MORNINGSIDE MANOR WAS A RED BRICK, three-story nursing home nestled among birches and evergreens and adjoining conservation land in Smithfield, just below the New Hampshire border. It was an adult long-term-care facility with a hundred and ten beds and was a cut above most of the homes and rehab centers that René regularly visited. It was Monday afternoon and she could not believe the number of cars in the parking lot including several limousines, all here for the groundbreaking of a new Alzheimer’s unit.
A large white tent had been pitched on the lawn, and waiters and waitresses were circulating through the crowd with champagne and fancy hors d’oeuvres. This was not the typical jug-wine-and-cheese-cube affair afforded by nursing home budgets.
René parked and made her way toward the tent, seeing no faces she recognized until she spotted Nick Mavros. He was standing with a small knot of people and waved her over.
“Now here’s a young woman for whom the expression ‘teacher’s pet’ was coined. Hello, beautiful,” he said, and gave her a hug and double-cheek air kisses, vestiges of a Peloponnesian birth some sixty years ago.
Nick had a strong face, thick bold features, and large eyes that lit up his face. “And now I’ve embarrassed her.”
“I’ll survive,” she said, and shook hands with another physician introduced as Peter Habib from Plymouth, a man about Nick’s age.
Nicholas Konstantinos Mavros had been her professor in pharmacy grad school and her thesis advisor for two years, during which time they had become more than student and professor. During her father’s decline, Nick had taken René under his wing, consoling her, bringing her to his home, giving her solace when she needed it the most. Over the three years since her father’s death, Nick had helped fill the void with warmth balanced by keen intelligence—traits which accounted for his position of respect in the community of neurophysicians. He was one of the few men whose mind never abandoned his heart, and René was grateful that there were people like Nick Mavros in the world.
Nick no longer had time to teach and was cutting back his private practice. He was senior neurologist at Mass General Hospital and chief collaborator at that institution’s MRI Imaging Center, where he and a team of physicists had pioneered new techniques for diagnostic imaging of the brain.
“They’ve got a tent the size of Fenway Park and half the medical community of the Northeast. What’s the big deal about a new nursing home wing?”
Nick made a happy grin and held up his glass. “Free champagne.” His eyes had that white-grape glow. He liked his wines and had a collection in his cellar.
“You have no shame,” René said.
“He’s a Greek. What do you expect?” Dr. Habib joked.
“Then they’re all Greeks here,” Nick said.
“Good stuff?” she asked, hinting that he’s probably had more than he should.
“Excellent, and brain cells be damned.” Then his eyes widened. “Uh-oh! There go another ten thousand.”
She laughed. “You can spare them.”
“Nice to meet you,” Habib said, excusing himself. “Something about the powers that do reckoning with the powers that be.” And he walked off.
“I love that guy,” Nick said through his champagne. “He knows how to live. He just bought himself a brand new Harley-Davidson for his semiretirement. Carpe diem.”
Habib had moved to a small group of people clustered around a large bald-headed man near the podium. “So what’s the big deal?” René asked. It was a crowd of at least a hundred and fifty and clearly was no shoestring celebration.
“It’s not Health Corp. who’s picking up the tab,” Nick said. Then he put his mouth to her ear. “The fella in the gray suit and bald head talking to Preston Van Dyke and Carter Lutz and now Peter. Gavin Moy.”
“Who?”
But just then Carter blew into the microphone. “May I have your attention, everybody?”
When the crowd quieted down, he introduced Preston Van Dyke, CEO of Health Corp., the parent company of the nursing homes that included Morningside and twenty-six other homes and rehab centers. Van Dyke began by thanking Carter Lutz and other dignitaries gathered there. “I’d like to say that this is a great day for Morningside as we break ground for our new long-term-care unit, which, as you may know, is to be constructed with another generous gift from GEM Tech.” And he motioned his hand toward Gavin Moy.
When the applause died down, Van Dyke continued: “With your wonderful support, we will expand our already fine facilities and increase the quality of health care for years to come.”
Van Dyke continued briefly, and when he was finished, somebody handed him and Gavin Moy a chrome shovel with which they posed over a plot of dirt for a flurry of photographs and applause. The groundbreaking still didn’t explain the large crowd of suits, including someone she recognized from the FDA.
“Exciting, huh?” Nick said.
“Overwhelming,” René said, as they walked to a table of fancy snacks. Her mind was pulsing to tell him about the video of Clara Devine. “Do you know a neuro doc named Jordan Carr?”
“Yes. In fact, he’s here somewhere. Why?”
“I’ll catch him another time.” This was not the occasion for a confrontation.
“Well, if you change your mind, I’d be happy to—” But Nick was cut off.
“René Ballard?”
She turned to see a tall, good-looking man with shiny black hair.
“Speaking of the devil,” Nick said. “René Ballard, Jordan Carr.”
He held his hand out to her. “I understand you were looking for me.”
“Well, yes. I was.”
“Then I saved you the trouble.” His smile spread over a perfect set of upper teeth.
Nick grinned and took the invitation to depart. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“No, you don’t have to leave,” she said to Nick.
He held up his empty glass and nodded toward a waitress. “The champagne lady’s here and all’s right with the world,” he said with a wink. “Besides, there’s someone I have to say hello to.” And he headed off, grabbing another champagne from the waitress on the way to Gavin Moy.
“So,” Dr. Carr said, smiling down on her.
“We can do this at another time.”
“This is as good as any.”
He had a thin, boyish face with a high forehead and large, dark almond-shaped eyes that made him look Polynesian. His hair was perfectly black and parted on the side with optical precision. René stood five-five, maybe five-six in heels, and he was nearly a head taller than she was. “Okay. Then perhaps where we can have more privacy,” she said, and led him to an opening away from the crowd.
“My, my, this
must
be important,” he said, following her.
She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or condescending. It didn’t help that he spoke in a crisp English accent, which blurred the distinction. When they were on their own, she said, “I have some questions about Clara Devine.”
He kept his face in a neutral state of bemusement. “What about her?”
René was conscious of the professional divide between them—he a nationally recognized neurophysician probably on the board of a dozen important institutions and she a twenty-nine-year-old consulting pharmacist. She also reminded herself that a misstatement could get Alice Gordon and the other nurses in trouble. “I’m wondering how she managed to escape Broadview and get herself to the CVS and kill a complete stranger.”
“I’m familiar with the case, Ms. Ballard.” He smiled and sipped his wine, studying her with unblinking eyes.
She was not going to let his porcelain smugness derail her. “As you may know, I’m responsible for monitoring patients’ meds each month. When I went to check her folder, I discovered that several months’ worth of her charts were missing. Also, the order sheets were signed off by you rather than her primary care physician.”
“Because I’ve taken over for Dr. Colette.” His words had the honey-glaze patience of a teacher addressing a slow child.
“I see, but that still doesn’t explain Clara’s missing medical charts and those of four other patients under your care.”
If her discovery surprised him he did not let on. “They’re in Broadview’s computers.” His smile shaded into irritation, and he checked his watch.
“Then why was I told to consult you first when I asked to see them?”
“Just another firewall of patient confidentiality. Next question.”
Yeah. How did you get to be such an arrogant creep?
“Dr. Carr, I am licensed to have access to patient records—all patients’ records—not just some of them.”
“Then it’s an oversight to be corrected. Is that it?”
The feigned civility of Carr’s manner was annoying.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
Dad’s counsel. “No. The census sheets list forty-two patients, and a head count turned up forty-six.”
“Beg pardon?”
“There are four more residents in the AD unit than are registered. Four names I’ve not seen before, yet who have beds. And, frankly, Dr. Carr, I’d like an explanation because I’ve got to give one to my boss.”
Carr looked a bit nonplussed. “You’re very clever, Ms. Ballard. And may I call you René?”
“Dr. Carr, I’m responsible for the accuracy of all patients’ medical records on that ward as I am at all the homes I visit—”
Carr flapped his hand as if her words were gnats. “Yes, yes, of course.” Then he scanned the crowd, looking like a Serengeti gazelle testing the air for cheetahs. And while he did she noticed his outfit—tan hand-stitched boots that probably cost more than her Honda and a blue blazer with a breast-pocket shield of a black rearing stallion in a field of gold. Some designer’s logo she didn’t recognize.
“Ms. Ballard, I’m wondering if we might discuss this some other time.”
“Dr. Carr, I’ve been getting stonewalled on this since yesterday and possibly since I’ve been on the job. And given that this has become a police matter, I think I have a right to know what’s going on with residents in my homes.”
“Nobody is questioning your right to know. It’s just not the proper place.” He smiled widely and waved at someone in the crowd. “And now I’m being paged. Do you have a business card?”
She was being dismissed. She dug into her bag and pulled one out.
He produced a gold pen. “No, your home number and address, if you don’t mind.”
She looked up at him for an explanation.
“Chateau Dominique at eight tomorrow. Are you free?”
Christ, he’s making a damn date with me.
“I guess,” she could hear the thinness of her voice. “But this is not a social matter.”
“No, but a much better venue.”
Go with it,
she told herself, and wrote down her number and address.
“Is seven-thirty good?” But before she could file that away, Carr took her elbow. “Here’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he said, and took her to Gavin Moy.
Moy smiled and shook her hand. It was soft and warm, like a fine glove left in the sun. He had a weathered, tanned face that looked as if it had spent time on a yacht or a golf course. What was striking about his appearance was his brilliant green eyes, which made her wonder if he wore colored contacts. His head was a perfectly tanned dome with a mixture of white and auburn on the sides. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Blanchard.”
“Ballard.”
He nodded and scanned her up and down. “Nice pin,” he said looking at her lapel cat pin fashioned in black and white.
“It’s supposed to be my cat,” she said, feeling foolish.
Moy nodded and began searching the crowd. She could have announced
that she had eaten the cat for breakfast and he could not have cared less. So why Dr. Carr’s insistence on their meeting?
“Nice to meet you,” he said, and pulled away with Carr.
Apparently Nick had taken in the scene, because he sauntered over with a fresh glass of champagne and took her arm. “Having a good time?”
“A blast.” She swallowed half her glass of wine. “Why do I feel like I’m stuck in a conspiracy movie and I’m the only one who doesn’t get it?”
“Maybe you are. What time is your date?”
“How do you know I have a date?”
“Because I know Jordan Carr. I also knew his ex-wife.”
“If first impressions mean anything, I’m on her side.”
Nick smiled broadly. “Well, maybe you should give him a chance. He’s a brilliant physician and someone who’s going places.”
“So, what should I know?”
“That you’re in for a lovely meal and some good wine.”
“Want to chaperone? Please?”
He laughed. “I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”
“What about the fifty questions I want answered?”
“I’m sure you’ll be satisfied.” He looked around for the waiter for a refill.
“And I think it’s time for Pellegrino.” And she plucked the fluted glass out of Nick’s hand and headed over to the bar feeling like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s jubilee.