Chapter Twenty #4
He had the decency to look sheepish. “I didn’t see Reynard in the garden that night—from the second floor or the third floor. I didn’t see anyone,” he said to my slackening jaw. “I made it up because I wanted you to suspect him, question him, even give his name to the police.”
“What? Rhodes,” I cried. “Why would you want that? Reynard is innocent—”
“He’s not innocent.” The look in his eyes silenced me.
“Sue, when I went snooping through your mother’s computer, I went through her emails.
I don’t think Reynard knows this, but the estate lawyer sends her a copy of every medical bill the estate pays on her behalf.
It’s all there in a million unread email invoices she never bothered to look at, but I looked. ”
“I— I don’t understand. Was something wrong?”
“You know how it works,” he said. “Staff submit the bills directly to the estate. We don’t even need to see them. Well, in the last few months, our good nurse Reynard has been loading the invoices with fraudulent charges and no doubt pocketing the difference.”
“What!” I lurched back, gaping at him. “Are you sure? How do you know this?”
“I’m sure. I saw all these treatments and services that I know for a fact Omma never received.
Weekly acupuncture sessions, weekly massages, tai chi at the Coldstone Wellness Center in upstate New York, and the best one, Eversaic medicinal pills at five thousand dollars a fucking bottle,” he tossed out.
“The thing is, I looked into Eversaic when a client asked me if it was a good idea to invest in their growing company, and I told them no, because Eversaic sold nothing more than overpriced multivitamins. And even if they didn’t, I’ve never seen a bottle of the stuff on your mother’s pill caddy. Have you?”
I stiffly shook my head, throat tight.
“Just like I’ve never seen her allow a stranger to give her a massage, let alone stick needles in her body.”
“The lawyer trusted her nurse,” I squeezed through dry lips. “If he said she needed it or she did it, he just believed him and paid the money. That piece of shit used my dying mother to make himself rich.”
“Sue...” Something in his eyes chilled me. “I’m afraid there’s more.”
“More? What else could there be?”
More sympathy stole across his face for the first time since our conversation began. For me?
No, I thought, backing up farther. For my mother.
“I saw a lot of charges on those invoices,” he began, “but none of them were real drugs needed to fight nausea, pain, fatigue, bone loss, or weight loss.”
My brain went offline, refusing to supply an explanation. “What does that mean?”
“It means that when he started working for your mother, she was on all of those things, but in the last couple months, she was still on the cancer pills, but he wasn’t giving her anything to combat the effects.
I think...” The pity in his eyes ripped my heart out.
“I think he was purposely denying her the meds she needed to be well. He was making her sicker, weaker, and basically medically torturing her to keep Omma dependent on him, and therefore keep the money coming.”
“Rhodes...” I clapped a hand over my mouth, a horror I couldn’t name poisoning me. “How could you keep this from me!?”
“I had no intention to,” he cried. “I went to tell you immediately so we could beat his ass together, but then—then—then you screamed! Everyone came running and we discovered Omma was killed.
“After that, I didn’t know how to tell you or the police what I found without admitting I was in the room right next door with a huge fucking motive when the murder happened.
Those lazy bastards would’ve driven off with me in the backseat next to your friend,” he said.
“That’s why I made up that shit about Reynard being in the garden below Omma’s window.
I wanted to give you a reason to doubt him.
To dig into that creep and find out what he was hiding.
“I know he didn’t kill her—because he was an hour away and you don’t kill the golden goose—but he was the reason your mother was so weak and out of it she didn’t have a prayer of defending herself when that monster stole into her room. And he deserves to pay for it.”
“You’re fucking right he does!” I almost ripped the dial free turning off the stove. Storming out of the kitchen, Rhodes’s shouts for me to stop were nothing but buzzing in my ears.
That cheating, fraudulent bitch realized he walked into a scam-rich environment, and he took full advantage.
Who questions it when a doctor or nurse says a patient needs a certain treatment?
Who wants to be the heartless shitbag who denies a dying woman said treatment?
The lawyer approved every charge Reynard sent his way, trying to do right by my mother, and that bastard took advantage of the fact that no one knew his treatments were bogus or nonexistent. And if that wasn’t enough...
Bile surged up my throat, threatening to spew on the staircase.
Reynard was torturing her. Denying the basic, humane care his oath demanded, just so she never got the idea that she didn’t need his services. Just so that we never decided that we didn’t need his help, and could care for her ourselves.
“It’s disgusting!” I screamed, tearing down the hall to the east wing. “How could anyone be so evil? You’re no better than the monster who killed her!”
“Sue, I agree with you completely, but don’t confront this guy.” Rhodes chased after me. He grabbed my hand but didn’t try to slow me down. I might’ve attacked him if he did. “Let’s call the police. We have the invoices proving fraud. They’ll handle him.”
I shook free, practically sprinting to get ahead of him. “Yeah, they’ll handle him—after I’m done!”
“Sue!”
I charged up to Reynard’s door and pounded on the wood, shrieking through the barrier like a madwoman. “Open up! Reynard, get the fuck out here!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Open the door!” I banged on the door. “I know what you did to my mother, you thieving bastard! Get out and face me like the sniveling worm you are, bitch! Take this beating like a man!”
“That’s not much of an incentive to open the door,” came a dry voice.
My glare would’ve peeled his head like a grape if I was given the superpowers I asked Santa for as a child. “Break it down,” I ordered Rhodes. “Break it down, and drag him out of there! We will be kicking his ass together after all!”
“I will not be doing that, and we will not be doing that.” Rhodes fished his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling the police. We’ll give them the proof; they’ll take it from there.”
I wasn’t given much choice on the matter. Reynard was a grown man who expected privacy, so he had his own lock installed in the door that could only be opened with his key. Said door was a thick, heavy oak, so the chances of me and my chicken legs kicking it in was nil.
I paced the whole time I waited for the cops to arrive—the anger building in my chest. Anger I didn’t know where to place.
As much as I wanted to crack Reynard’s skull for what he did to Omma, wasn’t I partially to blame for asking no questions?
For not even bothering to check the invoices, or Omma’s pill caddy to see what was in those bottles?
I blindly trusted that complete stranger too, and my mother paid the price.
“Uh, hey, guys?” Micah rounded the corner, leading Officer Davis and his partner behind him. “Did you order a couple of cops? Because the Lilybug and I were hoping for Chinese?”
“Order some Chinese, please, Micah, this is going to take a while—because the evil, twisted, bitch baby won’t come out!” I shouted, kicking the door. “The police are here, you sick fuck, and we’re all going to swear we saw nothing when they beat you with their nightsticks!”
“We don’t carry nightsticks anymore, ma’am,” said Officer Mulvaney, Davis’s partner, “and we must now ask that you step back from the door and explain what’s going on.”
“It’s simple.” Rhodes grasped my shoulders, gently drawing me to his side.
“While going through my mother-in-law’s documents, we found some medical invoices submitted by Mr. Agassi that don’t add up.
The short of it is that he was medically torturing Omma by denying her the meds she did need, and stealing from the estate by charging services and treatments that she didn’t.
And before you ask,” Rhodes said to their shocked faces, “we have proof.”
“Theft, fraud, elder abuse,” I cried. “You can’t let that shitbag get away with this!”
“He’s not getting away with anything.” Mulvaney unstrapped her gun. Taking my place, she tried the knob, then started banging just as hard on the door as me. “Mr. Agassi? Mr. Agassi, we are officers with the Lantana Police Department and we need you to open this door immediately.”
“Do you have a key?” Davis asked, herding us farther back.
“No,” Micah chimed in. “Reynard put the lock in himself. He had the only key.”
“Don’t you have a battering ram?” I demanded.
“It doesn’t ride shotgun,” Davis shot back. “Are you certain he’s in there?”
“I’m sure. His car is in the driveway.”
“Wait— We have an axe in the wine cellar,” Rhodes spoke up, taking off down the hall. “Tell him to open the door or we’ll break it down.”
Mulvaney did just that. “Open this door, or we’ll break it down, Mr. Agassi.”
That’s how Rhodes, Micah, Alex, Lily, and I ended up watching from the end of the hall as Davis took an axe to his door, reducing the beautiful carved oak to splinters while his partner trained her gun—ready and willing to take the abusive bastard down.
“Why’s he doing that, Mommy?”
“Because Reynard was very naughty, so now Santa’s undercover elves are taking him away to the North Pole, where he’ll spend the rest of his days mining coal—”
With Lily riding on his shoulders, Alex mumbled under his breath, “Thank you for giving her the G-rated version—”
“—like the raggedy-ass bitch he is,” I finished, earning a giggle from Lily and a gusty sigh from Alex.
“Mr. Agassi!” Davis sunk his final whack, finally splitting a hole beside the lock that was big enough for his hand to fit through. “We are coming in. Do not move from your current spot. Remain calm and put your hands on—” The door swung open. “Fuck!”
Davis rushed in, dropping the axe on the carpet. “Sabrina, call it in! Get an ambulance here now!”
“What?” I cried, breaking free. “What’s going on!”
“Mrs. Kim, stay back. Stay back!”
I ignored Mulvaney. Sprinting down the hall, I skidded to a stop beside her, and fell on my ass—hands clapping over my mouth.
I now knew why Reynard refused to answer us. It wasn’t because he was a cowardly bitch.
Wide, unseeing eyes peered into my soul, sending a silent plea for forgiveness as Davis felt his neck, waiting for the lack of pulse to confirm what his foaming blue lips already did.
He’s dead.