One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest (11 page)

Instead I shut my eyes and let them make a racket. Someone would hear and come get them out of here.

“Pauline, Pauline, wake up, my dear. I need to check your vital signs, child.”

My eyes fluttered. Sister Liz, a hazy Sister Liz, stood in front of me. I opened my eyes wider to see the room. My hands shook but not as much as my voice. “Are . . . they . . . gone?” I grabbed the covers tighter even though my hands still trembled.

“They?”

“The . . . birds . . . the butterflies,” I mumbled. “That damn toad kept me awake.”

I felt a hand on my arm and turned toward her. “Sometimes it takes a while to get used to the medication.”

Get used to! Some psychedelic pill had me hallucinating the rain forest in my tiny, stark room, and I had no damn intention of getting used to it or taking a pill again.

I inhaled and wanted to ask her what the hell I had been forced to swallow, but it probably was some usual “cocktail” they gave all the newly admitted patients. Maybe Jagger had prevented them from giving me one the other day, but he might have a harder time going up against the head of this place.

I shut my eyes a second to think and ask myself what the hell I was going to do next.

The only question that came to mind was, Had someone really come into my room or
not
?

Once Sister Liz had left my room, I made my way to the nurses' station on wobbly legs. “I want to see my doctor immediately,” I said to Novitiate Lalli, who was behind the glass window typing on a keyboard.

She kept typing until she appeared to be done.

I wanted to bang on the window, but thought better than to do that. “Sister?”

Finally she looked up. “Doctor's name?”

“Plummer. Dr. Plummer.” Thank goodness I remembered this time.

She reached for the list of phone numbers then looked up at me. “You know, your psychiatrist is not at your every beck and call, Pauline. He has other patients too.”

Yeah, right. Not
my
psychiatrist.

She leaned closer and eyed me up and down. “You don't look so great, so I'll call him this time. But don't be surprised if he reprimands you. Go sit in the dayroom.”

I think she smirked at me.

I bit back that he had left orders to call him whenever I wanted. No sense in making enemies around here. I didn't know who I could trust or who I should watch out for.

On my way to the dayroom, I said a silent prayer that she'd learn more compassion if she was serious about this nun thing. Before I knew it, Spike came bounding down the hallway. Oh, boy. I grabbed a pillow, sat and became a statue.

He came so close to me I could smell that he'd recently had a cigarette. “Your doc is here. Get up.”

I sprung up like a Jack in the box so he wouldn't manhandle me. I had visions of poor Margaret, whom I hadn't seen today yet, being shoved around by Spike. Of course, the stupid Green Demon had me knocked out for so many hours that Margaret could be asleep along with all the other patients. Without windows in the room, I couldn't tell if it was day or night.

“Lead the way,” I said to Spike with a bit of humor that went way over his basketball-sized head.

Once down the hallway, I paused. Through a window in a door I could see someone, one of the patients who looked a bit like Jackie Dee, wrapped in white sheets, lying still on a twin bed with rails, and some nun I didn't recognize was sitting at the side.

While I was zonked out, Jackie must have had some kind of incident that landed her in cold wet packs. My heart broke as I walked past the room, unable to do anything to help. I had to constantly remind myself that this was a hospital, and although some of us really didn't belong here, most actually did.

Spike opened the door to the doctor's office. I held my breath for a second. Jagger sat on the end of the examining table. He looked as if he'd walked in off the street. Although in full character makeup, he hadn't bothered to put on a white coat.

Damn. The medication must still be in my system.

“Here she is, Doc,” Spike said and promptly headed off after Jagger nodded at him.

He looked at me and said, “Close the door.”

I did and turned around to him, thinking he'd move and let me take the table. But no, he remained, so I sat in the rolling doctor's chair. I wheeled closer to him.

“What's wrong?”

“I . . . Barbie gave me a green pill—”

“Goddammit.”

“On that we agree.”

He merely gave me a Jagger look and said, “I'm not even going to ask who Barbie is.”

Good, I thought to myself. He didn't need to notice that the head nurse/nun looked like a real doll (especially since I'd heard my niece say Barbie and Ken were splitsville). Damn. I was becoming jealous of a doll or a nun—take your pick. Either way, it was pathetic. “Look, I know you didn't want me medicated, least I hope you didn't.”

He merely looked at me.

“Okay. Okay. So you didn't, but when I'm in the position of a patient, I don't have much room to argue.”

“Why the hell didn't you stick it under your tongue until she left, and then spit it out?”

I slapped my hand to my forehead. “Gee, why didn't I think of that?” I rolled farther back.

He leaned forward. “You all right? You don't look all right.”

“I'm flattered. But what I wanted to tell you about was my drug-induced trip.” I proceeded to tell him about the rain forest and finished with, “So I really can't be certain someone was in my room.” Nor am I sure there are toads—or are they frogs?—in the rain forest.

“Did you . . . When your mind cleared, did you check your drawers to see if anything was disturbed?” He tapped his foot on the edge of the exam table's step.

Why hadn't I thought to do that? I watched his foot a second longer then looked up. “Of course. You know, Jagger, I'm not allowed many personal belongings around here. So it didn't take much to scan what I had to see if it was touched.” I ran my hand across my nose to make sure it hadn't grown. I was getting damn good, and much quicker on the uptake, with this lying stuff.

Jagger stood and walked toward me. He hooked his foot on the wheel of my chair and spun me toward him.

“Hey! Watch out!”

“You need to work on credible lying, Sherlock. Go back and check. It's late tonight, so I'll see you on rounds tomorrow.” Then, while I was paralyzed in stunned silence, he touched my cheek and said, “Watch your back.” His finger ran slowly down my skin.

At least I convinced myself that it had . . . in a very sensual sort of way.

Now I really wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

I mumbled inside my head all the way back to my room. Dr. Dick had called Spike to escort me and gave him a reminder to keep his hands off me unless absolutely necessary. I figured my idea of absolutely necessary and Spike's version weren't even on the same wavelength. Nevertheless, I made it back to my room unscathed, and as soon as he left, I hurried to my drawers.

“Shit,” I muttered when I opened them to find my undies scattered about.

I always folded my undies.

Someone actually
had
been there. Because even on drugs, no way could I be this messy.

Sleep didn't come easily, once I'd confirmed the suspicion that someone had invaded my space. Why me though? Who would suspect me of not being a real patient? Was that really what someone supposed? Or was it a coincidence? Or had a real patient done it due to their mental health issues, and was I—or at least my undies—an innocent bystander? Whatever the reason, someone had violated my undergarments, and that didn't sit right with me.

But who?

I'd pondered that thought over and over during the night, which had led to my not being able to sleep. I came up with a suspect list though. I wrote it on the paper I'd brought there, and rewrote it over and over. It was a short list, unfortunately. Novitiate Lalli was on the top of it—mainly out of principle and the fact that I plain didn't like her. The figure could have been her size, I rationalized. And, maybe she was in on the fraud. That way she might know I really wasn't Mary Louise Huntington.

I had cut the nuns some mental slack. After all, they were chosen for a life to serve God, so they wouldn't come snooping in someone's drawers. Novitiate Lalli hadn't taken her final vows, so that made her a suspect along with, unfortunately, Ruby. Maybe Ruby was being buddy-buddy with me to get some info. Maybe she was involved in the fraud. Anything was possible. Hell, maybe she was a plant, like me, but for the opposition.

Despite my eyes trying to close, I had thought about the figure being male. Vito was out of the picture now, but maybe Spike had been in on it. I wasn't sure if the figure could have been his size or not, since I had been lying on the bed, not to mention the Green Demon in my system.

Things looked different from that lying-down angle. That I knew, from having slept with a few guys who, prone in bed, looked damn decent, but when they got up and gravity was involved, their sizes changed—and I'd realize I was
not
that desperate.

So Spike, who, come to think of it was always around, could have been the culprit. The question of why me had stuck in my mind until sleep finally took over.

Now I had to get up and see what I could find. I consoled myself with the reminder that the faster I helped Jagger crack this case, the faster I would be out of there. So I got up and headed out to the dayroom.

Several patients rested on the pillowless red vinyl couch, watching the TV. Two men stood near the doorway, waiting for their pills, I assumed. Ruby and another young woman sat on the yellow vinyl chairs, Ruby's with a crack up the back. On the wall above was a starving artist's Picasso-style painting in oranges and reds. Didn't seem a good idea to have such a confusing, modern painting in this place. We all needed reality, not more bewilderment. We were all supposed to remain there to take our medication, and then we'd be sent off to eat.

Suddenly I craved Mother's potato pancakes.

My eyes started to tear up, so I immediately cut that thought short. Of course, as a patient here, I could probably get away with being “weepy,” but I wasn't that good an actor. I'd probably blubber out that I was a PI.

When I walked toward the couch to find a seat, I felt someone come up behind me, causing my breath to hitch and a chill to race up my spine, as if I were pantless and my johnny coat was slit all the way up my back.

“How was your visit?”

I swung around to see Ruby standing there.

She just moved up a notch in suspicion if only for the fact that she managed to creep up on me like that. Either I was getting way too paranoid or she was a suspicious, sneaky teen.

“How did you know I was out on a visit?” I sat on the couch.

She flopped down next to me. “I know.”

“You know
how
?”

She shook her head—kinda like Jagger. “Look, I find things out in here. That's all you need to know. What the hell else am I going to do to pass the time?”

What'd all that mean? Was she trying to tell me something? Like she had some inside information? I wanted to ask her if she knew what had happened to Vito, but didn't think it professional to ask a hospitalized drug addict for case information.

Then I thought of Jagger, who'd more than likely do
anything
for a case.

“Is Margaret around today?”

Ruby clucked her tongue at me. “Where the hell else would she go?”

“I . . . I don't know.” Annoyed at her tongue clucking, I couldn't think too straight. Kids nowadays had no respect for adults. When I got out of here, I planned to have a nice, long talk with all my nieces and nephews over the age of reason. “What I meant was, did you see Vito bothering her anymore?”

Ruby jumped up.

She knows something
, I thought, but then looked to see Sister Barbara heading down the hallway with her medication tray. Now I didn't know if Ruby was freaked because I'd mentioned the late Vito, or if she'd sprang up so fast to get her much-needed medication.

Damn.

I watched as Barbie doled out various colored pills. Most of the patients gobbled them down like tiny life rafts. How sad. Then I wondered how many stuck them under their tongues until I saw Novitiate Lalli making everyone open their mouths, stick out their tongues so she could aim her flashlight into their mouths as if she were on some big dig looking for a treasure.

I knew that was for their own good, so no one could stockpile medication and end it all by taking them in one death-inducing swallow. But it still bothered me that she looked as if she
enjoyed
her job way too much.

The novitiate moved further up my suspect list.

Her motive had to be money, and being a new nun seemed way too convenient. She might be planted here pretending to be a nun. I'd bet she was originally a nursing assistant. Now I was determined to find out.

But I had no clue how to go about it.

Sister Barbie turned toward me. Shit. I was
not
going to take any more of her pills. Without a thought, I mumbled about having to use the powder room and rushed off. If she wanted to medicate me, she'd have to find me. I ran down the hall to my room, ready to open my bathroom door—but it was already open.

Along with neat underwear, I have always kept the bathroom door closed. It was ingrained in me as a kid, and my brothers were probably the only males in Hope Valley that put the toilet seat back down.

Slowly I peeked around the corner. The stark white toilet sat undisturbed, seat down, and the tub empty. There weren't any shower curtains or rods in patients' bathrooms. Couldn't trust us. We all had to use the communal shower.

Yeah, this really was the Ritz.

I tiptoed in farther.

Bang
!