Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel) (9 page)

A hot flash washed over Lee, and
she sat staring dumbly at her boss, a tense silence hanging in the room.

“I assume the police are
investigating this,” Martha prompted her again.

“No,” Lee finally whispered.

“Then I'm confused.” Martha’s voice
was infused with renewed patience. “How do you know she was murdered?”

Robin shifted in the chair next to
Lee.

“I don’t know that she
was
murdered.
I just know that she wouldn't kill herself.”

“Jesus, Lee,” Fran broke the
silence. “Don’t start jumping to conclusions.”

“Who in the world would kill Diane?”
Andrew blurted.

The room had come suddenly to life.

“The police ruled it a suicide,
didn't they?” Robert asked, anxious to contribute. “They don't have any
suspects, do they?”

“No. They believe it was a suicide.”

“Well, then, maybe you'd better
forget it,” Andrew cautioned.

“I can't forget it!” she flared.

“It seems like an issue for the
police,” Martha’s voice rose above the others as she placed her fleshy palms on
the table in an effort to call a halt to the dialogue.

Lee looked at her with her jaw set.
“That’s the problem. The police won’t do anything. They hardly even questioned
Bud Maddox!”

Robin groaned, while Martha’s eyebrows
arched into twin peaks.

“Just what does Bud Maddox have to
do with Diane's death?”

“They were having an affair,” Fran
added salt to the wound.

Now everyone shifted. Andrew glared
across the table at Fran. Although the affair was widely known among hospital
staff, gossip normally didn’t make its way to the oval office. Martha Jackson wasn't
pleased with what she'd just heard. Her eyes seemed to shrink behind her
glasses, and she leaned forward, resting her heavy forearms on the table.

“I believe your fondness for Diane
is affecting your objectivity, Lee. This is none of your concern. You need to
leave it to the police.”

Lee opened her mouth to object, but
Martha cut her off with a wave of her hand.

“Maybe a few days off would help,”
Martha said.

Lee thought she’d gone deaf. All
the sound around her abated. Although Miranda was busily writing everything
down for the record, her pen was silent. Everyone in the room seemed to hold
their breath, and Lee’s eyes began to burn. God, what was she doing?  Why hadn’t
she just kept her mouth shut?

“Lee?” Martha asked.

Lee stared at her boos without really
seeing her.

“A few days off, Lee?” Martha’s
voice seemed to echo through a tunnel. “You haven't had proper time to grieve.”

This woman didn't know anything
about grieving, Lee thought, and her superficial concern was pathetic. But Lee
needed time to think. Perhaps she should take a few days off. Maybe then she
could find out what had happened to Diane. Lee swallowed and stuck out her
chin.

“I’ll take you up on that offer,
Martha. I think I could use a couple of days off.”

“Fine,” her boss replied. “If there
is nothing else, I need to prepare for the conference call.”

Martha  Jackson got up, signaling
an end to the meeting. Everyone else rose to leave. Robin turned to Lee,
mouthing the words
“Call me”
before she left the room. Lee gathered up
her notebook and few papers. Fran and Andrew waited for her at the door.

“Lee, have you arranged for the
photo shoot at Green Valley, yet?” Fran wanted to know.

“It’s scheduled for Friday night,
at eleven o’clock,” Lee replied without enthusiasm.

They had arranged a photo shoot at
a local lumber mill to illustrate how their 24-hour Occupational Health program
worked to promote wellness for more than five hundred companies in the area. Since
most lumber mills ran night shifts, the Director of Public Relations had arranged
for a nurse to give onsite flu shots to the employees during the graveyard
shift.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt if you were
there. I saw Jay Gilman yesterday,” Fran said. “I think he’s very excited about
it.”

“I’ll be taking a few days off,”
Lee retorted. “Sally is the Director of Marketing. She’ll just have to go solo
without me.”

“You could make nice with Gilman. He’s
a big client and could become a big donor. Sally is good, but she doesn’t carry
the weight a vice president would.”

Lee felt her face begin to burn. “Martha’s
word is my command.”

Fran touched her arm. “Lee, you
were close to Diane. Everyone knows that. Take the time off. This isn’t the
best place to deal with your grief.”

Fran’s empathy took Lee by surprise.
Fran would never be described as a warm personality. With her severe features
and frizzy short hair, even her appearance kept you at arm's length. Then, Lee
remembered a year earlier that Fran had gone through a difficult divorce. Maybe
she had more empathy than Lee realized.

Lee merely nodded. “Thanks.”

Fran and Andrew left Lee alone. She
stared for a long moment at her notepad, not really seeing the image she’d
doodled there. Her mind was a million miles away. With a sigh, she ripped off
the top sheet and tossed it into a nearby trashcan, leaving behind the sketch
of a large black bird perched on the branch of a tree.

CHAPTER TEN

Lee closed the door to her office
and sat with her head in her hands. She would not cry. The word humiliation was
not in her vocabulary. Humiliation meant you’d lost the game, the match, or the
competition. In her whole career, she’d never been given a bad review, let
alone a public reprimand. Now she’d been reprimanded in front of the entire
executive team and forced to take time off, when it was work that kept her sane.
News of this would spread like wildfire throughout the hospital, perhaps even
to members of her foundation board of directors. She should have just kept her
mouth shut.

With a deep sigh, she spun around
to look out the window to the hills and dark clouds beyond. So be it. She would
take the time off, but she wouldn’t sit idle. She had something to prove now,
and she would employ whatever she could to find the answers. Perhaps the time
off was a blessing in disguise. She turned back to her computer to finish
checking her emails before leaving. Just then, the phone rang.

“Are you okay?” Robin asked at the
other end.

Lee cradled the phone to her ear as
she opened emails. “Yeah, I just feel stupid.”

“It probably wasn’t your best move.
However, you really could use the time off. Look at it as an unscheduled
vacation.”

“Thanks, but I have more important
things to do. Will you be in your office this afternoon?”

Lee continued to skim down the list
of emails as she talked. She stopped at the one with the strange poem again,
allowing her eyes to skim across the words. There was a pause as Robin
consulted her calendar.

“I have a meeting right after lunch
which should take me up to about two o’clock.”

“Mind if I come down then?” Lee
asked, rubbing her eyes. “I have something to tell you.”

“You’re not quitting I hope,” Robin
asked with concern.

“No, of course not.”

“Okay,” Robin said, relieved. “I’ll
have an espresso waiting.”

Lee smiled in spite of her bad mood.
“Thanks. Make mine a double.”

“A double it is,” Robin said
cheerfully. “I’ll see you…”

Lee didn’t hear the end of Robin’s
sentence, though. A noise made her look up to find Carey’s husband pushing his
way past Marie into her office. Lee quickly flicked off the computer screen and
signaled for Marie to leave.

“Vern, what are you doing here?”
she asked a bit nervously.

Vern Mathews seemed to fill the
room the way helium fills a balloon. His voice wasn’t much more than a snarl.

“Stop talking to my wife.”

Clad in a long-sleeved, black
sweater, with thick, chapped hands resting at his side, Mathews could have been
an angry dockworker. Lee half expected him to slam a heavy coil of rope on the
desk in front of her.

“What are you talking about?” she
chuckled, trying to soften his mood.

“You know damn well what I’m
talking about. Stop talking to my wife about Diane’s death!  It’s none of your
business.”

“Sit down, Vern. Please.” She
gestured to a chair.

Mathews hesitated and then plopped
into the armchair facing the desk. This man represented everything Lee hated about
men. She’d spent a lifetime watching her stepfather control every moment of her
mother’s life, down to the flavor of her toothpaste. It took all of Lee’s
control not to throw this clown out, but she consciously lowered her voice.

“What are you so upset about, Vern? 
Carey’s sister is dead. We talked about Diane, that’s all.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” 
He sat forward in the chair, clenching his fists. “I know what you talked
about. You think that bitch was murdered!”

Lee nearly came out of her chair. “There
are some unanswered questions,” she said through clenched teeth.

“She killed herself and left a note
saying so. What the hell more do you want?”

“I want to know why,” Lee pressed. “And
you should, too. She was your sister-in-law.”

“Diane was a pain in the ass!”

This time, Lee stood up. “I don’t
appreciate that.”

She remained very still, allowing
the electricity between them to grow. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

“What I meant was…” He glared at
her, and then rose to his feet and leaned forward to rest his hands on the desk,
his right hand resting directly on top of her letter opener. “You know what I
meant. And you know what I mean about the suicide. It’s hard enough to deal
with people talking behind our backs about a suicide, but a murder…I won’t have
it.” He picked up the letter opener and pointed it directly at Lee. “Don’t put
any ideas into Carey’s head. She’s my wife, and this is none of your business!”

Lee held her ground. “Diane was my
employee, and
my friend. So, it is my business, whether you like it or
not.”

His small eyes narrowed until the
pupils were barely visible. “It’s not your business,” he growled. “And I’m not
playing games here. Back off!”

Lee forced herself to maintain eye
contact, although she couldn’t help but feel threatened by the sharp steel
pointed at her face.

“You fucking bitch,” he whispered,
his mouth drawn into a frown. “You’re no better than Diane.”

With a sudden flip of his wrist, he
stabbed the letter opener into the desk and whirled around to march out of the
office. The room was dense with the force of his anger, and Lee held her breath
until the room pressure neutralized. Marie appeared at the doorway like a
nervous bird.

“I’m so sorry, Lee,” she said, her
eyes wide, staring at the letter opener. “He just pushed right past me.”

Lee swallowed several times before
answering. “That’s okay.”

“Should I call security?”

“No, he’s gone,” she said, taking a
deep breath. She pulled the letter opener from the desk and put it into her
drawer. “I’ll be leaving shortly anyway.”

Marie was only about twenty-eight
and had probably never known malice in her life. Yet, right now, her face
registered real fear. Gently, Lee convinced Marie to return to her desk and
then sat back down to allow the adrenalin to slowly dissipate. Her right knee
throbbed, and she dug her fingers into the muscles around her kneecap to
relieve the tension. Once her breathing had returned to normal, she turned off
the computer and went out to Marie’s desk.

“By the way,” she began, taking a
deep breath to control the level of her voice, “I’m going to take a few days
off. I need some space.” It was a lie, but she hoped it sounded natural under
the circumstances. Maybe Martha’s executive assistant wouldn’t spread the truth
about her administrative leave too quickly.

“We’ll hold down the fort,” Marie
replied a little cautiously.

Lee recognized her nervousness. “Don’t
worry. He won’t be back,” Lee reassured her.

Jenny, her Data Information
Coordinator, poked her head around the partition at the back of the office. The
look on her face made it clear she shared Marie’s anxiety.

“Listen, thanks for taking care of
stuff around here, you guys. I know it hasn’t been easy.” There was an awkward
pause before she said to Marie, “By the way, did you check Diane’s emails?”

“Yes. I went through them the next
day. There was just the usual stuff. I took care of everything.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Lee returned to her office to get
her purse, just as Andrew appeared at the doorway again.

“I’m sorry about what happened this
morning with Martha,” he said, as if the whole thing had been his fault. “You
okay?”

“I’m okay.” She slipped the purse
straps over her shoulder thinking she really wasn’t in the mood for Andrew
right now. “I could use some time off anyway.” She moved toward the door, but
Andrew just stood there, blocking her way.

“Martha shouldn’t have reacted the
way she did,” he said obstinately. “You have a right to your opinion.”

“I’m sure it sounded pretty
dramatic.”

“The police did rule it a suicide. I
suppose they know what they’re doing.”

“Maybe,” she said without
conviction.

“You need to be careful,” he
pressed. “Martha doesn’t like anything that reflects negatively on the hospital.
I wouldn’t want you to lose your job. You didn’t earn that Master’s degree for
nothing,” he tried to smile. “Get some rest,” he said before leaving.

Lee watched him leave feeling
completely disengaged from her body. Too much was happening, too fast. On
impulse, she reached into her purse and found the bird. For whatever reason, it
felt warm to the touch and gave her an immense sense of calm right now. She
wrapped her fingers around it and marched out of the office.