The Real MacAw (30 page)

“This does appear to resemble the missing earring,” the chief said. He had drawn a pair of gloves out of his pocket and was pulling them on, his eyes fixed on the ruby.

“Complication,” I said. I grabbed a pencil from the selection in a plastic cup on the counter and used it to lift up one of the shreds of tissue. The chief glared at me, then glanced down and raised one eyebrow at what I’d uncovered. A second ruby earring gleamed back at us. For a few seconds, the scattered contents of Vivian’s purse seemed to form a wizened gnome face, peering up at us from the counter with glowing red eyes.

Then the spell broke, and it just looked like a pile of junk around two glittering red earrings.

Vivian was the first to react.

“Why you … you … AAAHHH!” She sprang toward Louise, fingernails extended. Louise tried to run, but Vivian caught her, and the two of them began a vicious tussle, complete with hair-pulling, shin-kicking, and fingernail-clawing. Vivian was shouting abuse at Louise in language so blue it would probably have astonished Parker’s parrot, while Louise contented herself with shrieking nonstop.

After a brief moment of surprise, both Sammy and I leaped to part the combatants. I didn’t have much trouble shoving Louise to the floor and sitting on her, probably because, unlike Sammy, I had no qualms about hitting a woman. And I’d tackled her because she was the smaller of the two. Maybe I should have gone for Vivian. Sammy took quite a lot of damage from her nails before he managed to follow my example.

The chief started around the counter when the fight began, but Sammy and I had things under control by the time he reached the field of combat.

“Good job,” he said, glancing from me to Sammy. Then he peered at Sammy’s bleeding face and shook his head.

“Can you two … people be trusted to keep the peace now?” he asked, frowning down at our prisoners. Normally he’d have called them ladies. Under the circumstances, “people” was as close as I’d ever heard him come to a direct insult.

“Ow!” Sammy shouted. “She bit me!”

“We’ll have to cuff her.” The chief did the honors himself, retrieving the handcuffs from Sammy’s belt and applying them expertly to Vivian’s wrists as she continued to spit insults at them. Once Vivian was safely cuffed, Sammy came over and took charge of Louise.

“Meg, this is a hospital,” the chief said. “Do you think you can find some surgical tape, in case Ms. Forrest cannot be persuaded to hold her tongue?”

“Sure,” I said. I went into the nurses’ station to rummage. A thought hit me.

“Shouldn’t we find a replacement for Vivian?” I asked. “Assuming you’re probably going to take her away for questioning. Because she seems to be the only nurse on duty on this part of the floor.”

“Good point,” he said. “Who do we call?”

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the police station. If Debbie Anne didn’t already know who to call, I’d bet she could find out in no time.

I was still filling Debbie Anne in on events here at the hospital when the elevator dinged again. We all whirled to face the elevator, which opened to reveal another deputy peering out, his gun at the ready.

“Put your weapon away, Fred,” the chief said. “You can cuff the prisoner Sammy is restraining. Then get some more help up here. Sammy needs medical attention.”

“What’s wrong with Sammy?” Dad had finally returned and was standing on tiptoes to peer over Fred’s shoulder.

“He was assaulted by one of my murder suspects,” the chief said. “Are we any closer to getting a nurse for this floor?”

“Debbie Anne’s working on it,” I said.

“Good job,” he said.

Dad hurried out of the elevator. I noticed he was carrying his black bag.

Fred set about handcuffing Louise in a reassuringly businesslike fashion. Of course, he had the easy job. Louise wasn’t putting up much of a fight. She was crying softly, and I noticed that the tears she was shedding over her own plight were falling much faster than the ones she’d shed for poor Parker.

Dad exclaimed over Sammy’s wounds and patted him on the shoulder.

“She planted those earrings in my purse,” Vivian said, appending a few choice words about Louise’s character.

“None of that, young woman,” the chief said. “Meg, have you found that tape?”

“Here,” Dad said, handing me a roll from the medical supplies he was using to patch up Sammy.

Vivian glared at him and fell silent.

“I planted one,” Louise said, through sobs. “And only because she planted it in my purse.”

“I did not!” Vivian said.

“Did, too!” Louise said. “I was just putting it back. I have no idea where the other one came from.”

“You’re lying!” Vivian shrieked.

“Quiet!” the chief bellowed. “Hand me that tape.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Vivian muttered.

I handed the chief the tape anyway. He held the roll in his left hand and tapped it slowly against his right palm. Vivian pursed her lips as if to show that she wasn’t even thinking of talking.

The elevator dinged again and Horace and yet another deputy stepped out.

“Excellent!” the chief said. “Jasper, you and Fred take these prisoners down to the station … er, over to Dr. Langslow’s barn and hold them. Separate stalls.”

“You can’t arrest us!” Vivian yelped.

“We both decline to press charges,” Louise said, frowning at Vivian. “You can’t arrest us if we both decline to press charges.”

“Yes, I can,” the chief said. “Disturbing the peace. Assault and battery on poor Sammy here. Interfering with a police investigation. I’m sure I’ll think of a few more when I get down to the station. Horace,” he said, turning to my cousin, “we have new evidence. Look at this.”

The two deputies herded their charges toward the elevator and one pressed the call button.

Horace trotted over to the counter and looked down at the clutter. His face lit up.

“Parker’s missing earring!” he exclaimed. Then his face fell. “And another one just like it. Which is the real one?”

“They could both be Parker’s,” I said. “A lot of places still only sell earrings in pairs. Which is annoying for people who only wear one, I suppose, but at least if you lose one you’ve still got a spare.”

“He wasn’t wearing both of them the night he was murdered,” the chief said. “He only has a hole in one ear.”

“The earring that was ripped from Parker’s ear should show traces of blood,” Horace said. “And we can probably run DNA and prove that the blood is Parker’s. Might even get some DNA from whoever ripped it out.”

“And a fat lot of good that’s going to do,” the chief said. “Since it’s been rattling around in these women’s purses for heaven knows how long. And we won’t even know if the earring that was ripped out was the one Ms. Dietz put into Ms. Forrest’s purse or the one that was already there.”

“She put both of them in,” Vivian said.

“Did not! I only had the one!” Louise countered.

The chief looked at me. I shook my head.

“One earring, two,” I said. “All I know is that I saw something sparkly fall into Vivian’s purse. And who knows if this is their first round of earring planting or their twenty-first. It’s hopeless.”

The chief sighed and rubbed his forehead.

“Not hopeless,” he said. “Just tedious. I’m betting one of them stole the spare earring from Mr. Blair’s house—and locked you in the attic—as part of a plan to frame her rival, not knowing that her rival was already in possession of the real earring. We’ll be checking their alibis, examining their clothes for blood spatter, looking for witnesses who might have seen them at your house or Mr. Blair’s house, checking for their DNA in the truck cab, trying to prove that one or the other had access to a gun that could have fired the bullet. It’ll be legwork and forensics that solves this. Tedious, but effective.”

The elevator dinged. The deputies started to herd their charges in, and then had to step back as Francine Mann stepped off and then looked around in surprise.

“What is going on here?” She sounded startled and maybe a little scared. She was wearing a light, loose jacket at least two sizes too large for her slender frame, and with her shoulders hunched and her fists jammed in the oversized pockets, she looked curiously like a frightened young girl.

“Can we help you?” the chief asked.

“I think I’m supposed to be helping you.” She straightened her shoulders and some of her usual quiet, competent manner returned. “I’m the night administrative supervisor—that means the duty staff call me if there’s a problem.”

She looked around and pursed her lips as if suggesting that the duty staff’s call was more than a little overdue.

“I didn’t call you,” Vivian said. There was just a hint of insolence in her tone, as if Francine were the one person in the hallway she could talk back to with impunity. I remembered Francine saying that the medical staff resented her and undercut her at every chance. I’d thought she was being oversensitive, but judging from Vivian’s manner, maybe she was right.

“No, you didn’t.” Francine studied Vivian for a few seconds before turning back to the chief. “I was driving home when Debbie Anne reached me on my cell phone to say that you needed a replacement for Vivian—I thought she’d been hurt. What is she being arrested for—is this about the murder?”

The chief frowned. He hated being interrogated.

“They’re in handcuffs because they tried to scratch each other’s eyes out,” I said. “Long story—I can fill you in later if you like.”

“At the moment, we need your help,” the chief said. “We don’t want to leave the floor unstaffed. I suppose Dr. Langslow can stay here until you can get a replacement for Ms. Forrest.”

“There’s no need to inconvenience Dr. Langslow,” Francine said. “As soon as Debbie Anne reached me I called the first nurse on our roster. She should be here within half an hour if not sooner. And in the meantime, I’ll go down and ask the ER to send someone up here to fill in.”

“Please do,” Dad said.

The elevator had disappeared during the confusion of Francine’s arrival. The deputies had punched the button and were watching the floor indicator impatiently. Louise and Vivian were glaring at each other.

The elevator dinged again.

“You might want to take them down one at a time,” I said. “Unless you fancy refereeing a cat fight in the elevator.”

“Good suggestion,” the chief said. “And Fred, call Debbie Anne. We need to get another deputy down here to take over guarding Dr. Blake.”

“I thought one of them did it,” Sammy said.

“Until we’re sure one of them did it, and know which one,” the chief said. “Sammy, you can do that after you’re patched up.”

The deputy guarding Louise ushered her into the elevator. He held the door for Francine. She took a step forward. Then she looked at Louise, paled, and stopped.

“I think I’ll take the stairs,” she said. “It’s just as fast.”

She trotted briskly down the hall in the direction of Grandfather’s room. The deputies released the elevator door and it left.

“Yankee busybody,” Vivian muttered. “As if she gave two pins if anything happened to me. I bet she didn’t call the next nurse on the duty roster—just came down to see what was going on. She’ll make the call from the stairwell and complain that the duty nurse took too long getting here.”

I glanced down the hall to see if Francine had heard, but she was disappearing into the stairwell. Behind us, I heard a buzzing noise.

“Oh, dear,” Dad said. “Your grandfather is ringing his call bell.”

“I should go and see to him,” Vivian said.

“Oh, what a great idea,” I said. “Letting one of the people who might have assaulted him look in on him. And just when he’s starting to regain consciousness and might be able to identify his assailant.”

“I’ll go,” Dad said.

“I can just go down to the ER,” Sammy said.

“Dad, stay here and patch up Sammy,” I said, as I set off down the corridor. “Grandpa probably just wants to know what all the ruckus was. I’ll call you if he needs anything.”

“Right,” Dad said. “Come here, Sammy. First we need to clean up that bite wound. You’d be amazed at how filthy the human mouth is.”

Chapter 24

When I reached his room, I found Grandfather lying back on his pillows with a thunderous scowl on his face. He was fiercely clutching the little gizmo containing the call button. Since it also housed the TV remote, his death grip was not only sounding the bell at the nurses’ station nonstop, it had also turned on the set and was making it flip wildly through all the channels.
The Tonight Show, The Simpsons, Nightline, David Letterman,
a Japanese monster movie, professional wrestling, a music video,
I Love Lucy, SpongeBob,
and the Weather Channel flicked past in the time it took me to reach the bed. He’d also managed to jack the volume up to rock-concert level. Thank goodness for the buffer zone.

“Easy on that thing.” I held out a hand for the gizmo. “Do you need a nurse? Or Dad?”

“I’m fine, dammit.” He was shouting to be heard over Desi Arnaz and Madonna. “I need to know what the hell all that commotion was out there.”

“The chief just arrested some suspects.” I eased the call button unit out of his hand, turned off the TV, and hung the thing back on the side of the bed within easy reach. Blessed silence returned, or at least what passes for silence in a hospital—merely the quiet beeping of the three or four machines hooked up to Grandfather.

“Suspects? In my case or the murder?”

“Take your pick.” I straightened his pillow. “We’re pretty sure it’s the same thing.”

He nodded and closed his eyes. He seemed fine, but I decided to keep an eye on him for a little while. Dad would know where to find me when he finished with Sammy. And odds were Dad wouldn’t dawdle now. He’d be eager to get back to the farm, so he could hang around the barn while the chief interrogated his two suspects.

I felt a small thrill of excitement and relief. It was nearly over.

The chief still had to figure out which of the two women had ripped the earring from Parker’s ear. But I had every confidence that between his interrogation skills and Horace’s forensic ones, they’d solve that problem before long.