Chapter 14
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Doreen was rewriting her notes, hoping that something would click, when Nan called.
“Hey,” she greeted her. “Bad news, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, what’s the matter?” Doreen asked.
“Birdie’s been taken to the hospital,” Nan shared, sounding a bit jolted. “Some sort of an attack, maybe her heart. Nobody’s really sure yet.”
“Oh no,” Doreen cried out.
“Is it important?” Nan asked, concerned.
“Well, it could be. Yes.”
“Oh dear. Look. I’ll monitor it and see if we can go visit her later, but, from what the ambulance driver was saying, she’s not doing so great.”
“Of course not,” she muttered. “Just when I needed some more answers.”
“I know that she wanted you to find answers for her, so I’m sure the home would let you into her apartment.”
“I don’t know about that,” she muttered.
“Oh, I’m sure they will, child. I’ll go talk to management.” And, with that, she hung up.
Doreen groaned. Her grandmother was quite a force when she was on a roll, and right now it appeared she was definitely on a roll.
When Nan called her back, she announced, “Management says it’s fine.”
“That didn’t take long. Did you actually ask them?” Doreen questioned.
“Of course I did,” Nan stated, with a huff. “Birdie told everybody how she had been involved in making sure you were brought in on her grandson’s case, so it’s not as if they’ll stop you now.”
“Right.”
“But you better come now,” Nan suggested, “before they change their minds. You never know.”
Doreen frowned at that and asked again, “You promise me that you asked them?”
“I promise,” Nan declared, “but I don’t know how long that’ll hold.
You know that upper management can override the local management at the drop of a hat.
Plus, if Birdie will be back in a few hours, they may just say, wait until she’s back.
However, if it looks like she’ll be gone for a while, they might decide the better option is for you to check out Birdie’s apartment now. ”
“Fine, I’ll come down now.”
“Smart,” Nan noted, “and I would say, hurry, just in case something here is important.”
“I don’t know that there’s anything important,” Doreen noted. “It would just help a lot if I had more answers.”
“The only way to get answers from her room is if you come down now,” Nan repeated.
“I’m on my way.” And she was already picking up leashes.
Nan asked, “Do you want tea when you get here?”
“Sure, that would be lovely,” she muttered. “It’s been an odd morning already.”
“Ooh, that sounds perfect,” Nan squealed. “We need some livening up around this place. Having her go to the hospital kind of tossed a pall over everybody.”
“I’m sorry. It’s hard when you lose someone.”
“We haven’t lost this one yet,” Nan declared immediately. “So, let’s not jump ahead of things, child.”
“Of course not. I’m on my way.”
And, with that, she immediately headed to the closet to grab her coat and walking shoes.
She carried the leashes for now, letting her animals go free for the moment.
As soon as she was outside, she headed down to the river, the animals more than eager as they knew the area.
As soon as they hit the river, they also knew where they were headed.
And, with that knowledge, they were more than happy to bounce down the path, and they ended up at Nan’s very quickly.
Nan opened the patio door for them as soon as they got close enough, and Doreen walked them over to the little patio and inside. There she quickly brushed off her coat, smiled at her grandmother, and noted, “I guess you were waiting for us, huh?”
“Absolutely,” Nan stated. “And now management is waiting to talk to you too.”
She raised an eyebrow and then nodded. “Okay, that’s fine. Let’s do that first.”
“Or we can go check out Birdie’s room first,” Nan suggested, her gaze eager.
“No, that’s not cool,” Doreen said, giving her grandmother a stern look. “We need to make sure that I’m allowed to go in there.”
Nan snorted. “They should be grateful that you’re even looking at it. The fact that she did all the stuff she did to get you on the case already says a lot about who she is.”
Doreen didn’t get into that conversation but trailed behind Nan as she and her animals all followed her down to the office.
As soon as the receptionist saw her, she smiled at Doreen and nodded. “Roger is in there, waiting for you.”
She waved and took a step into Roger’s office.
He looked up, smiled at her, and waved her inside. “Come on in. Come on in.” Then he frowned at Nan.
Doreen looked over at her grandmother. “Give us a few minutes, will you?”
Nan looked at her in surprise, then immediately turned her glare onto Roger.
He winced and added, “Just for a moment, Nan. We’ll be done here right away. I just have to make sure she understands some of the new rules we have in place.”
At that, Nan snorted. “Yeah, I bet you just created those rules, knowing Doreen was coming.”
He sighed.
Doreen chuckled. “It’s all good, Nan. Just give us a few minutes.” With that, Nan stepped back out, but she wasn’t happy at all.
Roger shut the door on Nan and took his seat behind his desk.
Doreen looked over at Roger and smiled. “Nan really doesn’t like anybody telling her what to do.”
He rolled his eyes. “That goes for everybody in this place,” he muttered. “So, do you have a reason for wanting to check out Birdie’s apartment?”
“She specifically had me brought into this case, regarding the death of her grandson Devon,” she shared, “and I had a bunch of questions for her. I’ve already talked to both her former son-in-law and …
her former stepgrandson.” She frowned. “I don’t know what these relationships are called once everything breaks up,” she muttered.
“Difficult,” Roger suggested immediately, then chuckled. “Okay, so you can’t take anything out of her apartment, and I need to be reasonably certain that she would be okay with your doing this.”
“As for that,” Doreen replied, “I have no idea because it wasn’t something I had thought to ask her about beforehand. I spoke with her a couple days ago, regarding the information that I needed to start, and, of course, once you start …”
He nodded. “Once you start, there’s no end of extra things you need to know. I can understand that.”
“Exactly, so when I called down to see if I could talk to her today, I found out she had gone to the hospital.”
He nodded slowly. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but, because it’s you, I’m going to. There could be something suspicious about what happened to her.”
At that, she froze. “In that case, you need to let me into her apartment so I can take a good look and make sure we don’t have another murder happening right under your nose.”
He winced, bounded to his feet, and nodded. “And you’ll talk to Mack about this, right?”
“I will talk to both Mack and the captain.”
With that assurance, Roger groaned. “Okay, fine. That’s what I needed to know.”
They walked out of the office, finding both Richie and Nan standing there, waiting on them. Richie was a little wobbly, but at least he had his walker with him.
Doreen smiled at him. “Hey, Richie. How are you doing?”
“Good,” he replied, smiling back. “I hear we’ve got some excitement going on the case.”
“Hard to say,” she replied, “but there’s a chance.”
“I’m right here at your service, milady,” he stated immediately.
She smiled and thanked him. “Give us a little bit of time though, and I’ll try and fill you guys in.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, literally beaming.
The manager walked her to Birdie’s room. As he went to the room, he added, “I can’t let anybody else in.”
“That’s fine,” she replied.
“There have been a bunch of rumors about Birdie, you know?”
She looked at him and nodded. “I can imagine. I’ve already found out more about her than I would have preferred to know.”
He winced and nodded. “I didn’t know any of it until she actually came on board, and I quickly discovered that, when she doesn’t like something, she can …” He stopped and seemed to be at a loss for words.
“She can make life difficult until you comply. Is that what you’re saying?”
He looked at her with relief and nodded. “Extortion from an eighty-year-old woman?” he asked, shaking his head. “Not what I expected.”
She grinned at him. “Yet any one of these lovely people here will do anything they can in order to make their worlds happen, the way they want them to,” she added, with a smile. “I think the older they get, the more conniving and sneaky they become.”
“No argument there,” he muttered. “It’s certainly been an eye-opener for me since she came on board.”
“And it will continue,” Doreen suggested, “so you’ve got to keep that in mind.”
“You mean, Birdie’s coercion? She should be happy with everything now.”
“I don’t know about Birdie, but I think it’ll just be the next person,” she pointed out. “I do love them to death, but …”
“Right, it’s the but, and there always seems to be one. I mean, they can certainly make life difficult,” he muttered.
She just smiled as they walked into Birdie’s room, as he gasped.
“Oh my, the paramedics must have had a heyday in here.”
She looked around and shook her head. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
She replied, “You need to find out who else has accessed this room in the last little while and do it fast.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because the paramedics didn’t do this. This room looks … tossed. Like it’s been searched.”
He quickly raced out of Birdie’s apartment to check the security records, leaving Doreen alone inside.