Night Shift

by Annelise Ryan

  “This is a perfect case for you, Hildy,” Brenda says. “Agnes is a hoarder, in part because of whatever mental illness she suffers from, and in part because she piles up stuff in her house to create barricades so her imagined attackers can’t get in. Her house is a fire hazard, and the city has tried to get it condemned, but so far Agnes has managed to skirt their efforts. She doesn’t take well to strangers, so I’m not sure she’ll like that you’re here, but we’ll do our best. She likes and trusts me for the most part, so hopefully I can get you a ticket in.”

  Since Agnes isn’t someone who goes to the hospital or even sees a doctor, I don’t know her. The screen door on the front of her house has oven racks and cookie sheets wired to it, and the window in the main door behind the screen has a piece of plywood nailed over it. A woman’s voice hollers through the door when Brenda knocks, asking who it is.

  “It’s Officer Brenda, Agnes. You know me. Can you open up the door?”

  “How do I know it’s really you?” Agnes hollers back. “What’s the password?”

  Brenda looks back at me and rolls her eyes. “Spaghetti,” she says.

  The inside door opens a crack and a pale, jowly face framed with wild, gray hair peeks out. “Who is that other person?” Agnes asks, her voice rife with suspicion.

  “It’s Hildy Schneider.,” Brenda says, and I smile at the face peering out the door. “She’s a social worker who’s going to be riding around with us. It’s part of a new program to help us better connect with folks in the community, folks like you.”

  “How do I know she can be trusted?” Agnes asks.

  “You have my word,” Brenda says. “And I have my gun and my Taser, so if she doesn’t behave, I can take care of her.”

  “Say what?” I whisper, maintaining my smile.

  Brenda looks back again and winks at me. “But that won’t be necessary,” she says to Agnes. “Hildy is one of the good guys. I promise.”

  There is another minute of silence and then the inner door slowly opens, creaking on rusted hinges. Agnes, dressed in a ratty, stained, chenille bathrobe that is covered with bald spots where the chenille is missing, unlocks the screen door. “Come on,” she says, and then she disappears into the darkness behind her. It’s as if her house has just swallowed her up.

  Brenda opens the screen door and motions for me to follow her in. Despite the preparation she gave me, I’m a little stunned when I step through the door and see what lies beyond. There is a ceiling light fixture with three bulbs in it, two of which are blown. The meager bit of light coming from the third one barely illuminates the cave that is this house. There is a path through the canyon of junk that is about two feet wide. Agnes is easily that wide, so I imagine it can’t be easy for her to get around, and I wonder how she gets her food. Judging from her physique she isn’t missing many meals. Creating the canyon walls are stacks of boxes, bags, tied up newspaper bundles, various linens and clothing items, kitchen pots and pans, and God knows what else. Items are stacked to the ceiling over by the walls, obscuring furniture, windows, and what appears to be a fireplace based on the mantel I can see on the wall by peeking through piles of junk.

  Brenda and I follow Agnes along the path deeper into the house and I hear something scurry in the pile to my left. The path leads us into the kitchen, where another ceiling light, this one with two of the three bulbs working, sheds light on the most disgusting mess I’ve ever seen. The sink is filled with crusted, dirty dishes, some with mold growing on them. The stove is likewise covered, though in this case it’s more pots and pans rather than dishes, and the rest of the room is jam-packed with junk: cups, plates, more bundled newspapers, stuffed toys, and boxes of cake mix, mac and cheese, cookies, crackers, and pudding mix. There is a table in the room, but the area beneath it is filled with junk and its surface is piled high with items reaching almost to the ceiling. There is a refrigerator, but it isn’t working. The door hangs open revealing shelves crammed with rotting cheeses, sour milk, and some other things that are unidentifiable. I see a cockroach scurry across the counter and disappear into the fridge and suppress a shudder.

  Brenda has clearly seen all this before because there is no evidence of surprise, shock, or disgust on her face. “Your call said something about acid in your yard?” she says to Agnes.

  “It’s out here,” Agnes says, and she continues along the path into a small mudroom and then opens a back door after undoing the three dead bolts on it. “Look at my grass,” she says. “See that shining liquid, the way it glistens? It’s acid, I know it is.”

  The yard is as filled with junk as the rest of the house—an old washing machine, some car parts, rain-soaked, soggy boxes of who knows what, old and broken lawn furniture, several broken barbecue grills—and I’m surprised there is any grass growing out here at all. But there is, one stubborn little patch about six feet square that doesn’t have anything resting on it. The sun is rising, and golden rays eke their way through the spaces between the junk.

  “Agnes, that’s not acid,” Brenda says. “It’s dew. Morning dew.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s acid,” Agnes insists.

  Brenda walks over and runs her hand across the blades of grass, then she rubs the moisture on her hand onto her cheek. “See, not acid. Just dew, Agnes. Nothing to worry about.”

  Agnes looks suspicious, but she doesn’t argue the point again. She heads back inside, and we follow her. She makes her way to the front door, clearly ready to see us out, but Brenda stops and calls her back.

  “Agnes, Hildy might like to come out and visit again. Would that be okay?”

  Agnes eyes me with suspicion, and I think she’s about to say no. But she surprises me and says, “I suppose. Do you have a card?”

  I do have business cards that the police department made for me, and I take one out of my pocket and give it to her. “You can call me if you need anything,” I tell her.

  “What would I be needing?” Agnes says, looking at me like I’m stupid. “I got everything I need right here.”

  Well, she certainly has that right.

  By the time we leave it’s ten to seven, so Brenda drives us back to the station. I tell her I’ll ponder the enigma that is Agnes and see if I can come up with a plan for her, but right now I need to go home, change clothes, and head to my job at the hospital. I don’t even go inside the station. I just unload Roscoe from the back of the cruiser and put him in my car. Then I drive myself home, thinking I need another cup of coffee to give me energy to get through the day. My shift at the hospital won’t be done until three-thirty, and that means bedtime is a long ways away yet. I suspect I’ll probably sleep through the entire evening and most of the night, since I don’t have to do my police shifts again until Thursday night.

  P.J. is on her way to school when I pull in, and I roll my window down and tell her I’ll walk Roscoe this morning, but could she come and get him after school and maybe a couple of times this evening? She happily agrees.

  Once inside, I turn on the coffee pot, glad I had the insight to set it up the night before, knowing I’d probably need a pick-me-up before going into the hospital this morning.

  It promises to be a busy day. On top of all my usual hospital business, I want to search for some resources I can employ to help Agnes, and I need to check in on Marla to see how she’s doing. I should probably call Stewart, too, to make sure he’s managing okay. His commitment to Marla’s commitment might be wavering.

  Feeling exhausted just thinking about it all, I change my clothes, splash some water on my face, and then fix a cup of coffee to go. Then it’s off to the races. I’m starting to think these two jobs might be the death of me.

  Chapter 25

  The ER is calm when I arrive at the hospital. That’s typical for early in the morning, though it’s likely to get crazy in an hour or so. Mondays are always busy for ERs for some reason. It’s been that way at every hospital I’ve worked.

  I decide to check on Marla Riley first thing and log
into the hospital computer system to see what room she’s been admitted to. I search for her by her name first, then I pull up all the floors and look for her that way, checking the names in each room. Fortunately, the hospital isn’t that full, or that big, so it doesn’t take me very long.

  I come up empty. There is no sign of Marla. I track down the day shift charge nurse, a fellow named Mark, and ask him if he knows anything about her case. He doesn’t, and neither do any of the other people on duty today. The weekend staffers are all off now and the crew on this morning have no idea what went down over the weekend.

  Resigned to having to search through her chart, I find it and open it. Technically, she isn’t my patient any longer once she gets admitted upstairs because my boss, Crystal, handles most of the inpatient needs. But since I was involved in Marla’s care here in the ER, at least peripherally, I figure I won’t get into trouble for perusing her chart. My history with Marla should help justify my involvement with her care on an ongoing basis.

  I skim through the ER notes and see that she slept for several hours on Saturday night and was then admitted upstairs to the medical-surgical unit. After a largely uneventful day yesterday, plans were made to transfer her today to a VA hospital in Milwaukee for psychiatric and substance abuse treatment. This worries me because I know from experience that Marla hates the VA system and won’t stay there. I make a mental note to look into the possibility of finding her placement elsewhere, but what I read next makes me realize this won’t be necessary. It also shocks me to my core.

  A note from last night says that a nurse went into Marla’s room around midnight to take her vital signs and found her unresponsive. A quick check revealed that she had no pulse and wasn’t breathing, so CPR was started immediately, and a medical emergency was paged. The physician on the floor ran a code on Marla for a full forty minutes but was never able to get more than a pulseless rhythm back on her. At twelve-forty-eight this morning, Marla was pronounced dead and the resuscitation efforts were stopped. The doctor’s aftercare note mentioned the presence of severe tetany, which led him to believe that Marla had had an unwitnessed seizure triggered by her alcohol withdrawal, despite meds that were given to prevent this. The seizure resulted in a respiratory arrest, which then led to a cardiac arrest.

  I’m shocked and heartbroken that Marla is dead. After taking a few minutes to digest this turn of events, I wonder how Stewart is doing. That man adored his wife, and I suspect he’s going to have a lot of trouble dealing with her death. Then again, maybe it will come as something of a relief to him after all the abuse and angst the two of them have been through. And Marla’s future was looking grimly complicated, at best.

  I make a mental note to try to convince Stewart to come to my grief support group at a later date. I think it will benefit him greatly and the group is always more dynamic when fresh blood is introduced. For now, I look up Stewart’s number and give him a call to touch base with him and see how he’s doing. His phone rings and then flips to voice mail. While listening to his outgoing message I mentally debate whether to leave one of my own and decide not to, but rather to try to call again a little later.

  I decide to go the cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee. In the hallway on the way there, I run into Dr. Rollins, the physician who handled Marla’s arrest, who, judging from the hour, the jacket he’s wearing, and the briefcase he’s carrying, is heading home for the day.

  “Morning, Dr. Rollins,” I say.

  “Good morning, Hildy. What problems are you going to solve for us today?”

  “None that I know of yet. Do you have a second? I’d like to talk to you about Marla Riley.”

  “Oh, yes. Sad case, that one.” He shakes his head woefully.

  “Was her husband here when she died? I’ve been working with him and his wife for a while now and I’ve gotten to know him quite well. Their marriage had some strange dynamics and I’m worried about how he’s going to cope.”

  Dr. Rollins shakes his head. “No, he wasn’t here. The nurse taking care of Mrs. Riley said that she had no visitors, unless you count the policeman sitting outside her room. Her husband didn’t visit her at all. I thought perhaps their relationship was strained to breaking the way so many of these couples affected by addiction are, but when I called him to let him know that she had passed, he was quite distraught and upset. I imagine he’ll be a good candidate for your grief support group.”

  “Yes, I’ve already made myself a note to contact him,” I say.

  “You might want to do that sooner rather than later. He kind of went off the deep end. He kept saying that they had killed her. At first, I though he meant we had killed her, but he kept saying they. And then he just hung up on me.” Dr. Rollins shrugs.

  “Wow,” I say. “Sounds like he’s going to need more help than I initially thought.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” Dr. Rollins says. And with that, he’s gone.

  I stand in the hallway for a minute or two, replaying the conversation in my head. Stewart Riley’s reaction to his wife’s death certainly seems over the top but, given all the events of the past few days, I’m not sure they’re as outrageous as I might have found them a week ago. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was a policeman stationed outside Marla’s room during her stay, I might be inclined to think that whoever is behind the bioterrorist potential out at the farm had tried to get rid of Marla to make sure she didn’t say anything or give anyone away. But if she had no visitors, it doesn’t seem likely.

  I’m starting to feel as paranoid as Danny gets when he’s in one of his full-blown episodes. Maybe I’m turning into Agnes Silver. Then that adage comes to me, the one about how being paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you. I decide I should gather as many facts as I can so that, when I do talk to Stewart, I can convince him that his paranoia and suspicions are unwarranted. Plus, there is something nagging at my brain, a worm of a thought that hasn’t emerged far enough yet for me to grasp it.

  After grabbing my coffee, I head upstairs to the nurse’s station on the unit Marla was admitted to, find the charge nurse, a woman named Linda, and ask her if she can look up some information for me. “I’m curious to know if the woman who died last night, Marla Riley, was a coroner’s case.”

  “It was,” she says. “The night nurse told me they came and picked her body up for an autopsy. I think it’s automatic when a patient dies within twenty-four hours of admission.”

  I thank her and start to go, but then turn back, needing to address that niggle in my brain. “Can you tell me what tetany is?” I ask her. “I know I’ve heard the term before, but I can’t recall what it means.”

  “It’s a term for muscle rigidity, or spasm,” she says.

  Alarms go off in my head, and after thinking things through for a moment, I head for my office and make a call.

  “Hello. Medical Examiner’s office. This is Cass. How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Cass, this is Hildy Schneider. I’m a social worker over at the hospital and I’m calling to inquire about an autopsy on a patient that was here. Is there someone I can talk to about it?”

  “Hold on and I’ll let you talk to Doc Morton.”

  Perfect, I think, since Doc Morton was the one at the scene of Arthur Fletcher’s murder. I’m put on hold and forced to listen to bad eighties music that sounds tinny and scratchy. After thirty seconds or so of this torture, Doc Morton finally comes on.

  “Hi, Dr. Morton, this is Hildy Schneider. I’m the social worker who was with the police out at the Fletcher farm the other night.”

  “Yes, I know who you are, Ms. Schneider. What can I do for you?”

  “You can call me Hildy for starters. And then you can tell me if you’re doing an autopsy on Marla Riley. She was a patient who died here at the hospital yesterday.”

  “We have the body, but I haven’t done the autopsy yet. Not sure I need to, given the circumstances. My understanding is that she was an alcoholic and had a withdrawal seizure that c
aused respiratory and then cardiac arrest. Sad, but not all that unusual.”

  “Are you aware of the police’s interest in her?” I ask. “There is some indication that she might have been involved in that mess out at the Fletcher farm. She has a military background as a weapon’s specialist.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that, but I’m not sure how that changes the circumstances of her death.”

  “I understand from Bob Richmond that Mr. Fletcher’s time of death was changed because you found strychnine in his system and that could have caused muscle rigidity that mimicked rigor mortis.”

  “That is correct.”

  “If Marla Riley was involved with whatever group oversaw those poisons out at the farm, the fact that she was hospitalized and having what appeared to be a mental breakdown might have been perceived as a threat. According to the doctor’s note, the reason they think she had a seizure is because she had tetany.”

  There is silence on the other end, and I wait. It doesn’t take Doc Morton long to connect the dots. “You’re thinking she might have been poisoned with strychnine as well?” he says.

  “It seems possible.”

  “I’ll look into it, and thanks for calling me, Hildy.”

  “You’re welcome.” I disconnect the call and then make one to Bob Richmond.

  “Hey, Hildy. What’s up?”

  “Did you know that Marla Riley died?”

  “Yeah, I heard. Had a seizure. Sad thing, but that can happen when you withdraw from alcohol.”

  “Yes, it can. But it can also happen when you’re poisoned with strychnine because the members of a certain militia group want you eliminated since you know too much, and they consider you a liability now.”

  There is a very long silence on the other end and I finally say, “Bob, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” he grumbles. “What are you saying, Hildy. That you think Marla was murdered?”