by Ava Mallory
It only took a few minutes for my rental car to be pulled out of the ditch. I couldn't wait to get back on the road and back to business.
“You're all set. Did you want to ride into town with the sheriff or ride with me in the tow truck?” The tow truck driver asked me.
“I can drive myself.” I said, confused by why he was asking.
“No, you won't, Mercy.” Charlie yelled over the tow truck driver's shoulder.
“I'll be fine. I'll follow you two and it will be fine.” I said, trying with all my might to control my anger.
Charlie walked around the car and sat down in the driver's seat. I immediately stepped out and rushed to my car. Bill followed behind me, carrying Barney's crate.
“Don't forget Barney.” He said, smiling.
“Oh you don't have to worry about that. You need to worry about the health and safety of your sheriff, though.” I said, glaring at Charlie from behind. His six-foot frame and solid build didn't intimidate me in the least. I may have been smaller, all of five-foot-three on a good day and all, but I was mighty. I'd put up a good fight, although if it involved getting physical, I'd be more inclined to run in the other direction. I preferred verbal sparring over physical sparring. My mother and grandparents didn't raise a fool; just a loud mouth.
“Couples fight. He's under a lot of stress. You both are. Don't let it get to you.” Bill said, before we said our goodbyes.
“Thank you for everything and, for the record, we aren't a couple. I'm not even sure that we're friends at this point. But, thank you for your help. You may have very well saved my life.” I said, squeezing his hand with mine, before driving off.
Luckily, the sun had started to shine, so the temperature had warmed up a bit. Charlie led the pack as we made our slow commute through the snow, with the sun glaring in my eyes, adding to my inability to drive well. At least, that would be my excuse if I happened to drive us off the road again.
“What an adventure, huh, Barney?” I asked, but based on the rumble coming from the back seat, I understood that my favorite pooch was already fast asleep. Obviously, his memory had failed him, because had I been him, the last thing I would want to do is be in a car driven by the same person that almost cost me my life. Brave dog. Sleeping, almost always sleeping, but one very brave dog.
As I drove, I tried to keep my eyes focused on the back of Charlie's squad car. I wanted to kick myself for not asking him the most important questions, like how was the search coming along, what was his feeling about the coyote mangling, or what the deal was with the band of thieves. Once again, I'd let my emotions take over and I'd probably ruined my chance of getting Charlie to divulge any information to me. I was beginning to think that I should have thought all of these things out before I had gotten on the road and not now, just a few miles out from our destination.
Nubbin, when I find you, you're going to owe me big time, my friend, I thought. “Big. Time.”
I needed a distraction and since all I could see in front of me were Charlie's car and the tow truck, I had to find something else to keep me awake. Out of options, I turned the radio on. “Hog reports it is then.” It was better than listening to the guilt-ridden voices in my head.
*
“Thanks,” I waved to the back of Charlie's car as he sped up as soon as we arrived in Gering. “Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.” I said before another round of sneezes hit me with full force.
Too much time had already been wasted, so instead of trying to find a hotel, I headed directly to the nursing home. At this point, it didn't matter that no one there would be thrilled to see me. I didn't exactly leave on good terms with some people the last time I was here.
I pulled into the drive leading up to Valley Retirement Estates, right off the highway into town and tried to figure out a way to get in and get on their good side. I needed an angle.
Barney sneezed, startling me. “You're right. Brilliant idea, Barney.” I said.
I pulled into a parking space and froze in place when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the rear view mirror. I was a hot mess!
“I look like I walked from California. My dark, curly hair was a frizzy mop. My nose and eyes were red, not to mention that both were leaking like sieves. No way was anyone going to let me past the front door, let alone anywhere near any of the resident's units.
I had to think fast. Even with a great plan brewing, I would never make it through the facility without anyone noticing that I was sick.
A minute of primping and I was about as good as I was going to get for the time being. With any luck, I hoped I'd go unnoticed.
I stepped out of the car and took a deep breath before taking Barney out of his carrier and braving the ice-packed driveway.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered as the automatic door opened and a floral scent hit my nostrils.
As the second set of doors opened, I went over my plan: get in, get some information, get out. That was easy enough.
“Are you kidding me?” The sound of a woman's voice stopped me in my tracks.
Instinctively, I put my head down to shield my face from view.
I recognized the shoes. I looked up and our eyes met briefly before I looked behind me, contemplating whether or not to turn around and walk right out of here.
“Mercy Mares?” Kathy shook her head as she said my name.
Since she said my name in the form of the question, I decided that I'd take that and run with it.
“Kathy, right?” I pretended to not be sure of who she was.
Sternly, she asked, “What are you doing here? No one said anything about you working here again and why do you have that dog with you?”
I clutched Barney closer to my chest, so he wouldn't hear his former owner's words.
“Why do you think I'm here, Kathy? Let's cut to the chase. I didn't want this to go this way, but since yours is the first face I've seen, I'll ditch my original plan and ask you directly – what happened to Nubbin? What did you do?” I looked at her accusingly.
She gasped, shocked that I would ask her such a question, but I didn't have time for any of her excuses. I'd heard them before and wasn't interested.
Kathy's beady blue eyes darkened. “What are you implying? I didn't have anything to do with this? You know how Nubbin is. You know he acts without thinking all the time.”
Barney started barking, causing Kathy to move a few steps back. I didn't correct him because I felt my eyes beginning to water and knew that she'd figure out that I wasn't feeling well. If I kept a little distance between us, I hoped she wouldn't notice. I didn't have much faith in her nursing skills, but on the off chance that she'd surprise me and notice that I was sick, I had to do my part to not give her any reason to doubt my well-being.
“Nubbin is a good man. Isn't it your job to make sure that he's safe? Weren't you watching him?” I could feel my face begin to burn with anger.
Kathy opened her wide mouth, but didn't utter a word in response. I think I stumped her. Good!
“Mercy, is that you? Wow, how long have you been in town?” Sarah, one of the nurse's aides I'd met during my stay here last Christmas, asked.
“Hi, Sarah. How are you?” I poured on the sugar just to goad Kathy.
As expected, Kathy huffed off in her bright orange Crocs, reminiscent of a certain celebrity chef I'd seen on television. I kept one eye on her egg-shaped body as she pounded her feet on the ground and rushed away from me.
“You brought Barney with you.” Sarah grabbed Barney out of my arms and showered him with kisses. “Did you hear about Nubbin?”
Good, someone who is willing to speak to me about what happened. I had to think about how to proceed.
“Kathy said something happened to Nubbin. Is he okay?” I pretended not to know anything about the circumstances.
Sarah was eager to fill me in on all the juicy details. She took a deep breath and then starting speaking at rapid fire. I had trouble keeping up with her.
“I'm o
n break, so let's go sit down in the ice cream parlor and I'll tell you all the juicy details.” Sarah took my arm and led me and Barney to the in-house ice cream parlor, designed with residents and guests in mind. They sure put a lot of money into the aesthetics, but completing ignored the fact that most of their staff members were completely and utterly useless in my opinion, most notably Kathy Sauer – the wicked nurse of the Great Plains.
She was one of those people that became a nurse because she didn't want to be a teacher. Her heart wasn't in it. From everything I'd learned while working here last winter, she never let anyone forget that nursing wasn't her ideal profession. She behaved like everything about her job was an inconvenience and poor Nubbin was the biggest inconvenience of all.
“Ice cream?” Sarah offered me a tiny cone.
I shook my head. All I really wanted was a warm bed and about a thousand hours of sleep, but that wasn't going to happen any time soon.
“Are you sick?” Sarah sat down opposite me, licking her strawberry ice cream.
Think, Mercy, think. Tell her and hope she doesn't rat you out or lie and hope that your mucous membranes cooperate long enough to get the information you need and then get out and make a pit stop at the sheriff's office before checking into the motel?
Lying sounded like fun. “No, it was just a long trip and I'm exhausted.”
Sarah shrugged. “You sound congested.”
Challenge me. I dare you.
“Anyway, so I was working that night and everything was kind of normal. You know how it goes around here. Someone is always griping about something or other and someone else is always pushing their call light for no reason.” Sarah paused to wipe ice cream from her mouth. “So, I had to work the evening shift that night and we we short-staffed as usual. I had to work the unit by myself. Kathy told me that Nubbin was all bent out of shape about something or other and I...”
I had to stop her there. “Bent out of shape about what?”
Sarah took a bite of her cone. “I don't know. He's always like that when Kathy is working.”
I looked at her with a grin on my face, but all I could think was, It's your job to know. Isn't that what they are paying you to do?
As evenly as I could, I asked, “Why has he only acted that way when Kathy is around? What does she do to upset him?”
With a quick wave of her hand, Sarah batted her big, green eyes at me and shrugged. “Who knows. Hey, my break is almost over. Did you want to go to the unit with me? I'm sure everyone would love to see Barney.”
And, that's where this train stopped. Sarah was either unwilling or unable, due to her flightiness, to give me the answers that I needed. I would have to try a different approach, but first I had to figure out where her loyalties lay.
“Do you think that is such a good idea,” I asked, doing my best to imitate her doe-eyed look.
“Of course, the residents would love to see him. Kathy, well, not so much, but who cares, right?” She giggled like a hyena, swinging her long blonde hair as she moved.
Well, this is confusing. Is she friend or foe, Mercy?
I followed her down the hallway, to the back of the facility, where the Memory Support Unit housed thirty-six men and women in various stages of Alzheimer's Disease. It was both the happiest unit and the saddest unit to work on at the same time.
Depending on which stage they were in, the residents were pretty unpredictable most of the time. The latter stages of this dreadful disease took almost everything from the poor souls who were living with it. The beginning stages of the disease were often met with denial and hints that something was amiss and made for quite a few debates, if you so happened to be a member of the nursing staff, trying to convince them to do what you asked. The line between independence and dependence was a blurry line for everyone, but for those suffering with dementia and Alzheimer's, it was even more troublesome to navigate.
“I'm looking forward to seeing them too,” I lied. What was wrong with me? Why was I making this sound like this was some kind of vacation? I was a woman on a mission. Someone around here saw something. Experience told me that nothing and I mean nothing happens in a small town or a small facility, in this case, without someone else seeing it.
Sarah scanned her key card to open the doors. I took a deep breath to calm my rattled nerves.
“There she is. That's the one I told you about,” Karen pointed her stubby finger in my direction, explaining to a woman who looked remarkably similar to the gruff-looking Nubbin, but in an almost softer way. “That's Mercy.”
The woman's face reddened almost matching the color of her lipstick. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. Something about her, maybe her bulbous nose or her deep set eyes, but something wouldn't let me turn away. Her shoulder length platinum blonde hair sat in stark contrast to her crimson shade. I had a feeling that whatever it was Karen had told her about me was the reason behind her anger.
Great! These two were my welcoming squad.
“What did you do,” the enraged blonde asked.
Instinctively, I looked behind me. I knew she couldn't have been using that tone with me, a woman she'd not had the pleasure of meeting yet.
Sarah mumbled under her breath, “Uh oh, watch out for her.”
What? No words of wisdom? No heads up as to who she was or what her issue was. And, why does she remind me of Nubbin so much?
She stepped closer to me, her ample bosom in my face. My breath caught as the pungent scent of the worst smelling perfume I'd ever had the displeasure of smelling before overwhelmed my senses. She all but drained the fluids right out of me with her perfume. What did she do, bathe in a tub of patchouli and Corpse Flower? Seriously, was I the only one who could smell that?
“What did you do to my father? Where is he?” She spat in my face, the pungent aroma of stale cigarettes started to mix with the already deadly scent wafting between us. Suddenly, I felt faint and I was pretty sure that not one person here would be willing to provide emergency care for me.
I took a step back, doing my best not to choke from the nostril invasion. My eyes watered. My taste buds fought with desperation for immediate relief. I needed air. I needed something and, I'm pretty sure, getting yelled at by an angry fake blonde wasn't it.
“Excuse me,” I said between gagging and trying to will myself not to faint. “I don't know you. I don't know what you're talking about.” I had more to say, but since I could barely breathe, speaking wasn't a viable option for me in that moment.
“You're the nurse who encourages my father to do all sorts of nonsensical stuff. Do you realize what you've done? Do you realize how much danger he is in? For all I know, he could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere.” She seethed with anger.
“Your father? Nubbin is your father?” No wonder she reminded me so much of him. I didn't know whether to feel sorry for her or to laugh at her misfortune. Some women could be considered handsome if they looked like their fathers, but I'm pretty sure that was only possible if they inherited their father's good features, and clearly, this woman had not.
Karen sneered. “Yes, she's Nubbin's daughter. Why do you think she's so upset? This is all your fault, you know? I hope you're satisfied because now look at what you've done.”
What is she talking about?
“Are you out of your mind? I live in California. How could I possibly have had anything to do with this? I haven't seen Nubbin in months.” I stood up for myself.
Sarah watched in amazement as this woman and Kathy raked me over the coals. For several minutes, Nubbin's daughter berated me for encouraging bad behavior. All I could do was stand there and listen to her, but I also couldn't help to assess her large features. Her hands were nearly as big as her fathers. Her deep-set brown eyes were plastered behind layer after layer of mascara and the darkest muddy brown eye shadow I'd ever seen someone intentionally put on their face.
I'd finally had enough and had to stop her to get a clear understanding of what it was she thought I did or didn't d
o. I walked around the wall of angry women and walked to the resident's dining room to sit next to our captive audience members, Sarah and two residents. I nodded a greeting to the residents. They nodded in return.
After I was situated, I yelled, “Will someone explain to me what it is she thinks I did?”
It took a moment for my words to register with Kathy and Nubbin's daughter. They glanced at each other before turning to face me again.
“I'll have you know that my father is a very impressionable man. He hasn't been the same for years and I don't appreciate you showing up out of nowhere and putting all these ideas in his head. Now, look at what he's done. My name wouldn't be Donna Lee Schmeckpepper – Schwartz if I didn't do everything I could to protect my father.”