by Lexi Blake
It didn’t look like she was going to need any help at all since she wasn’t going to have any patients.
Mabel was on her feet. “She’s got a bunch of degrees, Hallie. She knows what she’s doing.”
“I’ll talk to my momma.” Hallie practically ran the other way.
Yep, her day was not looking up.
How was she going to live if no one would come to the clinic because she wasn’t one of them? They had to give in at some point, right?
“This is insane.” She dropped the file on top of the others she hadn’t needed. “I can handle a well-baby checkup.”
“I told Doc it might not work.” Mabel was roughly sixty years old with raven-colored curly hair with wispy hints of silver at the temples and a tiny but mighty body, from what Lila could tell. She was dressed in scrubs and hadn’t stopped moving once since they’d opened the clinic at noon. Mabel had answered phones, swept the break room, prepped the two exam rooms, done a thorough inventory of their supplies, and generally made her feel like a slacker. Mabel had done everything except actually help treat a patient.
“Why?” The sheriff had mentioned this could happen. Her sister had mentioned it. She still didn’t get how she was throwing the town into a tizzy.
“First off, we’ve never had a nurse practitioner in here before,” Mabel explained. “They don’t understand that you’re as good as a GP. Now, I think we can fix that, but it’s going to take some time and you’re going to have to let folks get used to you. I know what Hallie’s momma is going to tell her. She’s going to tell her to take that baby into New Orleans.”
“She would rather drive four hours round trip than let me do my job?”
A triumphant look came over Mabel’s face. “And that’s where we’ll get her. She’ll go once or twice. Maybe until the baby is a year old or so, but she’ll get tired of it. And when she has another baby, she definitely won’t like that drive.” Mabel nodded. “And we’ll be here. We’ll be waiting.”
She was missing the salient point. “No, we won’t because if no one comes in we won’t be able to stay open.”
Mabel waved that off. “Oh, this place has never once been financially solvent. Don’t worry about it. Once a year Doc goes fishing with Rene Darois and he funds us for the year. If we need a new piece of equipment, we hold a bake sale. Well, I hold a bake sale. Doc wasn’t good at baking. He was good at poker. We got that ultrasound machine from the casino up the road.”
Every word out of Mabel’s mouth ratcheted up her anxiety. “I’m sorry, what? I looked over the financials for this place. It looked like it supported itself.”
“Oh, Doc was never any good with reports and such.”
“Someone is.” Those accounting records had looked real. They hadn’t shown much of a profit, but she hadn’t intended to get rich. She had intended to keep the place going without the use of baked goods. “I don’t think this is legal.”
“Now, see, there you go. You can’t keep thinking that way or people are going to see you as uppity.”
“I’m uppity because I got ripped off? I sunk a lot of money into this place.” Almost everything she had.
“It’s about more than money, though, right?” Mabel asked. “It’s about helping the public and being part of this beautiful community. Honestly, most of these people can’t actually afford our services. I’ll talk to Hallie’s momma, because they’ve actually got insurance. Her husband works on the rigs. We really can’t afford to lose that group. They’re having babies all the time. Men who’ve been on an oil rig for months think a lot about their wives and getting home to them. Not so much about contraception, if you know what I mean.”
She was fairly certain she didn’t know a thing.
The door opened again and a woman with long brown hair walked in, cradling her arm.
Mabel sighed and ran around the reception desk. “What happened this time, Carrie? I swear you being out there on your own scares the heck out of me. Come on in.”
Carrie gave her a weak smile. “I’m clumsy. I was feeding the chickens and I fell. I thought it was only strained but it was hurting this morning and I could barely make breakfast.”
Lila stepped around the desk, too. “Can I take a look at it?”
“Is Doc here?” Carrie asked.
She was going to kill that man and then no one would ask about him again. “He retired. My name is Lila Daley. I’m a nurse practitioner. That means I can do almost everything a doctor can do except I didn’t sit through medical school. I learned on the job, not in a classroom. My last job was at a major hospital in the ER and I was excellent at it. I’d like to take a look at your arm and maybe get an X-ray to see if we need to set it.”
Carrie’s eyes widened slightly and a ghost of a smile flashed on her face. “It sounds like you know what you’re doing. It hurts a lot.”
Finally, someone who needed her. “Let’s take a look.”
Mabel was smiling as she led Carrie back.
* * *
• • •
Forty minutes later, Lila was fairly certain what she was dealing with. She put the X-ray on the lighted display so her patient could see what was happening. Had happened. Likely would happen again. “What you’re looking at is a small hairline fracture in your radius, Carrie. It’s not serious. I’m not going to need to set it. We’ll put it in a sling you’ll need to wear for a week or so. It will heal on its own if you let it rest.”
A relieved sigh went through her. “That’s good news. I’ll be way more careful from now on.”
Lila wasn’t sure carefulness was Carrie’s problem. “Was it a bad fall?”
That relief she’d seen briefly fled and Carrie was back to looking worried, though it was obvious she didn’t want Lila to know that. “Not bad. I tripped on a rock and hit the ground. Like I said, I didn’t think it was bad until this morning.”
There were a few things that didn’t ring true about her story, but she knew from experience that she had to tread carefully. “It’s almost four now. How far out do you live?”
“Pretty far. We have to come by boat. We’re on an island out in the bayou. It’s my husband’s family property.”
“I wish you’d come in earlier. I could have saved you some pain. Ice therapy works well if you get it on there fast enough,” Lila explained.
The younger woman nodded. “I’ll remember that. I waited until Bobby was coming into town. It doesn’t make sense to make two trips.”
Yes, that’s what she’d thought. “Your health is important.”
“I’m all right,” Carrie insisted.
Lila gestured to the X-ray. “Do you see those wispy lines on the X-ray? Those are healed fractures. I counted five of them.”
“I’m real clumsy.”
“Is your husband hurting you?”
Carrie slipped off the table, landing on her feet.
She was going to lose her if she pushed too hard. Lila picked up her clipboard. “Sorry, I have to ask. Actually, I have to ask if anyone is hurting you. It’s that kind of injury.”
She nodded. “Yeah, of course. No. It happened how I said it happened.”
Lila gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile and checked the box on the form. “Of course. I’m also supposed to inform you that if for any reason you’re in fear of anyone in your home, you can talk to your healthcare provider about help. Not that you need it. They make us say a lot of things to be in compliance.”
“Doc never did any of that.” Carrie glanced up at the clock and winced. “Can I get that sling? I have to meet Bobby.”
“He’s not picking you up?” She would’ve liked to get a look at the man.
“I’m meeting him by the dock. He’s got a delivery he has to wait on. I don’t want to cause any trouble.” Her eyes came up and for a second, Lila thought she might say something about what
had really happened. “How much do I owe?”
Her gut had tightened up and she had to force a smile on her face. “Mabel can get you a bill. I’ll go and get your sling.”
She stepped away and tried not to think about how her hands were shaking.
Maybe it wasn’t the same. Maybe it had happened exactly the way Carrie said it had, but then there was the problem of those wispy lines on the X-ray. There were medical explanations for multiple fractures. She could have a disorder. She could simply be clumsy.
But Lila’s gut was saying something very different.
It took every bit of her willpower to not push Carrie. There would be a next time and Lila didn’t want to be the reason the young woman didn’t seek help. She got her in the sling and gave her information on home therapies and waved as she left.
“That girl,” Mabel said with a shake of her head. “She’s a little mouse. Always has been. How she manages out there I have no idea. I thought she would leave for New Orleans or Houston like most of her friends. She was a smart one, always with a book in her hand. We were all shocked when she up and married Bobby Petrie. His family has lived on that island for a hundred years.”
“Is he a nice man?”
Mabel shrugged. “I suppose. They keep to themselves out there. He and his brother are shrimpers, but Donny’s the one who handles the business end.”
“She sees the doc a lot?” It would be easy to keep up the abuse if she was isolated.
“Not a ton. She had a miscarriage a couple of years ago. She fell down the stairs. It was tragic.”
Yeah, she bet the young woman fell down the stairs a lot. “I’d like to see her records. Could you pull them?”
“Sure. It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Mabel admitted. “We need to plot and plan because we have two more cancellations for tomorrow. You need to get out and meet the people.”
She wasn’t sure how meeting people would help. The people here seemed to take one look at her and run.
The door was flung open and an elderly man was being helped in by a younger man who might be his son. A second group followed with another man. He had white hair and wore a pair of Bermuda shorts he’d coupled with dress socks, loafers, and a white tank top. He had a bad gash over his right eye.
“Oh, lord. That’s Jimmy Burnes and Abe Rubelle. They live next door to each other and I swear they’ve regressed back to childhood.” Mabel shook her head as the party of injured elderly made their way across the floor. “Tell me they weren’t playing chicken with the riding lawn mowers again.”
The youngest of the men groaned. “I wish I could. My daddy has lost his mind.”
The gentleman he was holding up managed to raise a fist. “I’m living, son. Living. And I won.”
“Did not,” the other man said. “I was getting back on my mower when you decided to have a heart attack. Game ain’t over ’til one of us gives in. Where’s Doc?”
Lila sighed and sprang into action. It looked like her day wasn’t over yet.
* * *
• • •
Armie stared across his desk at Gene Boudreaux. Gene owned the local grocery store/tourist information station. He also listened to far too many conspiracy theory podcasts. It hadn’t been all that bad when he’d only had network television to draw from. Ah, the good old days. Back then Gene would only come in to talk about potential government takeovers. Armie could usually point out that unless the government wanted shrimp or to take a tour of the bayou, there really wasn’t much for them to take over.
But then last Christmas Gene’s grandson just had to introduce the man to the wonderful world of podcasts. Now Gene constantly listened to non-experts talk about crimes, and now he saw them going on everywhere. And he constantly proved that he didn’t understand what the young people meant by being “woke.” It was definitely not being woke to think that every single stranger a person met was likely trying to murder him.
“Do we really know what happened, Sheriff?” Gene looked around like he needed to make sure no one was listening. “It seems odd that Doc would walk away like that.”
“He’s been talking about retiring for the last twenty years,” Armie replied.
Gene’s index finger came up like Armie had made his point. “Yes, and he never did it. All these years and he never once retired. Suddenly this woman shows up in town and he’s gone?”
“I don’t think he’s dead. I’m pretty sure he’s fishing. Remy said he took the boat out early this morning.” Remy Guidry ran Guidry’s Bar and Grill and the marina that it was attached to. Many a boat was safely nestled there. Remy hadn’t been worried about the doc. The doc went fishing all the time. He’d been a little upset that Doc had left his sister-in-law alone on her first day at the clinic.
The whole Guidry family was worried about how Lila Daley was going to fit in, and from what he’d seen, they were right to be.
“You think? I have a different theory. She could have been on that boat, killed Doc, and taken over his clinic,” Gene pointed out.
Sometimes it was best to go with the flow, let Gene get it out of his system. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t poke some obvious holes into those theories. “What did she do with the boat? Because it’s not here and there isn’t another marina for miles.”
Gene thought about that for a moment. “Helicopter. She could have had a helicopter pick her up and she left the boat out there. It’s perfect. She would have had time to wipe that whole boat down. It’ll be like she was never there.”
Yes, because she’d been at the clinic. He’d driven by the damn place three times today and caught glimpses of her through the windows. She’d been behind the desk, staring down at files. She hadn’t been in the back dealing with patients.
He was going to have a serious talk with Doc when he got back from his fishing trip. “What exactly makes you think Ms. Daley is a murderer besides the fact that she’s from Dallas?”
“They grow them mean in Dallas,” Gene said with a nod.
He didn’t point out that Gene’s third wife had been from Dallas and now Gene thought anyone from Dallas had to be evil. He definitely didn’t point out that Charlene hadn’t needed to be from Dallas to find Gene annoying. Armie was from right here in Papillon and he wanted to murder Gene on a regular basis.
“She’s got that look,” Gene insisted. “I went in for my physical. I don’t know why I have to do it since I feel perfectly fine, but I can’t get my blood pressure medication without Doc signing off on it. He claims there’s a reason but we all know that big pharma is in league with the Secret Order of Physicians. Now, that shouldn’t be confused with the American Medical Association. That’s legit. Mostly, although some people claim it’s been infiltrated by Russians.”
Armie put up a hand to stop what would likely be a long lecture on the deep state. “She’s Remy’s wife’s sister. She’s fully qualified and she’s definitely not involved in anything criminal. I looked her up. She speeds from time to time, but otherwise, she’s got a perfectly clean record. I’m sorry no one informed you the clinic was changing hands. We should have had a town meeting about it. Doc has been a big part of this community for years.”
Gene nodded. “I trust Doc. It’s why I don’t want that lady doctor to murder him.”
There was a light knock on the door and then the potential murderer of Doc Hamet was standing in the doorway. Lila was still wearing the tailored slacks and green shirt she’d been wearing earlier in the day, though before she’d had a white lab coat on. She wore a pair of killer heels. He hadn’t been able to see those from his car. They were red and pointy and sexy as hell.
He shook it off, remembering he’d promised himself he would let her settle in before he tried to hit on her again.
“If I promise not to kill anyone, can I have a couple of minutes of your time?” She stepped inside his tiny office.
“Sorry, no one was out at the desk so I let myself in. Mr. Boudreaux, that testing is necessary to ensure that the medications you’re on aren’t damaging your liver or kidneys. It’s why I would have done some blood work if you hadn’t run out of the clinic. This could all be over by now and you would have your prescription and you wouldn’t have to see me again for a year.”
Gene got to his feet. “Doc’s never done blood work. I don’t like needles. You never know where they’ve been.”
“They’ve been wrapped in sanitary plastic and then they get tossed out as medical waste. If you can’t let me do blood work, then I can’t give you the prescription,” she said flatly.
Gene turned a shade of red Armie was fairly certain no human ever should. “She’s trying to steal my DNA. We’ll see about that.”
Armie sat back with a long sigh as Gene fled the building. “I was going to try to convince him to give you a chance.”
“Yeah, that’s been a theme today.” She didn’t look back, merely took the seat Gene had previously occupied.
“Is he going to be okay without his medications?” It was clear he would have to do something about the situation at the clinic, and the easiest place to start was with the woman in front of him.
She shook her head, not an ounce of emotion on her face. “Not at all. He has high blood pressure that requires stabilization. He needs those meds, but I can’t prescribe them without ensuring that he’s okay.”
Maybe she wouldn’t be the easiest way to solve the problem. “So you’ll let him die because his liver might get damaged.”
“I’m not letting him die,” she replied. “I’m simply not going to prescribe a medication that might be hurting him without testing. I would be doing him a disservice. I get the feeling Dr. Hamet was very lax in his practice. I don’t intend to be.”
“A little tolerance might go a long way here.” He’d ease her into this because by little he meant a whole lot. So much tolerance was needed. “I know I’m the sheriff and I understand the need for laws, but I also know there’s a time to bend those rules a little for the right reasons.”