“Wait. There’s more.” I told him how James recognized Poole as one of DeeDee Dakota’s care providers while she was hospitalized in Idaho.
“Poole was one of DeeDee’s doctors? She didn’t mention that.”
“You know, James didn’t say she was a doctor, just that he’d seen her going in and out of DeeDee’s room. If Poole worked at that hospital, it should be listed in her credentials file. I’ll ask Cleo to check that.”
“Is she allowed to tell you?”
“Not really, but she will. She thinks Poole’s a rotten apple, and she would do more than that to prove it.”
“Good. See if she can do it before we fly to Idaho. I’ll touch base with Rella so she’ll know where to reach me about anything work-related while we’re gone.”
“What could she need you for? Isn’t Buck out of the country?”
“It’s part of the protocol. We’re supposed to maintain contact just in case.”
So no matter where Nick and I were, he had to be in touch with Rella. On top of that, he would be making a second date with Phyllis Poole. I suppressed a sigh. Now I had two reasons to work on my trust issues with Nick—both of them tall and blond, each extraordinary in her own way. I had counted on time to put Nick and me back on course after the Paris incident, but it was taking longer than I’d expected. Harry warned me that Nick wouldn’t wait forever, and I knew he was right. I had to resolve my nagging doubts, but how?
At work on Friday morning, I called Cleo and told her about James seeing Phyllis Poole in DeeDee’s hospital room in Idaho.
“That’s impossible,” Cleo said. “I’ve seen her CV. She was working in a hospital in New York back then.”
“But James was certain he saw her. Maybe she was on a leave of absence or some kind of teaching exchange. Please take another look at her file. Maybe there’s something in her CV that you missed.”
“I’m pulling the file as we speak.” I heard her turning pages. “Nope, nothing about her working at a hospital in Idaho.”
“Does the CV show that she ever lived in Idaho?”
“No.”
“Then how do I find out if she was really there?”
“I’ve already arranged for you to talk to Brenda McClurg. She’s my counterpart at Dunnsville Memorial up there. Maybe she’ll remember Poole.”
Harry gave me a ride to the airport on Friday afternoon. We met Nick at the hangar, where he’d already pulled out the plane. Buck Sawyer’s Mustang Citation gleamed in the slanting late October sunlight—a sleek combination of prehistoric bird and futuristic time capsule.
“Hot damn,” Harry said. “How about I go with you guys?”
I poked his chest. “You’re watching the ranch, Bro. Besides, you said you were much too busy, remember?”
“Some other time,” Nick said. “When you can tear yourself away from your mall project, we’ll do a ski weekend in Sun Valley.”
“Deal,” Harry said. “When will you two be back?”
“No later than Sunday evening,” I said. “Keep an eye out for any sign of prowlers or intruders.”
Harry glanced at Nick. “You think that’s likely?”
“No, but someone else is looking for the woman we’re trying to find, and whoever it is might have your grandparents’ address.”
Harry lifted my overnight case from the backseat of his Jag. “Aimee, did you ever get a handle on that person named Pat you asked me about?”
“No, but thanks for reminding me. Maybe we’ll find someone named Pat when we get to Idaho.”
I insisted on a hug from Harry and held on until he squirmed. He shook hands with Nick and drove away.
Nick did a final walk-around and stowed our luggage. We were soon airborne, lifting over oak-studded hills and rising above forested mountains as we headed east toward southern Idaho into a sky tinged with twilight. Despite the circumstances of our trip, we both took pleasure in the comfort of Buck’s luxurious six-passenger aircraft. Nick said it was capable of 400 knots and an altitude of 41,000 feet, but there was no need to push it to the maximum for our relatively short flight.
We lost an hour by crossing into Mountain Standard Time and touched down shortly after dark at a municipal airport a few miles from Dunnsville. Our rental car was a tidy gray sedan.
The motel rooms Nick had reserved for us at Kitty’s Koral were quaint but clean. At least mine was. The motel clerk recommended a diner within walking distance. Nick had checked the weather before we took off and got the forecast pilots like to hear. No storms were expected for the days we planned to be in Idaho, but daytime temperatures were predicted to vary anywhere from the low sixties to the high seventies.
The night air was cool on our walk to the diner, and I was glad I’d taken along a fleece-lined denim jacket. On our way I filled Nick in on my conversation with Cleo and how she’d found no references to Idaho in Dr. Poole’s CV.
“Too bad. Sounds like you’ll have a hard time verifying James O’Brien’s story. Maybe he was mistaken.”
“Cleo said the woman I’m meeting at Dunnsville Memorial might know something.”
We arrived at the diner half an hour before closing and found The Roundup empty except for a bored waitress—Ursula, according to her name badge—who reminded me of our rental car: small and gray with no frills. We sat at a speckled yellow counter worn almost white from decades of use and gave our orders.
She disappeared into the kitchen and came back in less than ten minutes with our food. My burger and fries smelled so delicious I nearly drooled, and Nick gazed at his steak and onion rings with an expression of pure joy.
We had finished half our meal when the waitress asked how everything was. We assured her the food was great. She lingered for a moment, probably bored with no one else to feed, so I seized the initiative and asked her for directions to Dunnsville Memorial Hospital.
Ursula’s eyes widened. “You’re not sick, are you?”
“No,” I improvised. “We think a friend of ours is a patient there.”
She rubbed at a spot on the counter with a damp cloth smelling of bleach. “I hope your friend’s condition isn’t serious.”
“Why?”
“I shouldn’t say anything.” She glanced behind her at the double doors that led to the kitchen where pots and pans were rattling.
“But you said you hoped her condition isn’t serious. Is there a problem with the hospital?”
When she looked again at the doors to the kitchen, I glanced at Nick. His turn.
He used his arsenal of secret weapons: the smile, the eyes, the intimate just between us tone, and soon the waitress was spilling the beans in whispered tones about a scandal at the local privately owned hospital.
Rumor had it, the ER doctors there were given incentives to admit patients who didn’t really need to be hospitalized. Even worse, freelance ambulance services were offered bribes to deliver patients to Dunnsville Memorial even when their medical needs would be better served at a larger nearby hospital.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked. DeeDee’s stay there had been more than two years ago, but it was still within the realm of possibility that she’d been a victim of this misconduct.
“Who knows?” Ursula’s reply came with a shrug. “No one noticed until a few months ago, when our mayor had a stroke. He should have been taken to Boise, but instead he was delivered to Dunnsville Memorial by the crooked ambulance service.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“He died. His wife went freakin’ ballistic and it hit the news. She’s suing Dunnsville Memorial and the ambulance service for a bundle.”
Nick and I finished up a few minutes later, declined Ursula’s offer of dessert, and left her a hefty tip to compensate for the dirt she’d dished up about Dunnsville Memorial. Maybe there would be more to come.
Chapter 17
Back at the motel I suggested we spend some time planning our fact-finding strategy before calling it a night. I opened the door to
my room and Nick followed me inside. Our rooms shared an adjoining door that either of us could choose to lock. Or not.
“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to work,” I said. “First I want a shower.”
“I’d offer to help, but I’m guessing that’s not an option.” He reached out and caressed my cheek. His fingertips set off an electric tingle that traveled up into my scalp and down below my comfort zone. It took some effort, but I managed to back away.
“I guess not.”
Nick leveled a look at me. “If this is about Rella, maybe we should talk.”
His ominous statement was like a punch in the stomach. “Maybe we should.”
“You want to start?” Nick sat in one of the two chairs in my room. I took the other and tried to explain what I barely understood myself.
“When Rella answered your phone that night in Paris, it triggered something in me that I’d never experienced, and I didn’t like it. I believed you had betrayed my trust and I was furious. It didn’t occur to me that there was an innocent explanation, and Rella didn’t offer one.”
“Rella was drunk and groggy with sleep. But you already know this. What are you getting at?”
“Before, when you and I were together, I believed we were exclusive and committed to each other. After the misunderstanding, I realized that we had never talked about it; I had just taken it for granted. The point is that my first thought was that you had cheated. I felt like a naïve fool and reacted like one instead of trusting you and letting you explain. I need to be able to trust you completely if we’re going to move ahead. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
“But eventually you accepted my explanation about the hotel mix-up. That was two months ago. I thought we were making progress getting back on track, but obviously something has changed. Why didn’t you talk to me sooner?”
“Because it’s some kind of delayed reaction. I barely understand it myself, and I have to work it out by myself. I hate the doubts that creep into my mind.”
“Hell, Aimee. We all have doubts. Do you think I liked watching your friend James O’Brien planting a kiss on you?”
“No, but did it make you wonder if I’d slept with him?”
“Of course not. That’s not who you are.”
“You’re right. But don’t you see? That’s how I used to feel about you. I’m trying to get back there again, but it’s taking time and I can’t fake it.” I felt tears sting with my next words. “And I can’t ask you to wait much longer.”
“How long I wait is up to me.” He got up and came to me, taking my hands and lifting me from my chair. “You and I agreed to start over as friends with options. I get that the options are off the table right now. I’ll accept that and I won’t pressure you, but I’m not above testing you with a little flirting occasionally.”
I felt myself smile. “I can handle that. But why are you being so understanding?”
“Because I like you and I like being with you. Even as a friend, you’re more interesting than anyone else I know.”
“Really? Why?”
He laughed. “Beats me. It must be because you’re a librarian.” He passed through the adjoining door into his room and I went to take my shower.
Half an hour later I had just pulled on jeans and a T-shirt when I heard a knock on the door between my room and Nick’s. I opened it.
“Ready to work?” Nick asked.
“Yes, let’s get started.”
We listed everything we could think of about DeeDee and Cody O’Brien and the rest of the clan, including James, Keely, and Seamus—the patriarch with the pregnant wife. Then we added Laurie Popejoy, Phyllis Poole, and even Tucker Potkotter. We tried to draw intersecting circles on a page to see how their lives connected and ended up with something resembling a slinky toy with a broken belly.
“This isn’t working,” I said. “None of it suggests why Laurie might have come here, or why someone might have brought her here against her will. I think we’re on a wild goose chase.”
“Maybe, but let’s keep going. We know she’s mixed up in the cowboy’s death somehow, and this is where his wife died. You were told Laurie Popejoy has family in Idaho, and you think you saw her leaving the wilderness in a pickup with an Idaho license plate. Cody O’Brien skipped out on a surgery scheduled with the Poole woman, and James O’Brien told you he saw Poole at his sister-in-law’s bedside here in Dunnsville. Chances are your missing nurse was headed this way. Let’s find her and find out why.”
Nick’s pep talk didn’t convince me we were going to succeed, but it did make me feel guilty for whining.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re investing your time and Buck’s money to help me, and I’m being a pain. Why are you even here? None of this has anything to do with you.”
Nick reached out and took my hand. “Did you think I was going to let you have all the fun? We both have a sense of adventure, and we don’t mind taking calculated risks. That makes us a good team. Besides, flying Buck Sawyer all over the world is boring compared to playing detective with you. Let’s get back to work. Is anyone missing from our list?”
“There is one other possibility. Tobias Fausset.”
“Poole’s associate?” Nick jotted the name. “How does he fit in?”
“I don’t know, but he and Laurie were in Code Blues together.”
“TMC’s music group? You think there was something going on between them?”
“I thought there might be, the way they sang together. The chemistry seemed so ….”
“Powerful?” Nick asked. “Like it was with us?”
I swallowed. He said was. I hoped the past tense was only temporary. “They might have had a thing, but they never made it public.”
Nick leaned back in his chair and stretched. “I need a break. Want a beer?”
“Where are you going to get a beer?”
“From the cooler in my room.”
“Okay, just one.”
He came back a few minutes later with two bottles, handed one to me, and took a pull from his.
“We need to make the most of our time tomorrow. When is your meeting with Cleo’s contact at that hospital?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“You think she knows about the bribes that waitress mentioned?”
“She has to know now, even if she didn’t before.” I took a sip of the cold beer. It made my throat tingle and soothed my frayed edges at the same time.
“You were told this woman you’re meeting was working there back when DeeDee was hospitalized?”
“That’s what Cleo said. She and Brenda McClurg met several years ago at a conference and hit it off.”
Nick checked his notes. “In addition to Cody, we know James O’Brien and Phyllis Poole were in and out of DeeDee’s room. Would your contact have any way of knowing what was going on?”
“That’s what I’m hoping, but it’s hard to know how much she’ll remember.”
“Or how much she’ll be willing to tell.” Nick drained the last of his beer. “It might be an outside chance, but DeeDee was a celebrity at the time—a big girl frog in a little pond. People remember things that stand out. A celebrity trick rider getting kicked in the head by her horse in front of a grandstand full of people would have made the news. Especially when she ended up dying.”
“I agree.” I yawned and looked at the digital clock next to the bed. “It’s almost midnight and we have a lot to do tomorrow. I need sleep.”
Nick yawned back at me. “So do I. Anything else we need to go over tonight?”
“You haven’t said what you’re going to do tomorrow.”
“After I drop you off at the hospital, I’m going to cruise around—see if I can spot a black F-150 with a crew cab and a dirty license plate.”
“Wait a minute. I just remembered something.”
I scrambled for my purse and pulled out the paperwork for our rental car. “Here, look at the license plate number. It starts the same way as the one I saw in
the wilderness. The number 2, then the letter C. Do you think that means anything? Like what year it was issued?”
“Let me see that.” Nick took out his phone and typed a few words. “Here it is.” He pointed to the screen. “I’d forgotten about Idaho plates. They’re all designated by county. We’re in Canyon County; that’s 2C.”
“Then the pickup Laurie was in was licensed in this county.”
“Definitely. We’re on the right track if your friend Laurie has family around here. Now let’s get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.” He walked to the adjoining door and hesitated. “I’m locking this, so if you start to miss me, don’t get any ideas.”
I grabbed a pillow off the bed and tossed it at his back.
“Nice shot.” He picked it up, walked over, and placed it gently on my bed. He turned down the covers and gave me a look full of meaning.
I felt a surge of longing and nearly gave in to it, but just then his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and answered.
“Rella? What’s up?” Nick walked to the door between our rooms with the phone to his ear. He turned to me, shrugged and mouthed Sorry as he went through and closed it behind him.
Perfect timing. I could spend the rest of my night wondering what might have happened if that call hadn’t come.
While I sat staring at that door, I realized we’d left someone off our list. I picked up my pen and added another name: Mystery Pat.
I hung my outfit for the next morning in the bathroom and then turned on the TV. It boasted twenty cable channels, but I thumbed the remote until I found the local eleven o’clock news out of Boise. The scandal at Dunnsville Memorial rated a few minutes of air time and an interview with the administrator, who denied any wrongdoing.
I wondered if Brenda McClurg would be willing to tell me anything while the investigation was ongoing. Even after Cleo’s intervention, McClurg could decide to clam up. She’d been at Dunnsville Memorial long enough to have a certain amount of loyalty to her employer. I turned off the set and lay there for what seemed like hours before I slept.
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