Angel of Mercy

by Andrew Neiderman

  “I’m happy. It’s just … a surprise,” he said. “Are you sure?”

  “Call them yourself.”

  “I’ll check it out,” he told her, and then phoned the doctor. His receptionist confirmed Jennie’s message.

  “We’d like you to check in early and …”

  “I got a problem,” Frankie said.

  “Oh. Let me see if I can patch through to Dr. Pauling.”

  Frankie waited, his heart pounding. Jennie would be absolutely furious.

  “Mr. Samuels?”

  “Hi, Doc,” Frankie began. He explained that he was at the tail end of an important investigation.

  “You’re on the job?”

  “I not doing anything strenuous, just detailed investigative stuff, but we’re sort of short-handed right now and I’m the one who’s brought this thing to something of a climax.”

  “It can’t wait?”

  “Someone else might die,” Frankie said, not meaning to be dramatic.

  “Let’s hope that someone else isn’t you, Mr. Samuels,” the doctor replied. It brought the blood rushing into Frankie’s face.

  “You told me it wasn’t a life-or-death situation, Doc.”

  “As long as you don’t get into vigorous physical activity. But I’m just your doctor, Mr. Samuels. I’m not the one who determines your destiny.”

  This guy doesn’t like to be contradicted, Frankie thought.

  “Look,” Frankie began.

  “All right, Mr. Samuels. I’ll put you back to where you were on my schedule and move someone else forward. But I’m documenting our conversation. With the malpractice frenzy going on in this country …”

  “I understand.”

  “Watch yourself, Mr. Samuels,” he warned, and their conversation ended.

  All the little white lies accumulated over all the years he and Jennie had been married wouldn’t amount to diddly compared to the one he was about to tell her when he called her back.

  16

  “Why are you home so early?” Susie asked the moment Faye stepped into the apartment. Faye didn’t respond. She closed the door and then leaned back against it. Her face was white with rage, the corners of her mouth the color of bone. Susie hobbled into the living room. “What’s wrong? Did you lose your patient?”

  “No, you little fool. Did I ever come home this upset after a patient expired?”

  “Then what is it? What’s wrong?” Susie asked, letting Faye’s nastiness roll over her.

  “He’s here. He followed us all the way from Phoenix because of you.”

  “Who?”

  “That … man I told you they call Corpsy. Arnold Ratner. He works in the pathology department. I thought it was him the other night when I looked out. He’s been spying on us, spying on you!”

  “What do you mean?” Susie rested her left hand on the back of the sofa and brought her right hand to the base of her throat. “When was he spying on me?”

  “He followed you to Tommy Livingston’s house and looked through the window. He saw you give him the sleeping medication. He knows all about you.”

  “What does he want?” Susie asked, aghast.

  “He’s in love with you, you fool. I told you when we were in Phoenix. He thinks you’ll marry him and we’ll all live happily ever after. A family,” she said smirking.

  “Where is he?”

  “At a motel. I told him we would all go out to dinner later and that satisfied him.”

  “What are we going to do, Faye?”

  “Pack and leave. What do you think?”

  “But he might follow us again.”

  Faye thought a moment.

  “Right?” Susie pursued.

  “Yes, he might. First, we’ll pack and then we’ll deal with him,” Faye said. “I knew you would get us into terrible trouble some day. I just knew it. I should have left you behind.”

  “That’s not fair, Faye. It’s not fair to blame it all on me. You know it’s not fair.”

  “Never mind. We don’t have time to argue now.” She marched through the living room and went to the closet to pull out their suitcases. Then she opened the dresser drawer and began to pack.

  “Where will we go, Faye?” Susie asked from the doorway.

  “North. Maybe Portland. Start getting your things together,” she ordered. Just as Susie turned, they heard the door buzzer and then a pounding.

  “He followed me home!” Faye exclaimed. “He’s here!”

  “What should I do?”

  “Nothing. Just let me talk to him. Go into your bedroom and wait,” Faye said. She started toward the door. The buzzer went off again, and again there was pounding. “The man’s a raving lunatic,” Faye muttered, but when she opened the door, she found Tillie Kaufman. Both she and Tillie breathed sighs of relief.

  “Oh, thank God you’re home,” Tillie cried.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Faye, please! It’s Morris!”

  “Morris? Oh yes,” she muttered. “I almost forgot.”

  She turned as she stepped out and looked back to see Susie standing in the hallway, smiling.

  Twenty minutes later, the paramedics pulled up to their apartment complex. Faye, still dressed in her nurse’s uniform, waited in the Kaufman’s doorway.

  “Stroke,” she announced as the paramedics hurried up the walkway.

  The two emergency attendants moved quickly into the apartment, barely noticing Tillie Kaufman seated in the living room near her stricken husband, her eyes red with tears, a handkerchief clutched in her hands and pressed to her mouth to stifle her fear and sorrow. Faye had placed a pillow under Morris Kaufman’s head and a blanket over him. The paramedics examined him, and in moment they had Morris Kaufman strapped on a stretcher, his vitals analyzed.

  “Looks like a cerebral hemorrhage,” one of the paramedics whispered to Faye as they went by with Morris, who remained unconscious.

  “I know,” she said. Tillie stood up and began to gasp at the sight of her husband being carried off. His skin had already taken on the pasty pallor of a corpse and his body jiggled like so much dead protoplasm on a slab as the paramedics twisted and turned to get him out of the apartment.

  “He just collapsed,” Tillie cried. “He screamed, grabbed his head like this,” she said pressing her palms against her temples, “and then he fell to the floor. I couldn’t lift him, and there was blood coming out of his nose.”

  “You did what you could, and you got to me. The paramedics got here fast, too, didn’t they?”

  “I’ve got to go to the hospital,” Tillie said as if she were just realizing it. “I’ve got to be with him.”

  “Of course you do. I’ll take you to the hospital. Wash your face and get hold of yourself.”

  “Thank you, Faye. Thank you. You’re better than a daughter to us. We’re so lucky to have you and your sister next door. So lucky,” she said. She hurried to the bathroom. Faye stepped onto the patio and looked at her doorway. Susie had opened the door far enough to peer out.

  “What are you doing?” Susie asked.

  “I’m going with her to the hospital.”

  “My pocketbook,” Tillie realized aloud after she came out of the bathroom. “They always want those damn insurance cards. How do they expect you to think at a time like this?”

  “I said I would help you. Stop making yourself so sick,” Faye called back. Then she looked at Susie. “Don’t answer the door and don’t answer the phone, you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Susie said. She backed into the apartment. A moment later, Faye and Tillie were going down the steps.

  They arrived at the hospital minutes after the paramedics had brought Morris into the emergency room. Tillie waited with Faye on the cool red vinyl sofa in the emergency room lounge, twisting her handkerchief in her hands as if she expected to squeeze some precious juice out of it. Every time they heard footsteps in the corridor, her eyes spun up in anticipation.

  Finally, the doctor emerged from the ex
amination room and came looking for them in the lounge. Faye stood up. It was that young intern, Dr. Hoffman. He had emergency room duty. He smiled at her and then turned to Tillie, the smile quickly evaporating.

  “You’re Mrs. Kaufman?” he asked. She nodded. He looked at Faye.

  “She’s my neighbor,” Faye said. “It happened just after I had gotten home from the hospital.”

  “Oh.” He gave her a conspiratorial look, telegraphing the seriousness of the diagnosis.

  “Your husband’s had a cerebral hemorrhage.”

  “Brought on by his high blood pressure problem, I’m sure,” Faye inserted.

  “Most likely,” Dr. Hoffman said. “At this point we don’t know the full extent of the damage. We’ve got to run more tests, and then he’ll go to ICU. It will be a while before we know enough to make a complete diagnosis, Mrs. Kaufman. You might be better off going home.”

  Then he pulled Faye aside.

  “Looks like middle cerebral artery,” he said softly. “He won’t come out of the coma,” he predicted with deadly certainty. She nodded and turned to Tillie.

  “We’ll go home and return later, Tillie. There’s nothing more to be done right now, and you need some rest.”

  “Who can rest?” the elderly lady said. She was no longer crying. A deep resignation had set in. “I always hated it whenever he was in the hospital and I was home alone. It’s a small apartment, but it always seemed so big when I was by myself.”

  “I’ll give you something to help you sleep, Tillie. You need some rest.”

  “And you’ll stay with Morris? Be his nurse in the hospital?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We have a little money and there’s some insurance …”

  “Don’t worry about the money. I’m not doing this for the money.”

  Faye drove her home and helped her into the apartment and took her directly to the bedroom.

  “See how I always lay out his pajamas,” Tillie said, nodding toward the garments draped over a chair. “I’ve taken care of him so long, I won’t know what to do with myself.”

  “Don’t think about that now. Just get some rest.”

  “I should straighten up a little,” Tillie said.

  “I’ll send Susie in later.”

  “You’re such dolls, you two. Such dolls. Your mother must have been very proud of both of you.”

  For a moment Faye didn’t respond. Then she snapped back the blanket on the bed. “Yes, she was.”

  She helped Tillie undress, and then she got her some water and handed her some pills.

  “This will help you get some needed rest,” she said. Tillie eyed them suspiciously.

  “I’ve got my own sleeping pills. Little blue ones.”

  “These are better, believe me.”

  Tillie studied them a moment longer, shrugged, and put them into her mouth and followed them with gulps of water. Then she fell back against the pillow, her thin gray hair framing her tired, old face. Faye fixed her blanket and tucked her in.

  “He won’t die today, will he?” she asked. “I don’t want him to die while I’m away from him.”

  “He won’t die today,” Faye promised. “And when he does die, you’ll be right beside him.”

  She said it with such certainty and confidence, Tillie Kaufman relaxed. She closed her eyes and let herself sink into the mattress.

  “I am tired. So tired. Thank you. Thank you,” she muttered.

  Faye watched her sleeping for a moment and then quietly left the apartment.

  Susie was waiting in the living room.

  “Well?” she said the moment Faye stepped in.

  “He’s got a massive cerebral hemorrhage.”

  Susie nodded.

  “Now we know we have to leave Palm Springs,” Faye said.

  “Whatever you think is best, Faye,” Susie said.

  “That’s what I think is best. Were there any phone calls?”

  “It rang, but I didn’t answer it, like you said.”

  “Good. It must have been that horrible man. He’d surely have called by now.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Faye dug into her purse and came up with Corpsy’s motel number. She went to the phone and asked for his room. He picked the phone up so quickly she was sure he had been hovering over it, anticipating.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,” she said. “But our next-door neighbor had a stroke, and I had to get him an ambulance and take his wife to the hospital.”

  “Oh. Can we still go to dinner?” he asked quickly.

  “Yes. We’re going to go someplace close to your motel. We’ll come by early so we can go someplace and talk?”

  “You’ll come here?”

  “It’s all right. Susie is excited about it.”

  “She is?”

  “Yes. Just wait for us in your room,” Faye instructed.

  “It’s a crummy room.”

  “You don’t think Susie cares about that, do you? She’s not overwhelmed by a person’s material possessions. She’s a sincere person.”

  “I know,” Corpsy said. “I guess it’s all right. We won’t stay here long, anyway.”

  “No, we won’t. Expect us,” Faye said. After she hung up, she turned to Susie and smiled.

  “Will we be all right, Faye?”

  “We will if you do what I tell you to do,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got to go see this man and keep him from following us.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Because he loves you, so he’ll trust you,” Faye replied sharply.

  “But this is different.”

  “It isn’t different. Do you want to continue doing your good work, or do you want him to stop you?”

  “I’m afraid,” Susie said softly.

  “You don’t have to be afraid. I’ll tell you exactly what to do,” Faye whispered. She smiled. “I’ll be with you each and every moment.”

  Susie took a deep breath.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Susie said, and Faye began to describe her plan.

  Frankie jumped on the ringing phone.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” the detective from Phoenix said. “I had to go out to Scottsdale for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I was able to locate two recent suicides, the spouses of whom died shortly before, and in both cases, your nurse was the private-duty nurse, but I couldn’t find anything about any sister who was a maid, so I paid the daughter of one of the suicide victims a visit.”

  “And?”

  “There was a sister, who, as you described, wore a brace on her leg. She took care of this woman’s father after her mother died. Woman’s name was Ruth Kaplow. But I gotta tell you, she had only laudatory things to say about the maid. Who, by the way, is this nurse’s twin sister. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Todd and Perry hadn’t seen her, so they hadn’t mentioned it. “Twin, huh?”

  “Yeah. Ruth Kaplow told me the maid was very considerate and very compassionate. She claims she treated her as if she were her sister and the old man were her father, too.”

  “How’d her father do it?”

  “He was drinking booze and took Seconals. Ruth Kaplow says the maid, Susie, tried to stop him from drinking. She rifled through his room until she located every hidden bottle, but the old guy got some more.”

  “What about the pills?”

  “Her mother’s prescription.”

  “Part of the pattern,” Frankie muttered.

  “I thought so from what you said. I spent about an hour with this Kaplow woman. She couldn’t stop talking about this maid and her sister. But she did say something I thought you might want to follow up.”

  “What?”

  “Apparently their father committed suicide after their mother died.”

  “She told her that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks. I will look into
it. What about the other suicide?”

  “Couldn’t find anyone to tell me whether the maid Susie tended to him or not. He was a loner.”

  “How did he go?”

  “Something called physostigmine. Cause of death was pulmonary edema. Sounds very unpleasant.”

  “And physostigmine or whatever, that was the wife’s medication?”

  “Yep. She had some kind of heart irregularity. I didn’t dig too deeply into the medical wells here, so that’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

  “That’s fine. You did great.”

  “Gotta tell you, this nurse gets rave reviews. One doctor claims she saved one of his patients with her quick thinking.”

  “So displeasure with her work, or lack of it, wasn’t any motive for the move to Palm Springs?” Frankie asked.

  “Hell, no. She could get work here tonight, if she returned.”

  “Thanks,” Frankie said. He thought a moment and then called Jimmy McDermott, an old friend of his in the LAPD.

  “Jimmy, Frankie. I need you to tap into your famous computer again for me, buddy,” Frankie said.

  “Frankie? I was just talkin’ about you with Jack Sussman. He said he heard from his brother-in-law in Palm Springs that you were retired.”

  “Minutes away. I’ll tell you about it all when I come into L.A. next. In the meantime, I need to know about a suicide that occurred in Pacific Palisades. Name’s Sullivan.” He looked at his notepad and the information he had copied from the hospital records on Faye. “Edward R.”

  “When?”

  “Well …” He checked his dates to determine when Faye and her sister had left the L.A. area and started on their various trips and jobs. “Looks like about six and a half, maybe seven years ago.”

  “Give me twenty minutes, or will you be retired by then?” Jimmy kidded.

  “It’s close,” Frankie said, and Jimmy laughed.

  Frankie sat at his desk organizing his information. He lost track of time, so when the phone rang, it seemed like only a few minutes had gone by since he had spoken with Jimmy.

  “Got it for you. Edward R. Sullivan. Overdosed on sleeping pills. I’ll fax you the whole story if you like.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Jimmy.”

  “Don’t forget to invite me to your retirement party.”

  “You’ll be the first.”

  After Frankie hung up, he brought the information in to Nolan who slowly digested everything.