Everything She Ever Wanted (94 page)

insurance her, and she continued to mark her you company with her army

number, signing them, "Pat Taylor, RN."

After she brought Debbie aboard as the night nurse, she simply doubled

the hours and explained that she would pay Debbie from her own check.

Berry obtained copies Later, when Don Stoop and Michelle of Pat's pay

vouchers, they noted a markedly steady progression ut down 40 hours at

in her income.
 
For her first weeks she p $10.00 for a total of $400.

By December 1987, she was charging ek at $12.50 an hour, and for 6

hours of for 79 hours for one we eek's total of $1,100!

"holiday pay" at $18.75 an hour-for a w But she was just gathering

steam.
 
Since the insurance company 'd Pat immediately, the Crists

assumed that her credentials were adequate.
 
In january Pat's

voucher listed 108 hours at rging $15.00 an hour for $12.50: $1,350.

By May, she was cha 132 hours: $1,980 for a week.
 
Pat's final voucher

showed that her week's salary due was $2,040!
 
Although Debbie's name

was rtedly getting some portion of this never listed, she was repo

insurance money.
 
Between the two of them, they were receiving close to

$10,000 a month.

Pat and Debbie had not been released from the Crists employ because

their insurance had run out.
 
Not at all.
 
The medical policies

provided to James Crist by the Southern Company were ultimately

comprehensive, although underwriters had questioned the soa d Debbie

had been rakring nursing costs.
 
Pat an ing in a small fortune.
 
Even

so, Don Stoop and Michelle Berry learned that it wasn't the exorbitant

pay that resulted in their dismissal.
 
It was what was happening to

their patients.

Jim Crist explained that he had visited his mother unexpectting a salad

edly as she was having lunch one day.
 
She was ea when he noticed there

were tiny white tablets sprinkled on the lettuce.
 
"Mother!"
 
he said

sharply.
 
"Don't eat that."
 
He took the plate away from her and did

the first thing that came into his head; he threw the food away.

Shortly after-in February 1988-Jim took his mother to the hospital for

gastrointestinal bleeding.
 
She stabilized within a few days.
 
While

she was in the hospital, she was given no medication except for a mild

pain reliever for her headaches.
 
She was soon her old self again,

alert and competent.
 
She left the h,ospital in very good condition,

and they were all relieved.

But then, two weeks later, Betty Crist was back the way she had

been-sleepy all the time, confused, depressed.

When Jim Crist discussed his concerns about his mother's health with

her nurse, Pat surprised him by agreeing that something should be

done-and soon.
 
She said that his mother was becoming very hard to take

care of.
 
"She doesn't seem to know what she's doing at times."
 
Pat

also confided that she feared Betty Crist was drinking heavily, taking

far too many drugs, and was becoming careless about leaving large sums

of cash around the house.
 
Incredible.
 
This was not the mother Jim

Crist had known all his life.

The Crists told Don Stoop and Michelle Berry that Pat's war with every

other nursing aide save Debbie had continued.
 
When she wanted to fire

the family maid, who had been with the Crists for many years, Jim Crist

had put his foot down, and he decided to keep a closer eye on Pat.

Pat had agreed readily to take Betty Crist to her doctor for a

checkup.

Just as the family became suspicious, she became perfectly cooperative

and seemed truly concerned.
 
She assured Jim Crist that she would make

an appointment with Dr. Watson immediately.
 
When Jim spoke to his

mother, Betty Crist agreed with her son that she wasn't feeling like

herself.
 
She was sleeping far too much, and she often felt muddled in

the head.
 
By this time the family was so suspicious that they wanted

to give Pat no prior warning of what they intended to do.

Jim Crist called Dr. David Watson, the Crists' family doctor, and said

he was terribly concerned about his mother.
 
Watson said he had begun

to grow worried too.

"How much should my parents' monthly drugstore bills bejust for their

prescriptions?"
 
Crist asked.

"Oh, I'd say roughly two hundred to two hundred fifty dollars a month,"

the doctor estimated.

Jim Crist called the drugstores he knew his parents patronized and

asked if he might have a printout of the prescriptions on file for

Betty and Jim Crist, Sr.
 
The printout showed that prescriptions for

the elder Crists were averaging between seven hundred and eight hundred

a month.

Something wasn't right.

Jim Crist dropped by his parents' home the first week of June

1988-apparently casually-and said he was going to take his mother for a

ride.
 
Instead, he took her to the hospital for a complete blood

workup.
 
When the results came in days later, they revealed that her

system was loaded with triazolam, the generic name for the sleeping

pill Halcion, in doses far surpassing recommended treatment.

Without telling Pat about the blood tests he had arranged, Crist asked

her if she had ever taken his mother to see the doctor.
 
Pat said that

indeed she had-earlier that very dayand that Betty Crist had passed

with flying colors.

"Was a blood test done?"
 
Crist asked.

"Of course.
 
Everything was fine."
 
Pat indicated that the results had

come back while they were still in the doctor's office.

Jim Crist knew it took longer than a day for blood test results, and he

felt a chill.
 
He was armed with the devastating results from the real

blood test.

Later, alone with his mother, Crist casually asked how Dr. Watson

was.

Dr.
 
Watson was her internist.

"I don't know," she answered.
 
"I haven't seen him in quite a while.
 
"

"Did you go to the doctor today?"

"We stopped by Dr.
 
Hardin's."

Dr. Hardin was a dermatologist who was treating his father for his

stubborn rash.

"Did they take some blood from you, Mother-for a test?"

"No, of course not."
 
His mother looked at him as if he had taken leave

of his senses.

That was enough.
 
Crist fired both Pat and Debbie.

But that wasn't the end of the matter.
 
Betty Crist told the

investigators that weeks later she began to discover that many items of

jewelry were missing.
 
Over the years, her husband had bought her some

beautiful pieces, and she had had some heirlooms too, handed down

through their families.

Her jewelry losses were summed up succinctly in Complaint No.

81SG2682 in the city of Atlanta's Bureau of Police Services, filed July

15, 1988: One fifteen-inch strand of pearls with a pearl clasp-valued

at $1,100.

One matching bracelet of pearls-valued at $430.

One pearl ring with a small diamond on either side-$32S.

One fourteen-carat gold mesh bracelet-$I,SOO.

One large oval lapis stone man's gold ring-$420.

One "tulip" ring with a double shank and double diamond flowers

-$990.

One "eternity" ring with a full circle of small rubies, channel set in

fourteen-carat gold-$290.

Betty Crist said she kept her jewelry in a case, hidden high up on a

back closet shelf.
 
After she was confined to her bed under Pat

Taylor's care in January of 1988, she had brought it all down and kept

it in her dressing table "under a lot of petticoats, because I wanted

it there.
 
I mean, I couldn't wear it, but I wanted it there."

Asked about a possible burglary of her home, Betty Crist was positive

that had not happened.
 
With her husband so ill and then with her own

sickness, she had had round-the-clock nursing help.
 
Not one of them

had ever reported a break-in.
 
Hesitantly, Betty Crist admitted that

she had had her suspicions about two of her nurses.
 
Her son had fired

Pat and Debbie, but she said she hadn't filed formal charges because

she was worried that a court case would be terribly hard on her

husband.
 
His Parkinson's disease had progressed fast enough as it was;

she hadn't wanted to subject him to the stress of questioning by the

police and a possible trial.

Her insurance claims agent had written a detailed report of the

circumstances of the loss/theft, and closed by saying that the Atlanta

police had assigned the case a "D" classification.
 
This meant, in

police lingo, that leads had run out.
 
None of the jewelry had turned

up in area pawnshops, and there was no way to link Pat Taylor and

Debbie Cole to the thefts conclusively.

The Crists had decided not to press further.
 
They were compensated for

their losses and the matter was dropped.
 
The Atlanta Police Department

was awash in larceny and burglary complaints, and the thefts were

buried under piles of new cases.
 
But Betty Crist continued to discover

possessions that were missing.
 
Many of them were things that Pat

Taylor had particularly admired: antique laces and hand-stitched

linens; James Cr'st's priceless Civil War artifacts; his Rolex watch, I

111 of course; her antique cookbooks; and a tiny cut-glass chandelier

designed to fit a dollhouse.

But they were only things.
 
The real loss was time.
 
She had missed so

much time with her Jimmy while she was feeling dizzy and confused.