Coughing & Donuts: A Mercy Mares Cozy Mystery

by Ava Mallory

  That's what I told myself anyway when I looked at my phone and decided to answer it, instead of knocking on Alma's front door.

  “Nova, the thing is, murder never makes sense. People do things for all kinds of reasons. If you keep wanting everything to make sense, you're going to die waiting.” Nubbin warned me.

  He was right, but I wasn't ready to admit that. In my mind, things had to make sense. At least that's how I thought I'd be able to cope better with the information I was receiving. I'd all but run out of options as to which person had more incentive or a better motive because from where I was standing, the only person who could have gained anything by having him dead was Brandi, but at the same time, that didn't make sense. Why would she want to hurt her children this way?

  “Then, there's the other murder or whatever it is. No one had confirmed anything publicly yet. I still haven't seen his wife and I feel so bad about that, I mean, I know her. I know her well.” I said.

  “I don't get that. You're telling me that this man – your friend – was murdered too, but no one knows why or by who and no one has said anything about it?” Nubbin basically restated what I'd just said, but I didn't care. Hearing him say it, confirmed that I wasn't obsessing for nothing. This whole town was full of secrets. I could understand why the police wouldn't necessarily want to say anything . They weren't required to give anyone any information, but I did wonder why someone else hadn't disclosed what they knew or what they thought they knew. I figured, hopefully, that someone at work would tell me something, so I could get over this notion that there was a serial killer among us or I could have some insight into whether or not we had a copycat killer or the same killer had killed both men for reasons that I still had to figure out.

  “I don't get it either, but I intend to keep trying to find out. Anyway, enough about me, what's going on with you?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. Things had been feeling rather heavy lately and I needed to get back to a mundane life and a few laughs.

  “Well, I ain't dead yet, if that's what you mean. “ Nubbin always said something morbid. It was kind of his thing and I was used to it.

  “How's Tina? Is she working today?” I asked.

  “Nope. That's what I was calling you about. She up and quit on us. I was wondering if you knew what happened to her?” Nubbin sounded sad about her being gone. She was a wonderful person and a good friend.

  “I didn't know that. When did she quit?” I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was glad she had finally made a bold move and decided to seek employment elsewhere. That place didn't deserve her. They weren't exactly known for having the friendliest nursing staff.

  “That's what I'm asking you, Tundra!” Nubbin snapped at me, but I didn't take it personally. I knew he meant no harm.

  “Did you just call me fat?” I teased.

  “Oh, that's it. Now, you've gone plum crazy. That's what happens when they send you to work in a looney bin. What I'm saying is if you hear something about the young one, tell her that I don't appreciate her leaving us high and dry. Who knows what kind of Nimrod they are going to stick us with. This might be the last time you talk to me because I'm sure whoever they get is going to be the death of me. I might have to fetch my cane, just to make sure they don't cross no lines with me.” Nubbin came into my life with a real bang. The day I met him, he was threatening nursing staff with a cane, so I understood his joke.

  “No beating the nursing staff, Nubbin Schmeckpepper.” I teased.

  “I ain't, but if they get too rough or too you-know-what, I'm going to let them have it. Besides, they need to be riled up real good every once in a while, Suburban.” Nubbin laughed a hearty laugh.

  “Well, my friend, I better get some shut eye before I have to go take care of my patients. I'll try and remember to give Tina a call tomorrow and see what's going on with her and, yes, I'll tell her how much you miss her.” I said.

  “I never said that, but you can tell her what you want, Camry.” Nubbin said.

  “Good night, my friend.” I said, knowing he'd come back with a comment that would make my night.

  “Yeah, hope I'm alive when I wake up.” Nubbin joked. “Hey, when is your future husband heading back this way?”

  I cringed. Me and the word 'husband' didn't go hand in hand. That reminded me of what my daughter had told me about my ex-husband. I couldn't believe he was getting married. Not that I wanted him back in my life like that. I just never thought he'd marry again. I had to admit, I was a little sad about that and probably even more upset because he hadn't told me himself.

  “You still there, Sunbird?” Nubbin asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.

  “Oh, he's supposed to be leaving sometime tomorrow. He's not my future anything, by the way. Love you, my friend.” I waited for him to say goodbye.

  He muttered. “Now, don't go starting that nonsense. Can't you just hang up the phone and let me get back to watching my life flash by before my eyes.” He hung up after that, but I knew what he really meant to say. At least, I had a good idea of what he wished he could say. He was fond of me and our friendship too. I don't know what I'll do when he passes away someday. We'd become so close. Life without him wouldn't be the same.

  *

  Pulling into the hospital parking lot, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Even though this wasn't my home base, so to speak, I still felt like it wasn't the same. I'd been to many places and met a number of wonderful people and some not-so-wonderful people, but the nursing profession was a sort of sisterhood, even if we didn't always get along well and there was a lot of cattiness between people, not just the female staff, we were a family.

  Walking into a facility or hospital following a death – any death – was always ominous, but when that somebody was your boss and, in my case, my dear friend, my feelings were all that much worse. I needed to work. I was contracted to work, but the last thing I really wanted to do was work. I couldn't deny that my sole motivation was to see what I could find out. With Amy now talking to me, I thought I'd have a good chance to dig into Eli's background and see what she knew and I'd finally discover how Rollie had been murdered. I wasn't looking forward to that part of the conversation, but I was hopeful that it would answer some of my questions.

  I'd already made the decision that I would seek Karen out, but only after I knew what I would be walking into, not before. I don't know why. I probably should have known better, but I got it into my head that she was going to be different with me and I think a part of me wasn't ready to face that just yet. I had few allies and couldn't risk another one. She'd fought so hard to ensure that I remained employed. Maybe, a part of me believed that if I continued to lay low that she would have forgotten about me, along with everyone else and I wouldn't be tossed out of here on my behind.

  “Photo ID.” A guard that I didn't recognize said as he glanced into the back seat of my car.

  “Sure. I'm Mercy. I'm a traveling nurse,” I started, but he interrupted.

  “I know who you are. Your picture is on the wall in there.” He pointed to the guard building.

  “It is?” Great! I was on some kind of list. That's all I needed. With my luck, it was probably a suspect list.

  “Yeah. Every employee's picture is on there.” He answered the question that I was afraid to ask.

  He waved to the other guard, who opened the barricade and waved me into the lot. I found the closest spot I could get and readily jumped out, paying special attention to my surroundings. Who knew what kind of monster would be lurking just waiting to claim his or her next victim?

  “Psst.” I heard right behind me.

  I about jumped right out of my skin.

  “Psst.” I heard the sound again.

  Frantically, I tried my car door handle to jump back into my car and lock the doors, but my hands wouldn't cooperate and I dropped my lunch bag and my purse in the process.

  “Mercy? It's me.” A male voice said.

  I looked around and, for the
life of me, couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from. I wasn't that far from the guard tower. If I screamed, there would be a good chance that someone would hear me.

  I jumped up, waving my arms and tried to scream, but a pair of arms, grabbed me and pulled me to the ground. I wrestled with them to no avail.

  “Mercy, it's me. Will you calm down?” Charlie hissed at me as he pulled me into the car I'd parked next to.

  “What are you doing? Trying to kill me?” I asked, as I struggled to pick myself up and sit on the seat.

  He pushed my head gently, telling me to stay down.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  “Trying to catch a killer.” He answered.

  I looked around me. This car wasn't his rental.

  “Who does this car belong to and how did you get in here without them seeing you?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Rose. Do you know her?”

  I thought I'd heard him wrong. I whispered, “Did you say Rose?”

  He smiled again, nodding. “Before you go in there, I need to tell you something.” He said.

  “Oh, now you want to tell me something! After you give me a heart attack and drag me into a strange car, making me think I was being kidnapped? What were you thinking?” I couldn't contain my anger.

  “I'm starting to rethink my theory that you might want to live another day. I swear, if you don't stop your temper tantrum, I'm going to let you walk in there and spend the night working side by side with a killer.” He warned.

  I sat straight up, forgetting that he'd told me to keep my head down. “I work with a killer? Who?”

  “I can't tell you yet, but I think I am onto something here, but I'm going to need your help.” He said.

  “What are you doing with Rose's car? Is she the killer?” The thought terrified me. I'd spent a few nights working with her and never suspected that she was anything more than a sleep deprived nurse, who did her job.

  He peeked up out the window to see if anyone was on to us and answered, “I'm not sure yet, but I hope we are about to find out. You just have to do what I tell you and quit bellyaching about everything or this plan won't work.” He warned me.

  “Two things – I don't bellyache unless I'm provoked and what plan? Why didn't you tell me about this plan yesterday or you could have called me before I drove in to work.” I said.

  He sighed. “I can't tell you everything. You knew I was here to help you whether you liked it or not, so will you please just trust me on this? I don't think anything bad will happen to you.”

  “Excuse me if I don't find that reassuring, Sheriff Wagner.” I said, glaring at him.

  “I'll ignore that, but listen. All you have to do is go inside like nothing is wrong and do your job. Listen to anything that seems off and find some paperwork. I know that when a patient is discharged the paperwork gets filed. I'm going to need you to find that for me and make copies.” He acted as if that would be an easy thing to accomplish.

  “That's illegal.” I said, suddenly feeling defiant.

  “Mercy!” He scolded me. Lowering his voice, he said, “Will you just listen to me on this? I need to know what's in Eli's file. I need to know how they charted his escape.”

  “Elopement.” I corrected him.

  “Whatever you call it. I need to know how it ended up being blamed on you and who was notified when.” He explained.

  “Well, I can answer that for you. Amy told the administrators that I loosened his restraints. I don't know why they just didn't look at the footage from his room that night, but whatever, they had a murder to deal with, so I think they made an assumption because they saw me on tape there in the guard house and it looked like I was arguing with the guard.” It sounded even crazier than I thought it did when I said it out loud.

  “Exactly. How did it go from 'oops, I made a mistake' to 'see, she helped him escape and he killed the guard'. Something had to have been charted that led them to that conclusion and since Lou claims he never saw footage from Eli's cell, we're going to need some kind of concrete evidence of who set you up or who tried to cover their own tracks.” He explained.

  “I told you already. It was Amy. What else do you need?” I asked.

  “Will you just listen? You're starting to make me rethink our friendship because you are so hard headed.” He groaned.

  “I'm hard headed? What about you? I told you not to come here and that I'd handle things on my own and now look at you. You're coercing women into letting you use their vehicles and practically kidnapped me in front of armed guards.” I was getting angrier by the second.

  His reaction wasn't what I was expecting. Laughing, he said, “Sugar, no one has been coerced and, if I was going to kidnap anyone, do you really think it would be an argumentative busy body nurse with a bad attitude and questionable taste in cars?” His face reddened as he continued laughing.

  I rolled out of the car and resisted the urge to slam the door shut, instead opting to leave it open while I grabbed my bags and ran to the employee entrance to face whatever it was that was waiting for me on the other side of the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was business as usual on the unit. Patients were fast asleep. Nursing staff tended to their nightly duties. Things were perfect. Almost too perfect, begging the question, “What's going on?”

  Rose looked up from her charting. “Oh, hi, Mercy! Back for more fun, I see.”

  “Yes, how are things around here?” I asked, deciding not to mention the incident outside in her car.

  “Good. The patients are asleep. No admissions on their way in yet. We're just organizing and trying to get back into the swing of things. You can jump in wherever you want. I think, Amy wants to pass meds tonight, so if you want to take the odd number rooms, I'll take the evens. Okay? Let's go in for report and get this night going.” She closed the chart she was writing in and walked around the desk to go into the conference room.

  “Did you come in early tonight?” I asked, wondering when she was going to mention Charlie.

  “Yeah, I figured they could use all the help they could get. Everyone had been working long hours to cover shifts while the rest of us were in limbo.” She answered.

  A couple of exhausted nurses sat in the conference room waiting for the overnight staff to arrive. They were surprisingly friendly when I walked in. I thought I'd walked into some other dimension and the atmosphere had erased their memories.

  “Hi, Mercy! Welcome back.” One said, smiling at me.

  Okay, who are these people and what did they do with all the grouchtastic folks I'd met just a few days earlier?

  “Hi.” I offered tentatively.

  “It has been really quiet around here. We tried to get things caught up for you, but our brains are on overload and I can barely function. I think I've put in thirty some hours in two days time.” The nurse explained.

  Rose asked, “Whose charts do you need to update? Just point us to what you need to have done and we'll try to get through it all tonight.”

  Amy walked in the room, carrying an armful of charts. Looking at me and Rose, she said, “I'll handle this pile. There's about twelve more in the med room waiting for someone to tend to them.”

  I squinted to make out the names on the sides of the charts. It looked like she had a couple of charts with names that were unfamiliar to me and a few with names I recognized. The one name that stood out to me was Eli's. I'd hoped that his chart would still be on the unit, but how I'd be able to get my hands on it to make copies was beyond me.

  Charlie must have asked Rose to keep an eye out for it too, because she said, “I'm going to need Eli's chart because I still have some charting to do from the night he was discharged.”

  I smiled and nodded at her.

  She gave me a strange look, so I figured my assumption was wrong. She had no idea why I was grinning from ear to ear.

  Amy responded right away. “Oh no, you don't have to. You did it already. I already checked for
holes in the charting.”

  Rose protested, "No, I didn't. I distinctly remember not finishing up for the night because of the elopement and we had too much going on. If I remember correctly, you took his chart from me to and I completely forgot about it until I got home." Rose said.

  This was getting interesting. I began to see Amy in a whole new light. First, she blames me for loosening Eli's restraints. Now Rose is saying that Eli's chart was taken away from her and she hasn't had a chance to update it in a few days because of Amy. Maybe, I was all wrong about Amy.