“Barney Leonard is frightening everyone.” Lou pushed ahead.
“Again with Barney Leonard,” Diane snapped. “What is it with you two?” She picked up a Home Decor magazine from her desk in exasperation. They had this conversation every week. “Leave Barney Leonard alone. And I’ve gotten no complaints from anyone else. Everyone appears to love his stories. Whatever keeps their blood pumping, right? That can’t be a bad thing?” Diane flipped throughout the magazine, working hard to ignore the fuming woman seated in front of her.
“You’re unqualified to say that. Two patients this morning displayed higher than normal blood pressure and no one is sleeping through the night. At their age, that is a serious problem...”
Diane slammed the magazine down. “Stop. Just stop talking. You are in here every week complaining about Barney. You need to understand, some people moved to the Sunshine because it was the former Bockerman Hotel and they wanted this sort of excitement. We’re in the middle of Hollywood. The stories are part of the charm of this place, and YOU need to get used to that,” Diane said through gritted teeth and watched as Lou’s jaw clenched in anger. They stared at each other across the desk without saying a word. Diane opened her mouth to break the standoff when the door slammed open, and Barney rushed through.
“She’s dead. Barbara’s dead.” He skidded to a halt when he saw Lou. “I called 911.”
Diane’s heart dropped at that. “What? That’s not protocol, Mr. Leonard.”
“They should be here any minute,” he said through gasps of breath.
As if on cue, sirens sounded in the distance.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mr. Leonard. You know the procedure. We always go through Dr. Jerris,” Diane said, dread replacing her irritation. Matt McCready wouldn’t be able to fix anything for her if the death records came out. Not even a hundred blowjobs would fix that. “Why did you do that?” she yelled at him, losing all patience.
“She was murdered. Murdered!” he screamed, his spittle raining over Diane’s desk and magazine. She jumped up from her seat and stood in front of him. Compassion. She needed to show compassion to get control of the situation.
“Mr. Leonard, I’m so sorry for your loss. Barney, can I call you Barney?” She kept her voice soft but business like. “I know how much you cared for each other.” She touched his arm, and he jumped back several feet. She held up her hands to calm him and saw his eyes grow wide. He had to be in shock.
“May I?” She gestured towards his arm and when he stayed silent, she took him under the arm. “Let’s go meet the paramedics.” She steered him out the door and away from Lou. The last thing she needed was that woman causing her even more problems.
Barney Leonard stood at Mary Ann’s door and knew he faced a crossroads. He couldn’t do this alone, and he knew Mary Ann would help him. He tapped on her door several times and then stopped himself. What if this was a big mistake and was spurred on by his overwhelming grief? He should wait a couple of days for his sanity to return, he thought. As he turned away from her door he heard it open.
“Barney, what is it? What’s happened?” Mary Ann said and pulled him inside. He lost all ability to form words and stood in front of her. Loud, racking sobs shook his body and Mary Ann pulled him over to her bed. She put her arms around him, and he lost himself in his pain.
Barney opened his eyes to find his head in Mary Ann’s lap. He had no idea how long he’d been out for and didn’t even remember falling asleep. He sat up and gave her a crooked smile.
“I didn’t expect to fall asleep like that,” he said.
Mary Ann patted his knee. “Grief hits us in different ways. Was it Barbara?”
He nodded. “I should have forced her to put on that lock. She laughed at me, but I should have made her.”
“It’s not your fault. The killer did this. Put the blame squarely on him.”
“We need to stop all this, and I need your help,” Barney said and took her hand. “Will you help me?”
She nodded. “Anything.”
Diane Lawrence stood on the curb of Ivar St. flanked by Lou and two LAPD detectives, and watched her promotion drive away in the back of an ambulance. The detective to her immediate left, Detective Murphy, was a woman far too young and too attractive to be a cop, Diane thought, but her partner on Lou’s right, Detective Larson, fit everyone’s description of a cop: old, grizzled, and wearing a cheap, oversized suit. Detective Larson’s look of annoyance did, however, match her own.
“Don’t you have a protocol in place for when a resident dies?” Detective Larson snapped at them, and Diane noticed the female detective shoot him a warning glance.
“What my partner was trying to say was that this death appears to be a product of natural causes. We’ll, of course, wait for the medical examiner to rule on official cause of death but from what the EMT’s said, she died of a heart attack. For her age, that isn’t surprising,” Detective Murphy said.
“We DO have a protocol in place, and I’m sorry for this inconvenience,” Diane said. “The resident who found her became distraught over her death and called 911 before contacting me.”
Detective Murphy flipped her notepad open. “That would be Barney Leonard, correct? He seems convinced her death was murder. Why do you think he’s so positive when all the signs point to a heart attack? Did she have any enemies?” Diane felt the heat of the detective’s watchful eyes on her face. “He mentioned other mysterious deaths?” Detective Murphy asked.
Damn Barney and his theories. He would spout off about the other deaths. She frowned and weighed her options. She was fully capable of spinning the events in question but wasn’t sure if she really needed to. Barney was in his eighties, and it would be easy enough to cast doubt on his accusations by simply pointing out that dementia and paranoia ran rampant in assisted living facilities. Who would argue with her? Dr. Jerris had ruled the other deaths as natural causes resulting from old age, and she was sure the Medical Examiner, Coroner, or whoever would take a look at Barbara’s body, would come to a similar conclusion. She was fine, she thought, and kept her cool.
She shook her head in apparent confusion. “Which deaths?” Diane asked. “As you can imagine, an assisted living facility has quite a number of passings each year. I’m sure you’ve seen the statistics on end of life diseases. We have a one in seven chance of dying of heart disease. Most of our residents are upwards of seventy. You both can do the math,” she said and paused for effect. “The last seven residents here died of heart failure, half of them from advanced heart disease. We do all die eventually,” she added.
“I see your point,” Detective Murphy said. “Did Barbara Monroe have heart disease?”
“I’ll ask Dr. Jerris to send you her files,” Diane said.
Detective Larson jerked his head towards their cruiser, and Diane caught Detective Murphy’s grimace. Apparently, Detective Larson felt they had been brought here on a fool’s errand. Good, she thought.
“Is there anything else we can help you with?” Diane said as she turned slightly towards the door, hoping she gave them enough impetus to go.
“I think we’ve gotten all we need. We’ll be in touch,” Detective Murphy said and shook Diane’s hand as her partner nodded and walked towards their cruiser.
“Thank you, Detective Murphy,” Diane said. “For being so thorough,” she added. Detective Murphy nodded and followed her partner.
“Still think Barney’s harmless?” Diane jumped at the sound of Lou’s voice. She had forgotten all about her. Diane turned on her heel without responding and hoped Lou wouldn’t follow her. The woman never got the goddamned clue, Diane thought, as she heard Lou follow her inside the lobby and down the hall to her office.
“I’ll talk to him, Lou,” Diane said without turning around, worried her professional demeanor would slip this time. She waited a few moments, hoping that would be enough but Lou stayed put. She opened her office door and faced Lou, a scowl breaking over her face. “Don’t you have patients?�
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Lou frowned, crossed her arms in front of her, and stood her ground. “What are you going to do about him?”
Diane sighed. “Stay away from Barney. He’s hurting because he lost someone special to him. You must know how that feels?” Diane gave her a pointed look. “With your mutual dislike of one another, I’m sure you agree that engaging him in conversation at this moment is a terrible idea.” She didn’t wait for Lou’s answer and closed the door firmly on her. She even had the passing thought of locking it, just in case, but decided Lou wasn’t crazy enough to pursue it any further. Diane got comfortable behind her desk again and decided she wouldn’t give another moment’s thought to Barbara and Barney when the phone rang. How could they know so quickly, she thought, with a sinking heart, her bravado melting away.
“Hello?”
“Matt, here. What’s this I hear about the police over there?”
Nurse Lou Fairbanks glowered at the closed door and couldn’t believe the nerve of that woman. How dare she speak to her that way, she thought, and her anger changed to a wave of panic. She had to get out of the hallway before anyone saw her like this. As the heart palpation’s and the shakes cascaded over her, she advanced slowly towards the lobby. A sudden bout of vertigo made her stumble and clutch at the nearest column. She had to get to the elevator, she thought and focused on the vast gulf that separated her from the elevator. There was no way she was getting to the stairs in time and hoped she wouldn’t black out before she got inside.
After what felt like hours, she finally reached the elevator and burst into tears of relief when she found the elevator already on the ground level. She jabbed at the up button, and the doors opened with the familiar ding. She couldn’t believe how happy she was to hear it. She stepped inside, pressed the tenth floor button, and sank to the floor. The elevator lurched to life and rose with a creak. She was so entrenched in the coming panic attack that the claustrophobia had no room to take hold. As her vertigo subsided, she grabbed the handrail, and pulled herself back to standing, focusing all her attention on the numbers of the floors flashing by.
Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. The eighth floor flashed brighter than all the rest and the elevator ground to a halt. Lou stood taller, clutching the handrail for support, and forced a smile. If any of her patients saw her like this, she would lose her job. Be normal, she hissed to the empty elevator and the doors squeaked open. Lou held her breath in anticipation, but no one entered the elevator. She shuffled forward and peeked out into the hallway, but it also stood empty.
She punched the button for the tenth floor, but the door didn’t close.
She hit it again. Nothing happened.
And again. The elevator doors didn’t budge. She jabbed the Close Door button.
Ding, Ding. The elevator protested but still nothing.
She poked her head out of the elevator to judge the distance to the stairs. She could feel the heart palpations grow stronger with this new obstacle. She had to get back to her room. The door to the stairwell was about ten feet down to the left, past a flickering light. The pulsating light made her dizzy, and she ducked her head back into the elevator. She had to get it to work.
She hit every button that was on the panel, and the doors finally closed. She leaned against the elevator wall, tears flowing down her cheeks. Please God, take pity on me for once, she said to the empty elevator with a sob.
Ding. Ding. The doors slid open.
Lou punched the buttons for every floor, and the doors closed and then opened. Then closed. She would have to take her chances on the stairwell after all. With only a few moments to spare, she stumbled out of the elevator and made her way down the hall, keeping her eyes closed to protect her from the flickering of the light and not caring who saw her.
She made it to the stairwell door and sobbed in relief. She pulled the door open with some effort and stepped inside, the darkness coming at her from the edges of her vision. She had been so careful for so long that the few blackouts she had were confined to her apartment. She reached the first step, and the blackness pounded into her. She pitched herself to her right and hoped that she wouldn’t fall down the stairs to her death.
Barney Leonard sat hunched over his desk dismantling a short wave radio. Using his hands kept his grief at bay and let his mind wander towards more useful emotions. Like revenge and murder and ways he could get away with it. He lifted his head and glared at his shabby apartment where his entire life was crammed into a ten by ten room. Memorabilia lined the walls; rock posters of the bands he toured with, covers of record albums he worked on tiled in a grid pattern over an entire wall, and even a gold record in a place of prominence. His life’s achievements.
A gentle knock sounded on the door.
“Come in,” he said, not turning around.
“You awake?” Mary Ann said as soon as she walked through the door. She never disappointed him with her reliability.
“What do you think,” he said and put his screwdriver down. He swiveled his chair around to see her, and she sauntered over to him with a come hither smile. He couldn’t believe she would try. “I’m busy. What do you need?” he said and watched her deflate. He got no pleasure from being mean to her and felt bad for being such an ass. “Sorry, it’s been a long night,” he said. No one ever mentioned how lonely being old was, and he knew the need that she was throwing his way. All he wanted was to avenge Babs’ death.
“You’re taking it apart again,” she said when she saw what he doing.
He shifted his body to hide the radio from her view. “It keeps me occupied,” he said in his defense.
“I can help keep you occupied,” she whispered in his ear but he managed to disentangle himself out of her arms. “What do you need, Mary Ann?”
She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. “I’m scared, and I want to get started.”
“I can help you with that.”
Lou Fairbanks’ eyes opened to complete darkness. She fought to sit up, but something pinned her to the bed. She struggled to twist her head around to see what sat on her chest, but she had no control over her body. She was paralyzed. She heard a ragged exhale of breath followed by footsteps. Fear gripped her throat, and she started to choke on her own spit. She gargled in panic and strained as hard as she could to turn her head, but her body would not obey. She choked out a scream and felt the tears stream down her cheeks. The footsteps got closer, and she felt something lean over her. She knew she would die. Abject fear forced her mouth open, and she finally heard herself scream.
Lou startled awake and found herself sprawled in a heap on the landing of the staircase. She blinked at the harsh light coming from the nearest wall sconce and touched the back of her head with something close to relief. No one had found her and she’d picked the right direction for her fall, she thought with a small smile. If she had chosen her left, she would have fallen headfirst down the stairs and most likely wouldn’t have woken up again. Her secret was safe, for now.
She was pretty sure that Barney had precipitated this latest anxiety attack and a flicker of rage burst in her chest. She couldn’t let him get to her like this again. She’d gotten lucky this time. Lou groaned with the effort of lifting herself up to standing and waited as the nausea passed. She most likely had a concussion again, she thought as she gripped the balustrade for balance. She took her time going up the remaining two flights of stairs to the tenth floor, her head throbbing and her vision swimming. When she saw the door marked number 10, she smiled.
She pushed the door open and kept along the wall until she reached her apartment door. She fumbled with her keys and opened the door after several tries. Dads sat in the exact same spot she left him in earlier, still staring out towards the Hollywood sign. She must have been out for hours, she thought and was sure he never got to eat lunch or dinner. “Dads, I’m so sorry. I passed out again, and I just came too. You must be starving,” she said but he didn’t respond.
She walked slowly across the small room, and low
ered herself down next to him. Her hand fluttered to the back of her head. The last concussion she had, she’d been puking for days. This one felt different, and she hoped it wasn’t as severe. The experts usually said not to sleep for several hours after the incident and to wake up every couple of hours through the first night. She didn’t have anyone to do that for her and knew she’d have to set the alarm.
“I hurt myself, Dads and I’m going to have to set the alarm to go off throughout the night,” she said. His blank stare never wavered. There was no way she would get him to eat tonight, she thought and stood back up, swaying slightly. She grabbed the table for support. Dads paid her no mind. “We should get ready for bed,” she said as much to herself as to him.
Lou woke up to the beeping of her alarm and looked around the moonlit room in confusion. It took her a moment to remember why the alarm was going off in the middle of the night. This was the second time she forced herself awake and was relieved that she was having no difficulty in hearing the alarm. This head injury wasn’t that bad after all, she thought, as she turned the alarm off and rubbed her eyes with her fists. It was 3am now, and she set the alarm for a 5am wakeup. She was going to have a rough day tomorrow and would need to be vigilant about her anxiety.
She laid her head down on the pillow and closed her eyes. She stayed that way for a few moments when she realized that the bump on the back of her head was pounding again. She needed more Tylenol. She threw her covers off and sat up. The blood rushed down her body, and a wave of dizziness hit her again. As she waited for it to pass, she checked on Dads. His mouth hung open and as he inhaled, a soft snore came whistling out of him. Up until several weeks ago, Dads often woke in the middle of the night but with this new Ambien dosage he slept all the way through. Thank God for small miracles, she thought as she stood up and made her way to the bathroom.
The Elk (A Caine & Murphy Paranormal Thriller Series Book 1) Page 4