Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) (24 page)

We are at the door of her office and she reaches into her pants pocket and removes her key ring. As she pulls the keys out, a small brown bottle falls out onto the floor. It rolls toward me and I recognize it right away as a bottle of nitroglycerin tablets. I pick it up and look at the pharmacy label as Dorothy busies herself unlocking the door. The pills were dispensed only a week earlier, but the bottle is nearly empty. If Dorothy is taking these for a heart problem, it must be a severe case for her to have used this many of the pills already.

I hand her back the bottle as we head inside, and then I lean over and whisper into Hurley’s ear. “Go easy on her. She has a bad heart.”

Dorothy’s office is a mirror image of Al’s, but despite the similarities they are worlds apart. Her office is filled with personal touches. Framed certificates hang on the wall, interspersed with tasteful artwork. A dozen plants, including two blooming African violets, are thriving atop a small credenza in front of the single window. The desk chair has a crocheted cushion in the seat, and on top of the desk are framed photographs of three smiling, blond-haired children. Even the lighting in the room is warm, thanks to lamps with arts-and-crafts style, stained-glass shades sitting atop two small corner tables. One of those tables has a small coffee maker—one of those single cup brewing systems—and a selection of teas and hot chocolates to go with it.

“Are those your grandchildren?” Hurley asks, pointing to the pictures on the desk.

Dorothy smiles warmly at the pictures. “No, that’s my grandniece and my two grandnephews. They’re my brother’s daughter’s children. I was never blessed with any children of my own.”

“Who do you think killed Bernard Chase?” Hurley asks.

Dorothy gives him a funny look. “I have no idea.”

“Did you know about his affair with Regan Simmons?”

Dorothy nods and sighs. “Yes, I heard the rumors and I saw enough evidence on my own to believe them. But it was harmless, really, at least as far as the Twilight Home is concerned. I knew they were both married, but I also knew from talking with Bernard that his marriage had been over for a long time. He just hadn’t formalized it yet. As for Regan, I don’t know what shape her marriage is in, but as long as she did her job while she was on duty here and didn’t let her affair get in the way of that, who am I to say what she should or shouldn’t do?”

“What about this rumor the patients mentioned?” I ask. “I mean the one about Bernie getting rid of his expensive patients.”

“That’s just poppycock,” Dorothy says with a laugh and a sad little shake of her head. “It’s nothing more than a fantasy that some of the patients dreamed up in an effort to make their day-to-day lives more interesting. It’s something exciting for them to focus on. It gives them the impression that they’re living on the edge. Take a look at most of the books on the book cart in the dayroom. The selection on that cart is by request and it’s almost entirely made up of thrillers and mysteries. When those aren’t enough, the patients make up their own thrillers and mysteries. That’s all this silly rumor is. Believe me, there’s absolutely no truth to it. If there was, I would be one of the first to know.”

Dorothy is more than willing to let us look through any part of her office that we want. At one point, when Trisha tries to object, Dorothy cuts her off with a look and an impatient, “Hush, woman. We have nothing to hide here and all you’re doing with your ridiculous limitations is delaying their investigation.”

It doesn’t take us long to finish Dorothy’s office, and once it’s locked and Trisha and Dorothy have left, it’s just past noon. Arnie has finished printing the board members and he’s back in Bernie’s office, so Hurley and I meet him there to strategize and figure out where we go from here.

Arnie is nearly done printing the office, though Hurley tells him to make sure he dusts the safe door before he leaves. We discuss the need to have him process prints or other evidence in Jeanette’s office, but in the end Hurley decides not to. I can tell he doesn’t think she had anything to do with the death and since we have Richmond searching the woman’s house, it makes sense to wait and see what, if anything turns up.

Hurley excuses himself and steps outside the office to make a phone call. I try to eavesdrop, but I can’t hear a thing. When he returns a minute later with a worried frown on his face, I know he was trying to call Kate again. I feel a twinge of guilt knowing I could stop those phone calls any time, but I’m not ready to do it yet. Something about this case is starting to feel better to me, like we’re making some progress. I’m not sure why I feel that way given that we don’t have a clear suspect yet, but I also know that once I share the contents of Kate’s letter with Hurley, that progress is likely to stop dead in its tracks.

I
t’s lunchtime and the patients are walking and wheeling their way to the dining room. Since everyone is likely to be otherwise occupied and we need to eat, too, Hurley and I decide to make a quick run out for lunch ourselves. We ask Arnie if he wants anything, and when he says yes, we also ask the guard officer on duty. With a list of requests, we decide to stop at a local sub shop and get sandwiches to go, which we then take back to the nursing home and eat in the hallway outside Bernie’s office.

By the time we’re done, most of the patients have finished eating their lunch and are either back in their rooms taking a nap, or congregating in the dayroom and the garden area behind it.

After a brief discussion, Hurley and I decide to divvy up the duties. He heads for the dayroom with the list of patients that Bob Richmond wasn’t able to speak to last night, and I take the list of employees on duty. I spend some time with Linda, the nursing assistant who is manning the front desk, and the three other nursing assistants on duty. None of them have much to offer, and the threat of losing their jobs has all of them pretty tight-lipped. I also talk to Connie, and while I half expect her to accuse me of sneaking a peek at patient charts earlier this morning, she doesn’t say a word about it. She also has little to offer, which comes as no surprise given her behavior the day before. In between these interviews, I walk past the nurse’s station and see that my coffee cup has disappeared.

When I’m done talking with the employees, I head for the dayroom to see how Hurley is doing with his interviews. Along the way, I take out my cell phone and place a call to Izzy.

He answers on the second ring. “What’s up?”

“Did you find a medical record for Bernard Chase?”

“I did, but there wasn’t much in it. The guy was healthy and had no major problems of any sort. His only visits to the doctor were for physicals and the occasional flu bug or cold.”

“Did he take any medications of any kind?”

“None at all. Why?”

“Because we found a handful of pills locked up in a safe in his office.”

“What do they look like?” I describe the pills to Izzy and he chuckles. “I can tell you what those are. They’re Cialis.”

I thank him, and disconnect the call, pondering how Izzy was able to identify erectile dysfunction pills so quickly. Then I decide I don’t want to go there.

I find Hurley surrounded by a bunch of white, gray, and blue-haired ladies, and if the tittering giggles, bashful hand gestures, and sideways eye flutters are any indication, they are all gaga over him. I can’t say I blame them. After one look at Hurley’s black hair, blue eyes, chiseled jaw, and lanky legs, it’s hard to keep the hormones in check, and apparently, despite being well past menopause, these ladies have plenty of hormones left.

I venture over toward the group and ask Hurley if I can speak to him a moment. This earns me several looks of contempt, and one of the women goes so far as to voice her objection.

“Hey, wait your turn, missy!” she says. The woman is well built and attractive for her age with carefully coifed, snow-white hair, hooker-red fingernails, and a carefully made-up face. She is dressed in tight black slacks, a low-cut red blouse, and shiny red pumps, which strike me as inappropriate for a woman her age until I see that she is sitting in a motorized wheelchair. Hell, the woman could wear six-inch stilettos if she wanted to because she doesn’t have to walk anywhere in them.

“I’ll give him back to you,” I say. “We work together and I just need to speak to him for a minute.”

Clearly she is not satisfied with my answer because she motors toward me, grabs my arm, and pulls me aside. “You need to make it quick, darling, because I’m working my best magic on this guy and right now he’s the only man in this facility who looks like he’s capable of sustaining a stiffy for any length of time. Hell, half these guys can’t even
get
a stiffy, much less maintain one. I once tried to talk Bernie Chase into salting the food with Viagra, arguing that it would help him with his safety record because it would keep some of these old fools from rolling out of bed. But he wouldn’t go for it and now I’m stuck with a bunch of limp noodles. Don’t let this wheelchair fool you. I’m not dead in that part of my body yet, and while I’m not saying it’s been a long time since I last had sex, I do vaguely recall seeing a T-Rex thunder by during my post-coital haze, so I’m in need here, understand?”

“And you think you can score with that detective?” I say, barely suppressing a smile.

She then does something so shocking it makes me back up a step. First, she turns her wheelchair away from the others so that only I can see her face. She contorts her lips and pops both an upper and lower denture loose, letting them stick partway out of her mouth for a second before she sucks them back in. Then she leans in closer to me and wiggles her carefully drawn eyebrows. “Play a skin flute once without the teeth and you got ’em for life,” she whispers.

It takes a lot to shock me. If you work as a nurse in an ER for any length of time you see and hear things that would mortify most people. Despite that, Snow White’s comment makes me gasp and clamp a hand over my mouth.

Hurley hears it and looks over at us. “Did Gwen just confess?” he asks with half a grin.

“Not to murder,” I say.

Gwen gives me a smug smile and motors back over to Hurley. “I’ll share everything I know with you,” she says, stroking his arm. “You come and find me when you’re done talking to the big-boned blonde.”

I see Hurley’s mouth twitch and know he’s trying to suppress a smile.

“Will do,” he says, and then the two of us leave the dayroom and head down the hall. There are still a lot of people milling about in the halls: patients, family, and staff. When we glance inside the employee break room and see that it’s empty, we head inside for privacy.

“Mystery solved on the pills we found in Bernie’s safe,” I tell him. “They’re Cialis. Apparently Bernie needed a little help from time to time in obtaining and maintaining an erection.”

“That’s a problem I never have when you’re around,” Hurley says, wiggling his eyebrows salaciously. “You have this funny way of getting me all hot and bothered, Winston.”

His words make my insides go all squishy. When he reaches over and takes my arm, I think he’s going to hug me but instead, he turns and hauls me into the locker room that’s off to one side of the break room. He pulls me to him and before I can utter a word, he kisses me. For a nanosecond, I consider stopping him, but the physical sensations pulsing through my body prevent me. For the next two minutes, our hands, our lips, our entire bodies are stroking, touching, caressing....

The break room door opens and we hear women’s voices out in the main room. Hurley and I split apart so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t cause an explosion, particularly given all the heat between us. We spend a few seconds smoothing our clothes and hair, wiping our lips, and trying to look as innocent and professional as possible. I’m not sure we succeed before two of the nursing assistants I talked to earlier, Debbie and Miriam, enter the locker room nibbling on chocolate chip cookies. They stop short at the sight of us.

Several long seconds of silence follow and I wonder if I’m the only one who can hear my heart pounding in my chest.

“I’m sorry, ladies, do you need to get to your lockers?” Hurley says. “That would be great because I don’t believe we’ve had the opportunity to search yours yet.”

Neither of the women answers for several long seconds. Then Miriam says, “Have at it. I’ve got nothing to hide unless you’re looking for lip balm and tampons.” She sticks the remainder of her cookie in her mouth, walks over to unlock her locker, and flings the door open wide. Debbie shrugs and follows suit.

We find no smoking guns hiding inside either locker and after Hurley says, “Thanks. We appreciate your cooperation,” the two of us leave the room. There is a container of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the table in the main part of the break room and before we exit, I grab two of them.

Out in the hallway I offer one of the cookies to Hurley, but he turns it down, leaving me to wonder if I should confess my consumption to Gunther.

“You know what?” Hurley says, leaning up against the wall and speaking in a low voice so others navigating the hall won’t hear. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything helpful here by talking to any more of these patients. None of them have an alibi because they were all here at the time of the murder, but as far as we know, none of them would have had access to the administrative wing on Saturday, either. Nor can I see any of them exacting some sort of vigilante revenge on Bernard Chase because they believe that rumor that’s been going around. None of the employees look good for anything except maybe Regan Simmons and Jeanette Throckmorton. As for the rest of the board members, only one of them, the doctor, has a solid alibi, but I’m not seeing a motive for any of them. I think we need to look outside the facility more. I’m going to give Junior a call and think we should head out to interview the Waldheim boys, Vonda Lincoln, and Mr. Simmons.”

“There’s one thing that bothers me about looking outside, though,” I say, taking a small bite of cookie. “Access. The front door is manned all the time so if anyone gained access to the administrative wing via the front entrance, they would have been seen. Even if they hadn’t signed in, the person on duty would have known about it and that was Connie. She swears no one got in through there and she’s a bit of a sign-in Nazi. I can’t see her letting anyone slide. That leaves the back door, the one to the outside. But it’s locked all the time. Even if you come in that way with a key, the door remains locked once it closes. So how would any of these outside people get in?”

“Chase would have had to let them in,” Hurley says. “Maybe he arranged to meet with someone and met them at the door at the agreed upon time. Or maybe he made a copy of his key for Regan Simmons so she could sneak in to meet him for their trysts. Maybe her husband followed her, or spied on her and saw her go in that way and then borrowed her key to pay a surprise visit to Chase.”

“Okay, but how would he know that Bernie would be here on a Saturday morning?”

“Maybe he was following Chase, too.”

“That seems like a lot of maybes. There is another possibility. Bjorn let himself in using Irene’s key. What if someone came in with him and he just doesn’t remember it?”

“If that were true, then whatever drug or poison was given to Chase would have to be very fast acting, almost instantaneous. Any ideas what that might be?”

I think about that for a moment. “Cyanide is the only thing I can think of. But we already tested for that and it came back negative.”

Our hallway tête-à-tête is interrupted by the mechanical hum of a motor as Gwen, aka Snow White, comes cruising up to us. “Hey there, handsome,” she says to Hurley. “I’m tired of waiting. If you and the cookie monster here don’t have a thing going, you might want to give me a try. We mature women have our perks, you know.” She leans forward in her chair, giving Hurley a bird’s eye view of her cleavage.

It also gives me a bird’s eye view of the waist of her underclothes. Before she can shock Hurley with her teeth trick, I say, “You mature women also have some things that can be a bit off-putting.”

“Such as?” Gwen says with a scowl.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?” she snaps.

“Just Depends.”

Gwen narrows her eyes at me and I wouldn’t be surprised to see steam come out her ears. She toggles her wheelchair around, nearly hitting me in the process, and motors off toward the dayroom.

“This case is making me crazy,” Hurley says, running a hand through his hair. “And all these old people are making me crazy. Let’s go interview some outsiders.”

I nod, and give him a halfhearted smile knowing that I’m going to give him a whole new definition for crazy when I finally hand over Kate’s letter.