An Arm and a Leg

by Olive Balla

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The typically sunny Albuquerque sky was filled with clouds the density and blackness of burning rubber when Frankie woke. Per Angela’s assignment, she sat up in bed, pulled her blank-paged notebook onto her lap, grabbed her pen, and jotted down her memories from the night before. Although she couldn’t remember specific dream images, the attendant feelings hummed in her head. She jotted down the date and time, and added the words panicked, afraid, and unable to speak or breathe. Almost of its own accord, her pen added hungry. Not much to go on, but it was a start.

  She jumped out of bed. After a brief mental skirmish, during which the word obsessive rang in her head like a gong, she counted her cans before slipping on her jogging outfit and heading for the front door.

  While putting on her mittens and headband, her eyes slid to the wooden bowl and the single key remaining on Tim’s key ring: most likely the key to a safe deposit box. As to why she’d done nothing about it before today she had no answer. But the tingle at the base of her neck told her she should take care of that as soon as she got back from her walk.

  The Chevy never far from her thoughts, she took a long look out the front window before moving to the front door. Nothing moved on her block, and no non-neighborhood vehicles idled nearby. She patted the pepper spray in her pocket and headed out into the cold.

  ****

  When Frankie arrived at the bank a female employee scrutinized her identification along with the proof of Tim’s death. The woman led the way back through a steel gate and into a concrete vault. She inserted her key into the double lock of one of the large safe deposit boxes running along the bottom of the wall, and motioned for Frankie to do the same with Tim’s key.

  After a brief struggle to pull the box out of its crypt, the employee hefted the box onto the table in a viewing booth. She puffed “whew,” and discreetly went back to her work station.

  In a state of high expectation, Frankie pulled the lid off the box. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but what greeted her was a layer of old Star Wars figurines, most of them still in their original packaging.

  “It’s so like you to leave you trust papers laying around for anyone to find while filling your safe deposit box with old toys,” she muttered.

  Don’t knock it, Tim’s voice rang in her head. Never know when you’ll need a cool toy.

  Frankie sighed. “Anyone else have something to say?”

  Silence.

  “No? Okay then.”

  She removed the figurines and placed them on the table, exposing a large manila folder underneath. A label affixed to the front proclaimed the contents to be the original medical records of someone named Esther Emory.

  With the feeling that she’d seen that name somewhere before, she lifted out the folder and put it into her tote bag for later review.

  The next layer consisted of several small, clear plastic bags. A label at the top of each bag indicated its contents originated from a company named Gaylord Gold Investments. The company’s address and phone number were printed just below its name.

  She selected a bag, opened it, and pulled out a paper with the words Certificate of Provenance printed across the top. Something fell from a fold in the paper, and clacked onto the tile floor. She bent to retrieve the clear plastic, box-encased gold coin that winked up at her.

  Hands trembling, she pulled out several more bags. Each one contained a provenance and tiny plastic box in which lay a gold coin dated from the mid to late 1800s. Frankie put her hands onto the table to steady herself.

  “What did you do, Little Brother, rob Fort Knox?”

  On a notepad she pulled from her tote bag, she wrote down the name and contact information of the company printed on the label. She returned the certificate to the opened bag, resealed it, and put all the bags back into the safe deposit box.

  Feeling as if she’d stepped into a scene from the old Twilight Zone television series, she summoned the employee to help carry the box back to its slot, slung the tote bag strap over her shoulder and left the bank.

  She’d found no paper trail, nothing in Tim’s effects to indicate a purchase of the magnitude reflected by the cache of coins. So how had he paid for them?

  It was always possible he’d been holding the coins for someone else. But wouldn’t that person have come forward to claim them by now?

  Another possibility reared its head. What if Tim had accepted the coins as payment for medical services, rather than the checks on which he’d be required to pay taxes? Was that why he’d been so ashamed? Had he been involved in income tax fraud?

  Frankie returned to her car, each step mocking her memories of Tim. It was becoming more and more obvious that she hadn’t really known her brother at all.

  Once home, she pulled out the contact information from the gold coins. She sat in the chair next to her landline, dialed the number for Gaylord Gold Investments, and punched in several numbers in response to a recorded menu before a human voice came on the line. The representative regretted that she would be unable to give out any specific details regarding Tim’s account without a written request accompanied by corresponding legal documentation. She then detailed the fairly complicated process necessary to receive a printout of Tim’s transactions. Frankie jotted down the instructions, thanked the employee and hung up.

  What had happened to the sweet, loving kid she grew up with? What became of the third-grader who punched Mark Lackey in the nose for teasing his sister, to the teenager who warned her Tom Brazel had taken a bet to ask her to the prom, or to the young doctor driven by the desire to help those less fortunate?

  She sat at her dining room table, pulled the manila envelope from her tote bag, removed a thick sheaf of paper, and scanned the pages.

  At the time of the last entry, Esther Emory was eighty and suffering from heart disease. No family members were listed. Due to the elderly woman’s indigent status, Medicare or Medicaid covered most of her hospital bills. Cottonwood Medical Center and Hospital Foundation, a local non-profit, assumed responsibility for the remaining portion.

  Esther had been a resident of the Chaparral Convalescent and Assisted Living Center attached to the hospital. According to the records, Dr. Bellamy put her on blood thinners and cholesterol medication to manage her heart disease. The last entry was dated about eighteen months ago.

  On a clean sheet in her notepad Frankie jotted down the questions she’d ask Flatte. What was her responsibility with regard to the gold coins? Could Flatte access Tim’s account at Gaylord Gold Investments? And what should she do with Esther Emory’s medical records?

  She pulled her phone from its holster, punched in Flatte’s number, and asked to speak to the attorney. The assistant said he was out, but assured Frankie she’d tell him about her call.

  While waiting, she retrieved the cardboard box of things she’d brought from Tim’s office. She pulled the lid off and picked up the items one at a time: a paperweight holding a once-living scorpion frozen inside a bubble of clear resin; the Mont Blanc pen set she’d given Tim upon his graduation from medical school, and on which she was sadly still making payments; a silver-framed photo of the both of them at his graduation from medical school, a small booklet for addresses and phone numbers—most pages of which were empty, and a fingernail clipper.

  Idly, she leafed through the address book. She chuckled to see her address and phone number under S, presumably for Sis.

  She put the booklet down onto the table, and it fell open to the C section. The only entry, someone named Hector Cordero, was followed by a local phone number. Beneath Hector’s name was scribbled a time and date followed by an exclamation mark.

  Whoever this man was, Tim had scheduled an appointment with him the day of his death. And it had been only an hour before he showed up on her doorstep.

  Frankie keyed Hector’s phone number into her cell. Voice mail kicked in after the fourth ring, and a man’s voice with a heavy Mexican accent cordially invited her to leave her name an
d number for a return call.

  “Hector, my name is Frankie O’Neil. I’m not sure if you’re the Hector who came to my brother’s funeral, but I would really like to talk to you. Please call me when you get the chance.” She repeated her phone number twice before breaking the connection.

  On impulse, she called the number Mina Landowski had scribbled on the box lid.

  “Lunch sounds great,” Mina said in response to Frankie’s invitation. “I don’t have to be at the hospital until three this afternoon. Twelve noon at the Turquoise Trail café on Silver Street sounds perfect.”

  For the next couple of hours Frankie pored over Tim’s journal, his bank statements, and his trust folder. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the answers were right there in front of her, but nothing announced itself. The tickle at the base of her brain still niggled away as she left for her meeting with Mina.

  ****

  Frankie arrived at the café early. She stepped to the counter, ordered a Thai beef salad, and carried the plastic table tent with her order number engraved on it to a booth near the door. She sipped mango iced tea and mulled over how much she wanted to tell Mina.

  Should she tell the nurse about finding Esther Emory’s medical records? She should probably return the records at some point, but to whom? To the hospital? To Esther Emory’s family, assuming any could be found? Or should she just destroy them?

  Mina entered, waved at Frankie and walked to the counter. She placed her order, then dropped her plastic tent on the table and slid onto the booth’s orange vinyl-covered bench.

  “Either you’re early, or I’m late,” Mina said.

  Frankie smiled. “I’m early. I’m behaviorally incapable of being late for lunch. Pavlov had nothing on my uncle.”

  The nurse laughed. “Sounds like the guys who raised us might have something in common.”

  “Thanks for suggesting lunch. It will be nice to talk to someone who knew my brother.”

  Mina’s smile faded. “No need to thank me. I’ve been meaning to talk to you ever since Doctor O’Neil’s accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident.” Frankie lowered her voice and described the events around Tim’s death. She was surprised to find the pain of his loss soften a bit as she spoke.

  “Oh God, and he was killed right in front of you? I can’t imagine anything so horrible.” Mina patted Frankie’s hand, a gesture of sympathy that nearly made her dissolve into tears.

  “The police want to call it a hunting accident, but I know better. I just don’t know who did it, or why.”

  “But who would want to hurt Tim? Everyone liked him—everyone except Doctor Bellamy, that is.”

  Frankie scooted forward in her seat. She rested her forearms on the table and absently ran the fingertips of her right hand up and down the outside of her tea glass, describing parallel vertical lines in the condensation. “What do you know about Tim and Doctor Bellamy’s working relationship?”

  “As you may have noticed, Doctor Bellamy is just a tad arrogant.” Mina shook her head a couple of times, her lips compressed. “Tim was building a reputation as a superb anesthetist, and I think it enraged Doctor Bellamy. The man is a narcissistic ego maniac. No one is allowed to outshine him. Certainly no one he would perceive as being an underling. And that would include the rest of humanity.”

  Frankie did a quick mental run-through of Tim’s journal. “I never heard my brother say anything negative about the people he worked with.”

  “That’s because he was a kind, gentle soul. But something relatively no one outside the hospital knows is that Doctor Bellamy is a hack. On more than one occasion I’ve seen him make some pretty awful surgical mistakes. I decided to leave long before Tim died. In fact, I’m sending out another batch of resumes today.”

  Frankie pushed the manila folder containing Tim’s spreadsheet across the table. “Would you do me a favor? Would you look at this and tell me what you think?”

  Mina picked up the envelope. “What is it?”

  “It’s a copy of something I found on Tim’s laptop.”

  The nurse pulled the pages out of the envelope and scanned them. A frown creased her smooth features. “Do you know what this is?”

  “I assume it’s patient medical information.”

  “You say Tim had this on his laptop?” Mina looked thoughtful.

  Frankie nodded. “I considered deleting the spreadsheet and forgetting about it, but I couldn’t. It was obviously important to Tim.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I hoped you might be able to help me with that.”

  “Me?” Mina’s carefully penciled eyebrows again rose into arches over her eyes.

  “I didn’t know where else to start. It occurred to me that you could look over the names to see if any of these people stayed in the hospital recently. Maybe you helped care for them.”

  Mina again studied the sheets then raised her head. “I do remember some of these.”

  “And what about the dates…any idea what they refer to?”

  “The first column seems to be dates of various surgeries, some of which I remember. And I believe the last column refers to a patient’s death. But some of this is not right.” Mina looked up. “This is an exact copy?”

  “Yes. Straight off Tim’s laptop.”

  The nurse frowned. “There are a couple of things I’m not sure about…”

  “What?” Frankie prompted when Mina lapsed into a prolonged silence. “What are you not sure about?”

  “Do you mind if I keep this? I’d like to check out a couple of things.”

  “Please do. Anything you can tell me would be greatly appreciated.”

  The two women finished lunch. Frankie tried several times to steer the conversation back to whatever it was about the spreadsheet that had caught Mina’s attention, but the nurse steadfastly refused any further comment.

  “Give me a day or so,” Mina said. “I’ll call you either after my shift tonight, or first thing tomorrow.”

  The women said their goodbyes, and Frankie headed to her car, uneasiness skittering across every nerve in her body.

  “Uncle Mike, if you’re really there, tell me what was it about Tim’s spreadsheet that upset Mina so much.”

  Silence.

  “Just as I thought—a figment of my imagination.”

  Her eyes darting back and forth between her rearview mirror and the road, she drove home via a different route than the one she’d come.

  For several minutes after arriving home, she sat in her parked car and reviewed her conversation with Mina. She pulled her house key from her purse, exited the car, and walked toward her front door. Distracted by thoughts of what information she might get from the nurse, she didn’t look at her porch until she was standing on it. Then her breath caught in her throat.

  A dead dove lay on her welcome mat, its head at a right angle to its body. Pearl gray feathers barely ruffled, the dull black eyes stared at nothing. On the smooth concrete next to the mat someone had printed YOUR TURN in white children’s sidewalk chalk.

  The tiny hairs on Frankie’s forearms moved and a slight nausea sluiced around in her stomach. Her fingers fumbled with the key as she unlocked her door. She hurled her body through the door and slammed it behind her. She shot home the deadbolt, pulled her phone out of her purse and called the police. Leaning against the door for support, she commanded herself to breathe.

  By the time an officer arrived, she had managed to calm down a bit. Her ears picked up the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, and she opened the door a millisecond before the doorbell rang. It was the same officer who’d caught her break-in call.

  Frankie took a deep breath. “I’ve received a death threat.”

  The officer looked closely at her face. “I see.” He sighed.

  “It’s a note. It’s written on my porch, right there, in chalk, a little to the right of the dead bird.”

  “Dead bird?” The officer stepped back and scanned the
area.

  Frankie opened her screen, stepped out, and pointed to the perfectly clean concrete. “Someone put a dead dove right there.”

  The officer’s face devoid of expression, he widened his search to include the yard. But the bird was nowhere to be found.

  Frankie fought to control her voice. “I’m telling you, it was right there.”

  The officer studied her face. “Do you still see it?”

  Gorge rose in Frankie’s throat, and her face warmed. “No, I don’t. But why would I make up such a thing?”

  “I’m not saying you’re making things up.” Like a teacher talking to an offending student, the officer held his index finger in the air. “And I’m going to let this slide. But just so you know: calling for help under false pretenses is an actionable offense.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Frankie clenched her hands into tight balls. “And I won’t bother you again.”

  The police officer returned to his cruiser. He spoke into his car phone and sat for several minutes making notes.

  What words would he use in his matter-of-public-record report? Crazy or cracked would work.

  Maybe the whole being-followed thing had been her imagination after all. Or maybe her brain had turned into a big, thick, steaming bowl of oatmeal. But there was no way she’d misread the intentions on the face of the guy driving the Chevy. And although she had no explanation for their disappearance, her imagination had not manufactured the dead bird and note.

  Frankie leaned her forehead against the cool wooden door frame, her thoughts turning to the guy in the old Chevy. She’d almost welcome his appearance right then. In her current frame of mind she’d make mincemeat of him and feed him to her cat.

  She was getting tired of jumping at every noise, of acid shooting up her throat at unexpected shadows. She was sick of feeling like a marionette made to dance to someone else’s banjo.

  To co-opt Angela’s words, it was time to thump a domino. And at this point, any domino would do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Larry’s lips thinned as he listened to the threatening message Mel had left on his phone. Things were happening too fast, and he wasn’t ready. One thing he knew for sure, Mel didn’t make idle threats. That meant he’d have to speed up his timetable.