Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries)

by Ryan, Annelise

  “They appear to be love letters from Regan to Bernie.”

  “Interesting,” I say.

  Hurley nods his agreement. “I’m guessing Bernie didn’t want these or the cash found if he and Vonda moved forward with the divorce.”

  “Bernard and his wife are getting a divorce?” Trisha says.

  “If what his wife told us is true, then yeah, they are,” Hurley explains. “According to her they’ve been separated for some time. They even divided the house into separate wings so that they wouldn’t have to cross paths.”

  “If he had a lover and there was that much animosity between the wife and Bernie, maybe his wife killed him,” Trisha proposes.

  “Maybe,” Hurley says. “But I’m not seeing a strong motive there. His wife is very well-off financially on her own. She doesn’t need Bernard’s money, and given their living arrangements, I don’t see his affair as being that important, either. We plan to visit her again today and conduct a search of the house, so we’ll see if anything else turns up.”

  Chapter 24

  Dr. Zimmerman is the first board member we talk to. Because he doesn’t have an office of his own at the nursing home, we question him off to one side of the cafeteria. It’s a short interview as he has a strong alibi that is quickly and easily verified. He was at the hospital making rounds on his patients Saturday morning between the hours of nine and twelve.

  Next, we invite Al Hubbard into his office. Al is in his forties, overweight, balding, and wears thick glasses. He blinks all the time, though I can’t tell if it’s an attempt to adjust his vision or a nervous tic, and his features are coarse and kind of blubbery. He is wearing khaki pants that are too short, possibly because they are being held up with a pair of blue suspenders. His shirt is a lightweight cotton blend button-down in a blue and green plaid with two breast pockets. His socks are basic white cotton, and his shoes are a pair of black penny loafers that are so scuffed and creased I suspect he’s probably had them for a decade or more. Despite their worn condition, each one bears a shiny copper coin in the penny slot. All Al lacks to be the poster boy for middle-aged nerds is a pocket protector.

  As he unlocks his office, Hurley asks him who else has a key to it.

  “All the board members have keys to the offices back here,” Al says. “And I believe there are office keys on the master set that the nursing supervisors have. As far as I know, that’s it.”

  His office is less than half the size of Bernie’s and it lacks any warmth or personalization. There are no pictures on the wall, there are no family pictures on the desk, and other than a coffee mug that says FINANCE GUYS MAKE MORE CENTS, there is no evidence that a human being with a personality ever occupied the room.

  When Hurley asks Al where he was yesterday morning, he says, “I was home, watching TV.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “No, I live alone.”

  “Did anyone see you at home? Like a neighbor or a friend?”

  Al shakes his head. I get the sense that he’s very much a loner, though whether that’s by choice or not, I can’t tell.

  Nothing in the office jumps out at us and when Hurley asks Al for the financial information he said he wanted earlier, Trisha says she’ll have Al pull it together and send a copy to the police department by the end of the day.

  We go back to the dining room to get Jeanette Throckmorton, a thin, mousy woman with brown hair who I guess to be in her late thirties. A bit of discussion clarifies the fact that Jeanette is not actually a member of the board of directors, but rather the administrative assistant or secretary. However, in this role she is privy to much of the same information that the board members have because she attends and types minutes for all their meetings, and processes nearly all the paperwork that comes through the facility. She also has a key to each of the administrative offices, just as the board members do.

  As we are walking down the hall of the administrative wing toward her office, which is right next to Bernie’s, Hurley asks her if she knew about the affair between Bernard and Regan Simmons.

  “Yes, I did,” she says very tight-lipped, making it apparent she did not approve. “Neither she nor Mr. Chase were very good at being sneaky. There were mornings when I would come in and find condoms in the trash, and articles of clothing lying on the floor by the couch in his office. And Regan was calling him all the time.”

  It’s clear by the way she wrinkles her face when she says the word condom, as if she just touched something gross, dirty, and nasty, that Jeanette is disgusted.

  As we enter her office, Hurley asks, “Are you married, Ms. Throckmorton?”

  “No.”

  “Any love interests?”

  She hesitates a beat before answering and I see her eyes dart toward her desk. “Not at the moment,” she says finally.

  “Where were you yesterday morning between the hours of nine and noon?”

  “I didn’t get up until after nine. I went out around ten to get something to eat. After that, I drove around for a while since it was such a nice day.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “I got my food at the McDonald’s drive-through, so I guess they can vouch for that part of the time. But beyond that, I don’t think so.”

  “Do you know of anyone who would want Mr. Chase dead?” I ask.

  “No, of course not,” she answers quickly.

  “What about this rumor the patients have been talking about, that Mr. Chase was killing off the patients who became too expensive?”

  “That is utterly ridiculous,” she says angrily. “Mr. Chase is a thoughtful and kindhearted man. He would never do anything like that.”

  I walk around behind the desk, scanning the items on top of it. Like Bernie’s desk, Jeanette’s is covered with neat stacks of papers, most of which appear to be dealing with official nursing home business. “Jeanette, would you mind just opening the drawers of your desk for us?”

  “I don’t see why that’s necessary,” Trisha jumps in. “As Mr. Chase’s secretary, Jeanette may have proprietary documents in there. I reserve the right to look through the desk first.”

  “I’m not interested in reading any papers that might be in the drawers. I would just like Jeanette to open them so I can take a quick look inside.”

  “To what end?” Trisha asks.

  “To satisfy my curiosity,” I say vaguely. I shift my gaze from Trisha to Jeanette. “You don’t have anything to hide, do you?”

  Jeanette shakes her head, but she looks frightened. She defers to Trisha, who after a moment’s hesitation says, “Go ahead and open the drawers.”

  Jeanette unlocks her desk and proceeds to open the drawers, beginning on the top left. There are three drawers on either side—two regular drawers atop a larger one made to hold hanging files—and a shallow one spanning the middle. The top drawer on the left contains typical office items such as boxes of extra staples, paper clips, pens, and pencils. The drawer beneath that contains two packages of printer paper and some sticky notes. The bottom drawer is filled to capacity with hanging files. A quick glance at the tabs indicate they are all work-related. The center desk drawer is filled with loose paper clips, pens, pencils, binder clips, and more sticky notes. The top two right drawers are filled with files—manila folders stuffed with papers. When Jeanette opens the bottom right drawer, my hunch is finally confirmed. Inside, I see a coffee mug, the back side of some greeting cards, and a bouquet of dried roses. I glance at Trisha and ask, “Any objections to me taking a closer look at the coffee mug?”

  Trisha looks inside the drawer and shrugs. “Be my guest.”

  Jeanette, however, looks anything but indifferent. I reach down and pick up the mug, reading what it says on the side. At the top are the words, WORLD’S GREATEST, and below that the crossed-out word Below that are the crossed-out words , and at the bottom is the word LIFESAVER.

  “A gift from Bernie?” I ask Jeanette, holding the mug aloft.

  She nods, her face flush
ing a bright, flaming red. “He gave it to me for National Secretaries Day.”

  “Were the flowers from him, too?”

  “Yes.”

  I return the mug to the drawer, and then give Jeanette my best sympathetic look. “You were in love with him, weren’t you?” I say softly.

  Jeanette stares at me for several seconds as tears well in her eyes. When the tears flood over and run down her face, she swipes at them with shaking hands. She opens her mouth as if to speak several times, but all that comes out are sobs. Finally she just nods.

  Hurley turns to Trisha and says, “I believe we have motive and opportunity here. I intend to search this entire office. Now.”

  Jeanette finally finds her voice. “You think I killed Bernie?” she asks, her voice quivering. “That’s ridiculous! I could never hurt Bernie.”

  Trisha sighs heavily, gives Hurley and me the go ahead and we spend the next twenty minutes searching through Jeanette’s thankfully small office. With Trisha looming over us the entire time, we do no more than fan through the pages inside the manila file folders, and finger our way through the tabs on the hanging files. We’re not looking for anything that would be on paperwork; we’re looking for something that could be used as a poison. We come up empty-handed, and when we leave the office Hurley makes Jeanette turn over her key. We then have the police officer who is currently guarding the wing cordon off the office with police tape to keep anyone else from entering.

  Jeanette continues her vociferous denials the entire time, and when Hurley asks her if it would be okay for us to search her house, she readily agrees. I can tell her adamant denials along with her willingness to let us go through her house have left Hurley feeling skeptical about her possible guilt. After giving it some thought, he gets on his cell phone and calls Bob Richmond in, asking him if he would be willing to take Jeanette home and search her house with the help of one or two other off-duty officers who might be looking for overtime. Bob agrees, and Jeanette is returned to the dining room where she is to remain under the watchful eye of Trisha’s cohorts until Richmond comes to get her.

  Next up is Dorothy Granger, and I can tell from the way she’s watching what’s going on with Jeanette that she’s very curious about what has just happened. To her credit, she doesn’t ask. As we’re walking down the hallway of the administrative wing toward Dorothy’s office, Hurley asks her where she was yesterday morning between the hours of nine and noon.

  “I was home until about ten or so, and then I was out running some errands,” she says.

  “Such as?” Hurley prompts.

  “I had to gas up my car, and then I took it through the self-serve car wash. After that, I walked around downtown window shopping. I have a niece with a birthday coming up and I was hoping to see something that might make a nice gift.”

  “Do you have any receipts?”

  She looks over at Hurley, brow drawn down in thought. After a moment she says, “You know, I don’t believe I do. I paid cash for the gas and I have a stash of tokens that I keep in my car for the car wash. And I never actually bought anything downtown. I was just looking.”

  We are at the door of her office and she reaches into her pants pocket and removes her key ring. As she pulls the keys out, a small brown bottle falls out onto the floor. It rolls toward me and I recognize it right away as a bottle of nitroglycerin tablets. I pick it up and look at the pharmacy label as Dorothy busies herself unlocking the door. The pills were dispensed only a week earlier, but the bottle is nearly empty. If Dorothy is taking these for a heart problem, it must be a severe case for her to have used this many of the pills already.

  I hand her back the bottle as we head inside, and then I lean over and whisper into Hurley’s ear. “Go easy on her. She has a bad heart.”

  Dorothy’s office is a mirror image of Al’s, but despite the similarities they are worlds apart. Her office is filled with personal touches. Framed certificates hang on the wall, interspersed with tasteful artwork. A dozen plants, including two blooming African violets, are thriving atop a small credenza in front of the single window. The desk chair has a crocheted cushion in the seat, and on top of the desk are framed photographs of three smiling, blond-haired children. Even the lighting in the room is warm, thanks to lamps with arts-and-crafts style, stained-glass shades sitting atop two small corner tables. One of those tables has a small coffee maker—one of those single cup brewing systems—and a selection of teas and hot chocolates to go with it.

  “Are those your grandchildren?” Hurley asks, pointing to the pictures on the desk.

  Dorothy smiles warmly at the pictures. “No, that’s my grandniece and my two grandnephews. They’re my brother’s daughter’s children. I was never blessed with any children of my own.”

  “Who do you think killed Bernard Chase?” Hurley asks.

  Dorothy gives him a funny look. “I have no idea.”

  “Did you know about his affair with Regan Simmons?”

  Dorothy nods and sighs. “Yes, I heard the rumors and I saw enough evidence on my own to believe them. But it was harmless, really, at least as far as the Twilight Home is concerned. I knew they were both married, but I also knew from talking with Bernard that his marriage had been over for a long time. He just hadn’t formalized it yet. As for Regan, I don’t know what shape her marriage is in, but as long as she did her job while she was on duty here and didn’t let her affair get in the way of that, who am I to say what she should or shouldn’t do?”

  “What about this rumor the patients mentioned?” I ask. “I mean the one about Bernie getting rid of his expensive patients.”

  “That’s just poppycock,” Dorothy says with a laugh and a sad little shake of her head. “It’s nothing more than a fantasy that some of the patients dreamed up in an effort to make their day-to-day lives more interesting. It’s something exciting for them to focus on. It gives them the impression that they’re living on the edge. Take a look at most of the books on the book cart in the dayroom. The selection on that cart is by request and it’s almost entirely made up of thrillers and mysteries. When those aren’t enough, the patients make up their own thrillers and mysteries. That’s all this silly rumor is. Believe me, there’s absolutely no truth to it. If there was, I would be one of the first to know.”

  Dorothy is more than willing to let us look through any part of her office that we want. At one point, when Trisha tries to object, Dorothy cuts her off with a look and an impatient, “Hush, woman. We have nothing to hide here and all you’re doing with your ridiculous limitations is delaying their investigation.”

  It doesn’t take us long to finish Dorothy’s office, and once it’s locked and Trisha and Dorothy have left, it’s just past noon. Arnie has finished printing the board members and he’s back in Bernie’s office, so Hurley and I meet him there to strategize and figure out where we go from here.

  Arnie is nearly done printing the office, though Hurley tells him to make sure he dusts the safe door before he leaves. We discuss the need to have him process prints or other evidence in Jeanette’s office, but in the end Hurley decides not to. I can tell he doesn’t think she had anything to do with the death and since we have Richmond searching the woman’s house, it makes sense to wait and see what, if anything turns up.

  Hurley excuses himself and steps outside the office to make a phone call. I try to eavesdrop, but I can’t hear a thing. When he returns a minute later with a worried frown on his face, I know he was trying to call Kate again. I feel a twinge of guilt knowing I could stop those phone calls any time, but I’m not ready to do it yet. Something about this case is starting to feel better to me, like we’re making some progress. I’m not sure why I feel that way given that we don’t have a clear suspect yet, but I also know that once I share the contents of Kate’s letter with Hurley, that progress is likely to stop dead in its tracks.

  Chapter 25

  It’s lunchtime and the patients are walking and wheeling their way to the dining room. Since everyone is li
kely to be otherwise occupied and we need to eat, too, Hurley and I decide to make a quick run out for lunch ourselves. We ask Arnie if he wants anything, and when he says yes, we also ask the guard officer on duty. With a list of requests, we decide to stop at a local sub shop and get sandwiches to go, which we then take back to the nursing home and eat in the hallway outside Bernie’s office.

  By the time we’re done, most of the patients have finished eating their lunch and are either back in their rooms taking a nap, or congregating in the dayroom and the garden area behind it.

  After a brief discussion, Hurley and I decide to divvy up the duties. He heads for the dayroom with the list of patients that Bob Richmond wasn’t able to speak to last night, and I take the list of employees on duty. I spend some time with Linda, the nursing assistant who is manning the front desk, and the three other nursing assistants on duty. None of them have much to offer, and the threat of losing their jobs has all of them pretty tight-lipped. I also talk to Connie, and while I half expect her to accuse me of sneaking a peek at patient charts earlier this morning, she doesn’t say a word about it. She also has little to offer, which comes as no surprise given her behavior the day before. In between these interviews, I walk past the nurse’s station and see that my coffee cup has disappeared.

  When I’m done talking with the employees, I head for the dayroom to see how Hurley is doing with his interviews. Along the way, I take out my cell phone and place a call to Izzy.

  He answers on the second ring. “What’s up?”

  “Did you find a medical record for Bernard Chase?”

  “I did, but there wasn’t much in it. The guy was healthy and had no major problems of any sort. His only visits to the doctor were for physicals and the occasional flu bug or cold.”

  “Did he take any medications of any kind?”

  “None at all. Why?”

  “Because we found a handful of pills locked up in a safe in his office.”

  “What do they look like?” I describe the pills to Izzy and he chuckles. “I can tell you what those are. They’re Cialis.”