Drawing Blood

by Deirdre Verne

  “Do you know the company?” Corey asked.

  “Sure, it’s called Health Associates,” Frank said. “The local office is small, but it’s a national provider. HA covers the police department and municipal workers and that would include recycling center employees.”

  Corey frowned, and her Irish freckles disappeared into the wrinkles around her eyes. “My niece is smart and from what I’m hearing, Bob is no slouch in the brains department. But from my experience, the insurance business is incredibly complicated. I think we’re giving these two too much credit.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Gayle and Bob must have had someone on the inside to help them, and I’m wondering if it might be this doughy man you’re referring to.”

  Frank nodded. “Someone who worked at an insurance company while receiving dialysis,” Frank said. “But maybe, as the stress to find more unused policies mounted, the doughy man wanted out.” He picked up his ringing phone and listened intently. “We’ve got trouble,” he relayed. “A security guard at the labs thinks he saw your father on the campus.”

  “We have to stop him,” I said, and then I shared the conversation I’d had with Dr. Grovit earlier in the morning. “My father has lost it. He thinks he still works at the labs.”

  “The labs are the last place I’d expect your father to show his face,” Corey said.

  “No kidding,” I said and then added, “but my father isn’t working with a full deck. If it were any of us, we wouldn’t consider returning to the scene of our professional disgrace.” And just like that, it came to me. “Frank, I think Gayle is hiding at the labs.” Frank stared at me as if my father’s mental deterioration were contagious. “Don’t you see?” I stammered. “If Gayle did her research, and I’m sure she did, then she discovered the irreparable damage my father had done to his career. Like Carolyn said, the labs are the last place anyone would expect to see my father. If I wanted to hide from him, that’s where I’d be.”

  The room fell silent, broken by a blood-curdling scream. Katrina was about to deliver.

  As Frank worked out a plan, Vicky waltzed in the front door as if there were still nine months to go on this ticking time bomb of a baby. Instead of a warm welcome, she was hurried aside as Frank flew out the front door.

  “I’ll call Cheski and have him meet you at Health Associates,” he yelled back to me. “And bring your sketch of the doughy man. By the time you get there, I’ll have found a contact for you.”

  I grabbed my keys and headed for the Gremlin. Corey was right behind me.

  “You’re not staying with Katrina?” I asked Corey.

  “The midwife is here. If Gayle is at the labs, then that’s where I’ll be. I’m going to stop and pick up Kelly first,” she said as she headed for her car.

  fifty-one

  The Health Associates regional manager, Marcia Melia, met Cheski and me at the elevator. One look at Cheski’s uniform, and Melia motioned us quickly down the hall. “I think maybe we’ll use the conference room,” she said as she hustled us away from the open workspace, but not before a few curious heads peered over a bank of cubicles. We followed Melia, an attractive woman in her late forties in a snuggly fit pencil skirt, into a conference room with no windows. Cheski nudged me in the ribs and raised his eyebrow as Melia leaned over to swipe the electronic lock on the conference room door.

  Cheski was mildly distracted by Melia’s butt. I, on the other hand, was fixated on the ID hanging around her neck.

  We took our seats and Cheski, using the same easygoing style he had exhibited at the food co-op, zeroed in on Melia’s sweet spot.

  He put his hand in the middle of his chest and said, “Double bypass, two years ago, never saw a bill.”

  Melia beamed. “We’re very proud to provide the police department with comprehensive coverage. How can I be of help?”

  “We’d like you to look at a sketch of a person of interest,” he said. Melia nodded.

  I opened my sketch pad to the second drawing I had done of the doughy man, the one with the thinning combover. I placed the pad on the table and spun it in Marcia Melia’s direction. Her flushed chest and crimson cheeks told me she could identify the doughy man by name, but instead Melia rolled her lips and rested her hand on her chin as if she really needed to think about the man’s identify. Unfortunately, the clock was ticking. Unless Gayle burst through the doors with a top hat and cane, singing “Hello My Baby,” we needed an answer.

  “Do you recognize this man?” Cheski asked.

  Melia adopted an indifferent frown and tossed her head from side to side.

  “We believe his name begins with an L,” I interrupted, forcing Melia’s hand. I watched as she fiddled with her name tag.

  “May I ask what this is about?”

  “Think of it as a customer service issue,” Cheski said. Melia wouldn’t give.

  I had an urge to cry uncle or checkmate or some other inane competitive cliché, but I held my tongue. Instead, I shifted forward in my chair until I could see Melia’s photo ID. “I’m assuming all HA employees have a photo ID?”

  Cheski smiled and piggy-backed on my question. “Maybe it would be easier for us to look through your employee photos ourselves?”

  Melia nodded slowly as she evaluated her limited options. “His name is Lonnie. Lonnie Drummond.” She cleared her throat and addressed Cheski. “I’ve been working here since high school. I started as a keyboard processor, and this job is very important to me.”

  Cheski reached out his hand without actually touching Melia. “That’s why we came directly to you.” Man, he was full of it, but it seemed to be working.

  Melia softened. “I’ve noticed some”—she paused—“discrepancies in our payments recently.”

  “Do you think Mr. Drummond is embezzling money?” Cheski asked.

  Melia shook her head. “No, that’s the problem. I’ve been around long enough to know when money is missing.”

  “Then what is it?” I asked.

  “This might sound odd, but I think Lonnie’s department may have …” She paused again and searched the windowless room for answers before continuing. “I can’t say for sure, but I think Lonnie’s department may have inadvertently paid out for services to members who had already passed away.” Melia appeared confused at her own discovery. “It’s ridiculous, of course. Why would a dead person require medical services? It’s most likely a computer issue, but I’m not a fan of loose ends, and I brought it up with Lonnie recently. He insisted the overlap was a timing thing, but he couldn’t provide proof. We had an argument about it recently.” Melia lowered her head.

  “Could you be more specific?” I asked and then clarified, “Do you remember the day you argued? The exact date?”

  Melia answered quickly. “The Monday before last. I remember losing sleep over it on a Sunday night. I promised myself I’d ask Lonnie to run an updated report first thing Monday morning.” She threw her hands up in the air. “I still haven’t received the report. I had to issue Lonnie a formal warning. In twenty years, I’ve never had to do that. I haven’t fired a single person, but I made it clear that he’d have to go if he kept up his behavior.”

  Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrow. Bob fell to his death on a Thursday, a few days after Marcia Melia threatened to fire Lonnie Drummond. Timing seemed to be a reoccurring theme in this case. I wondered if Lonnie was Bob’s inside man, his connection to the insurance industry. I also wondered if Bob and Lonnie’s last conversation had to do with Lonnie’s inability to deliver given his situation at work. It sounded like Marcia was a few key strokes away from figuring out that Lonnie had processed some rogue claims.

  “Ms. Melia,” I said, “how is Lonnie’s health?”

  “He does have some health issues,” Melia replied. “In fact, I reminded him of our generous health benefits when I read him the riot act. Let me te
ll you, he started to come around after that comment. If I remember correctly, he took a half day last week to get his head together.”

  I didn’t need to ask. I knew Lonnie had taken a half day on a Thursday. Lonnie, a dialysis patient, couldn’t afford to lose this job.

  “I’d like to meet Mr. Drummond,” Cheski said. Melia leaned back in her chair, her shoulders lowered as the tension released from her body. “He’s off-site today.”

  “Doing what?” Cheski asked.

  “We received an exploratory call for program services from the Sound View labs. Very short notice, but it’s a huge account. Lonnie is pitching the senior administrators on a full-service plan today, including dental.” She beamed. The commission on this one deal would keep Marcia Melia in designer skirts for years, I thought. “If Lonnie nails this account,” she continued, “it will be tough for me to stay mad at him.”

  Cheski thanked Melia for her time and promised this would be resolved quickly. He handed her his card and asked that she call him immediately when Lonnie returned to work. The elevator opened, and as soon as the doors closed, Cheski blew a gasket.

  “Everyone involved in this case is at the labs right now.” He started to tick off the players starting with his thumb. “Your non-birth daughter, your crazy-ass father, and now Lonnie Drummond, otherwise known as the doughy man. All of them are at the labs while we’re standing here.” Cheski heaved his stocky frame through the elevator doors and jogged to the car.

  I stayed in the elevator, my face in hands. Up until this point, I had never experienced a maternal moment, but all I could think about was how many ways I would punish Gayle if she came out of this alive. It was a ridiculous thought, as I had never even met Gayle. However, now, I understood how a parent could experience anger and fear for their child at the same time. What the hell was she thinking? Why hadn’t she come home when she realized the situation had escalated? Was she too young to truly comprehend what had happened to Bob? Or was it even simpler than that? Was Gayle merely a scared teenager, nervous about the punishment her father might dole out? Lost computer privileges? No more trips to the mall?

  “CeCe,” Cheski said when I caught up with him, “this is getting weird.”

  “Ya think?” I said as I jogged alongside him. About halfway to our car, Cheski stopped hard and bent over.

  “Your heart?”

  Cheski waved me away. “I’m fine. I lied about the heart bypass to get Melia to talk. It’s something else,” he said as he straightened up and dialed his phone. “Frank,” Cheski breathed heavily into the phone. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure Cheski’s nonexistent heart condition was a ruse. “Did you speak to the security guard that spotted CeCe’s father?” Cheski asked Frank. I inched closer to hear Frank’s response.

  “Actually, a female assistant called it in,” Frank replied, but before he could continue, Cheski cut him off and explained where Lonnie Drummond was about to spend the afternoon.

  “There is no security guard,” Cheski said. “It’s a setup. I’ll bet you won’t find the female assistant either. Someone arranged to have all of these people on the Sound View campus at the same time.”

  fifty-two

  As if I wasn’t already scared out of my mind, Cheski’s NASCAR driving pushed me over the edge. My hometown whizzed by me and within minutes, Cheski plowed straight up the labs’ main drive toward the entrance. Without bothering to find a parking spot, he braked and bolted out of the car.

  “Don’t follow,” he yelled. I sat in the car and glared at the front doors while I plotted my next move. I was about to open the car door when I stopped. For some reason, I didn’t feel compelled to disobey Cheski’s order. Exhaustion had caught up with me, and the muscles in my legs felt inches too long for my limbs. I stumbled out of the car and wobbled over to a park bench, where I gripped the slats for support. Next to the bench, a carved wooden sign, detailed the labs’ history. Established 1980, it read. That’s a lot of years of bad, I thought, and then I considered how much I hated, and I mean really hated, Sound View Laboratories. As Cheski had pointed out, everyone involved in the case was currently on the premises. It was an odd-ball reunion of the most controversial people in the life of CeCe Prentice. Dr. Carolyn Corey, my egg thief, was somewhere on the campus searching for the daughter I had never met. Lonnie Drummond, the key suspect in my good friend’s murder, was currently pitching a multimillion dollar insurance package in a conference room. And then there was my father, fresh off his strangulation spree and lurking the halls of the Sound View labs.

  I’ll just sit and let this play itself out. I draw pictures, not guns. Cheski and Frank could handle the showdown. To distract myself, I moved closer to the wooden sign and read a few more lines of promotional bullshit when something caught my eye. A recently placed placard hung on the far corner of the sign.

  In memory of our esteemed colleague, Dr. Theodore Prentice.

  I hung my head and watched as a stream of mucus ran from my nose to the pavement. I reached into my shorts pocket and pulled out a linen handkerchief. This one had a Q embroidered on it. I didn’t know anyone with the initial Q, but I figured the original owner was probably safer having never met me. I glanced back at the sign and sneered at the pathetically sparse dedication to my brother. God, how I wished Teddy and I had been related. My whole life, it seemed, had been a useless quest to capture a sense of attachment. One that my self-centered father had been unable or unwilling to provide to me as a child. I also knew I was the only one who could make a change.

  I stood up and climbed over a row of bushes. I removed Teddy’s placard and tossed it into a pile of cedar mulch. My brother deserved more than a lame sign the size of a Hallmark card. He needed to be honored in a much greater way. If I could make that happen, then I’d feel connected, and there was only one way to preserve the link between my brother and me. I had to find Gayle.

  I strode over to the front doors of the labs’ main entrance. In my head, I strode. In reality, I shuffled as I found my sea legs. The doors seemed heavy at first, but I forced myself to focus on the scene unfolding in front of me.

  Cheski and Frank were in a heated conversation with the receptionist, an old-timer I actually knew. I made my way over and leaned across the chest-level desk.

  “Hi, Marjorie,” I said. Marjorie had been with the labs since the beginning, and she had spent a career fawning over the labs’ doctors, literally feeding my father’s God complex. I was fairly certain my father’s fall from grace had rattled her sense of social order.

  “CeCe,” she exclaimed, clearly surprised by my visit, “these men insist your father is here, but I certainly did not sign your father in. I was one of your father’s greatest fans, but this is not the place for him now.”

  “He’s here,” I said. “I know that’s disturbing, but you’ll have to trust me.”

  “But I didn’t call the police,” Marjorie insisted. “These men said I called the police.”

  I believed Marjorie. She had no motivation to lie. As far as who had called the police, it didn’t really matter. My father was here.

  “After my brother was murdered,” I said, pointing down the hall in the direction of Teddy’s old office, “did the labs institute increased security precautions?”

  Marjorie lifted her ID tag. Her photo, with its halo of pink hair, smiled back at me. “We have to wear these tags. It constantly snags on my sweater. I don’t even like wearing the sweater, but the air conditioning in here is set in the arctic range. It must cost this place a fortune.” Marjorie droned on for a few minutes before I interjected.

  “Any other security protocol?” I asked. Marjorie shook her head no. “Do we agree that my father is smart enough to outsmart a plastic tag?”

  Marjorie nodded affirmatively. “He would have hated these tags.”

  “What about Lonnie?” I turned to Frank.

  “According to Marjorie, she has
n’t signed anyone in by that name,” he replied as he pulled the sign-in sheet toward him. Marjorie cringed. The sign-in sheet was her domain, but she seemed a bit more willing to work with Frank since my arrival. “Thank you,” he said as he ran his finger down the list of names.

  “Dammit,” Frank hissed under his breath. His turned the paper back to Marjorie with his finger on a gap from two to three o’clock. “Marjorie,” he said calmly, “it’s almost 4 p.m. When did you take lunch?”

  “One-ish.” Marjorie replied and then added sheepishly. “I may have been a little late getting back.”

  “Who covered for you?” I asked.

  Marjorie rolled her eyes. “Some new girl with awful black hair.”

  I closed my eyes. A girl with black hair. What had Gayle gotten herself into? I didn’t want to open my eyes, but a booming voice, one I recognized, filled the main corridor with a string of obscenities.

  “You’re telling me to speak with the head of Human Resources? Do you have any goddamn idea who I am? Can someone please tell me why the hell I was not informed we were changing the company health plan?”

  I knew my father was in the building. And now, Marjorie did too, as well as half the people on the floor. If Gayle was here, as I suspected, I hoped she was hiding in a broom closet, tucked safely away. Although I hadn’t spotted my father yet, he continued to rage about being left out of a meeting.

  A pudgy man with a combover and an enormous stack of glossy brochures trotted down the hallway toward the reception desk. “I was told a conference room would be available,” he huffed in Marjorie’s direction. “I’ve been standing in the hallway for twenty minutes listening to this lunatic,” he said as he tilted his head toward the sound of my father’s approaching voice. Marcia Melia had already tipped us off as to Lonnie’s location, but I knew he was the doughy man from my sketches. I’d definitely gotten the hair right.