States of Grace

by Mandy Miller

  “You didn’t go into Zoe’s room? Was it locked?”

  “No, we don’t have a lock on Zoe’s door. After the last time, and…” Sobs swamp her words.

  After a few seconds of trying to calm herself, she squeaks, “Before I went to bed, I stuck my head in to say goodnight, and— Oh God, oh God!”

  “What?” I say so loud Vinnie peeks around the grill to check on me.

  “She was lying on the floor, not moving. Her head was twisted to the side. There was a huge gash on her forehead. And the blood. It was everywhere!”

  “Had someone attacked her?”

  “No. She fell off her chair.”

  “What?”

  “There was an empty pill bottle in the counter in her bathroom. Her Xanax. She’d taken it all. Every last pill!”

  I flinch at the mention of Xanax, the same anti-anxiety medication my shrink keeps trying to make me take and I keep refusing.

  “Zoe was taking Xanax?”

  “Yes, not all the time, only when she gets stressed out.”

  “Does that happen often? Her getting stressed out?” I say, which sounds stupid given what she’s accused of doing.

  “Lately, yes,” says, her voice rising as if she’s got something else to say, so I wait.

  “A few months back she started cutting herself, and her doctor thought she needed medication.”

  “I see,” is all I say, but what I’m thinking about is an empty house and a bottle full of pills—the perfect opportunity.

  “She looked like…like a broken doll. Grace, it was awful.”

  “Is Zoe…?” I pause long enough to substitute the word “okay” for “dead.”

  “She was unconscious when they took her to the hospital. They said they would pump her stomach.”

  “They took her to the hospital?”

  “Yes, but the police came too. I called for an ambulance and they sent the police!”

  “They Baker Acted her?” I ask, my mind flashing back to six miserable months spent in mental health court, the place perfectly good prosecutions go to die.

  “They said something about that. What does that mean?”

  “It means they think she is a danger to herself.” Or others, but I keep that thought to myself. “They’ll keep her at the hospital until they decide it’s safe to release her.”

  “No, they can’t do that! My husband will be so angry when he hears she’s been taken away again.”

  “Again?”

  “You’re her lawyer, do something! I told them I would get her to a doctor, but they took her away anyway. And not even to a private hospital. To that place downtown where they let drunks dry out.”

  The image of Zoe being carted away from Hibiscus Isle, a street on which Rolls Royces and Armani are more common than squad cars and cops in cheap suits, flashes in my head. Gretchen’s utter horror at the prospect of being treated like riffraff might be amusing under other circumstances, but my mind has snapped into action, consumed by how this turn of events might be useful to help Zoe.

  “What did you mean when you said ‘again’?”

  A sharp intake of breath. “She cut herself before. Last time was so bad she had to be hospitalized.”

  “Which hospital did they take her to?”

  “Lauderdale something.”

  “Lauderdale West?”

  “Yes.”

  “You okay to drive?”

  “Drive? No, we have a driver.” she says, as if I’ve asked her to do her own laundry or paint her own nails, or whatever else rich people don’t do for themselves.

  “Meet me there in thirty minutes.”

  “We’ll be there,” she says, and hangs up.

  I note the “we.” I thought Anton wasn’t home, but the royal “we” might come as easily to someone like Gretchen as spray tans and personal chefs.

  I hang up and windmill my arms like a cop directing traffic. “Hey, Vin. Road trip.”

  “Huh?” he grunts, burger suspended an inch from his mouth, bits and pieces of which are oozing out all sides of a flying-saucer-sized bun.

  “I need a ride. Zoe’s in the hospital.”

  “I thought you said you got her out on bail?”

  “I did. But after she got home, her parents found her in her room, out cold and bloody. She tried to kill herself. I need a ride.”

  “What? You think I’m your chauffeur now?” he says, smiling wide like a kid going out for ice cream. “At your service, my lady. I’ll see you out front.”

  I point at Miranda. “What are we going to do with her?”

  “She’s coming with. Her vest is her license to go everywhere with you. And when she doesn’t, I’m the designated dog sitter.”

  Miranda yips.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand why you’re the newest resident of The Hurricane Hotel, pretty girl.”

  ***

  Miranda hops in between us on the front bench seat of Vinnie’s 1995 Crown Victoria. She lets loose with a couple of deep-throated barks at the death rattle erupting from the engine.

  “Good God. Is this thing gonna get us there without blowing up? Maybe Miranda should sniff around for explosives.”

  We have a similar exchange every time I get in the car. Vinnie only keeps the clunker because once upon a time it was a police cruiser. He bought it at an auction after he got out of prison. He can afford something better. He’s got money squirreled away. Add to it the cash from the settlement, and he’s got enough for anything he might need from now until the finish line, unless he outlives the actuarial predictions for aging mobsters. But Vinnie loves a good joke, and the car’s just that, a thumb of his thrice-broken nose at authority. Besides, he drives it about as much as he goes to Mass, which is almost never.

  He pats the dashboard. “Fear not. She’s solid, a battle ax, like Carmela.”

  “Who the hell’s Carmela? Don’t tell me, you’ve found some young thing who mistook you for the most interesting man in the world?”

  He bumps over the curb onto A1A, and I grab the sides of the sticky vinyl seat and Miranda’s collar to keep from listing into him. “Take it easy there, cowboy.”

  “Carmela was my second wife. Solid as a rock, more a diesel truck than sports car. Reliable as they come.”

  I know better than to go down the rat hole of Vinnie’s private life, so I slink down, arm on Miranda’s back, and watch the deserted beach slide by, the only evidence of life are the deep divots in the sand which will be wiped away by the sand rake late tonight, making everything new again for tomorrow. I can make out the silhouette of a homeless man propped up on the seawall, a phantom unseen by the passersby. His feet are swollen and bloody from diabetes, bursting out of his battered canvas shoes like toxic souffles. He’s there every night, tips his cap when I walk by, the walker by his side his only companion.

  To calm my nerves, I crank open the window and stick my head out to locate the dog star. “That one, that’s Sirius.”

  “Serious? What’s serious?”

  “The Dog Star. The brightest star in the night sky.”

  “Hear that, pup? The Dog Star. It must be fate.” He strokes Miranda’s fur. “How’d you know about this Dog Star?”

  “My dad showed me. We used to look at the stars through his telescope every night before I went to bed.”

  “My father showed me the back of his hand most nights,” he says, hands tightening around the steering wheel, tanned knuckles turning white.

  We cross the bridge from the beach to the mainland, multi-million-dollar yachts docked in the sprawling marina below, swaying in the breeze like gigantic egrets.

  “Pretty fancy street for a mental hospital,” he says as we descend onto Las Olas, a boulevard lined with royal palms laced with twinkling fairy lights as if every day were Christmas.

  We cruise by the entrance to Idlewyld Isle. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  Chapter 12

  “This thing’s got the turning radius of a cruise ship,” I say,
as Vinnie manhandles the Crown Vic into the space nearest the entrance of Lauderdale West, his sinewy arms muscling the steering wheel as if he were at the helm of a sailboat in a storm.

  Once we’ve jolted to a stop, the engine idles with a symphony of clanking and screeching that causes my teeth to hurt and Miranda to bark.

  I point at a blue sign of a stick figure in a wheelchair. “This space is handicapped and neither of us is.”

  He pulls back and eyes me.

  “Well, I am, but then I don’t have my car back yet, so I don’t need a handicapped tag.”

  Vinnie reaches under the seat, extracts a handicapped tag, and slaps it onto the rearview mirror.

  “Shit! Where’d you get that?” I roll my eyes. “Forget it. Don’t tell me. Another thing about you I don’t care to know.”

  He leans around Miranda who’s sitting tall between us like a hirsute hood ornament and slaps my arm. “I thought you were trying to clean up your language?”

  “I’m trying, I swear.”

  He holds out his hand. “Funny one. But that’ll still be ten bucks.”

  “Like hell!”

  “That makes it twenty. We had a deal. You curse, you pay.” His lips pull into an innocent smile. “It’s for a good cause. The sisters at St. A’s thank you and your potty mouth.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say slapping the cash into his hand. “You wanna come inside?”

  He pokes a finger in his chest. “Moi?”

  “Yeah, you. Who else would I be talking to?”

  He turns to Miranda. “What are you, chopped liver?”

  “She’s coming,” I say, attaching the leash to her collar. “Are you?”

  “What you need me for?”

  “I don’t need you for anything, but I think your finely tuned people-reading skills may come in useful. We can say you’re my investigator.”

  Vinnie throws his head back. “That’s classic. Me doing the investigatin’.”

  I get out and rearrange Oscar, followed by Miranda who hops down with the grace and confidence of a four-legged dog, as if the missing leg was something she had no need for all along.

  After checking our identification and taking a close look at the service dog license attached to Miranda’s vest, the front desk attendant hands over two visitor passes and directs us to the seventh floor.

  “That license worked like a charm,” Vinnie says. “Like I said, she’s street legal.”

  I give him a one-eyed stare. “More than I can say for the pretenses under which you got her.”

  “Geez, I think I forgot to tell you, when you finish the training together, they’ll give you her real license,” Vinnie says.

  “Real license? Don’t tell me you—”

  “Hurry up would you,” he says, holding the elevator door.

  “I can’t believe you.”

  He chuckles. “You’re not the first, sweetheart.”

  When the elevator opens onto a waiting room, Gretchen rushes me. I pass off Miranda’s leash to Vinnie.

  “Thanks so much for coming,” she says, hands flapping. Except for the bloodshot eyes, she’s still every bit the beauty queen, all decked out in a pink velour track suit emblazoned with a designer logo of a crown in rhinestones. Skin-tight pants hang over rhinestone-sequined sneakers made without any athletic purpose in mind. Over her shoulder stands a squat man in a tuxedo. Anton Slim, I presume, although slim he is not. He’s as big around as he is tall. Balding. Puffy face. Bow tie undone, a limp ribbon around his bull neck. What I assume to be a red wine stain mars the front of his pin tuck shirt. Arms braced across his barrel chest, he’s rocking back and forth on his heels, the high polish of his shoes reflecting the fluorescent light from the ceiling strips.

  “I trust you got the check we sent over?” he asks.

  “I did. Thank you.”

  “You’ll receive the rest when you get my daughter out of this mess,” he says, looking me up and down, which leaves me feeling grossly under-dressed in my Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt and board shorts.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Vinnie examining the fronds of a potted palm, Miranda at his side.

  “We apologize for being this casual. Mrs. Slim’s call was unexpected.”

  “For some, maybe,” Anton says, scowling at Gretchen.

  Gretchen glances at Vinnie. “And this is?”

  I rest my hand on Vinnie’s shoulder. “This is Vincent Vicanti, my investigator. He’ll be working with me on Zoe’s case.”

  Vinnie takes Gretchen’s hand with a slight bow. “It’s a pleasure.” He smiles and pets Miranda. “And this here is Miranda.”

  Gretchen withdraws her hand as if she’s touched a hot burner. “She’s big.”

  “And fierce,” I say.

  Vinnie turns away, pretending to fuss with Miranda’s lead to hide an evil little smile.

  I slide a single sheet of paper out of my purse and hand it to Gretchen along with a pen. “If we could get a little preliminary business out of the way, I’d appreciate it. If you would please sign this release so I can have access to Zoe and her records.”

  Anton snatches the form. “Ms. Locke, my wife and I are private people. We’re not in the habit of letting strangers nose around in our business or our family. In your line of work, you understand the importance of discretion.”

  “Of course, Dr. Slim. And believe me, no one wants to keep Zoe’s presence here from becoming public more than I do. It’s my job to make sure she gets a fair trial, but to do that, I need access.”

  Anton hikes his pants up over his belly. “We can share any information about Zoe on an as-needed basis. I’m sure Dr. Kesey, the attending psychiatrist for Zoe, will help you with that.”

  I cut my eyes to Vinnie, one leg bent up, foot against the wall, gnawing on a toothpick.

  Gretchen blinks fast to stem the tears bubbling up in the corners of her eyes, threatening to cause her mascara-laden eyelashes to wilt. “Please, honey,” she says, stroking Anton’s arm.

  Anton pulls a pair of wire half-frame reading glasses from his inside pocket, scans the single-spaced text, and shoves the release at his wife. “Sign it if you want, my love.”

  Using her thigh as a table, Gretchen scrawls her name on the signature line. “You have to get Zoe out of this place, Grace.”

  “I’ll try, but understand this. The doctors think she’s a danger to herself, she’ll be here for at least seventy-two hours. After that, they can ask a judge to keep her for longer, if they think she’s still a danger to herself or others.”

  “Zoe is not a danger, Ms. Locke!” Anton says, so emphatically that his protruding belly bounces in time with his words. “And I think you would be well-advised to remember you were hired for only one reason.”

  “Is that so?” I ask.

  Anton shoots me a cautionary glare. “Let’s just say we all have a lot on the line here,”

  His face turns puce, the black enamel studs on his white shirt straining against his heaving chest. Placating the entitled few has never been my strong suit, although I have learned that practiced passivity in the face of power is often the best way to get what you want. For a man like Anton, however, being told what to do, even in polite tones, is not an experience to which he takes kindly.

  Gretchen flashes me a wide-eyed look as if to say, Back off, why don’t you? then turns to Anton and says, “Honey, let’s let Grace do her job.”

  Anton lowers his bulk into a chair and lights up a cigar.

  “Have you been in to visit with Zoe?” I ask.

  “No, they wouldn’t let us talk to her,” Gretchen says. “Dr. Kesey says it might upset her even more. When she woke up in here, she wouldn’t stop punching and kicking the staff, so they sedated her.”

  “One thing, though. I don’t want any of this to get out to the media or the state attorney before we figure out what it means for her case. Please, don’t breathe a word of any of this to anyone.”

  “You don’t have to worry a
bout that, Ms. Locke,” Anton says.

  Roger that, fat man. As if I didn’t get the message the first time.

  “Of course, sir,” I say, nodding in agreement, until it hits me—I haven’t said “sir” since the Army.

  But it seems to have done the trick. Anton extends his hand. “Please save our little girl, Ms. Locke.”

  “Let’s go home,” Gretchen says, helping Anton to his feet. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  As the elevator door closes, I hear Anton’s voice. “I told you this would happen again.”

  “What a lovely couple. Nothing like it. Boobs and a bully, a love match for the ages,” Vinnie says, tossing the toothpick in the trash.

  “More like one of mutual convenience.”

  “One man’s convenience is another man’s trophy wife.”

  I spot a phone on the wall beside a door with a safety glass window embedded with chicken wire. A sign, Locked Facility. No Unauthorized Visitors, is duct taped to the door. Behind which are people who are not free to leave. No matter what you call them—crazies, criminals, traumatized, evil, or plain scared out of their wits—they’re all prisoners in here. But exactly which type Zoe is I need to figure out before they lock her up and throw away the key, or worse.

  I grab the phone from its cradle, scroll down the list of extensions taped beside it, and dial Dr. Kesey’s number.

  “Doctor, this is Grace Locke.”

  Silence.

  “Zoe Slim’s attorney. I’d like to see Zoe.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Why not? I’m her attorney. I have the right as well as a release signed by her parents.”

  “Actually, you don’t have any such right. Not here. This is a psychiatric hospital, not a jail. I get to say who sees a patient. And for now, Zoe is in no condition to see anyone, release or no release.”

  “Also, I’d like a copy of her chart.”

  “All medical records requests have to be made through the Administrative Office on the first floor between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Have a good night,” she says in a monotone and hangs up.