Coughing & Donuts: A Mercy Mares Cozy Mystery (15 page)

“Elopement.” I corrected him.

“Whatever you call it. I need to know how it ended up being blamed on you and who was notified when.” He explained.

“Well, I can answer that for you. Amy told the administrators that I loosened his restraints. I don't know why they just didn't look at the footage from his room that night, but whatever, they had a murder to deal with, so I think they made an assumption because they saw me on tape there in the guard house and it looked like I was arguing with the guard.” It sounded even crazier than I thought it did when I said it out loud.

“Exactly. How did it go from 'oops, I made a mistake' to 'see, she helped him escape and he killed the guard'. Something had to have been charted that led them to that conclusion and since Lou claims he never saw footage from Eli's cell, we're going to need some kind of concrete evidence of who set you up or who tried to cover their own tracks.” He explained.

“I told you already. It was Amy. What else do you need?” I asked.

“Will you just listen? You're starting to make me rethink our friendship because you are so hard headed.” He groaned.

“I'm hard headed? What about you? I told you not to come here and that I'd handle things on my own and now look at you. You're coercing women into letting you use their vehicles and practically kidnapped me in front of armed guards.” I was getting angrier by the second.

His reaction wasn't what I was expecting. Laughing, he said, “Sugar, no one has been coerced and, if I was going to kidnap anyone, do you really think it would be an argumentative busy body nurse with a bad attitude and questionable taste in cars?” His face reddened as he continued laughing.

I rolled out of the car and resisted the urge to slam the door shut, instead opting to leave it open while I grabbed my bags and ran to the employee entrance to face whatever it was that was waiting for me on the other side of the door.

It was business as usual on the unit. Patients were fast asleep. Nursing staff tended to their nightly duties. Things were perfect. Almost too perfect, begging the question, “What's going on?”

Rose looked up from her charting. “Oh, hi, Mercy! Back for more fun, I see.”

“Yes, how are things around here?” I asked, deciding not to mention the incident outside in her car.

“Good. The patients are asleep. No admissions on their way in yet. We're just organizing and trying to get back into the swing of things. You can jump in wherever you want. I think, Amy wants to pass meds tonight, so if you want to take the odd number rooms, I'll take the evens. Okay? Let's go in for report and get this night going.” She closed the chart she was writing in and walked around the desk to go into the conference room.

“Did you come in early tonight?” I asked, wondering when she was going to mention Charlie.

“Yeah, I figured they could use all the help they could get. Everyone had been working long hours to cover shifts while the rest of us were in limbo.” She answered.

A couple of exhausted nurses sat in the conference room waiting for the overnight staff to arrive. They were surprisingly friendly when I walked in. I thought I'd walked into some other dimension and the atmosphere had erased their memories.

“Hi, Mercy! Welcome back.” One said, smiling at me.

Okay, who are these people and what did they do with all the grouchtastic folks I'd met just a few days earlier?

“Hi.” I offered tentatively.

“It has been really quiet around here. We tried to get things caught up for you, but our brains are on overload and I can barely function. I think I've put in thirty some hours in two days time.” The nurse explained.

Rose asked, “Whose charts do you need to update? Just point us to what you need to have done and we'll try to get through it all tonight.”

Amy walked in the room, carrying an armful of charts. Looking at me and Rose, she said, “I'll handle this pile. There's about twelve more in the med room waiting for someone to tend to them.”

I squinted to make out the names on the sides of the charts. It looked like she had a couple of charts with names that were unfamiliar to me and a few with names I recognized. The one name that stood out to me was Eli's. I'd hoped that his chart would still be on the unit, but how I'd be able to get my hands on it to make copies was beyond me.

Charlie must have asked Rose to keep an eye out for it too, because she said, “I'm going to need Eli's chart because I still have some charting to do from the night he was discharged.”

I smiled and nodded at her.

She gave me a strange look, so I figured my assumption was wrong. She had no idea why I was grinning from ear to ear.

Amy responded right away. “Oh no, you don't have to. You did it already. I already checked for holes in the charting.”

Rose protested, "No, I didn't. I distinctly remember not finishing up for the night because of the elopement and we had too much going on. If I remember correctly, you took his chart from me to and I completely forgot about it until I got home." Rose said.

This was getting interesting. I began to see Amy in a whole new light. First, she blames me for loosening Eli's restraints. Now Rose is saying that Eli's chart was taken away from her and she hasn't had a chance to update it in a few days because of Amy. Maybe, I was all wrong about Amy.

"Oh, Rose, we were so busy that night, I can't remember what happened when, but I know I left the chart out for you and when I checked it, you did leave your nursing notes in there, so we're fine. No worries." Amy smiled and quickly walked back out of the room.

"Wait a minute!" Rose raised her voice. "We haven't had report yet and I still want to see that chart when you're done with it."

Amy bit her lip and took a seat at the far end of the conference table and didn't say another word.

Yep, she's hiding something
.

"I need to see it too. I was here that night, remember? I don't think I charted anything at all that night. I'm going to need to add my notes about his admission." I wasn't lying. I had never touched the chart. Too many days had passed and we had violated so many rules already, I didn't want to make it worse. I needed that chart and she wasn't going to stop me from getting it. I was on to her now.

While the day staff was filling us in on the day's events, I watched Rose and Amy closely. They were both upset, but I suspected for very different reasons. Rose kept her eyes fixed on Eli's chart as if it would suddenly vanish and Amy clutched it for dear life. Every few seconds she would glance up at Rose and quickly look away because Rose was looking in her direction.

No one else in the room appeared to notice or, if they did, they were too tired to mention anything about it. I didn't know if there was any bad blood between Amy and Rose. Neither had ever mentioned the other, but too, neither of them ever had any real in depth conversations with me either, so I had no real point of reference, but it seemed to me that this little tiff extended beyond Eli's chart.

If Charlie would have informed me what he was up to, I would probably be a little more clued in to what was happening, but of course in true, Sheriff Wagner form, he only told me after the fact, if he found it to be prudent. I was growing really tired of him not finding it prudent in my case.

After report, we all went to attend to our duties. I did my job, but I couldn't help but be distracted. The more time I spent not looking at Eli's chart, the more time wasted. I don't know what Charlie was after, but I had no doubt what I had in mind. I needed to know exactly what Amy had charted that night. I wanted to see how she described the night's events and, most importantly, I had to find out how his elopement got pinned on me.

"Well, hello." I hadn't heard anyone walking behind me. I gasped and turned quickly, prepared to defend myself, because, you know, I'm often accosted by strangers while at work. My tendency toward paranoia was at an all time high.

It took me a second to remember where I'd seen her before, but when it hit me, I about fell over. "Officer Lerner?"

She hushed me, looking down the hallway to see if anyone was nearby. "Don't say anything. Did Sheriff Wagner speak to you?"

What?

She grabbed me by the elbow and ushered me into the room. "Go in my room." She whispered.

"In your room? What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm a patient." She answered.

"You're a patient. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." I started, but she put her hand up to stop me.

"Not like that. I'm pretending to be a patient." Frustrated, she asked, "Didn't Charlie tell you?"

Apparently, Charlie had a lot of things to tell me.

I shook my head. "No. What was he supposed to tell me?" Was she hallucinating? I didn't know what was going on here.

She rolled her eyes. "I told him you would be difficult. He was supposed to fill you in, but I guess because he's a man, he probably wasn't even listening to me in the first place. Okay, well, here's the deal - I had myself admitted for acute depression and suicidal ideation, hence, the fancy get up I'm wearing." She pointed to the oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants with the drawstring removed.

"Oh, but why?" I asked.

Did Charlie set up another elaborate sting operation? How many of the local women had he convinced to help him with this illegal investigation?

"We believe someone that works here is responsible for the guard's death and I'm here to help you find out who." She said it like it was no big deal. Was she crazy?

"Help me? I don't know anything about catching a killer." I protested.

She shrugged. "That's not what your boyfriend says. He said that you helped solve a murder in Nebraska before. He said that you're nosy enough to get information that most would never think to pursue."

"Charlie's not my boyfriend." I protested. "Did he tell you that? Did he say that he was my boyfriend?"

She hissed. "Does that matter right now? I'm not a matchmaker. I'm a cop and I'm going to be in a lot of trouble and will probably lose my job in the process, so excuse me if I don't know what the sheriff meant when he talked about you. Can we focus here? Did you get a hold of Pardo's chart?"

Well, isn't she rude!

"Couldn't you have gotten a warrant or something? Wouldn't the hospital have to give the police the chart?" I was confused.

She hushed me again and walked back to the doorway to check the hallways. "Use your inside voice, please. Don't you think that I would have done it that way if I could have.? I'm not that dense. We can't do it that way, so when Charlie came to me with this idea of using you to gather information, I have to admit, I was hesitant at first, but since you do work here and people are trying really hard to blame you for all this, it sounded almost plausible. Maybe, you can help us figure this out."

I heard everything she said, but I couldn't get past the fact that Charlie advised her to use me. I wasn't particularly fond of his choice of words and, when all this blew over, I planned on speaking to him about it. In the meantime, I was a little flattered that he thought I was capable of solving Mike's murder, but no one had mentioned a word about Rollie.

"What do I have to do? My friend or soon-to-be ex-friend Charlie only said that I needed to get my hands on Eli's chart and to make copies of it. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get off the unit to do that anyway. Right now, Amy doesn't want to let anyone near that chart." I explained. "Wait, are we investigating Amy because I was beginning to think that she might be hiding a few things."

"Like murder?" Officer Lerner was intrigued now.

I stammered. "I... I don't know. I only worked with her a couple of times. I don't know anything about her and I sure as pudding wouldn't want to accuse anyone of anything because I know what it feels like to be wrongly accused of something. I won't say anything until I know something for sure."

She sat down on her bed and put her head in her hands.

"Officer Lerner," I started.

"Jill. My name is Jill." She said.

"Alright, Jill, I have never done this before. Tell me how I'm supposed to do this and doesn't everyone around here know that you're a cop?"

"Doesn't matter. Cops have problems too. We are people too. I'm just a patient. You treat me like every other patient around here." She explained.

"But, what are you supposed to be doing here?" I asked.

"Listening. Watching. Getting treatment." She answered. "Do your job. We will help you, just don't blow it."

I felt faint. They were getting me in way over my head. I didn't feel confident that I'd be able to pull any of this off and, if I did, how was I to know that anyone would believe me or do anything about it. After all, we were conducting an illegal investigation.

"I can't make any guarantees." I said before walking out of the room before someone caught wind of our conversation.

As I stepped out, Jill said, "Someone will be waiting to help you when you go on break tonight."

I stopped. "Who? How do you know when I'm going to break?"

She put her hands on her head. "Didn't Charlie tell you anything?"

*

I looked at my watch for the thousandth time. Two o'clock in the morning, just like we'd planned. Amy's break was almost over, so that gave me enough time to grab Eli's chart and to get out the door and upstairs to Rollie's old office. I didn't like the idea of having to go in there, but I assume, Charlie chose that location because I couldn't imagine anyone else using that space just yet. That didn't change the fact that it made me feel uneasy.