Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 01 - Trudy, Madly, Deeply

by Wendy Delaney

  I didn’t think she’d tell me, either, but I needed to give it a try.

  I followed Alice back to the table in the center of the kitchen and set the coffee cup down in front of her. “How’s it going?”

  “Peachy,” Alice grumbled, wincing as she eased herself down on the wooden barstool.

  I didn’t have to read the strain in her eyes to see that something was very wrong. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I’m fine! I wish everyone would stop asking me that.” She picked up her rolling pin and a ball of piecrust dough. “I’m right as rain.”

  Yeah, and I’d been sleeping like a baby.

  “Why are you limping?”

  “I stubbed my toe,” she said, rolling out the dough like I’d seen her do a thousand times.

  “Liar.”

  She glared at me. “Don’t you need to get to work?”

  “Soon.”

  I took the next few minutes of silence as my cue to get out of her kitchen.

  “I’ll be back for lunch,” I told Duke as I walked past the grill.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Duke deadpanned. “I’m going to have to start calling you Free Lunch.”

  “If she’s any worse,” I said, ignoring the old coot, “I’ll take her to the doctor. I have an appointment later this afternoon.”

  Duke raised a silvery eyebrow.

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing. In fact, it’s Marietta’s appointment.” Deflect, deflect, deflect.

  “What the hell’s wrong with her?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Duke cracked two eggs on the grill. “Sorry I asked.”

  Stepping behind the counter, I grabbed the coffee carafe and refilled Steve’s cup. “I didn’t find out much. She’s not talking but she’s obviously in some pain. Denies it of course.”

  “Of course.” Steve stood, pressing his palm to my shoulder. “I have to get to work, but I’ll stop by later to see how she’s doing.”

  The warmth of his touch lingered for a moment, heating my core like a steaming mug of cocoa on a blustery winter morning.

  Good thing I was a mocha latte girl.

  “Oh, Free Lunch,” Duke sang out as I watched the door shut behind Steve.

  I wheeled around. “You’re not really going to call me that, are you?”

  “If the sandwich fits.” He pointed his spatula at Arlene Koker, who was sitting alone in a booth by the window. “Earn your keep and get Arlene’s breakfast order.”

  Arlene was a perky sixty-something with soft champagne blonde bangs sweeping her forehead and had been the activity director of the senior center for most of the last decade. You could count on her always wearing a smile and never varying her breakfast order—two poached eggs and a side of whole wheat toast, unbuttered.

  I took the coffee carafe to her table and filled her cup. “Good morning. The usual?”

  Arlene nodded, her smile dimming as she looked up at me. “Charmaine, I thought you had started a new job at the courthouse.”

  “I did. I’m just working off my breakfast.” Taking it out in trade was probably more like it.

  “You should come on over to the center. We have all sorts of good ways to work off calories.” Her gaze shifted to my thighs. “Aerobics, too. In fact, a class is going on right now. Your granny’s a member, so that gives you a family discount.”

  “Thanks, Arlene. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” I said, hoping she’d get the hint that I had no intention of becoming an honorary Gray Lady.

  She tore open a blue packet of sugar substitute and stirred it into her coffee. “And of course you know about Tango Tuesday.”

  “I’ve heard of it.” Specifically from Nell.

  Arlene pointed her spoon at me. “You should come. Bring Steve.”

  Right. Like I could drag him onto a dance floor with a bunch of seniors. “That might not be Steve’s cup of tea.”

  “Really? He seemed to have fun last time.”

  Last time?

  She reached for her cup. “He was a big hit with the ladies.”

  “He always is.”

  * * *

  I arrived at the hospital around seven-forty. At the second floor nurse’s station I’d been told that Cindy Tobias was working in the ICU, so I took a right turn down a long hallway, pushed open the door marked Intensive Care, and found her standing at a monitor next to an elderly patient’s bed.

  She didn’t look pleased to see me.

  “I figured I’d be seeing you sooner or later,” she said softly, exiting the patient’s room.

  I followed her to a dimly lit desk at the opposite side of the hallway. “Why do you say that?”

  She sat at the computer station and made a few mouse clicks. “You want to talk to me about Trudy Bergeson, don’t you?”

  And Rose and Mr. Elwood. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  She blew out a breath, then pointed to a nutmeg brown upholstered chair next to her workstation that looked like it was held together with duct tape. “Have a seat.”

  Ignoring the lumpy seat cushion, I scooted the chair a little closer to get a better view of Cindy’s face. “I’m just trying to get a sense of what happened.”

  “Because of Dr. Cardinale calling Frankie Rickard.”

  She knew. It made me wonder what else she knew. “Because it seems like Trudy died rather suddenly.”

  The flicker at the corners of Cindy’s lips told me I’d struck paydirt. She opened her mouth, then pressed it closed. Whatever she’d thought about saying, she had censored herself.

  “You were surprised when it happened,” I said for her.

  She stared at her keyboard for several seconds. “We all thought she was going home the next day.”

  “She was being released from the hospital?”

  Cindy nodded, her blunt-cut honey brown hair bobbing at her shoulders. “There was a notation in her chart about it.”

  “From?”

  “Dr. Straitham.”

  No big surprise since he was Trudy’s doctor, but I wrote it down in my notebook. “Now, I understand that Trudy Bergeson coded around three forty-five.”

  “That’s when I did a bed check and discovered she wasn’t breathing.”

  “There wasn’t an alarm that went off?”

  Cindy shook her head. “She’d been moved out of the ICU and wasn’t on a heart monitor.”

  Which would make it a little more convenient if someone wanted to kill her.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I called for help and started CPR. Dr. Cardinale arrived a minute later, but there wasn’t much he could do.”

  “What about Tina Norton?”

  Cindy’s mouth quirked. Maybe she’d been asking herself the same question.

  “Was Tina working that night?” I asked.

  “No.”

  That didn’t explain the reaction I’d just seen. “Did you see her that night?”

  “No.” She folded her thin arms across her chest, which I took as a cue that she wanted this to be the final word on the subject of Tina.

  I decided to try a different approach. “Prior to discovering Trudy wasn’t breathing, did you notice anything unusual that night? Anything or anyone out of the ordinary?”

  Cindy gave me another little headshake. “Until I went into Trudy’s room, it had been a pretty slow night.”

  “Had you seen Dr. Forsythe prior to that?”

  “Dr. Forsythe was in Hawaii for his sister’s wedding, so no.”

  I crossed him off my potential suspect list.”

  “What about Dr. Straitham?”

  She shrugged, her lips pressed together. “He doesn’t usually keep those hours.”

  There was something about the way she said usually.

  “You’d seen him here other nights?”

  “Not really. I’d just seen Dr. Straitham’s car a couple of times when I went out for a smoke.”

  “But not him.”

  She hung her head. “No.”


  What the hell? His car was here but she never saw him?

  “Did you see his car the night Trudy died?”

  “Only after Dr. Cardinale called him. I didn’t notice it before that.”

  That meant that she couldn’t help me with the timeline for Warren Straitham’s whereabouts at the time of Trudy’s death.

  “Cindy, what about the early morning that Rose Kozarek died? You were working that shift, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you remember if you saw Dr. Straitham anytime during your shift?”

  “You’re the second person to ask me that this week.”

  That was the last thing I’d expected her to say. “Who was the first?”

  “Steve Sixkiller.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After a torturously long morning hunched over a row of filing cabinets, I made a break for Duke’s. My growling stomach hankered for one of his patty melts, but more importantly, I wanted to see how Alice was doing.

  Typical for the noon hour, the savory aroma of burgers and bacon sizzling on the grill hung on the air and most every table was occupied. Not so typical, there was no sign of Alice in the cafe.

  I went to the juice dispenser, poured two glasses of orange juice and set one on the counter in front of the grill.

  Duke glared at the juice glass like I’d spiked it with arsenic. “What’s that for?”

  “It’s good for you.” And if I knew him, he hadn’t had much to eat or drink all day.

  “You paying for it?”

  “Hadn’t planned to.”

  “So what else is new?”

  Ignoring the wisecrack, I watched him suck down the juice in three big gulps. “How’s Alice doing?” I asked.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She keeps saying she’s fine, but she went home early. That should tell you how fine she is.”

  It did, and now I was even more worried. “Do you think there’s any way I could talk her into seeing Dr. Straitham?”

  “See the doc after what happened last Saturday?” Duke flipped a burger. “Pigs would have to fly out of my butt first. I’ll take her to the ER if it gets any worse.”

  The ER, where Trudy and Rose had arrived a couple of days before they took their final breaths? “That might not go over real well, either.”

  “I’m bigger than she is. I’ll insist.”

  I’d been down that road before with Alice. Insisting that my great-aunt do anything she didn’t want to do met the same reception as a cat facing a sink full of sudsy water.

  Lucille squeaked up behind me while I asked Duke to make me a patty melt. “So, what did you find out at the hospital?” she asked.

  “What did you do—put a tail on me?”

  “I have my sources.”

  And if they worked at the hospital I wanted to know what else she had found out.

  “Did your sources tell you where Dr. Straitham was the morning of Trudy’s death?”

  “Jay-sus!” Duke rolled his eyes. “Don’t encourage her.”

  Lucille glared at Duke. “All I know is that he managed to get to the hospital pretty damned quick to break the news to Norm.”

  That confirmed Kyle Cardinale’s statement but didn’t shed even a glimmer of light on where Dr. Straitham had been when he received the call from the hospital.

  “Order up!” Duke barked. “Some nice people would like to eat sometime today.”

  “If you hadn’t noticed, some nice people are being killed off around here.” Lucille cocked her head. “Which do you think is more important?”

  Glowering, Duke pointed his spatula at me. “See what you started?”

  “Who me? I’m just here for my free lunch.”

  I caught a fleeting smile as he plated the patty melt. “Yeah, right.”

  I kissed his grizzled cheek, grabbed the plate, then surveyed the small crowd and spotted Jayne Elwood sitting alone near the door.

  It seemed like a good opportunity to have some casual chitchat with Jayne so I slid onto the seat at the next table, facing her.

  “Waiting for Ernie?” I asked.

  She glanced out the window with a wistful smile on her lips. “He must be running a little late.”

  I took a bite of my patty melt and watched her cross her legs, smoothing her pale yellow skirt over her knees. A tan leather flat dangled from her left foot. It looked new.

  I wanted to keep the conversation going to hear how she’d hooked up with Ernie. Since it wouldn’t help me to appear too eager, I used what she was giving me. “Those look like comfortable shoes.”

  “Oh, they are. I could wear them all day, and they’re marvelous for dancing.”

  “Dancing?” Had everyone in town taken a sudden interest in dancing?

  Jayne smiled, leaning my direction. “Honey, it’s Tango Tuesday. You should put on your dancing shoes and join us,” she added as Lucille topped off her coffee.

  “Dancin’ shoes!” Lucille scoffed. “Char?”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said. Even more, it sounded like something I shouldn’t miss, especially if Steve was going to make an appearance.

  Lucille gaped at me. “It does? Don’t you have someplace else you’d rather be than the senior center?”

  “Not on Tango Tuesday.”

  * * *

  At two twenty-five I parked the Jag in a shaded spot near the front door of the medical building on 2nd Street that Warren Straitham shared with my former orthodontist.

  “Ah don’t know that this is such a good idea,” Marietta said, using the passenger vanity mirror to fluff her cropped hair.

  “It’ll be fine. I’m just going to ask the girls in the office a few questions while you’re in with the doctor.”

  She smiled at the mirror, checking her teeth. “What’s my problem again?”

  Sometimes my mother made it way too easy to take a cheap shot.

  Since I needed an ally willing to play her part, not a pissed off actress, I took the high road. “You’re having trouble sleeping,” I said, stifling a yawn.

  “Ah’m sleeping just fine as opposed to some people around here.”

  “You’re a skilled actress. You can fake it.”

  I was sure it wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Marietta’s lips curled in satisfaction at the sugar-coated praise.

  “Think of it as improvisation,” I added as we got out of the car. “And don’t let him leave the room before he writes you a prescription.”

  She sighed. “Ah really don’t need a prescription.”

  I did.

  Warren Straitham’s waiting room hadn’t changed much in the twelve years since I’d been here last. Maybe an upgrade in the wall-to-wall carpeting and a few new prints by local artists. What I found most remarkable about Dr. Straitham’s office was that every chair in his cramped waiting room was occupied by a middle-aged woman with her gaze fixed on my mother.

  A half dozen cell phones and cameras took aim at us, clicking and whirring.

  Fans.

  My mother beamed with delight as she touched the base of her throat in mock-surprise. “Oh, mah, the doctor must be very busy today.”

  Yeah. Like hormone therapy was the special of the day.

  “Ms. Moreau.” Claudia, the receptionist, who had been two years behind me in high school, handed Marietta a clipboard and smiled reverently. “We just need to update your history.”

  “Mah history?” Marietta leaned against the reception desk. “Ah am sorry, but there’s been a little misunderstandin’. This appointment is actually for Chahmaine.”

  My jaw clenched so tight I could have broken a molar. “What?”

  Her gaze soft as silk, Marietta touched my cheek. The last time I’d been bathed in so much motherly affection, she’d powdered my other cheeks. “It’s the only way ah could get her to come in and see the doctor about her sleepin’ disorder.”

  Claudia’s eyes widened.

  I shook my head. “I don’t have a di
sorder.”

  Marietta pushed the clipboard at me. “As you can see, she’s in a bit of denial.”

  I pushed it back. “What are you doing?”

  “Do you know how much one of the scandal rags would pay for those pictures?” she whispered in my ear. “I don’t need that kind of press.”

  Like some dweeb at a tabloid would care about one of Hollywood’s many beauty queens whose reign had been reduced to hawking her wares on cable TV infomercials.

  Claudia handed me a ballpoint pen. “If you’ll just fill out the form, the doctor will see you in a few minutes.”

  Marietta sighed contentedly. “Thank you ever so much.” She leaned in, resting her elbows on the half wall. “There’s just one more teensy little thing.”

  Claudia smiled. “What can we do for you?”

  “If it isn’t too much to ask, is there somewhere back there that ah could wait for mah daughter? It’s a little crowded out here, if you know what ah mean.”

  “Of course there is,” Claudia said, bounding from her seat.

  Marietta winked at me. “Isn’t this fun?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” At least one of us was having a good time.

  “It’s like that episode when ah had to wear a bikini to distract the bad guys while Josie rifled through the accountant’s safe for evidence that he was the one embezzling the funds.” Marietta shrugged. “Except for the bikini part, of course.”

  And the accountant.

  And the embezzling.

  The waiting room door closed behind my mother and ten menopausal women stared at me like I was personally responsible for sucking all the fun out of the room.

  I wasn’t too crazy about the situation, either, especially when one of them snapped my picture.

  At least I didn’t need to worry about landing on the cover of a scandal rag. And given the doctor I’d soon be seeing, what the mad snapper planned to do with that photo was the least of my concerns.

  Three minutes later, a forty-ish nurse I didn’t recognize opened the door. “Charmaine?”

  “I’m Shannon,” she said with a smile as she took the clipboard.

  As I followed her down the hall, I heard several women laughing, one of them my mother.

  Shannon glanced back over her shoulder. “Your mom’s a hoot.”

  Not exactly the first word that came to mind when describing Marietta, but as long as she was a hoot who could be discreet for the next fifteen minutes, I could live with it.