Bitter Sweet (7 page)

They waited while the
receptionist disappeared through a doorway. A stocky white-haired man in a dark
business suit appeared. He greeted them with a pleasant smile and introduced
himself as Robert Woods, manager of the facility.

“Can we talk in your office?”
Beau suggested.

Woods ushered them into a quiet
room furnished with an oak desk and credenza, matching bookcases, and two
visitor chairs upholstered in navy fabric.

“You look familiar, officer,”
Woods said as they sat down.

“Sheriff. Beau Cardwell.”

Sam started to open her mouth.
Closed it. Beau surely had a reason not to reveal all.

He unfolded the copy of Lila
Coffey’s death certificate and presented it to Robert Woods who glanced over it
and then looked up, slightly puzzled.

“Yes? I remember Ms Coffey. The
artist. It certainly came as a surprise when she died.” Woods pulled a folder
from a drawer behind him.

“We’re mainly a physical therapy
unit,” he said. “Our patients are all ages and come from all walks of life.
Many are elderly, for instance needing rehabilitation from a hip injury. We
have specialists who work with stroke victims. There are also accident victims
who need to relearn to walk or lift things. It appears that
Ms
Coffey came in for rehabilitation on an ankle injury.”

“Do you remember the
circumstances of her death? The certificate says heart failure. Was it a heart
attack? Were paramedics called?”

“No, unfortunately. It happened
in the middle of the night. She apparently died in her sleep.” He glanced into
the folder. “One of the nurses was doing a midnight bed-check and found her
unresponsive, not breathing. Our on-call physician happened to be here on
another case and he rushed right to her room and pronounced her.”

“I understand there was no
autopsy.”

“Since our own doctor was here,
probably within minutes after the death, we didn’t order one. No one other than
staff had been near her since early that morning when her husband visited. Her
pastor stopped by sometime during the afternoon. According to the notation
here, she refused dinner. Said she wasn’t very hungry. That’s not uncommon
around here, and we usually don’t force the issue.”

“What kind of background checks
do you run before hiring a new staff person?” Beau asked.

Woods sat straighter in his
chair. “Why, very thorough ones, of course. We would never take on someone who
had anything questionable in his or her background. I know what you’re
thinking, Sheriff Cardwell, and I assure you—no one in this facility has ever
been accused of harming a patient.”

“I’ll need a list of everyone who
currently works here and everyone who has left since, let’s say, the first of
the year.”

“Absolutely. It will only take a
moment to access those records.” He pulled his computer keyboard closer and
tapped a few keys. “If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to
ask,” he said, standing up and handing Beau the pages that came off the
printer.

He thanked the director and they
headed back to the cruiser.

“You didn’t say anything about
your mother,” Sam said, fastening her seat belt.

“I thought about it, but I want
to see what comes of my own background checks. And I’m going to include Robert
Woods in that.”

“Do you think he’s covering up
something?”

“Not necessarily. I didn’t sense
anything deceptive about him. But it’s best to check out everyone. That old
‘trust, but verify.’ ” He wheeled away from the facility and steered toward the
main drag through town. “Do you still have time for breakfast?”

Sam glanced at the dashboard
clock. “Only if it’s a quick one.”

“How about a breakfast sandwich
to go, from some drive-through place?”

“Maybe a breakfast burrito from
Ortega’s? They come in foil wrappers and I can take it back to work with me.”

He nodded.

“So, how long do you think it
will take to run your background checks on those people?”

He pulled into a small parking
lot in front of a tiny building with hand-lettered signs. “Not too long. I’ll
get someone on them the minute I get back to the office.”

He got out and walked up to the
window that faced the road, giving quick instructions on their food while the
woman inside wrote it down and sent nervous glances toward Sam. Apparently,
riding around in the sheriff’s cruiser didn’t especially make a person look
like a model citizen.

Sam wolfed down her burrito in
the car on the way back to the bakery. If past experience was any indicator,
something would come up to prevent her from eating once she stepped into her
shop. By that evening she was glad for that foresight. Beau met her on the
porch at his place where he planned to grill steaks outdoors and she intended
to spend the night.

“Crazy day,” she said, leaning
into his chest and enjoying the warm hands that stroked her back.

“Me too. But I think the dinner I
planned will boost your energy.” He gave her a kiss on top of her head and
turned toward the kitchen.

“So,” she said a little while
later as she tossed the salad, “I’m dying to know what you turned up with those
background checks from the nursing home staff.”

He placed a succulent filet and a
baked potato on each of their plates. “Not a darn thing, unfortunately. Everything
I came up with on the nurses, cooks and cleaning people turned up the same as
Life Therapy’s own pre-employment information. There’s not a person in the
place with anything more serious on their record than a speeding ticket.”

He carried the plates to the
dining table that faced out toward open pasture land, where his two horses
grazed and the sun had already dipped below the tall cottonwood trees.

“No killer nurses in the whole
bunch, then,” Sam said, setting the salad bowl nearby.

“Not unless one of them is just
getting started. I guess every serial killer has to begin somewhere.”

“That’s a gruesome thought,
Beau.”

“It had me worried—about Mama, I
mean—but I can’t really find a connection. I don’t think the killer-nurse
scenario is true in this case. Most of their nurses are pretty young, probably
still idealistic about life. The two older ones have been at the game for a
long time. One is near retirement age. If either of them had begun bumping off
their patients, they probably started years ago and there would be something
suspicious in their records. I’m guessing, anyway.”

The steaks had turned out
perfectly and Sam devoted herself to savoring both the meal and the fact that
tomorrow was Sunday, her one day off. She’d bought the ingredients for her
special omelets and envisioned a lazy morning with Beau—complete with all the
benefits.

“I better contact Zoë and tell
her what you found out—or didn’t find out—about the nursing home,” she told
Beau as they cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. “She was pretty upset
about Lila’s death. I’ll need to go see her.”

“Well, as someone once said . . . tomorrow is
another day,” he said, switching out the kitchen light and grabbing her hand.
“I’m going upstairs for a shower . . . want to join me?”

He didn’t need to ask twice.

*

It was nearing noon before Sam
tore herself away from Beau’s idyllic ranch house. The previous evening had
worked every bit of the week’s tension from her body, and their cozy Sunday
breakfast provided an excellent excuse to stay in and enjoy a thoroughly
domestic day at home. But by late morning he was becoming antsy about
unfinished chores around the place—horses needed tending, the stalls in the
barn hadn’t been cleaned in a week. Sam had things to do herself, remembering her
promise to check in on Zoë and give her the latest information from Beau’s
investigation.

Beau walked toward the barn after
leaving Sam with a lingering kiss. She let her van idle for a minute while she
dialed Zoë’s number.

“Hey there. My guests just left
and I was on my way out the door.”

“Oh. Well, I can catch up with
you later. Beau got some background information on the staff at Life Therapy
but it didn’t amount to a lot.”

“Listen, why don’t you meet me? I
was going up to Lila Coffey’s studio. One of her friends called me and said
they’re having a little gathering. I get the impression it’s not quite a wake
and not really a memorial, just a chance for friends to visit a bit.”

Sam started to demur but when Zoë
suggested that she might learn something more about Lila’s mysterious death she
changed her mind.

“You’re practically halfway there
already,” Zoë said, giving directions to the home-slash-studio on the ski
valley road. “I should be along in no more than twenty minutes.”

Sam looked down at the black
slacks and baker’s jacket she’d worn home from the bakery yesterday. Not
exactly party duds. She shut down the van and went back inside. Beau had
cleared one side of his closet for her, and when it looked like their wedding
was imminent she’d brought some of her things over. But then they’d cancelled
and she’d halted in mid-move.

Face it, Sam, your life is
scattered over half the county.

She found a bronze-toned blouse
that would look okay with the black pants, traded the baker’s jacket for it,
and gave the slacks a quick brush-down with a damp cloth to remove the haze of
powdered sugar that tended to cling to everything she wore. Some gel to give
definition to her fluffy hair and a swipe of lipstick, and she considered
herself done. She wasn’t going to know anyone there except Zoë anyhow.

Back in the van she negotiated
Beau’s long driveway and turned north.

Yellow signs with bold black
print announcing an estate sale and a line of cars along the roadway began to
appear about the time Sam thought she was getting close to the destination.
She’d just pulled into a vacant spot when Zoë’s Subaru coasted by and came to a
screeching halt. The passenger side window whirred down.

“What the heck is this?” Zoë
shouted.

Sam shrugged. “Am I at the right
place?”

“Yeah, but a sale? I can’t
believe it.”

Another car pulled up behind her
and Zoë drove on, tucking the little car into the first open place she spotted.
Sam walked over to join her.

“Lila isn’t even cold yet, and
someone is selling her things?” Zoë looked genuinely distressed.

“Let’s go see what we can find
out.” Sam took her friend’s elbow and steered her toward the chalet style house
with its neatly planted beds of flowering plants and trimmed topiary.

The front door stood open and
several women milled about, each with an armload of treasures. A small queue of
people had formed at the side of the house.

“Her studio is out back,” Zoë
said. “That must be where they’re all going.”

She spotted someone she knew and
hurried forward. Sam followed close behind, hoping not to lose Zoë in the
crowd.

“Aggie! What is all this?” Zoë
demanded.

The woman was about their age,
with long hair in gray-brown wavy strands and loose cotton clothing in the same
new-age style Zoë favored. Sam introduced herself when Aggie gave her a puzzled
glance.

“It’s Ted, he’s organized this
sale. It looks like he’s clearing out both the studio and the house.”

“Ted? Who’s Ted?” Zoë’s hands
were on her hips now.

“Lila’s husband.”

Zoë started to choke. “
What?
”

“You didn’t know?” Aggie reached
out and patted Zoë on the back. “Lila got married a couple of months ago,
although she kept her professional name. I guess they kept it very low-key,
didn’t even mention a honeymoon to the Bahamas. I only found out when someone
pointed him out at the funeral.”

Zoë turned to Sam. “I was so
upset that I left the funeral without going through the receiving line. I
assumed those people in the front rows were family. I mean, Lila’s siblings or
cousins or something.”

Aggie spoke up again. “A couple
of them were—distant cousins from Alabama or someplace. But the man up front .
. . I’ll point him out when I see him . . . that was Ted O’Malley.”

Zoë chewed at her lip, digesting
all the new information. Sam slipped away and wandered toward the house,
passing two women. One had a lamp in her hand and a fur coat draped over her
arm. The other struggled with a large box that appeared to contain a set of
china.

“. . . no bargains, but boy, it’s
really quality stuff,” the shorter woman was saying to her friend.

Sam stepped aside to let them
pass, then mounted the steps to the front porch. The living room looked like
sale-day at Macy’s. Tables lined the walls and were stacked with everything
from clothing and costume jewelry, to bottles of shampoo and perfume, to
picture frames and storage boxes. A beautifully upholstered striped sofa had a
red ‘sold’ tag pinned to it. A slender young woman in semi-official black
clothing pointed people toward the kitchen or bedrooms, depending upon their
wishes. Through the dining room window, Sam spotted two men struggling with a
large potter’s wheel.

“Oh, god,” Zoë said, apparently
seeing the same thing as she walked up to Sam. “I can’t believe her life is
just getting distributed like so much garage sale junk.”

Sam put an arm around her
friend’s shoulders. “I know, I know. But I guess it has to go to someone, and
at least people are buying things they like.”

“It just seems so . . . cold,
doing it this way.” Zoë’s lip trembled.

Sam noticed two men standing to
the side, conversing quietly. “I wonder if that’s the husband.”

Zoë wiped at her eyes and followed
Sam’s gaze. “I’ll bet it is. Aggie said he was wearing a dark suit with a
purple tie.”

Sam gave her a nudge and they
approached the men.

“Excuse me, are you Ted
O’Malley?” Sam asked. She put his age at about fifty. Touches of gray in his
pale brown hair, worry wrinkles across the high forehead, prominent ears and a
droop at the tip of his nose, as if it wanted to touch his weak upper lip.