Of course, the next thing I had to do was explain to Meg what "pitchers and catchers" meant.

She wasn't that naïve; it only took her a few seconds, after which her reaction was, "Buzz was a big a poophead as his brother, wasn't he?"

Caz had dated and harassed Sabrina Fuller after they broke up; he hadn't stalked her, exactly, but he wasn't the nicest person on the planet, either. "Sounds like."

"Would simply suggesting they were gay have been enough to set them off, though?" Meg asked. "I mean, Neptune's not perfect, but it's fairly gay-friendly."

This much was true. For all of its class divide, Neptune prided itself on being "enlightened" when it came to race and sexual preference. Like most things Neptune prided itself on, it fell well short of the ideal, but it was well down the list of problems the town had.

"And," Meg said. "Coach Calhoun certainly wouldn't have had a problem. His son's gay."

"There's still something of a stigma attached to being a gay athlete, though," I said. "You can count the number of out gay men in team sports on the fingers of one foot."

"How well do you know Peter or Marcos?"

"Not very," I said. "Why?"

"Neither one of them is hypersensitive," she said. "Neither one of them would have gone berserk, even then, simply because someone made a mean reference to either one of them possibly being gay. Peter's out now, anyway."

"Marcos?"

"I don't know if he's gay," Meg said. "I do know that his parents are the kind that, if he was, would throw him back in the closet and throw away the key."

"Well, something about the 'joke' set them off," I said.

"Yeah. But does it link back to Woody Goodman in any way, or did simply bringing it up make them uncomfortable?"

"All he did at the ballpark was point them out and say how great it was having them on the team," Meg said. "How does that link?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. That's a good question. The only links are that it was baseball, and they were uncomfortable."

"Okay," she said. "I think I know where I'm going to go from here."

"Where?" I asked, but didn't get an answer, because right then Dr. London called. "Veronica," she said. 'What the hell kind of fire did you light under Don Lamb?"

"None that can be traced back to me, I hope," I said. "What's going on?"

"What's going on is that Lamb just came over and interviewed me for a half hour on why I thought Felix Toombs had been killed, and now he's rattling the cage of the hospital directors to see if he can get access to the tapes from that day."

"How did my name came up?"

"I told him that you and Mr. Navarro were the only ones who'd taken me seriously and that if he thought he was going to take over the case he needed to let you know if he saw anything. He said it was only because he'd talked to you that he was talking to me in the first place."

"It – came up this morning while he and Dad were having a discussion," I said.

"I don't see how," she said.

"Not one of my finer moments," I said. Nothing I was going to go hang my head in shame about, but nothing I was going to brag about either.

"No," she said. "But anyway, if you want to see the tapes you might want to haul your ass over here. Lamb didn't seem like he was in the mood to take no for an answer."

"You're at work?" I blurted out.

"Do you think emergencies take the weekend off?" she said.

"Good point."

"Yeah, you're smarter than that, Miss Mars. Anyway. How long before you can get here?"

In Neptune, traffic was never an issue, barring a massive accident, so –"If I hustle I can get there in 20 minutes."

"Make it 15. See you then."

"Bye," I said and as I was hanging up I was already standing up and reaching to pack my stuff.

It was already packed and ready to go, and my coffee was now in a to-go cup. Meg was sitting there smiling.

"I love you, Meg," I said.

"Back at you, Veronica Mars. Now go," she said. "We can finish up later."

"Thanks," I said, and began digging for my share of lunch.

Putting her hand on my arm, Meg said, "I got it. Go."

"You sure?"

"Go."

So I went.

XXXXXXXXXX

I made it across town in 17 minutes and walked straight to Dr. London's office when I got to the hospital. Fortunately, the place wasn't busy, so Dr. London was actually in the office instead of treating someone.

"Have a seat, Miss Mars," she said as I came in. "Lamb's on his way back down here now."

"Do you have a closet I can hide in?" I said before I sat down.

"You are not jumping out and surprising him. Business isn't bad enough that I need to drum it up by giving the sheriff a heart attack."

"Ruin my fun," I said, sitting.

"That's what doctors do. Now. Your Dad was talking with Lamb? About his running for Sheriff, I'm guessing?"

"Got it in one."

"He's got my vote," she said. "I'm glad Lamb's finally taking this seriously but it shouldn't take you and your Dad to get him to do his job."

"I'll tell him. He'll be grateful for the support." Dr. London wasn't exactly an 09'er, but l'd looked into her life when she was the one treating me for my gunshot wound. Top of her class at Johns Hopkins Medical School. I don't mean "in the top 5%," I mean literally number 1 in the class of 1983 across the entire division. She wrote her own ticket. So while she wasn't rich beyond the dreams of avarice, she had plenty of pull, when she chose to use it.

There was a knock on the door. "Enter," she said.

"It took some doing," Lamb's voice came, "But I – oh. Hello, Veronica." His voice was very carefully neutral. I had to give him props for the acting job.

"Go on," Dr. London said. "Whatever you're going to tell me, you can tell Veronica too."

He said, "Okay, then. I was finally able to pry the security footage out of them. I was hoping you would look at them with me and mention anyone you recognized."

Lamb was cooperating. I didn't want to needle him.

Okay, I did – when do I ever not? – but I restrained myself. I simply looked over at Dr. London, who nodded once and said to Lamb, "Sure. That's a good idea. We'll follow you right down."

"We?" he asked.

"We," Dr. London said firmly.

Lamb looked like he wanted to argue, but somehow he restrained himself too, and said, "Sure. That's a good idea. Another pair of eyes can never hurt."

"Let's go to the tape!" I said cheerfully.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us were sitting in the hospital security office. Security itself had been invited out; Lamb, as it turns out, was perfectly capable of manipulating their video system. Another talent the man had. Good. He could fall back on it when we evicted him from office next month.

So far, we'd seen nothing. There wasn't any film inside his room, of course.

While we watched, something occurred to me: "Patient vital signs are monitored from the nurse's station, right?"

"Right," Dr. London said.

"How long did it take the nurses to show up when Felix's fell to zero?"

"Around 45 seconds."

"I have no idea; how's that compared to normal?"

"A bit high, considering where the room is compared to where the station is. Not 'someone's got to be fired' level, but not terrific. Why?"

"Trying to figure out how long someone would have to kill someone and get out."

"Not that long. And look. See the glass walls?"

"That's one of the reasons I actually didn't think it was murder," Lamb said. "There's a clear view from the nurse's station to every room."

"You can't see everywhere from everywhere," Dr. London said. "It's only a couple of steps, in most cases, but that would give someone maybe 10 seconds if they were lucky."

"Still hardly enough time to run down the hall when everyone's looking in your direction," Lamb said.

He'd thought this through. I was genuinely impressed.

We were watching the cameras covering both nearby intersecting hallways for about half an hour before Felix died. This had happened in the middle of the night, so there shouldn't have been any non-hospital workers roaming around anywhere except the emergency department. Dr. London identified everyone she saw: Mostly nurses, but one doctor and a member of the hospital janitorial staff.

"Are you sure?" Lamb said.

"I know most of the staff in the hospital, at least by sight," Dr. London said. "That's T. J. Usually works the night shift."

T.J. was a short black man; I would have said he was built like a linebacker if he didn't look like he was only a little taller than I am. He greeted both of the nurses at the station and started to empty trashcans.

A couple of minutes later, he walked back down the hallway he'd come in.

The doctor – a woman named Mahmoud – walked down the hall and looked in a couple of the rooms. Then she said something to the nurses – "Probably wake me up if there's a problem, and by problem I mean someone had better be dying," Dr. London said. "Vicki's a terrific doctor but she has a lousy disposition."

A few minutes later another janitor walked in. Not the same one. This guy was taller and he seemed to be Hispanic and not black –

Hold it.

"Stop the tape," I said right as Lamb did so. "Okay. You saw something too," I said to the sheriff.

"Yeah. I did," Lamb said sourly.

"What is it?" Dr. London asked.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," I said, "But aren't uniforms made to fit?"

Lamb said, "This guy's is at least six inches too short."

"I told you so," Dr. London said.