Grace Sees Red (17 page)

“With few exceptions over the past ten years, yes. That's my understanding.”

“Wow. That doesn't leave time for much of a personal life. I wonder why all the secrecy?”

Frances's fear of her gossipy friends finding out was not my story to share. I shrugged. “Frances is a very private person.”

“Detective Rodriguez is convinced that Frances had nothing to do with the Indwell victim's death.”

“Gus,” I supplied. “The deceased patient's name was Gus. No, she couldn't have.”

“I've worked with the Emberstowne police on a couple of matters and I've gotten to know Detective Rodriguez. I'll be honest, if it weren't for his insistence I contact you, I probably wouldn't be here today. He and his partner are really worked up about your assistant's involvement here.”

“Really? Even Flynn?” I asked.

“I'll admit Flynn seems a little less willing to stick his neck out on her behalf, but he's been pushing me, too. Their hands are tied with regard to the investigation and they believe I may have more of an in with Rosette's authorities.” Before I could say anything, he hurried to add, “But, I can't insert myself into the official investigation. I won't try to influence anyone involved in this case. I'm here simply as an advocate for the truth.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “Until you have a chance to form your own judgment, you're dependent on Rodriguez's and Flynn's assurances that Frances is innocent.”

“And yours.”

“And mine,” I agreed. “But you don't really know me either, do you?”

“Not yet,” he said as he merged onto the expressway. “But we've got time. Right now, how about you bring me up to date on who's who in this investigation?”

By the time I finished describing the nurses, aides, Indwell residents, and family members I'd met in the course of my inquiries, we'd arrived at our destination. Joe's questions and requests for clarification: “Wait, which one of Gus's sons is that again?” helped pass the time quickly.

The moment we stepped through the facility's front doors, Cathy looked up. Her instant alertness and the high-wattage beam on her shiny, pink face told me that she'd already gotten word of Frances's arrest.

Had it only been three days since this nightmare began? Those three days had given the police sufficient time to build a strong enough case against Frances to warrant an arrest. By contrast, how much had I accomplished in my attempt to clear her name? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Cathy fidgeted in her swivel seat. She raised her hand, beckoning us closer. “Grace, over here.”

Joe touched my arm, stopping me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded, even though “okay” was a stretch. “Whenever Frances and I have helped the police solve a murder, she and I have done it together. And neither of us has ever been so personally involved.”

I thought about the most recent skirmish with my sister and decided that didn't count.

“But I'm sure your experiences with Frances have taught you a lot. I'm the newbie here. Show me the ropes.”

“Don't patronize me.” I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but there was no way I'd allow such an exaggeration to slide. “You're telling me that you—a coroner—have never been involved in a homicide before?”

“I'm not patronizing. I'm telling the truth. Of course I've been involved in homicides as a forensic expert. But as an investigator?” He shook his head slowly. “They really don't let us out of the lab, you know. It's not like on TV.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Not at all like on TV.”

“Come on. Show me how it's done.”

While we'd been talking near the door, another aide—clipboard in hand—had approached Cathy with a question. With a vehement shake of her blond head, Cathy had shushed her colleague, making no effort to disguise the fact that she was straining to listen in on my conversation with Joe.

Now, as we resumed our trek to the reception desk, Cathy leaned forward, eyes bright, gesturing again for us to hurry. Her colleague, obviously weary of being ignored, walked away.

“I didn't think I'd see you here again, Grace,” Cathy said. “Not after they arrested Frances and all, I mean. I wonder what took them so long.” Her dismissive
tsk
ing reminded me, briefly, of Frances. But there was too much eager-terrier frenzy in Cathy's delivery to compare it with that of my acerbic assistant. Eyebrows arched, she gave Joe a curious once-over. “Who are you?” She cocked her head toward me. “Boyfriend?”

Joe shot me an amused glance.

“No,” I said.

I signed us both in on the visitor's sheet, purposely scribbling so that Cathy wouldn't be able to make out Joe's last name. There were probably several hundred Joe Bradleys in the United States, but only one who served as coroner in
Emberstowne. The less this zealous assistant knew about him, the better.

“Do you know if Percy is in his apartment?” I asked. “We'd like to talk with him.”

Clearly disappointed by our unwillingness to chat, she frowned. “Don't they say that once you get past the forty-eight-hour mark after a murder, the police never find the killer?”

“Plenty of cases have been solved long after the crime was committed.”

“That's not what they say on TV.”

Shooting an exasperated glance to Joe, I stopped myself from explaining further. From the first time I'd met her, I'd suspected Cathy was a sound-bite person. Feed her a tidbit of information she could sink her teeth into and—true or not—she'd gleefully bark it to the world.

“Percy,” I repeated. “Do you happen to know where he is?”

Cathy studied my companion again and I got the fleeting impression she intended to barter: Percy's whereabouts for Joe's identity. But a moment later, she relented. “Gus's family is taking forever to clean out his room,” she said as though that were an answer. “Percy's sticking around while they're there. He's afraid they might steal some of his stuff.”

“He actually said that?” I asked.

Cathy rolled her eyes. “No. But I can tell.”

I pointed. “We'll head down there now.”

“You might want to suggest to Frances that she plead guilty. I heard that judges are way more lenient if you show remorse.” Though delivered with a guileless smile, her comment took me aback. “I'll bet she could even get a minimum sentence if she tells them it was a crime of passion. I'd hate to see her spend the next twenty years in jail. She's so old she'd probably die in there, wouldn't she?”

My hands fisted and twitched as I resisted the terrific temptation to reach across the desk and strangle Cathy into silence. Instead, I said, “Frances is innocent and the sooner everyone here realizes that, the sooner we'll find out what really happened to Gus.”

“Good luck with that.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks.

Cathy twisted the visitor sign-in sheet to read it. “Nice to meet you, Mr. . . . um . . . Braddock.”

I turned to Joe. “Let's go.”

Two nurses I didn't recognize sat behind the small desk down the left corridor of the East Wing. Our presence didn't seem to concern them so I didn't bother trekking over to introduce myself. The door to Percy's apartment was wide open. I peered inside, saw no one, and knocked on the jamb. “Hello?”

When no one answered my hail, I shrugged. “Let's hope they don't mind us barging in.”

We'd gotten about four steps into the apartment when Harland emerged from Gus's room. He had his left arm wrapped around a lidded banker's box and his right around the base of a table lamp whose shade smashed against the side of his face.

“Hey,” he said when he spotted me. “I heard they arrested your friend.”

“Bad news travels fast around here,” I said.

“To my mind, it's good news. The best.” Harland flicked a dismissive glance at Joe before addressing me again. “The detective told us they got her cold.” With a contemptuous glare, he added, “You can't just go around murdering people and expect to get away with it.”

A shrill voice came from the depths of the corridor. “Who are you talking to? They better have sent somebody to help us carry all this.”

One second later, Joslyn rounded the corner to stand behind her husband. “Oh,” she said, clearly disappointed. She had her hair pulled tightly off her face, which was shiny with exertion. “It's only you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Joe taking it all in.

“I realize this is a difficult time for your family,” I said to them. “But if someone did kill your dad, Harland, the police are wasting their time interrogating Frances. She didn't do it.”

Joslyn rolled her eyes. “Yeah, then who did?”

“I don't know,” I answered honestly. “Maybe no one did. And we have to consider the possibility that Gus may have taken his own life.”

“Nope. No way,” Harland tried to punctuate his words with a hand gesture, but the box and lamp in his arms prevented more than a vague body swing. “Dad took out a big insurance policy some years back. There's a suicide rider. He told us about it. If he'd have killed himself, that big premium payment he made would be lost. He'd never let that happen.”

“Then maybe,” I began, rattled by this new information, “he really did die of natural causes, after all.”

“Or maybe somebody—like your friend Frances—killed him because he was a cranky old man who made her life miserable,” Harland said.

“What do you want here, anyway?” Joslyn asked.

“I have a few more questions for Percy.”

“Why? You think maybe he did it?” Harland asked.

The last thing I wanted to do was set the hounds on yet another innocent suspect, but the truth was I didn't know Percy. “I'm exploring every option.” I decided to take a chance—to appeal to their sense of fair play. “Even though I've known the two of you only a short time, I know you're not looking to convict an innocent person. I know that what you really want is for the guilty party to be brought to justice. Right?”

“Yeah,” Harland said halfheartedly. “Sure.”

Joslyn made a face. “You're trying to make us feel bad for Frances. But the cops think she killed my father-in-law, and I don't know of anybody else who could've done him in like that.”

Joe cleared his throat. “You wouldn't happen to have received your father's autopsy report, have you?”

Still gripping both cumbersome items, Harland shifted his weight. A fine line of sweat had begun to form along his hairline. “Not yet. Why do you ask?”

“I'd love to have a look at the findings.” Joe gave a
disarming smile. “Call it professional curiosity. I'm a family physician by day but I like to dabble in the world of forensic pathology.”

“You're a doctor?” Joslyn perked up. “There's a million of them roaming around this place and I can't get a straight answer from any of them.” She turned around and twisted her arm to indicate an area just above the small of her back. Talking over her left shoulder, she said, “I've had a pain, right there, for about three months. Hurts every time I take out the garbage. And now moving all this junk is making it worse. I want more painkillers but my goofy doctor is making me go for physical therapy before he'll prescribe more. That's crazy. What do you think?”

Joe scratched the side of his face. “I'd never second-guess a colleague without doing a full exam on a patient.” Cutting off Joslyn before she could offer to submit to one on the spot, he added, “I think what you're really asking is if you ought to get a second opinion. That, I can support.”

Turning back to face the group, she nodded with gusto. “All right.” She elbowed her husband. “Hear that? I should find a different doctor who'll prescribe me some powerful pills.”

That wasn't at all what Joe had suggested, but there was no point in correcting her.

Changing subjects, I said, “It looks like you have a big project ahead of you, so we'll leave you to it.”

“Do you know they expect us to clean this place after we clear everything out?” Joslyn asked. “If it isn't sparkling and pristine, they said they'll add another fee to the final charges.”

Harland again shifted his unwieldy bundles. “My brother's coming to help out later, but at the rate we're going, it'll be two months before we have Dad's room cleared out.”

Eager to be away from the sweaty, unpleasant people, I smiled. “Thanks for the update. If you see Percy, please let him know we're looking for him.”

“Yeah, sure,” Harland said.

As we made our way to the door, Joslyn called to our
backs. “Tell them I want to talk to somebody in charge. We shouldn't have to cart all this junk out of here by ourselves. It's inhumane.”

The moment we left the apartment, I blew out a breath.

“Wow.” Joe hiked a thumb toward the closed door behind us. “So that's the grieving family? Any chance either of those two killed Gus?”

“Don't I wish,” I said. Then, a split second later: “Wait, that didn't come out right.”

Joe chuckled. “No worries. I get it.”

“I've been trying to get a straight answer about who was here to visit Gus the morning of his death. Harland and Joslyn hadn't visited that day, or even the night before. So, no. They aren't likely suspects at this point.”

“Is there any chance they may have made it in without being seen?”

“Anything is possible, I suppose. Hang on—there's Percy.” I spotted him talking with Santiago down by the nurses' station. The two men were in such deep discussion they didn't notice our approach until we were right on top of them.

“Percy,” I said, “we were looking for you.”

“And I've been trying to get in touch with Frances. What's going on?” Percy's voice growled an octave lower than usual. “Santiago said that the police arrested her. They didn't, did they?”

Before I could answer, Santiago chimed in. “I've got a friend who works at the PD. Told me the cops drove all the way out to Emberstowne this morning to pick her up.” The young man eased backward to lean against the desk and favored me with a grin that I wanted to punch off his face. “I understand you were there for the fireworks. Am I right?”

Flexing my hands, I battled a desperate urge to deck this guy right here, right now, in front of everyone. I'd bet they'd applaud. “Hardly fireworks.” I worked so hard to maintain an impassive expression, my cheeks hurt. “Frances has nothing to hide. She's happy to cooperate with the authorities.”