Coughing & Donuts: A Mercy Mares Cozy Mystery

by Ava Mallory

  "Oh, Rose, we were so busy that night, I can't remember what happened when, but I know I left the chart out for you and when I checked it, you did leave your nursing notes in there, so we're fine. No worries." Amy smiled and quickly walked back out of the room.

  "Wait a minute!" Rose raised her voice. "We haven't had report yet and I still want to see that chart when you're done with it."

  Amy bit her lip and took a seat at the far end of the conference table and didn't say another word.

  Yep, she's hiding something.

  "I need to see it too. I was here that night, remember? I don't think I charted anything at all that night. I'm going to need to add my notes about his admission." I wasn't lying. I had never touched the chart. Too many days had passed and we had violated so many rules already, I didn't want to make it worse. I needed that chart and she wasn't going to stop me from getting it. I was on to her now.

  While the day staff was filling us in on the day's events, I watched Rose and Amy closely. They were both upset, but I suspected for very different reasons. Rose kept her eyes fixed on Eli's chart as if it would suddenly vanish and Amy clutched it for dear life. Every few seconds she would glance up at Rose and quickly look away because Rose was looking in her direction.

  No one else in the room appeared to notice or, if they did, they were too tired to mention anything about it. I didn't know if there was any bad blood between Amy and Rose. Neither had ever mentioned the other, but too, neither of them ever had any real in depth conversations with me either, so I had no real point of reference, but it seemed to me that this little tiff extended beyond Eli's chart.

  If Charlie would have informed me what he was up to, I would probably be a little more clued in to what was happening, but of course in true, Sheriff Wagner form, he only told me after the fact, if he found it to be prudent. I was growing really tired of him not finding it prudent in my case.

  After report, we all went to attend to our duties. I did my job, but I couldn't help but be distracted. The more time I spent not looking at Eli's chart, the more time wasted. I don't know what Charlie was after, but I had no doubt what I had in mind. I needed to know exactly what Amy had charted that night. I wanted to see how she described the night's events and, most importantly, I had to find out how his elopement got pinned on me.

  "Well, hello." I hadn't heard anyone walking behind me. I gasped and turned quickly, prepared to defend myself, because, you know, I'm often accosted by strangers while at work. My tendency toward paranoia was at an all time high.

  It took me a second to remember where I'd seen her before, but when it hit me, I about fell over. "Officer Lerner?"

  She hushed me, looking down the hallway to see if anyone was nearby. "Don't say anything. Did Sheriff Wagner speak to you?"

  What?

  She grabbed me by the elbow and ushered me into the room. "Go in my room." She whispered.

  "In your room? What do you mean?" I asked.

  "I'm a patient." She answered.

  "You're a patient. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." I started, but she put her hand up to stop me.

  "Not like that. I'm pretending to be a patient." Frustrated, she asked, "Didn't Charlie tell you?"

  Apparently, Charlie had a lot of things to tell me.

  I shook my head. "No. What was he supposed to tell me?" Was she hallucinating? I didn't know what was going on here.

  She rolled her eyes. "I told him you would be difficult. He was supposed to fill you in, but I guess because he's a man, he probably wasn't even listening to me in the first place. Okay, well, here's the deal - I had myself admitted for acute depression and suicidal ideation, hence, the fancy get up I'm wearing." She pointed to the oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants with the drawstring removed.

  "Oh, but why?" I asked.

  Did Charlie set up another elaborate sting operation? How many of the local women had he convinced to help him with this illegal investigation?

  "We believe someone that works here is responsible for the guard's death and I'm here to help you find out who." She said it like it was no big deal. Was she crazy?

  "Help me? I don't know anything about catching a killer." I protested.

  She shrugged. "That's not what your boyfriend says. He said that you helped solve a murder in Nebraska before. He said that you're nosy enough to get information that most would never think to pursue."

  "Charlie's not my boyfriend." I protested. "Did he tell you that? Did he say that he was my boyfriend?"

  She hissed. "Does that matter right now? I'm not a matchmaker. I'm a cop and I'm going to be in a lot of trouble and will probably lose my job in the process, so excuse me if I don't know what the sheriff meant when he talked about you. Can we focus here? Did you get a hold of Pardo's chart?"

  Well, isn't she rude!

  "Couldn't you have gotten a warrant or something? Wouldn't the hospital have to give the police the chart?" I was confused.

  She hushed me again and walked back to the doorway to check the hallways. "Use your inside voice, please. Don't you think that I would have done it that way if I could have.? I'm not that dense. We can't do it that way, so when Charlie came to me with this idea of using you to gather information, I have to admit, I was hesitant at first, but since you do work here and people are trying really hard to blame you for all this, it sounded almost plausible. Maybe, you can help us figure this out."

  I heard everything she said, but I couldn't get past the fact that Charlie advised her to use me. I wasn't particularly fond of his choice of words and, when all this blew over, I planned on speaking to him about it. In the meantime, I was a little flattered that he thought I was capable of solving Mike's murder, but no one had mentioned a word about Rollie.

  "What do I have to do? My friend or soon-to-be ex-friend Charlie only said that I needed to get my hands on Eli's chart and to make copies of it. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get off the unit to do that anyway. Right now, Amy doesn't want to let anyone near that chart." I explained. "Wait, are we investigating Amy because I was beginning to think that she might be hiding a few things."

  "Like murder?" Officer Lerner was intrigued now.

  I stammered. "I... I don't know. I only worked with her a couple of times. I don't know anything about her and I sure as pudding wouldn't want to accuse anyone of anything because I know what it feels like to be wrongly accused of something. I won't say anything until I know something for sure."

  She sat down on her bed and put her head in her hands.

  "Officer Lerner," I started.

  "Jill. My name is Jill." She said.

  "Alright, Jill, I have never done this before. Tell me how I'm supposed to do this and doesn't everyone around here know that you're a cop?"

  "Doesn't matter. Cops have problems too. We are people too. I'm just a patient. You treat me like every other patient around here." She explained.

  "But, what are you supposed to be doing here?" I asked.

  "Listening. Watching. Getting treatment." She answered. "Do your job. We will help you, just don't blow it."

  I felt faint. They were getting me in way over my head. I didn't feel confident that I'd be able to pull any of this off and, if I did, how was I to know that anyone would believe me or do anything about it. After all, we were conducting an illegal investigation.

  "I can't make any guarantees." I said before walking out of the room before someone caught wind of our conversation.

  As I stepped out, Jill said, "Someone will be waiting to help you when you go on break tonight."

  I stopped. "Who? How do you know when I'm going to break?"

  She put her hands on her head. "Didn't Charlie tell you anything?"

  *

  I looked at my watch for the thousandth time. Two o'clock in the morning, just like we'd planned. Amy's break was almost over, so that gave me enough time to grab Eli's chart and to get out the door and upstairs to Rollie's old office. I didn't
like the idea of having to go in there, but I assume, Charlie chose that location because I couldn't imagine anyone else using that space just yet. That didn't change the fact that it made me feel uneasy.

  "Do you mind if I go on my break right now, Rose?" I asked.

  We'd already worked eight hours together and she hadn't mentioned a word about Charlie or Jill. I wondered whether or not she knew that Jill was here conducting a sting operation.

  "Go ahead. You're probably starving. Are you taking your break here or down stairs?" She asked.

  "I think, I want to get off the unit for a little bit." I thought that sounded believable. I just didn't know how I'd get past her with Eli's chart. It wasn't like it was something that I could just shove into my smock pocket. I had to create a ruse.

  Looking around, I had few options. All of the patients were asleep, including my supposed cohort and, if I woke her, she was my patient to take care of. I had to get creative.

  "Get up." I whispered, shaking Jill's bed.

  She rustled a bit, then, fell right back asleep.

  I pinched her leg. It wasn't the nicest thing to do, but it got the job done.

  "Ouch!" She yelled, grabbing her leg. "What in the world is going on? Why did you do that?"

  I smiled. "We're partners, remember? I need a distraction. In two minutes, I'm going to walk off the unit to meet Charlie in Rollie's office, so I need you to start yelling. Pretend you had a nightmare or something. That will give me time to grab Eli's chart and take it upstairs."

  "What? I'm sleeping." She groaned.

  "You're supposed to help me." I reminded her.

  "Okay. Okay. But, you're not meeting Charlie." She said, putting her head back on her pillow.

  I pinched her again. This was fun!

  "Ouch! Will you stop that? I'm up!" She sat up again. "Charlie is taking care of something else. You're supposed to meet with..."

  "Mercy?" Rose called for me down the hallway.

  "I'm right here. Just checking on Jill. She's restless." I poked my head out the door.

  "Will you bring me a snack from the vending machines when you come back? Let me grab my purse." Rose walked into the break room, leaving me the perfect opportunity to grab Eli's chart and run.

  I said to Jill, "Forget what I said. Go back to sleep."

  "You are evil," Jill groaned as I ran to the nurse's station and lunged for the chart, while Rose was distracted.

  I took off like an Olympic sprinter (a middle aged sprinter with a bad knee and a protesting tail bone, that is) and got out the door before she walked out with her money.

  I'd made it! I was off the unit and out of breath, but I had the chart. All I had to do was get into Rollie's office before anyone came looking for me or the chart. I could see that someone was coming up the elevator from downstairs. I figured that was Amy, so waiting for an elevator wouldn't be a wise idea. I glanced at the stairwell and about cried.

  "The stairs, it is," I groaned. "Feet don't fail me now."

  I climbed three flights of stairs and was in desperate need of a respirator, but it was my own fault. My ever-present plan to get fit had long since been forgotten and placed on the calendar for the following month. I figured I'd make that a gift for my forty-fifth birthday. Better late than never.

  As I made my way out of the stairwell and into the ornate hallway leading to Rollie's office, an overwhelming sense of sadness and dread came over me. I knew that it came from the fact that I'd not yet reconciled my feelings about Rollie and his death. Part of why I'd not yet reached out to Karen was that I was afraid to face the truth that he was dead.

  The secrecy around his death added to my despair. None of it felt real or at all possible. Why would someone want to murder such a good human being with a heart of gold? Maybe they didn't know him like I knew him, but from what I could tell, his employees liked him.

  I reached the door and hesitated to catch my breath and to gather my strength to face the room. It didn't occur to me to be worried about who would be on the other side of the door. My thoughts were solely on the fact that I'd lost a good friend and that another, even dearer friend was suffering and I'd said nothing by way of offering her my condolences.

  I looked behind me to make sure that I had no witnesses, save for the cameras that seemed to be unfit to capture the reality of what was being filmed. I closed my eyes and opened the door, holding my breath.

  I nearly swallowed my tongue at the sight of her.

  She grinned tentatively, opening her arms to embrace me. I couldn't move. My hands clutched Eli's chart as if the chart was the only thing holding me in an upright position.

  "Hello, Mercy," she whispered.

  My throat went dry. What was she doing here? I didn't understand what I'd just walked into or why.

  "Sit down, honey. I'll explain everything." She stepped forward, taking the chart out of my hands.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I don't understand.” I said as Karen guided me to the seat behind Rollie's desk.

  “None of us do,” Karen said. “But, we're going to try to understand. We just have to work together and learn to trust each other.”

  Tears that I'd been fighting to keep at bay since I'd heard that Rollie had died, began to pour out of me. “I'm so sorry, Karen. I wanted to reach out to you. I tried, but they wouldn't let me. Then, with everything else going on, I just didn't make time for it, but I planned on it. You know how much I love you and Rollie.” I held on to her hand.

  “I know you were there. They told me. I'm sorry that I didn't get to see you, but I'm not angry. It's been a trying time for all of us.” She hugged me, patting my back as she consoled me.

  “I should be the one consoling you,” I said, pulling away slightly to scrub the tears from my face.

  She clapped her hands together. “Let's move quickly. We don't have much time.”

  “You know what I'm supposed to do?” I asked, surprised that Charlie had managed to reach out to another person without my knowledge.

  She smiled her sweet smile. “Yes. I'm the one who asked Sheriff Wagner to help. My niece was generous enough to help.”

  “Your niece?” I asked. “Is Officer Lerner your niece?”

  She smiled. “Yes, she's my brother's daughter. She's a good egg and she knows as well as I do that Mike's murder was well thought out and well planned. There's no way that you or Eli Pardo could have done it. I know it for a fact because Eli was in no position to have planned anything. He'd been staying with Jill's family the last few weeks. He was trying to better himself and get his life in order.”

  Eli lived with Rollie's niece? Why didn't anyone mention that before?

  Karen continued. “His father had thrown him out again. He had no one. Jill had come to know him through work.” Karen paused. “He had some difficulties, but he was always a good kid. He has a good heart. Jill and her family took him in after she found him living in the maintenance building here on the grounds.”

  I stood up, scratching my head. “He lived with a police officer? Right before he was admitted the night that Mike was murdered? I don't understand. How did he end up here? What happened?”

  “That's what we're trying to figure out, Mercy.” Karen said, grabbing Eli's chart and carrying it out of Rollie's office and into the copy room.

  I sat back down in Rollie's seat and tried to wrap my brain around everything. In the course of hours, I'd discovered that Eli was Brandi's stepson, his father was a wealthy movie producer, his mother was a reporter, and, now, he'd been living with a local police officer and her family. What else didn't I know about this kid? Why would he have confessed to a murder, if he didn't commit it?

  Karen called me, “Mercy, we need to hurry this up before someone comes looking for you.”

  I jumped up to help her. I thought I'd covered all my bases with Rose, but as soon as she or Amy noticed the missing chart, one of them would come looking for it and for me. I had to hurry.

  “We just need the stuff f
rom this stay. His admission information and the elopement information. Everything else might not be so relevant.” Karen explained.

  “I know what I'd like to see, but what are you hoping to find?” I asked. I didn't understand what her interest was in what happened to Mike and I still had one very important question to ask her. “Can I ask, how did Rollie die? Was he...”

  “Murdered?” Karen asked. “No, he wasn't murdered, but you can't tell anyone that just yet. I can't go into detail as to why not, but please understand we have our reasons.”

  “Who is 'we'? You keep saying it. Who are you working with besides Charlie?” I asked.