Ostermeyer had the natural look of a clown. He was bald with a fluff of curly brown hair in a circle, wore coke-bottle glasses, and was shaped like a well-sat-in bean bag chair.

Ostermeyer had no sense of humor at all. He always found himself in the middle of a battle between hospital rules and desperate parents. Or the lawyers and the nosy news reporters. Or the employees and the union against management. And sometimes between his own paycheck and his wife's spending the gap was the widest he'd been in a position to bridge.

Ostermeyer's only source of a smile for the last couple years had been Ruth Adams in her hot pink tutu and he smiled even more when she took it off.