What Stella Wants

“So, why didn’t she just walk out the front door?”

“Look at him!” Marygrace said, gesturing to Jake. “He’s got cop written all over him! He’s big. He’s got a bulge under his suit coat and he was outside talking on the cell phone right in front of the building. I’d take the window too, if I’d been in her shoes.”

I nodded, making a mental note to get the name of the staffing agency the nursing home used to hire Aida. They’d be reluctant to talk, if not downright uncooperative, fearing a lawsuit from the nursing home and citing confidentiality, but we could still try.

A tall woman with close-cropped wiry black hair stood in front of the North Hall nurses’ station, writing in a thick chart. She wore a spotless white lab coat, open to reveal a downright sexy pink knit top that crisscrossed her ample chest and highlighted the rich mocha color of her skin. As we approached, she looked up, took one look at my face and turned away from her paperwork.

“You don’t have enough to do, Marygrace, you gotta go gathering people up from the parking lot for me to see?”

Marygrace went off into one of her long, rapid-fire explanations punctuated with requests for medical attention and information. Within moments I was sitting in a chair in the conference room wincing as Stephanie dabbed Betadine on the scrape above my eye and Jake peppered her with questions about Baby Blankenship.

“Without Baby or her P.O.A. signing a release, I can’t talk to you about her condition or any treatment I may or may not have provided. As I understand it, you two have been retained by Marygrace to investigate the theft of items from Ms. Blankenship’s room. Frankly, I don’t see how I can help you.”

Great. What now? I looked to Marygrace and saw her deep in thought. She cocked her head to the side and smiled at the physician’s assistant.

“Of course you can’t talk about Baby, specifically, but you could speak generally about people like Baby, people who…I don’t know, let’s say, elderly people with maybe midstage Alzheimer’s.”

Marygrace was fairly levitating with the possibilities of obtaining information from Stephanie without breaking the laws pertaining to confidentiality.

“How about this,” Marygrace continued. “Suppose someone with a fair amount of memory loss encountered a trauma and lost something important to them. Suppose they then forgot what they’d lost. Would there be a chance that they could wake up tomorrow and perhaps remember more details, like the specific item that was missing or the description of the person who’d taken it?”

Stephanie smiled. “Perhaps. It happens. Of course, they could wake up tomorrow and have forgotten the entire incident, too.”

Jake was worse at hiding his frustration than I was. He fidgeted impatiently and finally turned to Marygrace. “Can we see her room?”

Marygrace sighed. “Sure. I told the staff to leave the room untouched, but I was too late. They were already trying to put things in order by the time I got back to the facility. They didn’t know. I guess they don’t watch those police shows like I do.” She smiled ruefully. “Come on. I’ll show you her room while Stephanie finishes doctoring Stella.”

“Wait a minute! We’re done, aren’t we?” I jumped up off the stool despite Stephanie’s attempts to continue dabbing me with swabs and ointments and took off after Jake and Marygrace. No way was I getting the short end of this investigation.

“Thanks, Stephanie,” I called over my shoulder, drowning out her protests.

I reached the door to Baby Blankenship’s room just as the other two were walking into it. It looked like any room in any hospital or nursing home in America, with the exception of a wall covered in family photographs and some other brightly colored knickknacks scattered around.

I had just begun carefully inspecting a photograph of a much younger Bitsy, surrounded by the rest of her family at what appeared to be a birthday party for Baby, when my cell phone rang.

“Stella?” Nina’s voice sounded strange, as if she had a cold or was trying not to cry.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was trying to help,” she said and sniffed loudly.

“Nina, tell me what’s going on.”

Jake and Marygrace were both studying me with concerned expressions.

“Well, after you guys left I remembered I had a hair appointment later and like, well, I have this paint chip I wanted Verna to see, you know, so she’d know what color I wanted for the highlights this time?”

“Uh-huh.”

It would do no good to rush Nina. It would only make her back up and start the tale all over again. The best thing I could do was pray she wound it up in short order.

“Well, you know how you were talking about that limo and all and Aunt Lucy being so pissed?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was there! He was dropping her off! So I like, got the license plate number and—Oh, God, Stella! It’s awful!”

Nina began to sob. When she gulped air, I broke in.

“Nina, what’s awful?”

“Oh!” she wailed. “I didn’t know I was so good!”

“Nina, what are you talking about?”

My cousin sniffed loudly, sounding offended. “Stella! For pity’s sake, try and follow what I’m saying! I am just like, totally good at this detective crap! I found out who he is and…and…”

“And?” I wanted to jump through the phone and throttle the girl.

“And, well, I found out too much, that’s what!”

This was followed by a renewed burst of crying, punctuated by loud sniffs and snorts.

“Nina,” I said, trying to be heard over the sheer volume of her sobbing. “Where is Spike? Let me talk to her.”

“She…she…can’t come. She went to see the…D.A.” More crying followed and I silently counted to ten and prayed for patience.

“Okay, Nina, now try and get hold of yourself. I need to know what you found out.”

Nina snuffled, blew her nose loudly and said, “All right.” She drew in a deep breath and said absolutely nothing.

“Nina, who is he? What did you learn about the man? Is he a criminal? What is it?”

“I can’t tell you over the phone!”

“Nina! Why not?”

Silence from her end of the line and then the infernal tear machine cranked up and she was off and running.

“You…you…you have to come here…to Aunt Lucy’s. Right now! Oh, this is awful!”

“Has something happened to Aunt Lucy?” Fear rose in my chest, tightening my throat as visions of Aunt Lucy at the hands of an evil stranger snapped in a rapid-fire slide-show of possibilities.

“No! She’s out again somewhere…probably with…him.”

Jake was mouthing “What? Why is she crying?”

All I could do was shake my head and frown. It was impossible to explain while also trying to calm Nina down.