Eye of the Nightingale

by R. D. Hunter

  “You did it,” Jenny said. “You really did it! That was amazing.”

  “What did it feel like?” I asked. I was breathing hard, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the laugh fest or the exhaustion that assailed me once again.

  She thought for a second. “At first, it was just a tickle. I ignored it. But then it started to get stronger. Then, like, every funny joke I’d ever heard came back to me all at once. I couldn’t stop. Then…well, you saw the result.” She looked at me hard. “You look

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  like a stiff breeze could blow you down.”

  “I feel like it. I think I could sleep for a week.”

  “It’s the same way you felt after your lesson with Jonah, isn’t it?” I nodded. “See, I’ve got a theory about that.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Hush. See, think of your empathy as a muscle. You’re using it in ways you’re not used to. It’ll take some time to get it built up enough to actually use it without falling into a coma.”

  “We don’t have time,” I reminded her. “I’ve got less than two months before I take my finals and hopefully graduate. After that, I can kiss my time at Sunny Pines goodbye. We’ve got to blow the whistle on that place before then.” I took a deep breath and settled back into the chair.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Tomorrow I’m going to try to get one of the residents to open up to me. Maybe they’ll spill something or let something slip that’ll point us in the right direction.”

  I thought about it all night, and by the next morning, I had my potential target in mind. Mr. Howell was a 78 year old man who’d served as a pastor in the military during the Second World War. He was a very nice man who always had a chuckle on his lips and greeted everybody warmly. After Ruby died, he was one of the few people who didn’t ignore me completely or run the other way. In fact, sometimes he would even go out of his way to talk to me. If I stood a chance at setting someone at ease, it would be him.

  But I had to do it alone. If the wrong person saw us talking together, they might

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  spill the beans to the bastard upstairs. And I’d be damned if I was going to have another funeral on my conscience.

  My chance came shortly after lunch. Mr. Howell had a little accident with his milk, which I might have helped along with a well-timed hip bump. I volunteered to take him back to his room and get him cleaned up.

  “You know you’re not allowed on the second floor,” Nancy warned. She was afraid for me.

  “I’ll just escort him to the elevator,” I said. “Then I’ll call ahead and have someone meet him up there. No problem.”

  Mr. Howell walked with the aid of a walker, so we had plenty of time together on the way. I took a few deep breaths, trying to find my calm center. Then I opened myself up to the elderly man like I’d never have done before.

  The first thing I learned about him was that he was proud. He hated having to be escorted like he was helpless, but the smile on his face and the gratitude he showered on me for taking the trouble to do so were genuine enough. He was embarrassed about the milk incident and I felt a little bad about being a contributor.

  I gradually began wiping away all these exterior emotions and replaced them with cool, calm serenity. At least, as much as I could manage on the fly. My own nervousness about having never tried this before didn’t make things any easier.

  It came a little easier this time. It didn’t take as long. Mr. Howell didn’t turn into a docile little house puppy like I was aiming for, but after a few minutes, a peaceful countenance shone from him and I felt confident enough to start asking some questions.

  “Mr. Howell, how do you like Sunny Pines?” Some of the calmness ebbed away,

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  but I reinforced the wall I’d built as best I could.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” he said. “Could be better, I suppose.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He shrugged uncomfortably and the wall started to crumble. Behind it, I sensed a flood of anxiety just waiting to burst forth.

  “Well, I don’t know. Sometimes some of the staff are pretty mean, ya know.”

  I nodded. Walking was growing difficult under the strain of keeping Mr. Howell at ease. “I do know. What else?” We arrived at the elevators. I pretended to press the call button.

  “They run an awful lot of tests.”

  That perked me up. “What kind of tests?” More cracks appeared in the wall. I felt some of the anxiety seeping to the surface.

  “All kinds. CAT scans. MRI’s. EKG’s. You name it. I can’t complain too bad, though. Most of the time I’m sound asleep and don’t even remember having ’em done.

  Say, is that elevator gonna get here anytime today?”

  That was it. That was all I had. I relaxed and nearly sagged to the floor with relief.

  I felt a rush of tension come from Mr. Howell.

  “Say there! Are you all right Miss Foster?”

  “I’m fine,” I said thickly. “Just need a second.”

  “Sure. Listen, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention any of what I said to anybody. Some people might get the wrong impression and I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Right. Sure. No trouble. Got it.”

  The elevator chose that moment to open and Miss Thornbirch stood there in all

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  her glory.

  “Miss Foster, is there a problem?”

  Great. “No problem. Mr. Howell here just had a little accident in the cafeteria. I was escorting him to the elevator so he could go back to his room.”

  “Is that right?” She looked at both of us with obvious disdain. Mr. Howell was more troubled by it than I. “Well, come along Mr. Howell. Let’s get you cleaned up.” I turned to go back up the hallway, feeling like a hare that‘d barely escaped the fox. “And Miss Foster?” Shit. “The next time you feel like having a conversation with a resident, wait until after you do your duty by them.”

  I managed to nod, although what I really wanted to do was flip her both fingers and tell her where she could stick her duty. She flashed me a nasty sneer just as the doors closed and I had just enough time to see all the color drain out of Mr. Howell’s face. I hoped I hadn’t just made a terrible mistake.

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  Chapter Twenty One

  “I don’t get it. What are we doing here again?” Jenny asked. Night had long since fallen and we were sitting in the parking lot of Sunny Pines.

  “Investigating.”

  “Investigating what?”

  “Mr. Howell said that they’d been running a bunch of tests on him.”

  “Yeah. He’s old. Half the people I talked to said they had some kind of medical procedure coming up or was recovering from one.”

  I nodded. “Right. But he also said something else. That most of the time, he was asleep when they did whatever they were supposed to do.”

  “Don’t they usually put people to sleep for that kind of thing?

  I shook my head. “No way. Using anesthesia on someone that age is extremely risky. And for something as mild as a CAT scan, there was no reason why he should have been put under.”

  “What are you thinking, Chick? Don’t hold me in suspense.”

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  “What if,” I lowered my voice, “they never did anything at all?”

  Jenny blinked a couple of times. “I don’t follow you.”

  “What if they just told the residents they were going for a medical procedure?” I said, gaining momentum now. “What if they go ahead with everything? With the preparation, the consultation, everything. And when it comes time for the actual procedure, they slip the resident a local anesthetic, and they sleep comfortably in their room. When they wake up, the nurse or doctor or whoever tells them everything went great and they’ll get the results in a few weeks. Then, they
bill the insurance and someone in charge pockets the money.”

  “I suppose that could work,” Jenny said slowly.

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “Well, there’s a couple of problems I see. First, what happens when they don’t get any results from all these tests? Wouldn’t someone get suspicious?”

  I shook my head. “Results can be faked. And even if they weren’t, you know as well as I do the people here are so on edge they aren’t going to make any waves. Next.”

  “Okay. Don’t the insurance companies have to have an invoice or something?

  And Sunny Pines isn’t exactly equipped to set up these procedures. So it would take someone at the hospital to manage the paper work, wouldn’t it?”

  I made a buzzing sound like it was an incorrect answer on a game show. “Wrong again. Remember, Sunny Pines runs on the same system as King’s Mission. In fact, they’re networked. They can set everything up over the internet. They can book operating rooms, radiology exams, the works. They can even log in arrive and departure times.

  Unless someone went through and physically looked at the security cams, there’d be no

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  way to disprove anything that was on those papers.”

  She let out a low whistle of amazement. “And the insurance companies pay through the nose for a procedure that never happened. Pretty slick.”

  “Pretty disgusting! These poor people are tortured into believing they’re going for tests and surgeries, when in fact they’re put in very real danger just by being drugged.

  Then their insurance’s are billed for the full amount, and they’re kept in a state of constant terror so they can’t say anything. It makes me sick.”

  “Agreed. But that still doesn’t answer my original question. What are we doing here again?”

  I swallowed down some of the anger I was feeling. “There has to be a paper trail somewhere. We’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars at a time. They have to have some way of keeping it all straight.”

  She nodded. “And they can’t exactly turn it in on the books. Couple hundred thousand in mysterious revenue might look a tad suspicious.”

  “Right. So we’re going to find that paper trail and use it spank good Director Lowry’s saggy ass.” Jenny let out a laugh and we high fived.

  “I love it when you talk dirty. Let’s go.”

  We got out and went inside. We didn’t actually sneak in. There was no way we could avoid being seen so we just smiled and nodded to the night shift like we had all the right in the world to be there. It actually worked, and we made it to the elevator unchallenged.

  We hit the button for the third floor and, after a few moments, the doors opened to a modern day office with fresh carpet and paint. This was a stark contrast to the outdated

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  and dilapidated facility below. The lights were down and it looked like everyone had gone home, but even in the darkness it was impressive. Everything was fresh and new, from the interpretive art on the walls to the sleek computer systems on every desk.

  Jenny let out a low whistle of amazement. “Now this is an office.”

  I didn’t trust myself to speak. My blood was boiling at the residents below living in something very near squalor, while Lowry sat up here in splendor. How much money had gone into making this paradise for him? How much money that could have gone to new, updated living conditions for the ones he was supposed to be looking after?

  “Easy, Girl,” Jenny said. “If you were a dog, your hackles would be up.”

  “Let’s just find what we need so we can nail the son of a bitch,” I growled.

  “Lead on.”

  We walked down a tight hallway and hung a left when it ended. I’d never been up here before, but Jonah had said something about following my instincts, so that’s what I did. It must have worked, because we soon found ourselves facing a thick set of double doors with a curved secretary desk out front.

  “Dollars to donuts that’s where our sleazebag spends his time,” Jenny said.

  I nodded but my attention was somewhere else. Something was tickling my empathic nerve. Someone was here, and that someone was feeling frisky.

  A pale blue glow shone out of one of the nearby offices. It was a lit computer monitor, and whoever was looking at it had only to glance up to see us trying to sneak by.

  I told Jenny what was up.

  “What’s someone doing here this time of night?” she hissed, now that there was a reason to be quiet.

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  I shrugged. “Judging by the vibe I’m getting off him, not watching reruns of the Brady Bunch on YouTube.”

  Jenny giggled. “You sure it’s a him?”

  “Positive.”

  “Good. That makes it easy.” As I watched, she undid her ponytail, tied her shirt around her midriff and pushed up her breasts until they fairly popped out and said hello.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like a dime-store hooker on clearance,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “You need a distraction. I’m it.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “You really think this’ll work?”

  “If he’s doing what you say he’s doing, then yeah, I think it’ll work. If not, at least it’ll be fun trying.” She winked, knocked the door and grinned as we both heard a frantic shuffling of papers and muffled cursing. She went inside without waiting for an invitation.

  “Hi. I’m new here and kind of got turned around. Could you help me?” I fairly rolled my eyes. There was no way this was going to work. Jenny’s impression of a sexually frustrated damsel in distress wasn’t going to win any Oscar’s.

  “Um, sure. Sure, I can help you with whatever you need,” a male voice said. I’ll be damned. Was he kidding? The air was popping with his lust and, as Jenny poured on her charm, it really started to crank up in volume.

  I peered inside. My friend was actually leaning over the desk, giving the guy behind it a bird’s eye view of her cleavage. She was giggling and chewing on a piece of hair while he ogled her and did his best to make small talk.

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  Gotta hand it to her. She knows how to distract. I slipped by, although at that point I could have probably walked by with a marching band and he wouldn’t have noticed. There was something to be said for womanly wiles.

  I tried the door to Lowry’s office and wasn’t surprised when I found it locked. A quick search of the secretary’s station revealed the entrance buzzer and I let myself in.

  The director’s office was just as majestic as the rest of the floor. There was a small fountain in the corner, a mural against one wall and a desk that was every bit as impressive as the one I saw in Sebastian King’s office. I stopped myself from letting out a low whistle and got started on my search.

  The most logical place was the filing cabinets in the corner. I tried them and, to my surprise, found them unlocked. Apparently, with his door safely secured, Lowry didn’t believe in redundant precautions. Made my job easier.

  There were hundreds of files in there. I scanned a few of, but nothing popped out as dishonest. Apparently these were the doctored records that were on the books. I had to look deeper. Somewhere in here was the evidence I needed. I was sure of it.

  I tried something I’d never done before. I opened up my empathic senses and tried to get a feel for what I was looking for. It wasn’t easy. I was getting a lot of mixed signals, none of them good.

  The couch in the corner had been used more than once for the dirty deed. To my eternal disgust, I felt Thornbirch’s impression on it. I swallowed the bile that threatened to rise up and firmly stomped on the mental image it tried to create.

  Then I focused on the desk. There was something about it that tickled my fancy.

  Just an impression that made me want to take a closer look. I went over to it and ran my

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fingers lightly over its surface. Some shading dealing had definitely gone on here. The whole thing reeked of dishonesty, secrecy and over all scumbagginess. But it was too broad. I had to narrow it down.

  As much as I hated doing it, I opened my senses wider, trying to get a feel for the specifics of what went on here. The whole place felt dirty and crooked, like being inside a sewage tunnel and not knowing which end was up. A few days ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. But practicing what Jonah had taught me had strengthened my defenses and I managed to muddle through it.

  Almost without realizing it, my left hand drifted down to one of the lower drawers and hovered just on the handle. There was something in there. Some little dark spot that begged to be left alone. That was my ticket.

  I opened the drawer and rummaged around. It was a junk drawer. Bits of paper, extra packs of staples and a few snack items. Nothing even remotely damning, unless he was on a diet, which, judging by his ever increasing girth, I doubted. I shrugged off the disappointment that tried to engulf me and opened up again.

  There was definitely something here. Something that didn’t want to be seen.

  Something, just below the surface.

  That was it! I felt along the creases in the drawer and was rewarded when my finger found a little hollowed out spot in the corner. I reached in and pulled and the whole bottom came out, spilling its items all over the floor.

  A false bottom, Mr. Lowry? How very James Bond of you. I looked in and beheld a tiny flash drive sitting innocently in its little crook. Jackpot.

  Lowry’s computer was encrypted, but it still ran on the King Healthcare servers.