Suspicious Circumstances

by Rita Herron

  A shudder coursed up her spine. He saw Val.

  Val had been at the hospital the night Gloria Inman died, too. And the night of the fire.

  She shook her head at the thought of her sister hurting Leon or anyone else. Val was a drug addict, had been caught stealing to pay her dealer and feed her habit. But Val wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  Would she?

  * * *

  LIAM WAS SURPRISED the geriatrician hadn’t ordered an autopsy. Granted the residents in the Gardens were older and had health issues, but stories of abuse to the elderly, especially in nursing-care facilities, abounded.

  Relatives and friends had to be vigilant about checking on their loved ones.

  Although Peyton kept a close eye on her mother and her care, people like Leon had no one to make sure they weren’t being mistreated.

  “Dr. Sweetwater, have you noticed unusual bruises or injuries on any of the residents?”

  “Nothing that seemed suspicious,” Dr. Sweetwater answered.

  “How about complaints about the staff?”

  “Agent Maverick, I hate to say this but many of the people have health and memory issues that affect their behavior and thoughts, so yes, they complain. Sometimes dementia changes a person’s personality. They may be agreeable one minute and belligerent the next. Others suffer from delusions and paranoia resulting from their health issues or medication.” She paused. “I hear everything—complaints about how bad the food is, that the cook is trying to poison them, that someone came into their room and stole things, that one of the other residents is trying to kill them. I have to sort it out for the truth, but I can assure you, if I suspected someone was hurting one of my patients, I would report it.” She exhaled. “Now, why are you asking these questions? Do you think Leon Brittles’s death was suspicious?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say at the moment, but if you see or hear anything that raises a red flag, please give me a call.”

  She agreed, and he returned to Peyton. She handed him a brown envelope. “Tapes from the night of the break-in. I also had Fred pull ones of the garden last night and this morning.”

  “Good work.” He thanked Fred, then drove Peyton to her apartment. She was moving slowly, and he’d noticed her wince when she breathed, a sign she’d suffered more in the car crash than she wanted to admit.

  “Thanks for driving me back,” she said. “While you were on the phone and Fred was pulling the other tapes, I called my insurance company about my car. I’ll probably have to get a rental until we settle, and I can buy a new one.”

  “Don’t worry about it for now,” Liam told her. “I’ll be driving you around until the threat to you is over.”

  Fear and another emotion he didn’t quite recognize flickered in her eyes.

  “Do you want to look at those tapes now?” she asked.

  His phone buzzed with a text. Jacob. “Go get a shower first,” he said, knowing it would make her feel better. “I’ll check in with Jacob.”

  “Okay, but I want to look at them with you. I might be able to help.”

  “Good. You can tell me if anyone looks out of place.”

  She dropped her purse onto the table by the door, while Liam searched and cleared the house, then she rushed into the hall and disappeared into her bedroom.

  Liam crossed to the sliding glass doors and looked outside while he phoned Jacob. He explained about the man’s sudden death at Golden Gardens and the fact that he’d requested an autopsy.

  “You suspect Mr. Brittles’s death is related to the threat against Peyton and her mother?” Jacob asked.

  “I don’t know, but something’s going on, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.” He explained about seeing Miller Conrad at the hospital and his mother’s death.

  “She’s going to be autopsied, too?” Jacob asked.

  “At my request.” Liam swallowed. “I have security tapes from Golden Gardens to review,” he told Jacob. “If there was foul play, maybe it was caught on camera.”

  “Let me know what you find,” Jacob said. “FYI, I have more on Herbert Brantley. He had a motorcycle wreck four years ago and suffered some serious injuries. HIPAA laws prevented me from obtaining his full medical history, but I did some digging around. Asked a couple of his neighbors. One of them says Herbert has a drug problem. Pills. He caught him stealing some of his daughter’s ADHD medication from his medicine cabinet.”

  “Did he press charges?”

  “No,” Jacob said. “Herbert begged him not to and promised to get help.”

  “Did he?”

  “There’s no record to prove it one way or the other,” Jacob said. “But again, getting medical records these days is not easy.” Jacob paused. “Anyway, knowing he stole drugs is enough to warrant bringing him in for questioning.”

  Liam scrubbed a hand over his face as he tried to maneuver the pieces into a whole picture again. “So, if Herbert had a drug problem, he might have been desperate for money to feed his habit. That could mean he’d accepted money to kill Gloria Inman. But what about the three other patients, Edna Fouts, Lydia Corgin and Hilda Rogers? Does he have a connection to any of them and the facilities where they died?”

  “He worked at Whistler Hospital,” Jacob said. “He wasn’t an employee at the other medical facilities, but with his training and the right clothing, he could easily have slipped in to a patient’s room unnoticed.”

  True. “I’m aware we have limited hospital footage from the night of the fire, and Mrs. Inman’s death, but look through them again and see if he was there. And push the ME to rush her autopsy. If someone is killing seniors, we need to hurry.”

  “Copy that.”

  What that had to do with Gloria Inman or the fire, he didn’t know. “I’ll get back to you after I review the footage at Golden Gardens.”

  He hung up, then set his laptop on the kitchen table and booted it up, anxious to see if Miller Conrad or Herbert Brantley showed up in the tapes.

  Peyton had looked so vulnerable earlier. The only way to protect her was to uncover the truth.

  No matter what it took.

  * * *

  THE WARM WATER felt heavenly on Peyton’s aching body and helped massage the tension from her shoulders. She scrubbed her skin and soaped her hair, desperate to wash away the dried blood from her forehead and the perspiration permeating her skin.

  Although no amount of scrubbing could eliminate the fear seizing her chest. A chest bruised from an intentional car crash meant to take her life.

  The water started to cool, and she turned off the spray, climbed out, dried off and wrapped her hair in a towel. She pulled on a clean pair of jeans and her favorite blue sweater, one that accentuated her eyes. Not that it mattered.

  Liam had seen her at her worst. And he certainly wasn’t interested in her romantically.

  If only things were different...

  Sighing in frustration, she blew her hair dry, then brushed the waves over her shoulder and headed toward the door from her bedroom to the hall. Although the hair on her nape bristled again.

  Instantly tense, she paused in the doorway and scanned the room. The jewelry stand on her dresser was in place. Her bed was made up, although the three decorative pillows she kept on top were thrown haphazardly on the bed. Not how she’d left them.

  Someone had been in her room.

  She visually swept it for a sign as to whom, looking for a threatening message or another warning. Then she spotted a folded piece of paper on her desk in the corner.

  A paper folded into an origami swan.

  Her breath caught. When she and Val were little, they loved origami. They left secret messages for each other all over the house and the yard in the intricately folded shapes. Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the swan, then her heart stuttered at the sight of her sister’s shaky handwriting.

 
They’re going to kill me, sis. Look below the bench in the rose garden.

  Peyton went cold inside. The rose garden was where they’d found Leon’s body.

  * * *

  LIAM WAS WORRIED about Peyton. She’d been through a lot lately, both physically and emotionally.

  He’d been a wreck when they’d hauled his father from the fire, and he’d lain there limp and pale. When the medics’ attempts to save him had failed, he’d literally been driven to his knees. The feelings of helplessness, anger and grief had overwhelmed him that night and for months afterward.

  His only saving grace had been his intense need to find the person responsible.

  Though he hadn’t quite figured it out, the sense that he was closing in on the truth fueled him with adrenaline. He refused to give up.

  Even if he had to pressure Peyton.

  Still, concern for her knotted his gut. She didn’t deserve to live in fear.

  He strode to her bedroom door and knocked. “Peyton? Are you okay?”

  “Just a minute.”

  Was he wrong, or did her voice warble?

  He stepped away from the door, then returned to the table and plugged in the flash drive with the security tape. A couple of minutes later, footsteps broke the silence, and Peyton appeared. She looked freshly showered with her wavy hair flowing around her shoulders and accentuating her heart-shaped face. The blue sweater she wore highlighted the sky blue of her eyes and made his pulse clamor with awareness.

  Don’t go there, man. She’s in trouble and needs your help. Not your lustful thoughts.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Better. The shower did me a world of good.”

  She did look calmer, fresh and void of the remnants of the blood on her forehead and her tattered clothing from the night before.

  “I was about to review the footage.” He pointed out the date.

  “This is the night Mama said that strange man came to see her. The one who left me the copy of the drug log.” She shivered, and Liam barely resisted pulling her into his arms to console her.

  The best way he could help her was to play the footage and see what was on it.

  He hit the play button and a grainy tape filled his computer screen. Dammit, the quality was so poor he didn’t know if they’d find anything. But he and Peyton watched through the hours of the evening. She identified several cars that came and went as belonging to staff members.

  The camera captured Peyton leaving her mother’s to go to her place. Liam tensed at the image of a shadowy figure hovering at the side of the building.

  He zoomed in on the figure and enlarged it, but the footage was so blurred all he could discern was a pair of work boots and a dark coat with a hood that obliterated the body of the person inside. The figure darted through the bushes along the side of Mrs. Weiss’s cottage, veered along the gardens and up the hill toward Peyton’s.

  Seconds later, a second figure in the gardens caught his eye. A smaller-framed person, hunched in a thin jacket, stooped down by the bench in the garden, head bowed.

  His pulse jumped. That figure had stopped at the same spot where Leon’s body had been found.

  And it was not a man’s frame. It was a woman’s.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The fact that the video revealed a woman near Mrs. Weiss’s place made Liam wonder if he had it wrong. Could a woman be responsible for attacking Peyton and for the attempt on her mother’s life?

  “Do you recognize this person?” Liam asked.

  Peyton’s face paled, and she hesitated a fraction of a second too long. Then she shook her head. “It could be one of the patients or a staff member. Or perhaps a visitor.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes. She was holding back again. Why?

  “If you know who it is, then you need to tell me,” he said, hardening his tone. “The only way I can learn the truth is if you’re honest with me, Peyton.”

  She released a wary sigh. “I am being honest. I can’t tell who it is from that footage.”

  A tense heartbeat stretched between them. “Let’s look at footage around the time your mother had to be rushed to the ER.” He scrolled forward through the night, then to the hours just before dawn and slowed to scrutinize the early morning hours.

  No movement on the front, so he shifted and studied the tapes of the back of the property. Nothing there either.

  “If someone intentionally caused the gas leak at Mama’s, they had to get into the cottage to do it,” Peyton said.

  Liam snapped his fingers. “True. It could be an inside job—someone who wouldn’t look suspicious. I need a list of everyone who works at the Gardens, and anyone involved in your mother’s care.”

  “We can ask the director for a list.”

  “First, let’s look at footage of the rose garden last night.” He scrolled through the day before, then to the night and zeroed in on the rose garden. Residents gathered by the pond and gazebo and wandered along the paths weaving through the rows of flower beds. One section held herbs the cook used to add depth to the meals. A few units had full kitchens for the most mobile and mentally cognizant residents who also were welcome to the herbs. But for safety reasons, many only had a microwave and refrigerator.

  Peyton went still, and Liam leaned forward to see what she was looking at. Then he spotted a small figure in dark clothing slipping through the garden. Again, a female. But who was she?

  She paused by the rose garden near where Leon had been found, then looked back and startled as if she’d heard a noise. Suddenly she bolted and darted into the woods.

  Liam wished to hell the film was better quality, but he would send it to the lab and see if they could enhance it and identify the woman.

  He scrolled through more footage, searching for Leon Brittles, but the night passed, and the man didn’t appear. Dawn came, and the sun rose to streak the sky and mountainside, and the tape suddenly went choppy. Several minutes disappeared before the garden came back into view.

  When it did, they watched as a tiny woman in a wheelchair pushed herself onto the path. She bypassed the fountain at the entrance, then seconds later a scream sounded.

  Two staff members raced to her from the patio. When they reached the woman, a clear image of Leon lying facedown in the rosebushes appeared.

  “What happened?” Peyton asked. “I didn’t see anyone after that woman disappeared into the woods. Could someone have been in the rose garden when the film went foggy?”

  He gritted his teeth. “Someone tampered with the footage.”

  He angled himself to study Peyton’s face. “Which means it had to be someone who knew about the tapes and had access to them. Someone who works for Golden Gardens.”

  * * *

  A SICK FEELING stole through Peyton. She couldn’t believe someone at the Gardens was involved in the threats against her and her mother.

  Even if that was so, why hurt Leon?

  It didn’t make sense.

  The fact that Val had been in the rose garden the night before he died looked suspicious. But her sister had no motive to hurt him.

  She attacked you the other night. Meaning her sister might be desperate and out of control, maybe under the influence of a mood-altering substance. Addiction had changed her personality, and if she’d graduated to more serious narcotics or hallucinogens, she could be psychotic.

  “I want to talk to the lady who found Leon,” Liam said. “How’s her health?”

  “She’s wheelchair bound due to back issues, but mentally she’s pretty sharp.”

  “Good. I also think we need to canvass the residents to see if anyone has seen anything suspicious.”

  Peyton gave a nod. “That will be best done on an individual basis in the residents’ homes,” she said. “Patients who become confused function better in their own surroundings.”


  “Understood. You should take the lead with them.” His keys jangled in his hands.

  “First, let’s stop by the director’s office and ask him to start compiling that list.”

  She shoved her arms into her jacket, then locked up as they left. Her sister’s message about the rose garden taunted her. She had to see what Val had left for her. But she wasn’t ready to share her sordid family history with Liam.

  He drove them to the main building, and she led him to the director’s office. His receptionist announced them, and Director Jameson met them at the door.

  “Peyton, I’m so sorry to hear about your mother. How is she doing?”

  “Thanks,” Peyton said. “She’s stable now but unfortunately hasn’t regained consciousness.”

  “I’m keeping her in my prayers.” He glanced over her shoulder at Liam. “You must be the federal agent I spoke with a couple of days ago.”

  Liam offered his hand. “Yes, sir. Special Agent Liam Maverick.”

  The men exchanged a handshake, then Richard Jameson gestured for them to sit. The director was a tall, dark-haired man, late forties, astute looking with a narrow face and eyes that pinned Liam with a stare.

  “Mr. Jameson,” Liam began, “there have been several suspicious activities at your facility this past week. First, an attack on Nurse Weiss.”

  “It is upsetting. I assure you I’ve done everything possible to beef up security. The safety of our residents and staff is of utmost importance.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” Liam said. “I reviewed security footage for the last few days and found something odd.”

  The director steepled his hands together. “What’s that?”

  “The footage during last night is intact, but there are a few minutes where it gets shaky, where I think some time is missing.”

  A frown furrowed his brows. “I admit our security equipment is outdated. Some of the tapes have been taped over so many times the footage is not as clear as it should be.”