What Stella Wants
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Marygrace was scuttling down the hallway but the mention of expense and doctors made her pause momentarily. “With Medicaid paying? Hell, places like this don’t get real doctors. We get their P.A. and if it’s really bad, we might see them at the end of the day, when they’re already too tired and could care less about whether one old person lives or dies.” She apparently thought better of this because she quickly tacked on a disclaimer. “Not all of them are sharks. I’m just saying most of them are.”
“The doc here, is he a shark?”
“No comment,” she answered grimly. “But I like Stephanie.”
“Was she the one who initially treated Baby today?”
Marygrace shook her head. “Nope. She was seeing patients in Dr. Alonzo’s office when Baby got hurt. The charge nurse sent her on to the hospital and she’s still there. But Stephanie saw her after she reported someone had been in her room two days ago.”
Jake was walking along with us, the frown on his face deepening with every step. When Marygrace stopped to speak to a resident, I took him aside. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just trying to put this all together. I mean, why go out a bathroom window and not a door?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Marygrace said, rejoining us and shamelessly eavesdropping. “All the doors are locked. You can only get out by punching in the code on the keypad that’s located next to each door.”
“And don’t all the employees have the code?”
“Sure,” Marygrace said, grinning. “Unless you change it and don’t tell them. That’s what I did as soon as I got back here. I wanted to control who was coming and going until the police got here. The front door was the only door with open access and I had the front desk clerk writing down the names of everyone who arrived or departed.”
“So, why didn’t she just walk out the front door?”
“Look at him!” Marygrace said, gesturing to Jake. “He’s got cop written all over him! He’s big. He’s got a bulge under his suit coat and he was outside talking on the cell phone right in front of the building. I’d take the window too, if I’d been in her shoes.”
I nodded, making a mental note to get the name of the staffing agency the nursing home used to hire Aida. They’d be reluctant to talk, if not downright uncooperative, fearing a lawsuit from the nursing home and citing confidentiality, but we could still try.
A tall woman with close-cropped wiry black hair stood in front of the North Hall nurses’ station, writing in a thick chart. She wore a spotless white lab coat, open to reveal a downright sexy pink knit top that crisscrossed her ample chest and highlighted the rich mocha color of her skin. As we approached, she looked up, took one look at my face and turned away from her paperwork.
“You don’t have enough to do, Marygrace, you gotta go gathering people up from the parking lot for me to see?”
Marygrace went off into one of her long, rapid-fire explanations punctuated with requests for medical attention and information. Within moments I was sitting in a chair in the conference room wincing as Stephanie dabbed Betadine on the scrape above my eye and Jake peppered her with questions about Baby Blankenship.
“Without Baby or her P.O.A. signing a release, I can’t talk to you about her condition or any treatment I may or may not have provided. As I understand it, you two have been retained by Marygrace to investigate the theft of items from Ms. Blankenship’s room. Frankly, I don’t see how I can help you.”
Great. What now? I looked to Marygrace and saw her deep in thought. She cocked her head to the side and smiled at the physician’s assistant.
“Of course you can’t talk about Baby, specifically, but you could speak generally about people like Baby, people who…I don’t know, let’s say, elderly people with maybe midstage Alzheimer’s.”
Marygrace was fairly levitating with the possibilities of obtaining information from Stephanie without breaking the laws pertaining to confidentiality.
“How about this,” Marygrace continued. “Suppose someone with a fair amount of memory loss encountered a trauma and lost something important to them. Suppose they then forgot what they’d lost. Would there be a chance that they could wake up tomorrow and perhaps remember more details, like the specific item that was missing or the description of the person who’d taken it?”
Stephanie smiled. “Perhaps. It happens. Of course, they could wake up tomorrow and have forgotten the entire incident, too.”
Jake was worse at hiding his frustration than I was. He fidgeted impatiently and finally turned to Marygrace. “Can we see her room?”
Marygrace sighed. “Sure. I told the staff to leave the room untouched, but I was too late. They were already trying to put things in order by the time I got back to the facility. They didn’t know. I guess they don’t watch those police shows like I do.” She smiled ruefully. “Come on. I’ll show you her room while Stephanie finishes doctoring Stella.”
“Wait a minute! We’re done, aren’t we?” I jumped up off the stool despite Stephanie’s attempts to continue dabbing me with swabs and ointments and took off after Jake and Marygrace. No way was I getting the short end of this investigation.
“Thanks, Stephanie,” I called over my shoulder, drowning out her protests.
I reached the door to Baby Blankenship’s room just as the other two were walking into it. It looked like any room in any hospital or nursing home in America, with the exception of a wall covered in family photographs and some other brightly colored knickknacks scattered around.
I had just begun carefully inspecting a photograph of a much younger Bitsy, surrounded by the rest of her family at what appeared to be a birthday party for Baby, when my cell phone rang.
“Stella?” Nina’s voice sounded strange, as if she had a cold or was trying not to cry.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was trying to help,” she said and sniffed loudly.
“Nina, tell me what’s going on.”
Jake and Marygrace were both studying me with concerned expressions.
“Well, after you guys left I remembered I had a hair appointment later and like, well, I have this paint chip I wanted Verna to see, you know, so she’d know what color I wanted for the highlights this time?”
“Uh-huh.”
It would do no good to rush Nina. It would only make her back up and start the tale all over again. The best thing I could do was pray she wound it up in short order.
“Well, you know how you were talking about that limo and all and Aunt Lucy being so pissed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was there! He was dropping her off! So I like, got the license plate number and—Oh, God, Stella! It’s awful!”
Nina began to sob. When she gulped air, I broke in.
“Nina, what’s awful?”
“Oh!” she wailed. “I didn’t know I was so good!”
“Nina, what are you talking about?”
My cousin sniffed loudly, sounding offended. “Stella! For pity’s sake, try and follow what I’m saying! I am just like, totally good at this detective crap! I found out who he is and…and…”
“And?” I wanted to jump through the phone and throttle the girl.
“And, well, I found out too much, that’s what!”
This was followed by a renewed burst of crying, punctuated by loud sniffs and snorts.
“Nina,” I said, trying to be heard over the sheer volume of her sobbing. “Where is Spike? Let me talk to her.”
“She…she…can’t come. She went to see the…D.A.” More crying followed and I silently counted to ten and prayed for patience.
“Okay, Nina, now try and get hold of yourself. I need to know what you found out.”
Nina snuffled, blew her nose loudly and said, “All right.” She drew in a deep breath and said absolutely nothing.
“Nina, who is he? What did you learn about the man? Is he a criminal? What is it?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone!”
“Nina! Why not?”
Silence from her end of the line and then the infernal tear machine cranked up and she was off and running.
“You…you…you have to come here…to Aunt Lucy’s. Right now! Oh, this is awful!”
“Has something happened to Aunt Lucy?” Fear rose in my chest, tightening my throat as visions of Aunt Lucy at the hands of an evil stranger snapped in a rapid-fire slide-show of possibilities.
“No! She’s out again somewhere…probably with…him.”
Jake was mouthing “What? Why is she crying?”
All I could do was shake my head and frown. It was impossible to explain while also trying to calm Nina down.
“All right, honey,” I said finally. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. It shouldn’t be more than a half hour at the most.”
“A half hour?” she wailed.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Oh…oh…oh!” She was hiccupping now. “What…what…ever!”
I snapped the cell shut and rolled my eyes at Jake. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it doesn’t sound good, and Spike’s out working on the D.A. I don’t think there’s a lot we can accomplish here right now. Maybe we should return when Baby gets back from the hospital and has had some time to rest.”
Marygrace’s eyes widened. “You guys can’t stay away too long. What if Baby comes back and something else happens? I want you to protect her!”
Jake looked puzzled. “I thought you wanted us to find whatever got stolen. You didn’t say anything about protection.”
Marygrace stamped her tiny foot and glared at him. “Aw, come on man! Do I have to spell out everything? Baby got hurt and that aide beat up Stella. I’d say the woman needs protection!”
A little muscle in Jake’s jaw began to twitch and I knew he was getting frustrated with Marygrace’s impatience.
“Okay, Marygrace, if you want to hire private protection…”
Marygrace held up her hand, stopping me. “Whoa, now exactly how much is that going to cost? I mean, I am a social worker. Money doesn’t just grow on trees, you know. Anyway, I guess the facility might pay, but I need to check it out. In the meantime, we have to take care of Baby. Where’s your—”
I broke her off before she could question my civic-mindedness.
“All right! All right! Jake, how about you drop me at Aunt Lucy’s and go on to the hospital so you can keep an eye on Baby. I’ll go see what’s got Nina so upset, then relieve you at six, either there or here, depending on when they release her.”
Jake nodded but before he could add anything else, his cell phone rang.
After he said hello all I could hear was the sound of Nina sobbing. I snatched the phone out of his hand and pressed the receiver to my ear.
“All right! We’re coming! You don’t have to call Jake to ride herd on me, okay?”
“It’s a matter…of…life and death,” she said shakily. “I thought I might’ve forgotten to…tell you…that.”
The cell phone went dead as Nina severed the connection. Oh, this was just too unbelievable. We finally get a case that has nothing to do with insurance fraud or cheating spouses and what happens? We develop a rash of personal problems! Somebody give me a break!
Still, a little flame of apprehension ignited inside my chest, growing stronger the closer I got to my office. Nina was a dingbat, no doubt about it, but she rarely got upset without cause. In fact, Nina never overreacted, at least not in the presence of real danger. So something was wrong, all right, and if Nina was on target, it would be a matter of life and death.
Chapter 4
Nina had stopped crying by the time we reached the brick row house she, Spike and I shared with Aunt Lucy. My Australian sheepdog, Lloyd, sat in my uncle Benny’s old place at the kitchen table, the seat of honor he’d been given ever since Lloyd and I had returned from Florida and Aunt Lucy had decided he was my uncle reincarnated. Nina sat next to him, her eyes swollen and red, nursing a cup of herbal tea. Aunt Lucy’s newest adoptee, Fang, the part-wolf dog, lay at Nina’s feet.
“Stella, what happened to you?”
I frowned, momentarily having forgotten that my eye was swollen and by now turning black.
“It’s a long story. There’s more to the nursing home situation than we thought, but tell me about Aunt Lucy first.”
Nina sighed and shook her head sadly. “I guess the whole world’s got problems. Now Fang and Lloyd aren’t getting along.”
As if on cue, Fang lifted one lip to expose a nasty-looking canine tooth and snarled softly at Lloyd. On her worst day, Fang could eat Lloyd for a snack and not feel satisfied, but this had never been an issue. Lloyd and Fang had met on the beach in New Jersey and from that first moment, they’d been inseparable. When Fang’s owner decided to move to the Caribbean, it seemed only natural that my generous aunt would bring the monstrous beast into the family.
“What about Aunt Lucy’s boyfriend?” I asked, ignoring the dog issues. “You said it was a matter of life and death.”
Nina’s momentary calm dissolved. Her chin quivered and tears filled her eyes. “It’s sooo sad,” she wailed.
“Nina! Just tell me what’s going on!”
“Well, I told you I got the license plate number and well, you know I have that friend, Micky, at the D.M.V.?”
I nodded, encouraging her.
“Well, she got his name.” This produced a fresh spillover of tears. “It’s Arnold Koslovski. He graduated from Glenn Ford High School in 1951, went into the army, then to Villa Nova on a VA loan and then, for some unknown reason, moved to Michigan. I guess that’s where he met his wife, Elizabeth. Anyway, he stayed there and eventually opened his own company. He was some big entrepreneur, owned one of the first chains of electronics stores and then he discovered computers. Everything he touched turned to money. He’s like a gazillionaire or something. There were all these articles about him and his wife doing good deeds and giving away millions.”
Nina blew her nose as the tears continued to fall. Jake squatted down to pet Fang but drew his hand back when Fang snarled.
“Man, she is testy today! Think she could be sick?”
Leave it to a man to change the subject whenever feelings get involved!
“She doesn’t look sick to me. She looks fat and lazy. Maybe living the good life is starting to get on her nerves.”
Lloyd whined and gave his beloved Fang a concerned look. Nina blew her nose again and continued on with her convoluted report.
“Arnold and Aunt Lucy were in the same class,” Nina said. “I found Aunt Lucy’s old yearbook lying out on the coffee table. She must’ve been looking through it.” Nina reached down into her lap and drew an ancient volume up from beneath the table. A napkin marked the page where Arnold Koslovski’s teenage face smiled out at us.
“Nina, this is all well and good, but if there’s a life-threatening situation here, could you just cut to the chase and tell me about it?”
Mistake. Big mistake. Never rush Nina, it only makes the situation and the story last that much longer. My cousin sniffed and scowled at me.
“I am like, totally telling you about this!” she snapped. “You have to know the history and background to understand the gravity of Aunt Lucy’s situation.”
“All right, all right! Do it your way!”
“I will. As I was saying…Aunt Lucy’s been receiving anonymous flowers and cards ever since Uncle Benny died. Then when we were at the beach, you know, on our last case, the flowers started coming there, and there were groceries, too. Well, Arnold must’ve hired people to watch Aunt Lucy. How else could he have found out where we’d gone? And, like, I thought it was totally creepy until I found this!”
Nina shoved a piece of paper at me. It was a copy of an old newspaper article dated 1971. “Kidnapped Koslovski Heiress Found Dead,” was the headline. I read the piece with Jake leaning over my shoulder.
“So the guy’s only kid was killed in a bungled kidnapping?” Jake clearly didn’t get the connection to my aunt.
“Isn’t that awful?” Nina looked at the two of us and seemed to be waiting for us to “get” it. “So, like, the guy doesn’t want anything bad to ever happen to people he loves,” she said with a tone of exaggerated patience. “So, he’s been watching over Aunt Lucy for, like, ever. That’s how he knew Uncle Benny died.”
“Nina, that doesn’t make sense. Why would some guy Aunt Lucy went to high school with have private investigators watch her when she’s married to another guy? That is creepy.”
“No, look!” Nina snatched up the yearbook and flipped to another page she’d marked with a napkin. “See!”
Jake and I stared down at the picture of my aunt as a young girl. “She looks like you,” Jake murmured. “Look at those huge, dark eyes and that hair!” Jake looked at me with a speculative eye. “You had black hair just like hers in high school. What’s with the blond?”
In truth, the blond was a stakeout cover on my first and only big case with the Garden Beach, Florida, Police Department but I liked it and so, as part of starting over, I’d kept it. I ignored Jake and turned my attention back to the yearbook. Spidery blue script covered the margin next to my aunt’s picture.
“Can you read that?” I asked Nina.
“It says, ‘Lucille, wait for me. Our love is eternal. A.’ You see? That proves it!”
“Proves what?”
“That he loved her, even though she didn’t wait and married Uncle Benny. ‘Our love is eternal.’ Isn’t that just too romantic?”
“Not when the guy stalks her for the rest of her life,” I said, concern growing with every new fact Nina trotted out. She didn’t seem at all concerned about this part of Aunt Lucy’s relationship with Arnold Koslovski, so what was bothering her?
“Didn’t you say the guy’s married?” Jake was obviously trying to hone in on the “life or death” issue, too.
“His wife died two years ago,” Nina said. “She had leukemia.” The tears were back in Nina’s eyes. We were getting closer to what was bothering her. “And now…now he’s back in town, looking for his beloved Lucille before…before…”
“Before?”
“Before he dies! Arnold’s dying!”
Okay. Now we had an issue. Aunt Lucy had gone half-crazy after Uncle Benny died. If this Arnold person was dying, how would she take a second loss of a love?
“How do you know the guy’s dying? Are you sure?”
Nina nodded miserably. “Yeah. He was going to buy the old Proctor place, signed the contract and everything, but then he reneged.”
“Nina, how do you know all this? We were only gone, what, half an hour and you found out all this?”
Nina looked even more miserable. “Yeah, told you I’m good.”
“Honey, just because Arnold didn’t buy the Proctor place, it doesn’t mean he’s dying.”
Nina nodded. “I know. I found out about the Proctor deal from Cindy Evans, she works at Burgess Realty and I knew she’d know if somebody like Arnold Koslovski moved back to town. She’s the one who gave me his new address and that’s how come I know he’s dying!”
Jake couldn’t stand another second of this. “What in the hell does that have to do with the man’s health?”
“Because,” Nina said as she looked up at him, “it’s the hospice unit in Honeybrook. Arnold Koslovski couldn’t live there if he wasn’t dying!”
Nina started sobbing and my cell phone began vibrating. I ignored it. A minute later Jake’s cell also went off. Marygrace Llewellen was an impatient woman.
“Guess she wants to know why we haven’t made it to the hospital yet.”
Jake gave me a look that said “And we took this case on as a public service because…why?”
I ignored him and reached for my cell phone. “Go ahead. I’ll take care of her and this situation too.” Nina was still snuffling into a wad of tissues, too lost in her own conclusions about Arnold Koslovski and his relationship with my aunt to pay any attention to us.
“Good luck!” Jake was gone in an instant, probably relieved to have a valid excuse to take off. For once I couldn’t blame him. I looked down at my sodden cousin, took a deep breath and once again tried to convince her that she was jumping to conclusions but it did no good. Nina remained adamant in her beliefs about Arnold Koslovski. When Spike arrived home from her information-gathering trip to the D.A.’s office, I gladly relinquished my responsibilities for my cousin’s happiness and refocused my thoughts on Bitsy and Baby Blankenship.
I started by responding to Marygrace’s third page in thirty minutes, launching into an offensive before she could tackle me with another one of her verbal onslaughts.
“Jake’s on his way to the hospital now,” I said as soon as she came on the line. “We were checking with some of our informants, you know, for recently fenced stolen property that might’ve belonged to an elderly woman. It was a shot in the dark, what with most of your pawns consisting of tools and elec—”
“Never mind that!” Marygrace whispered into the phone. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry over here! The State’s in, and I don’t mean your regular auditor types. I think they’re feds!”
“What?” I looked up at the ceiling, hoping I was communicating directly with the Person or Persons in Charge. Why me? I asked silently. Is this paybacks for spying on Aunt Lucy? I’m telling you, I was only trying to protect her! And if this is about putting off Bitsy…Well, don’t you think I’m already feeling bad enough, now you gotta add feds to the mix? I could lose my license if they get pissy about things.
“Stella,” Marygrace snapped, forgetting to whisper. “Pay attention! The State comes in to audit nursing homes once a year. They come in any other time they feel like it, but most often it’s because someone’s made a complaint about something we’re doing or not doing to the old people. Well, they’re here, only I know all the State people and I’ve never seen these two, no matter what their credentials say.”
“Are they doing the regular things the State does when they come?”
“Hell, no! They asked for Baby’s chart and then they went into her room! She’s not there. There isn’t any reason for them to go in there, and the charge nurse says they’ve been looking all over her room. I think you’d better get Jake to lay low until they leave. I don’t want any more questions.”
“So, you want us to back off and let Baby come on back to the nursing home without any coverage.”
Marygrace sighed. “No. I want Jake to lay low, you know, don’t let the feds know who he is and what he’s doing.”
Right. Now that would be easy. What was he supposed to do, dress up like a nurse?
I hung up and dialed Jake’s cell phone number.
“Dr. Carpenter.” No hello. Just Jake sounding very professional and lying his ass off.
“This is Nurse Barbie calling. Wanna check my temperature?”
“I’m with a patient. Can it wait?”
“Jake, Marygrace just called. She thinks she’s got feds at the old folks home and she wants you to stick to Baby like glue, but disguise yourself.”
“No can do,” he said cryptically. “They are probably familiar with my work.”
“Nurse Barbie’s familiar with your work, too,” I said, and felt a familiar rush of warmth as I remembered his last house call.
“I think you should probably do the consult yourself. I’m in the middle of completing a consultation on a patient who’s about to be discharged.”
“You’ve got an audience and it’s more than Baby Blankenship, huh?”
“I’m sure your qualifications will more than meet the need.”
“Yours too, Doctor,” I cooed. “I guess I’ll see what I can round up before Baby gets back to the home. So, they’re about to ship her out?”
“Yes, absolutely. Within the hour. Feel free to consult with me after you’ve assessed the patient.”
“Oh, Doc, I do love it when you talk dirty!” I said and hung up.
Great. I had to go undercover at the nursing home where too many people had already seen me, and my black eye from the earlier tangle would be a certain giveaway. How was I going to pull this one off?
Thirty minutes later, after a visit to the attic and a search through a multitude of chests and boxes, I emerged from my room a changed woman. If Aunt Lucy arrived before I walked out the door, I was dead meat. I could justify it as having been done for a worthy cause, but knowing my aunt, this would cut no sway with her. Sacrilege is sacrilege.