Murder in the Maternity Ward by Michelle Francik

Author:Michelle Francik [Francik, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sweet Promise Press
Published: 2019-11-07T16:00:00+00:00

Gwen Abara was standing at the nurse’s station on the fifth floor. She was a short, trim black woman with light brown eyes and ebony hair. As they walked up to her, Maggie noticed her eyes were red and puffy.

“Hi, Gwen. My name is Maggie, and this is my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Susan. Are you okay? You look like you’ve been crying.”

She sniffled and tried to smile, but instead, her lips trembled, and her chin wobbled. “I’m sorry. I just lost one of my favorite patients and it hit me pretty hard.” She grabbed a tissue from a box on the counter and dabbed at her eyes.

“I can’t imagine how hard it is to work in the cancer ward.” Susan shook her head. “I give you props; I don’t think I could do it.”

“Working any job in a hospital is tough. We all see way more death and suffering than a person should, but we also see recovery and health and,” she gestured at Maggie’s tummy, “birth. Normally I take it in stride, but this one was particularly difficult for me.”

“Well, we’re sorry for your loss.” Susan’s words seemed to help, as the nurse gave one last sniffle, then put on a genuine smile and tossed the tissue into the garbage can.

“How can I help you ladies?”

“Well, my husband was visiting a friend in the hospital a couple of weeks ago and he said he saw a nurse with a really pretty bracelet. He said it was gold and had a ring of diamonds around the edge. He’s been promising me a nice bracelet since we got married, but I can never find one I like.” Maggie chuckled and Susan rolled her eyes, making Gwen grin. “Anyway, I’m trying to find out who had that bracelet because he said he’d buy me one if I can find out where she got it.”

“Well, I wish I could help you, but I don’t wear jewelry. I’ve worked as a preschool teacher and a nurse: neither job is conducive to wearing jewelry. The one time I wore earrings at the hospital a patient went into a seizure and grabbed at me, ripping the earring right out of my ear.” She lifted her hair and sure enough, the lobe was torn.

“Can you think of anyone, maybe not even a nurse, who might wear that kind of bracelet?”

“Not off the top of my head. We’re all up to our elbows in bodily fluids and dirty linens all day, so . . .” Her voice trailed off, but Maggie could see she’d thought of something.

“What is it? Did you think of someone?”

“I wonder if he could’ve seen a patient wearing the bracelet.”

Maggie felt her heart drop. She’d told Ashanti it was unlikely the receipt was from a bracelet given to a patient, due to the expense, but maybe she’d been wrong to brush that aside.

Susan asked, “Why do you say that?”

“Well, I think I remember seeing someone wearing that kind of bracelet. It was really sparkly, so it stood out.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.