As soon as I’m done with Mr. Carpenter, I confirm nobody is waiting to be seen and head down the hall to Dorothy’s office. Yes, she has an office and I have a desk in my examining room. But I recognize she has seniority, so I’m not going to say anything. Hopefully, I won’t be working here long enough to get a desk.

I knock on the door to Dorothy’s office and wait to hear her say to come in. After what seems like five minutes, she calls for me to come inside. When I enter the office, she’s sitting at her desk, a pair of half-moon glasses balanced on the bridge of her bulbous nose.

“I’m very busy, Brooke,” she says.

“This won’t take long,” I say. “I just need to find out how I can get a pressure relief mattress for Malcolm Carpenter.”

She peers at me over the rim of her glasses. “A pressure relief mattress?”

She says it like I was speaking in an unfamiliar language. She knows very well what I’m talking about. “He’s a paraplegic, and he’s developed a pressure sore on his coccyx. He needs a decent mattress or it won’t heal.”

“Brooke,” she says flatly, “this is not the Ritz Carlton. We can’t get dream mattresses for all the inmates.”

A muscle twitches under my eye. “I’m not asking for a luxury item. This is medically indicated.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t.”

“Of course it is!” I burst out. “He can’t move or feel the lower half of his body. The sore is just going to get worse if we don’t relieve pressure on it. Getting him a decent mattress is the least we can do.”

“I’m afraid a new mattress just isn’t in the budget. You’ll have to come up with a more creative solution.” She shakes her head. “Don’t you have any problem-solving skills?”

I stare at her, too stunned to respond. The problem is that the man has a pressure ulcer. The simple solution is a decent mattress. What is wrong with this woman? Doesn’t she care about these prisoners at all? They’re human beings, after all.

The phone rings on Dorothy’s desk. She picks it up without saying another word to me. I stand there while she listens to the other person speaking. Finally, she says, “Yes, I’ll send her right over.”

Damn. She probably means me.

Sure enough, when Dorothy hangs up the phone, she raises her eyes to look at me over the rims of her glasses. “There was an incident out on the yard. Officer Hunt is bringing one of the inmates over to see you for an injury.”

Great.