Read Online Perfect Poison by M. William Phelps - Free Book Online Page A

it back to the VA with me.”
    â€œOkay,” Glenn said, and Kristen went off to work.
    This was extraordinary. Hospitals, under strict guidelines, never test employees’ blood samples, and VAMC policies strictly forbid it. Further, Gilbert had never even spoken to the lab technician, who later said she would have told her no, anyway.
    Over the next several days, Kristen never denied the fact to her coworkers that Glenn had been ill.
    â€œHe should have coded,” she told one friend, “due to his low potassium level. But he didn’t.” She also displayed her dissatisfaction about how the ER had treated him. “The hospital should have taken a blood sample to check his potassium level before they discharged him.”
    But the ER had taken a blood sample. Kristen had stood there and watched them do it.
    Then she called her old friend, Rachel Webber.
    â€œWhat happened?” Webber asked, after Kristen explained how sick Glenn had been.
    â€œOh, he played some volleyball, and his electrolytes were off. They had to replenish his fluids . . . they put him on an IV.”
    â€œIs he okay now?”
    â€œHe’s fine.”
    Feeling a bit better, on November 10, Glenn went for an appointment at Kaiser Permanente, where his doctor checked his potassium level once again. It was, finally, back to normal.
    Kristen had November 11 and 12 off. On the eleventh, while LPN April Gougeon was filling out some paperwork at the nurse’s station, she looked up and spotted Kristen walking toward the medicine supply closet—or satellite pharmacy—which was directly across the hallway from the nurse’s station on Ward C. Gougeon was surprised to see Gilbert. But there she was, dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, rummaging through the medicine supply closet.
    â€œHi, Kristen, what’s going on? What are you doing here?” Gougeon asked.
    As Gilbert rushed by, she said, “Oh, I need to . . . get some more medication for Glenn. He didn’t fill his prescription, and I need to get some more potassium.”
    Gougeon watched as Gilbert tore through the medicine cabinet and, after apparently finding what she was looking for, took off.
    The following night, November 12, she showed up again.
    This time, LPN Lori Naumowitz watched as Gilbert walked hurriedly by the nurse’s station without saying a word, again en route toward the medicine supply closet.
    As she entered the satellite pharmacy, Naumowitz followed her. Looking on from the doorway, she watched as Gilbert rummaged through the closet.
    â€œUm . . . what are you doing?” Naumowitz asked.
    â€œOh, Lori . . . hi,” Gilbert said. “Glenn got a prescription for potassium from the hospital, but he ran out. I’m just taking some potassium home for him. No big deal.”
    The VAMC stocked potassium on Ward C in many different forms, the most popular and easily accessible being tiny, clear ampoules similar to many of the other medications in the closet. Given in large doses, potassium is fatal. It is the final drug administered during an execution by lethal injection and stops the heart almost immediately upon impact.
    After Gilbert left, Naumowitz pulled nursing assistant Lisa Baronas into an empty room and, privately, told her what Gilbert had done.
    Baronas had her own story to tell.
    A couple of days prior to November 11, she said she saw the strangest thing. As she walked into the nurse’s locker room to use the restroom at the beginning of her shift, she noticed a funny-looking reflection on the wall. At first she thought it was from her watch because there was no curtain on the window and the sun, which was just beginning to set, had been reflecting off the floor. But after looking more closely, she saw that the reflection was being made by a couple of silver drug packet strips hanging out of Gilbert’s coat.
    So she walked over.
    Immediately, she saw the VA symbol on the packets and knew that