by Lisa Jackson
As she was obviously headed for the back door, they both retraced their footsteps into the hallway, giving her room. Then she burst inside, her face red and puffy, her eyes wild, still balancing both of her kids. The back door was used almost exclusively by the members of the sheriff’s department, and when she entered, May Johnson steamed over to bar her from entering.
“Ma’am, you are not allowed through here,” Johnson told her sternly.
“I’ve got my sister’s car!” the woman wailed. “I have to see him! I have to see Cosmo! Oh, God.”
“The would-be wife,” Lang realized in an aside to O’Halloran. He felt instant sympathy for her. She was frantic and then there were the little kids. . . .
“Ahh.” The sheriff nodded.
“Ma’am . . .” Officer Johnson had on her deepest scowl.
Which cut no ice with the newcomer, who screeched hysterically, “Where is he? Where’s my man? Oh, God. Oh, please, please, God, where’s my beautiful man!” And then she collapsed on the floor along with her children, and for once May Johnson looked perplexed and at a complete loss.
CHAPTER 24
Harrison was buzzed into the reception area of Seagull Pointe and then was immediately greeted with suspicion by the woman at the desk as soon as he said he was a reporter. This was nothing new; it was a condition of the job, a reporter’s bane. After dealing with her, he was ushered swiftly into a small room with a calming decor: gray walls, a jade plant near the window, a seascape mounted over a bookcase that held a few tomes, including the Holy Bible. He took a chair at the round Formica-topped table and faced both the director of the place, Darius Morrow, a man in his late sixties with a pious expression and a way of folding his hands in front of him in a holier-than-thou way that set Harrison’s teeth on edge, and his female head nurse/administrator/jailer, Inga Anderssen, who, if you looked in the dictionary, the picture beside her name would read “Battle-ax.”
“You need to be a relative to receive information on a patient,” Darius informed him as soon as he asked about Madeline Turnbull. The man had a habit of wrinkling his nose, as if there were a bad smell in the room, and with the way he held his hands, he looked as if he were about to pray.
“I understand Madeline died from either smothering or strangulation,” Harrison said.
“Confidentiality, Mr. Frost,” he was reminded tartly.
“The police are investigating,” Harrison pointed out. He was winging it, in a way, but Geena Cho’s information was generally golden, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch, and he’d seen a cruiser parked outside. “They’re going to release her name to the media soon enough. I’m going to start reporting today, one way or another. You can give me facts, or I can go on conjecture.”
Inga had leaned close to him, glaring at his audacity, but Darius held up a smooth white palm. “Seagull Pointe is a prime facility with an excellent reputation. Of course we don’t want conjecture.”
Harrison thought he heard a little capitulation in his tone. Just a little. “It sounds like Justice Turnbull came to your facility, found his mother, and killed her.”
“That is untrue. He could not get in,” Inga snapped as she threw Darius a harsh look that said as well as any words, “Don’t buy into his BS.” To Harrison, she said aloud, “The doors are locked.”
“You need a code,” Darius explained and Harrison nodded; he’d been granted entry by the woman at the desk, who clearly watched every newcomer enter with a suspicious eye.
“But if he had the code, he could get in any door, right? He wouldn’t have to pass the front desk.” Harrison sat back in his chair, growing impatient with the way they carefully thought through every response.
Both Darius and Inga stared straight ahead, as if they were both, independently, trying hard not to give away something on their faces. Harrison reviewed what he’d just said, and it came to him as if their thoughts had materialized in the air in front of him. “The desk isn’t manned at night.”
“After ten,” Darius admitted.
“But he’d still need a code.” Harrison was puzzling it out. “Is it a big secret, or just a means to contain the patients with dementia?”
“He’s never been here before,” Inga stated. “He would not know it.”
“Before,” Harrison repeated. “So, you do think he did come last night. And it’s definitely what the sheriff’s department thinks, too.” When they didn’t respond, he said, “The other woman he killed . . . maybe she gave him the code?”
“She wasn’t a patient here,” Darius told him. “She is no one we know.”
“Maybe she was visiting someone?”
“She was a stranger,” Inga said firmly.
“You know everyone who visits everyone?”
Darius dropped his pious look for a brief moment to shrug and spread his hands. “This is a nursing home and an assisted-living facility,” he explained. “If a new face comes through, it’s noticed. Someone notices. No one knows this woman, and she would not have been able . . .” He let his voice trail off, as if realizing he was giving away more information than necessary.
“Would not have been able . . . to . . . let him in? Because she was already injured before she arrived?” It was like pulling teeth.
“She was not attacked at Seagull Pointe!” Inga declared.
On this, he thought she might be right. She came here with him, Harrison realized. And, on the heels of that thought . . . She was his transportation.
Darius pointedly consulted his watch at the same moment Harrison’s phone bleeped at him: a new message. He glanced down and saw it was a Portland number. He was pretty sure it was Pauline Kirby.
“Excuse us,” Darius said, and he and Inga turned toward the south hallway. Harrison headed back to the reception area, but tried to keep out of earshot, searching for a modicum of privacy. He found a nook with a fake ficus tree and a window that overlooked the parking lot and punched out the number for his mailbox. Sure enough it was Pauline who had left him a voice mail.
Phone tag, he thought. Pain in the ass. Punching in his security code, he waited for his voice mail to deliver.
“Hey, there.” Pauline’s assured tone reached his ears. “You avoiding me, Frost? And just when we found each other again. Give me a call. We’re rolling, but I’d like your thoughts. . . .” She rattled off her cell number, which matched the one on his caller ID.
Yeah, right. She’d like his thoughts. She’d like to rip the facts that Harrison had gathered, put her own spin on them, and regurgitate them like they were her own.
Sure thing, Pauline. Can’t wait for it.
Nevertheless he called her back, once more deflected by her voice mail. Tersely, he told her he would be available most of the afternoon. Hanging up, he gave a mental shrug. What the hell did he really care, anyway? If Pauline wanted to bounce over to the Deadly Sinners story, so be it; he couldn’t stop her. Harrison planned to meet with Noah Vernon the next day and hopefully get the boy’s skewed perspective on the whole thing, but then he was going to move full speed ahead on the Justice Turnbull investigation.
An older gentleman in a V-necked navy sweater and gray sweatpants came into the reception area from the north side hallway at that moment. He was pushing an empty wheelchair in front of him. Seeing Harrison, he cocked his head. “You the one who was talking to our esteemed director just now? What’s his name again?”
“You mean Darius Morrow?”
“Oh, yes.” He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes like he’d had more than enough of Morrow.
Having been brushed off by both Morrow and Anderssen, Harrison considered this new source. The receptionist looked like she wanted to say something, but then the desk phone rang and she was forced to answer it. Taking his moment, Harrison crossed to meet the man. He could feel the woman at the desk shooting him daggers. He half expected her to slam down the phone and call security.
“I’m Herm Smythe,” the older man greeted him with a handshake. “Mind if I sit d
own?” He indicated the chair he was pushing.
“Do it,” Harrison invited, holding the chair while Herm worked his way around to the other side, sinking heavily into its leather seat, heaving a sigh.
“Who’d you come to see?” Herm asked him and waved toward the hallway, as if he expected Harrison to push his chair.
“Anyone who knows something about Madeline Turnbull’s death. I’m a reporter.”
“Mad Maddie’s dead?” He sounded surprised and upset. “Nobody tells me anything!”
“You knew her?” Harrison proceeded to wheel the chair down the hallway from the direction Herm Smythe had appeared. He probably had five to ten minutes before the forces of Morrow and/or Anderssen descended on him.
“Sure did. I knew all the women like her.”
Wondering what that meant, Harrison was nevertheless beginning to think he might have happened upon a gold mine of information. “Which women, Herm?”
“Catherine. Mary. Maddie. I wrote their history, you know,” he added proudly.
“The women of Siren Song?” Harrison asked in surprise.
“The Colony,” he said, nodding his head with satisfaction. “That’s what they’re called.”
“You wrote their history?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, mister. Wrote it down in a book,” he said proudly. Then, “Where the hell is that thing? Parnell had it last.”
“Parnell?”
“Dr. Parnell Loman. I didn’t give it to him. He took it. But he’s dead now . . . a long time. Killed himself off the jetty. Wait. Whoa, Nellie. Here’s my room.” He pointed to the door with his name on it.
Harrison processed the information Herm had given him as he turned the chair and wheeled the older man inside. The room was furnished with two orange molded-plastic chairs and little else besides Herm’s bed. Herm eased himself from the wheelchair into one of the chairs and waved Harrison to the other one.
Harrison perched himself on its edge, glancing toward the open door.
“Close it,” Herm ordered. “Don’t need ’em all listening in.”
He rose to shut the door, then reseated himself. “There’s a Dr. Loman at Ocean Park Hospital,” Harrison said. “An osteopath . . .”
“That’s Dolph.” Herm spat the words. “Parnell’s brother. A pompous ass, if there ever was one!”
Harrison silently agreed on that point. “This Parnell did not write the book, but it was in his possession.”
“That’s right.”
“You wrote the book of the Colony’s history. The book that’s at the Deception Bay Historical Society?”
“Yes, I . . .” Herm considered a moment, concentrating hard. He pressed a finger to his lips, then shook his head in frustration. “Dinah told me something about it. . . . I don’t remember. . . . Damn, it’s hell getting old!”
“Dinah?” Harrison prompted.
“My daughter.” His gray eyes held a secret. “She might be a sister to one of ’em, you know? A half sister, anyway.”
“To the women of the Colony?” Harrison felt a little like he was swimming upstream. Every time he made progress, he seemed to slip backward.
“I had my times with Mary.” Herm twinkled at Harrison. “I was quite a swordsman in my day, you know.”
Another time Harrison would have encouraged Herm Smythe’s amusing dialogue, but it just felt like the conversation was seesawing from one side to another without direction on a topic Harrison really wanted to hear. “What did Dinah tell you about the book?”
“Parnell took it,” he said. “He wasn’t supposed to, but he took it.”
Harrison inwardly sighed. “The book at the historical society.”
“Yes, the book I wrote. It’s a history of the Colony. Did I mention that?”
“You said Dinah told you something about the book,” Harrison reminded.
He nodded. “Dinah’s my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“It’s all about their history, you know. The Colony. How they came to be what they are. You say the book’s at the historical society now?”
“A friend told me that,” Harrison agreed. “She thought a doctor wrote it.”
He vehemently shook his head. “What friend?”
“Her name’s Laura,” Harrison said, wondering if he’d tapped the older man out of information.
“Who’s Laura? You mean Lorelei?”
Harrison couldn’t quite contain his surprise. He hoped it wasn’t as obvious to Herm as he sidestepped, “My friend’s a nurse at Ocean Park Hospital.”
“With that bastard, Dolph.” He nodded sagely. “He was always jealous of me. Mary liked me, and Parnell, but she couldn’t stomach Dolph.” He cackled out a laugh. “Yeah, I wrote the book, but it doesn’t really have the good stuff. Mary was a loose woman, you know. Free love. It was the seventies and eighties. We were all into it. But Catherine put the kibosh on everything. She never, ever liked me. Doesn’t matter, ’cause Mary and I had our times, you know.” He skewered a look at Harrison with his gray eyes under salt and pepper brows. “That DNA stuff that’s all over television? Sometimes I think I should go back there and test some of those girls, find out if one of ’em’s mine, you know. Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t think so.” He wasn’t unkind. “When you were with Mary?” Harrison prodded. “What year was that?”
He shrugged, uncaring. “Ask Dinah.”
“Do you have a number for her?”
“Sure.” He waved a hand over to his bedside table. “Go over there.”
Harrison cruised around the bed and found a list of phone numbers written in large black lettering on a paper that was taped to the table. Dinah’s number was listed, along with several others that weren’t labeled. Harrison scratched them all into his small notebook, just in case they had a meaning that he couldn’t quite see yet.
There was a knock on Herm’s door, to which he called gaily, “Come on in!” as if he’d completely forgotten his earlier desire for privacy.
One of the staff members stuck her head inside, her eyes darting to Harrison. “Everything okay, Herm?”
“Oh, sure. This is my guest. . . .” He glanced toward Harrison with a faint frown.
“Harrison,” he said.
“He’s dating my daughter, Dinah.”
The woman stepped into the room, standing erect and giving Harrison a long, meaningful look. She was in her thirties, heavyset, with a cold manner that said nobody, but nobody, better mess with her. Her gaze never wavered as she said, “Oh, I don’t think so. He doesn’t look like Dinah’s type.”
“I was just leaving,” Harrison said, giving her his best smile. He shook Herm Smythe’s hand.
“You wanted to know about Mad Maddie,” Herm suddenly said. “She’s down the hall. The other side.”
At the mention of Madeline Turnbull’s name, the aide visibly stiffened.
Harrison didn’t remind Herm that Mad Maddie was gone. It probably wouldn’t stick in the older guy’s mind, anyway. “Thanks.”
The woman stepped back into the hallway and Harrison followed her out. Her name tag read TONI. Harrison nodded at her, but there was no way she was going to let him go without a postmortem.
“Keri said you were a reporter.”
“Keri works at the front desk,” Harrison guessed.
“Mr. Smythe isn’t a reliable source,” she said tightly. “As I’m sure you noticed, he has trouble with his short-term memory.”
“But his long term’s okay?”
“Whatever you’re working on, his word isn’t to be taken as fact. He wanders from the past to the present to places of his own fantasy. As for anything about Ms. Turnbull, you’d be better off speaking to the director.”
“Already had the pleasure,” Harrison said.
They reached the reception area together. Keri glanced over at him balefully, and he responded with a smile, as if they were old friends.
“Can we help you with anything else?” Toni deman
ded.
The buzzing of his cell phone prevented him from having to answer her. Shaking his head, he moved to the door, waiting for Keri to buzz him out. He clicked on to his cell. “Frost.”
“Well, well, well. We finally connect.” Pauline Kirby’s cool tones made Harrison almost smile. She might be an out-and-out bitch whose narcissism was legendary and whose interview technique was tactless, discomfiting, and altogether annoying, but there was something about her chasing him for a story that definitely warmed the cockles of his heart.
“Pauline,” he said, a world of meaning in his tone.
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time. I just want a quick few words on what you think of these entitled, pissant teenagers. Are they dangerous, or just poseurs?”
“Both.”
“Think their daddies’ll get ’em off?”
“Only property crimes, so far. What do you think?”
“The tone of your writing, Mr. Frost, suggests that you would like to see the little darlings have to pay for their mistakes with more than a slap to the wrist.”
“I think they should know there are consequences to every choice. Action and reaction. Yin and yang.”
“Are you saying they should go to jail?” Pauline asked.
“I’m saying that they need to get the big picture somehow,” Harrison responded.
“How do we get them to do that?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “What makes a good parent? What makes a responsible child? Who’s at fault? Why does this happen? What can we do to prevent our own children from taking the wrong fork in the road?”
“Do you have children, Mr. Frost?” She sounded truly curious, but Harrison knew better.
“No.”
“Plan to have them?”
He flashed on Laura, his feelings for her. His amorphous thoughts about a possible future together. “Not if they’re going to break into other people’s homes just because they can. I gotta go.”
“Just one more thing. I get the feeling that you’ve moved on.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Something in your tone. Your impatience, maybe.”
“Maybe I’m just impatient with you, Pauline.”