The Storage Door Rose Over Two Familiar Orange Feet

Dana asked me to wait in the storage office.

Through the window, I saw the row with the blue gutter. A locksmith stood beside two investigators. Nobody hurried. One person took pictures before the lock came off.

Arturo waited with me. He held a paper cup between his knees because his thumb still made a tight grip hard.

"I keep thinking I got the door wrong," he said.

"You told them what you remembered. They checked the rest."

"Still."

I folded the clean corner of a spare office sheet into a small square.

"Is that for luck?" he asked.

"For waiting."

I made a crane and set it beside his cup.

When C-18 opened, we could not see inside from the office. Dana came back twenty minutes later.

"Two machines," she said. "We have photographs for you."

She showed them to us separately.

Mine showed number 119. The serial plate was still bolted to its side. Below it, one orange shipping foot had a chipped corner. A black strap hung loose.

"That looks like our machine," I said.

"What makes you say that?"

I named the number first. Then I showed her a small dent beside the drain access panel. A tray cart had hit it the winter before. The work order mentioned it.

"I can give you that record too."

The second machine was 114.

"Where's 126?" I asked.

"We're still working through the papers."

Later, a hospital service worker came with the purchase records and checked the machines in person. I watched from outside the taped area. His serial readings matched my July exports.

Arturo had identified the feet and the loose caster from his own pictures. He had not claimed to recognize a serial number.

"I told you about the wheel," he said as we left.

"You did."

His relief looked like plain exhaustion.

"Will they need me again?" he asked.

"Probably."

"Good. I put the dates in my calendar. My wife said to leave room for things that aren't doctor's visits."

He asked Dana for a copy of the statement he had signed. She told him how to request one. He wrote that down too.

Before we left, Leena came out with the crane. She had put it in an empty box so it would not blow away.

"You forgot your bird," she said.

Arturo took the box.

"He's been useful," he told her. "I'll keep him."

That afternoon, the board placed Celeste on leave and cut off her access to the hospital's accounts and files. Staff got a short notice. It said all questions should go to Ruth.

There was no mention of me.

For once, that felt right. The machines were bigger than my badge.

The center kept using outside processing while approved replacements went through full checks. The inspectors would have to accept the corrections before our machine room reopened.

Mara called me from her car.

"They asked for my copies," she said.

"Did you keep the originals?"

"I got a receipt."

I smiled for the first time that day.

"Good."

The next week, Ruth and Ben showed Nina the records the hospital could share with my appeal.

There were three monthly invoices at $18,400 each. August, September, October. A total of $55,200 had left the hospital for Celeste's company.

The hospital had also paid $2,100 a month for the loaners. The supplier's terms described them as demonstration equipment with no clearance for clinical use.

Celeste had signed those terms.

The supplier had never issued the certification sheets filed at the center.

Ben had marked those sheets with red exhibit tabs. My copied signature appeared on each one.

"They confirmed the pages didn't come from them," Ben said. "The service worker named on them retired before these units were rented."

I looked down at my hands.

I had scrubbed the same finger joints every shift. I had checked them for cracks before pulling on gloves. All that care, while somebody changed a page upstairs.

"What happens to the patients?" I asked.

Ruth closed her folder.

"An outside clinical team is reviewing every case in that period. Patients are being contacted. That review is separate from your appeal and the money review."

"Arturo will want to know."

"He'll get a number to call and a person who can answer him."

Nina asked about 126.

Ben pushed a copy of a sales receipt across the table.

It showed $16,800 paid by a used-equipment dealer in Sparks. The seller was Celeste's company. The sale date was August 4.

"Has it been used?" I asked.

"The dealer says it's still in his warehouse, awaiting resale. Investigators are checking."

Under the receipt was a second paper.

Celeste's company claimed it owned all three machines and demanded that the hospital stop interfering with their sale.

Attached was notice of an emergency court hearing for Monday morning.