Friday morning, Sophie was excited to be seeing Kate again so
soon. While she waited for Kate to call with an arrival time,
Sophie worked on the challenge of getting Danny to drink an
entire feed from his bottle. Up to this point, any milk he wasn’t
able to finish by mouth went in through his nasogastric tube, the
narrow tube that went up through his nose and down into his
stomach. Once the allotted thirty minutes of feeding time was
over, Kim took over to give the rest through his tube.
Suzanne popped her head in and gave a quick wave with her
sunny Southern disposition. “Mornin’, y’all.”
Kim waved back. “Lunch later?”
Suzanne gave her two thumbs-up.
While Sophie waited for Danny’s “meal” to finish up, she
asked Kim about Christy and Suzanne.
“You guys seem like pretty tight friends.”
“Oh yeah. Those two are my best friends. We’re like sisters.”
Sophie nodded, checking her phone for a message from Kate.
Kim continued talking, explaining how she and Christy worked
together in the NICU and Suzanne worked both in NICU and
triage with dual training in both specialties. They were all friends
with Carol from triage, even though Carol was more than twenty
years older. She was the mother hen of the NICU-triage sorority
and mentor to many.
“But not Amanda,” Kim continued. Amanda and a couple
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of others tended to stick to themselves. Good team players in an
emergency, but otherwise weren’t terribly friendly.
“I’d have Amanda any day of the week working next to me
in a code,” Kim told Sophie. “But girls’ night out? Not gonna
happen.”
Kim, Christy, and Suzanne were particularly close because
they’d worked through the days of an overcrowded NICU and
a triage unit so overcrowded with laboring patients they were
forced to labor in the hallways. There was nothing like the bat
tlegrounds of intensive care and triage to bond friends together.
Still waiting for Kim to finish up with Danny, Sophie called
Kate to find out what train she was taking. Her call went straight
to voicemail. She must be on her phone.
When Kim had finished feeding Danny, she handed him back
to Sophie and got ready to go to lunch. Suzanne and Christy
stood by the pod doorway waiting for Kim to grab her stuff.
“Hey, Sophie,” Christy called over. “Thanks for the amazing
fruit platter. Where’d it come from?”
Before she could answer, Kim pulled the two nurses over
closer to where Sophie sat. She explained Sophie and Adam’s
suspicions about Dr. Wagner. Immediately, she had Christy’s and
Suzanne’s attention. “They tried to get a video of him, but it
didn’t work. Wrong patient.”
The threesome, with their heads together, spoke quietly so
only Sophie could hear.
“They’re looking for someone who can blend in with tri
age,” whispered Kim. She looked at Suzanne. “If, and I mean
if—because, right now, this is only a theory—but if you see Dr.
Wagner working with a mother in preterm labor, especially before
thirty-four weeks, they’re wondering if you could video him with
that patient.”
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She paused to let that sink in.
“Suzanne, you’re in there more than Christy or me. But this
is totally up to you, no pressure.”
“I’ll do it,” said Suzanne in her Southern drawl. “If videoing
Dr. Wagner and his pocketful of Pitocin will atone for my part in
the breech delivery, then I’ll do it.”
It was five in the afternoon, and Sophie still had no word from
Kate. There was no voicemail, no missed calls, no texts, not
even an email. She called Kate’s husband, Rick. No answer there
either. Maybe they’re both on their way down here together. But why
aren’t they answering their phones?
She called Adam. “Where do you think they are? Kate always
has her phone with her. I don’t get it.”
“I’m sure they’re fine. I bet she calls tomorrow.”
Saturday morning came, and still no word. This was not like
Kate. Sophie called the one neighbor she had met when Kate
and Rick first moved to Boston. Kate’s car was in the driveway,
but the neighbor hadn’t seen either one of them. Sophie asked if
he could please go and knock on the door.
The neighbor carried his phone with him over next door.
Sophie heard him knock, then knock again louder. There was
no answer. It was ten o’clock in the morning. Sophie’s stomach
was in knots; she could no longer make excuses for Kate’s silence.
“Please call me if you see any sign of either one of them.”
Later Saturday night, her phone rang.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry!” Kate cried. “I can’t believe I forgot to
call you. The fertility clinic needed Rick and me here in town this
weekend. The time is right, my eggs are hot, and they couldn’t
wait until Monday. I am so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
Relieved to hear from her sister, Sophie laughed. “Hot eggs?”
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Two days later, Sophie got a text from Suzanne: I worked a dou
ble yesterday, and I think this is what you’re looking for 😉 Another
ding followed immediately, with a video. She and Adam watched
the twenty-minute recording on her iPhone.
It was 8:05 p.m. according to the recording. There was a
steady buzz of activity and a constant hum of monitors and equip
ment in the background. Suzanne had just discharged a patient
and now had her attention on Dr. Wagner.
Behind Dr. Wagner, the phone camera moved around errat
ically as Suzanne busied herself with putting fresh sheets on an
empty gurney, then getting the phone lined up in the direction
of Dr. Wagner and his patient. Suzanne held it at waist level.
The camera zoomed in on Dr. Wagner talking with his labor
ing patient. Amanda was the nurse assigned to the patient. The
video showed Amanda putting an IV into the patient’s left hand,
assuring her everything would be fine.
Adam was pleased with how clearly the sound came through.
Even though there was a lot of other triage noise on the recording,
they could still make out most of what Amanda said to the patient.
Dr. Wagner came into view and asked the patient how she
was feeling. Adam and Sophie couldn’t make out the woman’s
response.
“I understand. There’s no need for you to feel scared.” He
pulled a pink-capped vial from his pocket and injected it into the
patient’s IV. “This’ll help.” He held her hand for a moment.
Within seconds, the woman became calmer. Dr. Wagner
picked up his pen and the patient’s chart as he continued talking
to her, asking the typical questions. Yes, she was thirty weeks,
and this was her first baby. Perfectly healthy pregnancy. All ultra
sounds and blood work were normal, indicating a completely
healthy little girl. Dr. Wagner told the patient that he’d give her
something to stop her contractions and then send her home.
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The video perfectly captured Dr. Wagner’s hand on the
patient’s IV. The camera panned up his arm and to his face so
that there was no question whose hand it was. Dr. Wagner pulled
a vial out of his pocket. It had a tan cap.
Adam and Sophie hoped this was the real medication, not a
switch of the colored caps. Sophie caught herself. She would never
actually wish for someone to deliver a preterm baby. She just wanted
proof to nail Dr. Wagner. If it was the medication that they thought
it was, it wasn’t going to do anything to stop the woman’s labor.
Dr. Wagner flipped the cap off, inserted a needle with a syringe,
withdrew the medication, then injected it into the IV line. He fol
lowed this with a very small dose of the pink-capped medicine. He
told Amanda to keep an eye on the patient and walked out of the
camera’s view. The video stayed on the patient as she started to
doze off, hand on her belly. The fetal monitor confirmed that the
baby was doing well.
“What if it’s not even Pitocin?” said Adam. “Shit.”
“Sshhh!”
Within seconds, the camera caught the patient’s eyes flying
open as she lifted her head off the pillow. She yelled out and
grabbed her belly. Amanda turned to the patient, asking if she
was okay. What was wrong? The patient was panting. Her anx
ious look had grown to near terror. Then she became racked with
another intense contraction. Her face turned beet red as she
started to push.
She grabbed Amanda’s wrist. “Help me!”
“Dr. Wagner, can you come over here, please?”
It was all captured on video. People started to crowd around
the patient’s bed, and the view from the phone was blocked, then
the video shut off.
Sophie’s phone dinged. It was from Suzanne. She delivered ten
minutes later.
They had all the evidence they needed
