“Should we get the States Attorneys’ office involved?” He asked after she filled him in.
“I don’t think so, sir. At least not yet.” She fixed her eyes on Patricia’s door. “Commander Green, I’m gonna stay with this a little longer. Try to get some answers, if you don’t mind.”
***
If the Palatine Nursing Home was running on empty, you couldn’t tell from Gerald Decker’s office. Done up in a Southwestern motif of pinks, blues, and oranges, it was the only splash of color she’d seen at the place. Behind his desk was a photo of a plump, bejeweled woman sporting a Jackie Kennedy hairdo. Mrs. Decker, Georgia figured. Probably the decorator, too.
A short man heading toward sixty with thinning hair and a thick mustache rose from his desk. Concern oozed from his eyes. “I was appalled to hear about Mrs. Hanson,” he began. “We’ve never had any trouble like this before. I’ve told the staff to cooperate fully. And if there’s anything I can do…” he offered a smile and sat down, his voice trailing off.
Georgia sat in a chair with a nubby beige fabric and pulled out her notepad. “What can you tell me about the daughter?”
“Mrs. Hanson’s daughter?” Decker folded his hands in front of him. “I hardly know the woman.” He paused. “No. That’s not entirely true. I do know there have been some problems with fees. And I gather that staff isn’t that fond of her.”
She noted the reference to “staff.” “Is there bad blood between her and Muldoon?”
“I can’t speak for Vivian, but apparently, the daughter’s very demanding. Quick to find fault. Insists on special treatment.” He rubbed a finger across his mustache. “When you’re already overworked and underpaid, that can be upsetting.”
“Your staff is overworked?”
“We’re going through tough times, Georgia. The industry is consolidating, and we’re one of the last independents. When my father-in-law built this place, it was a jewel, but now…” He stopped. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear about my problems.” His eyes roved her face. “Since when does the police force hire such attractive officers?”
She ignored him. And the patronizing way he called her “Georgia.”
“Tell me about Nurse Muldoon.”
Decker leaned back. “Vivian? She’s the best thing that ever happened to this place. She runs everything.”
“What about the rest of the staff?”
“I barely know them. They all seem to disappear after a few months. Though with what we pay, you can’t really blame them.” He shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. None of my people would ever put a patient in jeopardy.” A pained expression slipped over his face. “Of course…”
“What?”
He laced his fingers again. “Well, I almost hate to bring this up.”
“Bring what up?”
“Well, in some cases, it turns out that the abusers are actually family members.”
“Are you saying Brandy Hanson battered her own mother?”
“I hope not.” The lines on his face deepened. “Why would anyone hurt a defenseless old woman?”
She shifted. “I’d like to see her file.”
He slid his tongue over his lips. “Patient files are confidential, but I think, under the circumstances, we can make an arrangement.” He got up, left the room, and returned a moment later. “Sorry. It’s not here. The girls must be working on it. Should I have it brought up?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” She dug into her pocket for a card. “Why don’t you call me when you get it back?”
He took the card, covering her outstretched hand with his. Georgia pulled back. “Now, Georgia, if there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.” She couldn’t wait to take a shower.
On her way out she peeked into his Mercedes. On the front seat was a silver box tied with a blue ribbon. The unmistakable logo of “Scensations” was scrawled across the side. She straightened up. What the hell was going on? Was everyone on the North Shore trying to be Chanel?
***
“I’ve wanted my mother out ever since she moved in.”
“Why is that?”
With heavy make-up and bottle-blonde hair, Brandy Hanson looked like a woman from the wrong side of the tracks still desperate to cross over. Her living room was spare but clean, with a couch, TV, and two chairs. She slouched in one of them. Her foot kept up a fast tap on the floor. An edgy aura suffused the air.
“The place is a hell hole. You’ve seen it. I don’t want my mother to die there.” She sniffed. “But what can I do? I’m just a waitress at Denny’s.”
Georgia searched for the right words. “It’s got to be stressful.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“How did you discover the bruises?”
“I saw them this morning, but no one would tell me a goddamn thing. And then that sanctimonious bitch—”
“Muldoon?”
She nodded. “She made it seem like I’d done it myself.”
“How?”
Brandy grunted. “Sidelong looks. Shitty comments about ungrateful people. Things like that. I tell you, if I wasn’t—”
The chirp of the phone interrupted her. Brandy went to answer it. “Yeah.” Silence. Her features relaxed. “Good. That’s what I hoped you’d say.” She snuck a look at Georgia. “Hey, I can’t talk now. I’ll call you back.” She hung up the phone. Her foot had stopped tapping.
***
Two days later, a dense fog rose from the ground up. Swirls of mist hovered a few feet off the street, giving the sense of being lost in a bleak, mystical bog. Georgia chewed her lip as she drove to work. Her case was stalled. Maybe there had been no abuse. Just easy bruising. Maybe she should move on.
The word came in after roll-call. Brandy Hanson had been found dead in her apartment. “No lacerations, wounds, or visible signs of trauma,” dispatch said. “They’ll figure it out on the table downtown.”
Suddenly everyone was interested in her case. She ran it down for Detective Mike O’Malley, whose red hair and freckles clashed with his world-weary face.
“What’s going to happen to her mother?” Georgia asked.
“Not our problem. Social services ‘ll sort it out. By the way, I need your help.”
She tensed with anticipation. She had the background. Knew the people. Was he going to ask her to work the case with him?
“The techs are pretty much done with the place, but Health wants more paperwork on Hanson’s mother. Someone’s gotta run interference at the daughter’s apartment. Help search the place.”
She blew out her breath. “Sure.”
***
She found a thick file in Brandy’s kitchen, but when she checked the bedroom, she froze. Resting on Brandy’s bureau was a bottle of “Tiger’s Breath” perfume. She stared at the bottle. Three people from Palatine Nursing Home had perfume from the same store. Two had the same scent. She started to pick it up, then stopped.
Did Decker give the same perfume to both women? He’d had a box of it in his car, and he’d come on like a randy goat. Maybe he’d been getting it on with Brandy, and Louise Rooney found out. So to keep her quiet, he—No. Decker accused Brandy of attacking her own mother. There was no love lost there. Georgia picked up the bottle. Maybe he was getting it on with Rooney and Brandy found out. No. Brandy wouldn’t settle for perfume. She’d be chasing the mother-lode
Maybe he was getting it on with both of them, and they found out about each other. Jealousy could lead to murder. She absently unscrewed the cap and breathed in the scent. Just like Rooney’s. But then, where did the abuse fit in? Had Rooney done it out of revenge? Or did Decker, in a sadistic attempt to show Brandy who was boss? Georgia put the top back on and pulled out her cell. It was time to find out.
***
O’Malley let them both go twelve hours later. Decker had been at a poker game until two in the morning. The other players backed him up.
“What about the perfume in his car?” Georgia ask
ed.
“Claimed it was a present for his wife,” O’Malley said. “It was ‘Love Potion”, by the way. Not the same shit.”
Georgia grimaced. “What about Rooney?”
O’Malley hesitated. “The woman’s a dyke, Georgia. We talked to her companion. They went to dinner, then a movie. Plenty of witnesses.”
Georgia slumped in the chair. “The autopsy?”
“Inconclusive. Looks like a heart attack.” He flipped up his hands. “What can I tell you?”
She trudged out of the detectives’ room, shoulders sagging. This had been her chance, and it turned out there wasn’t even a crime. She’d be wearing a uniform forever.
***
The next day Georgia realized she still had the thick file from Brandy’s apartment. Paging through it, she discovered it was filled with forms that authorized Medicare payments to the home. Explanation of benefit forms, they itemized scores of procedures performed on Patricia Hanson. Most were co-signed by a doctor and Louise Rooney. Georgia frowned; she hadn’t known Brandy’s mother was so ill.
Then it hit her. Patricia Hanson wasn’t ill. Muldoon had said she was in pretty good shape for her age. She bent over the file.
An hour later, she had it. Decker was running a Medicare scam, using Rooney to submit bogus expenses. She didn’t know all the details, but it seemed to involve doctors’ signatures, whether real or forged, and invoices prepared by Rooney. Georgia added it up: they’d raked in almost ten grand on Brandy’s mother in less than six months. Multiply that by fifty patients. Maybe Decker wasn’t so anxious to sell the place after all.
She tapped her fist against her chin. Brandy must have seen her mother’s file, caught onto the scam, and decided she wanted in. Decker and Louise Rooney could have tried to scare her off by attacking her mother, but when that didn’t work, agreed to cut her in. That was the phone call Brandy got. Perhaps, they even sent over some “Tiger’s Breath” as a gift to seal the deal.
And then she turned up dead.
***
A bitter wind raked across the parking lot as she pulled into the home. When she got upstairs, she learned Louise Rooney was gone.
“Haven’t seen her in days.” Muldoon rolled her cart down the hall. “After all the trouble you caused, she probably left town.” She looked around. “You know, if Mr. Decker sees you here, after what you did, he’s liable to—”
“What happened to Patricia?”
Muldoon sighed. “Poor woman didn’t have two cents to rub together. They took her to down to Champaign.” Georgia blinked. Compared to the state institution, Palatine was a five-star hotel. “But two new patients came in this week. And we hired someone to replace Louise.”
A fresh face peeked over the counter. “Vivian, could you check these charts? I want to make sure I’m doing them right.”
“Well, if there’s nothing else,” Muldoon smiled, “I need to get back to work.”
Georgia was almost down the steps when O’Malley called.
Nurse Rooney was dead. They found her on the floor of her bedroom. Wearing evening clothes.
“That can’t be. Muldoon said…” Georgia stopped. “How did she die?”
“Don’t know yet. There were no visible wounds or trauma.”
A chill edged up her spine. Muldoon was training the new girl. Just like she’d trained Rooney. Muldoon practically ran the place, she remembered Decker saying. Georgia thought back to the perfume on Rooney’s desk. Maybe it wasn’t from Decker. An image of Brandy’s mother sprang into her mind; how terrified she was when Georgia first entered her room. Muldoon had been with her. Georgia’s hand moved to her holster.
“Mike, was there a bottle of ‘Tiger’s Breath’ near the body?”
“How the hell did you know?” She heard his exhalation. “It was on her dresser.”
Evening clothes. Rooney had been saving it for a special occasion. Georgia pulled out her cuffs. “Don’t let anyone near it. I think I know what happened.”
***
The lab discovered both perfumes were laced with DMSO, a popular skin care product with an interesting quality: by opening the pores, it transfers anything mixed with it—in this case a lethal dose of ricin—directly into the bloodstream. Georgia found a container of DMSO in the storeroom. Ricin, an untraceable poison derived from ordinary castor beans, is easily made and requires only a minute amount to kill. And though DMSO does have a distinctive smell, it can be masked by perfume.
Muldoon’s bank records revealed she’d amassed a small fortune. And when they put out a trace on ex-Palatine employees, they learned that two aides preceding Rooney also suffered sudden, unexpected deaths.
***
Brandy and Muldoon were a matched pair, Georgia thought as she drove back after the arraignment. The petty opportunist and the seasoned pro. One’s death was the other’s undoing. And poor Rooney was caught in the middle. But she’d been wrong about Decker. He might be a bottom feeder, but he wasn’t part of the scam. He even bought his wife perfume.
Still, when she saw the silver box on her desk, she handled it carefully. She checked for a card. There was none. She studied the box, then slipped on a pair of gloves to open it. The name of the perfume was “Chick Dick.”
O’Malley said he heard her laugh from the other side of the building.
THE END
In 1999 ‘70s radical Kathleen Soliah was arrested after spending 23 years under the alias of Sara Jane Olson. In 1975 she was charged with attempting to bomb police cars with the SLA, the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. But Olson vanished after she was charged and reinvented herself as a housewife — changing her name, marrying a doctor and becoming a mother of three in St. Paul, Minnesota. During that time she was active in the community and was known to be a progressive. I am old enough to remember her original crime, but what intrigued me was her life on the lam. Did she panic every time she saw a police car or heard a siren? How did she explain her youth to her husband and kids? How does someone with something to hide live? This story is the result of that curiosity. It was published in FUTURES Magazine in 2001.
THE LAST RADICAL
Soft explosions of flame crackled and licked the side of the grill. The tang of charred meat filled the air. I edged closer, prepared to supervise, but when David, who had taken over chef’s duties, spotted me, he raised his eyebrows and lowered his chin, his way of warning me to back off. I picked up the Merlot instead.
“I shouldn’t, Ellie. I’ve had enough.” Jamie covered her glass with her hand. My neighbors, Jamie and Ted Matheson, were over for dinner with their son Conrad.
“Nonsense,” I said. “This is the last barbecue of the season. We’ll be shoveling driveways soon. No. I’ll be shoveling driveways. You’ll be calling the snow plow service.”
Jamie hesitated, then tipped her glass toward me. I poured.
Though the Mathesons lived only two houses away, the few hundred feet between us could have been the Berlin wall. I lived in a modest house with Rachel, my twelve-year-old daughter; the Mathesons had an estate with a cedar shake roof. Ted, an Internet security consultant, traveled a lot. So did David, who lived in Philadelphia but spent most of his weekends with me in Chicago.
Jamie and I, both work-week widows, had gravitated toward each other, though I was a little in awe of her. Not only was she president of the PTA, but she sang in the church choir, served on the village’s Quality of Life committee, and used to be the soccer team Mom. She’s also a gourmet cook. We used to take brisk three-mile walks around the village, but after hearing about her latest version of creme brulee or chicken in puff pastry, I’d get so ravenous I’d eat everything in the fridge.
Tonight I didn’t try to compete. Just steak, salad, and plenty of wine. I was opening up another bottle when David said the meat was ready. I craned my neck. Black on the outside, pink in the middle. Perfect.
“Did ‘ja see the new fence the Cavanaughs put up?” Ted said between bites. It was a warm evening
, and we were out on the deck. The sun had just dipped below the trees, and bursts of rosy light flickered across the yard.
“It looks nice,” I said tentatively. Ted has his own take on things. I don’t always agree with him.
“Are you kidding? It’s an outrage.” Ted sniffed. “They only did two sides. How cheap can you get?”
I swallowed. “Maybe that’s all they could afford.”
“I don’t think so,” Ted said in a singsong voice.
“Ted.” Jamie’s voice was sharp.
But the wine had evidently loosened Ted’s tongue. “I saw their property tax bill a while back.” His dark eyes glittered. “It’s almost as high as ours.” I almost asked how he’d managed to do that, but then I remembered he was an Internet security expert. I glanced at David. We were thinking the same thing.
“People have different ways of doing things, honey,” Jamie countered.
“Oh, Jamie, you’re way too tolerant. You know—”
“More salad anyone?” I cut in, brandishing a pair of tongs.
Jamie shook her head. I turned an imploring face to David.
“Got a funny story to tell you.” He wiped his napkin across his mouth. I wanted to hug him for coming to the rescue. “Well, not funny, but interesting. A client came to see me the other day.” David trades foreign currency for a large Philadelphia bank. “Guy’s expanding his business and wanted to hedge some German marks.” Ted nodded. “Anyway, I’m sitting across the table from this guy, and something about him looks familiar.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Just average. But it was driving me crazy. I was sure I knew this guy.”
“Who was he?” Jamie gazed at David over the rim of her glass.
“I can’t say. Client confidentiality. Let’s call him ‘Jack’”.
Ted took a sip of wine.
“So. Jack keeps grinning, like he knows that I know him. Then, after we’d finished our business, he says, ‘You’re right, you know. You do know me.’”
Ted toyed with his fork.
“Turns out he was a Sixties radical. Part of a group called SHOUT.”
Nice Girl Does Noir -- Vol. 1 (Intro by William Kent Krueger) Page 3