"THE SUITE WAS like a square," Mischa said to Felice, as she sat on one of the beds in the infirmary. She had a laceration on her arm. The nurse, Agnes, had treated it and now Mischa was wrapping it with a bandage. "Rihanna and I were in the front room. Lindsay and Nicole Richie stayed in the back room by the balcony."311Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr2OSFTRaWW
"How long would it take?" Felice asked.
Mischa thought about that for a moment. "Not long to get to Rihanna's and my room. That was right by the front door. Pull out some Kleenex that Rihanna had shed from the trash for her mucus. Grab one of my used Q-tips for the earwax. Pull hair out of our brushes. Find something with our fingerprints. Two, three minutes?" she estimated. "Then do the same in the other bedroom----Lindsay and Nicole Richie's bedroom. Then plant the evidence at the crime scene."
"But why didn't they get any DNA from Lindsay? Nicole Richie, yes, but not Lindsay?"
Mischa shrugged. They could never figure why there was no evidence planted at the crime scene that implicated Lindsay. The three of us, dead to rights; Lindsay, nothing.
"Maybe---they only got to the first room," Felice suggested. "Yours and Rihanna's. Maybe they were afraid to stay longer than that."
Mischa shrugged. That made some sense, of course. Whoever it was, not wanting to linger and be caught, might just pop into the first bedroom and then get out. But that logic had one obvious flaw. "That would explain why they had nothing from Lindsay," she agreed. "But then how did they have forensic evidence of Nicole Richie?"
Felice shook her head. She didn't have an answer. Neither of them did.
The dimensions of the infirmary reminded Mischa of her high school gym, except the ceilings were very low here. It was exceptionally bright----so bright that she had to squint every time she walked in. But she welcomed the contrast from the dreariness.
There were twenty-five beds on one side and a cage on the other side, where the inmates waited to be seen. On one of the short sides of the rectangle was la pharmacie, the room with medical supplies and prescription drugs. On the other side was the room where Felice and Mischa were right now----a secure area, big enough for five patients, usually reserved for special cases, such as people with contagious maladies or those who posed security risks. If the room was otherwise vacant, as it was now, they used it for overflow.
Up in the corner of the room, a security camera monitored everyone. This room, with its thick glass separating them from the main room, its privacy blinds, and a door that locked from the inside, could otherwise be pretty private if not for the surveillance camera. A fortress, actually. That thought drifted in and out of Mischa's mind.
"Mischa, I need ampicilline." The nurse, Agnes, was in the main room, treating a prisoner with a bladder infection. She spoke satisfactory English and liked to practice it on Mischa. "Can you re---receive it for me?"
"I can retrieve it for you," Mischa said with a smile. Agnes laughed at her mistake. She handed Mischa the key to the pharmacy. This was, as a technical matter, strictly forbidden. Only doctors or licensed nurses could enter the room. But as a practical matter, the nurse couldn't afford to spend her time going back and forth to the drug room. The infirmary was notoriously understaffed. They were lucky if even a single nurse showed up on a daily basis; a doctor came, at most, every other day. The waiting line to get treated usually went out the door. So time was precious, and if an assistant could be trusted to run back and forth to la pharmacie, so much the better.
That was a big "if," though. Letting an inmate near drugs was like letting a fox into a henhouse. So Agnes was saying something here by trusting Mischa.311Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV5xmP6t5Wg
You took what good you could in there. It didn't come often.311Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5jpsU96fST
After Mischa delivered the ampicillin to Nurse Agnes, waited for her to use it, then returned it to the pharmacy and signed it back in---all under the watchful eye of a security camera----she returned to Felice in the secured room.311Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAVRGSIIaYr
She was done now, her bandage wrapped. She wagged a finger at me.311Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbEVai4teVh
"That's what you have to figure out," Felice said to Mischa in French, the language in which she felt more comfortable. "You have to figure out why they had evidence of Nicole Richie, but not Lindsay."311Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw2IkjYcU12
