A Dose of Murder (2 page)

In truth, it'd grown to be a comforting scent. Smelled like a fake Christmas tree.

Right now I needed comfort. I inhaled deeply. Ah.

“Of course you'll get something else, Pauline. There's a critical nursing shortage in this country. With the baby boomers retiring, it's getting worse.” She sliced a potato and plopped it into a pan of water.

At first I only stared. Mom sounded like a commentator on the five-o'clock news. Who knew the woman who left high school in her sophomore year to marry my father before he went to fight in the Korean War could come up with such a timely statement as that?

My father came into the room with my uncle Walt Macie. Walt never married, and had lived with us all of my life. He actually was a Maciejko, but somewhere along the line he and his brother, Stash, Americanized the name to “Macie.”

At the age of eighty now, Uncle Walt spent his days at the Elk's Club, Bozuchowski's bar (better known as the local hangout) and Boz's, or played cards at the senior citizens center. Many a day my mother had to smooth the ruffled feathers of some widow whom Uncle Walt had connived into playing for cash.

Usually he only played for home-cooked meals or his favorite homemade chocolate chip cookies. I knew they weren't good for his adult-onset diabetes, but I never scolded him since they made him happy, and I often told my mother to let him enjoy.

I wish I could be as happy as Uncle Walt and his cookies—diabetes or not. Hey, he was eighty years old, for crying out loud!

Despite my stupor, I managed a smile. “Hi, Daddy. Uncle Walt.” My head refused to leave my palms, so my words came out slurred.

Uncle Walt walked to my mother and took a slice of raw potato. He popped it into his mouth. “Pauline been drinking, Stella?”

Mother looked at me. “I only wish.”

I groaned.

I should've politely left and gone back to the condo I shared with Miles, one of the nurses at Saint Greg's. “I'm not drunk. Wouldn't waste the calories on liquor.”
Or the money
, I thought, and hoped Miles would spot me the next month's rent. He would, I knew, but I hated to take advantage of my friend.

Daddy came closer. “What's the matter, my little
p
czki
?” A
p
czki
(sounds like “paunchki”) is a Polish donut. A huge one. Fat and filled with prune filling. My father always called me his
p
czki
.When I was young, I paid no attention. At my age, though, I wanted to run out of the room screaming. Thank goodness I didn't fit the bill of a round, stuffed donut.

Still, he meant well. My father was the hardworking silent type who retired after forty years in a factory making tiny parts for airplane engines, and I loved him. Even when he referred to me as a donut.

I sighed. “I'm burned out, Daddy. I can't go back to nursing . . . for a while. I need a rest.”

My mother clucked her tongue and set the pot of potatoes on the stove. “Rest,
shmest
.”

Uncle Walt lifted his Steelers cap off his head and rubbed his naked scalp. He and I were the only two Steelers fans in the house. Not that I lived here, God forbid. But the rest of the family—hell, just about the rest of the state—were Patriots fans, since this was New England. He looked at me. “Good for you. Take a rest. Come play cards with me.”

“Er . . . as tempting as that sounds, I need to work. Only not in nursing.”

Mom wiped her hands on the towel hanging over the white enamel goose's head next to the sink. She'd crocheted turquoise around it to match the Formica. I'm pretty sure she did that way back in 1969, before I was born. “Not in nursing?” She made the sign of the cross. “You've studied nursing in all those schools, Pauline Sokol. Good pay, too. Now what are you going to do? What job can you get to support yourself? Of course”—she turned and hung the towel over the goose—“you could move back here . . .”

The next thing I knew, I was opening the door to my condo and running in as if fleeing a stalker. I had no recollection of leaving my parents' split-level or driving my Venetian red metallic Volvo back here and praying it didn't break down.

But here I was.

Miles had been napping on the couch and woke in a startled state. I must have been in such a hurry that I made too much noise. “Hey, sorry if I woke you.”

He rubbed his eyes as I collapsed into the comfortable white leather chair across from him. Spanky, our little joint-custody shih tzu-poodle mix weighing in at five pounds, eight ounces, jumped at my legs. I lifted him up and gave his tummy a tickle.

“You look like shit,” Miles said, sitting up.

“I'm guessing you're not talking to Spanky.” I leaned back and groaned. “I hate my life. I hate my career. I hate the thought of moving into a split-level that smells like sauerkraut.”

“Jesus.” He stood up, rubbed his eyes and without another word walked out of the room.

Before I could nuzzle Spanky's little body, Miles appeared with two bottles of Budweiser. He'd even popped the tops. I took mine from his outstretched hand and after a long, slow, welcoming sip, I said, “I quit my job today.”

“The one at the pediatrician's that you're filling in for?”

I shook my head no.

He glared at me. “First you scare the shit out of me in my dead sleep. Then you guzzle that brew as if it were calorie free, you, Ms. Health-nut, and now you drop a bomb like that on me. What the hell gives?”

“It's true. I have to leave nursing . . . for a while. Miles, I've been a nurse for the greater part of my adult life. A registered nurse with a master's degree, no less. Shows you how many years I've put into this profession. Twelve. I even talked my supervisor at Saint Greg's into not making me give a two-week notice since I was on vacation anyway. I just couldn't go back. Thank goodness I was able to coerce Liz Pendleton to fill in for
me
at the pediatrician's office until Kathleen gets her sunburned butt back.”

Miles could only stare. Probably because I kept talking and he couldn't get a word in edgewise.

“Things have changed, Miles. When I graduated from Saint Francis Hospital School of Nursing, got a degree from Southern, then a masters from Yale, I thought I'd be a nurse for life.”

“I always thought—”

“Yeah. And even when those degrees hung freshly in their frames, I took jobs that no one else wanted. Still do. Extra jobs that exhaust me. Today I sunk to nearly poking a throat swab into the tummy of a kid—”

He shook his head. “You'd never do that.”

“I know. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I'm not daring enough. My life needs a jolt of some sort. Got any ideas?” I stared at him to make sure he wouldn't hold back.

Miles had connections all over town. That's what made him such a perfect roommate. How else could I have ever afforded leather furniture, a kick-ass gigantic television, which, I might add, made my Steelers appear as if they were running in the living room, or this condo near the lake? Miles pulled strings like a marionette artist and knew someone who knew someone for whatever anyone needed.

He was my closest platonic male friend. Of course his being gay had something to do with that. On more than one occasion I'd told him I'd marry him if he'd convert. I'd meant to Catholicism, he, of course, thought along the sexual lines.

For that I went back and forth with Dr. Taylor. Lately, though, it'd been a long time since
that
subject had come up. I made a mental note to have him invite me to dinner. It'd been some time since I'd seen him, and Miles had mentioned that he'd heard Vance had a new job. Yes, it was time to call him.

I needed
that
right now.

Miles sat back on the couch and wrapped himself in the mauve-and-black afghan one of his old boyfriends, Leonard, had knitted for him. I never liked the guy, but he'd been a whiz with knitting needles. Good thing he didn't break Miles's heart, or I'd have dealt with Leonard.

“Okay,” he said, “no need to explain. Been there, done that.”

“That's right. You traveled around the Caribbean on your sabbatical a few years back.”

He lifted his bottle toward me. “Bon voyage.”

I took a sip. “Don't I wish.”

His eyes softened. “Damn. You really can't afford to get away.”

It wasn't a question. Miles was a smart guy and one hell of an OR nurse. He was my closest friend, and the only one who knew I'd lost my shirt and most of my savings by stupidly co-signing a loan for a fellow nurse, Jeanine Garjullo, who I thought was a friend. We'd actually been roommates in a cottage on Long Island Sound for the first few years I'd worked at St. Greg's.

My “friend” took off with the new Lexus she bought with the loan last year and left me with the bills. One payment every month for so many years I'd lost count but I knew I'd be older than Uncle Walt when the final amount was due. That's when Miles let me move in so I wouldn't have to go home to my parents. I could see the headlines in the
Hope Valley Sentinel
. Thirty-four-year-old middle child, the only single one, moves home with parents.

Made me cringe.

“Bingo. I need a non-nursing job that makes me enough money to live on.”

Miles leaned his head back, tapped a finger on his tooth. He always thought better like that. “Perfect.”

I jumped up—forgetting poor Spanky, who ended up on all fours much like a cat since he was about that size—and yelled, “What?
What
is perfect?”

Miles smiled. “I have a relative in the insurance business. Owns his own place. Insurance agency. He'll hire you. Wear a nice suit tomorrow for an interview. Skirt. Not pants. Good thing you're such a looker. I'll make the call.”

He was up and poking the pager to locate our portable phone, which had a mind of its own and always snuck off so we couldn't find it. The beeping came from the kitchen. I watched Miles walk through the swinging doors and contemplated which of my two suits I should wear to an insurance company interview: the black one that I used for funerals, or the red one I'd had since the late eighties, when “power red” had me thinking—mistakenly I might add—that I could get my staff to listen better if I wore it.

I'll go with the black
, I thought, as I heard Miles mumbling, then saying, “Tuesday morning. Nine it is,” because for some odd reason, I felt as if I
were
going to a funeral.

I looked at my watch. Three after nine. I uncrossed and recrossed my legs and looked at my watch again. Three after nine. Still. Waiting in an insurance office for a job was frustrating, to say the least. It didn't help that I hadn't been on a job interview since before the invention of the wheel. I'd forgotten how I hated this kind of stuff.

Pauline Sokol was never one for change.

If I were, I'd be backpacking it around Europe. Lack of money or not. Or at the very least, I would have moved out of the oh-so-very-ethnic town I was born in, grew up in, and, not adjusting well to change, would meet my maker in, no doubt.