One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest (29 page)

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he was very friendly. Not at all as he appears around here. We talked of golf and how the course would already be open yet the air cool. I looked forward to playing . . . Wait.”

I turned so fast, our shoulders banged together. Mason smiled and touched my face. This time, just touched it. No moving any hair. What the heck were we talking about again?

“What?” I asked after a moment of clarity returned. “What do you mean, ‘wait'? Did you think of something?”

“When we drove across this bridge over a river—”

“The Connecticut River,” I said.

“Yes, I read a sign that said it was that river. Well, I was trying to take in the scenery, but I do remember Spike answering his cell phone.”

“And?” This could be a break for us. For the case.

“Mind you, Pauline, I did not pay too much attention to his private conversation.”

I curled my lip. “I know. You thought he was a chauffer taking you to a resort. But did he at least sound friendly? Angry? Sad? What?”

Mason looked out the window for a few seconds. I felt him grow tense as he said, “Yes, now I remember.”

“Here you are, Pauline,” a voice said.

I swung around to see Jagger. “Oh, hey, Ja . . . Dr. Dick. We were just—” If I said too much in front of Mason, I could blow our teamwork. So I just laughed and said, “Did you need me for my session now?”

Mason's hold tightened.

I didn't know whether to push his arm off my shoulder and jump up like a kid caught in a naughty act, or just sit still and let Jagger “observe” us.

I sat still.

“I . . . we do need to talk right now, Pauline. I have other patients to see today.”

“You do?” I coughed. “Oh, of course you do.” I turned to Mason. “We'll finish this later. I'm very curious to find out what you were going to say.”

He eased free, stood, took my arm and lifted me from the seat. Then, he touched my face and said, “I enjoyed talking to you. Spending this time with you.”

My legs wobbled.

I vowed that when I got done with this case that I'd go out with lots of guys. I had to get back in the dating scene. For a fleeting second I even thought I'd take a date that my mother fixed me up with. Then, I told myself I was in a mental hospital, and any thoughts that I had in this place could not be taken to heart.

“I'll see you before lunch. Let's meet out here. I'll try to get Margaret to come too.”

“Agreed.” He smiled and nodded. “Doctor.” He smiled at Jagger too.

Jagger growled, a low, soft sound. I was probably the only one who could hear it.

I laughed to myself.

Once we were down the hallway and into the exam room, Jagger let my arm go.

I chuckled.

“What's so funny?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“You aren't going to finish this case by sitting and chatting with that guy all day, Pauline.”

I stifled the next chuckle. Wasn't easy, but I managed so I wouldn't rile up Jagger too much. This was actually fun. “Jag, we were making headway.” I told him what Mason and I were talking about, finishing with, “And then you interrupted. Right when he was going to tell me something about the phone call.”

Jagger didn't of fer any apology. No great surprise. But what he did do was take out his toothpick, break it in half and throw it away—never touching it to his lips.

The poor guy.

“I'm taking you out of here
now.”

I felt my eyes widen and my temper ignite. “What? No you are not! You're not taking me out just because of Mason putting the moves on me.”

He merely looked at me. “Let's go.” He took me by the arm.

“But . . . I . . . look, Jag—”

“Jagger.” He eased me to the door. I knew I couldn't make a scene, or our cover could get blown. “Don't call me Jag.”

I stopped for a second and could only stare. So that's the way it was. If he'd allowed me to call him that when he was in power, that was fine. But when I got him riled up, it wasn't.

Talk about a control freak.

We walked to the nurses' station, where Jagger explained that I needed some detailed therapy so we'd be off the unit for a while. The nurse on duty was a lay nurse I didn't recognize and she didn't seem to care much anyway. She merely nodded and I couldn't help wonder if Jagger's looks had anything to do with her “hypnotic” state or if she was just a burned-out employee.

Jagger let go and I followed him through the locked doors into the tunnel. Before I knew it, he was opening the door to the outside, easing me through and walking us toward his SUV.

“What the hell?” I yelled.

This time he opened my door. “Get in.”

“Not again! I . . . what are you doing?”

“Working our case, Pauline.”

We drove out of the grounds of the Cortona Institute of Life. Not sure when I'd be back or even
if
I'd be back, I looked out the window.

Margaret stood in the bay windows of Ward 200. My heart sank.

“I have to go back. You can't take me out of here for good.”

Jagger didn't even look my way. “If you weren't so preoccupied with Mr. New Orleans, you would know that we were only going out for a short time.”

“Why didn't you tell me that?”

He kept his eyes on the road and said, “You didn't give me a chance.”

I turned to him to argue, but when I studied his profile, his concentration on the road, I decided to shut my mouth.

I think Jagger just lied to me because
he
was more preoccupied with my being with Mr. New Orleans than even I was.

We rode in silence until we reached the interstate. When he got on the ramp of 91 South, I asked, “What's going on?”

“We're paying a little visit to Ruby.”

“Ruby? Why? She's out of the picture.”

He took his eyes off the road and looked at me quickly. “Is she?”

Got me there. Jagger must have found out something more about the rich drug addict.

He took the exit for my condo. We parked and hurried inside, and I went to change. No one was home, and I wished I could have seen them, so I settled for a few Spanky hugs.

Soon Jagger and I were back in the car with my Burberry outfit in a bag. Jagger drove us to the side of town that bordered West Hartford—the ritzy side of town.

Then he turned into the driveway of what looked like a giant mansion. Its driveway was longer than the street that I lived on. Surely we were not going to see Ruby at her house.

When he pulled onto the circular area in front, I noticed a very discreet sign on the door:
ST. CLAIR HEALTH SPA.

I looked at him. “What? Are we going for a mud wrap or something?”

Jagger was out of the SUV and waiting while I got out too.

“Something,” he said, leading me inside the gigantic mahogany doors, which were bigger than my parents' garage doors.

At the entrance, the foyer bigger than my parents' house, a woman sat at a reception desk of fine, carved wood. She looked back and forth between us and then settled on Jagger.

What a surprise.

“We only see clients with appointments.”

“Dr. Plummer,” he said.

She flew up from her seat. This broad, in her Chanel suit of black and white, had nothing on Adele in her Frederick's of Hollywood. And Adele was much more courteous and pleasant than this society woman.

Soon we were led to changing rooms (Separate ones. Damn!) and were told to meet out near the pool. We'd be assigned our personal trainer, masseuse and a third person who would do who knows what else to our bodies.

I'd been so swept up in the hoopla of this place that I'd forgotten to ask Jagger about Ruby. Surely she didn't work here. Naw. Ruby didn't work anyplace. She'd never mentioned a job, and with her parents footing her bills, I figured she didn't need a job.

After taking off my clothes, I slipped into the silken robe that was handed to me by a woman dressed in a black uniform. She looked like the upstairs maid you see in old movies. Sexy and pretty.

Cautiously stepping out of my dressing room, which had more supplies sitting on the counter than Goldie and I had put together, I looked around.

“Right this way, Mrs. Plummer. Dr. Plummer is waiting for you,” the upstairs maid said.

I followed her along until it dawned on me. “Mrs. Plummer?” Not that again. This wouldn't be the first time I'd masqueraded as Jagger's wife.

Only it was the first time I'd done it
naked
in a silken robe.

I hoped the spa had resuscitation equipment was my first thought when I saw my “husband” waiting by the entrance to the pool. He looked so delicious in a black silk robe, which I guessed was killing him to wear, that I started to have SOB (in laymen's terms, shortness of breath).

“Hi,” I said, walking up to him.

The upstairs maid kinda drooled at Jagger and then mumbled something about waiting for our masseuse. We could get a health drink or yogurt while we waited, she'd said.

“No thank—” I started to say.

Jagger grabbed my arm. “We'd be delighted to. Thank you.”

I wrinkled my forehead at him and whispered, “I'm sure they don't have black coffee.”

In silence we followed the upstairs maid into a gigantic room decorated like something out of the Gilded Age. I never saw so much gold in any of the Catholic churches I'd been in. When we got close to a long bar, which was marble with carved wood for legs, I stopped.

Ruby sat on a lounge chair sipping a drink from a goblet bigger than Miles's largest floral vase.

I looked at Jagger and motioned with my head in her direction.

He looked back at me as if to say, “Do you think we came here for the carrot juice?”

The waitress, dressed in all white, asked, “What may I get you, Dr. and Mrs. Plummer?”

I looked behind me. Oh, right.
I
was Mrs. Plummer. I wondered how Jagger was going to explain all of this to Ruby.

I didn't have to wonder for long.

The girl set my coconut banana smoothie with extra Vitamin D and Jagger's plain yogurt (no imagination) on the table near Ruby. We sat on the lounge chairs opposite her.

At first, she didn't pay us any attention. Ruby kept reading her
Cosmo
and drinking something that smelled like onions and strawberries.

Jagger took a spoonful of his yogurt and winced. I could barely keep a straight face. I sucked on my drink and thought it very sweet and pleasant. This beat the heck out of the Cortona Institute of Life's skim milk in the plastic cups.

Jagger set his yogurt down. “Ruby, we need to talk.”

She took her time in finishing what she was reading, took another sip and then looked up. “Shit. What the hell are you two doing here?”

Good question. I looked at Jagger for the answer. How was he going to tell her and keep our investigation a secret?

In order to avoid an explanation, he began interrogating Ruby.

“Who had you sneak into Pauline's room?”

Ruby looked at me as if I could help her. She must have felt as if she sat in a locked room with a bright light shining directly on her while Jagger, smoking away, stood over her.

I shut my eyes a second and said, “Just answer. You'll be better off. Believe me.”

She started to get up.

“Lieutenant Johnston is very interested in the drug use that goes on around here,” Jagger said.

His voice held more threat in it than if he'd pointed a 357 Magnum at her. I also figured that Ruby was well aware of who Johnston was—and that he knew about her drug habits. Maybe he was the reason she'd ended up at the Institute.

Jagger recognized when to hit below the belt—and he did his homework.

“Look, I never did anything like breaking into anyone's room before. I was told that if I did that one time and only to scare you, Pauline . . . ” She looked at me with a pleading glance and her fingers started to dance on her glass.

I wanted to reach out and comfort her, but held back. Of course Jagger's steely glare had something to do with it. “Go on,” I said as firmly as I could.

“If I scared you, then I could get out early.”

I looked around the room. Smart girl. Guess I would have done the same, and she actually hadn't hurt me that badly. But could we trust her? If she'd gotten the chance, would she have smacked me more?

“You could have really hurt me with that broom handle.”

She looked like a little child. Reminded me of my niece.

“Pauline, I never had a broom handle with me. I punched only with my fists and only that one time. I swear.”

For some reason I believed her, although now I had more to worry about.

“Really,” she pleaded. “They said I'd get out early so I only did it that one time. Then I was out.”

“Who told you that?” Jagger asked in a no-nonsense tone.

I almost felt like that light was shining on me. Soon Ruby was telling us everything she knew, which, unfortunately, wasn't much. Spike had been the messenger yet again.

“I don't know who they are. They only communicated by leaving me notes. What the hell did I have to lose?”

“Great,” Jagger mumbled.

“Who
are
you people, anyway?” she whined.

Jagger said it didn't matter, cursed, stood and reached for my hand.
Damn. No massage
, I thought, until a husky woman of Scandinavian descent walked up to us. “I'm Greta and will be doing your hot stone treatments.”

“We're all set. Thanks anyway,” Jagger said.

Greta looked him in the eye. “You. You
need
it. You look angry about something. Come.” She yanked on Jagger's sleeve. His robe opened to reveal his chest.

I swallowed and mumbled, “Please. You
owe
me some R & R.”