“Everyone on my staff can enter the diagnoses as written into the computer, but they can’t change any data. I’m the only one who can do that, and I have a biometric password.”

“Beg pardon?” said Jacobi.

“My password is my fingerprint.”

“But can’t a doctor enter the wrong diagnosis?” I asked. “That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Theoretically, that would be possible, but in actuality, it can’t happen. The doctors themselves are the first checkpoint. My staff is the second. The computer is armed and alarmed against tampering. And you have no idea how methodical I am.

“I check and recheck prescriptions against the charts all day long. Not just my own work, but the work of all the people in my department.

“People joke that I’m half a computer myself.”

I said, “But let me get this straight, it all hangs on the diagnosis?”

“That’s correct.”

“So you personally could change any doctor’s diagnosis—that’s what you’re saying?”

Engstrom stared numbly at me as I spoke, and then she snapped, “That’s outrageous. No, it’s beyond outrageous, it’s completely nuts. I’ll take a polygraph test anytime. Just say the word.”

“We may take you up on that later,” I said. “But right now, we’re just talking. Do you know Marie St. Germaine?”

“No. Who is she?”

“How well do you know Dr. Garza?” Jacobi asked.

“He’s our ER director,” Engstrom said. “We’re both senior staff —”

Jacobi stood, pounded the flat of his hand on her desk. Pens and paper clips jumped.

“Cut the crap, Dr. Engstrom!” he said. “You and Garza are what we call ‘close,’ aren’t you? Intimate, in fact.”

Engstrom’s face blanched.

I was so startled, I thought I might swallow my tongue. What was he talking about?

I remembered Jacobi’s call to me that rainy night when he tailed Garza to the Venticello Ristorante and back to Garza’s house. He’d described a willowy blonde, a babe about forty. As far as I can tell, he’d said, the doctor is guilty of having a girlfriend.

Across the desk, Engstrom’s eyes suddenly welled up with tears.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, God.”

Chapter 122

Chapter 122

ENGSTROM WAS MELTING DOWN in front of us, and loud gongs were going off inside my head. Garza and Engstrom. A perfect partnership for killing, everything probably as neat and efficient as her office.

I needed her to talk more—I didn’t want her to shut down on us now.

“Dr. Engstrom, take it easy. This is your chance to get ahead of this horror show. We’ll work with you if you tell us the truth, right now. Maybe Garza was using you. Does he have access to the computer software?”

I saw fear in her eyes. Slowly, reluctantly, Engstrom nodded, yes.