Organized to Death Read online

  “Sounds nice.”

  “Where did you grow up?” she asked and felt him stiffen.

  “Ohio.”

  “Wow, the whole state?” She laughed a nervous laugh.

  He let go of her arm. “Yeah,” he said. “The whole state. We moved around a lot.”

  “Oh.”

  They had come to a cross street, and by unspoken agreement turned around and headed home in silence.

  When they reached Tina’s front door, they turned to face each other, and the doctor gave her an intense look. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and she wanted to know what he was thinking.

  “See you tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Sure. What would be a good time?”

  “Let us get settled. Around ten?”

  “Great.” She could sleep late. “See you then.” She turned to leave.

  “‘Bye, Tina,” he said, his voice sounding somewhat strange.

  “Goodbye, Doctor Hockmann.”

  “Call me Ted.”

  “Ted,” she said and opened the door. She turned to watch him walk away, unsettled but somewhat intrigued, as well.

  “Who was that?” her mother demanded, making her start.

  Tina faced her slowly. “Dr. Hockmann.”

  Her mother’s expression was first puzzled, then pleased. “Oh, our new doctor. How nice. My, he’s good-looking.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t seem impressed.”

  She didn’t want to share her misgivings with her mother. “He’s okay, but you know I’m always leery of such handsome men.”

  “That’s so silly,” Laura said.

  Tina shrugged. “He asked me to help him straighten up his office. Seems Dr. Stevenson left everything in a bit of disarray.”

  Laura made a face. “Well, maybe something good will come out of this organization business after all.”

  “I’m sure,” Tina said, dryly. She smiled at her mother and went upstairs, throwing a “goodnight” over her shoulder.

  ***

  The next morning, Tuesday, was chilly and damp. Tina arrived at the doctor’s office promptly at ten. She figured it wasn’t a good idea to be late—showed a lack of organization. She hadn’t heard from Rachel, and although she was dying to find out what was going on, she refrained from calling her. As she hung up her coat on a tree in the reception area, Dr. Hockmann’s receptionist gave her a friendly greeting.

  Three patients sat in the reception room, all reading magazines. A TV was on low, but no one was watching it.

  Sylvia Anderson, the receptionist, had Tina come around to the space where she worked. Maybe eight feet by six, Tina estimated. The entire office was housed in the downstairs of an old Victorian. The parlor was now the reception area, split between the office part and the waiting part, the library the doctor’s private office, and the drawing and dining rooms broken up into treatment rooms. She didn’t know what they’d done with the kitchen or the upstairs. Guessed she’d probably find out.

  “I’m so glad Dr. Ted hired you,” Sylvia said. She was a tiny woman about Tina’s age, wearing a blue pants suit and matching high heels. Blond, blue-eyed, Sylvia already had frown lines between her brows. Tina suspected she needed glasses. She had a nice smile. “I’m having a really hard time getting stuff done because, for me, it’s so disorganized.”

  So Ted had told the help he’d hired her, although she’d only agreed to take a look. What the hell, she didn’t have anything better to do.

  “It’s tough coming in sometimes,” Tina said, “behind someone else and trying to use their system. We’ll have to find out what will work for you. But first, there are some things that seem to work best for everyone. Let’s go over what you have and then we can start.”

  The phone purred. Someone wanted to talk to the doctor, so Sylvia had to take a message. She reached for a pen, couldn’t find one, and rummaged in the desk drawer. The pink phone pad was on a credenza behind her. She found it, took the message, and hung up. Tina wondered what kind of training or work experience Sylvia had.

  Before Tina could say anything, the front door opened and a woman stepped in holding a little boy by the hand. Sylvia had her sign a sheet of paper on a clipboard on the shelf in front of her, then gave the woman some papers to fill out.

  Brenda Cooley came into the room and said hi. She wore bright, patterned scrubs and a big smile. She was just one year older than Tina’s twenty-nine years, and their mothers knew each other, were in the Lunch Bunch together. They’d played with each other sometimes as youngsters and had a friendly relationship.

  “Tina! I heard you were going to get us organized. Boy, we need it. Maybe it’s different if you come in with no one else’s stuff to go through, but man, there’s a lot of paper around here, filed here and there and everywhere. How are you?”

  They hugged, and Tina couldn’t help smiling. “I’m good. How about yourself?”

  “Great.” Brenda turned to Sylvia. “I need more of those lab forms.” Back to Tina. “I’d love to catch up, but we’re really busy.”

  Tina nodded, watching Sylvia rummage through a drawer, looking for the forms. She found them underneath a few legal pads and a box of tissue.

  Brenda took them, wigged her fingers at both of them, and hurried out of the office.

  “Do you mind if I look through your cabinets and drawers to get an idea of what’s here and what we’ll need to do with it all?” Tina asked Sylvia.

  The phone rang. Before she picked it up, Sylvia said, “Go right ahead.”

  This was the fun part for Tina, but also could be confounding. Why was there a faded yellow tennis ball in the second drawer of the four-drawer file cabinet? And a Beanie Baby reindeer in the bottom drawer? Slightly squished. She found a dried-up package of gum, a figurine of mother and child in the very back of a drawer, packages of Ramen Noodles, the expiration date two years ago, and a roll of toilet paper. She checked out a pair of glasses by trying them on. The prescription was so strong it made her dizzy.

  Tina piled all these goodies on the corner of Sylvia’s desk. When the phone stopped ringing, and no one stood waiting for her to do something, Tina asked Sylvia about them.

  She shrugged. “They were all here when we started work. I haven’t touched anything because I was afraid one of the old workers would come back, looking for this stuff.”

  “It’s been six months now, though, right?” Tina asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sylvia, here’s the deal. The first thing we have to do is get rid of everything, and I mean everything, that you don’t need. Then we arrange your office into zones where stuff is put so you can grab what you need as you need it, without even thinking about it. If you’re uncomfortable about throwing anything away, we’ll box it up and put it somewhere out of the way. You need all the space you can get to be able to work efficiently.”

  “Oh! That makes sense. What do you mean by zones?”

  “You have different areas, even in just a room, where you do different things. You answer the phone. You use the copier.” She pointed at the big machine in the corner. “You file. And you store supplies.”

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  “Let’s start with the phone.”

  It rang, of course. Tina was beginning to wonder how much of this they could accomplish during working hours as she placed the phone pad and a pen next to the phone. Sylvia looked puzzled at first, but then nodded and smiled.

  As Sylvia was talking, Ted came into the reception area. He smiled at Tina, a big smile, his blue eyes lighting up. Made her uncomfortable. She knew he was attracted to her, and she knew he’d seen her naked. Well, only one section at a time, but still. And Brenda had been in the room. But still.

  “Tina! Good to see you again.”

  At his tone, Sylvia glanced up from the phone. She looked first at him, then at Tina. And her shoulders slumped.

  “Good morning, Dr. Hockmann,” Tina said. She stuffed her fists into her blazer pock
ets, then opened her right hand to finger the worry stone.

  “Ted.”

  “Ted. Can I speak to you a moment?”

  Eyebrows raised, he led her toward the back, to the kitchen. It was a mess.

  “What happened here?” she blurted. “A tornado?”

  He gave a rueful laugh. “More like no time to straighten it up.”

  “You mean it’s been this way since you took over the practice?” She wrinkled her nose at the smell of old grease.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Hmm.”

  He looked around as if he hadn’t really seen it in a while. “You see why we need your help. This is unacceptable for a doctor’s office.”

  “What did you plan to do with it? Just keep it as a kitchen, perhaps a break room?”

  “Yes.”

  Tina nodded. “Okay. I can work in here during office hours, no problem. But Sylvia keeps getting interrupted while we’re trying to work. Usually the phone. It might be better to do her area after hours.” She had a sudden thought. “What does your office look like?”

  Ted cleared his throat and stared at the wall. “Not too good. Again, a lot of leftover stuff.”

  “Yes.” Her fingers itched to get at it, but the kitchen would have to do for a while, it seemed. “And no way can we go through it during office hours.”

  “Of course you’re right.”

  Of course, she was right. She was the expert, wasn’t she? It had been a bit different to just think about what situations she might run into, though, and to actually be in the middle of the two she’d taken first. She could only hope these jobs were a bit on the outer limits of what most people would need. She looked with misgivings at the grungy countertops and floor, the stuff piled everywhere. It really surprised her that old Dr. Stevenson had let it get this way and that the new doctor hadn’t cleaned it up immediately.

  “Our next time off is Thursday afternoon.”

  “Okay. We should decide who needs the most help first—you or Sylvia. May I see your office?”

  Tina had never been in the office when Dr. Stevenson had his practice in the house, so she was a bit stunned when she saw it. It was beautiful. The walls were lined with filled, built-in bookshelves that gave the room the look and smell of an old library. Morning sunshine streamed in the floor-to-ceiling windows, making the colors of the Persian rug glow. The desk in the middle of the room was huge. She thought it was probably a partner’s desk, although she’d never seen one like it before. She knew they had been used by bankers and lawyers who were partners and sat across from each other at one big desk. This one had built-in ink wells, scrolling along the drawer edges, and claw feet.

  The black leather desk chair was ultra-modern, though, making her wonder if the good doctor had back problems. Two red leather wingback chairs stood in front of the desk. She sank down into one of them, suddenly realizing she’d been on her feet all morning.

  “What an incredible office,” Tina said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Ted said. He didn’t sit down, and suddenly she became uncomfortable.

  The bookshelves were full. “Are all those books yours?” she asked.

  “Only a few. Most were here when I took over the practice, and Dr. Stevenson didn’t want them, so we just left them there.”

  “What do you want to do about them?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I’d rather have my own, but that’s a lot of shelves to fill up.”

  Tina laughed. “You can buy books by the yard, you know. You can buy them to match the colors in your room. Or by size.”

  “You’re kidding. You mean for decorating purposes.”

  “Exactly.” She stood up and went to look at the books. Just behind the desk were many older, probably out-of-date, medical texts. But on other shelves were biographies, histories, and novels. These must have been the books Dr. Stevenson actually read. Tina didn’t think buying them by the yard or just to decorate, if Dr. Stevenson had ever entertained such an idea, had happened here. “Do you read fiction, biography, history?” Tina asked.

  “Yes. And philosophy, psychology, cookbooks.”

  “Cookbooks?” Something went off in her brain. That little buzzer that says something isn’t quite right. What was it? Oh, yes. Most people who loved to cook could not have stood seeing that kitchen the way it was.

  Dr. Ted wouldn’t meet her glance. “Yes. Why is that so surprising? Lots of men like to cook nowadays.”

  She couldn’t tell him the reason she doubted him. “Sure. What do you like to cook most?”

  “Italian.”

  She looked at him more closely. Yes, he still looked Scandinavian, through and through. Tall, blond, blue-eyed.

  He must have seen her surprise.

  “My best friend growing up was Italian. His mother made the best food…. Well, anyway, we can leave the books for last, I think. It’s the desk and files that need work. I suppose we should discuss your fees.”

  Discussing her fees had made Tina nervous when she had been a clinical psychologist. It was no different now. She named a price, and Ted didn’t flinch, so she guessed it was okay.

  They seemed to have nothing further to discuss, and they stood there, looking around the room, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  Brenda’s voice, raised in a shout, reached them. “Dr. Ted, come quick! A man’s been shot!”

  CHAPTER 8

  Tina and Ted ran to the reception area. Tina didn’t know what she could do, but the impulse to see what was happening was strong. Since she’d been closest to the door, she arrived first.

  Rachel and Nicky stood in front of Sylvia’s window, Rachel propping up her husband and gasping for breath. She could hardly speak but managed to say “He’s been shot” over and over again. Blood seeped down Nicky’s left arm, and he was so pale, Tina was sure he was going to pass out.

  Ted took one look and said, “Call an ambulance.”

  Nicky looked at him and shook his head. “Can’t you take care of this?”

  “No. You need to go to the hospital. This has to be reported to the police. I’ll look at it and do what I can until the EMTs arrive. Can you walk a few steps to a treatment room?”

  “Sure,” Nicky said and collapsed to the floor, almost dragging Rachel with him.

  She knelt next to him, sobbing. Ted hunched down opposite her and examined Nicky’s arm. He shouted for Brenda to bring bandages.

  Tina grasped Rachel by the shoulder and helped her stand. “Come, sit down. Give the doctor some room.”

  “Oh, Tina. Oh, I can’t believe this. First Crystal, now Nicky. What’s going on?” She sank into a chair and put her head in her hands.

  Two other patients were in the room. An elderly man and a young woman. Both had pulled their feet under their chairs and were staring at Nicky and Ted.

  “What happened?” Tina asked Rachel.

  “We were getting out of the car at my mother’s, getting groceries out, when I heard something—I thought it was a small firecracker. Just a pop. But then I saw Nicky holding onto his arm and groaning. A car sped off, but I didn’t really pay any attention. All I could see was that Nicky was hurt, and I got him back in the car … “Her sobs became too much for her to continue. Sirens wailed, coming closer.

  Two EMTs came in, and another patient followed on their heels. Tina felt the room become claustrophobic.

  Ted had bound Nicky’s arm. One EMT hooked up an IV, the other brought in a stretcher, and soon they had him loaded into the ambulance. Tina volunteered to take Rachel to the hospital, which was just around the corner, and they left a stunned group of people in Ted’s waiting room.

  At the hospital Rachel sat hunched in a chair filling out paperwork, and shortly, two police officers showed up. She put the forms aside while they asked her all kinds of questions, but she couldn’t tell them much. The car had been white, she now remembered. Nicky hadn’t said anything to her about seeing anything or recognizing who shot him.

  When the doctor said it was okay, t
he police went to interview Nicky. The doctor told Rachel that he’d be fine. The bullet had missed major arteries and passed through the arm. He’d need to be on antibiotics for a while to prevent infection, but he could go home. She laughed at that.

  “Home. The police won’t let us back yet. They’re still searching. Tina, it will take them weeks to go through all our stuff. I should have cleaned it up years ago.” She began to cry again, and all Tina could do was pat her hand and murmur that everything would be okay.

  A volunteer pushed Nicky into the waiting room in a wheelchair. Tina jumped up and said she’d go get the car. She brought it around, and the volunteer helped Nicky into the back seat.

  They rode to the doctor’s office where Rachel picked up their car while Nicky stayed in Tina’s. They drove to her mother’s house. Tina asked Nicky how it was going staying with Mrs. Morris.

  “Good, I think. Rachel’s helping out, and Mother Morris seems to get some comfort from Rachel. So, it’s good we’re here right now.”

  Yellow tape blocked off an area in the driveway where Nicky had been shot, but the police had left. Tina parked in front.

  Mrs. Morris must have heard them drive up because she stood in the doorway, hanging onto the doorjamb.

  Tina didn’t feel it was right to just drop off Rachel and Nicky without saying hello, so reluctantly, she climbed out of her car and went up the walk, shivering from both the cold and dread.

  Nicky was able to walk on his own, although Rachel took his good arm. Tina thought the pain killers were beginning to work because he had a goofy grin on his face.

  “You’re okay?” Mrs. Morris asked. Obviously the police had told her what happened. Crystal and Rachel’s mother had turned plump over the years, but today she looked haggard, her dyed-blond hair like straw, as if she forgot to condition it, her blue eyes red-rimmed, her shoulders slumped.