by Cleo Coyle
“What in the world?” I moved to examine this bizarre find.
“These jars are filled with coffee beans.” Madame opened a lid to show me.
“Every jar is labeled. January, February, March…”
“Do you remember what Lilly’s little boy told you?” Madame asked.
I nodded, recalling Paz’s words: “If you’re praying for my mom, then you can put beans in her jar…”
“So the beans are prayers,” Madame said. “But what is Lilly praying for?”
“How far back do these dates go?” I wondered.
We went through them all, lining up the jars, and soon realized the label dates coincided with that black hole in Lilly’s life—all the way up to the time she was struck by the van.
That’s when it came back to me. The night Lilly was nearly killed, she tried to tell me something before losing consciousness.
What did she say? Think…
“Clare? What’s wrong?”
“Give me a moment,” I told Madame.
Sitting on the edge of Lilly’s bed, I closed my eyes. With a deep breath, I summoned back those painful images from just one week ago.
In my mind, Lilly was lying on the street again, her body broken, twisted, twitching. Then I ran to my friend, dropped to my knees, saw she was still conscious…
“I knew it… I knew this would happen…”
“Did you see the driver coming?”
“No. You don’t understand. This had to happen. I deserve this. It’s my fault…my fault… my most grievous fault…”
“Clare? What is it?”
My body was shaking, one fist crumpling Lilly’s coverlet. “She wasn’t asking for Last Rites. I know that now.”
“I don’t understand?”
“When a Catholic confesses her sins to her priest, she receives penance in the form of prayers. The priest instructs her to recite Hail Marys and Our Fathers, or full rosaries—”
“And rosaries are prayer beads!”
“Yes, they’re a way to count and keep track. A way to add it all up.”
“But we know that already, don’t we?” Madame said. “Paz told us these beans represent prayers.”
“More than prayers. They’re penance.”
“Penance for what? What did Lilly do?”
“Help me find the first jar…” I scrambled, looking. “When did this begin?”
Madame found it, picked it up, and we both noticed something buried at the bottom—a small, white square.
“Look, there’s something inside!”
Together, we dumped the dark beans onto Lilly’s pretty coverlet, pulled out the folded square of white. My hands were still shaking, and Madame took the paper from me, unfolded it, and slipped on her reading glasses.
“These are medical records,” she said, scanning the document. “They involve an eighteen-year-old girl… the comments are about her vital signs…”
“What’s the name of the patient?”
“Oh, my,” Madame whispered. “Clare, I know this girl. And so do you…”
I searched the top of the form for the patient’s name. Madame was right. The patient was the daughter of Helen Bailey-Burke and the best friend of Josh Fowler.
“But Meredith Burke is dead,” I pointed out.
“Then why is Lilly keeping these records?” Madame asked.
“That’s what I want to know.”
FORTY-FIVE
ON the drive back to Manhattan, I phoned Lilly’s longtime nurse friend, Terry Simone. Taking a chance, I simply asked her to drop by the Blend to talk. She agreed to a one o’clock meeting.
I considered calling Buckman, but decided to wait. Terry could provide answers on what I’d found, and those answers could save the man a great deal of investigative time. So I refocused my mind on work and tried to ignore the clock.
During a lull, I noticed Matt sitting alone in the corner, an empty demitasse in front of him, his gaze fixed on the smart screen of his brand new “thing.”
I pulled two doubles and crossed to his table. Matt accepted the fresh cup, leaned back in his chair, and took a satisfying hit.
“Thanks.”
“How’s it going?” I sat down opposite, took a sip for myself.
“The Red Hook warehouse mess is cleaned up,” he said. “Now all I have to do is sell Nino’s beans.” He shook his head, looking defeated. “Maybe once this mess is over…”
“Well, I’m not waiting to sell those beans. I’m taking a stack of your business cards with me tonight. We’re serving Ambrosia to the public for the first time, and—”
“That’s what you’re calling it?”
“Don’t you like the name?”
“I do—and I appreciate your trying, Clare, but you’re no broker. Fifty pounds for a wedding reception is a drop in the bucket.”
“A sterling silver bucket,” I pointed out. “Lots of wealthy alphas will be there tonight, Matt. Chefs, journalists, owners of restaurant chains. It’s the perfect showcase for the perfect cup.”
“And the Cup of Excellence?”
“There’s always next year. I mean, face facts, you’re not hot to travel back to Rio anytime soon, are you?”
“You have a point.”
“Give it a chance. Ambrosia is superb. It can sell itself.”
He took another espresso hit, ran his gaze over my shimmery pearl blouse. “You look nice today.”
“Listen, I hate to mention this. But your mother thinks you and me and Mike are…” I could hardly bring myself to say it.
“Are what?”
“Are in a ménage à trois.”
He waved his hand. “She’s jerking your chain.”
“No, she really thinks—”
“Mother knows what’s going on, Clare, I told her everything.”
I was surprised, but Matt was firm. “That mother of mine’s been through hell and back, you know that. She survived a war, buried more than one man she loved, even dealt with drug dealers in her day—and kicked their asses. I knew she could handle the truth. Besides, she’s still the owner of this business, and she has a right to know what’s happening in it.”
“Does she have an opinion about how things will turn out?”
“She’s an optimistic person at heart. And she thinks your Quinn will take care of us, keep us safe. She thinks a lot of him.”
“So do I. And, by the way, he thinks a lot of you.”
“Really?”
“He told me so last night.”
“I don’t know, Clare. I don’t know if I’m worthy of that.” He ran a hand over his face. “I never set out to hurt you. It’s the last thing I wanted. I hope you’ll remember that when this is over.” He shook his head. “You’re never going to forgive me.”
“Matt, take it easy.” I reached out, squeezed his hand. “None of this was your fault. It was a scumbag outlaw who tried to ruin us.”
“Maybe so, but it was my business decision that put the whole thing in motion, and now it’s you who’s going to have to make the sacrifices. I never meant for it to happen, Clare. Never. Please remember that. Will you do that for me?”
“Matt, what are you talking about? I don’t like the look in your eyes…”
My mind began casting about for logical answers. My ex was spending a lot of time with Mike Quinn, giving statements, working out strategy. That must be it. Quinn told Matt something that he didn’t want him to share with me. A sacrifice I had to make…
“Matt, what are you and Quinn keeping from me?”
“Clare! Oh, Clare!”
Terry Simone couldn’t have approached our table at a worse time. The second Matt saw me distracted, he excused himself and fled.
“You wanted to talk?” Terry asked. Slight and energetic with short-cropped yellow hair, she was already wearing pale blue nurse’s scrubs for her shift.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to shift gears. “Sit down, Terry…”
I motioned to Nancy to bring us cof
fees. Then I started my interrogation.
“I was wondering,” I began lightly, “have you spoken with that policeman who hangs around Lilly’s hospital bed?”
“Detective Buckman?” said Terry, her voice pitched far too high. “Oh, no, no… not since the first time we talked.”
“That’s funny. I mean, you work right there at Beth Israel, and Buckman’s there an awful lot. I thought you would have gotten to know one another.”
Terry’s shook her head so forcefully I thought she’d lose an earring. “I mean, I saw him last night, but I was on duty and too busy to chat.”
“Then Buckman didn’t ask you about Lilly’s life? He didn’t press you to tell him about those lost years of employment as a nurse—after Lilly quit the graveyard shift at Beth Israel and before she earned her registered dieticians degree?”
“Lilly was just going to school, that’s all.”
“So she wasn’t working for plastic surgeon Dr. Harry Land?”
Terry’s nervous ticks stilled, but she didn’t say a word, only continued to shake her head.
Thus far, none of these denials surprised me. After all, if Buckman had gotten the whole story from Terry, he never would have come to me…
“Well, never mind that,” I said. “I need your help with something else.”
Terry seemed relieved to change the subject. “Sure, anything.”
I pulled out the papers I’d found folded up in Lilly’s jar, placed them flat on the café table marble, and attempted to press out the years of crinkles.
“I’m not a medical person, you understand? But these sure do look like important records to me. There are a lot of terms here I don’t understand. Could you tell me what they mean?”
Terry’s hands settled on the paper, and she skimmed the first few lines, blinked in surprise when she saw the patient’s name. “What is this?”
“You tell me,” I said. “I found these in Lilly’s apartment. What was she doing with Meredith Burke’s medical records?”
Terry pushed the papers back at me. “I don’t know what you’re trying to find out here, Clare. But I promise you, Lilly Beth did nothing wrong. She tried to save that poor girl. It was the doctor’s fault. And because of Lilly’s arrangement with Land—”
“What kind of arrangement? Were they having a love affair?”
“No! Lilly was working off the books for the man at his private surgery center, that’s all. She needed cash to pay for school, for Paz, and to help with her mother’s money troubles—”
“So Lilly was Meredith’s nurse?”
Terry frowned and looked away. This was a terrible crossroads for her, and I could see her struggling with her moral compass. Which way should I go here? Am I about to help my friend or hurt her?
I knew how Quinn would handle Terry. By now he would have seen her emotional button—the thing that mattered most to her. Ironically, I had the same button, and I knew what I had to say.
“Terry, listen carefully to me. Detective Buckman isn’t interested in punishing Lilly. It’s clear whatever she did involving Meredith Burke’s young death has been eating her up inside. Lilly convinced herself that she should be punished in some way for it—but so did the driver who’d nearly killed her. Nearly is the key word. When Lilly gets out of her hospital bed, that hit-and-run driver may be waiting to strike her down again. Only this time that driver won’t be running until he or she is sure Lilly’s corpse is left behind.”
Terry blanched at my brutal picture, but I had to make her understand.
“To find the driver who hit Lilly, the truth has to come out…”
Terry closed her eyes. For almost a full minute, she hung her head, and I got the distinct impression she was praying. Whatever she was doing, however, I knew more babbling from me wasn’t going to help, so I simply sat, waiting for her to make her decision.
Finally, she lifted her head. “Okay,” Terry said quietly. “I’ll tell you everything I know…”
According to Terry, Dr. Harry Land had performed three procedures on Meredith at the same time, what he called his three-in-one. During recovery at the surgery center, the girl seemed anxious and frightened. She complained of light-headedness, shortness of breath.
The anesthesiologist was already gone for the day. As the nurse on duty, Lilly notified Dr. Land of the change in Meredith’s vital signs, but he dismissed her fears. He was busy giving a Botox treatment to another patient and didn’t want to take the time to cross the hall and check Meredith’s vital signs for himself.
“I can’t believe Dr. Land wasn’t concerned,” I said.
“Believe it,” Terry assured me. “When Meredith checked in, she was already suffering from nervous anxiety. The girl had a history of emotional issues, and she’d been prescribed valium by another doctor. Post-op, Meredith was eating and drinking normally, so Dr. Land thought she was just fine and ordered her discharged, even though the vitals Lilly took showed indications of a problem. It wasn’t until the next day that Lilly learned the poor girl had died.”
“What happened?”
Terry explained how Meredith had acquired a blood clot during surgery. “That can happen, and it’s nobody’s fault. Where Dr. Land erred was in attributing symptoms of a blood clot to anxiety. Sure Meredith had a history of it, but he wasn’t careful enough. If he’d acted properly, been more vigilant, Meredith could have been treated for the clot before it went to her lungs, and her life might have been saved.”
Terry drained her cup. “When Lilly went back and double-checked Meredith’s records, she found they’d been re-created, right down to her handwriting and the little L she used to end her entries. Dr. Land struck all evidence of shortness of breath, and he normalized the vital signs. Lilly knew it was a lie. She found the original records in the trash.”
“Why did Lilly keep these papers?” I asked.
“She wanted to do the right thing and confess, but Dr. Land convinced her the facts would ruin them both, professionally and financially. Lilly did absolutely nothing wrong—until she let Dr. Land convince her to disappear, bought her and Paz a little vacation visiting family in Makati. There was no record of her employment, only several other nurses he’d hired on a revolving basis through a service. He said it would be easy. But it wasn’t easy, because of Helen Bailey-Burke…”
According to Terry, during the malpractice suit, Helen insisted “some Spanish or Filipino nurse” had discharged her daughter, though she couldn’t recall the nurse’s name or even be sure of the woman’s national heritage. Dr. Land lied and claimed he’d discharged Meredith himself.
In the end, Helen lost her suit. The jury concluded that Dr. Land had acted appropriately, but only because they didn’t have all the facts and evidence. Helen Bailey-Burke knew Dr. Land had lied and covered his error, and she hired private detectives to hunt for Lilly.
“I talked to three in the space of four months!” Terry said.
“You claimed you knew nothing?”
“I was trying to protect my friend.”
I understood that motivation, but I wasn’t so sure Lilly had benefitted from it. She was lying in a hospital now, and she might never walk again.
“The only reason Lilly took that awful off-the-books job was to boost her salary fast. She was trying to help her mother. And she did, for a while.”
It when then I recalled the term that Lilly’s mother kept using, an “extra payment.” I asked Terry if she knew what it meant.
“You’ve been to her restaurant, right? Amina’s Kitchenette in Woodside?”
“Yes, it’s adorable.”
“Well Amina’s been there for close to two decades, built up a loyal clientele. They’re practically family to each other.”
“Believe me, I can relate to that.”
“Well, for years that woman had a handshake agreement with the old landlord, this Filipino guy who owned a lot of property along Roosevelt Avenue. When he died a few years ago, his young widow took over, and that one reall
y knows how to work the rent regulation system. She’ll slap a coat of paint in the hall of her buildings and raise the rent to cover the cost of ‘major renovations.’ Or buy new garbage cans and raise the rent again for ‘external improvements.’ You’ve lived in this city long enough, Clare. You know the type.”