“It’s possible.”
“I’d like to go up there and check things out, Pete. I’m thinking something might have happened that made them leave. I don’t believe they left and came all this way just because the clinic was for sale. There’s something more—some other reason for leaving. The hospital wouldn’t give me much when I called, but I think I could do better in person.”
Peter looked at the detective and their eyes met and held. He nodded. “I’ll take care of the paperwork, and Ham.” He leaned back, crossing his arms, and looking at Mac. If anyone could dig up information without a warrant, Fred McAndrews could. “You go on up there and see what you can find.”
22
Shuffling forward in the taxi line at O’Hare Airport, Mac glanced at his watch. Four forty-five. Plenty of time to catch the night shift at the hospital. At the head of the line, he lifted his bag and swung it into the open trunk of the taxi. The driver slammed it shut, and Mac slid into the backseat.
The driver twisted his neck to look at Mac. “Where to?”
“New Hope Hospital.” Mac read out the address.
The driver nodded and started the car.
“How long?”
“Little more than half-hour.”
The hospital was located in Oak Lawn, a suburb of Chicago and south of O’Hare. It was a smaller place than he’d pictured in his mind. But still, it was a fully equipped hospital, not merely a clinic. Retrieving his bag from the driver he entered the revolving doors. At the reception desk, two ladies looked up. Both wore nametags identifying them as volunteers.
“My wife’s having a baby,” Mac said, sounding breathless.
They looked at the bag over his shoulder and his frantic expression and smiled. “The maternity ward is on the second floor,” one of them said, pointing to an elevator bank to the left. “Take the elevator to the second floor and turn right. The waiting room’s right down the hall. Just give the nurse your name.”
“Thanks.” Mac turned toward the elevators.
“Congratulations,” she called after him.
He threw her a smile as he pressed the elevator button.
In the waiting room on the second floor, he set the bag down in a corner by a row of empty chairs. There was a family sitting in the far corner, a man, an older woman, and two children, waiting. He figured the bag was as safe here as anywhere for a while. Hands in his pockets, he strolled out into the hall and looked at the sign on the plaster wall facing him. Obstetrics, it read, with an arrow pointing to the right.
It was six o’clock and getting dark outside. Ahead he spotted a nurses’ station, and there the hallway split in two along either side of the station. A sign to his right said Pediatrics, with an arrow underneath pointing to a doorway to the right. The top half of the door was opaque pebbled glass blocking his view. The door was closed.
He took a jog to the left, on past the nurses’ station, his stride taking on a sense of purpose. On both sides of the hallway were patients’ rooms. Most of the doors were shut. Ahead, where the hall ended, were two double doors, and the sign on those said Hospital Personnel ONLY—O.R.
Mac stood looking at the doors for a moment, considering. Then he turned and headed back toward the nurses’ station. Behind the V-shaped counter a man in blue scrubs stood talking to one of the nurses. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and leaned against the wall while the nurse looked up at him, smiling.
Mac strolled on around the counter toward the other end where he saw a nurse sitting alone. He figured her for early to middle thirties. Her white-capped head was bent as she wrote. He stopped just before her and rested his hand on the countertop, waiting. She wore no wedding ring, he saw.
Just then she looked up. “Can I help you?”
With a tenuous smile, he ran his fingers back through his hair and shuffled his feet. “I’m looking for a friend,” he said. “I haven’t seen her in a while, and—well,” he ducked his head and let her study him for a moment before looking up again. “I’m in town for a day or two and thought I’d look her up. Thought maybe I’d drop in and surprise her while I’m here.”
The young nurse smiled. “What’s her name?”
“Eileen Broussard? Is she, ah, is she around?”
The nurse put down the pen she’d been using and rested one hand atop the other on the desk. “I’m sorry, Mister . . .”
“Oooh, don’t tell me.” He shook his head. “She’s not here.” He slapped the counter, closed his eyes, and dipped his chin. “I knew it. I just knew it.” From his lids he saw the pity forming, the wrinkled forehead, the eyes.
“Eileen quit six or seven months ago, sir.”
He gave her a gloomy look. Seconds passed, and then somewhat awkwardly he reached across the counter, offering his hand. “Fred McAndrews,” he said. With a worried look, she shook his hand.”
“Broussard was her maiden name. I’m her husband.”
The young nurse picked up the pen she’d been using and tapped it on the desktop. “Oh. Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
She shook her head, still tapping the pen, avoiding his eyes. “She’s moved out of the city. I heard she went someplace down south.”
Mac planted his elbows on the counter and rested his forehead in his hands.
The tapping stopped and she looked at him. “Are you all right?”
He lifted his head, staring at her. “No. Not really.” Then he straightened. Dropped his hands to his sides. “I’ve been looking for her for a while.”
He heard the chair squeak back on the tiled floor. “I’m so sorry,” the nurse said in a tone of compassion. She stood. “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
Mac turned his eyes to her, releasing a long sigh. “She’s been gone a while. Too long. I should’a come after her sooner.” He drew out the words. “One day she just disappeared.”
“Well, I never would have guessed that about Eileen Broussard.” She came around the counter and he turned, looking down. She was a head shorter than him. “My name’s Lucy Ringer,” she said. She took his arm and he let her lead him down the hallway to the right, behind the counter and her desk. “We’ve got a kitchen back here. I’ll take a break right now and fix you a cup of coffee, or a soda, or we have hot tea if you’d like that.”
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No trouble at all.”
“Well, that’s nice of you. Thanks.” She pulled him into a small kitchen, and she pulled a chair from underneath a table and motioned for him to sit.
“Coffee?”
Mac gave her a dazed look. “I guess so if you’ll join me.”
“Sure,” she said. “You sit right there and just relax. I hated giving you bad news.”
“Thank you, Miss Ringer.”
“Lucy.”
He nodded, watching as she bustled over to a counter near a sink and filled two cups with coffee from a machine there. “Cream and sugar?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Just black.”
She spooned sugar into her own, added cream, and stirred. Then she carried both cups to the table, placed one before him, and sat down. Reaching for the napkin dispenser on the table, she pulled out two and placed one near his cup.
“Thanks.” Mac lifted the coffee, watching her over the rim. “What’s her life been like, up here?” He glanced into the hallway and then back at her. “She was a nurse, at home. Is that . . .” His voice caught and his words hung in the air between them.
She rolled in her lips and reached across the table, patting the top of his hand. “She was in obstetrics and pediatrics here. She was a good nurse.” Pulling back, she picked up her cup and sipped, holding his eyes. He knew enough not to break the silence.
At last she spoke. “I worked with Eileen, your wife,
once in a while. I didn’t know her well, though.” She ducked her head and circled the cup with her hands, eyes focused on the coffee. “I wouldn’t say we were really friends. She kind of kept to herself.”
“She always was quiet.”
He saw a flick of something in her eyes at that. Lucy gave the coffee cup a little shove with her finger tips and looked up, seeming to gather her thoughts. “Eileen worked mostly with Dr. Charles Vicari. He’s Obstetrics and Pediatrics.” She hesitated for a moment, pursing her lips, watching him. “Dr. Vicari left at the same time.”
He jerked up his chin and let his voice trip up the scale. “They left together?”
She nodded. Glancing through the door to her right, she leaned forward, lowering her voice. “I don’t want to upset you, Fred. But seems to me you’re entitled to know the truth.”
“They had something going?”
“Looked like it, I’m afraid.”
He rubbed his eyes. Then, aware that she was studying him, he stretched his neck, stretching it to one shoulder, then the other, and then he straightened up and gazed at her. “I appreciate that. Truth can set a man free. But why’d they leave?”
“I don’t know about that.” She looked at him from under her lids.
He nodded.
Quickly, she dropped her eyes. Lifting the coffee to her lips, she took a sip, and set the cup back down. “There were rumors around the time they left, some problems.”
He said nothing, watching as her brows drew together. The corners of her eyes turned down.
After a few seconds, she said, “I’ll tell you what I know, but you’ve got to keep me out of this. You can’t ever say that it came from me.”
He said sure, but didn’t promise. This was a murder investigation, after all. He’d use the power of the courts if he had too, but this way was better, for now.
“Lucy!”
Her head whipped around and she waved at someone passing by in the hallway. Then she hunched toward him and lowered her voice. “We can’t talk about this here. I’m on shift. If anyone found out I told you . . .”
Mac felt a rush of adrenaline. Maybe he was getting somewhere. He glanced at his watch. “What time do you get off?”
She tipped her head to one side and gave him a look. “Half an hour. I’m off at seven.”
“Can I buy you dinner?”
Seconds passed and then she nodded. “Sure. A frog’s gotta eat.”
She ordered grilled salmon with lemon butter sauce, and Mac had a steak, a good one, a filet cooked rare, and they both had salads. Might as well, he was on the dime and hadn’t eaten all day.
“Dr. Vicari’s a cold one,” she said. “No one liked working with him, except Eileen.”
“That doesn’t sound like her. She’s a hard case, herself. Usually, people like that, they look for someone more compliant, someone they can push around.”
Lucy picked up her glass and pressed it close to her cheek, watching Mac. “That Vicari’s a piece of work. You should try to forget her.”
Mac looked about for the waiter. Caught his eye and signaled her that he’d like a cup of coffee. Then he turned back to Lucy. “Why do you say that—about Vicari?”
She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Something happened one night. Eileen mostly worked with Vicari. But one night she wasn’t around and I heard Vicari needed help and he pulled another nurse into the room. There was quite a row between the three of them the next day, between Dr. Vicari, your wife, and Alice.”
Mac rested his elbows on the table and looked at her. “Alice?”
“Ummm.” She picked up the fork and scrapped a bite of fish still left on the plate and ate it. “Alice Braxton was her name. Sometimes we called her Alice Jean.” She smiled. “You know those Southern women like to use two names.”
“What’s your idea of what happened?”
“Vicari was a difficult man.” She paused. “I never did hear all the details. But it had to do with a late-term abortion.”
“My Eileen was doing that?”
“Yeah, she mostly worked with Vicari. But Alice had always refused to work with him. She’d filed a conscience objection. But somehow, that night, she’d been pulled in when Elieen was called down to work the emergency room. There was a pile up on the freeway, that’s why I remember. It was just after that, next day that they argued.” She glanced at Mac and he was careful not to react.
“They were shouting, and of course, Eileen took Vicari’s side. Right after that, Alice transferred out to another department. Can’t recall where. I heard he made a complaint. And then, few months later, three or four, I guess, I heard Alice left.” She shrugged. “I heard it had something to do with Vicari. Or maybe your wife. Eileen really didn’t like Alice; never did.”
Mac took a chance. “Do you have any idea what made my wife so mad? Was it jealousy?”
She pursed her lips. Seconds passed. “It wasn’t jealousy, that’s for certain. Alice Jean was about twenty years older than Charles Vicari. Besides, she couldn’t stand him. He does late-term abortions and she didn’t want any part of that. Sometimes when the fetus lived for a little while afterward, Alice and some of the other nurses would want to hold them, until they—” Her eyes slid to the glass and she picked it up, gesturing. “—you know.”
“Die?”
“Yeah, expire. They’re supposed to be put in a warming pan until they expire naturally, until they stop breathing.” She looked at him. “Dr. Vicari didn’t know the nurses, like Alice, would sometimes decide to hold them instead.”
The waiter put a cup of coffee, and cream and sugar on the table. Lucy’s casual demeanor as she talked about the babies dying had hit him. He lifted the coffee and took a sip, buying time to sort through the issues, and his emotions. If what Lucy was saying was true, Alice Braxton might know something significant to the Chasson case. In the same causal tone, he said, looking over the cup, “How could he not know what they were doing, holding the babies?”
“Well he doesn’t stick around afterward. Why should he? There’re plenty of nurses around to finish things up.” She shrugged. “Except that one night. But that was about two-and-a-half years ago.”
“Maybe I could find Alice Braxton. Do you know where she is now?”
“Why would she know anything?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“That sounds a little futile to me, Fred.” When he didn’t answer, she sat back, thinking. “I don’t know where she went,” she finally said. “But she was always talking about Louisiana, down round where you live.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “I remember because she talked about eating those crawfish that live in the mud down there.”
“You think that was home?”
“It’s the only place she ever talked about.” She pushed her fingers across the table toward his until the tips of hers met his. “She complained about cold in Chicago, too. But why would you want to find Alice? Eileen is gone and Alice won’t be one to have kept track of her.”
“Maybe that argument between Alice and Charles Vicari had something to do with Eileen,” he said. “I don’t know what else to do. Maybe there’s some kind of connection. You never know.”
Lucy’s eyes smiled at him. He’d taken this too far, he realized. Drawing back, he turned and lifted his hand for the waiter, signaling for the check. Lucy withdrew, sitting straight.
The waiter nodded. He turned back to Lucy and lowered his voice. “I can’t think of anything else until I find my wife.”
She touched the tip of earlobe. “Yes. Of course.”
“But . . . I do thank you for your help, Lucy.”
One corner of her lips quirked into a half-smile. “Just let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” She brushed a curl from her forehead, watching him.
“Could you get me a copy of the
duty roster that night, when Alice Braxton worked with Vicari?”
“Lucy tossed her head and smiled. “There’s nothing more focused than a jealous husband. Eileen Broussard doesn’t deserve you. But I’ll see what I can do. The duty rosters are in our records. I’ll dig it up and make a copy.”
Outside the wind from the lake was cool, a nice contrast to the heat and humidity he’d left back in New Orleans. He flagged down a taxi, and tucked Lucy Ringer into the backseat. He’d walk, he said. Needed the exercise, he said. And he needed to think.
She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” she said. “I’m on the same shift tomorrow. Stop by before you leave town, and I’ll get you a copy of that roster.”
23
The firm took the news well, Rebecca thought. Already the middle of June, the challenge of reorganizing the rest of her life could begin. Rebecca looked at Rose Marie who sat in front of her desk, taking notes.
They were talking nannies. “After you’ve made the list of agencies, we’ll run through them and cull them down to two or three of the best. We need to find out how long each agency has been in business—ten years, minimum, I’d say. And then check out their references. Oh, and whether there’ve been any complaints.”
Rose Marie puckered her lips. “All done already, Rebecca. I’ve talked to all of them. Even drove by their offices. The bad news is there’re only three I think you’ll want to consider. And one of those is fairly new. It’s the only one without a waiting list.”
Rebecca looked up, surprised.
Rose Marie tore a sheet from the notepad and handed it across the desk to Rebecca. “This is the last one. Their licenses are current, good references. I’ve set up folders for all three agencies for when you have time.” She handed the folders across the desk to Rebecca. “There’re brochures too; they’ve all got those. And I’ve jotted down what the referrals said.”
Rebecca was already scanning the brochures and references for the one that had no waiting list. The brochure cover said “British Nanny—Only the best for your child.” She closed the folder and set it on top of the others, looking at Rose Marie.
Accidental Life Page 14