Gretchen heard a commotion behind her, then a shriek, then a thud. She tried to block it out. "Bad news, man,"
Shirt Man said, referring to Ryan. Or so Gretchen thought. Shirt Man was facing the kitchen investigators. She hoped the comment wasn't about Nina and April.
"Watch where you're falling," April wailed. "You could have killed Enrico."
"You dropped me," Nina screamed.
"I released you. There's a difference."
"Can you intervene for us?" the bald one asked Gretchen.
"We really are running a rehab program."
Gretchen believed him. He and the other occupants were as much on the fringes of society as the homeless people she knew. But druggies? When she looked into their eyes, they were clean and bright, without the hopeless, empty gaze associated with drug addicts. They didn't have that hunted, haunted fear she'd seen in Ryan's eyes or the wasted away, thin bodies.
Nina stomped past carrying Tutu. April heaved off from the side of the house and made for the car with the other two miniature dogs.
"We're going to the hospital to see how Ryan's doing,"
Gretchen said to the bald one.
"Say hi. We hope he makes it."
Gretchen hustled after April. She peeked in the entrance to the house as she passed but didn't see the two detectives. Why was she even checking? She didn't care. Nope. Not one teeny, tiny bit.
33
"Ryan did it," April insisted, pounding a plump fist on the dashboard to stress her point. "He killed his mother. I don't care about wallpaper. We're getting too wrapped up in kitchens. Forget the room box. He's the one."
"His kitchen was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," Nina said, darting through traffic. She had recovered quickly from her graceless fall. "Crud everywhere. Men shouldn't be allowed to live in large groups. They're pigs. I can't even imagine how awful the bathroom would be."
She shivered for effect.
"All I saw was your rear end," April said. "And then that lizard darted across the wall right next to us. He stopped and stared me right in the eye. Sorry I dropped you."
"Forgiven," Nina chirped. Their friendship had come a long way. A few weeks ago, Nina would have held a grudge against April much, much longer. This one was over within minutes.
The safest thing to do was to get them back on task before one of them had a chance to say the wrong thing and start another disagreement.
"The ICU staff wouldn't give me any details about Ryan's condition," Gretchen said. "They gave me the patient privacy protection speech. All they'll say is that he's on that hospital floor."
April shook her head. "You'll never get inside."
"
We'll
never get inside," Nina corrected her. "We are a t-e-a-m."
Gretchen visualized all three of them and the dogs attempting to sneak into the hospital. The Three Stooges, that's what they would be. They could stuff the canines inside their purses, even Tutu, who was a bit large for a handbag. She chuckled in spite of herself.
"How are we going to get into Intensive Care, boss lady?" April asked from her usual position of authority in the front passenger seat.
"Boss lady? Are you talking to me?" Gretchen asked. Starting tomorrow, Gretchen was absolutely, definitely driving her own car. No more of this backseat-with-theanimals traveling.
"You're the woman."
"I think one of us should go in," she said. "One will stand a better chance,"
"You're the one, boss," April said. "You've established a bond with the kid."
"You have to be kidding. He thought I was a cop! He decked me. The next time, on his porch, he wasn't much friendlier."
"See, he's warming up, boss."
"If I'm the boss, why am I in the backseat?"
"We're your chauffeurs."
Gretchen looked around at her luxury ride. Goo dripping from the back windows and dog hair coating the seats and her clothes. Nimrod climbed up her chest and licked her face. Tutu sat as far away from Gretchen as possible, pretending she didn't exist. Enrico was getting used to her. He only growled now when she shifted her legs or made sudden movements.
"How come I'm the boss every time you don't want to do something?" Gretchen wanted to know.
"I'd go in," her aunt said. "I'd do it myself, but I'm recovering from my tramatic fall to the ground."
Nina pulled into the visitors' parking lot. "We'll keep the getaway car running."
"Thanks, t-e-a-m." How bad could it be? It wasn't like she was trying to break into a gated senior community. Or like she'd disguised herself as a nurse. She couldn't get busted for impersonating medical personnel. Was that illegal? "Anyone have a nurse's uniform?" she asked. "I could sail right through with the proper attire."
"Getoutadacar," April said.
The gangsta doll appraiser was starting to get on Gretchen's nerves. She got out, strolled casually into the hospital, requested the directions to ICU at the information counter, and took the elevator to the second floor. So far, so good.
The roadblock came when she dead-ended at an imposing set of doors with a sign that said Restricted Area. A nurse passed her and pushed a button on the wall. The door swung out. The nurse walked inside.
Gretchen peered through the massive doors, studying the layout. The door swung shut. Easy enough.
"May I help you?" a different nurse said the instant Gretchen stepped over the threshold into intensive care. No tiptoeing past the guards, after all.
"I'm here to see Ryan Maize," Gretchen said.
"One minute, please." The nurse did something in a computer. "Are you family?"
"I'm his aunt."
"He's in room 220. It's down this hall."
Gretchen grinned all the way down the corridor. Detective Albright should take a few lessons from her.
He
hadn't managed to get past the nurses' station with his impressive credentials and flashy badge. All she had to do was walk in and ask to see Ryan.
The patient looked like something out of a bad sci-fi
movie. Tentacles jutted from the sheets on both sides of the bed, carrying colored fluids, some flowing in, some flowing out. Monitors hummed and beeped, displaying information Gretchen couldn't read. His eyes were open.
"How are you feeling?" She stopped at the foot of the bed.
"Not so good."
"You're lucky to be alive."
"I'm not so sure." Ryan didn't appear to be delusional, certainly not catatonic. Then, "Where's the carnival man?"
he said, crushing her optimistic outlook for him. Gretchen realized he might mean the doctor. She wasn't very good at street slang. "Do you need something for pain? I can call the nurse."
"Yah."
"Talk to me first."
He looked at her without recognition, his eyes glassed over from either inner demons or the effects of medication, or both.
"What happened to you?" she asked.
"A little friendly connection gone bad."
"What does that mean?"
Ryan didn't answer. He closed his eyes.
"Did someone do this to you?"
He nodded and squinted up at her. "Fruit of the gods. The end is unclear. It's what happens when you buy in. Trust is elusive."
This was hopeless. Gretchen wasn't going to learn anything useful from Charlie's son. He was too busy associating with goddesses and gods. A nurse came in and adjusted a few tubes.
"He says he's in pain," Gretchen said to her.
"This will help." She injected something into an IV.
"How is he?"
"He's doing really well."
"Any signs of drug withdrawal?"
"No."
"Isn't that unusual for a drug addict? Not to have withdrawal symptoms?"
"Who said he was an addict?" she said. "Epinephrine was the only drug in his system when he came in." The nurse finished up and left. "He was sick enough with what he had."
So maybe Ryan was riding high on hospital drugs. Yet he had been living in a drug rehabilitation house. He was drug-free when he checked into the hospital (well, other than the epinephrine). Who ever heard of an epinephrine addict, anyway? "Who gave you the drugs that made you ill?" she said to him, noting that he was about to nod off.
"Carnival man. He came through my window every night. I tried to stay away, but he forced me."
"I thought a goddess came through your window," she said, remembering the conversation with his roommates.
"Who is carnival man?"
"Bad dude. Green hair." He made a weak gesture with both hands. The IVs followed his arms. He placed his hands on the sides of his head, then shoved them away like he was saluting.
This wasn't getting her anywhere. But she had to try.
"What else do you remember about him?"
Ryan's hands fell to the bed.
His words were slow. There must have been a sedative in the injection the nurse gave him. "Bald around the top of his head, green hair on the sides, man, I don't know, sticking straight up."
Gretchen sagged against the bed. This guy had really gone insane. The epinephrine overdoses might have sent him permanently over the edge, but he'd been headed to the cliff long before this. She couldn't imagine the depth of his mother's grief at her son's state. How long ago had Charlie lost her son? How long had she tried to save him from himself before she realized she never would? That kind of heartache must live inside a person forever. Ryan's mouth was moving, but the words came out too softly to hear. His eyes were shut.
Gretchen moved around the side of the bed and leaned closer, trying to catch his last words before the drugs eased him into a deep sleep.
"Big red nose," he whispered. "Big red feet." Then he was asleep with his mouth still open.
Gretchen's legs weakened when she realized what he had been trying to tell her. She plopped down on the side of his bed, carefully moving his arm to the side so she wouldn't bump the tubes. She watched his face relax. The carnival man had come in through his bedroom window, so the others living in the house wouldn't know. Getting him to cooperate the first time would have been the hardest. Or would it? Hold the promise of drugs right under his nose, hand it to him, offer him just a little. He could have gone along. After the first time, it would have been easy to continue to poison him.
He was already a little overloaded with the first major dose of epinephrine, seeing things a little skewed. Every night, giving him another dose, making him appear crazed, focusing all the attention on him. Ryan Maize was the perfect murder suspect.
Based on information from his roommates, Ryan Maize had been on the road to recovery. Then suddenly, one day, he began hallucinating, seeing demons, fighting them off. That explained why he had struck out at her so viciously. What horror had he seen in her that day to provoke him into violence and into such fear? She'd read it in his eyes at the time. Unbelievable fear.
Gretchen rubbed her forehead with both hands, feeling a headache coming on. She was as crazy as he was. Why couldn't she let it go, let the police wade through all the lies and deceptions?
Because she could feel the truth, and she wasn't convinced that they would. She felt it strongly. Not that Gretchen would ever say that to her aunt. Nina didn't need any more fodder to fuel her belief in the family's psychic abilities. This was plain old intuition.
Ryan Maize was as much a victim as his Aunt Sara and his mother had been. And he would have followed right behind them to his own grave, dying soon from an intentional overdose. They would have said he committed suicide because he had killed his own mother. That he didn't want to live after what he had done.
Gretchen knew who the murderer really was. She hadn't been paying attention at the time, because she was late and in a hurry. The crowds and the parade had distracted her. Yes, she'd had an encounter with the person who poisoned Charlie, and she'd had it right after Charlie had succumbed to the toxins.
Gretchen remembered looking up from where she had fallen at the parade, seeing the bald head and green hair sprouting from the sides in comic tufts.
The killer had been disguised as a clown.
34
Gretchen didn't sleep much Sunday night. She spent the time going back over her encounter with the clown at the Parada del Sol, searching her memory for any clues to his identity. How could she possibly recognize anyone under all the layers of makeup and clothes? Perhaps the killer clown wasn't even someone she knew.
She went through the scenario for at least the hundredth time. They had collided in the middle of the street at the very tail end of the parade. Gretchen had fallen down. The clown hadn't made any effort to help her up or to offer an apology. That was about it. Wait. . something else. . the clown had spoken to her.
"Watch where you're going." That's what he'd said. He?
Was it a man's voice? She hadn't been paying enough attention. She thought the voice had been gruff, but that didn't mean anything. A woman could easily lower her voice if she wanted to disguise it.
Remembering back, she thought the clown wasn't very adept with that white goo that clowns use on their faces. A rush job? Trying to remember more was fruitless. The interaction had been too brief and hurried. In the morning Gretchen drove to Curves. She, April, and Nina had agreed to work out earlier than usual, before the other doll collectors arrived. After that, they had a meeting with Detective Kline. Nina had willingly taken that assignment, arranging the meeting the night before.
April had been incapacitated after hearing one brief, paralyzing sentence. "We're looking for a killer clown,"
Gretchen had said. That was it for April. All her words since had been inaudible croaks.
This morning, April looked closer to normal, greeting Ora, the manager, then bouncing onto a platform next to Nina and Gretchen. "Sorry about fainting again," she said.