Chapter Thirteen

Dad and I sped to Sunshine Haven. Once we arrived, Dad raced across the parking lot on foot, while I hobbled behind. When he gave an anguished look back, I waved him on. If our analysis of Sunday night being the killer’s prime time was correct, everyone was safe for a few more hours. But that didn’t lessen our need to check on Mom now.

I got to the Alzheimer’s unit hallway as Dad burst out of Mom’s room. He stared at me wild-eyed. “She’s not here!”

I leaned on my cane, dragging in breath.

“Don’t panic.” Was I telling him or myself? “She could be in one of the common rooms, at breakfast . . .”

Dad glanced at his watch. “It’s after ten!” He drew in a breath and gave me a shaky smile. “I’m sure you’re right. Let’s check the sunroom.”

A buzz of cheerful voices filled the large, crowded room. I didn’t immediately spot Mom among all the other white- and gray-haired heads, but Dad made a beeline to her.

“Isaac!” She scooted forward in her seat and lifted her face for his kiss. Dad took her hand and stood beside her.

Mom greeted me with a smile, but she squinted with her eyebrows pinched together, as if puzzled.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie. You look tired. You ought to get more rest.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I’d slept eleven hours the night before, and when I looked in the mirror that morning, I’d thought I seemed healthier, not so drawn and haggard. Mom might be thinking of me as a young adult, although she often suggested I ought to color my hair and take better care of my skin. This time, I was too relieved to take offense.

“Is this a party?” Dad asked.

Mom beamed. “We had a lovely concert. Such nice singing.”

I glanced around the room, and a nearby woman caught my eye. She stepped closer and said, “It was the weekly church service, but it’s mostly singing and reading a few passages. The choir from a local church comes here after their regular service.”

I thanked her, and she rejoined an older couple. Dad was a secular Jew and Mom was a lapsed Catholic, more or less agnostic, but Mom had always enjoyed exploring various religions. It was nice that Sunshine Haven had activities like this for the residents. Visitors must enjoy the service as well, since almost half the people in the room looked too young and healthy to be residents.

I sighed, my muscles trembling as the tension faded. No seats were empty near Mom, and standing was making the pain in my thigh radiate up into my back and down to my foot.

I told Dad, “I’m going to see if Heather is in.”

He nodded without taking his eyes off Mom. I glanced around the room as I made my way toward the doorway. With this many people here, would that make it easier or harder for a killer? If Sundays were always like this, with lots of visitors throughout the day, an outsider could easily sneak in. But the crowd also meant more eyes on the patients.

Still, most visitors wouldn’t stay all day. At some point, the residents would head back to their rooms. Would anyone notice if a visitor slipped into one of those rooms? I wouldn’t know who was supposed to be visiting each patient. Someone might have witnessed the murderer at work but not realized what they saw.

I blew out a frustrated breath as I got back to the front room with the reception desk. All I could do was keep investigating the mystery and hope we’d uncover a clue.

I searched my memory for the receptionist’s name. “Carla, right?”

“Yes. You’re Mrs. Tessler’s daughter?”

“Yes, Kate. Is Heather in?”

“No, she doesn’t work weekends.”

Oh, right. It made sense that the director would work a regular Monday through Friday schedule. But I didn’t want to wait until the next day to get information, not when a killer might be at work that evening. I thanked Carla and moved to the far corner of the lounge before calling Heather’s cell phone. It rang six times before she answered.

“Kate, what’s up?”

“I’m at Sunshine Haven. Can you join me here as soon as possible?”

“I’m meeting someone shortly.” The sound of running water came from the background.

“How about this afternoon?”

Heather sighed. “Today isn’t good. I’m not sure when I’ll be free.”

I heard a muffled swear and the loud bang of her phone hitting a hard surface. I flinched.

“Sorry, sorry. Look, I’m in a rush. If it’s urgent, can we do this over the phone? I can call you from my car in about fifteen minutes.”

I had another idea.

“How about if you tell Carla to give me some information?” When Heather didn’t answer right away, I said, “It’s important. Maybe not an exaggeration to say life or death.”

She gave a sharp intake of breath. “If it’s that important, I can cancel my . . . appointment.”

“No, that’s all right. I’m sure Carla can help, but you need to tell her it’s okay to talk to me.”

Another long pause before she said, “Fine. Put her on.”

I crossed to Carla and handed her the phone. Heather talked for about a minute, but she’d hung up by the time Carla handed my phone back.

“She says I’m supposed to give you any information you need.”

I didn’t blame her for sounding skeptical. It wouldn’t be legal for Carla to give me access to confidential files.

I said, “I want to know who’s on duty here on Sundays, especially Sunday night through Monday morning. Also, what regular activities are scheduled on Sundays?”

“All right. Give me five minutes.” She turned to her computer.

I backed away while dialing Mackenzie. “Mac, I need you to do something right away.”

“Sure.”

“Heather has a meeting soon. It sounded like she’d be getting in her car within fifteen minutes. Any chance you can get to her house and follow her?”

“On my way. Am I looking for anything special?”

“See who she meets.” The sound of a door slamming came through the phone. “If it’s someplace public, try to get close and listen to their conversation. She doesn’t know you.”

“Got it.” A car engine started. “Leaving now.”

The girl moved fast.

I said goodbye and hung up so she could concentrate on driving. I wasn’t sure where either Heather or Mackenzie lived, and the greater Phoenix area was huge. But if Mackenzie had been researching Heather, presumably Mac knew where her target lived and thought she might get there in time. It was worth a shot. Heather was meeting someone on a Sunday afternoon, and she had hesitated before calling it an appointment. She could simply be meeting a friend, but she’d spoken like someone trying to avoid questions. Which, of course, made me ask questions.

In the meantime, I could get what I needed from Carla and take advantage of the Sunday chaos at Sunshine Haven to poke around. I lowered myself into one of the lobby chairs. It was a wide padded chair with arms, but fortunately, the cushions were firm and it kept my butt above my knees instead of the other way around. I now struggled to get out of soft chairs, especially if they had low seats. I never used to think about these things, but I suppose any place serving an elderly population knew which chairs made it easier for people to get up again.

I concentrated on my breathing, using the meditation techniques the German physical therapist had taught me. Normally, I hated meditation. It was so boring I got mad rather than relaxed, but it did seem to calm my reaction to pain.

Carla crossed the room, carrying some papers. I smiled my gratitude that she hadn’t made me come to her instead.

“Here’s the work schedule and the social schedule for today and last Sunday,” she said. “I put an X next to the one-time events. The others are all regular except for holidays.”

“This is great. Thanks. Do you know if all the employees were here as scheduled the past two Sundays?”

“I can double-check the time cards, but I think so. The cleaning crew rotates, though. It’s an outside service. They take care of the staffing, and I think turnover is pretty high.” Carla shrugged. “Not that I blame them, a job like that.”

“The cleaning crew comes at night?”

“They clean the patient rooms during the day, and a separate group comes every night to clean the public rooms and bathrooms. But the big cleaning crew comes Sunday night, for things that don’t need to be done daily.”

I groaned. Carla didn’t even blink. Apparently, she’d decided someone with her cool, professional demeanor ignored bizarre behavior.

“Can I get you some water or a cup of coffee?” She gestured toward a counter with coffee urns.

“A cup of coffee would be amazing. Thanks. With a good splash of milk or cream.” I hated to make someone wait on me, but at the moment, I hated the idea of getting up and down more. While she took care of the coffee, I pondered the cleaning service. They hadn’t been on Heather’s list of employees, no doubt because they weren’t actually employees of the home. This new information widened the field of suspects considerably.

On the other hand, the Sunday night crew wasn’t supposed to go into patient rooms. That didn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t. Were the rooms locked at night? Probably not, since the night staff would need access in case of an emergency.

Still, they wouldn’t gain anything from killing patients.

But people did crazy things. When you made assumptions about how someone should behave, you got into trouble. Every bell curve had outliers.

I closed my eyes and groaned again. If people weren’t acting logically, or if I couldn’t guess at the logic they were using, anything could be true.

A throat cleared. I glanced up at Carla. Her wide eyes suggested my nuttiness was starting to crack even her well-polished facade.

She handed me the coffee as the main doors whooshed open and someone crossed the lobby. I couldn’t see past Carla at first, so I didn’t identify the new person until he turned down the hallway.

I said, “That man who just came in, he’s a physical therapist?”

The one who was possibly having an affair with Kellie Armstrong, daughter of one of our dead women.

Carla glanced back and nodded.

“Would he be working here on a Sunday?” I asked. “In this building?”

“Probably not. They sometimes visit patients in their rooms, instead of making them go next door. But I don’t think any of the PTs work on Sundays.”

I stared at her. “So what would he be doing here?”

“It’s possible he’s visiting a friend or family member, but most likely he’s here for the dogs.”

My head throbbed. I took a sip of coffee. “Dogs?”

“A volunteer group brings therapy dogs in on Sundays. They’re a lot of fun, and sometimes staff who aren’t working drop by for that.”

“You’re kidding me,” I whined.

“No.” Carla backed away. “If that’s all . . . ?”

“For the moment. Thanks.”

I lifted the mug and simply inhaled the scent for a minute. The whole “breathe in and out” part of meditation was more interesting with a delicious smell.

I couldn’t let the weight of the problem crush me. It was looking like anyone, literally anyone at all, might be in the building on a Sunday. Staff who were scheduled to work that day, and those who weren’t. Friends and families of patients. Random strangers. What were they thinking, not having better security in this place?

I slumped back and sighed. They were trying to make it like a real home, not a prison or even a hospital. And granted, they usually wouldn’t need security. The receptionist was there to help people, not to stop them.

I looked over the papers Carla had given me, but I’d almost lost hope of finding clues. The names were familiar because they’d been on Heather’s original list, but none of the employees scheduled for Sunday nights were on our shortlist of suspects.

I was questioning that list anyway. Family members might have killed a patient for an inheritance. They wouldn’t need to kill additional patients on a weekly schedule. A staff member who wanted money, to support a drug problem or a lavish lifestyle, would steal cash or valuables, or try to extort money from the patients. That went with what Mom said about someone asking for more money. But then why kill the patients? That would eliminate the source of cash.

Unless they were trying to get rid of witnesses? But that wouldn’t explain the regular weekly schedule. Plus, targeting Alzheimer’s patients made sense if you wanted to trick people and knew any complaints they made afterward might be blamed on their poor memories and confusion. They were the one group a thief didn’t need to kill.

I felt like I’d gotten the pieces for three or four different jigsaw puzzles and I was trying to make them fit into one picture.

Maybe it was time to focus on the angel of death theory. Ignore any pieces that didn’t fit that image. But if we had someone killing for the sake of killing, how could we identify that person? I’d hoped that hadn’t been the answer, because an angel of death would be almost impossible to uncover. Short of setting up hidden cameras in every hallway and waiting for the killer to strike again, how could we stop the murderer?

I needed new clues. Preferably ones that simply showed up and dropped into my lap.

A young woman came in the front door and crossed to Carla, who gestured toward me. The girl turned and headed for me.

She was blonde and plump, maybe sixteen. She stopped in front of me and smiled, showing dimples in her cheeks. “Hi. I’m Zinnia.”

“Like the flower?”

“Right! My grandpa said I should help you.”

“Okay . . . who’s your grandfather?”

“Henry Wilson.”

Ah, this must be one of the granddaughters who volunteered at Sunshine Haven. “What did your grandfather say you should help me with?”

She looked around the room carefully. It was empty except for Carla, who was at least twenty feet away and tapping at her keyboard. Zinnia leaned toward me and whispered, “He asked if I’ve seen anything suspicious. I thought about it and came up with some things so he said to let you know what I found!”

“You have noticed suspicious things?” Could this be a clue dropping right into my lap?

She sat in the next chair and arranged her short skirt. She bit her lower lip and scanned the room as if checking for enemy spies. “I think someone is giving the patients the wrong medicine.”

The wrong medicine? No, that didn’t fit with our theories at all! I wanted new clues to the deaths, not a brand-new path to follow. I should have been more specific with my wish.

Wait, maybe the deaths were accidental overdoses, or intentional ones. It would depend on when the wrong medicine was administered. “Tell me about it.”

“I’ve been volunteering here since I was fourteen, you know? Almost two whole years! I have a lot of experience. I know what the patients are supposed to be like.”

“Isn’t there a lot of variety? Even the Alzheimer’s patients won’t all be the same, and other patients have different problems.”

“Sure, but some of these people I’ve known the whole time. I’ve seen changes.”

Interesting, but I didn’t want to give too much credit to a teenager’s medical diagnosis. “People are likely to change as they get older and sicker.”

She huffed out a breath. “But they don’t go back and forth!”

I imagined they could have up and down days, but maybe she was onto something.

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’ve seen, in detail?” I pulled out a notebook.

“About three months ago. That’s when it started. One of the ladies had always been real lively. Like, her mind wasn’t all there, but she was fun, you know? But then one week, she could hardly talk. I thought, like you said, she’d gotten worse. But the next week, she was okay again, and I remembered how her eyes looked. I see a lot of people when they’re in pain, and when they’ve had painkillers. They get a look, right? It’s in the eyes.”

“You think she was in more pain the week before?”

She shook her head. “I think she was on more painkillers. Too many. I think someone has been giving patients the wrong amounts of drugs.”