Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) (21 page)

“I think we can rule out Mr. Dudley at this point.” I share with them Izzy’s findings from this morning, or rather his lack of findings. I also explain to them how the missing coffee from the coffee cup pretty much rules out insulin as a poison. “There is some good news though,” I add. “Given that someone made an effort to dispose of that coffee, I think it’s safe to say that whatever did Bernie in was in that coffee. Izzy said there was coffee in his gastric contents, so that will give us a better focus in looking for a poison. It will also make it easier to test for substances because most of the poisons or drugs he might have ingested will be more concentrated and in their original form if they are still in the stomach, whereas by the time most of them hit the bloodstream they’ve been filtered by the liver and broken down. That can make it difficult to identify them or detect significant amounts. In a way, it’s a good thing. The bad news is that the tox screen we ran on Bernard’s blood and gastric contents came back negative. That means the most common drugs and poisons are ruled out, so we’re still going to end up on a bit of a hunting expedition.”

“I think that missing coffee helps us in another way,” Hurley says. “I was thinking about it last night when I got home, and anyone who has an alibi for the period of time when the coffee went missing basically has an alibi for the murder. Under the circumstances, I can’t imagine anyone dumping the coffee for someone else because everyone there knew it was a crime scene. Going after that coffee was a risky, desperate move, so I’m thinking whoever did it is most likely our killer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for anyone who was at the nursing home at the time.”

“So where do we go from here?” I ask.

“For now, we continue with the staff interviews at the nursing home, including the board members. I don’t plan on spending a ton of time with them because I haven’t found a motive amongst any of them yet. We do, however, have plenty of potential motives with Mr. Simmons and the Waldheim boys.”

Junior gives Hurley a wary look. “Those Waldheim boys may have motive, but from what I know of them I rather doubt they have enough sense between the three of them to coordinate something this sophisticated.”

“I have my money on Regan Simmons or her husband,” I say. An instant later, I mentally wince at my use of yet another gambling term.

“And though my gut doesn’t like her for it, there is still Vonda,” Hurley adds. “We can’t rule her out.” He looks over at Junior. “Did Monica give you any information?”

“She did,” he says.

Junior’s girlfriend Monica works at a local bank. In addition to being a bank officer, she’s also a badge bunny who has previously dated at least three other cops in town. So far, things seem to be working out with her and Junior, but time will tell.

“She said Bernie and Vonda bank where she works and both have plenty of money of their own. Vonda does quite well with her art sales and she’s financially independent, whereas Bernie comes from family money and plenty of it. There doesn’t appear to be any strong financial motive on the wife’s part. That’s all unofficial, of course.”

“Of course,” Hurley says with a nod. He pats the stack of files on the table. “If we don’t uncover something today to point us in any one direction, we should come back to these notes and go through them. Maybe there’s something in here we missed. Or maybe there’s something in here that’s significant and we just don’t know it yet.” He pauses and stares at the files with a frown.

“What is it?” I ask him.

“There’s something about this whole scene that still bothers me.”

“How so?”

“That powder that ended up in Bernie’s mouth. Bjorn said he dropped the bottle and then ran out of the bathroom because Bernie was clawing at him. Yet that stuff ended up inside Bernie’s mouth as if someone poured it in there. And you said you found the empty container under Bernie’s leg, right?”

I nod.

“That container was completely empty. If Bjorn had simply dropped the bottle the way he described, I’d think some of the powder would still be in it.”

I suddenly see where Hurley’s thoughts are headed. “You think someone else entered that bathroom in between the time that Bjorn left and Irene appeared, don’t you?”

Hurley nods. He has a far-off look in his eyes and I can tell he’s visualizing a scene in his mind. “Maybe there was someone with Bernard in his office, someone who had a reason to want him dead. Maybe they struggled and Bernard was able to get away. But then the person caught up to him in the bathroom, saw that powder, and used it.”

“That would imply someone who knows what that powder does,” I say. “But if Bernie got away, why run into the bathroom? Why wouldn’t he just run outside, or to the front reception area where there were other people around?”

“He saw Bjorn walk by and thought he could get him to help, so he went after him. I suspect he did that after finding out his cell phone was dead. I’m not sure what happened with the land line. I imagine he either tried to call out on the desk phone and stopped when he saw Bjorn, thinking that would be faster help, or he was too confused in his deteriorating state to use the phone. Plus, from what Bjorn said, Bernie wasn’t talking much. If he was too weak to talk, the phone wouldn’t have done him much good.”

“That makes sense,” I say.

Hurley glances at his watch. “Let’s go back to Twilight and meet with the administrative group and the lawyers. I have some questions regarding the financial operations and I’m thinking we should get a list of recent deaths so Mattie can at least review those charts. If necessary, we’ll look into exhumations and autopsies, but for now we’ll follow the paper trail to see if there’s any credence to this crazy idea about Chase killing off his more expensive patients. Assuming, of course, that the lawyers give us what we want.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” I say, remembering Trisha’s behavior from last night.

“I don’t have a good feeling, either, but we have to try. I also want to interview the day staff on duty and maybe we can get a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers for the off-duty employees we haven’t been able to talk to yet. Once we’re done there, we’ll go talk to the Waldheim boys and Regan Simmons’s husband. Then we regroup and see what we’ve got.” He turns to Junior and asks, “I see you’re in uniform. Are you on the books today?”

Junior shakes his head. “Nope, it’s supposed to be my day off, but Monica’s birthday is coming up and she’s been hinting not so subtly about a pair of diamond earrings she likes. So I can use the overtime and the chief said he’ll okay as much overtime as we want for the next two days to help you with this case. After that, he said he has to reevaluate. I’m all yours for the day. I wasn’t sure what you’d want me to do, so I wore the uniform.”

“I’m glad you did and I can definitely use you. I think it will make our presence more official, and by that I mean intimidating. I think you should bring a patrol car along, too.”

“Works for me,” Junior says.

Hurley glances at his watch again. “We have time to grab a quick bite to eat before we head for our meeting with the lawyers and the board.”

“I already ate,” Junior says. “You two go ahead. I’ll meet you at the Twilight Home at ten.” With that, he heads out.

“Hungry?” Hurley says to me.

My stomach feels more settled than it did earlier so I nod. “I haven’t eaten yet.”

“I have some leftover ham I need to use up and neither Emily nor Kate will eat the stuff.”

“Speaking of Kate, have you been able to talk to her yet?”

Hurley shakes his head, his expression worried. “If I don’t reach her today, I’m calling the Cincinnati police tomorrow no matter what. In the meantime, let’s zip over to my place and I’ll cook for you. I make a mean ham and cheese omelet.”

“If you twist my arm you could probably talk me into it.” Ten minutes later, Hurley and I are in his bed and, after he mumbles something about my prior nipple incident, I discover it wasn’t my arm he wanted to twist at all.

“T
his has got to stop,” I say to Hurley as I climb out of bed and start putting my pants back on.

“I didn’t hear you say stop at any point,” he says with a devilish grin.

“You got me over here by telling me you were going to cook for me.”

“And now that we’ve got things all heated up, all I need to do is crack a few eggs.”

“Dammit, Hurley, you’re too good and too sneaky. By the time I realize what you’re doing, I’m too far gone.”

“I like it when you’re gone.”

“Gone is what we need to be. Let’s get going.”

“We still have time for breakfast,” Hurley says, glancing at his watch. “I promise I’m a fast cook and if need be we can eat it on the way.” He’s already dressed, whereas I’m still in the process of trying to find my bra. “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten. Would you like white toast or rye?”

“Rye, please.”

Hurley takes off at a half run down the hall and the stairs. There is a small half bath off the master bedroom, and I head in there to do a quick cleanup before I finish getting dressed.

A few minutes later, I come back out and start looking for my bra again. It’s nowhere in sight, and I pause for a moment to remember back to our frantic arrival in the bedroom. Though it isn’t there now, I vaguely recall seeing it hit the bedside stand when Hurley tossed it off to one side after a speedy removal. Sure enough, when I walk around the bed to look, I see it on the floor between the bedside stand and the bed frame. When I bend down to pick it up, I find a white envelope lying beneath it. The face of it is blank except for the name
Steve
written in a feminine-looking hand. It isn’t sealed so after a brief moment of indecision, I open it and take out the letter inside. It’s one sheet of unlined paper that looks like it was probably pulled from a printer. It’s folded into thirds and when I unfold the first portion of it, I see the closing signature at the bottom, written in the same tiny, neat handwriting as the rest of it.
Love, Kate
.

Those two little words trigger a gamut of emotions in a period of a few seconds—jealousy, anger, sadness, and self-pity. After arguing with myself about what I want to do and know I shouldn’t, I give in to curiosity and start to unfold the rest of the letter.

A voice behind me makes me stop. “Hey, what’s taking you so long?”

It’s Hurley and his voice sounds so close it makes me jump. My hand crunches the page I’m holding and I slap it to my chest along with my bra. I turn halfway around pretending that I’m covering my bare breasts when in reality I’m trying to hide what I’m holding. Hurley has managed to sneak up the stairs and he’s standing at the top of them at the end of the hallway, looking at me.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’ll be right down. I took a few minutes to clean up and then I couldn’t find my bra.”

“Hurry up,” he says. And then much to my relief, he turns and heads back down the stairs, but not before delivering one final shot over his shoulder. “There’s nothing worse than a cold omelet.”

I pull my hand away from my chest and look at the crumpled paper I’m holding. I’m dying to read it, but I don’t have time. If I take it, Kate will know when she comes back and asks Hurley what he thought about whatever the letter says. Will she know that I found it? And if she does, will she tell Hurley? And if she does will he be mad that I snooped? The whole thing is a big can of worms, and I can already imagine the expression on Dr. Maggie’s face when I tell her what I’ve done.

I quickly put my bra and blouse back on, and then I fold the letter as neatly as I can, put it back in the envelope, and stuff it in my pants pocket. It will need to wait until later. Maybe then I can figure out how to get it back into Hurley’s house in a way that doesn’t make it obvious that I read it. Hoping I don’t look too guilty, I head downstairs.

Hurley wasn’t lying when he said he can make a killer omelet. Because of the time constraints, we eat quickly and wash it all down with cups of coffee in to-go mugs so we can take our java with us.

Ten minutes later we head out, arriving at the Twilight Home with plenty of time left. The front parking lot is nearly full, and for a moment, it looks like we’re going to have to drive around and park in the side lot used by the employees. At the last minute, we see a car back out of a space and we take it as soon as the car leaves.

By the time we get out of the car, we have at least fifteen minutes before our appointed meeting time, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up with more than that. From listening to Lucien, I know that lawyers like to show up late. It’s a tactic they use to put their adversaries on edge. In this case, it’s a tactic that may well backfire on them. I have something particular in mind that I want to do and it’s something I suspect the lawyers would prevent me from doing if I were to ask. I’ve always been a believer in the philosophy that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and since what I want to do won’t interfere with any actual evidence, I decide to go ahead.

Hurley leaves his unfinished coffee in the car, but I bring my to-go mug along with me. As we enter the front door, I start to think I might not get away with what I want to do after all. I forgot to take into account the fact that the board members would also be here. Some of them, I suspect, won’t show up until the meeting time, but Dorothy is here already, settled in at the front checkin desk. She doesn’t look any happier than she did last night, so I smile at her and greet her with a cheery, “Good morning, Dorothy,” in hopes of bettering her mood.

“That remains to be seen,” she says dryly, making me suspect my efforts are wasted. “The lawyers told me to tell you we can meet in the dining room. I believe you know the way.”

“We’ll be there when the time comes,” Hurley says. “Right now, I’m going back to the administrative wing to talk to the officer on duty. Is there any problem with that?”

Judging from the expression on Dorothy’s face, she does have a problem with it, but she keeps it to herself. She shoves the logbook toward us and curtly instructs us to sign in.

“The parking lot is full this morning,” I say, signing my name and then handing the pen to Hurley. “Judging from all the names in this book, it’s been a busy morning.”

“It’s Sunday,” Dorothy says. “A lot of people go to church.” There is a subtle tone in her voice, one that suggests perhaps we should all be there as well.

Hurley and I head for the administrative wing and when we step through the door we see Brenda Joiner, the uniformed officer on duty. She is seated in a chair in the hallway a few feet down from the bathroom. Like me, she has a cup of coffee in one hand. Unlike me, she has the morning paper in the other.

“Good morning, Brenda,” Hurley says. “Anyone try to come through here last night or this morning?”

“Not on my watch,” she says. “I came on at two and I’m supposed to be done at ten, but my relief hasn’t shown up yet.”

Hurley walks over and pushes open the door to the bathroom. The crime scene tape is still up and the bathroom doesn’t look any different than it did yesterday with the exception of the fact that Bernie’s body is gone. As crime scenes go, it’s a tidy one with no blood, no bullet holes, and, at the moment, no body.

“Listen, Hurley, I want to go sneak a peek at a couple patient charts. I’m going to make my way to the nurse’s station via the outside route so I don’t attract Dorothy’s attention. I don’t want to upset her.”

Hurley gives me a curious look. “What are you looking for?”

“I want to check on an idea that I had. It’s just a hunch and it may turn out to be nothing. I’ll let you know.”

Hurley glances at his watch. “Okay, just be careful. Do you think you’ll be done and in the dining room by ten o’clock?”

“I should be. What I need to check won’t take long.” I head down the hall and out the exit. Apparently it’s too early in the morning for the fake pot smokers to be out, or perhaps it’s too cold. There’s a damp chill in the air that makes me huddle inside my jacket as I make my way through the gate and across the garden area to the dayroom. There are a dozen or so others in the room, most of whom look over at me and then go back to whatever they’re doing. At one end of the room, the wall-mounted TV is airing a Sunday morning religious show that’s keeping several people occupied . . . several hard-of-hearing people if the volume level is any indication.

I head across the dayroom and glance down the C wing hall. It’s clearly a busy time of day. Both the B and C wing halls have a lot of activity going on. There are residents dressed in their Sunday best making their way toward the front entrance with family members who are presumably picking them up and taking them to church. Down the C wing hallway, I also see a medication cart with a white-uniformed person standing beside it. A second later, the person turns, exposing her profile to me, and I see that it’s Connie. Relieved that she is occupied elsewhere, I hurry down the B wing hallway.

When I reach the nurse’s station, I’m delighted to see it’s vacant. I slip inside, walk over to one of four large wall racks that hold patient charts, and set my coffee cup down on the counter below them. I’m after two charts in particular, and it doesn’t take me long to find them since the charts are organized by wing and room number. The first one I grab is that of Caroline Masters, the forty-eight-year-old stroke patient I met last night when Regan was giving out medications. I flip the chart open, quickly read the tabs that separate it into sections, and open to the area that has her demographics. Thirty seconds later, I flip to the social service section and several minutes later, I have my answer. I return her chart and grab the one for Charles, the triple amputee. After a few more minutes of digging, I have everything I need and put his chart back in the rack. I’m just in time, too, because I hear voices and footsteps approaching from the B wing and the main front hallway. I don’t want to step out into either hallway and make it obvious that I was in the nurse’s station, so instead, I go to the B wing entrance of the nurse’s station and lean against the wall as if I’ve been waiting awhile. Seconds later, several staff members, family members, and patients appear, coming from the direction of the cafeteria. I smile at them and a moment later, a second group of people appear from the B wing. Among them, pushing her medication cart, is Connie. When she sees me she looks startled for a moment, then she eyes me suspiciously.

“Thank goodness,” I say, pushing myself away from the wall. It’s then that I see my coffee mug sitting on the counter beneath the chart racks. It’s too late to get it, so I have to hope that anyone who sees it assumes it belongs to a staff member. “I was beginning to think no one was going to show up. Dorothy told me she thought you’d be here at the nurse’s station.”

Connie pushes her cart past me toward the medication room. As she unlocks the door and shoves her cart inside, she says, “Normally I would’ve been, but it always takes a little longer to pass meds on Sunday mornings because of all the church comings and goings.” She pulls the door to the medication room closed, and gives the knob a little jiggle to make sure it’s locked. Then she slips the keys into the pocket of her uniform. “Is there something I can help you with, Mattie?”

“As a matter of fact there is. I need a list of all the residents who have died here in the past two years.” I’m pretty sure Connie doesn’t have this information at her fingertips, nor is she someone who would be privy to it. But it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment to explain my presence.

As expected, Connie says, “I don’t have that information. Did Dorothy tell you I would?”

“No, she didn’t. But I didn’t tell her why I was asking for you, only that I wanted to talk to you.” Connie still looks very suspicious, so in an effort to put her at ease I try a little flattery. “You seemed like someone who has a good feel for the pulse of this place, so I sort of assumed this was information you could provide for me.”

“Well I can’t,” she says, but my flattery has worked because she straightens up and squares her shoulders. “I do know quite a bit about what goes on around here, but that information is something I don’t have access to. Even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you until I talked to the lawyers.”

“The lawyers wouldn’t be necessary. It’s a matter of public record,” I tell her dismissively. “I could get the information elsewhere, but it will take longer. That’s why I was hoping to get it from here, but I understand your hesitance. I’m not here to get anyone in trouble. Thanks anyway.”

I push away from the wall and head back toward the dayroom, intending to retrace my steps back to the administrative wing. I’ve only taken a few steps when I hear a noise behind me. I turn and see two men closing in on me in their scooters. One is on either side of the hall and, as I stand there, they zip past me heading for the dayroom.

When I reach the dayroom, I see the two men parked in front of the exit door looking at me expectantly.

“I can give you that list of names you want,” one of them says to me. “I keep a diary, and I’ve written down the name of every person who’s been admitted, discharged, or died since I’ve been here, and that’s been six years now.”

“That’s good to know.”
Score another point for diaries
. “I’m hoping to get the information I need from Dorothy or the lawyers, but if I have any problems I’ll come back to you.”

“Okay. My name is George. George Watson.”

I step past him and head outside, making my way back to the administrative wing. When I reach the door, I check it just to make sure it’s locked. It is, and I make a fist and pound on it. I must’ve hit it harder than I realized, because when Hurley opens it a few seconds later, he has a panicked look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Are you okay?”