Chapter 16
"I hate hospitals," Dean grumbled as he messed, yet again, with his long black tie. He saw Sam roll his eyes in response. "Don't you roll your eyes at me. For you this place is like a revolving door, in and out with a few stitches or maybe a cast... Me, I end up in a coma with tubes down my throat or getting the news that I am going to die soon."
Sam chuckled, "Alright, you have a point... It sucks to be you."
Dean gave his brother a quick, sarcastic smirk, "Cute."
Just then they reached the nurses' station and Dean reached for his badge, "Hi, I'm looking for..." His brows dipped and he filled his cheeks with air before noisily blowing it out.
Sam jumped in, "We need to speak to whoever is in charge of the ER."
The nurse was typing on the computer and glancing through files as she listened. When she finally looked up, she was completely disinterested but glanced at their badges and picked up the phone. Her voice was soon projected to every corner of the hospital, "Dr. Louke, you are needed at the nurses' station immediately." She hung up the phone, flashed them a very quick smile and turned back to the computer and files in front of her, "He should be here soon."
"Thank you," Sam replied and Dean snorted in contradiction to Sam's words.
They stood for awhile but as gurneys started to come in they quickly realized that they were in the way and after a not so subtle remark from the nurse, they sat in the waiting area. "Great," Dean mumbled, "I'm going to get the swine flu sitting here." Sam chuckled and shook his head and Dean gave him a brisk but subtle reminder of his seemed fate in hospitals, "Revolving door..."
Twenty minutes and three annoyed remarks to the nurse, Dr. Louke walked up to the counter. "Yes, Meagan?"
"Hate to be a patient here if that passes for immediately..." Dean said under his breath. The nurse did little more than nod in their direction as they came up behind him, "Dr. Louke?"
The doctor turned, "Yes."
They flashed their badges again, "I'm Agent Hadley, and this is my partner Agent Foreman. We have a few questions for you."
The doctor sighed and uneasily shifted his weight, "Look I did everything I could, if this is about a lawsuit or something..."
Sam reached towards him in a comforting austere and shook his head, "No doctor this isn't about a lawsuit. We are checking out the recent murders in town and found a few connections that led us here..." He let the implication hang in the air; like an interrogator allowing the suspect to fill the silence and incriminate himself.
The doctor turned his head as if to hear them better, "I don't understand... I mean, yes, we treated Mr. Hale; but..."
Dean interrupted him, "And a couple of the victims also worked as EMTs here."
He gave a quick shake of the head, "We don't employ EMTs here. They work independently; but yes they do frequent here quite a bit."
"Did you know Mr. Patterson or Mr. Arnold?" Sam asked.
"I have seen them, worked with them, yes. But I didn't really know them as any thing more than EMTs who bring in people that need my help," he shrugged.
They didn't really know what else to ask because they had no idea what to look for or even if the hospital had anything to do with anything that was happening. Sam asked the first thing that came to mind, "Could we get a list of the days they worked and if any patients were brought in?" It wasn't a question but unlike Dean, Sam preferred to try and keep a conversation civil and the converser willing to continue in the future.
He nodded while he thought, "I could probably have a nurse call the company--Parker's--and have then email us what you need... We should have the records of patients they have brought in. That may be a very long list though."
Dean raised an eye brow, he was used to people reluctantly giving them only what they asked for; it was surprising to have someone readily give them more than they had requested. The doctor seemed to read the expression on his face, "We are a pretty small hospital; so we are able to keep exceptional records and we know how valuable our relationship is with law enforcement."
"Thank you," Sam said, "we will probably only need the records for the past...two months, just to be safe."
Dr. Louke nodded and turned back to the nurses' station and started to say something but the nurse, Meagan, handed him a file. "The past two months for Arnold and Patterson. I am still waiting for the email from Parker's." Dean and Sam glanced at each other, impressed. Meagan noticed the exchange and smirked, "We may not be the most hospitable nurses; but we are very efficient."
Dean raised his hand in a slightly submissive gesture and Sam took the file from the doctor. "Thank you doctor," Sam smiled and shook his hand. He looked around Dr. Loukes while he shook Dean's hand, and smiled at Meagan, "We'll sit and wait for the rest then."
She chuckled, "Quick learner."
Sam and Dean had glanced through the records while they waited for the email; but nothing caught their attention. Once Meagan had given them the rest of what they needed, they returned to the hotel room.
Sam and Dean started with the records from Parker's. They had them laying side by side; Dean bent over Patterson's list and Sam over Arnold's. Dean was underlining the dates when they had worked together and Sam grabbed the files from the hospital. "You read off the dates and I'll look through these to see who they brought in," Sam suggested.
Dean nodded and read over the last few dates before sighing and stretching. "Alright...first is September 22nd." He waited while Sam found the names of patients they had brought into the hospital that day.
He wrote the names on more pieces of paper and stuck them to the wall, "Okay. Next..." Dean looked back down at his lists but couldn't find the next date. "Next," Sam repeated.
"Yeah I heard you the first time," Dean snapped. He looked over the list again and found the next day, "Shoulda used a blue pen or something..." Before he could tell Sam what the date was, something hit him in the chest and bounced down onto the table. He glared at Sam before looking to see what his brother had thrown at him; a yellow highlighter laid in the middle of the table. Grudgingly, Dean grabbed it; "Shut up..." he highlighted all the dates while Sam waited. "9/25, 9/30, 10/6, 10/9..."
"Whoa! Not so fast," Sam said.
Dean smirked, "Your fault. You shouldn't have made me so efficient."
Sam rolled his eyes, "The 25th and 30th, right?"
Dean nodded, "Of September." Sam wrote the names on another paper and stuck it to the wall like the others. The process continued over and over again until they finished the list.
Sam was staring at the calendar on his phone with a look of concentration, "They worked together every Tuesday and Friday one week and Wednesday the next week."
"Okay," Dean mumbled, not sure how they helped with anything. Dean listed off the last four of the ten dates, "October 20th, 23rd, 28th, and November 3rd."
Sam flipped through the pages again, "We may finally have something..."
Dean jumped up from where he was sprawled out on the bed, "Yeah?"
Sam shot him an odd look, "A little eager aren't we?" When Dean didn't respond, he continued, "Does October 20th ring any bells?"
Dean looked confused and then thoughtful, "Uh...kind of..." The date didn't actually ring anything; but he wasn't going to admit it.
"Emmett Hale?"
"Oh, yeah... That was the day he was attacked wasn't it?"
Sam nodded, "And guess who brought him into the ER?"
"Arnold and Patterson," Dean said.
"Yup. I mean we thought this probably had something to do with him; but..."
"But if he isn't a ghost or a zombie... Maybe some demon's wearing the poor bastard."
Sam let out a frustrated breath, "Maybe..."
"I guess we wait for nightfall and rack up another grave desecration."
Dean huffed and plopped back down on the bed while Sam headed straight to the shower; he hated smelling like burning flesh. After they had satisfied themselves with seeing Emmett still inside his casket, they decided it would once and for all narrow down the list of possibilities if they salt and burned the corpse. Dean had found it amusing to pick on Sam, saying the guy was more of a giant than he was. Secretly Sam had agreed; the guy was huge. Who the heck could have gotten the better of a guy like that? Or maybe it wasn't who; maybe the question was what.
Dean put pillows behind his back and leaned on them as he stared at the wall waiting for something to jump out at him. He rubbed his eyes and blew a mouthful of air through his lips and fought heavy lids as he stared, yet again, at what he called "The wall of confusion." This time he worked his way backward, up the wall. He eyes danced from victim to victim and something caught his interest as he faintly noticed the water being shut off in the bathroom.
Sam dried off quickly and pulled on a pair of boxers before opening the door, "I think we're missing something..." He continued to look at the floor in thought while rubbing the towel on his head, "I think Emmett may have been victim number one," he glanced up at his brother. Dean was sitting anxiously on the edge of the bed, his eyes tight as he stared at the wall. "Dean? What..." Dean raised his hand to tell Sam to be quiet and he walked to the wall and started pulling off papers. Sam was about to snap at him until Dean started putting the papers in a different order. He walked over and stood behind Dean, "What is it?"
"There's an order... Well sort of," he didn't look away as he stuck up the last two sheets of paper. Sam's eyes flashed from Dean to the wall and back in confusion. Dean stepped back to where Sam was, "Monday," he pointed to the first sheet all the way to the left, "Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. They weren't killed in order; but they were." He pointed at Jeffrey Weston's name, T.J. Donovan, Brad Arnold, Jasper Morris, Robert Carlisle, and Michael Patterson. "Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Wednesday, Thursday... Everyday but Sunday. I think the next victim will be killed this Sunday; in five days..."
"What?" Sam asked even though he was pretty sure he knew what Dean was saying. He was starting to see it right there on the wall in front of him.
"One victim was killed on each day of the week; just not in order," Dean was a little shocked, awed, and gloatful at his deduction.
"Oh," was all Sam could say.
"Oh? I discover when the next victim is going to be killed and all you can say is, 'oh?' What were you saying about Emmett just a minute ago anyway?" he asked.
Sam shook his head in an effort to clear it, "Um, what if Emmett was the first victim of this thing?"
"Why?"
"Why?" Sam repeated back in surprise.
"Since the beginning we've thought this had something to do with Emmett Hale... If he was the first victim; why were all the others killed? Weston, Donovan, and Carlisle all went to the gym with Hale. Patterson and Arnold brought him to the hospital and Morris worked the scene. Think about it. I don't think the thing that killed all of them is the same thing that killed Hale."
When Dean said it like that it made sense, even to Sam. "Revenge," a light bulb clicked on in Sam's head.
"Revenge?" Dean asked.
Sam turned to face his brother, "This thing wants revenge for the death of Emmett Hale... And who ever is next on that list has five days to live."