Coughing & Donuts: A Mercy Mares Cozy Mystery (16 page)

"Do you mind if I go on my break right now, Rose?" I asked.

We'd already worked eight hours together and she hadn't mentioned a word about Charlie or Jill. I wondered whether or not she knew that Jill was here conducting a sting operation.

"Go ahead. You're probably starving. Are you taking your break here or down stairs?" She asked.

"I think, I want to get off the unit for a little bit." I thought that sounded believable. I just didn't know how I'd get past her with Eli's chart. It wasn't like it was something that I could just shove into my smock pocket. I had to create a ruse.

Looking around, I had few options. All of the patients were asleep, including my supposed cohort and, if I woke her, she was my patient to take care of. I had to get creative.

"Get up." I whispered, shaking Jill's bed.

She rustled a bit, then, fell right back asleep.

I pinched her leg. It wasn't the nicest thing to do, but it got the job done.

"Ouch!" She yelled, grabbing her leg. "What in the world is going on? Why did you do that?"

I smiled. "We're partners, remember? I need a distraction. In two minutes, I'm going to walk off the unit to meet Charlie in Rollie's office, so I need you to start yelling. Pretend you had a nightmare or something. That will give me time to grab Eli's chart and take it upstairs."

"What? I'm sleeping." She groaned.

"You're supposed to help me." I reminded her.

"Okay. Okay. But, you're not meeting Charlie." She said, putting her head back on her pillow.

I pinched her again.
This was fun!

"Ouch! Will you stop that? I'm up!" She sat up again. "Charlie is taking care of something else. You're supposed to meet with..."

"Mercy?" Rose called for me down the hallway.

"I'm right here. Just checking on Jill. She's restless." I poked my head out the door.

"Will you bring me a snack from the vending machines when you come back? Let me grab my purse." Rose walked into the break room, leaving me the perfect opportunity to grab Eli's chart and run.

I said to Jill, "Forget what I said. Go back to sleep."

"You are evil," Jill groaned as I ran to the nurse's station and lunged for the chart, while Rose was distracted.

I took off like an Olympic sprinter (a middle aged sprinter with a bad knee and a protesting tail bone, that is) and got out the door before she walked out with her money.

I'd made it! I was off the unit and out of breath, but I had the chart. All I had to do was get into Rollie's office before anyone came looking for me or the chart. I could see that someone was coming up the elevator from downstairs. I figured that was Amy, so waiting for an elevator wouldn't be a wise idea. I glanced at the stairwell and about cried.

"The stairs, it is," I groaned. "Feet don't fail me now."

I climbed three flights of stairs and was in desperate need of a respirator, but it was my own fault. My ever-present plan to get fit had long since been forgotten and placed on the calendar for the following month. I figured I'd make that a gift for my forty-fifth birthday. Better late than never.

As I made my way out of the stairwell and into the ornate hallway leading to Rollie's office, an overwhelming sense of sadness and dread came over me. I knew that it came from the fact that I'd not yet reconciled my feelings about Rollie and his death. Part of why I'd not yet reached out to Karen was that I was afraid to face the truth that he was dead.

The secrecy around his death added to my despair. None of it felt real or at all possible. Why would someone want to murder such a good human being with a heart of gold? Maybe they didn't know him like I knew him, but from what I could tell, his employees liked him.

I reached the door and hesitated to catch my breath and to gather my strength to face the room. It didn't occur to me to be worried about who would be on the other side of the door. My thoughts were solely on the fact that I'd lost a good friend and that another, even dearer friend was suffering and I'd said nothing by way of offering her my condolences.

I looked behind me to make sure that I had no witnesses, save for the cameras that seemed to be unfit to capture the reality of what was being filmed. I closed my eyes and opened the door, holding my breath.

I nearly swallowed my tongue at the sight of her. 

She grinned tentatively, opening her arms to embrace me. I couldn't move. My hands clutched Eli's chart as if the chart was the only thing holding me in an upright position.

"Hello, Mercy," she whispered.

My throat went dry. What was she doing here? I didn't understand what I'd just walked into or why.

"Sit down, honey. I'll explain everything." She stepped forward, taking the chart out of my hands.

“I don't understand.” I said as Karen guided me to the seat behind Rollie's desk.

“None of us do,” Karen said. “But, we're going to try to understand. We just have to work together and learn to trust each other.”

Tears that I'd been fighting to keep at bay since I'd heard that Rollie had died, began to pour out of me. “I'm so sorry, Karen. I wanted to reach out to you. I tried, but they wouldn't let me. Then, with everything else going on, I just didn't make time for it, but I planned on it. You know how much I love you and Rollie.” I held on to her hand.

“I know you were there. They told me. I'm sorry that I didn't get to see you, but I'm not angry. It's been a trying time for all of us.” She hugged me, patting my back as she consoled me.

“I should be the one consoling you,” I said, pulling away slightly to scrub the tears from my face.

She clapped her hands together. “Let's move quickly. We don't have much time.”

“You know what I'm supposed to do?” I asked, surprised that Charlie had managed to reach out to another person without my knowledge.

She smiled her sweet smile. “Yes. I'm the one who asked Sheriff Wagner to help. My niece was generous enough to help.”

“Your niece?” I asked. “Is Officer Lerner your niece?”

She smiled. “Yes, she's my brother's daughter. She's a good egg and she knows as well as I do that Mike's murder was well thought out and well planned. There's no way that you or Eli Pardo could have done it. I know it for a fact because Eli was in no position to have planned anything. He'd been staying with Jill's family the last few weeks. He was trying to better himself and get his life in order.”

Eli lived with Rollie's niece? Why didn't anyone mention that before?

Karen continued. “His father had thrown him out again. He had no one. Jill had come to know him through work.” Karen paused. “He had some difficulties, but he was always a good kid. He has a good heart. Jill and her family took him in after she found him living in the maintenance building here on the grounds.”

I stood up, scratching my head. “He lived with a police officer? Right before he was admitted the night that Mike was murdered? I don't understand. How did he end up here? What happened?”

“That's what we're trying to figure out, Mercy.” Karen said, grabbing Eli's chart and carrying it out of Rollie's office and into the copy room.

I sat back down in Rollie's seat and tried to wrap my brain around everything.
In the course of hours, I'd discovered that Eli was Brandi's stepson, his father was a wealthy movie producer, his mother was a reporter, and, now, he'd been living with a local police officer and her family. What else didn't I know about this kid? Why would he have confessed to a murder, if he didn't commit it?

Karen called me, “Mercy, we need to hurry this up before someone comes looking for you.”

I jumped up to help her. I thought I'd covered all my bases with Rose, but as soon as she or Amy noticed the missing chart, one of them would come looking for it and for me. I had to hurry.

“We just need the stuff from this stay. His admission information and the elopement information. Everything else might not be so relevant.” Karen explained.

“I know what I'd like to see, but what are you hoping to find?” I asked. I didn't understand what her interest was in what happened to Mike and I still had one very important question to ask her. “Can I ask, how did Rollie die? Was he...”

“Murdered?” Karen asked. “No, he wasn't murdered, but you can't tell anyone that just yet. I can't go into detail as to why not, but please understand we have our reasons.”

“Who is 'we'? You keep saying it. Who are you working with besides Charlie?” I asked.

She pursed her lips. “I'm doing this for Rollie. We spoke about this the night before he...” Her voice broke.

“I'm sorry. I touched her arm. It was ice cold. The poor thing had been through so much and here she was – inside a psychiatric facility – hunting down bad guys in the middle of the night.

She swallowed hard, sniffling. “I'm fine. I have to do this. I can't sit by and let an innocent boy go to prison for something he didn't do and I will not let someone place blame on my friend – the friend, who remained steadfast by my side while I was sick – at the same time. I may be small, but I am a mighty beast when I have to be.”

I finished making the copies. “You should rest. You've been through a lot and thank you for believing in me.”

She nudged me playfully. “Anytime, besides, I told you before, I live to see the day you walk down an aisle. I didn't know you the first time you got married, but I sure as pie know you now and I want to see you marry that handsome sheriff who cares so much about you.”

Oh great, another member of the “Mercy Mares Needs to be Married Team”. That's all I needed.

“Okay, well, I'm finished up here. I still have to get downstairs and grab a snack for Rose.” I told her.

“Just grab something out of Rollie's mini-fridge. There's plenty of goodies in there. Sneaky bugger thought I didn't know, but I knew he was eating stuff the doctor told him to stay away from.” Her eyes welled with tears again as she remembered.

It broke my heart to see her so upset. She didn't deserve any of what happened to her.

“Was it his heart?” I asked, referring to Rollie.

She nodded, tears escaping her eyes.

I hugged her. “Should I leave these copies with you?”

She nodded, walking back into Rollie's office. “I have a bag. Charlie is waiting downstairs. No one will question why I'm here. I came right in the front door hours ago. Everyone probably thinks I just needed time to grieve. That's true, but I also needed time to gather some information. All we need now is the last piece to the puzzle.”

I respected what she was doing, but I firmly believed there was far more than one thing missing from this very convoluted equation.

I still had no idea who killed Mike and didn't understand why Eli had confessed or why Rollie's death had been such a secret. Were they trying to make it seem like a homicide?

Karen must have sensed that I still had so many questions. “In time, we'll all know the answers. Just know that when it comes to Rollie, it was necessary to keep things private. I just never figured that people would assume he was murdered. I told Lou to say he'd died of natural causes, but he thought better and believed that would bring out the murderer if he got another death blamed on him or her.”

I scoffed. “Lou thought if he raised the death toll that the killer would get upset for being blamed for another death? That doesn't make any sense! Where did Lou get that idea from? A bad movie?”

Karen laughed. “Lou does a lot of things that don't make sense to anyone, but him.”

Before I headed back to my unit, I had to ask, “Does Rose know what's going on?”

Karen smiled. “She only knows what Charlie wants her to know and that's that he's out in the parking lot keeping an eye on the hospital so that there are no more deaths.”

“So, she has no idea that Jill is here to investigate or what we're doing with Eli's chart?” I thought I knew the answers, but I needed confirmation.

“She doesn't know and she hasn't been cleared.” Karen answered.

“She could be the murderer?” I asked.

“I don't know.” Karen answered.

I didn't know what else to say except, “Thanks for the sandwich.”

She waved me off, “No problem. It's fresh.”

*

“You're leaving?” I spoke a little too loudly for this early in the morning.

“Mercy, why are you yelling? You're going to wake up your neighbors. Yes, I'm leaving. I told you that.” Charlie said.

“Yeah, but what about last night?” I yelled.

Charlie blushed. I don't believe I'd ever seen him blush before. “Do you hear yourself?” He asked as he ushered me back into the apartment. “Are you trying to start a scene?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, horrified by what my outburst must have sounded like. “You know what I mean. Do you have to make everything sound so...” I couldn't find the appropriate word.

He laughed. “You are about the most difficult woman I've ever met.”

“Difficult? You're the one who flew out here and stirred up all sorts of trouble. You used me to illegally copy someone's chart and now you're leaving town? What about what's going on here? Eli could go to prison!” Apparently, yelling this early in the morning was my new thing.

“I have to work, Mercy. I'm not leaving you. I have a life. There will still be someone around if you need help and I'm only a phone call away. I will help you figure this thing out. Jill will be here too.” Charlie tried to persuade me to understand.

“That's just great.” I held the door open for him and motioned for him to leave.

“You're throwing me out?” He asked.

“You're the sheriff, you figure it out.” I slammed the door shut behind him.

Like a wounded child, I sat and pouted, not paying any attention at all to the local news that I'd put on as soon as I walked in the door.

“What a jerk!” I said, throwing myself back on the sofa.

I sat for a few minutes, trying to calm myself down when I heard the reporter mention a death investigation.

“Whoa! What?” I raised the volume on the television.

A refined looking gentleman in a crisp suit spoke into a microphone after the reporter announced that the county coroner would be speaking. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I listened.

“We've conducted a thorough examination and autopsy of Michael Slowicki and have concluded that his death was in fact a homicide.” He said to a hushed crowd just off camera.

“What? Why are they talking about Mike again? What's going on? What about Rollie?” I said to the television.

After a moment of silence, he was hit with a barrage of questions at rapid-fire.

“Do you know how he was murdered?”

“Did the murderer leave behind any clues?”

“Has Mr. Slowicki's family been notified?”

The coroner deferred to the police officers and detectives with him. A short, stocky detective pulled the microphone down to his level and addressed their questions. Lou and Reggie stood in the background with grim looks on their faces. This news was no surprise, but I can only imagine that Lou especially did not take it well.

The detective said, “We do have a suspect in custody and he has confessed to Mr. Slowicki's murder.”

My heart sank as I listened. The last thing Eli needed was to have the court of public opinion convict him before he had a chance to fight.

“Can you tell us who your primary suspect is?”

I closed my eyes, bracing myself to hear what the detective would say.

“Elias Pardo has confessed to the murder.” He said.

The reporters gathered went wild with that information. Questions came one right after the other, mostly focusing on Eli's father and mother.

Why? Please, stop talking
, I thought. I didn't want to hear anymore, but I also didn't want to miss anything that was said. I couldn't help Eli that way if I didn't pay attention.

My cell phone rang just then. I picked it up, saying, “I'm watching it now, Karen.”

“This is not good.” She said.