Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries)

by Ryan, Annelise

  I thank him, and disconnect the call, pondering how Izzy was able to identify erectile dysfunction pills so quickly. Then I decide I don’t want to go there.

  I find Hurley surrounded by a bunch of white, gray, and blue-haired ladies, and if the tittering giggles, bashful hand gestures, and sideways eye flutters are any indication, they are all gaga over him. I can’t say I blame them. After one look at Hurley’s black hair, blue eyes, chiseled jaw, and lanky legs, it’s hard to keep the hormones in check, and apparently, despite being well past menopause, these ladies have plenty of hormones left.

  I venture over toward the group and ask Hurley if I can speak to him a moment. This earns me several looks of contempt, and one of the women goes so far as to voice her objection.

  “Hey, wait your turn, missy!” she says. The woman is well built and attractive for her age with carefully coifed, snow-white hair, hooker-red fingernails, and a carefully made-up face. She is dressed in tight black slacks, a low-cut red blouse, and shiny red pumps, which strike me as inappropriate for a woman her age until I see that she is sitting in a motorized wheelchair. Hell, the woman could wear six-inch stilettos if she wanted to because she doesn’t have to walk anywhere in them.

  “I’ll give him back to you,” I say. “We work together and I just need to speak to him for a minute.”

  Clearly she is not satisfied with my answer because she motors toward me, grabs my arm, and pulls me aside. “You need to make it quick, darling, because I’m working my best magic on this guy and right now he’s the only man in this facility who looks like he’s capable of sustaining a stiffy for any length of time. Hell, half these guys can’t even get a stiffy, much less maintain one. I once tried to talk Bernie Chase into salting the food with Viagra, arguing that it would help him with his safety record because it would keep some of these old fools from rolling out of bed. But he wouldn’t go for it and now I’m stuck with a bunch of limp noodles. Don’t let this wheelchair fool you. I’m not dead in that part of my body yet, and while I’m not saying it’s been a long time since I last had sex, I do vaguely recall seeing a T-Rex thunder by during my post-coital haze, so I’m in need here, understand?”

  “And you think you can score with that detective?” I say, barely suppressing a smile.

  She then does something so shocking it makes me back up a step. First, she turns her wheelchair away from the others so that only I can see her face. She contorts her lips and pops both an upper and lower denture loose, letting them stick partway out of her mouth for a second before she sucks them back in. Then she leans in closer to me and wiggles her carefully drawn eyebrows. “Play a skin flute once without the teeth and you got ’em for life,” she whispers.

  It takes a lot to shock me. If you work as a nurse in an ER for any length of time you see and hear things that would mortify most people. Despite that, Snow White’s comment makes me gasp and clamp a hand over my mouth.

  Hurley hears it and looks over at us. “Did Gwen just confess?” he asks with half a grin.

  “Not to murder,” I say.

  Gwen gives me a smug smile and motors back over to Hurley. “I’ll share everything I know with you,” she says, stroking his arm. “You come and find me when you’re done talking to the big-boned blonde.”

  I see Hurley’s mouth twitch and know he’s trying to suppress a smile.

  “Will do,” he says, and then the two of us leave the dayroom and head down the hall. There are still a lot of people milling about in the halls: patients, family, and staff. When we glance inside the employee break room and see that it’s empty, we head inside for privacy.

  “Mystery solved on the pills we found in Bernie’s safe,” I tell him. “They’re Cialis. Apparently Bernie needed a little help from time to time in obtaining and maintaining an erection.”

  “That’s a problem I never have when you’re around,” Hurley says, wiggling his eyebrows salaciously. “You have this funny way of getting me all hot and bothered, Winston.”

  His words make my insides go all squishy. When he reaches over and takes my arm, I think he’s going to hug me but instead, he turns and hauls me into the locker room that’s off to one side of the break room. He pulls me to him and before I can utter a word, he kisses me. For a nanosecond, I consider stopping him, but the physical sensations pulsing through my body prevent me. For the next two minutes, our hands, our lips, our entire bodies are stroking, touching, caressing....

  The break room door opens and we hear women’s voices out in the main room. Hurley and I split apart so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t cause an explosion, particularly given all the heat between us. We spend a few seconds smoothing our clothes and hair, wiping our lips, and trying to look as innocent and professional as possible. I’m not sure we succeed before two of the nursing assistants I talked to earlier, Debbie and Miriam, enter the locker room nibbling on chocolate chip cookies. They stop short at the sight of us.

  Several long seconds of silence follow and I wonder if I’m the only one who can hear my heart pounding in my chest.

  “I’m sorry, ladies, do you need to get to your lockers?” Hurley says. “That would be great because I don’t believe we’ve had the opportunity to search yours yet.”

  Neither of the women answers for several long seconds. Then Miriam says, “Have at it. I’ve got nothing to hide unless you’re looking for lip balm and tampons.” She sticks the remainder of her cookie in her mouth, walks over to unlock her locker, and flings the door open wide. Debbie shrugs and follows suit.

  We find no smoking guns hiding inside either locker and after Hurley says, “Thanks. We appreciate your cooperation,” the two of us leave the room. There is a container of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the table in the main part of the break room and before we exit, I grab two of them.

  Out in the hallway I offer one of the cookies to Hurley, but he turns it down, leaving me to wonder if I should confess my consumption to Gunther.

  “You know what?” Hurley says, leaning up against the wall and speaking in a low voice so others navigating the hall won’t hear. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything helpful here by talking to any more of these patients. None of them have an alibi because they were all here at the time of the murder, but as far as we know, none of them would have had access to the administrative wing on Saturday, either. Nor can I see any of them exacting some sort of vigilante revenge on Bernard Chase because they believe that rumor that’s been going around. None of the employees look good for anything except maybe Regan Simmons and Jeanette Throckmorton. As for the rest of the board members, only one of them, the doctor, has a solid alibi, but I’m not seeing a motive for any of them. I think we need to look outside the facility more. I’m going to give Junior a call and think we should head out to interview the Waldheim boys, Vonda Lincoln, and Mr. Simmons.”

  “There’s one thing that bothers me about looking outside, though,” I say, taking a small bite of cookie. “Access. The front door is manned all the time so if anyone gained access to the administrative wing via the front entrance, they would have been seen. Even if they hadn’t signed in, the person on duty would have known about it and that was Connie. She swears no one got in through there and she’s a bit of a sign-in Nazi. I can’t see her letting anyone slide. That leaves the back door, the one to the outside. But it’s locked all the time. Even if you come in that way with a key, the door remains locked once it closes. So how would any of these outside people get in?”

  “Chase would have had to let them in,” Hurley says. “Maybe he arranged to meet with someone and met them at the door at the agreed upon time. Or maybe he made a copy of his key for Regan Simmons so she could sneak in to meet him for their trysts. Maybe her husband followed her, or spied on her and saw her go in that way and then borrowed her key to pay a surprise visit to Chase.”

  “Okay, but how would he know that Bernie would be here on a Saturday morning?”

  “Maybe he was following Chase, too.”

 
“That seems like a lot of maybes. There is another possibility. Bjorn let himself in using Irene’s key. What if someone came in with him and he just doesn’t remember it?”

  “If that were true, then whatever drug or poison was given to Chase would have to be very fast acting, almost instantaneous. Any ideas what that might be?”

  I think about that for a moment. “Cyanide is the only thing I can think of. But we already tested for that and it came back negative.”

  Our hallway tête-à-tête is interrupted by the mechanical hum of a motor as Gwen, aka Snow White, comes cruising up to us. “Hey there, handsome,” she says to Hurley. “I’m tired of waiting. If you and the cookie monster here don’t have a thing going, you might want to give me a try. We mature women have our perks, you know.” She leans forward in her chair, giving Hurley a bird’s eye view of her cleavage.

  It also gives me a bird’s eye view of the waist of her underclothes. Before she can shock Hurley with her teeth trick, I say, “You mature women also have some things that can be a bit off-putting.”

  “Such as?” Gwen says with a scowl.

  “Depends.”

  “Depends on what?” she snaps.

  “Just Depends.”

  Gwen narrows her eyes at me and I wouldn’t be surprised to see steam come out her ears. She toggles her wheelchair around, nearly hitting me in the process, and motors off toward the dayroom.

  “This case is making me crazy,” Hurley says, running a hand through his hair. “And all these old people are making me crazy. Let’s go interview some outsiders.”

  I nod, and give him a halfhearted smile knowing that I’m going to give him a whole new definition for crazy when I finally hand over Kate’s letter.

  Chapter 26

  Alight rain begins to fall as we head out to talk to the Waldheim boys, who live on a sprawling farm a mile or so out of town. It’s a working farm, complete with cows, pigs, and the requisite faded red barn with a fieldstone foundation. Ironically, the barn is in better condition than the original farmhouse, a two-story boxy structure that looks as if a strong wind could blow it down. Spaced out around the main house are three mobile homes, six pickups of various ages, and a number of rusted car and tractor bodies.

  If it was a few weeks later in the year, the odds of catching the Waldheim boys anywhere near the barn or the trailers would be long ones because they would be out tilling the fields, readying for their spring planting. Despite the warm weather we’ve had recently, the ground hasn’t thawed much yet. Apparently it’s not too early to fertilize the soil however, because the smell of manure is strong in the air. It’s a smell any Wisconsinite gets to know, and normally it doesn’t bother me. But for some reason today it’s making my stomach lurch.

  Hurley parks his car and the two of us get out. Junior is behind us in his patrol car, and because the Waldheim boys have something of a reputation and we’re technically outside Hurley’s jurisdiction, we have also notified the county sheriff and deputies are on standby should we need them.

  The Waldheim farm has been family run for four generations. Ruth’s husband inherited the farm from his father at the tender age of twenty after a tragic combine accident, and running it kept him busy and single well into his forties. He met Ruth, who was also in her forties and willing to take on the role of farm wife. Everyone thought they were too old to have kids, but the couple proved otherwise when Ruth spit out three boys in as many years.

  As we pull up and park alongside the old farmhouse, the Waldheim boys come out of the barn to see who has arrived. All three of them are huge men standing six and a half feet tall and weighing well over three hundred pounds. They have always been huge. Even in grade school, they towered above the rest of the kids, including me. If the oldest boy, Jordy, had made it to high school, he might’ve saved me from being the tallest person in my class my freshman, sophomore, and junior years. But old man Waldheim died when Jordy was in the sixth grade for the third time, and when that happened, Ruth pulled all three of them out of school so they could help with the farm. Supposedly she homeschooled the boys, but I’ve met and interacted with them enough times to know that if Sorenson is ever invaded by brain-eating zombies, the Waldheim boys will be safe.

  At first glance, one might assume the boys are triplets, but upon closer inspection you begin to notice subtle differences. This triplet effect is enhanced by the fact that they are all wearing the same clothes: denim overalls with long-sleeved, plaid flannel shirts, and knee-high, “muck-rucking” rubber boots. Their heads are bare; the only things protecting them from the rain are dark tonsorial rings, earmuffs, and a rather pronounced brow ridge. They make up for the lack of hair on their heads with thick winter beards that will likely require weed whackers and hedge trimmers when it comes time to trim them, assuming that’s ever done.

  “Can I help you?” one of the brothers asks as we approach. I’m pretty sure it’s Jordy, but I haven’t seen them in a few years so I’m not certain.

  Hurley makes the introductions and then asks the boys for their names. I discover I’m right in thinking the one who spoke is Jordy. Jerome and Jethro flank him on either side, and all three of them are staring at me in a way that makes me squirm. I suspect they are undressing me with their eyes, but I can’t tell if it’s because they want to have sex with me, or if it’s because they want to skin me alive, tan my hide, and boil up the rest for dinner.

  Junior has his hand hovering close to his gun, but if Hurley is at all intimidated, he doesn’t show it. “We’re here to talk to you about the death of Bernard Chase.”

  Jordy arches his brow. “That creep is dead?”

  “He is,” Hurley says. “Murdered, in fact. Know anything about it?”

  “No,” Jerome says with a snort. “But I’d like to buy a beer for whoever did it.”

  “Why is that?” Hurley asks.

  “Because that asshole was molesting our mother,” Jethro says with a sneer.

  “What proof do you have of that?” Hurley asks.

  “Momma said so,” Jethro yells. “What more proof do you need?”

  I step up, trying to make eye contact with Jordy since he seems to be the one in charge. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Jordy,” I say, using my best calming nurse voice, “but we all know that your mama is pretty confused these days. What happened to her when she was younger was a terrible, terrible thing, but then she found your daddy and everything was good. Now that her mind is starting to go, she’s living in the past. I remember when you brought her into the ER seven, eight years ago. Even then, she was pretty confused, and I’ve heard that Bernard Chase looked like the guy who attacked your momma when she was younger. Is that true?”

  “It is,” Jordy says. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do what she said.”

  “If you truly believe Bernard Chase molested your mother, why haven’t you filed a police complaint about it?” Hurley asks.

  All three boys narrow their eyes at Hurley, their feet shuffling nervously, their fists opening and closing, opening and closing.

  “Yeah, right,” Jethro says. “Like that would do any good. All you snobby, smarty-pants, rich people hang together and protect the perverts.”

  “I need to know where the three of you were yesterday morning between the hours of nine and noon,” Hurley says, clearly growing impatient.

  The brothers look at one another and then Jordy smiles. “Seems we got us an alley-by. We drove up to Green Bay yesterday to buy seed. Left here around seven-thirty in the morning and didn’t get back until after five last night.”

  Hurley looks quite bummed at this news, particularly after he asks for addresses and the brothers provide them without hesitation, along with the names of people who saw them there. After jotting down all this information, Hurley asks the brothers when they were last at the Twilight Home.

  “We take Momma breakfast from McDonald’s every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning,” Jordy says. “So, the last time we were up there was Friday mo
rning. We usually stay . . . what . . . a couple hours?” He looks over at his brothers for affirmation and both nod.

  As Hurley finishes writing down all the details the brothers have provided, he sighs and sticks his notebook back in his pocket. “I’ll check out what you said. If what you say is true, then we won’t be back. But if it’s not . . .”

  “Man, you cops never quit, do you?” Jerome says. “You just love to harass people.”

  Jordy says, “Let it go, Jerome.”

  “He’s right, Jordy,” Jethro says. “First that asshole cop from yesterday, and now these yahoos. I’m tired of being treated like we don’t matter.”

  “What cop from yesterday?” I ask.

  “That deer was gonna die, anyway,” Jethro says. “They had no right to take my gun away.”

  “What deer?” I say.

  “What gun?” Hurley says at the same time.

  Junior steps up, his hand poised over his gun. “Everybody settle down. We’re not here to harass you.”

  “The hell you ain’t.” Jethro spits on the ground and then spins on his heel and heads for the barn. I watch him disappear inside it, wondering if he’s in there to sulk or to dig out the rifle they probably have stashed in there somewhere.

  “Jerome! Go look after your brother!” Jordy’s loud command to the remaining brother makes it clear who is in charge and that he will brook no objections.

  Jerome shoots us a dirty look and then follows his brother’s footsteps into the barn.

  “I apologize for my brothers,” Jordy says. “They tend to get worked up pretty easily, although they get picked on enough that it’s justified.”

  “What’s the story with the cop and the gun Jethro was talking about?” Hurley asks.

  “We had what the sheriff called a little incident yesterday,” Jordy says. “We was almost to Green Bay when some guy in front of us hit a deer. He didn’t die but he was pretty messed up, so we stopped and Jethro got out of the truck and shot him to put him out of his misery.”