Phoenix Fatale

2. The Mysterious Drop Off

2

The Mysterious Drop Off

“I don’t know where she came from,” the hospital insurance administrator said.

“So, at this point, we don’t even have an ID on her?” her supervisor replied.

“No, nothing. She apparently had no ID on her person when she arrived. And, no one seems to know how she got into the hospital in the first place. It says on the report that the patient is in critical condition. I hardly believe she walked in here under her own power.”

“Great, another Jane Doe," the supervisor said. "Like this hospital can withstand another patient we can’t collect a dime from. This is ridiculous. Call hospital security. Ask them to find out how she got here. Somebody has to know. Maybe we can reach her next of kin.”

An hour later, two hospital security officers walked into the administrator's office. “Strangest patient arrival I’ve ever seen,” one said.

“It’s like this, Dr. Cook," the other said. "As you know, we’ve got security officers patrolling the hospital at regular intervals. But we also have one or two others monitoring security cameras at all times. That being said, with so many cameras and so few officers, it’s hard to catch everything.”

“So, what happened?” the administrator said.

“Well, at 11:32 p.m. we get an alarm on port 266. That’s a service door over on the west side of the hospital. You know, it’s a door leading to the outside, down the alley? Anyway, the alarm on that door sounded, so we dispatched an officer to check it out.”

“And?”

“The officer radios back that he’s got a dead body lying in the hallway just inside the door.”

“A dead body?”

“It turns out he just thought the person was dead. Think about it; he responded to the door alarm and finds this woman lying there, all bloodied up. But, it was your Jane Doe. She was barely alive. Scared the s**t out of him though.”

“Yeah, I bet. So, what are you telling me? That she walked in the door and collapsed? In her condition?”

“No, ma'am. There’s no way.”

The physician administrator, Dr. Elaine Cook, pursed her lips and shifted in her seat. “And why not?”

“Like you said. She was in no condition to open any door. Hell, she wasn’t even conscious. And, that door is sealed. There’s no way to open it from the outside.”

“Why, because she didn’t have a key?”

“There’s no keyhole on the outside of that door anyway. It doesn’t even have a door handle on that side. There’s no way to open it. It has to be opened from the inside. But somehow, someone did. Someone else got in that door, and they did it from the alley.”

“How do you know someone on the inside didn’t open it?”

“Inside the building, motion sensors on the hallway security camera covering that door would have tripped. The camera is way up the hallway from the door. If anyone inside the hospital walked down that hall toward the door, the camera would have recorded it. But there’s nothing.” The security supervisor held up his hands. “I know, I know. It’s not making any sense to me either. Here’s what I do know. Somehow, someone opened that door from the outside -- a door that has no keylock and no door handle -- and dumped her inside without being detected. Hold on a second, we’re pulling up security video from the camera pointed at that alleyway outside the door. You got it yet, Charlie?” he said to a uniformed man with a mustard stain on his name badge.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t show much," Charlie said. "See here? It's dark as hell out there, but there’s definitely somebody in that alleyway, carrying something heavy over his shoulder. But you can’t see nothin’. It’s just his silhouette.”

The administrator was incredulous. “So, some guy pops open an un-openable door and drops a critically wounded patient inside our building, what, so the alarm would sound, and we’d find her?”

“Sure would have been easier to use the Emergency Room entrance,” the first security officer said.

“Unless you didn’t want anyone to know who you were,” Charlie replied.