A dozen pink roses, wrapped in cellophane and tied together with a white bow, occupied the passenger seat of Zach’s VW Bug. He hoped the flowers would help him get his foot in the door at Glenhaven Hills.
The Shell station attendant in Olympia had never heard of the place. Nor did Zach get much help from the woman at the register inside the Texaco Stop n’ Sip. But they had a phone book and a map of Olympia, so Zach figured out how to get to Glenhaven Drive, a little buttonhook on the map—off a winding, hillside trail called Old Summit Road.
Dusk was looming over the landscape by the time Zach found Old Summit Road. He had a feeling the Tip Top Kwik & Redi Mart at the base of the mountain highway was his last vestige of civilization for a while. Switching on his headlights, Zach started up the two-lane trail. Through the trees, he could see the state capitol building below as he climbed higher and higher. He tried to imagine Olivia zipping up and down this lonely, narrow road on her way to and from work every day.
He wondered what kind of “new information” Sonny Fessler had told her about the Gorman’s Creek incident. Had Sonny witnessed the disposal of Mallory Meehan’s body? Had he seen someone walking her to her car? Or perhaps Mallory had already been dead when she’d taken her last ride in her mother’s tan Volare.
For Zach, it didn’t take a lot of guesswork to figure who had disposed of Mallory’s body and her car. He was convinced Brad Corrigan had lied to his sister about that. Bridget said Brad couldn’t have returned to Gorman’s Creek and gotten rid of the body before she’d driven back there in the family car. Zach was pretty sure Mallory Meehan had pulled herself out of that well. Bridget may have called out her name several times. But Mallory would have had good reason to ignore her. Bridget had already led her into one trap. Why answer her call and be duped again? After Bridget had found the well empty and fled the scene, her brother must have returned there on his bike. He could have found Mallory. Perhaps there was an altercation and he accidentally killed her. Or maybe Brad used his charms on Mallory and convinced her to let him walk her back up that wooded trail to her car. Maybe he insisted she was in no shape to drive, and after loading his bike into the Volare, he would have driven her out of town to some remote spot. Once he killed Mallory Meehan, he would have gotten rid of her body and her car. Then he could have ridden home on his bicycle. That would explain why Brad had gone on a “bike ride” for over six hours that night.
Obviously, Sonny Fessler had seen part—or all—of what had happened, and he’d told Olivia Rankin about it. But Olivia had quit working at Glenhaven Hills over a year ago. Why had she waited so long before trying to peddle this “new information” to Fuller Sterns? Had she approached Brad Corrigan too? Was that why she’d been killed?
Zach imagined Olivia’s murder setting off a chain reaction of killings by Brad or someone in his camp. Olivia’s suicide, Fuller’s car accident, Cheryl Bloom’s freak mishap in the tub—they were all part of a housecleaning expedition. All the witnesses to the senatorial candidate’s twenty-year-old crime were being eliminated. Part of that housecleaning must have included the “drug-related” murders of Gerard Hilliard and Leslie Ackerman. Hadn’t Bridget said Brad was unhappy that she’d told her husband about Gorman’s Creek?
Bridget didn’t see any of this as a possibility. How could she—without acknowledging that her twin brother was a murderer?
Zach wondered what Brad had in store for her. She was the only other remaining witness to the Gorman’s Creek incident. She was valuable to his campaign. But wouldn’t her “untimely death” so close to Election Day win him thousands and thousands of sympathy votes?
Zach’s ears popped as the VW Bug continued its ascent. Dusk had surrendered to night. The road had leveled off, and he passed about a dozen estates, all set back from the winding, tree-lined road. Zach kept looking for the turnoff for Glenhaven Drive. For five minutes, he drove by a dark forest preserve. He could hardly see anything past the beams of his headlights. He had to slow down, because too often the road took him alongside a cliff—with nothing but a short guardrail between his car and the sheer drop below. “Jesus,” he muttered, keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel. “Where is this godforsaken dump anyway?”
Had he passed it? Was Glenhaven Hills one of those estates a few miles back? Zach had a sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He saw some light ahead—by the side of the road. “Please be it, please be it,” he whispered. Drawing closer, he saw a pair of open wrought-iron gates and a lamppost with a sign:
GLENHAVEN HILLS
. Beside the front gates stood a darkened guardhouse. Though no one appeared to be on duty, there was a camera trained on him.
Zach turned down the driveway, lined with trees and neatly pruned hedges. He studied the building at the end of the drive—a sprawling, three-story beige brick structure from the twenties. At least, to Zach, it looked like something out of
The Great Gatsby
era. There was a resemblance to the White House—with pillars in front of the main section, and two wings. Very stately. An ugly iron statue of three deer stood on a big stone pedestal on the lawn in front of the main doors. The grounds were well lit and beautifully maintained. Yet the place looked imposingly creepy. As Zach got closer to the building, he noticed two floors on the left wing had bars on the windows.
A black sign with gold letters pointed him to
VISITOR PARKING
, and he pulled into a lot by the facility’s right wing. Considering all the secrecy about Sonny Fessler residing at this place, Zach had expected more security. Then again, it was only 6:20. They were probably between shifts, and just finishing up the dinner hour.
He parked his car, grabbed the bouquet of pink roses, and stepped outside. Zach walked up a set of steps by a wheelchair access ramp. He followed the paved pathway to the main entrance.
Zach stepped into the lobby, a comfy, spacious area decorated with rustic-chic furnishings. The sofas and easy chairs were covered with a Native American–patterned weave. Autumn-theme fake flower arrangements were strategically placed throughout the room, and a fire blazed in the stone hearth. The place resembled the lobby of a slightly cheesy mountain resort—except for the buzzer that went off as Zach stepped over the threshold. There was also a plump young nurse on duty behind a sliding glass window along one wall.
As Zach approached the window, he noticed a couple of cameras up near the ceiling.
The nurse slid the window open and smiled at him. She’d laid on the mascara a bit too thick, and had long blond hair in corkscrew curls. “Can I help you?” she asked.
Zach held up the roses so she could see them. “Yes, hi. I understand Olivia Rankin works here. Could I see her for a minute—if she isn’t busy?”
“You want to see Olivia?”
He nodded eagerly. “Could you tell her Zach from McLaren High would like to talk with her?”
The chubby receptionist twisted her mouth to one side. “Um, I’m sorry, but Olivia hasn’t worked here for about a year now. She—um, well, she doesn’t work here anymore.”
Leaning against the window frame, Zach tried to look appropriately crestfallen. “Is there anyone here who knows how I can get a hold of her? I’ve come a long way. See, Olivia and I dated in high school, and I haven’t seen her in years.”
She nervously cleared her throat and reached for the telephone. “Let me see if Monique has a couple of minutes to talk with you. She knew Olivia pretty well. Why don’t you have a seat over by the fire?”
“Thanks very much,” Zach said. Turning away from the window, he looked up at one of the security cameras, pointed at him. A little red light was blinking beneath the lens.
“Monique?” he heard the receptionist say under her breath. “This guy’s here, asking for Olivia. He brought flowers . . . No . . . No, I didn’t have the heart to tell him. They were high school sweethearts . . . Well, you knew Olivia better than anyone else . . .”
Suddenly, the nurse poked her head out the window opening. “Um, Zach, if you’ll just have a seat over there,” she said, pointing to the sofa by the fireplace, “someone will be right with you.”
He nodded, and then retreated toward the couch. He passed by a set of double doors and wondered if they led to the C Ward. He looked around for another door and saw another single door in the corner. A black placard with a single gold C on it was on the door. There was also a numerical security device by the door frame, the kind airports use for personnel-only areas. Zach realized that was the left wing, the one with the bars on the windows. If Glenhaven Hills was a combination rest home and sanitarium, as Sheriff Miller had said, then Sonny Fessler was residing in the sanitarium part. Zach wondered how they were going to get in there to see Sonny when he “doesn’t take no visitors.”
He sat down with his flowers and stared at the fake logs in the gas fireplace for a few minutes.
“Zach?”
He quickly stood up, and was a head taller than the short, round, coffee-colored nurse with shiny, ironed-flat shoulder-length hair. “I’m Monique,” she said with a crisp Jamaican accent. “I used to work with Olivia.”
Zach shook her hand. “Hi. I was hoping to surprise her. But I guess the surprise is on me. Do you know how I can get in touch with Olivia?”
With a sigh, Monique motioned toward the sofa. “Why don’t you sit down, Zach? I have some bad news for you.”
He put on a concerned, confused look, then sat down on the sofa arm. “What is it?”
Monique grimaced for a second. “Um, Olivia’s dead. She committed suicide a few weeks ago.”
“Oh my God,” he murmured, gaping at her.
She shrugged. “I can’t tell you much more about it. After she quit here last year, Olivia moved to Seattle and we fell out of touch. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
Zach shook his head. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Could you—well, can you tell me what it was like working with Olivia?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He gave her the flowers. “Oh, here. Maybe you’d like these. Or you can give them to a patient. Maybe you can give them to Lon Fessler.”
“Lon Fessler?” she asked, eyes narrowed at him. She tentatively held the bouquet of roses.
“Lon was this quirky guy from Olivia’s and my old hometown,” Zach explained. “This friend of mine who told me about Olivia working here said that Lon was one of her patients. Is he still here?”
“Yes,” she replied, frowning. “Lon’s still a patient here.”
“I hate coming all this way for nothing,” Zach continued. “I haven’t seen Olivia since high school—twenty years ago. She was always a lot of fun. And she was no stranger to trouble, believe me. But she could be awfully sweet too. Can you tell me what she was like? Was she still the same girl I knew in high school?”
Monique shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Olivia and I weren’t especially close. We just worked together.”
“Anything at all that you remember,” he said. “I just want to hear about Olivia. I know she was no saint. You don’t have to sugarcoat it. Can’t you tell me anything about her? Was she a good nurse?”
“Well, she wasn’t a registered nurse,” Monique said. “She was a caregiver.” Monique glanced over her shoulder, then checked her wristwatch. “Listen, can you step outside with me? I want to have a cigarette.”
They went outside. Monique set the roses down on a bench by the front window, then pulled a pack of Marlboros from the pocket of her nurse’s uniform. The three iron deer watched them as Monique lit up a cigarette.
“So—was Olivia a good
caregiver?
” Zach asked.
“Not really,” Monique admitted, after a long drag on her Marlboro. “You want the truth about Olivia?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“Well, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, Zach. But Olivia was kind of a screwup. Many of our regular patients complained about her being rude and incompetent.”
“So—they fired Olivia?”
“No, they put her in C Ward, where we keep the nutcases. The patients don’t complain so much over there. And that’s when Olivia ran into Lon Fessler, and the girl fell into a tub of butter. They’d been on the verge of firing her, and suddenly they started treating her like the Queen of fucking Sheba.”
Zach let out a little laugh. It was startling to hear Monique say “fuck” in her precise Jamaican accent.
“The girl got to come and go whenever she damn well pleased,” Monique groused, puffing on her cigarette. “She could be an hour late for work, and no one raised an eyebrow. She called in sick at the last minute, no sweat. They gave her a raise and more vacation time. I tell you, Olivia had it made.”
“How did she rate this royal treatment?” Zach asked.
“Lon Fessler is how. The Fesslers donated nearly a million dollars to this place. Lon is our number-one patient. And Lon apparently liked Olivia. I have to be honest with you, Zach. He was the only one here who liked her. She got away with murder, and the rest of us resented it. That includes several of the doctors on staff. Finally, the Fessler family lawyers got involved, and Olivia was offered a very sweet buyout. I remember her bragging to all of us about it. They gave her a full year’s pay, plus another month of vacation. Last I heard, after moving up to Seattle, she went through all that money in less than eight months. I don’t know if it went up her nose, or what.” Monique took one last puff of her cigarette, then dropped the stub on the pavement and stepped on it. “Then the next thing I heard was a couple of weeks ago, when someone read in the newspaper that Olivia had shot herself.”