Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) (16 page)

“So it would seem. The question is, was he alone or with someone?”

“Did you take any samples?”

“Didn’t have time. You can do that if you want.”

I don’t particularly, and I don’t know if Arnie already did, so I focus on collecting other items, instead. “We should probably bag up his entire coffee station since we’re considering poisons,” I say to Hurley.

“Yep,” he says distractedly, flipping through hanging folders in the file cabinet drawer.

I bag and tag the coffee pot after pouring the coffee left in it into an evidence jar, and then I bag and tag the coffee maker, a box of sugar, a box of loose artificial sweetener, four clean spoons and one used one, a coffee grinder, a partial bag of coffee beans, and three coffee cups that appear to be clean. I stack everything in one of the empty boxes and go to work on the small refrigerator, where I find and bag a carton of half-and-half. When I’m done I have three boxes of evidence to take to the office.

I look over and see that Hurley is on drawer two of the filing cabinet, patiently looking through every page of every file. I look over at Bernie’s desk and see his coffee cup sitting there. Knowing I need to bag it and collect its contents as well, I get the items I need to do so and head that way. But when I get to the desk, what I find there throws me. After staring at the coffee cup for several seconds, trying to decide if I’m losing my mind, I take out my cell phone and punch in Arnie’s number.

He answers on the second ring and since I can tell he has food in his mouth, I at least know I didn’t wake him.

“Hey, Arnie, it’s Mattie. I’m in Bernie Chase’s office with Hurley and I figured I’d pick up where you left off. I see you managed to lift prints everywhere. What else did you do?”

“Nothing else. There are more surfaces to dust if you feel so inclined.”

“You didn’t swab anything? Or collect any other evidence?”

“Nope.”

“What about the coffee in the mug on the desk?”

“There was no coffee in the mug. It was empty.”

“No it wasn’t.”

“It was when I was there.”

“Hmm, maybe I’m mistaken,” I say, though I’m pretty sure I’m not. After thanking him for his help, apologizing for the rock thing, and telling him we’ll see him in the morning, I disconnect the call. I take out the camera I have in my pocket and scroll through the pictures I took earlier.

“Hey, Hurley, I think we have a problem,” I say when I get to the picture of the coffee mug.

“What?”

“There was coffee in this mug when we were in here earlier, but now it’s empty and it looks like it’s been cleaned.”

H
urley appears extremely upset by my news. His lips are tight, his face is red, and the muscles in his jaw are jumping around like water dropped on a hot frying pan. “You’re sure?”

I nod and show him the picture I took earlier. “I’ll bag the mug anyway, but I suspect it won’t be of much use.” I do so while Hurley paces back and forth in front of the desk. I’m thinking things couldn’t get much worse with this case when we hear a commotion out in the hall and Foster’s frantic voice saying, “You can’t go in there!”

A second later, a parade of people enter Bernard Chase’s office. There are five people in all. Dorothy is in the lead, with three men and one woman behind her. The newcomers are dressed in suits, which gives me a pretty good idea who they are. Dorothy steps aside and lets the new woman take charge.

She does so by asking, “Who’s in charge of this investigation?”

“I am. I’m Detective Steve Hurley with the Sorenson Police Department. Who are you?”

“Legal counsel for the Twilight Home,” the woman says in a no-nonsense tone. She hands Hurley a business card that has L
LOYD
C
OLLINS
& H
UMMER
LLP written on it, along with a Milwaukee address and phone number. I’m praying that the woman’s last name is Hummer so I can at least make some crude jokes about her later, and then I wonder what Dr. Maggie would make of that thought. The woman is like a brain tumor, always in my head and causing me a lot of pain.

“I’m Trisha Collins,” the woman says, dashing my hopes for her last name. “And these are my associates, John Hudson, Michael Finnegan, and Oscar Walden. I would ask that you immediately halt whatever you are doing until we’ve had a chance to examine your warrants and consult with the administrative group.”

“Too late for that,” Hurley says. “Our search is nearly finished. We’ve talked with the majority of the patients already, and I can assure you our paperwork is all in order. You’re welcome to examine it all you want, but I’m not stopping anything we are doing to wait for you to do so. If you know anything about conducting a criminal investigation, you know the first hours are golden. You have already hampered our efforts and delayed things by threatening the employees with their jobs if they were to talk to us.”

“We have done no such thing,” Trisha says. “We just arrived here.”

“Yes, of course. Plausible deniability,” Hurley sneers. “You lawyers are pretty savvy when it comes to covering your own asses, but we know you told the board members to let the employees know what would happen if any of them spoke to us before you got here. I don’t much care how you made it happen, I just know you did and you’re interfering with my investigation of a murder. I don’t much appreciate it.”

I’m a little shocked by how in-your-face Hurley is behaving. Judging from the tight lips and white knuckles on the hand holding her briefcase, I’m guessing Trisha Collins is surprised, too, despite the stern bun in her blond hair and the stern tone in her voice. I’m sure she isn’t used to having people talk to her this way. I suspect the reason Hurley is being so confrontational is because he’s tired, he’s hungry, and he’s mad at himself for leaving our crime scene unguarded, an action that has compromised some of our evidence.

Trisha says, “I assure you we are quite familiar with the investigative process, Detective. I apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you, but I’m sure you understand that our primary concern here is to make sure the facility continues to function and to mitigate any liabilities that might be incurred by the board of directors, the staff, or the residents. I assure you we have the best interests of the staff members and the residents in mind. I’m sorry that your investigation was delayed, but it was unavoidable. We are here now and you are welcome to talk to any of the board members or employees who are willing to talk to you. My only stipulation is that one of us must be present at all times.”

Hurley sighs and his shoulders sag. Whatever had him ramped up is starting to fade away. “Fair enough.” He glances at his watch. “It’s getting late and I think the majority of what we have left to do can wait until morning. However, I would like to interview the evening staff on duty now while we’re here, and I would also like to search the employee lockers. I’ll talk to the day shift and your board members tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you and your people need to leave this wing. It’s a crime scene and it’s off-limits. I would appreciate it if you would leave and not touch anything on your way out.”

“I’m sure your paperwork is in order, but I still need to look at it,” Trisha says. “As for searching the employee lockers, I will leave that up to the individual employees.”

Hurley cocks his head and gives her a weary look. “My warrant covers all the public areas in the building as well as any of the administrative offices, employee areas, and individual patient rooms. The only restrictions imposed on us are the patients’ medical records, but if we have evidence that points to a suspect who is a resident here, and we believe the medical record might contain information that can assist us in our investigation, we can get a subpoena for that particular medical record.”

Trisha makes a pointed look at the file cabinet and the open top drawer. “I doubt your warrant includes the confidential papers related to the facility.”

Hurley hesitates with his comeback just long enough for me to know she’s right. But when he finally answers, it seems like a good one. “We have reason to believe there might be some irregularities in the admissions and discharges of some residents here, so I’m looking for files that will help us determine that.”

“What sort of irregularities?” Trisha asks.

“Cherry picking the admissions to create a favorable payor mix, for one. And there is reason to think someone might have been expediting the deaths of certain patients whose care became something of a financial burden.”

Trisha arches her eyebrows at this. “That’s a very serious accusation, Detective.”

“It’s not an accusation yet. It’s only supposition at this point.”

“Then I fail to see what relevance it has to your murder investigation.”

“The relevance is that most of the patients in this place seem convinced that such shenanigans have been going on. And as such, they all have motive.”

“Shenanigans?” Trisha says with a little laugh. “What a quaint word.” She glances back at her trio of henchmen. “I do love these small-town folk, don’t you?” She turns back to Hurley with a tolerant smile like one might use on an idiot cousin who’s just said he thinks the earth is flat. “I believe any recent deaths that have occurred here are a matter of public record and as such you have no need to go through the facility’s private files to find that information. Beyond that, if there is any specific information you want regarding the admission policies and procedures, or how those policies were applied to specific patients, you need only ask me for the information and I will provide it. Beyond that, you have no business going through our records.”

Hurley’s face muscles are twitching like the legs on my pithed frog in high school biology class. He’s pissed, and at the moment he is also apparently at a loss for words. I’m guessing that’s because the only ones he has in mind are not fit for polite company. Not that Trisha Collins would be considered polite in anyone’s book. Miss Manners she ain’t.

Trisha takes advantage of Hurley’s stormy silence and says, “I believe you mentioned that you’ve already conducted the majority of the patient room searches and spoken with a number of the residents here. Have you come up with any suspects?”

“As a matter of fact we have several suspects,” Hurley says, his jaw tight. “But at this point all we have on any of them is supposition, motive, and circumstantial evidence. I’m waiting on the results of certain tests from Mr. Chase’s autopsy, and in the meantime our investigation is ongoing. It’s quite possible that our suspect list will grow once we’ve had an opportunity to talk to your employees. In fact, I’m fairly certain it will.”

I know this last comment is referring to the missing coffee. The likelihood that it was a patient who was able to sneak back here during the brief time that the administrative wing was unguarded is slight. But the fact that we have several suspects is news to me. Outside of the fact that the majority of the residents disliked Chase and believed he might have been bumping off troublesome patients, the only real suspect we’ve turned up so far is Frank Dudley.

“May I ask how Mr. Chase was killed?” Trisha says.

“You can ask anything you want but I’m not obligated to divulge the facts of my investigation to you,” Hurley says, finally scoring a hit.

A long, awkward silence follows during which Trisha and Hurley stare one another down. The other three lawyers watch, intrigued, shifting in place nervously, waiting to see who’s going to win this war of wills.

As entertaining as this battle of wits has been, I’m tired and my stomach is starting to feel a little queasy again. In the interest of moving things along, I decide to break things up. “Tick tock,” I say, rubbing my hands together eagerly. “Which employee should we talk to first?”

Trisha breaks eye contact with Hurley, triggering a collective sigh in the room. That’s quickly followed by a series of sharp inhalations as Trisha shifts her flinty glare to me. “And who, might I ask, are you?” she says in a snippy, condescending tone.

Despite the fact that she’s only about five feet two inches tall and probably weighs as much as my right leg, I can tell Trisha Collins is the type of woman who likes to throw her weight around. But when it comes to throwing weight around, I clearly have her outmatched. I decide to accept the challenge and step up right in front of her, forcing her to look up to me. My boobs are practically in her face.

“My name is Mattie Winston, and I’m the medicolegal death investigator with the medical examiner’s office.” I unclip my newly reacquired badge from the waist of my pants and flash it in her face. “Sorry, I don’t have any business cards with me. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s been a really long day for all of us and we’d like to get on with things.”

Trisha doesn’t say anything as I look down my nose at her.

After several seconds, I realize that even though I may have rendered her temporarily speechless, she is not going to back down in front of her coworkers. In the interest of moving things along I turn away from her and say, “Hurley, what employee would you like to talk to first?”

Hurley takes out the little notebook he always carries with him and flips it open. “Let’s start with the evening charge nurse and work our way down the pecking order. I believe that would be Regan Simmons. Do you think you can track her down and bring her to the dining room, Mattie?”

“I sure can.”

“Good.” He turns back to Trisha. “Once again, I am telling you and your posse to leave this wing and be careful not to touch anything on your way out. If I have to tell you again, I will arrest all of you on an obstruction of justice charge.”

Trisha scoffs at that. “That rap would never stick.”

“Perhaps not,” Hurley says, “but I’d still be able to lock you up long enough to get you out from under my feet. And you know how slow things can move in these cute little towns.”

I swear I see sparks flying out of Trisha’s ears. After another brief face-off with Hurley, she spins around and corrals her team out of the room, down the hall, and into the main front hallway. Hurley and I follow and watch as Trisha and her honchos enter and stake out a table in the dining room and then form a huddle, speaking in low voices. For all I know they may be plotting our demise.

I tell Hurley I’ll be back in a jiff and then I head for the main reception desk. I walk up to Anne and introduce myself.

“I know who you are. We all know who you guys are,” Anne says with a frown.

“I apologize for not signing in with you before, but the detective and I had signed in earlier. We had to leave in a hurry and we never signed out. Technically we were still on the books. I forgot about the young girl who came back with us. She wasn’t here earlier so I’ll sign her in now. Do you want me to sign my dog in, too?”

Anne thinks about this a moment and then shakes her head. “Is that girl who came with you some kind of cop, too?” she asks, looking doubtful.

I shake my head and smile to get her to relax. “No, she’s not. She’s Detective Hurley’s daughter. I’m not a cop, either. I’m with the medical examiner’s office. I just assist the cops with their investigation.”

“Some investigation,” she says sourly. “It looks like everyone is a suspect.”

“It does seem that way at first, but all we’re really doing is gathering information. We like to talk to everyone who has any remote connection to the victim even if there’s nothing obvious that would seem of interest. Sometimes we find answers in places where we least expect to. You’d be surprised at some of the little tidbits of information that come in handy.”

“You mean like Mr. Chase’s girlfriend?”

Whoa!
“Mr. Chase had a girlfriend?”

Anne bites her lip. “Crap. No one told you guys yet?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “We’re only beginning to talk to the employees.”

“Most of the residents know, too. It’s not like they were very good at hiding it.”

“They who? Who was Mr. Chase seeing?”

Anne bites her lip and shakes her head. She leans back in her seat, physically and mentally withdrawing from me. “I shouldn’t have said anything. We’re supposed to wait for the lawyers before we talk to any of you cops. I could lose my job.”

“I told you, I’m not a cop. I’m an assistant investigator with the medical examiner’s office. I’m just here to help the cops out.” This isn’t the whole truth, but I’m counting on Anne not to know that.