“I headed home after that.”
The other nurses nodded, with echoes of “Same here.”
“And you, Dr. Antrim?” Jane asked.
“Friday I was here, covering the unit.”
“What time did you see Sofia leave the hospital?”
“Actually, I didn’t see her leave. I was busy with the patient in bed seven. He kept crashing on us. We tried for hours to stabilize him, but I’m afraid he was gone by morning.” He paused, his gaze drifting toward cubicle number seven.
“Bad luck bed,” said Mary Beth softly. “It’s where Tony died.”
Frost looked up from his notebook. “Tony?”
“Sofia’s husband,” said Dr. Antrim. “He was a patient in this unit for almost a month, after his operation. Poor Sofia, working her shifts in here, while Tony was vegetating in that cubicle. He was like part of our family.”
“They both were,” Mary Beth said.
Another silence. Another round of sighs.
“It’s true, we really are a family here,” said Antrim. “When my daughter was admitted a few months ago, Sofia was her nurse and she treated Amy like her own daughter. We couldn’t have asked for better care.”
“Your daughter—is she all right?” Jane asked. Almost afraid to hear the answer.
“Oh, Amy’s fine now. She was hit in a crosswalk by some maniac driver. It fractured her leg in three places and she needed emergency surgery for a ruptured spleen. My wife and I were terrified, but the nurses here, they all helped her pull through. Especially Sofia, who…” His voice faded and he looked away.
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm her? An ex-patient, maybe? A patient’s family member?”
“No,” the nurses said simultaneously.
“No one would want to hurt her,” said Antrim.
“That’s what everyone keeps telling us,” said Jane.
“Well, it’s true,” said Mary Beth. “And she would have told us if she was being threatened by anyone.”
“Was she seeing anyone romantically?” asked Frost. “Any new man in her life?”
Clearly offended by the question, Mary Beth snapped: “Tony died only six months ago. Do you really think she’d be seeing another man?”
“Did she seem worried about anything lately?” Jane asked.
“Just quiet. Of course, she would be, after losing Tony. That’s probably why she stopped coming to our monthly potlucks.”
Jane noticed that Antrim was frowning. “Doctor?” she asked.
“I’m not sure if this means anything. It just struck me as odd at the time, and now I wonder.”
“About what?”
“It was last Wednesday, as I was leaving the hospital. I saw Sofia in the parking lot, talking on her cell phone. This would’ve been just before her shift started so maybe around two-thirty in the afternoon.”
“What was odd about that?”
“She seemed upset, as if she’d just heard some bad news. All I heard was, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure that’s right?’？”
“Did you hear any more of the conversation?”
“No. When she saw me she hung up. As if she didn’t want anyone to hear the call.”
“Do you know who she was talking to?”
He shook his head. “You’d have access to her phone records. Couldn’t you find out?”
“We’re still waiting for the call log from her mobile carrier. But yes, we’ll find out.”
“It just struck me as odd, you know? We’ve all known her for ten, fifteen years, ever since she came to work at Pilgrim, and I have no idea why she’d be so secretive.”
What secrets could a fifty-two-year-old widowed nurse be hiding? Jane wondered. Sofia had no criminal record, not even an outstanding parking ticket. Their search of her house had turned up no illicit drugs or stashes of cash, and her bank account was modest.
Maybe the secret wasn’t about her.
“What about her husband, Tony?” Jane asked. “What did he do for a living?”
“He was a mail carrier,” said Mary Beth. “Thirty years on the job and he loved it. Loved talking to people on his route. He even loved all their dogs, and they loved him.”
“No, they loved his dog biscuits,” said Fran Souza with a sad laugh. “Tony kept a bag of them in his mail truck.”
“But he really did love dogs. They both did. After Tony died, Sofia was talking about getting one, maybe a big ol’ golden retriever. Then she thought it wouldn’t be fair to the dog, being left at home alone while she worked.” Mary Beth paused. “It’s too bad she didn’t have a dog. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”