Liar

by Campbell, Jamie

  “It was okay, like any marriage really.” It was crumbling.

  “Would you say Renee was happy?”

  “I think so.” No, she wasn’t.

  “Do you know if she was involved in anything that she might want to report to the police or the media?” Leo crossed his fingers, hoping he was privy to whatever Renee White was up to. That was his sole reason for speaking with Kale, he needed to know what on earth she had got herself involved in.

  “No, of course not.”

  Amelia had expected a lie, but she heard nothing. Whatever Renee knew, he certainly didn’t.

  “She wasn’t involved in anything illegal?” Leo continued. “It’s okay, it’s just between us. You can’t get her into trouble now.”

  Kale appeared to be genuinely upset by the question. “She was a wife, mother, and a nurse. Her whole life was us, she wasn’t involved in anything illegal. She just wouldn’t have done it.”

  Leo nodded, moving on. He wasn’t entirely sure the man knew who his wife really was. He couldn’t help thinking back to the conversation he had in the car with Amelia. Something told him Renee would have completely agreed with Amelia’s reasoning that you didn’t need to share everything with your partner.

  “I understand, Mr. White. I’m sorry I have to ask these questions and I know they are difficult to answer but I’m trying to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  “I know, it’s just that I don’t want her memory tainted.” Kale calmed down, succumbing to the detective’s charm. “She wouldn’t do anything wrong.” She did do things wrong.

  “Do you mind if I ask some questions?” Amelia looked at Leo, he gestured for her to go on. She couldn’t stand by any more and Leo appeared to be letting Kale off the hook. “Mr. White, I’m sorry for your loss. When you said you were forgetting the past year, there were other things you needed to forget too, weren’t there?”

  “No.” Yes.

  “What else did you need to forget?”

  “Nothing.” Something. He was getting defensive as she tried to work out how to get the answers out of him. If she could ask the right answers, his lies would tell her the truth she needed. But apart from guessing, it was going to be difficult.

  “Every marriage has its ups and downs, I’m sure yours did too,” she continued, trying to imagine everything that could have gone on. Perhaps Renee had a wall too.

  “Our marriage was strong. I don’t like what you’re implying.” Our marriage was broken.

  “Was she keeping things from you?”

  “No.” Yes.

  “Did you argue about Jordan? Perhaps his upbringing?”

  “No, we didn’t.” The truth.

  Amelia decided to go for the biggest tragedy in a marriage, throw it out there and hope Kale wouldn’t throw them out. “Was there another person involved?”

  Kale crossed his arms, physically shutting them down. “No.” Yes.

  “Was Renee having an affair?” Amelia stared him directly in the eyes, challenging him to answer.

  “Amelia, I don’t think we should-” Leo butted in, trying to calm down the situation. He could see Kale clamming up and that was not going to end well.

  “Answer the question, Mr. White.” She ignored the detective, intent on getting her answer.

  Kale pouted. “No, she wasn’t.” Yes, she was.

  “Who was she seeing?”

  “Amelia-”

  “Nobody,” Kale answered. Yet he practically yelled Her boss.

  Amelia nodded and shifted her glance toward Leo. “I’m done.”

  Leo went on damage control and thanked Kale profusely for his help. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, practically pushing Amelia out the door.

  Out in the lobby, they waited for the elevator. “You can’t talk to people like that,” Leo scolded, as gently as he could. “Especially not when they are the victims.”

  “He was lying. He barely said anything truthful,” she said defensively, trying to justify herself.

  “How do you know? Were you getting flashes?”

  “No, I-” She stopped herself just in time. “Yes, flashes.”

  He sighed and jumped into the lift. Thankfully, they were alone. He couldn’t wait to hear what she had discovered. “Well, what did you get then?”

  “Renee was having an affair with her boss. Kale knew about it but he really didn’t know what else she was involved in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Certain.”

  “Then I guess we better go to the hospital and see the boss,” Leo replied, hoping the end justified the means. One phone call from Kale to the commissioner and his whole ruse would be up.

  CHAPTER 11

  “What do you mean the department head is unavailable?” Leo demanded from the nurse. “Make him available.”

  The nurse just shrugged, more used to difficult people than even the seasoned detective. “You want to tell the guy who is cut open and he’s elbow deep in why he had to die because someone wanted to chat?”

  She raised her eyebrows, challenging him. Leo didn’t have a comeback, he knew when he had been bested. Sometimes even cops had to wait for people. “Fine. Could I speak with anyone else who Renee White worked with?”

  “I worked with her all the time,” the nurse replied, with absolutely no emotion to her voice. She was coming off a ten hour shift, she didn’t have time for niceties. “What do you want to know?”

  Leo inwardly groaned, she wasn’t going to be the most helpful person he had ever spoken to. Still, she was a start. “Have you heard the news?”

  “About her killing herself? Yeah, I heard it. Was that your big question?”

  He ignored the slight. “Do you think she was in a state of mind to end her life?”

  “Was she depressed? Yes, her son was dead. Was she depressed enough to kill herself? I don’t think so. Renee White was many things, a pain in the bum, a gossip, a moody bitch, but she wasn’t suicidal.”

  “You didn’t like her then?” Leo picked up on the animosity but wasn’t sure if the nurse didn’t like everyone or it was just Renee in particular. His guess would be on her loathing everyone.

  “I’m not paid to like her. I’m paid to work with her.” The nurse didn’t break eye contact with him, not afraid in the least of confrontation. “Or at least I was before someone killed her.”

  “You think someone killed her? It couldn’t have been an accident if it wasn’t suicide?”

  “Any nurse worth her salt wouldn’t do it the way she did it.”

  A loud alarm started ringing from one of the patient rooms. The nurse didn’t hesitate in running off in the direction of the panic. Leo and Amelia were left to stand there, looking completely out of place in the hospital ward.

  Leo started walking, he didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of the place. It would be too easy for someone to confirm that he was there and investigating a death he wasn’t authorized to.

  Amelia followed without asking where he was going. He led them through to the staff break room, walking like he was supposed to be there. Most police work was just having the confidence to bluff people. It was something difficult to teach, but Leo had it in bucket loads.

  Inside the small and tired-looking break room, two nurses sat talking around the table. Dressed in scrubs with their hair neatly held back in ponytails, they were having a quick snack before being called back to duty.

  “You aren’t supposed to be in here,” the brunette of the pair pointed out. “This room is for staff only.”

  Leo held up his shield and quickly put it away again. He wished he could just hang it on his belt like he usually did. “I’m Detective Michaels, this is my associate Ms Landau. Did either of you work with Renee White?”

  He made sure they knew the woman and had heard of her untimely death. The pair seemed much friendlier than the last nurse had been, introducing themselves as Emma Reiner and Joanna Richards.

  “How close to Renee were yo
u?” Leo started, conscious of only having limited time with the women before they would need to get back to work.

  Emma, the brunette, answered first. “We had most of our shifts together. We also went to university at the same time so you could say we were friends, or at least work friends.”

  “Do you think she was depressed?”

  “I don’t know, it’s hard to comprehend what goes through someone’s mind. Especially when you’ve just lost your child. She must have been going through hell.”

  “What can you tell me about her personal life?” He threw out the question, hoping he might catch something relevant. “Was everything alright in her marriage?”

  The two women exchanged a worried glance. It was the blonde one, Joanna, that answered next. “She didn’t really talk much about her private life. Everything with Renee was about the job. She didn’t like discussing anything personal. I didn’t even know she had a child until he went missing.”

  “What about you, Emma, did you know anything?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just like Jo said, you could get her to tell you any of the latest gossip around the place, but her private life was off limits. You could speak with Zoe Mason, she used to work here and they were close. She works at Saint Raphael’s now.”

  Leo jotted down the name and hospital. “Thank you. Did you notice any change in Renee’s behavior over the last few months? Maybe she was particularly secretive or distracted?”

  “That pretty much described Renee,” Joanna chuckled. “I didn’t notice anything different.”

  “Me either,” Emma agreed. “It’s a busy place here, we don’t normally get much time to analyze each other. Sorry.”

  Amelia remembered Blake Turner and butted in with the next question. “Do you know if Renee nursed any cancer patients?”

  Joanna nodded. “Sometimes she volunteered for the oncology shift for the extra money. A lot of people don’t like working that ward, it’s too sad.”

  “How would I find out if she nursed a particular patient?”

  “Those details are confidential,” Emma replied. “You’d have to have a warrant or something. Right?” She looked at Leo for confirmation. He just pursed his lips, refusing to lie, he may need to bend the rules in the very near future.

  Amelia continued, making sure he didn’t have to purger himself. “But the details would be kept in the records?”

  “Yes, the nurse has to sign the charts every time they check the patient’s vitals or give them medication. Their signature and name would be all over it.”

  “Thank you,” Amelia finished, noting the information for later. She looked at Leo, letting him know he could continue. Unfortunately, he had run out of time.

  “We need to get back,” Emma said apologetically.

  “If you think of anything, here is my card.” Leo handed them both his card. “Just call the mobile number, I’m not in the station very often.”

  The nurses left, their break over. They didn’t have long to wait before the enigmatic department head, Dr Lance Gatta, found them in the break room. His hulking figure almost filled the doorway as he eyed them.

  “I was told you’re looking for me?”

  Leo stood and shook hands. “Detective Michaels. Thank you for making time to speak with us. This is Amelia Landau, my associate.”

  The doctor nodded toward Amelia before joining them at the table. She noticed he still had blood spatters on his scrubs and tried not to look at them. Just the thought of blood and guts was enough to make her want to gag.

  “So, you’re here about Renee White? I figured someone might come eventually.”

  “Why’s that?” Leo asked, a little surprised.

  “Wasn’t there something in her note about her job?” Dr Gatta spoke confidently, but gently. His bedside manner perfected over the years. “Seeing as though I’m her boss, I thought you might be curious about it.”

  Leo cringed, there was no way her note should have ended up public knowledge. But when he opened the paper that morning, there it was, word for word splashed across the front page. He bet Commissioner Pace was having a good time trying to work out who it was.

  “Do you know what she was referring to?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Dr Gatta replied cheerily. “Renee was about to lose her job. I was building a case against her for Human Resources.”

  “Why? What did she do?”

  “A few months ago I got chewed out by the bean counters in accounting for using too many supplies. My spending was apparently more than any of the other departments. It didn’t sound right so I did some investigating.”

  “And what did you find?” Leo prompted when he paused. He didn’t want the doctor to go silent now, not when he was talking so freely.

  “Drugs were unaccounted for. We’d order a batch of ten. I could track, say, seven back to patients and then couldn’t find the remaining three. That’s a serious problem in our business.”

  Leo nodded, knowing full well that most medications you found in a hospital went for some serious dollars out on the street. They weren’t just for the drug addicts but those unable to afford the treatment, those illegally in the country and unable to access medical care, and the list went on. The potential resale market was huge.

  “Don’t you have strict procedures for that kind of thing?” He asked.

  “I thought we did,” Dr Gatta admitted. “Or at least we do on paper. The drugs were being signed out by cartoon characters or being applied to fictional patients. The system wasn’t exactly foolproof. It didn’t take a genius to get around it.”

  “What made you think it was Renee?”

  “A process of elimination. I set up some cameras in the supply room, I asked around. She was caught on several occasions signing out medication and then it being lost.”

  Leo’s mind raced, trying to figure out how the new information fitted in with everything. He wasn’t sure yet. “Did you confront her about it?”

  “I gave her notice of a formal meeting between her, myself, and the H.R. Manager. That’s our standard protocol, apparently. I wasn’t allowed to speak to her alone or she could say I intimidated her later on or something. The whole system is messed up, if you ask me. If I had my say, I would have just fired her.” Dr Gatta lost his cool demeanor for just a moment as he recalled the hoops he had to jump through. “I didn’t sign up for all that crap when I became a doctor, you know?”

  They nodded, well aware of how difficult it was to walk the dangerous road of employment. It was all too easy to step on a landmine and be faced with a lawsuit.

  “What did she say in the meeting?” Leo asked, keeping the conversation moving.

  “We never got that far. Her son went missing the day before it was supposed to go down. She called in and said she had to take personal leave,” the doctor explained. “She was supposed to come back next week so I had to defer the meeting. It wouldn’t look good for the hospital if we fired her after what happened.”

  Dr Gatta looked at his watch, as if to signal that he needed to go. Amelia felt a quick panic, worried that Leo wouldn’t get to the questions she wanted answering. She couldn’t get the conversation with Kale White out of her mind.

  “I have patients to see, was there anything else?” Dr Gatta asked, getting ready to leave.

  She decided to take it upon herself before their window of opportunity closed for good. “Were you having an affair with Renee?”

  Silence. Crickets.

  The doctor looked at her like she was an alien. “Did you not hear what I just said? I wanted to fire the woman. You seriously think I was sleeping with her?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Amelia said resolutely. She stared him down, waiting to see whether he was going to choose the truth or a lie. So far, he had been telling the truth but he wasn’t answering personal questions about himself. It was normally the questions that struck close to home that were the most difficult to answer truthfully. People lied to themselves all the time
, it was nothing to do it to others.

  “No, I wasn’t having an affair with her,” he finally answered, staring just as hard back.

  There was no lie, as long as Amelia waited. “Thank you. I have no more questions.”

  Leo gave her a sideways glance, dying to know how she gauged the doctor.

  “I’ve really got to go now.” Dr Gatta stood, heading for the door. “I’m sorry about Renee and her kid, I really am.”

  They let themselves out of the staff break room and made a beeline for the elevators. When they stepped inside, Amelia pushed the up button instead of the down.

  “What are you doing?” Leo asked, confused.

  “I’m going to the oncology ward.”

  “You can’t ask about patient records, you need a warrant. They won’t give it to cops.”

  “Good thing I’m not a cop then,” Amelia replied simply, making it sound obvious. “Perhaps I’ll meet you back at the car?”

  “Fine,” he grumbled.

  The lift let her out on level eight and Leo rode the elevator down to the ground floor. He returned to his car and waited, growing more curious and impatient by the minute. He hoped they didn’t have her barricaded in somewhere while they called for security. She didn’t exactly have a way with people, especially those that didn’t know her. Every time she went to ask a question, he crossed his fingers and hoped she would tread carefully. If she was one of the rookie cops he had to train, he would have raked her over the coals. But he wasn’t really in a position to do that.

  As the minutes passed, he grew more anxious. When she finally walked out the glass doors, he physically sighed with relief. She didn’t even get a chance to put her seatbelt on before he started grilling her.

  “Well? What did you find out?”

  Amelia grinned. “Blake Turner was a patient of Renee White’s. She looked after him on several occasions.”

  “And they just told you this?” Leo said in disbelief. It would have taken a judge’s signature for a warrant and rifling through all the files to get the same information. He quickly reconsidered his previous apprehension. He should hire her, not rein her in.