The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher (11 page)

“Actually, I usually use that one. Follow me.” She led me through the eating area to a door on the far side, which enabled me to avoid the security guard.

“What would you like to know?” she asked when we reached the corridor and walked toward the rehabilitation unit.

“I was just wondering if you happened to notice who came to visit Cliff while he was a patient here. I know he turned away most people.”

She gave me an odd look but thought about my question. “When I was there, he only had three visitors that I saw, except for Dr. Hazlitt and other doctors. Do you know Dr. Hazlitt?”

“Seth? Not only do I know him, but I'm due to meet him in a few minutes. I hate to be late and hope he'll forgive me if I am.” I couldn't quicken my pace because Theresa took her time strolling down the hall. I matched my steps to hers, wishing she would move a little faster. “I'm sorry,” I said. “You were saying Cliff had three visitors.”

“No. I said I only
knew
about three visitors. I work one of the three shifts, evenings. I mean, if someone visited him in the morning, I wouldn't know about that person.”

“Of course,” I said, smiling. “I like your precision. You'd make an excellent witness.”

“A witness?”

“Just thinking about trials I've attended. Judges and juries like witnesses to be precise. Please tell me a little about the three visitors you did notice. What were they like?”

“There was an old lady.” She looked at me. “Older than you. Not that you're an old lady.”

“I'm happy to hear that,” I said.

“I guess she was about eighty or so. Tall, short gray hair. She walked very fast. That's what I noticed about her. I mean you don't think about old people walking that way. The ones I see here can barely walk at all. This lady, she just marched around like she owned the place.”

“I think I know who that may be,” I said, thinking her description fit Lettie Conrad. “Did she visit more than once?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“Who else visited Cliff?”

“There was a guy who drove a motorbike.”

“How did you know that?”

“He was carrying a helmet.”

“Do you happen to recall the color of the helmet?”

“Black, I think.”

“What was the man like?”

“Average height, I guess. I only saw him once, and Mr. Cooper didn't like seeing him. I could tell right away. His cough became worse. I didn't hear their conversation, but when I came in to take his vitals later—you know, his temperature and his pulse and his blood pressure—his blood pressure was way up. They must have had an argument, because Carolyn told me she had to ask him to leave.”

“He came just once?”

“That's the only time I saw him.”

“And who else?”

“Well, there was a young woman.”

“How young?”

“My age, I'm guessing.”

“And how old are you, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Twenty-eight last September. I'm a Virgo. We tend to be organized and analytical. Lots of nurses are Virgos.”

“I didn't know that.”

“What sign are you?”

“Um, I'm a Pisces, but I don't see . . .”

“You must be very imaginative.”

“Well, I
am
a writer.”

“And intuitive. Pisces is a very creative sign.”

“Thank you, but we were talking about the people who visited Cliff Cooper. You mentioned a young woman. Can you describe her?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“Well, she was wearing sunglasses and a hat, kind of like the ones women wear who lose their hair from chemo. I don't know if that was the case, but her head was completely covered, so I couldn't tell you what color her hair was, if she had any.”

“Then how did you know she was your age?”

“From her bracelet—it was a friendship bracelet like the kind I wore in high school. That pattern was very popular ten years ago.”

“Would you recognize her if you saw her again?”

She shook her head. “Only if she was wearing the same things. I don't pay attention to our patients' visitors as a rule.”

“You've done very well, it seems to me.”

We took the elevator up one level and walked down the hall toward the rehabilitation wing.

“One last question,” I said as we entered the unit. “Were you on duty the day Cliff Cooper died?”

“Uh-huh. I work evenings, three to eleven. It's the busiest time, but that makes the shift go faster. Carolyn was the one who discovered that he had died. She was late getting to his room, and he was gone when she finally got there.”

“Why was she late?”

“Someone had tripped over a medication cart and it fell over. It was pandemonium until we cleaned up all the pills that fell on the floor, and then we had to refill all the prescriptions. Security had to block off the hallway, and visitors were upset. It was a mess. By the time Carolyn got to his room with his meds, he was gone.”

“I understand,” I said. “Do you recall if any of those visitors were here the day Cliff died?”

“I'm pretty sure that's when I saw the one wearing the hat.” She shrugged. “Can't really say about the others.”

“There you are,” Seth called out. He and our sheriff stood next to the nurses' station. “I thought you hadn't gotten here yet. You didn't sign the book.”

“I
don't suppose there would be any fingerprints or other evidence left by his visitors,” I said to Seth and Mort after I'd told them about my conversation with Theresa.

“No one understood that his room was the scene of a crime,” Seth said. “It was disinfected and readied for another patient within hours. That's hospital policy. They wash down everything, blinds included.”

“Well, let's see the crime scene anyway,” Mort said. “Which room was he in?”

Seth pointed to a closed door. “That one, but . . .”

Mort opened the door and walked in before Seth was able to finish his sentence. Six startled faces looked up from a feast's worth of food arrayed in dishes that had been spread around the new patient occupying Cliff's former bed.

“Sorry,” Mort said, tipping his hat to the family as he backed out of the room. He turned to Seth. “They're practically running a restaurant in there.”

“Beats hospital food,” Seth said. “I was about to tell you that there was another patient in Cliff's room.”

“Well, if we can't see his room, what can we see here?” Mort said.

“We can ask to take a look at the visitors' book,” I said, “although I'm pretty sure Cliff's assailant didn't sign in.”

“No record of any visitors that day,” Mort said. “I checked that first thing.”

“But someone was in his room,” I said. “It seems to me that whoever tipped over the medication cart might have wanted to create a diversion to keep the staff occupied while the murder took place, or maybe after.”

“But he had no visitors. Are you suggesting someone on staff wanted him dead?” Seth asked.

“Not at all. I'm afraid that the lack of a visitor name doesn't mean very much. The hospital's security is far from efficient.”

Mort looked at me sideways. “How do you know that, Mrs. F?”

“I tested it today and easily skipped the security procedures when the guard wasn't there. I walked around the hospital, and only one person demanded to see my pass, and even he let me go after some playacting on my part.”

“I don't suppose anyone expected that a patient would be in danger while in a hospital room being monitored by doctors, nurses, aides, physical therapists, dietary workers, and the cleaning staff,” Seth said.

“Okay, so the killer got in undetected. Did the deed,” Mort said. “How did he get out without anyone seeing him?”

Seth said, “He might just as easily have waltzed down the hallway and gone outside after the medications were cleaned up and the staff was still distracted.”

“Or he—or she—could have escaped into the hospital itself and gone out any convenient door,” I said. “It's unlikely a security guard would challenge someone leaving and ask to see their visitor's pass.”

Mort insisted I sign Security's book and clip on my visitor's badge this time. He stayed to talk with the guard while Seth and I continued down the hall.

“I was hoping hospital security would be tightened in the wake of this incident,” I said.

“I'm sure it will be when we're able to discuss the situation openly,” Seth said. “I called the administration's executive vice president to alert him to the need for stricter rules.”

“Was he receptive?” I asked.

“Had to dance around the reason for my call until I'm cleared to tell him the truth. Kind of like shutting the barn door after the horse has run out, but what can you do?”

“Couldn't you tell him the reason, in confidence of course?”

“Our sheriff there said no, and I happen to agree. There's no such thing as ‘in confidence' in a hospital. News spreads faster here than in Mara's Luncheonette. You didn't say anything to the aide, did you?”

“No! Of course not, and I don't think she suspected why I was questioning her. I just told her I wanted to know about Cliff's last days so I could tell his grandson. Speaking of Elliot,” I said when Mort had rejoined us, “does anyone have any idea when he's due?”

Seth shook his head. “For all I know, the boy's motorcycle broke down and he's hitchhiking here. Wouldn't surprise me. That family had the strangest ways. Don't know as I ever met his mother. Rumor was, his father, Jerry, kept her locked up because he was jealous of other men. Some said that's why he hauled her off to the jungle, where he could keep her all to himself.”

“Wasn't Elliot born in Cabot Cove Hospital?” Mort asked.

“Heck, no. Don't even know if he was born in this country. Jerry and his wife showed up one day with their baby. Dropped him into Cliff's lap and took off again.”

“And never came back?”

“If they did, I never saw them.”

“You would think Cliff would look for them when they were gone such a long time,” I said.

Seth shrugged. “I think by the time he learned that they were gone for good, their trail was cold. Frankly, I don't think he was that upset. He wanted to keep that boy—spoiled him rotten, that is, until the day he decided not to.”

“When he sent Elliot off to boarding school.”

“So I understand.”

“What a difficult childhood for Elliot, never knowing if his parents were going to come back, both yearning for it and dreading it in equal measure.”

“That's a sensitive analysis, Jessica, but we don't know if those thoughts ever crossed his mind. He was a wild child. That's what I remember.”

We'd been talking as we walked through the hospital and down a set of stairs to the ground floor. We eventually reached a pair of metal doors quite a distance from the cafeteria. Seth held up his badge to a reader on the wall. A buzzer sounded, and we pulled open the doors and entered the morgue. A technician in a white uniform sat behind a high wall overlooking a small vestibule. The three of us signed our names in the logbook with the date and time.

The morgue had recently been renovated, and I looked around, curious to see what changes had been made. To the left, through a glass wall, was the new viewing room for families. It had low lighting and chairs and a small sofa upholstered in gray mohair. A square table between the sofa and chairs held a box of tissues. The glass wall was fitted with curtains that, open now, could be drawn to provide privacy for the family during a viewing.

“Will anybody be touching the body, Dr. Hazlitt?” the technician asked.

“I may.”

“In that case, we'll want all of you gowned and gloved.”

The technician unlatched the door to his area, and we were led past the viewing room, down a short corridor, and through another secured door into the autopsy room. It occurred to me that the hospital's security was tighter for the deceased than for the living patients in the rooms upstairs.

Seth, Mort, and I were each given blue paper gowns that tied in the back and a pair of latex gloves. The drawers holding the bodies could be opened from both ends. One end could be slid out into the viewing room for the purpose of family identifying the individual; the other end of the drawer could be pulled the full length of the body into the autopsy room where we stood. The morgue technician slid open the drawer holding Cliff's body.

Seth pulled back the sheet covering the body. “Proving homicidal asphyxiation is very difficult,” he said. “I want to caution you that the courts could challenge our findings. But I'm convinced that these markings on the corpse indicate foul play.” He pointed out the red dots on both the outside and inside of Cliff's eyelids, the bruising around the nostrils and lips, and the line where his lower teeth had cut into the soft tissue inside his mouth.

I've seen many bodies over the years, but it's not something you ever get used to—at least I don't. While the body may be thought of as simply the husk that held the organs, bones, and blood vessels, I am always acutely aware that this was once a living, breathing person with thoughts and feelings, someone loved or loving—if he or she was fortunate. And those who come to the morgue to view the body, or observe it lying in a coffin at a funeral home, don't consider what they see as simply a shell either. Instead, they invest the body with all the emotions and sentiments evoked when the person was alive.

Seth looked at Mort. “I'm planning to send the body back to the funeral home unless you need the morgue to hold it longer for some reason.”

“Did you take photos of the bruising?” Mort asked.

“We documented all our findings, both by photograph and X-ray, followed a comprehensive checklist as required in a forensic postmortem,” Seth said in clipped tones. “Apart from the delay in examination, we adhered to the model protocol meticulously.”

I knew Seth was beating himself up about not calling for an immediate autopsy following Cliff's death, but he couldn't take offense at Mort's questions, much as he'd probably have liked to.

“Were there any defensive wounds?”

Seth shook his head. “The only thing we found were a few fibers caught in his fingernails. We sent the samples off for analysis.”

“Were they the same color as the fibers that you found in his throat?” I asked.

“Yes. They were green.”

“Do you have any idea where they came from?” Mort asked.

“I'm afraid I do.”

“What's that?”

Seth covered Cliff's face and slid the drawer closed. “My best guess is that they came from a hospital uniform.”