Carts filled with plastic food warming trays lined the halls, mixed in with an occasional medication cart. Nurses buzzed around carrying sphygs, stethoscopes, clipboards. It was the busy part of the shift, before patients drifted off into oblivion and families left for the night. I was grateful for the activity and all the visitors milling around in the hallway; I’d stick out less amidst the chaos.
I casually scanned each person’s face as I walked by, trying not to be recognized, looking for the nurse in the hall, or anyone else who might have been there that night. I was sure the police had questioned everyone, but they still didn’t know what I knew. Not yet, anyway. Walking around these halls somewhere was a woman who shared the last moments of a dead man’s life. Maybe she killed him. Maybe she didn’t. Either way, I wanted to talk to her.
Only problem was, nobody I saw looked like her. I walked on. The bright red exit sign at the end of the hall still blazed like before. I struggled to recall which door I’d opened to find Fletcher. The last one, I believe. I was ten feet away from it when that door opened, and she stepped out.
We stopped dead in front of each other, our eyes meeting in a hint of recognition. She stared at me for a second, her mouth dropping open, her clipboard held tight to her chest.
“You-”
“Yeah, me,” I said. Then I realized she wasn’t the nurse I’d seen coming out of the room that night; she was the young one who found me in the hall after I’d been bashed in the head.
“Hey,” I said, holding out a hand, “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for helping me out the other night. If you hadn’t come along, I might have lain there for who knows how long.”
She lifted one hand off the clipboard, took mine loosely. Her nameplate read JACQUELYN BELL, R.N.
“No problem,” she said, her voice cautious. “How’re you feeling?”
“Lots better.” I smiled at her as pleasantly as I knew how. Maybe she could help me, but I had to warm her up a bit first. “The bump on the head’s almost gone. Say, Nurse Bell, I was actually looking for you. Is there someplace we could talk? Privately, I mean. This won’t take long. Honest.”
“Well,” she hesitated. Her voice was riddled with a deep drawl, the voice of a young girl who’d grown up in the country, gone to school in Nashville, and fallen in love with the big city. The kind of girl who drove an expensive car she couldn’t afford, lived in an apartment complex catering primarily to singles, and plastered her walls with hunk posters. “We’re pretty busy around here.”
“It’s important, Ms. Bell. You were one of the few people up here who actually knew what happened that night.”
“Wait a minute, I don’t have any idea what happened that night. I told the police that. All I did was find you and-”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Of course, you don’t know what happened with Dr. Fletcher’s murder. I’m talking about what happened after you found me in the hall.”
I paused awkwardly, trying to figure out how to articulate this. “Listen, Jacquelyn-may I call you Jacquelyn?”
She nodded her head.
“C’mon, is this room empty? Can we step in here for just a second?”
She looked around nervously, as if I were a dirty old man in a trench coat offering her a piece of candy just outside the school playground. “It would really be better if we talked alone. What I’ve got to tell you, nobody else should hear.”
That got her. Her curiosity primed, she opened the door next to us and led me into an empty hospital room. We stood in the dim glowing light of the fluorescent tube at the head of the bed.
“Jacquelyn, I’m Harry James Denton. I’m a private investigator.” I pulled out my license and flipped it open, with my impressive gold and chrome badge that I’d bought from a mail order supply house. The badge was damned impressive. And absolutely meaningless.
“A private detective?” she whispered, intrigued.
“Yes. I was up here that night trying to find Dr. Fletcher. I’d been hired by the family because they thought, well, they thought he was in some trouble. And they wanted me to help him out. Anyway, I was trying to track him down, but I was a little slow. Somebody got to him before I could, and they killed him.”
She nodded her head. “Yeah, I know that.”
“What you don’t know, though, is that I’ve got a … well, let’s say a friend, who let me take a peek at the autopsy results before they were released to the police.”
Her eyes widened, a young woman dying to be let in on something no one else knew. “Yeah?”
“Before he was killed, and just before he was killed, Dr. Fletcher had just … well, he’d just had sex, Jacquelyn.”
“No kidding,” she spewed, “you mean?” She pointed behind her.
“Yes,” I said. “In that room.”
“Wow! I knew he was a sleaze ball, but boinking somebody right here on the floor. Wow!”
“Well, you knew the kind of guy he was, right?” Talk about leading a witness.
“Oh, yeah. We all knew it. He hit on everybody. He was gutter slime.”
“Yes, Jackie, he was gutter slime. But his family loved him. Don’t ask me why. And they’ve hired me to keep digging, to try and find out who really killed him.”
“But what about the police?”
“Well, you know how the police are,” I said, fully confident that she had no earthly idea how the police are. “They have their own agenda, their own methods. Sometimes the interests of the police don’t jibe with the family’s. I’m involved in this to represent the family’s interests. To make sure they’re taken care of. You can understand that, can’t you? If something like this happened in your family, even if it was somebody you didn’t care for, you’d want your interests protected. Wouldn’t you?”
She thought for a moment. “Actually, I’ve got a cousin who reminds me a lot of Fletcher. If somebody killed him, yeah, I’d want the family protected.”
“So help me out here, Jackie. I’ve got to find whomever it was Fletcher was having an affair with, if you want to call it that. You know what’s going on up here. Who could it be?”
She backed off a couple of feet and laid the clipboard down on the bed. She was young, pretty, naive, thrilled to be the center of attention. “Well,” she cooed, “I’ve heard a few rumors.”
She was teasing me now, only I knew it, and I’m not sure she did. “Yeah,” I said, taking a smooth step toward her. Maybe she expected me to hit on her. Maybe I should. What is it about hospital rooms that make people so frisky? Then I remembered Rachel’s assertion about the amount of playing around that goes on when the patients’ backs are turned. “So what have you heard?” We were flirting now, big time.
I had this flash of Humphrey Bogart charming the bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep. Lemme see, now, could I remember my Doghouse Riley imitation?
“Well,” she whispered, lips pursed, “we change shifts at midnight. It’s kind of late to be going out, so we all kind of stick together. Usually we go out as a group, maybe three nights a week, over to the Commodore Lounge at the Holiday Inn, you know. But lately, one of the girls on the shift hasn’t been around after work. Somebody said she’d been dating one of the doctors. A married one.”
I grinned at her, a motion that brought a devilish grin to her face as well. “And you think it might have been Fletcher?”
“Well, that’s not to say he was the only doctor who’d cheat on his wife. But if you ask me, he’d be near the head of the line.”
“Jackie, darling, I did ask you. And I’m glad I did. You’ve been a great help. Who is she?”
Jackie shut down for just a bit, either playing coy or honestly wondering if she’d talked too much. I tried to figure out a ploy to keep her talking.
Suddenly, she shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “Oh, why not? I’m sure LeAnn didn’t have anything to do with this. She’s a sweet girl. I’ve known her for months now. She’s just the cutest thing you ever saw.”
Yeah, I t
hought, doll freaking precious. “What’s LeAnn’s last name, Jackie? I just want to speak to her. That’s all.”
“Oh, I’m sure everything’s all right. LeAnn won’t mind. Her last name’s Gwynn. LeAnn Gwynn.”
I spelled the last name out loud, making sure I got it right. Then: “Where’s LeAnn now, Jackie? She on the floor?”
“No, tonight’s her night off.”
“You know where she lives?”
“Well, not exactly. I’ve never been out to her apartment. Somewhere on Franklin Road, though.”
“I’ll check the book.”
“Oh, she’s got an unlisted number. She told me some guy’d been calling her, hassling her. The usual trash, you know. I had to have my number changed just last month.”
“Gee. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “The guy was a jerk.”
“So how do you get in touch with her in emergencies?”
“Oh, that’s easy. We call Personnel during business hours, or at night the information operator can pull it up on the computer. Only nobody’s really supposed to know that. Say, Harry, we’re going to be over at the Commodore tonight. Why don’t you drop by, join us for a drink?”
I was old enough to be her father, or at least her much older brother. The truth is that I’m at the age where the thought of being at a table full of twenty-two-year-old nurses is more intimidating than arousing. My God, what would I say to them?
“The Commodore at midnight, huh? Sure, I’ll try to make it.”
She smiled. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay, Jackie. Hey, listen, thanks for your help.”
She smiled again, sweetly, innocently, as she walked out the door. Maybe it was that bad attitude of mine kicking up again, but I had a feeling that if Jackie Bell was an innocent young maiden, then I’m a left-handed Japanese pole vaulter.
I headed down the hall toward the nurses’ station again. I stopped at the pay phone in front of the bank of elevators and flipped through the thick phone book that dangled from a chain. Sure enough, no LeAnn Gwynn, L. Gwynn, or any variation thereof.
The elevator opened in front of me and a crowd of people stepped off. One had on a white lab coat, with DR. GORDON EVANS, M.D. sewn across the left breast pocket in green thread, and below that DEPT. OF NEUROSURGERY. I shut the phone book, walked back down the hall, and found another empty room.
I picked up the phone, dialed O. A moment later, the operator’s voice came on. “May I help you?”
“Yes, this is Dr. Gordon Evans, Neurosurgery, up on Fourth Floor West.”
“Yes, Dr. Evans.”
“Is the personnel office still open?”
“No, sir. They closed at four forty-five.”
“Oh, blast it. We’ve got a patient up here that went on some medication yesterday, but the nurse who did the paperwork didn’t write down what time it was started. I’m afraid we’re all screwed up unless I find out when he went on the meds. And I can’t do that because it’s the nurse’s day off and nobody up here’s got her unlisted number.”
“I can pull that out of the computer for you, Dr. Evans. What’s her name?”
I smiled. Some letters are magic, like the ones M and D.
“Nurse Gwynn, G-W-Y-N-N. First name LeAnn.”
“Okay, hold just a second.”
She came back on. I scribbled down the number. Sure enough, a Melrose area exchange. “That all you need, Dr. Evans?”
“That’s it for now. Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” she said.
And I’m sure it was.
16
I could go back to my office and check the Criss-Cross Directory, but those damned things are notorious for being out of date or just plain wrong. This was something I had to be sure of.
I hung up the phone and listened carefully inside the empty hospital room, hoping that I wouldn’t be interrupted for at least a couple more minutes. I pulled out my reporter’s notepad, flipped through to Lonnie’s number, and dialed it.
Among Lonnie’s other talents-besides repo’ing cars and blowing up objects with common household items-was his computer expertise. He could do more with a computer than anyone else I’d ever met; only problem was, he usually had to keep quiet about it.
The number rang a few times, then an answering machine picked up. There was no message, just a long moment of silence followed by the distinctive doodle-doodle-do of the machine.
“Three two seven,” I said, then looked down at the phone and called out the last four numbers. All the patient rooms were direct dial.
I hung up. If Lonnie was anywhere near, I’d get a callback in about forty-five seconds. I fidgeted almost two minutes by the side of the bed, checked my watch, and was about to give it up when the phone rang.
“Yeah?” It was Lonnie.
“Need a favor. You in the middle of anything? Nuclear warhead, perhaps?”
“Depends. What you got?”
“I got a number. Need an address.”
“Speak.”
I read the number, then heard the sound of the phone being laid down. I stood there perhaps another two minutes, devising excuses if hospital security walked in on me. Then the sound of fumbling came across the wires.
“5454 Franklin Road, Apartment 3-F. Think that’s the Ponta Loma Apartments.”
“Thanks, pal. Owe you one.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll collect.”
The phone clicked down immediately. Lonnie had several phone lines going into his junkyard. On this one, you didn’t stay too long, and you never mentioned names.
I glanced out the door into an empty hallway. It didn’t take long for me to cut a rug out of there.
It was close to seven, and I was starving. I figured if LeAnn Gwynn was out for the evening on her night off, she’d be already gone. If not, she was probably staying in. Either way, I had time to eat. I had a hankering for breakfast, so I walked down 21st to the IHOP, the International House of Pancakes. Restaurants come and go like crazy in this city, but the IHOP, like Mrs. Rotier’s, was an establishment that would be around forever. I’d eaten many a meal there, and I had the blood cholesterol level to show for it.
I finished my third cup of coffee and stared down at a plate scrubbed clean of egg yolk and pancake syrup, reasoning that if LeAnn Gwynn had any involvement with Conrad’s murder, she wasn’t likely to chitchat with me about it. Unless, of course, she thought I was visiting her in an official capacity. I’d never done anything like this before, but I figured that if I walked a thin enough line, I could get away with it. I took my license case out of my pocket again and looked at it: picture I.D., fancy badge.
What the hell, why not?
After all, I couldn’t claim to be a police officer. But was it my fault if someone else chose to infer otherwise?
* * *
I drove out Eighth Avenue until it became Franklin Road, past the old Melrose Theatre, the shopping centers, pawn shops, liquor stores, convenience markets, and on under the freeway cloverleaf. Dark had settled in over what was a fairly redneck part of town, with a nearby housing project adding just enough of an air of danger to keep respectable people off the streets. To cap things off, the most popular gay bar in the city is right in the neighborhood as well. Most nights, parking lots for blocks around are packed with people headed for the Mine Shaft Cabaret.
I pulled into the Ponta Loma Apartments and slowed the car. The Ponta Loma was just another apartment complex: built sometime around the early Seventies, hip at the time but aging not very gracefully. In the real estate crash of the late Reagan/early Bush years, places like the Ponta Loma really suffered. The new apartment complexes had fireplaces, ceiling fans, saunas, Jacuzzis. The Ponta Loma was considered far out twenty years ago because it had two pools.
I’m lousy at snap judgments, but I couldn’t figure out why LeAnn Gwynn lived here. I always thought nurses made decent money. She ought to be able to do better
than this.
I drove around through the parking lots slowly, looking for F Building. Not surprisingly, it was past the E Building and just before the G Building. And you thought I couldn’t handle this detective shit.…
The two-story building was long, narrow, with apartments off either side facing inward on a long hallway. If LeAnn’s apartment was 3-F, it was a safe bet she was on the first floor. If she was in the back, her apartment had a great view of the parking lot and the Dempster Dumpsters. If it faced the other way, she looked out on another building. Nice life, LeAnn. No wonder you were-how did Jackie Bell put it?-boinking a married man on the job.
I parked the car and doused the lights, then sat there for a few minutes, trying to get a feel for the place. It was quiet; no kids running through the parking lot, no splashing coming from the pool, no parties in progress spilling out into the common area. Not at all what I expected.
Each building had a bank of painted gold mailboxes, the kind you usually see in apartment houses. I looked at 3-F. There was a small white label showing, but neither LeAnn nor the apartment manager had bothered to write her name on it.
There was nothing else to learn by hanging around outside LeAnn’s apartment. This reminded me of my days on the paper, when I’d be checking out a story and preparing to question somebody who probably didn’t want to be interviewed. I’d get nervous and my gut would knot up, and I’d hang around outside thinking up excuses not to go in. Felt worse than a job interview sometimes, although that may be stretching it. Finally, it’s like diving into cold water; the best recourse is to hold your nose and jump in.
I knocked on the door to 3-F.
Inside the apartment, I could hear soft music playing, the kind of music that’s euphemistically called Lite Rock: elevator music for baby boomers.
I knocked again. I couldn’t hear footsteps or any change in the music I was about to give it up, when the peephole went dark. I stared into it, to let her know I’d seen her.
“Ms. Gwynn,” I said, “may I talk to you for a moment?”
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