "Because I got the impression that this was stage one. If somebody had threatened Victor, would he have listened?"

Barb laughed, a booming intrusion in the echoing room. "Not Victor. It would have been an insult to the memory of Jack Webb."

"But it does mean they're serious," Timmie admitted.

Murphy allowed himself a minimal nod beneath the towel. "Hard to believe, but I think you're right. We need to make sure your kids are safe."

Timmie shared looks with Barb, her stomach knotting. She could tell that Barb's was doing the same. Decision time. Unfortunately, Timmie couldn't go back on the one she'd already made.

Barb clinched it by bending back to work. "We can take care of our kids," she said. "And I'm not about to insult the memory of Jack Webb, either. The question is, what do we do now?"

"Well," Timmie said, grabbing the scissors and snipping threads to speed things up, "I have an appointment to meet with the St. Charles ME to talk about it. And I have a Morbidity and Mortality printout I'd like you to—" She got that far, and froze.

The printout.

The very same printout she'd sneaked out of the ER like a counterfeit diamond and perused like secret missile plans. Oh, damn. Dropping the scissors at the edge of the tray, she spun on her heels for the stairs. "Excuse me."

Upstairs nothing seemed changed. The same mountain range of books commanded the hallway, now in disarray from where Timmie had burrowed for items for that damn memory case. Her room was still awash in fabric samples and purloined wallpaper books and outdated missalettes. Timmie did a quick check to see if she could spot a strange hand at it, but she couldn't tell because she'd tossed the room too many times herself looking for her dad's things.

In the end, it didn't matter. There between the old sleigh bed and the wall where she'd left it with all her busy work was her cloth nursing bag. And inside that was the list.

Timmie chuckled with embarrassment. As if this would made a big difference. Unless three separate computer systems crashed, the printout was like an extra roll of prints. Yanking the sheaf of papers from her bag, Timmie carried them back downstairs where Barb was telling Murphy what a lucky boy he was.

"I think I found something on the M and M printout," she said, reclaiming the scissors. "I need you to look, too, Barb."

"There's one other thing you have to do," Barb told her in a tone of voice that portended trouble, her attention still on the tiny needle and thread in her large hands.

Timmie held still. Murphy opened his eyes. Barb smiled, and it wasn't pretty.

Timmie blanched. "Not..."

Barb nodded, enjoying herself much too much. "You know damn well that if there's something hinky going on at Restcrest the staff knows about it, and at least one person over there's pissed as hell. You know it, Timmie. And there's only one way to find out who it is."

"No."

"Oh, yes. You're going to have to go undercover."

"You go undercover," Timmie demanded of the big woman, now truly distressed. "I'd rather play coroner truck with Van Adder."

Barb was laughing now. "Sorry, girl. I'd stick out like a sore thumb. But they're always needing nurses over there. And you are, even with all those fancy initials behind your name, a nurse. The next time Restcrest calls for help, you're going to have to go on gomer patrol."

"We could ask Ellen to do it."

"She's sleeping with Van Adder."

Timmie's grimace was purely reactionary. "Well, then, Cindy. She likes it up there."