by Carrie Smith
As the porters rebagged the garbage and returned it to the dumpster, Codella moved closer to Hodges. The woman’s face was now a flat screen of panic. Codella showed her the inside of the cup. “That caregiver on the video didn’t give Lucy Merchant water, did he?”
Hodges eyed the remains of medicine in the cup.
“You might as well tell me the truth right now,” said Codella. “Because it’s going to come out sooner or later.”
Hodges sighed. “No. It was diazepam—Mrs. Merchant’s nightly sedative.”
“And you knew that when you told Julia Merchant otherwise?”
Hodges rubbed her left shoulder over and over. Her nod was almost imperceptible.
“You need to tell me what happened.”
Hodges breathed deeply and sighed. “Cheryl O’Brien—the night nurse—had trouble administering meds to Mrs. Merchant,” she explained in a pained, confessional tone. “Lucy didn’t like her for some reason, so Lucy Merchant’s caregiver—his name is Brandon Johnson—gave the meds to her.”
“Which is against Park Manor policy, of course.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t want Julia Merchant to find that out?”
“No,” Hodges acknowledged. “I didn’t.”
Codella shrugged in what she hoped was a convincing display of indifference. “Fine. I can understand that. I mean, I’m sure these families let you have it for every little infraction, don’t they?”
Hodges’s squinting eyes conveyed her mistrust of Codella’s empathy.
“You broke a house rule. You didn’t break the law. And as you say, Julia’s grieving. She’ll do anything to keep her mother front and center in her mind—even if it means thinking the worst about others—about you.” She paused, giving Hodges time to process. “Fortunately we now have a way out of this.”
Hodges squinted. “What do you mean?”
Codella held up the cup. “This is our way out.”
The director still looked confused.
“If I take this cup, the rug fibers I collected, and Lucy Merchant’s prescription medications, I can run some quick tests on them. They’re called presumptive tests. I can show that there was nothing in her cup or on her floor except her medicine. And that should be enough to put Julia’s concerns to rest.”
Hodges took another deep breath and sighed again. “But I told her there was only water in the cup. I—”
“You lied to her. True.” Codella shrugged again. “But once I show her there’s nothing lethal in the cup, it won’t matter. She’ll give up her crusade—and you and I both know there’s nothing in this cup except the diazepam.” She waited. She didn’t believe any such thing.
The woman nodded.
Codella removed another evidence bag from her pocket and placed the cup inside it carefully. “Let’s go get her meds,” she said.
They threaded their way through the winding basement passages until they were standing in front of the service elevator again. They rode back to the third floor and returned to the Nostalgia Neighborhood. Hodges led her past a small windowless office with “Baiba Lielkaja, Care Coordinator” etched on a brass nameplate. The office was empty, and Codella heard Hodges’s voice in her head. She called in sick today. Was the care coordinator’s absence coincidental, or had she called in because she wasn’t ready to answer questions that might be posed to her? Was she taking time to construct a story or communicate with others—conspirators—about deeds they had done? If Lielkaja had a role in whatever had happened to Lucy Merchant, she would have been smart to come to work and maintain her usual routines, Codella thought. But the guilty often panicked and violated that obvious rule of thumb. Codella made a mental note to look carefully into Baiba Lielkaja.
The closed door next to Lielkaja’s office had a nameplate that read “Dispensary.” Hodges stopped and said, “Wait here. I’ll get the day nurse to open up.”
A moment later, she returned with an attractive young Filipino woman wearing burgundy nurses’ scrubs. Hodges introduced the nurse as Lorena Vivas. Codella shook her hand and explained that she needed to take medications belonging to Lucy Merchant.
Vivas unlocked the dispensary, opened a file drawer, and removed Lucy Merchant’s medicine chart. The nurse’s large brown eyes scanned the page. “She takes a multivitamin and Benefiber at breakfast, like most of the residents. There’s only one prescription drug ordered for her.”
“What is that medication?” Codella glanced at the chart over Vivas’s shoulder and photographed it with her iPhone.
“Diazepam,” said Vivas.
“That’s her nightly sedative?”
Vivas nodded. “It used to be known as Valium.”
“It’s not a narcotic. Correct?”
“That’s correct. It’s a benzodiazepine.”
“Tell me more about that.”
“Benzos are psychoactive drugs,” explained Vivas. “Tranquilizers. They work on a neurotransmitter in the brain. They have a calming effect. We don’t use diazepam with most residents—we prefer to give them a different psychoactive drug, Atavan—but Lucy Merchant didn’t respond well to that. It didn’t help her sleep. She had a lot of trouble sleeping.”
“I need to take that bottle,” said Codella, and she reached in her pocket for an evidence bag and the same nitrile glove she had worn in Lucy Merchant’s suite. “Just point to it. Please don’t touch it. I’ll pick it up and put it in the bag, and then you’ll sign the bag to confirm that I have the right one.”
Five minutes later, Codella followed Hodges out of the Nostalgia Neighborhood with three sealed evidence bags. They sat in armchairs near the elevator, and Codella unfolded a consent form she’d brought with her. “I need you to sign this form, Ms. Hodges. It gives me permission to remove these items from Park Manor. It’s just a necessary formality.” She willed indifference onto her face yet again. If Hodges refused to sign the document, then Codella would have to leave the fibers, the cup, and the diazepam bottle behind. She would be forced to call in a uniformed officer to safeguard the items while she tried to convince a judge to grant her a search warrant based on scant evidence—Julia Merchant’s video and the results of a presumptive drug test on fibers that didn’t meet chain of custody standards. And how many judges would go out on a limb based on that, especially when someone like Thomas Merchant of BNA was involved?
Hodges stared at the form, and Codella could see the director wavering. She needed to hear that everything would turn out all right for her, and only that certainty would result in her signature on the line. “If you sign,” Codella said, “I can do the field tests and I can put Julia Merchant’s concerns to rest within hours.” She stared into the woman’s golden eyes and smiled. You did what you had to do to get to the truth—and sometimes that involved lying.
Hodges continued to vacillate.
“It’s up to you,” Codella added, “but I suspect there are many other matters you’d prefer to concentrate on, and I certainly have more pressing investigations to attend to.” If only that were true, she thought.
“And you’ll know something today?”
“That is my intention.” Codella pulled a pen out of her pocket and waited for Hodges’s trembling fingers to take it.
CHAPTER 24
Julia saw her aunt enter the restaurant at precisely twelve thirty. Pamela scanned the tables, spotted Julia, and crossed the dining room as if it belonged to her. They kissed on both cheeks—only the Martinelli side of the family did that—and her aunt announced, “I have a deposition at two,” as she sat and pulled in her chair. “We should order right away.”
“They have good salads here,” Julia said.
Pamela seemed unmoved by this information. She placed her cloth napkin on her lap and gestured to the waiter with an expression that signaled, Hurry up and do your job. Pamela never just let things happen, Julia thought. Maybe she knew she wouldn’t get what she wanted if she did. She had none of Julia’s mother’s physical grace, flair, or fe
minine seductiveness. It wasn’t that Pamela couldn’t afford to look stylish—she was, after all, a highly paid trial attorney with an impressive record of keeping guilty white-collar felons out of federal prison. But she wore only minimal makeup—haphazardly applied mascara and a dark shade of lipstick that was completely wrong for her complexion—and she gravitated to tailored suits in dark colors. Today she wore navy pinstripes. Brooks Brothers, Julia guessed from the cut. Not Armani.
The waiter brought stiff, leather-bound menus and stood there while they decided. When he left, Julia said, “Thanks for meeting me.”
“How are you holding up, sweetheart?”
That was all the invitation Julia needed. While they waited for their salads, she told her aunt everything that had happened since her father had called her yesterday morning. “What if I hadn’t watched that video? We would never have known.”
Pamela registered no opinion. “What did the detective say to you?”
“That there weren’t enough red flags—her words—to warrant police involvement. She said I should ask for an autopsy—to put my mind at ease.”
Pamela glanced at the iPhone in her lap.
“I thought she was very dismissive,” Julia added. “The police never want to go out of their way, do they?”
Pamela looked up again. “They need solid evidence to open a case, honey. You’re speculating. But she’s right, you could request an autopsy if you want one. They would have to perform it.”
“I do want one, but my father would never forgive me. He’d take away—” Julia regretted the words instantly. “Never mind.”
But Pamela was already jumping on them like a seasoned cross-examiner. “He’d cut you off. Isn’t that what you were about to say?” She leaned in and stared at Julia. “The same way he threatened to cut you off if you didn’t get tested. Am I right?”
Julia twisted the napkin in her lap and shrugged.
“You’re too dependent on him. You have to stop living off his monthly checks, Julia. It’s bad for you. It’s the worst possible thing. You have to get a job—and not at BNA.”
“It’s only because of Park City,” Julia said. Park City was her way of referring to the accident. She preferred not to say accident, because every time she did, she visualized her body wiping out in the powder and doing three-sixties until her skis flew off and she slammed into a tree. “I’m going to start looking soon. I am.” But just saying these words terrified her, and she knew she would do anything imaginable not to have to face stony sets of interviewer eyes looking for excuses to disqualify her. You’ve been out of college for a year. What have you done since then? What skills do you have? What are you passionate about? Where do you see yourself in five years? Did other people really know where they wanted to end up or were they just better liars than she was? She was afraid she would never get a job without using the one qualification she didn’t want to use—the fact that she was the daughter of Thomas A. Merchant and Lucy Martinelli Merchant.
“I know you want the best for me,” she told her aunt. “But right now, I can only focus on my mother. There should be an autopsy, and I can’t demand one.” She paused. “But you could.”
Pamela sat back and laughed so loudly that the two women at the table behind her turned their heads. “Is that why you asked me to lunch?”
Julia hedged. “Don’t you want to know the truth?”
Pamela’s smile turned into a penetrating stare that made Julia squirm. Witnesses on the stand probably felt this way under her aunt’s cross-examination. “You forget one thing, Julia. Your mother and I were not close. Why should I pretend to be her grieving sister? When she didn’t attend my wedding three years ago, it was the last straw for me. You know that.”
The waiter arrived with their salads. Neither of them spoke while he set down the plates, offered freshly ground pepper, and asked if he could get them anything else. When he departed, Julia told her aunt, “My father didn’t want her to go. He said you were using her to get your wedding on Page Six.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Pamela picked up her fork. “I don’t give a fuck about Page Six and he knows it. He didn’t want Lucy associated with her lesbian sister—he was afraid to offend his rich conservative clients. I may defend them, but I don’t pander to them. Your father has no spine. And he still believes that rich white men are going to call the shots forever. I can’t wait for him to find out how it feels not to have a seat at the table. I hope I live to see the look on his face when no one takes his calls.” She stabbed a heart of palm. “And Lucy went along with him—my own sister, whose most ardent fans were gay men, for God’s sake.”
“I think the dementia was affecting her judgment even then,” suggested Julia.
“Possibly.” Pamela chewed as she spoke. “But that doesn’t justify her behavior for twenty-five years. She treated her fans better than she ever treated me—or you, for that matter. Hardly anyone in her circle even knew she had a sister—and plenty of them didn’t know she had a daughter, either.”
“That’s not true. Don’t say that.”
Pamela set down her fork, wiped her lip with her napkin, and leaned her elbows on the table. “You can live in your fantasy, Julia, but I don’t. I went through a lot of therapy to deal with my resentments of your mother, and you know what my therapist called her?”
“What?”
“A malignant narcissist.”
“What’s that?”
“Look it up.” She glanced at her watch. “I know this is a tough time for you, but my advice is move on with your life. Let her go. Stop trying to prove you deserved her love. It’s too late. It was always too late.”
Julia couldn’t think of anything to say.
Pamela set her napkin next to her plate. “I’ve got to go.” She picked up her purse, took out her wallet, and laid five crisp twenties on the table. “That should do it,” she said as she pushed out her chair.
CHAPTER 25
Baiba opened her door. Brandon took one look at her and froze. Broken capillaries charted a road map across the whites of her eyes. Red marks ringed her neck. Her hands trembled. Her face was pale and damp.
Baiba turned without a word and went back to her pullout couch. She crawled between the sheets and hugged a pillow against her baggy T-shirt as if it were a stuffed animal. He followed her to the foot of the mattress. “What happened? Are you okay?” He sat on the edge of the bed.
Her chin quivered. She covered her face and began to cry softly. Soon her sobs intensified. She gasped for air, coughed, and rocked back and forth with the pillow clasped tightly against her breasts. He didn’t know what to do except wait. When her sobs finally turned into muffled moans, he went to the sink, poured her a glass of water, and brought it back to the bed. Then he found a box of tissues in her bathroom and set it down beside her.
Questions multiplied in his mind. He sat next to her again, placed his hand on her back, and felt her ragged inhalations. He watched her alarm clock for three unbearably long minutes. Give her time, he told himself. Give her time. And finally she said, “I went out last night and someone drugged me and—”
“Oh my God, Baiba. That’s terrible.” He put his arm around her shoulder and she moved a little closer to him. “What can I do?”
“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” she said, “but—I just woke up so foggy. I couldn’t remember anything and—”
“Of course you should have called. You can always call me.”
She put her hand on his knee. “You’re a good friend, Brandon.”
“You need to report this, you know. Where were you when it happened? In a bar?”
“Something like that.”
Brandon sensed her evasion. “Who did it? Did you know him?”
Baiba covered her face. “Oh, God, Brandon.”
“What? What is it, Baiba?”
“If I tell you something, do you promise you won’t say anything?”
“Of course.”
And then she blurte
d out, “It was Merchant. Thomas Merchant.”
Brandon felt the name like a punch in the solar plexus. “What?”
“I’ve been seeing him, okay?”
“Seeing him? You mean having an—” He stopped and considered his words. “A relationship with him?”
“Yes. But no one knows, okay? I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. You can understand why, can’t you?”
Brandon was too stunned to answer. He managed to nod his head.
“He asked me to dinner last month. I shouldn’t have agreed to go. I know that. But I wanted to.”
Brandon’s body was humming. He imagined his pores constricting so that his skin became a protective membrane shielding him from the words.
“He took me to the Four Seasons. God, that place is amazing. It was so romantic.”
“I bet.” Brandon’s mouth felt dry.
“And then he took me home,” she continued.
And fucked you, Brandon thought. He didn’t breathe. He had to fight the urge to pull his hand away from her, as if she were suddenly infectious. In the space of an instant, his whole conception of who she was began to crumble. He shook his head as if this movement could reset his thoughts and emotions. How could you do this to me? he wanted to say, and then a hot lump of shame formed in his throat.
Two years ago, Baiba had introduced herself to him across a desk in the small first-floor office where prospective caregivers were interviewed at Park Manor. They had talked for half an hour, and at the end of the interview, he had felt certain that she would hire him. Later he learned that she had had to advocate on his behalf because Constance Hodges had not wanted him on her staff. And since then, she had never asked him to be anything other than what he was. No one—not even Maybelle—had tried to understand him the way Baiba had. Whether out of discomfort, repulsion, or politeness, the others had astutely avoided the issue of who and what he was. But not Baiba. One evening while they were in Arthur Lane’s bedroom sorting through the clothes, jewelry, and photos he regularly pilfered from other residents’ suites, she had asked him, “When did you first realize you were, you know, a man in a woman’s body?”
