Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) (28 page)

W
hen I arrive at the Twilight Home, Dorothy is once again ensconced at the sign-in desk. I wonder if she sits there often, or if she’s here so much because her own office is off-limits.

“Good morning, Dorothy. How are things today?”

“They’d be better if I could get some work done. Any idea when they’re going to release our offices back to us?”

“I’m not sure. That’s up to the police, but I can try to find out for you. Is there something in particular you want from your office? Maybe I can arrange for permission to escort you back there and get it.”

“I’m okay for today, but if we’re going to be locked out much longer, I will need to get in there. What brings you back here today?” She taps a finger on the sign-in book and holds a pen out for me.

“There are a few more patients and employees we need to talk to.”

“The lawyers said they wanted to be present for any employee interviews, so if you want to speak to an employee, I’ll have to call them. They’re not here, but they said they’d be staying at the Sorenson Motel for a day or two.”

“That’s okay. I’ll focus on the patients for now.”

“How many of them do you need to speak to?”

“Not many. I think there were five or six left on the list. Plus I need to talk to Randolph Pettigrew again. Did you know about his little side business selling fake pot and erectile dysfunction medications to patients?”

Dorothy looks genuinely surprised.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I say.

“Fake pot?” she says.

“Yeah, it’s some mix of oregano, tea, and mint. The patients he sells it to think it’s the real stuff and they’re rolling their own and smoking it out back.”

“You’re sure it’s fake?”

“The cops said so. And to be honest, the patients seem to enjoy being a little naughty, so perhaps there’s no harm done.”

“Somehow I don’t think the licensing inspectors will think so.” Dorothy shakes her head. “Thanks for letting me know.”

I head down the hall to the dayroom feeling a little guilty for busting Randolph. But while the fake pot is probably not a big problem, the pills could be dangerous to the patients if the people who take them don’t know about the contraindications that might come into play with other meds they may be on. With this thought, something niggles at my brain, but before I can figure out what it is, I hear a whirring sound closing in behind me and someone hollers out, “Hey!”

I turn and see Gwen approaching in her scooter. “Where’s that gorgeous hunk of policeman you had with you before?”

Today Gwen is wearing brown dress slacks, a pale blue silk blouse, and a pair of navy blue pumps. Her hair is perfectly coiffed, her makeup is on, and there is a hungry, eager look in her eyes that makes me leery of answering her honestly. Something tells me she’d turn that scooter around and hunt Hurley down if she knew where he was.

“Detective Hurley isn’t here today and I don’t think he’ll be here anytime soon.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean Detective Hurley,” Gwen says. “He’s a little too young for me, a bit out of my league. I was referring to that other detective, Bob Richmond.”

I stare at her dumbstruck for a moment. The idea of Bob Richmond as a romantic interest had never entered my mind. I think about it and realize some women might consider him a decent catch. He’s not bad looking for his age, and now that he’s lost so much weight I can see where he might be appealing to some. The thought of fixing him up with Gwen makes me smile.

“I’m not sure if Detective Richmond will be here today, either,” I tell her. “But I’m sure I’ll be talking to him soon. I’ll be happy to give him a message for you if you like.”

“Why will you be talking to him?” Gwen says irritably “You don’t have your eye on him, do you? I thought you had your claws in that Hurley fellow. Can’t you leave one of them for me?”

“I have no romantic interest in Bob Richmond,” I tell her. Then, remembering my job restrictions, I add, “I have no romantic interest in anyone at the moment.” I can tell from the expression on Gwen’s face that she smells bullshit, so before she has a chance to subject me to an inquisition, I take my leave. “I’d love to chat more, but I have something I need to do and I’m in a bit of a time crunch.” I turn and continue my way to the dayroom.

“When you see Detective Richmond, tell him I would like to see him,” Gwen says to my retreating back.

“I will.”

When I reach the dayroom, I look around for Randolph but don’t see him. I walk over to the back door and look outside and see him with his little band of smokers hanging out by the back garden area. I head outside and approach the group.

“Randolph, I need to talk to you for a minute,” I say.

“What’s up?”

“Can we go somewhere private?”

The others in the group exchange worried looks but Randolph smiles and says, “Sure.” He leads the way over to the same bench area we sat at the other day and he settles in, patting the space beside him.

“My apologies, but your little fake pot ring is probably going to be busted. Dorothy knows.”

“That’s okay. We’ll get a lecture and she’ll watch us close for a while and then eventually everyone will forget and we’ll be able to start again.”

“Some of the patients we talked to said you’ve been selling more than just fake pot.”

“You mean the Cialis and Viagra?”

I nod.

“I only sold those to two people. Then I got busted and they took the rest of the pills away.”

“Just as well,” I say, thinking that this explained the pills we found in Bernie’s safe. “That stuff can be very dangerous if it’s mixed with the wrong medications.”

“Yeah, I knew that,” Randolph says. “I wasn’t being reckless. I asked both of the guys about other meds first.”

My cell phone rings and when I look at the caller ID I see that it’s the attorney’s office calling. “Excuse me, Randolph, I need to take this call.” I get up and walk over toward the administrative wing as I answer.

“This is Malcolm Wentworth, returning your call.”

“Yes sir, thank you for getting back to me. I’m investigating the murder of Bernard Chase and we’ve been trying to track down his private lawyer to get a copy of his will and his partnership agreement for the Twilight Home. Would that be you?”

“It would.”

“We’ll need copies of the will and the partnership agreement sent to the police department.”

“I’ll have my secretary fax them over right away if you give me the number.”

I don’t know the fax number for the police station, so I give him the one for the ME’s office. “I appreciate it,” I tell him. “I’m not at the station now, but I’m curious. Who is the primary beneficiary on his will?”

“Interesting that you ask since he just changed it last year. He left everything to his three nephews. His brother has two boys, and his sister has one.”

“Where are they?”

“The brother lives in California, although I think one of his kids is in college in Arizona somewhere. The sister and her son live in Florida.”

“Is his brother or sister the secret partner who went in with him on the Twilight Home?”

“Nope, that’s someone local,” he says. And then he tells me who it is and the specifics of the agreement that will come into play now that Bernie is dead.

I disconnect the call and try to call Hurley again, but it flips over to voice mail immediately, making me suspect he’s on his phone with someone. I briefly consider leaving a voice mail, but decide against it. If he really is taking a personal day, I should call someone else, anyway. Then I remember that I have someone here I can talk to: whatever officer is currently guarding the administrative wing.

I head for the outside door to the wing and pound on it. After waiting for a minute or so with no response, I pound again. When I still get no response, I realize I’ll have to get in from the inside. I debate going back in through the dayroom, but realize it will be quicker to go around the building through the side employee parking lot and go in through the main front door.

When I come in through the front door, I expect to see Dorothy at the sign-in desk, but instead, the nursing assistant named Linda is there. “Where’s Dorothy?” I ask.

Linda shrugs, sliding the sign-in book toward me. “She said she was going to run some errands.”

“I already signed in,” I tell her. “I just came around the building from out back.”

She looks like she wants to argue the point with me so I decide not to give her the chance. I head straight for the door to the administrative wing.

The hallway in front of me is empty, but I see lights on inside Bernie’s office so I hurry toward it. I’m a few feet away when I see the blood. Another few feet and I see the head, and then the prostrate body of Brenda Joiner, who is out cold, face down on the floor just inside the doorway to Bernie’s office. A large pool of blood is beneath her head and I see what appears to be a gash on the back of her scalp. Nearby on the floor is a golf trophy I remember seeing on the bookshelves. It has a thick, heavy base that is currently covered with blood.

I rush over to Brenda and feel along her neck for a pulse. To my relief there is one, and it’s strong and steady. I reach for my cell phone to call 911, but as I hit the nine button the world explodes in a bright white light of pain. Then it all goes dark.

M
y head feels like I’ve been banging it against a wall for the past four hours and the rest of my body feels weighted down, as if some giant hand from above is holding me down. Beneath me is hardness and when I try to shift my position to make the pain in my back and hips ease up, I find I can barely move. Someone cradles my head, lifting it gently, and then a comforting female voice says, “Here, drink this. The doctor said it will make you feel better.”

I do as instructed, swallowing down a warm drink that tastes like super sweet chocolate. It burns a little and my entire mouth starts to tingle. The fierce pounding in my head is making it hard for me to think.

“A little more,” the voice soothes, nudging the cup at me.

The liquid is coming too fast and after a few more swallows I clamp my lips shut against the cup. I try to push it away, but my arms feel leaden and I can’t get them to move. The voice speaking to me sounds familiar and I try to open my eyes to see who it is, but there is a blinding white light that prevents me. The mention of a doctor makes me think I must be in the hospital, perhaps in the ER, recovering from whatever made me pass out. But something about that voice is telling me I’m in trouble. The cup nudges my lips again and I turn my head away, spitting out what is still in my mouth.

“Now, now,” the voice says.

My skin breaks out in a cold sweat and my head starts to spin. I sense myself fading away and I struggle to hang on. I realize that the pressure I felt is someone straddling my torso, and I start writhing, bucking, and thrashing. I have the satisfaction of feeling my cheek connect with the cup, and feeling the warm liquid it contains sloshing over my face and neck. I also feel my leg connect with something hard and thin, like a vertical bar. As I hear a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass, the bright light I sensed beyond my shuttered eyelids disappears.

“That wasn’t very nice,” the voice says, all the sweetness gone from it. A hand grips my chin and brings my face straight up. I open my eyes and see the face hovering above mine.

“Dorothy.” I’m frightened at how weak my voice sounds and in a flash, my thoughts just before I lost consciousness come back to me. “It was you. You killed Bernie, didn’t you?”

“Why would I do such a thing?” Dorothy asks. The tone in her voice makes the question sound more like a challenge than a denial.

“I haven’t quite figured that part out yet,” I say, struggling to sort my thoughts. I look around and realize I’m on the floor inside Bernie’s office over by the couch. “The rumor that was going around, that the patients were dying off before their time, was true wasn’t it? Except the patients had it wrong. It wasn’t Bernie killing them off. It was you. It all made sense when I heard about the symptoms the dying people experienced. It kept nagging at me that such very different causes of death would bring on such similar symptoms.”

“You always were one of the smart ones,” Dorothy says. “I knew that back when I first met you, back when you worked in the ER. You should’ve stayed there. You were a good ER nurse.”

My head is still spinning and I can’t get rid of the sensation that I’m slowly fading away, like the Cheshire cat. “That nitroglycerin you had in your pocket, you don’t really need it, do you?”

“My doctor would say otherwise,” she says. “But then he tends to believe anything I tell him.”

“You mixed them together, the Cialis and the nitroglycerin pills.”

She shakes her head at me and clucks. “Now, why would I do that?”

“Because you know the combination of the two can be extremely dangerous. That’s why we ask patients who come to the ER with a complaint of chest pain if they’ve used any Viagra or Cialis in the last 24 hours. It’s because we might have to give them nitroglycerin to relieve their chest pain. I’m guessing you used more than one tablet on Bernie and the others, didn’t you?”

She sighs and drops the pretense. “I wanted things to be quick and merciful.”

“You made their blood pressures plummet down to nothing, throwing them into shock. Their bodies couldn’t compensate for the rapid vasodilation caused by the nitroglycerin because the Cialis does the same thing and for much longer.”

“It isn’t painful,” she says, as if this should make it all acceptable. “Is it?”

Her question terrifies me. I understand now why my head is pounding so hard and why I feel so weak. I thought it was because she coldcocked me with something, but it’s much more than that. Dorothy has poisoned me with the same drugs she used on the others. My blood pressure is probably so low it can barely sustain consciousness, and it’s only doing so because I’m lying down. When I try to get up, my dilated vessels won’t be able to compensate for the change in position and the extra pumping power needed to get blood to my brain. “You gave me the same thing? You gave me what you gave Bernie and those patients?”

“Well, not exactly. Bernie confiscated the Cialis I had in my desk here at work, but he didn’t know that I also had several tablets at home from the stash I took from Randolph. Sadly, I used all of it on Bernie so I have none left for you. It’s a shame, but I had to be sure. And it’s a good thing I didn’t scrimp because he almost didn’t die. It’s much easier with the older folks. Their systems are so weakened already that it doesn’t take much. With the comorbid conditions they have, no one expects any other cause. Even if they did, who would think to look for an erectile dysfunction drug in someone who is bedbound in a nursing home?”

“You put it in Bernie’s coffee?” I ask weakly.

“Humph,” she says, looking troubled. “I didn’t think you’d find it that fast, though technically it wasn’t in the coffee.”

“It was in the sugar substitute,” I say.

“Very good,” Dorothy says, bestowing me with a begrudging smile of admiration. “Bernie used a ton of that stuff in his coffee all the time.”

“You were here when he drank it?”

“Of course I was. I try to never leave things to chance. I called him Saturday morning and told him I wanted to go over the financials because I had uncovered some irregularities in the tax filings. The Saturday timing was intentional, of course. None of the other admin staff comes in on the weekends so we had the wing all to ourselves. I got here early, parked two streets over, and came in through the back door so no one would know I was here. I unplugged Bernie’s desk phone and mixed up the crushed drugs with the sweetener. Then I brewed a pot of coffee and waited for him to get here. I know he typically uses the back door so odds were no one was going to know either of us was in the building.

“Everything went according to plan at first. Bernie got out the tax papers and we each poured ourselves a cup of coffee. Same routine we’d gone through a hundred times before. That’s how I knew he put a lot of that fake sweetener into his coffee. Apparently, I didn’t make the mixture strong enough because while it did weaken him, it didn’t do it fast enough to kill or even disable him right away.”

I remember Hurley commenting on the tumescence in Bernie’s penis during his autopsy. The evidence of what was used on him—short and long acting vasodilators—was there all along, but we didn’t realize it. “Coldhearted,” I mutter, knowing I shouldn’t, but unable to help myself.

“I didn’t mean it to be. Honestly, I thought it would be quicker. I never stuck around with the others, so Bernie was the first one I was able to witness.” She pauses a moment and looks off into space with a reverent little smile. “I have to admit, it was intriguing to watch it all unfold. While all the close calls seemed a bother at first, I found the whole thing kind of exciting.”

“Close calls?” I asked, confused.

“Oh, yes. Several of them. When Bernie felt himself going, he asked me to help him, but I just sat there. He looked for his cell phone, but he’d set it on the desk when he first arrived and I picked it up with a loose glove and slipped it into my pocket while he was busy pouring his coffee. Then he tried to use the desk phone, but of course that didn’t work. I’d unplugged it.”

“We were wondering about that phone. Figured Bernie was too weak to use it. Or dropped it when he saw Bjorn.”

“Ah, yes, Bjorn. When that fool came in the back door and headed for the restroom, I didn’t know who it was at first because I had my back to the hall, and I thought my plan was going to fall apart. But no one came into the office and then Bernie lurched out of his chair and into the hallway. I’m sure he saw Bjorn and followed him, thinking Bjorn would help him. Everything in me told me to run, but I stayed in the office because I didn’t want to be seen and I didn’t know who had come in. Those moments were quite a rush, I tell you! I heard the bathroom door squeak the way it always does and I knew where they were.”

“You got lucky.”

“Not luck,” she says, looking offended. “Smarts.” She taps her temple a few times. “If you’re smart and you plan well, things go your way.”

I’m stalling for time and know Dorothy is smart enough to figure that out, but her reaction to my luck comment makes me think I might be able to get away with it a little longer if I go after her ego. I shake my head weakly and say, “No, just dumb luck.”

Dorothy frowns, but rather than broaching any further objections, she continues with her story. “I decided to go ahead as originally planned and I put on the gloves I had in my pocket and plugged the desk phone back in. I swapped the dead battery from my cell with Bernie’s and put his phone back on his desk. They’re company phones and the same make and model, so that part was easy. After that, I decided I was going to sneak out the back way and let whatever happened happen, but just as I reached the door to Bernie’s office, I heard the bathroom door open and saw Bjorn come shuffling out of there in a panic. He had his head bowed down so he didn’t see me as I ducked back inside the office. He went right by me, mumbling and muttering to himself.

“Again, dumb luck,” I say.

Dorothy’s jaw tightens. For a second, she looks like she wants to hit me, but she visibly gathers herself together, getting her emotions in check, and continues on as if I hadn’t said a thing. “Once Bjorn was out the door, I went down the hall to the bathroom and found Bernie on the floor, unconscious but not dead. I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone else arrived and I didn’t have much time. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if Bjorn hadn’t been kind enough to leave behind that isolyser powder. It provided the perfect finish and someone else to blame for Bernie’s death.”

“Bernie was already dead by then.”

“Was he? Hmm. I must be losing my touch.” She pauses, looking thoughtful for a moment, and then shakes it off. “Anyway, after dumping the powder down his throat, I hurried back down the hall and cleaned up my coffee cup so it would look like only one person had been there. I was going to empty Bernie’s cup and refill it with fresh coffee, and take the altered sweetener with me, but before I could, I heard voices and the back door opened again. That’s when Irene came in. That was a shocker. I didn’t know she had a key.”

“She’s had it for years,” I say, fighting the faintness. I’m still trying to stall for time because I know that if Dorothy gave me nitroglycerin only, the effects will be short-lived. If I can wait her out, I might have a chance. “The previous owner gave it to her,” I say. “They used to take the bodies out through the administrative wing.”

“Whatever,” Dorothy says, dismissing my side story with an irritated wave of her hand. “The point is, she got in. Fortunately, she went past the office straight to the men’s room and didn’t see me. I thought there might be others outside the door so I didn’t want to risk going out that way and being seen, and I couldn’t go out the front way. Not only was it likely Irene would see me, but whoever was at the front desk would, too. Plus I thought Irene would call the police right away, so I couldn’t stay and hide in Bernie’s office.” Dorothy pauses and sighs. “I have to say, that was my lowest moment in this whole thing. But I kept my cool and used my head. That’s when I saw the windows.”

“Windows?” I say, looking confused.

“Yes, those windows over there that open onto the side of the building near the end of the parking lot. They’re close enough to the ground that it was easy to unlock one and climb out.”

My challenges to Dorothy’s ego have bought me precious time. I can feel my strength starting to return, and the dizziness starting to recede, but I sense Dorothy’s growing impatience. I decide to switch it up and stroke her ego a little. To make her think I’m growing weaker, I talk in shorter gasps as if I’m fading. “Taking the coffee . . . that was . . . brilliant.”

“Yes, it was, and it wasn’t easy,” she says with a smile. “When the cops started talking about poisons and posted a guard back here, I thought my goose was cooked.” She pauses and frowns. “I still don’t understand how you were cued in that there was another cause of death. I figured suffocation from the powder would be obvious enough and would point the finger at Bjorn.”

“Might have,” I say in a breathless whisper. “But you were . . . too thorough . . . too neat.”

My cold sweat has dried and I can feel my strength returning bit by bit. I realize this means Dorothy was telling the truth when she said she didn’t give me the entire cocktail she gave the others. I can tell my blood pressure is slowly rising back to normal, but I know that she will soon realize this as well. If luck is with me, I might have one chance to escape from her clutches, but I will have to be careful to time any move I make with Dorothy’s awareness and my body’s recovery. If I get up too fast or too soon, I’ll simply pass out again. I need to keep her distracted a little longer.

Dorothy gives me an odd little smile and for a moment I fear the jig is up. But then she says, “I was too thorough? What do you mean by that?”

“Bjorn said he dropped . . . the container of isolyser powder . . . and some of it spilled on Bernie’s face.” I say this in short, halting phrases as if I’m too weak to speak an entire sentence at once. “But when we found Bernie . . . the bottle was empty . . . the powder all poured into his mouth.” I pause and moan for effect before continuing. “That, plus . . . massive pulmonary edema . . . we realized something and . . . someone else . . . was involved with his death.”