Curtis Asked Me To Explain Away Fifty-Two Empty Beds

I left the yellow book at home.

Mara had told me to bring a copy of anything Curtis wanted to discuss, then send her a note afterward. She had also told me I did not have to meet him alone.

I asked our senior day technician, Denise, to sit in.

Curtis looked at her, then at the thin folder under my arm.

"This is a private performance matter."

"You asked about stock records," I said. "Denise signed some of the counts."

He let her stay.

His office held a new box of satellite brochures. The picture on top showed a room with a window. Our Rigby rooms had no windows. I wondered if anyone had checked that before printing five thousand copies.

Curtis set one page in front of me.

It was titled Explanation Of Central Billing Entries.

The page said certain studies had taken place at satellite locations using supplies stored there. The Idaho Falls address, room numbers, and staff names had appeared because our system used a common template.

At the bottom was a space for my signature.

"Which locations?" I asked.

"We're one company."

"Which rooms held these patients?"

"That's not your responsibility."

"Then I can't attest to it."

His hand closed around his pen.

"You keep making this harder than it needs to be."

Denise leaned forward.

"Rigby opens Monday. That's what the staff notice says."

"The public opening," Curtis said. "We did work before that."

"Who ran those studies?" I asked.

"Other staff."

"Then ask them to sign what they did."

He stood and shut the office door, though it was already almost closed.

"You have twelve hours a week right now. I can fill those twelve with someone who trusts this organization."

Denise looked down at her hands.

I understood. Her husband had lost his job in January. I had not brought her there to ask her to risk her house beside mine.

"I'll write down what you asked," I said. "You can have my answer today."

"Where are the originals?"

"The clinic's white sheets should be in the supply files."

"Your copies."

"Stored safely."

"Those belong to the business."

I opened my folder to the retention policy. His signature sat below the sentence granting me permission to retain the unnamed stock worksheets for eighteen months.

He read it twice.

"That was for your supply project."

"This is the supply project."

He had thought I held only a place on his schedule. I held eight weeks of counts made before there was a dispute, under a rule he had signed.

I could not control what he told reviewers. I could make sure they had something older than his explanation.

Curtis pushed the page toward me again.

"You'll be responsible if this costs people their jobs."

"Please give me a copy of the statement you want signed."

He hesitated, then let me take it.

That afternoon I sent Mara a plain account of the meeting. Denise reviewed the sentences about what she had heard and signed them. She added nothing about anything she had not seen.

The next week, two Prairie Lantern reviewers arrived at the clinic. They checked identification at reception, met with our records clerk, and asked for a quiet room.

They did not bring badges or make speeches.

One asked Curtis where the raw recordings were stored. The other asked for staff schedules and packet purchase invoices.

I was called in during my shortened shift.

"Did every opened packet mean a completed study?" a reviewer asked.

"No. Some patients left early. Some recordings were poor. Those still used supplies."

"So your counts may overstate billable studies?"

"They show occupied beds. A doctor decides whether a recording supports a report."

She wrote that down.

"Who else kept these counts?"

I named the technicians who had shared the cupboard checks. One of them had covered my vacation. Her entries used the same boxes, but her numbers leaned left where mine stood straight.

The reviewer asked for that week's sheet too.

I was glad she did. I wanted her to check the nights I had missed as closely as the nights I had worked.

"Will you tell us if we've misunderstood your system?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Even if it changes the total?"

"Especially then."

Before I left, I showed her how I paired a bed with its packet number. The torn-seal entries had two staff initials. The bench-check entries listed the equipment fault.

My hands stopped shaking when the subject became work I understood.

That evening, I laid a clean blanket over my couch and folded it into a square. My house was cold because I had lowered the heat two degrees.

A car stopped outside.

The man at my door introduced himself as Jonah Vale, the satellite setup coordinator. He held a key envelope and a folder of delivery slips.

"Mr. Bell says I need to change the dates on these," he said.