by Jada Ryker
“I think the open door saved your life.” He clenched his fists. “You must be very, very careful. If the murderer thinks you’re a threat to him, he may decide you deserve the same fate as Jonah.”
Marisa grasped the steering wheel and rested her forehead on her hands. She raised her head as a thought struck her. “This may sound ridiculous, but what about Clay Napier?”
“Mr. Napier?” Russell was taken aback. “Are you sure you don’t have alcohol in your system?”
“Just wait a minute, Russell. There’s something about him. On the surface, he’s an old man in a nursing home. In reality, though, he looks like he’s less than sixty years old. He does use a cane to get around, but I wonder if he really does need it, or it’s just an accessory to his wardrobe. Add to the mix he appears to be as mentally sharp as a thirty-year-old, and we have another suspect on our hands.”
Russell’s brows rose. “He’s only been a resident at the Home Away From Home for a short time, but you sound as if you know him.” He snapped his fingers. “Of course! He was transferred from the hospital.”
“He was a patient at the hospital a couple of days due to a fall.” Marisa frowned. “If I remember correctly, he was at an indoor gun range when a youngster barreled into his legs and knocked him to the ground. Not only is he in a nursing home when I thought he was well enough to go home, but also he was honing his marksmanship when he was injured.”
“Remember, we’re in Kentucky, where most people know how to use guns.” Russell frowned. “Mr. Napier is by far the highest functioning resident. And as you may have noticed, he is quite popular with the ladies. He can be quite direct and cutting in his undeniably perceptive observations. At the same time, with his perfectly groomed appearance and mysterious past, he is pursued by nearly every lady in residence. In fact, the majority of our female patients seem to be in fierce competition to win his favor.”
Marisa pounced. “Mysterious past?”
“According to the nursing home rumor mill, Mr. Napier is a retired secret agent.” Russell shrugged. “His intake paperwork indicates he retired from an administrative job with the Federal government. From the description, he was a petty, bureaucratic paper pusher for some thirty years.”
“This evening, Althea drew an interesting parallel. She said the old man was like a rooster, strutting around with his colorful entourage. What better disguise than for an elderly man to play the role of Don Juan? While he seems to be only interested in collecting as many ladies as possible, he actually is free to pursue dark activities!” Hearing her own words aloud, Marisa cringed. “I know, it sounds totally crazy.”
Russell was thoughtful. “I’ve caught flashes of something about him. I can’t explain it, but it’s intriguing.”
“And he still comes to the hospital for therapy once a week. I’ll have to find out if it was today. Regardless, we’re not going to solve the mystery of Clay Napier tonight. Or,” Marisa corrected herself with a glance at her cell phone, “this morning, I should say.” Marisa tried to stifle a yawn as absolute fatigue descended upon her. “What should we do next?”
Russell reached for his door handle. “We are not going to do anything.”
“But you’re obviously asking questions. I also want to find Jonah’s killer, especially if Althea could be in danger. You and I can work together to solve the murder.”
Taking her hand and pulling her close, Russell leaned toward her. His lips were near hers. “No.” His other hand found the back of her head, and pulled until their lips met. He pressed gently, moving his mouth against hers. When she pushed his shoulder, he immediately let her go. “Stay out of it.”
Russell opened the door and pulled himself free of the low car, nearly spilling onto the sidewalk. “Don’t forget what I said…don’t get involved in Jonah’s murder.” He slammed the door.
As she was driving home, Marisa refused to think about that gentle kiss. Her first kiss in many, many months. Firmly, she ordered herself to think about the murders. Mentally reviewing the conversation, Marisa remembered Russell’s comment about the addiction group. How could he know she was in a group? Their meetings were closed to the non-addicted, and she was positive she’d never seen Russell at a group meeting. At the last moment, Marisa became aware the traffic light was red, and braked sharply to stop in time.
Wait a minute. What about ‘Dustin?’ He attended meetings in disguise. Could he and Russell be the same person? Dustin wasn’t much taller than Marisa. With his slumping shoulders and bent back, it was difficult to judge Russell’s height. Could that be where she’d smelled the woodsy scent? Marisa shook her head. Dustin was thin, while Russell sported a pudgy midsection under his flapping windbreaker. She frowned. When she had dug her elbow in his stomach, it felt more like a sponge than a midsection. Without the belly and if the men were the same height—
Marisa jumped when the car behind her honked its horn. The light was green. As she let out the clutch, accelerated, and smoothly shifted gears, she was determined to find out if Dustin and Russell was the same person.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I declare, having the police running around the grounds had the residents acting up last night.” Her slightly bulging eyes and flabby, loose skin at her neck marking her resemblance to a bullfrog, Flora May Masters had to raise her voice to be heard over the tumbling dryers lining one long wall of the nursing home’s laundry room. The plump folds of white skin under her huge forearms jiggled as her red, raw hands tugged a clean white sheet from the huge mountain of clean linen on the stainless steel table in front of her. “Mrs. Graham’s grandson was gunned down at the hospital and that strange girl’s body was found at the old cemetery!”
“Don’t forget, Mrs. Graham is dead, too. Or should I say three. They do say deaths come in threes.” Starla Farrell sighed, rubbing her tired, gritty eyes and stretching her thin body under the too-large maroon uniform. “It was bad enough having the police under our feet, running up and down the halls and bombarding us with dumb questions. And then Mr. Akers messed his bed from head to foot, and he somehow managed to free himself of his restraints.”
Her wide shoulders flexing under the maroon uniform top as she raised the sheet in order to fold it, Flora May shook her suspiciously dark, beehive-hairdo head. “I’ve never seen such a mess in all my born days. Poop smeared all over the walls and floors, and of course poor Mr. Akers was completely covered with it. And then when the old coot smiled at us, his teeth were covered with it!”
Starla’s stomach lurched queasily. “Please don’t remind me of it.” She reached for a clean sheet and began to fold it, the corners perfectly square. “It’s just lucky we found him before he could leave the room. Considering how confused and disoriented he is, Mr. Akers could even have wandered away from the home. Of course, the door alarm would have sounded, but if he’d gotten across the grounds to the river—”
Flora May’s good-natured, round face darkened. “It wasn’t luck, Starla. We discovered Mr. Akers out of bed because we always complete our rounds. When we report for duty, we check the patients’ beds. We continue our rounds through the night, with time out for washing laundry. At the end of the shift, we fold the clean linens.”
Starla knew what her friend was thinking. “Whenever Rose and Anita work the night shift, they spend the entire time out on the patio, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Then, right before change of shift, they do a hasty bed check, practically rolling the patients out onto the floor in their impatience to change the sheets and get the heck out of here.”
Flora May shook the sheet so angrily it cracked like a whip. “And when day shift comes on a short time later, they find the patients’ beds freshly changed. They actually think those two slackers worked all night.”
“It’s a crime how those two seem to get away with drawing a paycheck for doing absolutely nothing.” Starla sighed heavily, and reached for another warm sheet.
“After Anita and I worked the night shift together for about a week
, I went to Mrs. Hill, the administrator, and told her I’d rather work by myself than with that useless piece of dryer lint.”
Starla gazed at her friend in amazement. “You never told me that!”
Flora May pulled the end of a sheet so sharply the entire pile nearly tumbled to the floor. She caught it in her beefy arms in the nick of time. “Didn’t do much good. All Mrs. Hill did was pair you with me for four night shifts a week, and Anita and Rose the remaining nights.”
Meditatively smoothing the white material, Starla said, “Why doesn’t Mrs. Carter, the licensed practical nurse who works on the same nights as those two, say something? I think if Miss Crimpton, who works nights with us, saw us out on the patio for seven out of our eight work hours, she’d break her neck running to Mrs. Hill.”
Flora May started to chew on a nail before she remembered she’d recently been up to the elbows in Mr. Akers’ mess. “I think Anita and Rose have what you might call an arrangement with Mrs. Carter.”
“What do you mean, Flora May, by an arrangement? You mean like blackmail?” Starla’s thin face was openly disbelieving.
“No, I don’t think it’s as obvious as blackmail. I think it’s more of an unspoken deal.” Flora May rolled her eyes as Starla looked blank. “Anita and Rose pretend they don’t know Mrs. Carter is sleeping in the nurses’ lounge. Mrs. Carter acts like she doesn’t know Anita and Rose are sitting on the patio all night. See what I mean?”
Starla’s pale eyes glinted and her soft jaw line hardened. “I’m afraid I do see. So what happens if a patient needs something or worse, gets sick and needs the nurse?”
“The call lights buzz into the nurses’ lounge, where Mrs. Carter beds down for the night. According to some of the residents, they have to buzz for quite a long time, and although it does take some time for her to answer, the nurse eventually responds.”
Starla put the finished sheet on the growing stack of folded linen, and pulled an unfolded sheet from the dwindling pile on the table. “Why don’t the residents tell Mrs. Hill?”
“Come on, Starla. Use that brain of yours! The patients are afraid to say anything, except to us. They know they are at the mercy of the staff, especially when Mrs. Hill is not here, which happens to be primarily at night. They are terrified if they complain, Anita, Rose, or Mrs. Carter will exact their revenge. Those patients definitely cannot fight back.”
Starla’s pale cheeks were flushed in anger and her little fists were clenched in the sheet. “How horrible!”
Flora May’s eyes were hard, black pebbles in her broad face. “That’s why I’m going back to Mrs. Hill. I’m going to demand she do something about this, for the sake of the residents, or else I will contact the state agency which oversees nursing homes.”
Startled, Starla dropped the sheet she was holding. “Please don’t do that, Flora May!”
Flora May looked at her thin friend in shock. “Why ever not, Starla? I thought since you care for the residents as much as I do, you’d be happy I’m going to try to do something about it.”
Starla swallowed. “I want us to do something, but I have a more subtle plan. I saw an ad in the newspaper. The sewing factory is looking for workers, and the hourly rate listed in the newspaper is about two dollars higher than what we nursing assistants make. I was going to copy it and put it where Anita and Rose would see it.”
“Have you lost your mind? Why would they quit their jobs here, doing absolutely nothing, to work for a company notorious for pushing the workers to perform at 110%?” Flora May narrowed her eyes. “Starla, you act like you’re afraid to go to Mrs. Hill. Look, you don’t even have to get involved. I’ll go to her and I won’t even mention your name, I promise.”
Starla glanced over her shoulder and then turned back to her friend. “I don’t want you to go to Mrs. Hill because of what happened to Jonah Graham and that poor girl they found dead in the old cemetery.”
Flora May’s mouth dropped open. “I just thought you had cold feet about confronting Mrs. Hill. What’s this about Jonah and the dead girl?”
Starla tried to grasp Flora May’s upper arms, but couldn’t get her stubby fingers around the beefy limbs. “Jonah spoke to Mrs. Hill the morning he was killed.”
Flora May frowned. “How do you know?”
“Mrs. Craft told me. The old lady was loitering just outside Mrs. Hill’s office. Without seeming to see her, Jonah knocked—”
“Hold it! You’re telling me Jonah did not see Mrs. Craft, even though she has flaming red hair, shows way too much cleavage, and dresses in clothes fifty years too young for her?” Flora May snorted.
“Flora May! Please let me tell you about this! Jonah knocked on the administrator’s door, and went inside. He left the door open. Mrs. Craft heard Jonah say something about Mrs. Hill’s mother. Mrs. Craft said she couldn’t hear Mrs. Hill’s response, so she turned up her hearing aide. Mrs. Craft thinks Mrs. Hill heard the shrill whistling noise Mrs. Craft’s hearing aide makes when she turns it up too fast, because the door suddenly shut with a sharp click.”
Starla reached up to put her chapped hands on her friend’s sturdy shoulders. “Don’t you see? Jonah was shot the same day, after he talked to Mrs. Hill. He must have said something that upset her. If you go to Mrs. Hill and threaten to set the state inspectors on her, then she’ll surely go into a tizzy! Next thing you know, you’ll be the next to die!”
“Starla Farrell! I swear, you have been watching too much television. Mrs. Hill is so elegant and so professional. She’s always dressed in perfect suits and matching high heels. I bet each outfit costs more than our week’s paycheck. Can you imagine her gunning down an employee, simply for asking about her mother? And how in the heck would all of that tie in with a dead girl in the graveyard?”
Starla’s eyes dropped. “Well, when you put it that way, it does sound silly.” She bent over to pick up the sheet she’d dropped. “If it wasn’t Mrs. Hill who killed Jonah and the girl, then it was the ghost.”
With difficulty, Flora May restrained herself from throttling her friend. “Starla, there are no such things as ghosts, for goodness sake. I think those fumes from Mr. Akers have scrambled your brains.”
“Several of the residents have seen the ghost. Residents who are, I may add, alert and oriented.”
“Well, we’ve never seen it. Why doesn’t it ever show its face when we’re on duty?” Flora May demanded.
Starla frowned in concentration. “Maybe it doesn’t come out when we’re here because we’re always up and down the halls, and in and out of the patients’ rooms. When Anita and Rose work, they’re on the patio, and of course Mrs. Carter is asleep in the nurses’ lounge. It probably feels safe coming out then.”
Exasperated, Flora May pulled a clean sheet over her head and wildly flapped her arms at Starla. Careful not to disarrange her high column of hair, she removed the sheet. “There’s the solution to the mystery of the ghost. Someone is having their little joke. It could be one of the residents, who’s bored out of his skull and wants to liven things up around here.”
Starla played her trump. “If it’s a resident, then he is a murderer!”
“What are you talking about, missy? A murderous patient? What’s the weapon, a turbo-powered wheelchair?” She laughed heartily, her generous curves shaking.
Starla was undaunted. “Every time there’s a sighting of the ghost, one of the residents dies within hours of the ghost’s appearance!”
Flora May spoke slowly and carefully, as if to a child. “We work in a nursing home. The patients are old and sick. Those patients are bound to die!”
Starla shook her head, unconvinced. She glanced up at her friend’s face, and tried to speak casually. “You know this building used to be the residence of a very wealthy family, don’t you?”
“Sure,” agreed Flora May, glad her friend had stopped ranting about such crazy things as ghosts and murderers. “The place sat empty for years, until Mrs. Hill came along and bought the house for a song. She was
acting for some kind of a charitable organization or foundation or some such a thing. Anyway, I think she was right to convert the property to a nursing home, since it’s one story with the two wings. She did have to do some remodeling, like constructing the nurses’ station and the big commercial kitchen, and the landscaping of the grounds.”
With quick, deft fingers, Starla folded a stack of pillowcases. Casually, she asked, “Have you ever heard anything about the family that used to live here?”
Flora May frowned, trying to remember. “Of course, that was before our time. I do remember hearing they were a rich, high-falutin’ bunch. No way in hell that bunch would have ever stooped to socializing with my family of pig farmers. Wasn’t their name Pates or Tates or...”
“States. The family’s name was States.” Starla glanced sideways at her friend, who had turned away and bent over to empty the last dryer. She addressed her question to Flora May’s vast, maroon-covered behind. “Do you remember the tragedy?”
“Tragedy? I vaguely remember hearing something about a stabbing or shooting.” Flora May’s voice echoed eerily in the cavernous dryer.
“This huge house was inhabited by Mary and Paul States. They always dressed so elegantly, just like a couple on television, and they went to a lot of parties. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. States worked, but his mother, Maude States, who also lived in the house with them, had such buckets and buckets of money none of them had to get jobs.”
Flora May dumped the last batch of clean linen on the table and snorted. “Those people obviously had too much money and too much time on their hands. They’d have been much better off, at least the younger States, to have worked at honest jobs.”
Starla clamped her hands on her hips, frankly disbelieving. “Are you saying if you won the lottery, you’d keep working here? We clean up enough poop to qualify as brown-collar workers!”
Flora May’s face tightened in anger. “I like to think we do more than clean bottoms. We give the patients a listening ear, a comforting hand, and all the love in our hearts. If I won twenty million dollars, I’d still come here day after day, and continue to give them all of those things.”