Flashback Page 4

  He thanked her and handed her his card. “Just in case you think of anything that might explain what set her off or how she escaped.”

  “I’m sure you’ve already checked, but maybe the security door malfunctioned?”

  “We checked. It’s working just fine.”

  “And no family member signed her out.”

  “Nothing like that. And she didn’t put a chair through the window.”

  And there’s a bloody six-month hole I have to account for.

  6

  THE STORY WAS AT THE BOTTOM of the front page. “Elderly Nursing Home Patient Slays Cobbsville CVS Manager.” It didn’t make sense.

  René bought the paper and headed to Broadview Nursing Home, an attractive complex nestled in a forest of oaks and resembling a tiny New England village. The Alzheimer’s disease unit was in the newly redone two-story wing at the rear. She parked her Honda and went inside where she waved hello to the receptionist. But instantly she sensed tension like the hush before a thunderstorm. Nurses and staff bounced off each other in trailing whispers around the lobby.

  René made her way to the Alzheimer’s disease unit and with a strange apprehension entered the four-digit code on the keypad. To the sound of the electric bolt release, the door opened onto an intersection of two corridors. Along one corridor some patients sat in wheelchairs staring straight ahead. Others shuffled along the walls. Down the other she spotted Carter Lutz, Broadview’s medical director, talking to a tall black-haired man in a monogrammed sportcoat. When they spotted her, they peeled off the walls and into a small office and closed the door.

  Unit Nurse Alice Gordon was at the desk. “Hey, hon, thought Saturday was your day off.”

  “It was. The police just left my place.”

  Alice’s smile played itself in reverse. “Then you heard,” she whispered. “They were all over here last night.”

  “What happened?”

  Alice just shrugged and looked away. “One of those things.”

  Bonnie, an assistant nurse, came by rolling the meds cart. She looked at René knowingly and shook her head. A few patients milled about the halls. One man was pushing a woman in a wheelchair, a few others sat in chairs against the wall, some asleep, others chattering to the air. René ducked into the small files room. The large three-ring folder for Clara Devine was missing. “Where’s Clara’s folder?”

  Something rippled across Alice’s face. “Well, actually it’s with Dr. Lutz.”

  “So what do we know?”

  “About what?”

  “About how she got out and killed a guy at the CVS.”

  Alice glanced at the newspaper René handed her and shook her head. “Unbelievable.” Then she turned her face to her paperwork again.

  “What’s this ‘Donny Doh tsee-tsee go’ stuff the paper reported?”

  “One of her rhymes, I guess. She had a thing for them.”

  “Was this something you’ve heard before?”

  Alice thought a moment. “I don’t know.” Then she flashed her a sharp look. “You playing Nancy Drew or something?”

  “Just trying to get some answers. It’s not the kind of publicity the home needs.”

  “I’ll say.” Alice dropped her eyes to her paperwork again.

  “Alice, why do I have this feeling that something’s going on that I don’t know about?”

  Alice straightened up. “Sorry, Sweetie. It’s that everybody’s pretty upset.”

  “Six months of her records are missing from my files.”

  “That right?” Alice said, frowning. “How did you do that?”

  Christ! She was turning it on her. “Well, I’m not sure I did.”

  Suddenly Alice checked her watch. “Oops. Mr. Martinetti needs his meds.”

  “Alice, I double-checked my computer, and there are no entries for Clara Devine since February. And I didn’t delete anything because they’re not on my backup disks.”

  “Beats me.”

  René felt a blister of anger rise as Alice tried to shake her off. “Also, I don’t remember seeing her name, which makes me wonder if her name was on the monthly patient census lists I’d been given.”

  Alice looked at her without expression. “What can I tell you?”

  Just then, Bonnie came back down the hall with the drug cart. She looked at Alice, who held her glance long enough for René to sense something pass between them. Then she continued down the hall. Alice was useless, so René caught up to Bonnie. “Wait a second.” Bonnie stopped and René opened the file drawer containing each patient’s meds and files. René started going through them until she found Clara Devine’s name.

  “Look, I’ve gotta go,” Bonnie said, and tried to move away.

  Alice came over. “Is there a problem?”

  René let Bonnie go but not before she caught the name of Clara’s physician. “Well, I’m really not sure. But according to my records Clara’s primary care doc is Barry Colette, but those med sheets were signed by a Dr. Jordan Carr.”

  Alice’s face clouded over. “Well, he’s taken over for Dr. Colette.” She started away.

  But before she did, René asked, “So who’s this Dr. Jordan Carr?”

  Alice nodded toward the exit. “He just left.”

  CARTER LUTZ’S OFFICE WAS ON THE first floor near the reception desk. Just as René rounded the corner, she spotted him leaving his office. “Dr. Lutz, can I speak with you for a moment?”

  He looked at her, trying to place her face.

  “René Ballard, with CommCare.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. The new girl.”

  “Yes.” The new girl. And in his tone she heard: The girl who doesn’t know any better.

  Lutz sneered down at her for an explanation for why she was holding him up. He was a partridge-shaped man in his sixties with an ill-fitting toupee, a slick chocolate brown thing that hung on his brow in oily spikes but which barely covered the fuzzy gray growing around his ears. “Not right now.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry, but it’s kind of important.”

  His nostrils flared at her like a horse’s. “I’m in the middle of this police thing, which I’m sure you heard about.”

  “Well, it’s about the police thing that I’d like to talk to you. Please, it’ll only take a minute.” He glared at her, then headed back into his office and closed the door. He checked his watch, then looked at her with sour impatience. Don’t let him rattle you, she told herself. Your job is on the line here, kiddo. “I believe that the medical records for Clara Devine are with you.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Well, as you know, my job is to check the record of each patient in the home, and I don’t have entries for Clara Devine.”

  “Sounds more like your problem than ours.”

  “Maybe, which is why I’d like to see her records.”

  “I can assure you that nothing’s amiss.”

  “But I don’t know that unless I see her folder.” And she forced a pleasant new-girl smile, hoping to soften his resolve.

  “Miss Ballard, you’re an employee of the pharmacy, not this home or its corporation. I will not stand you interrogating me.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Lutz, but I’m bound by federal regulations.” She tried to maintain a tone of politeness, but his dismissal of her was irritating. It was also unprofessional. And she wondered if he’d dismiss one of the older staffers or male doctors like this.

  “Maybe you just neglected to copy them properly.”

  “That’s entirely possible, but I won’t know that until I see her charts.”

  He made a move to usher her out the door, but she didn’t budge. “Dr. Carvahlo is my supervisor at CommCare. I’m sure he would like to hear your explanation. May I use your telephone?”

  “No, you may not. The charts are being photocopied in the event they’re subpoenaed by the police. You can see them when they’re returned.”

  “Thank you. Oh, another thing: Somebody other than her primary care physicia
n is signing off on her sheets.”

  The skin of his face appeared to tighten. “Ms. Ballard, why at a time like this are you bothering me with trivial details?” And he pressed her outside the office and closed the door. “Dr. Carr is her primary care physician. Good day.”

  She watched him clop out the front door and into the parking lot, thinking that maybe she was being trivial, maybe even petty, the kind of things that drove Todd away.

  “You’re such a details person, so damn anal. I can’t even leave a fucking cup in the sink without you raising a flag.”

  After recomposing herself, she returned to the reception desk and asked the operator to page Dr. Carr. Trivial be damned! she thought. Minutiae were what they paid her for. When the phone rang, the secretary said that Dr. Carr had left for the day. She jotted down his office number. “By the way, this is for you,” and she handed René a reminder about the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday at Morningside Manor, a nursing home in Smithfield. She stuffed the flyer into her bag, thinking it would be a good opportunity to network.

  René left the building and headed for her car, where she called Dr. Carr’s number from her cell phone. With the answering service she left her name and number, identifying herself. Just as she started the car, something shot through her brain like a dark premonition.

  SHE WENT BACK INSIDE AND INTO the AD unit again. Bonnie was alone at the desk and paid her no attention.

  René began at the far end of the west corridor and moved toward the nurses’ station, then down the north corridor. Most of the doors were left open, and those that were closed she tapped first, then entered. She went upstairs and followed the same route. At the nurse’s station she bumped into Alice. “You’re back.” It sounded like a reprimand.

  “Yes.” She didn’t explain her return, but she could feel Alice’s eyes bore through the back of her head as she cut into the activities room, where patients sat around tables doing puzzles or pasting pictures to colored paper. She stopped here and there to compliment some of them.

  “You’re beautiful,” one woman said to her. And she stuck the tip of her tongue out between her teeth the way a child does. She was doing a puzzle of a kitten. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is René. And you’re beautiful, too.” The woman’s face was soft and powdery, like risen bread dough. Her eyes were watery blue and she wore rimless glasses. She looked like an aged nun. Her hands were dappled with liver spots, but they worked the puzzle pieces with methodical care in search of their mates.

  “I’m going to pray to the Virgin Mary for you.”

  “Thank you,” René said. “And what’s your name so I can say a prayer for you?”

  “Ma-ry Cur-ley,” she said in a singsong voice. Then she wrinkled her face and stuck her tongue out again like a child.

  René felt a small shock. There was no Mary Curley on her census. This woman officially was not on the ward. “I’m sorry, what is your name?”

  “Ma-ry Cur-ley, and I have a dog named Jello.”

  “Jello. What a wonderful name.” René felt as if she had entered an alternate universe.

  Mary took René’s hand and made an odd tongue-sucking sound. Then she said. “I have a dog named Jello. And he’s out back asleep in his house.”

  “Well, I’ll be sure not to wake him.” And she patted Mary on the shoulder.

  On the way out of the dayroom René passed a room with its door open. Inside was a male patient sitting by the window wearing a khaki U.S. army cap with insignia. She stepped inside. The man looked up at her blankly.

  “Hi, my name is René.”

  The man said nothing.

  “I like your hat.” The man still did not respond, but he kept staring at her. “And what is your name?”

  Still no answer. On the bureau behind him were several framed photographs with labels. One colored shot, presumably of his wife and daughter, was labeled “Marie and Christine.” Another showed the same woman Christine with a young boy named “Steven,” probably the man’s grandson. Beside them was a large blowup in black-and-white showing two young men posing in army fatigues and helmets. Each was holding a weapon. The label under the photo read: “Louis Martinetti and Sam Swenson, 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, Hill 329, Sukchon, Korea, October 1950.” A gold star was pasted under one young man—a black-haired slender kid with the same eyes as the elderly man she was addressing.

  “Are you Louis Martinetti?”

  He looked at her with shock. “You’re Fuzzy Swenson’s sister.”

  “Who?”

  “Fuzzy Swenson.”

  René looked back at the black-and-white blowup. “There’s a Sam Swenson in the photograph of you. Is that who you mean?”

  He squinted at her to sharpen his focus. “You his sister, um … Rita?”

  René stepped closer so he could see her better. “No, my name is René Ballard. I’m the consulting pharmacist here.” She wasn’t sure he understood but she put out her hand.

  He did not take her hand but stared at her until he was convinced that she was not who he thought. “Just as well … what they did to him.” He winced as something sharp passed through his mind.

  She would have liked to talk, curious about Fuzzy Swenson and hoping to bring Louis out more. But Alice was standing in the doorway staring at her through hard eyes.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Martinetti,” René said. As she turned to leave, she noticed that on the bed was an army uniform neatly pressed and still on hangers. She stepped out of the room and looked at Alice who just glared at her. René flashed her a smile and said, “Well, see you tomorrow.”

  Alice did not respond, but René could still feel the press of her gaze as she made her way down the hall to the exit.

  She passed down the stairs and out into the parking lot to her car. According to the road atlas, Dudley, New Hampshire, was about an hour north of here. She had the day off and it was a beautiful late August morning and maybe during the ride things might start making sense to her.

  Especially why she had counted four more patients on the Alzheimer’s disease unit than were listed on her census.

  7

  “MRS. CASSANDRA GOULD? MY NAME IS RENÉ Ballard. I called you from the road.”

  “Yes, yes, I remember,” the woman said through the screen door. “I’m not the one with dementia. At least not yet. Come in, please.”

  René followed her into a living room, which was furnished in floral Queen Anne wing chairs and sofa.

  “And it’s Cassie,” the woman demanded. “Who in their right mind would want to be named after a woman who prophesied doom while nobody listened.” She gestured for René to sit in a chair. “You’re here because of what my sister did, no doubt, so you’ll probably need a coffee, unless you prefer something stronger.”

  “No, water would be fine, thank you.”

  “Well, I’m having coffee. The only way to get my heart going in the morning. Still want the water?”

  “I’ve already had three cups. Any more and I’ll need a straitjacket.”

  Cassie smiled. “A pharmacist with a sense of humor. Now there’s a rare duck.” And she left for the drinks.

  Rare duck. C’est moi, she thought, the new girl, and now Ms. Popularity at your local nursing home. René strolled to the back wall, which consisted of built-in shelves full of books. Clearly Mrs. Gould was a well-read woman. Most of the books were hardback novels, including classics—Tolstoi, Steinbeck, Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Iris Murdoch—as well as Greek and Shakespearean plays.

  On the small fireplace mantel were framed photos of children, perhaps grandchildren. One was a formal portrait of Cassie and a man, perhaps her husband. Also one of Cassie and, she guessed, Clara, from the resemblance, taken when they were much younger—probably in their twenties. Cassie was dressed in a high-fashion dress and hat and Clara in a skirt and polo shirt; Clara was holding a golf club. They were both strikingly handsome, Clara a bit shorter and less willowy than her sister, but w
ith a round, elfin face that could barely disguise high spirits. She was caught midlaugh, as if somebody had just told a joke.

  “She had just won a club tournament,” Cassie said, entering the room with a tray. “She was quite the sportswoman in her day.” She set the tray down and handed René a tall glass of ice water with a slice of lemon.

  “That’s Walt, my third husband. Clara never married, but I made up for that. Buried three of them. Walt died six years ago, and that’s when the word got out I was a high-risk bride.” She smiled and sat opposite René. “Shortly after that my sister moved in. And now she’s up for murder.” She took a sip of coffee. “On second thought, maybe my parents had foresight when they named me.”

  René smiled. The woman’s directness was refreshing. “So the police were here.”

  “No, they called with the details. I’m sure they’ll be dropping by with a lot of questions. They tell me she’s being evaluated at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. But I can’t visit her for a while.”

  Cassie was remarkably sharp of mind and still attractive for a woman of eighty—tall and broad-shouldered, although now rounded and padded by time. She had a regal face with wide cheekbones and arching, slightly supercilious dark brows that were enhanced by round, dark wire-framed glasses. Her brown eyes were large and heavily lidded and the skin around them was papery, but they held a person with a fierce intensity. Her hair was gray and pulled back in a bun. She wore no makeup. She was dressed in a red pullover, jeans, and white tennis shoes. Perhaps she was getting ready for a morning walk.

  “On the phone you said you had some questions about what might have led up to her assault on that unfortunate young man.”