"Hello?" Helen directed a hushed voice to a back room. "Anyone here?" No one answered.
"I'll see if I can find someone." Jason went around the corner, then stopped when he heard a loud mournful wail. "Ah, maybe we should just wait here."
"We may not need to." Helen reached over the ledge and flipped open a card file on the desk.
Jason glanced in both directions. "What are you doing?"
"Relax." Having found what she needed, Helen flipped the cards back. "She's in Room 130. It’s right here on the corner."
Helen crossed the hall and stepped cautiously through the partially open door. The room was modest, but nice. A single bed faced a large plate glass window. Had Helen not been so intent on the woman in the bed, she might have admired the view.
"Oh, dear God," Helen gasped. "I…" She covered her mouth to keep from crying out.
The woman in the bed bore little resemblance to the Irene Kincaid she'd seen on Sunday night. Irene had been animated, vibrant, and beautiful. This woman was Asian, yes, but far too old. An IV tube ran through an electronic pump and into an emaciated arm. Another tube protruded from a dressing above her left side and sucked rust-colored drainage into a clear bottle. "There's some mistake. I read the card wrong. This couldn't be. But it was. The plastic bracelet wrapped loosely around the woman's bony wrist verified it.
Jason squeezed Helen's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Helen couldn't answer. A dozen thoughts swarmed through her mind. What was it Paul Kincaid had said? His mother had been using their anti-aging products. Irene was sixty-nine. She'd looked closer to thirty or forty. Now she looked more like eighty.
Helen glanced around the room and stepped over to a pair of blue wing-backed chairs, sinking into the nearest one.
Jason dropped to one knee beside her. "Would you mind telling me what's going on? I haven't seen you this upset since Dad died."
"It's… I'm just so shocked to see her like this. Irene looks like she's aged at least forty years. When Paul told me she'd been using an anti-aging agent, I assumed he meant some kind of skin care, but what kind of product would change a person so dramatically?"
Jason glanced over at Irene's still form. "Are you sure? You only saw her once, and it was at night."
"True. And she must have been wearing a wig and makeup. That could certainly account for some of the difference, but not this much." A soft groan pulled Helen's attention back to the frail figure on the bed.
Helen rose and moved to the woman's side. Irene's dark almond eyes opened. A single tear, then another and another trailed down a wrinkle in her parchment skin, dripping into thinning white hair.
Helen's gaze moved back up the trail of tears and rested on Irene's face.
Irene raised her hand and let it fall to the bed. Recognition ignited her dark eyes.
Helen cradled the woman's skeletal hand in hers. "Irene, I'm so sorry."
"You..." Irene rasped as she gripped Helen's fingers and strained to lift her head off the pillow. "You must… h-help… me."
"Of course I will." Helen leaned closer so she could hear. Irene's head fell back. Her chest rose and fell in heaving breaths. She murmured something Helen could barely hear. As Helen backed away, Irene's words pierced her heart like shards of glass.
"What did she say?" Jason's glance flitted from Irene to Helen.
"I'm… I'm not sure. All I could make out was 'kill me.'"
Chapter Eight
What are you doing in here?" A woman Susan's age, maybe younger, leveled an accusing gaze at Helen and Jason as she approached Irene's bed. She had short ash-brown hair and matching eyes. The black lettering on a rectangular white pin introduced her as Stephanie Curtis, RN. Her adept fingers encircled Irene's wrist.
"I'm Helen Bradley. We spoke on the phone, and I believe you told the guard we could come. This is my son, Jason." When Stephanie didn't answer, Helen went on. "There was no one at the desk so…"
"Her pulse is racing." Stephanie made a notation in the chart she carried. Her rose-framed glasses slipped down to the bridge of her nose. Pushing them back, she said, "You've upset her."
"I don't think so. But something certainly has." Helen took a deep breath to slow down her own racing pulse. "Perhaps we'd better talk outside."
"Yes, I think that might be wise." Stephanie escorted them to a visitors' waiting room two doors down. "Go ahead and get yourselves some coffee. I need to finish with Irene and check on my staff. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Jason and Helen didn't speak as they poured coffee into Styrofoam cups. Helen stood at the window and watched a tugboat push a barge upstream on the Columbia River far below them.
"You're awfully quiet." Jason came up beside her.
"Just thinking." Helen turned from the window to look at her son. "How would you feel about my coming here, as a patient?"
Jason scowled. "You're not serious."
The question had surprised Helen as well. But now that she'd given voice to her thought, it made perfect sense. "Yes, I am.”
"But why? You don't need this kind of care?"
"I know. It isn't a matter of needs. A woman I barely know has given me a burden I'm not sure I can carry." Helen set her cup on the windowsill and adjusted her sling. Her shoulder was still feeling the effects of the hairpin turn.
"Then don't carry it." Jason left the window and settled on the sofa against the wall. "I know you want to help her, but I don't see that there's much we can do."
"Maybe not, but if I'm here as a patient, perhaps I can get a better idea of what's going on and determine whether or not the claims that her husband was murdered are valid. Find out whether someone really is trying to kill her." Irene's words sliced through her again. The sentence had been disjointed and barely audible. but it didn't take a genius to fill in the blanks.
Jason shot her a parental look. "I can't let you do that. If…"
Stephanie walked into the room before he could finish.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. I needed to let my aids know where to find me." The nurse poured coffee for herself and added sweetener. "Please have a seat, Mrs. Bradley."
Helen joined Jason on a pastel print sofa. Stephanie perched on the edge of the armless chair facing them. Her snug lavender pants matched the lavender, blue, and pink print of her top. The clothes, Helen guessed, were a size twelve. Stephanie was easily a fourteen.
"We prefer that visitors check with us before going into our residents' rooms. Having an unexpected visitor can be embarrassing for them."
And possibly for you, Helen didn’t voice the thought. Instead she said, "I can certainly understand that, and I'm sorry." Helen glanced down at the bitter drink, then fixed her gaze on Stephanie. "How is Irene doing? Have you been able to find an antibiotic to treat the infection?"
"That information is confidential, Mrs. Bradley. Suppose you tell me what upset her."
"Irene asked for my help."
"Why would she do that?" Stephanie sipped the hot liquid and grimaced.
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"She's very ill and tends to be confused."
"She said something else," Helen told her, "but all I could make out was 'kill me.' Now I could be wrong, but if I insert the missing words, I come up with 'Someone is trying to kill me.'"
Stephanie fingered the stethoscope that hung around her neck. "You must be mistaken. No one here would want to kill Irene."
"Not even to silence her?"
"Silence her? I don't…oh, you mean that business about her husband's murder. We've been through all that with the police. There is simply no evidence to substantiate her accusations. I was on duty the day he died. We tried to resuscitate him, but to no avail."
Jason leaned forward and set his still full cup on the glass surface of the coffee table. "I wonder if we aren't making too much of this, Mom. After all, the nurses at Good Sam agreed that she'd been delusional."
Helen stood and walked back to the window. The tug had disappeared f
rom view. "Something tells me it isn't that simple."
"There is another possibility," Stephanie said.
Helen turned around. "Which is?"
"Irene may have been asking you to help her die."
The words jarred Helen. Hot coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and dribbled onto her fingers. Stephanie jumped up and retrieved napkins from the counter.
"Are you all right? It didn't burn you?" She took the cup and set it in the sink, then dabbed at Helen's hand.
Helen pulled her hand back. "I'm fine. Thank you." Helen refocused on Stephanie's interpretation of Irene's request. "Do you really believe Irene would ask that of me? She hardly knows me, and I'm certainly not in a position to carry through a request like that."
"Oh, but you are. Everyone is. You could help her if you chose to."
Helen folded her good arm across the one in the sling. She would have liked nothing better than to get in Jason's car and drive as far from Edgewood Manor as possible, all the way to her home in Bay Village. "You sound as if assisted suicide were a normal occurrence. It may be acceptable to some people, but…"
"Mrs. Bradley, I can assure you that Edgewood operates well within the limits of the law. Many of our clients, however, believe that there comes a time when the quality of life has deteriorated and dying is the preferable choice. Irene is one of them." Stephanie took her half-empty cup to the counter and refilled it.
"You seem rather sure of that."
"Oh, I am. Mrs. Kincaid came to the manor two afternoons a week as a volunteer. She'd do a lot of the extra things our staff members don't always have time for like make-overs, hairstyling, reading, social activities. Sometimes after she'd been working with one of our advanced Alzheimer patients, she'd get rather depressed and tell me how she never wanted to be a burden. 'I don't mind growing older,' she'd often say, 'as long as I can be healthy.' One time she even asked me if I'd put her out of her misery if the time ever came when she couldn't take care of herself."
"Like now."
"Yes, like now. I won't though, not because I don't think it's right, but because it could cost me my nursing license."
"I see." Helen rubbed her forehead. She didn't see at all. Had Irene asked Helen to kill her or to prevent her being killed? Under the circumstances, Stephanie's explanation seemed plausible.
"Would it be so terrible?" Stephanie asked. "I've been in geriatrics for a long time, and I can't tell you the number of times I wish I could have pulled a plug or overmedicated to put a client and the family out of their misery. Surely you can understand that."
"It must be an enormous ethical dilemma for you." Helen glanced at Jason, wondering if Stephanie would be quite so open if she knew he was a homicide investigator. Though Helen had no intention of helping Irene kill herself, she wasn't certain she wanted Stephanie to know that at the moment.
"We'd better be going, Jason." She lifted her wounded arm. "I'm getting rather tired." To Stephanie she said, "Do you suppose we could stop and see Irene one more time?"
"Possibly. Let me make a quick check." Stephanie left the room, and Helen and Jason followed as far as the hallway. Within a few seconds the nurse came back out of Irene's room. "You can go in. She's resting quietly now."
"We'll only be a minute." Helen braced herself and walked into the room. This time seeing Irene's snow-white hair and wrinkled face came as less of a shock. Helen stepped close to the bed and examined the frail woman lying there.
What kind of anti-aging products had Irene used to make her look so young? And even more perplexing, how could anything work such wonders, then cause such a drastic change when it was stopped? At least she'd assumed the usage had stopped. Another possibility hit her. What if the rapid aging had been caused by something else?
Suppose someone had given Irene something to accelerate the aging process? Insane, she told herself. Helen tried to steer her train of thought down another track, but it plunged ahead. If Kincaid Laboratories could produce products that reduced the effects of aging, couldn't they also develop something to age people more quickly? The ultimate in assisted suicide with no more lingering deaths?
Irene's eyes opened. They stared glazed and unseeing. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then coughed. Her rattling breaths came in spasms. Rust-colored phlegm spilled from the corner of her mouth.
"Oh no. Irene, hold on." Helen punched the call button.
"Stay with her, I'll get a nurse." Jason ran into the hallway. Seconds later he returned with a tall slender woman. A name badge introduced her as Barbara James, LVN.
"She probably just needs suctioning," Barbara said in a voice so calm Helen wanted to shake her.
The nurse's glance flitted from Helen to Jason. "I'll have to ask you to wait out in the hall. Or better yet, why don't you have a seat in the waiting room."
Helen stood in the hallway for a moment. She could hear Irene's gagging cough above the sickening slurp of the suction tube. Unable to tolerate the sounds, Helen took hold of Jason's arm and headed toward the room they'd been in earlier.
While she waited, Helen tried to read an article in Modern Maturity about a youthful eighty-year-old who led exercise classes and climbed mountains. Unable to concentrate, she finally set the magazine down. "I wonder what's going on."
Jason lowered a copy of Newsweek. "Want me to go check?"
"Yes… no." Helen shook her head. "I don't know. She looked terrible, Jason, just terrible." Helen eased out of her chair and walked across the hall to a drinking fountain, then paced up and down the hall.
Five minutes later, Helen watched as both nurses left Irene's room. They spoke in hushed tones.
"I'll call him as soon as I talk to Mrs. Bradley." Stephanie made her way toward Helen. Barbara returned to the nurses' station.
As Stephanie approached, she opened her mouth and closed it again. The flicker of grief in her eyes when she finally met Helen's gaze said it all, but Helen needed to hear the words. "She didn't make it, did she?"
Stephanie's gaze dropped to the floor. "I… no, Mrs. Bradley. She didn't."
Chapter Nine
Jason wrapped an arm around Helen's shoulders.
The gesture had been meant to comfort, but it did little to stop the churning in her stomach.
"If you'll excuse me,” Stephanie said, “I need to call Dr. Kincaid."
Stephanie was halfway down the hall when Helen caught up with her. "Stephanie, wait!"
"What is it?"
"Why didn't you call a code? Isn't that the normal procedure?"
"It depends." Stephanie hesitated before answering. "Some of our clients are considered a no-code."
Helen remembered the conversation she'd had with Jason and the fears they'd voiced about Paul bringing Irene to Edgewood Manor to die. It looked as though those fears had been realized. "And Irene was one of them? I was under the impression that Dr. Kincaid had brought her here to save her life."
"Mrs. Bradley, I'm not sure I should be answering your questions. Maybe you should talk with Dr. Kincaid. Why don't I have him call you later?"
"I'd appreciate that." After giving Stephanie the phone number, they left.
Once outside, Helen breathed in a lungful of fresh crisp air. The horror of the last hour threatened to topple her. Setting one foot in front of the other, she managed to walk to the car. Her limbs melted into a liquid mass the moment she folded herself into the leather seat and secured the seat belt.
Jason tossed several questioning glances at her as they drove back to the guardhouse, but he said nothing. They stopped at the entrance, where Andi greeted them like old friends and waved them through.
Apparently word about Mrs. Kincaid's death hadn't made it to the guardhouse.
As they drove back to Portland, the idea of checking herself into Edgewood still darted in and around the periphery of her mind, but Helen ignored it. Part of her wanted to stay at Edgewood and investigate Kincaid Enterprises. Part of her never wanted to go through those gates again.
"I'm beginning to think it was a mistake to bring you out there." Jason's cobalt eyes filled with concern.
"Mistake? No, I'm glad I got to see her."
"I know there isn't much I can say, but if you want to talk about it, I'm here."
"I appreciate that. I'm not sure there's anything to say at the moment. I have a lot to process."
Jason nodded and, like a dutiful son, left her to her thoughts.
Once home, Jason returned to work and Helen excused herself to take a nap. She'd intended to sleep, but Irene's face and pleas for help haunted her thoughts. Youthful and healthy one moment, frail and elderly the next.
"All right, that's it," Helen grumbled after thirty minutes. Tossing off the floral pastel afghan, she headed for the telephone. Jason wasn't in, so she left a message for him to call. Their brief encounter with Irene had left too many questions and loose ends.
While she waited for him to call, Helen wandered around the house, chatted a moment with Susan about dinner, and ended up in the living room where Nick was watching a children’s program.
She stretched out on the recliner and seconds later drifted off to sleep.
Jason called around eight that evening. While filling him in on the status of her own health, she carried the phone to her room and closed the door with her foot.
"I wanted to talk to you about Irene's death. I think you should consider handling it as a suspicious death."
"We are. All gunshot wounds are, you know that."
"Yes, but I'm concerned that since you already have the shooter, the exam won't be as thorough as I'd like it to be."
"I'm not sure I follow you."
"You have the man who stole her handbag and wounded her. But I'm not sure you have the real killer. I keep thinking about what Stephanie said about assisted suicide. Someone at Edgewood may have killed her."
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: A Helen Bradley Mystery (Helen Bradley Mysteries Book 2) Page 6