When You're Expecting Something Else (18 page)

Instantly, he gets a hit on the name. Jared Wise Senior, he learns, is hospitalized at San Francisco Geriatric Center. The news causes Stan to jump up and grab a printout from a stack of papers on his desk. His quick blue eyes scan the page until he sees what he’s looking for. San Francisco Geriatric Center is on the FBI watch list for Medicare fraud.

Connie’s friend Jared Wise is probably related to the old man, he speculates. What the hell’s going on? A few more keystrokes and he learns that Wise Exports Incorporated, once a Boston based icon closed its doors decades ago, and its huge financial holdings had gone to the two surviving heirs: Jared Wise Senior and Jared Wise the Third.

“Damn,” Stan says out loud. He really likes Connie, and she might be in the middle of a big mess. Could the caregivers at her friend’s house in Palo Alto also be involved in fraud? Whenever big money enters an equation, you can bet the evildoers will come out of the woodwork. He’s seen it time after time after time.

Stan’s reporter nose begins to twitch.

Chapter Twenty

Jared felt pretty good for a change, less pain and almost clear headed. Marta took good care of him and he found himself growing more and more fond of her. She was so attentive, and those eyes! She just had a way of looking at him that made him believe he was the most important person in the world to her. Fred was a good caregiver, too. He never complained about anything and Jared knew he wasn’t the easiest patient. Because of his mending bones, Jared had to be lifted and shifted by Fred frequently.

Fred was actually a physical therapist, but to Jared he seemed more a jack-of-all-trades. He helped Jared with bed exercises, plus the bathing and toileting chores. As much as Jared hated the feelings of dependency, he knew he needed help. He certainly didn’t want Marta shaving him or wiping his ass, though he loved that she came in after Fred finished with his morning bath to give him a sweet eucalyptus-scented rub down. He smiled to himself remembering how her soft, lotion-coated hand had drifted low this morning, dropping from his chest to his waist, and then pushing the warm, moist cream well below his belly button. She apologized then, just saying, “Oops, sorry.”

If he didn’t know better, he’d think it wasn’t as accidental as it seemed. But, Marta was totally above board, professional and ethical in all of her behaviors.
 
It was a huge turn-on for him knowing it was accidental. He found himself thinking about it, a sexual tease, and hoping she would accidentally repeat the motion again next time. Such a slight tease, but he couldn’t get the thought of it out of his mind. It made his manhood respond, which automatically turned his thoughts to Shannon Tanner. Where was Shannon, anyway? Why hadn’t she come by?

Now that he was feeling better, clear headed, he had lots to think about, starting with his relationship with Shannon. He loved Shannon in his own way, but outside the bedroom they were like day and night. She was gregarious, outgoing and loved to be in the limelight, whereas he was quiet and shied from attention, preferring to remain in the shadows instead.
 
Not that he was passive, just maybe more introspective. But, in bed, he and Shannon liked the same things.
 

Shannon jokingly referred to their arrangement as “service maintenance,” which Jared thought was crude. In a way it embarrassed him. He preferred “sexually consenting adults.” At the same time, he thoroughly enjoyed the benefits knowing that sex was regularly available to him without the obligations that usually went with it. Unlike some women he’d known in the past, Shannon never manipulated with sex. She just liked it, wanted it, and delivered. It made his life as a bachelor all the more comfortable. Besides, he really did like Shannon. She was always very thoughtful and also very funny. He missed her playfulness, and realized that he often took her for granted.

“Where the hell is my phone,” he mumbled, looking around, wanting to talk to Shannon. Then, vaguely, he remembered that Connie Harrison had come by with it, something about Art Wilkinson and playing tennis. He’d really been out of it. Didn’t she have Isabella with her, too? Where was Isabella now?

 
Jared felt the cloud of doom close in again. Something wasn’t right. Odd he should remember that now. He pondered the darkness; it was as if a black fog rolled in sometimes and obscured his view. He could remember some things, like his relationship with Shannon, clear as ever, and then forget other things as if they’d never even happened. Spooky!

He shifted his position using the trapeze bar overhead. He felt confused, almost dazed. Something troubled him, something invisible. He thought about Marta, her beauty and her kindness. But why did he feel such an overwhelming sense of doom? He began to tremble slightly and felt his heart rate quicken, and just as suddenly he heard a commotion forming just outside his bedroom door.

“No, you can’t just barge in there! Jared needs to rest. He’ll need his medicine before he can receive visitors.” Marta’s voice was firm and commanding, not at all like the soft caressing sound he was used to hearing from her.

A struggle ensued, a thud against the closed bedroom door, and then the door flew open. “I’m calling the police!” Julius yelled.

Marta rushed in. “Oh, poor Jared,” she said. He saw her frightened face for an instant, and then in the same instant felt the jab of a needle in his deltoid.

A crowd flowed into the room. Jared’s mouth drooped to his chest as the drug took effect. He watched his friends: Bradley Lawton, Art Wilkinson, Shannon Tanner, Connie Harrison, and Maggie Martin take on ghoulish features. Confusion clouded his vision and furrowed his forehead. He tried to speak, to ask what was going on, but his mouth twisted and contorted and only grotesque utterances came out.

*****

The police arrive at Jared’s house and we’re all told to sit in the living room. “Tell me your name and how you’re involved in the this?” the blue clad officer asks me. He’s already talked with Marta and Julius. He listened to them first, and then talked with Maggie and Bradley. We’re divided into two sides of the room, Jared’s friends on one side, the caregivers on the other.

My fingers tremble slightly, making the papers in my hand also shake. This is the first time I’ve ever been questioned by cops. I explain as best I can my relationship to Jared, which compared to the others, is really not much of a relationship at all.

“So you’re not a relative, either. None of you are relatives,” Officer Mulligan says, shaking an accusatory finger at our side of the room
.
“Now, I’m doing you all a favor showing you these papers. Marta Lewski and her healthcare team have every right to be here taking care of Mr. Wise. The rest of you are trespassing. I could charge you with breaking and entering if you insist on interfering with their care.” I don’t know what he thinks we broke, and then I realize that he means the way Bradley forced his foot in the door when Marta tried to close us out. Then we all pushed forward, though I really just followed.

The papers shaking in my hand are from Jared’s Aunt Margaret, stating clearly that she has legal power over all Jared’s affairs. She is the only one who can make decisions for him while he’s compromised.

“You can see just by looking at him that Mr. Wise is incapable of coherent speech. You’re a nurse, Miss Harrison. I’m not any kind of a healthcare professional, yet I can see that he’s not in his right mind. Now, what do you have to say for yourself?” The officer has a point. I get it.

I’m so confused. I don’t know any of these people and I hardly know Jared. I don’t know why they think that Jared doesn’t really have an Aunt Margaret. To me, it looks like he does. I don’t know what to say, so I sit there, mum, and I’m sure, looking dumb.

“Do you wish to go to jail?” Miss Harrison.

I shake my head.

“So, what’s your connection to Mr. Wise now?” Mulligan asks

I feel bullied. “I have his cat, Isabella,” I say. It’s all I can think of that connects me to Jared Wise.

“I suggest you go all go, now,” Mulligan says with eyes boring into mine. The officers haven’t even talked with Shannon Tanner or Art Wilkinson. They both sit silently, Art listening and looking thoughtful, Shannon looking small and frightened. I can’t help but wonder who she is to Jared. Maggie is also dismissed.

I follow Maggie out the front door feeling numb, but also relieved to be outside, away from the angry officers. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t really want to be involved, except that I remember Jared’s moment of clarity, his asking me to help Maggie. He said he had no Aunt Margaret. I heard him myself. I truly believe that Jared is being drugged, but why?

Outside, Maggie and I wait in the car until the others file out. Then Maggie asks me to wait some more while she congregates with them near Bradley’s car. Before coming here, we’d all met up at the coffee shop in Palo Alto. It was Bradley who insisted we come here and force our way past Marta to see Jared. They all know Jared in ways that I don’t. Now I just want to drop Maggie at her hotel so I can go home to Isabella. I’m hungry and out of sorts, and none if this is really any of my business.

Maggie looks defeated when she finally climbs into the passenger seat of my car. “What a mess,” she says. “They’ve really go their clutches into Jared’s life. Do you have any ideas of what we should do next?”

She said
we
, including me, so I guess I’m still involved. “What about calling Dr. Matthews and see if he can evaluate Jared’s medications. Jared needs to be coherent enough to speak for himself,” I suggest.

“Good idea.” Maggie pulls her cell phone out. Office hours are long over for today, but she has the answering service put her through to his home. She exchanges a few sentences with Dr. Matthews, though Maggie mostly listens. When she closes up her phone, she looks at me in a way that causes a sinking feeling in my stomach. The glow of a streetlight filtering through the windshield casts eerie shadows across her face. “Aunt Margaret has taken him off Jared’s case. His new doctor is a Dr. Julius Fenway,” she says.

“Julius? That’s the name of one of those caregivers inside!” I exclaim.

“Whatever are we going to do?” Maggie cries.

She invites me to have dinner with her at the hotel restaurant so we can discuss the latest developments, but once there we sit silently because neither one of us has anything new to say. We’ve already lamented our growing fears. The restaurant is unusually quiet with few diners, which adds to the feeling of gloom that threatens to overwhelm me.

The waiter brings the chef salads we each ordered, the easiest food on the menu without having to think. “Who’s Shannon anyway?” I ask, moving a lettuce leaf around on my plate, a drop of Thousand Island dressing spilling over onto the white tablecloth.