He went to his desk, got out the USB drive containing the list, and inserted it in his laptop. A few moments later he was opening the Res-Term section of the Mercy Hospital Consolidated Personnel File. As he went through the columns of names and addresses, he recognized only one name. But it definitely got his attention:
JACKSON, BLAZE L., 115 BORDEN STREET, WHITE RIVER, NY
Her resignation or termination—the file didn’t indicate which—had occurred on February 12, just three months earlier. The remaining data was limited to her landline and cell phone numbers.
As he was entering this information in his address book, the Borden Street location was ringing a faint bell. He was sure he’d seen that address before, but he couldn’t place where. He opened Google Street View and entered the address, but what he saw wasn’t familiar. He returned to the personnel list and looked again at the address. That’s when it occurred to him that it wasn’t the physical location that was ringing a bell, it was the typed address on the file page. He’d seen that address somewhere else in the same document.
He went to the main part of the list that was devoted to active employees and began scrolling slowly through the names and addresses. Finally, there it was—in the section covering security, maintenance, and housekeeping:
CREEL, CHALISE J., 115 BORDEN STREET, WHITE RIVER, NY
The landline number given for her was the same as the one listed for Blaze Jackson, but she had a different cell number. So, thought Gurney, they were roommates at least. And possibly more than that.
Just as interesting was the fact that Chalise Creel was a name he’d seen before, and not just in the personnel list. It had appeared on the name tag of the cleaning woman on the ICU floor at the hospital—the woman with the almond-shaped eyes who’d emptied the trash basket in the visitors’ lounge the day he was there with Kim, Heather, and Madeleine. A woman who would have had easy access to Rick Loomis. A woman whose routine presence the nursing staff would have had no reason to question.
The insertion of the ice pick, however, into Loomis’s brain stem would have required specific medical knowledge. Which raised questions about Creel’s background, as well as Jackson’s. Gurney needed to find out what Jackson’s job at the hospital had been, and the reason she was no longer there. Could the Jackson-Creel relationship be connected directly to the murder of Rick Loomis? Might one of them have been the source of the drugs used on Jordan and Tooker? And perhaps the biggest question of all—were Jackson and Creel entangled with Judd Turlock and Dell Beckert?
The hospital seemed the logical place to start searching for answers. Gurney’s call was answered by an automated branching system that connected him eventually to Abby Marsh in the HR department. She was still in her office at a quarter past eight. She sounded as harried as she was the day Gurney had gotten the file from her.
“Yes?”
“Abby, this is Dave Gurney. I was wondering if—”
She broke in. “The man of the hour.”
“Sorry?”
“We have a TV in our cafeteria. I was grabbing a quick dinner, and saw the interview with the district attorney. What can I do for you?”
“I need some information on two of your employees—one past, one present. Blaze Jackson and Chalise Creel. Are you familiar with them?”
“Jackson, definitely. Creel, slightly. Is there a problem?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Is Creel working now?”
“Hold on. I’ll check . . . Okay, here it is. According to the schedule, she’s on the four-to-twelve shift. So, yes, she’d be working now.”
“Sorry, what I meant was, do you know for a fact that she’s actually there?”
“That wouldn’t be in our computer system.”
“But someone must know whether she’s there or not.”
“Her shift supervisor. Do you want me to call him?”
“Please.”
“I’m going to put you on hold.”
“Thank you, Abby.”
Five minutes passed. When she finally reconnected with Gurney she sounded worried. “Chalise Creel didn’t show up for her shift this afternoon, she didn’t show up yesterday, and she didn’t call in either day. Her supervisor tried to reach her yesterday. When he tried again today he got an automated message saying her voicemail was full.”
“She’s been reliable until now?”
“Apparently. No red flags in her file. But the fact that you’re asking about her—is that something we should be concerned about?”
“Too soon to tell. Did you know that she has the same address as Blaze Jackson?”
“The same address?” The worry in Abby Marsh’s voice went up a notch.
“Yes. And the same landline number.”
Marsh said nothing.
Rather than ask whether Jackson had resigned or been terminated—a question that Marsh might not be able to answer for privacy reasons—Gurney employed the presumptive approach detectives often used in dealing with similar situations. “When Jackson was terminated, were there any repercussions?”
“What kind of repercussions?”
“Did she deny what she was being accused of?”
“Of course. Until we showed her our pharmacy security video.”
