The Inn(23)

“Fentanyl,” Bess said. “It’s the flavor of the month.” She dragged the microphone to her lips again. “I said Code Orange in the ER, please. Code Orange.”

Whatever the term Code Orange was supposed to initiate, it didn’t seem to work. I looked around the waiting room. There was a young couple on gray plastic chairs watching the television in the corner, ice packs and a paper towel on the man’s wrist. Bess sighed and walked through a side door, then reappeared through double swinging doors to our right pushing a gurney. The emergency room behind her was filled with life. Nurses in pale blue scrubs jogged across the crowded space; family members stood in corners looking worried.

“It’s a bit hectic today.” Bess walked up to Nick, took the woman from his arms like she weighed nothing, and laid her on the gurney. She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. “We’ve had two other dreamers like this young thing already this morning. One’s got brain damage, and the other didn’t make it.”

I stood by Nick, feeling oddly self-conscious as Bess checked the woman’s vitals.

“You seem shocked, honey,” Bess said to me. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. Bess’s total lack of panic about the unconscious patient rattled me. She made a note on the nameless victim’s chart with a pen she took from her breast pocket, pink with a fluffy poof swinging from a chain.

“You need somewhere to sit down, you let me know. I’ll find you a nice warm spot.” She winked at me. Nick pursed his lips. Bess wheeled the woman into the emergency room and returned to her desk a couple of minutes later.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen these floating around the emergency room lately,” I said, showing her the pills I’d confiscated from Rick Craft’s boat. Bess reached over and took my hand.

“Let me get a closer look.” She examined the capsules but kept holding my hand, stroking my thumb with hers. “Oh yeah, sure, honey. We sucked a couple of these yellow ones out of a girl’s stomach yesterday.”

“What’s the difference between the yellow ones and the red ones?” Nick asked.

“The red ones are the angry ones.” Bess held the pill up, still holding my hand in hers. “They’ll straight-up snuff you if you’re not a long-term serious addict with a tolerance. They’re not for a party. You want a party, it’s the yellow smileys, the purple dopeys, or the green winky faces. Just different combinations of uppers and downers, cerebral and bodily effects.”

She let my hand go and took a folder from behind the desk. Nick was barely keeping it together over Bess’s obvious affection for me. I kicked him in the ankle as Bess opened a page to photographs of colorful pills. “We started seeing them about four months ago, but we already knew they were on their way. Lots of deaths down in Boston. You two local cops or something? How come I’ve never seen you in here before?”

“He used to be a cop.” Nick nudged me. Bess perked up.

“My brother is a lawman,” she said. “You’re good people. Me, I wasn’t so interested in locking folks up. I’d rather care for them. I can spot someone who needs a bit of tender loving care from fifteen miles out. You running an investigation?”

“We’re just concerned citizens trying to protect our town.” I gave Nick a warning look. “Renegades, I guess you could call us.”

“Outlaws dealing justice.” Nick nodded.

“That’s pretty sexy,” Bess said.

“Undeniably,” I agreed. “It’s a sexy job, but someone’s got to do it.”

Bess shrugged. “Well, you two want to protect something, you ought to just stand out there.” She pointed between us at the glass doors of the entrance. “Last week we had a guy in here fell off a ladder and broke his clavicle. We gave him two weeks’ worth of oxy to get him through. He got attacked in the parking lot. Didn’t even make it to his car.”

“Jesus, they’re robbing people for their meds?”

“Sometimes they rob them, sometimes they beg them or threaten them. That’s the addicts who do that. The dealers, they don’t need to use violence. They pay the doctors to write the scripts.”

A man in a white coat came out of the emergency room, walked to a cabinet behind Bess, and extracted a chart from a drawer. He was young and sharply dressed, fiddling with the ID badge that was clipped to his lavender shirt. One look told me he’d been listening to Bess from behind the door. He glanced at us quickly, taking in our faces. I wanted to warn Bess, but she hadn’t seen the man walk in behind her.

“We had an old lady come in our pharmacy trying to get her methadone prescription from over on Amble Street filled,” Bess said. “Enough methadone to kill a horse, you ask me. She obviously hadn’t been taking the prescribed dose because she wasn’t stone-cold dead, so she must have been giving the pills to somebody. The pharmacy sent her to us.”

“Excuse me.” The lavender-shirted doctor came over with his hand up like he was ready to start pushing people around. “It’s not our policy to chitchat over the triage desk about our patients. Who are you?”

“Bill Robinson. I own the Inn on the water.”

“I’ve seen that place,” Bess said, apparently unfazed by her superior’s tone. “Looks real nice. Maybe I ought to drive out there one time, take a weekend off, rejuvenate myself. You one of those live-in owners, Bill? Place got a hot tub?”