The Grilling Season (20 page)

“First Judy calls in sick. She’s a nurse, but she can’t tell me what kind of sickness she has. So here I am, left to do everything, and then the sheriff’s department calls and says don’t touch anything. They’re on their way.” She nodded us distractedly toward the waiting-area chairs. “Then
ACHMO
calls,” she continued into the phone, “and says don’t give anything to the
sheriff’s department.
” I sat down and wondered, as I always did, how hugely pregnant
women could ever extract themselves from these deep, soft couches once their appointment time arrived. ReeAnn stormed on. “ACHMO says the files belong to them, and if I give the sheriff’s department anything, I’m in deep yogurt. So then they say they’re on
their
way.” She set her heart-shape, usually quite pretty face into a pout as she listened to the advice from the other end of the line. She examined her black-and-purple-painted nails and sighed. “Okay. Bring your bike rack. Noon.” She slammed the phone down and examined us bitterly. “What do
you
want?”

Macguire tucked his chin into his neck and gabbled something unintelligible. Poor kid. Aside from ReeAnn’s plentiful figure and pretty face, I couldn’t figure the attraction. Maybe it was the black-and-purple nails.

“ReeAnn,” I reassured her, “we’re here to help you. You see, I talked to somebody from ACHMO after church yesterday, and after what happened to Ms. Craig—”

She stabbed a dark fingernail at Macguire. “Are you the one who told the cops I didn’t like Ms. Craig? Because they came to my place yesterday, you know.”

“Er, I, no—” Macguire stammered. “I guess I—”

Before he could continue his feeble protests, ReeAnn pointed the fingernail at me. “Uh-huh. And you, Mrs. Ex-Korman Number One, exactly how’re you going to help me? My boss is behind bars and the cops think I hated his girlfriend? What’re you going to do, hire a temporary nurse to come in and help out? Call all the expectant women and recommend
other doctors to them? You going to loan me some money from your catering biz when I don’t get paid this week?”

“ReeAnn, you’re upset. Please call me Mrs. Schulz. Or Goldy.”

“I know,” she said spitefully. “You’re here about money. That’s what Mrs. Ex-Korman Number Two is always calling about.”

I replied calmly, “I’m not interested in money, or at least only marginally. Listen, do you know
why
the ACHMO people are coming today?”

She sighed dramatically and looked away. “I never know. One week it’s ‘Let’s see how you’re billing ultrasounds.’ Then they pull out ten records of women who’ve had ultrasounds. If one of the patients happened to say, ‘Oh, my, I’d like to have an ultrasound because I’m worried about the baby,’ and the doc writes that in the woman’s file, you can kiss your reimbursement good-bye.”

I said, “Hmm.” Chris Corey had explained that the HMO came in to the doctors’ offices to check billing, but I still didn’t know the reason. “Why does what the patient says about the ultrasound matter?”

“Be-cause,” she supplied impatiently, “if you want to be sure ACHMO is going to pay for the ultrasound, there has to be a
medical
reason for the test. And the ultrasound has to be the
doctor’s
idea, understand? Even if it’s the patient’s idea, we have to dress it up like the doctor figured her life was in danger if she didn’t have an ultrasound. Otherwise, ACHMO doesn’t fork over the money for the ultrasound. Understand? Welcome to the world of managed care, Mrs. Ex-Korman Number One.”

This was going to be fun, I could tell. The
phone rang. ReeAnn dealt with the problem—a woman seeking an appointment—by referring her to another doctor. Then she turned back to us.

“So what do you two want, anyway? To talk about ACHMO coming? I don’t have time.”

I said bluntly, “Do you think my ex-husband killed Ms. Craig?”

My question seemed to surprise her. She pursed her lips and opened her eyes wide. Macguire watched her in enamored awe. Then she reached back to twirl her ponytail while she considered. “He could have,” she replied noncommittally.

When she didn’t say more, I prodded, “How about Patricia McCracken? Do you think she could have lost her temper with Suz Craig?”

ReeAnn snorted. “That’s just as likely.” The phone rang again. “Listen, I’m sorry, I really don’t have time to chat—” I waved to her to answer the phone. ReeAnn disposed of this caller by advising her to give the pharmacy a ring.

“Where’s Patricia McCracken’s file?” I asked as soon as the secretary was not-so-ready to chat again.

Her laugh was derisive. “You gotta be kidding if you think I’m going to show you a patient file.”

“I don’t want you to
show
me anything,” I replied patiently. “What you might want to do is try to find something. It’s what the ACHMO people are going to be here looking for. It could be a letter, a note, something about the McCracken suit. If John Richard wrote a few lines to himself about Patricia McCracken’s care and the ACHMO people take them, it
will
adversely affect me and my son. John Richard could be found at fault in the malpractice
suit and we’ll lose financial support. Actually, what I really wanted was for Patricia to win her suit.”

ReeAnn shook her head vigorously; the ponytail bobbed. “You’ve
already
lost financial support,” she said scathingly. “He was thinking you were making so much money from your food business, he didn’t have to pay anymore. And then when Bailey Products dumped Biocess … It’s been awful. And he works so
hard
,” she whined. “And what’ll happen to
me
if they try him for killing her?”

I took a deep breath. I’d always suspected that ReeAnn and John Richard were cut from the same self-centered cloth. Now I was sure of it. But had ReeAnn and the Jerk been romantically involved in the few months she had been working for him? Could ReeAnn have been jealous of Suz Craig? Jealous enough to kill?

“My son,” I said with a smile, “is extremely upset about his dad being in jail. So I promised him I’d ask around to see if there was anything to clear him, okay?”

“Uh, ReeAnn, remember?” Macguire interjected feebly. “Remember when you mentioned you were involved in a project with the HMO? Something to do with Ms. Craig? Remember, you called her Ms. Crank? That’s probably why the police came to visit you.”

“That woman was a first-class bitch,” ReeAnn spat. “And that’s exactly what I told those cops. I did call her Ms. Crank. And you know what Ms. Crank’s favorite saying was, don’t you?” Macguire and I looked at her expectantly. She raised her voice and trilled, “‘I don’t
do
—I
delegate.’”

“Oh, yes,” I mumbled, remembering that that
was precisely what Suz had said to me regarding the preparation of food for her business lunch. “I guess I did know that. But she did help me with the dishes when I worked for her, and she could have delegated that—”

“Cheap!” ReeAnn fumed. “I finally told her, ‘Don’t tell me to
do
another thing, okay?
Delegate somewhere else!
I don’t work for you!’”

“What exactly did she want you to—”

I was interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of Brandon Yuille. Today he wore a loose blue oxford-cloth shirt with no tie, navy pants, and Top-Siders.

“Hey-ho, we’re here!” Brandon’s cheery greeting was more along the lines of
How soon will Christmas dinner be ready
than
This is Eliot Ness, get up against the wall.
“Hey, Goldy! What’re you doing here? I forgot to ask you yesterday, did you try that Thai sauce I gave you?” His whole attitude was much brighter than when I’d seen him after church. Behind him, however, Chris Corey appeared even glummer than he had the day before.

“Ah, no,” I replied, “not yet.”

“Well, then, why’re you here?” Brandon asked again, still smiling.

“I’m just looking for some of Arch’s, er, homework papers.”

“In August? Isn’t school out?”

“They’ve been missing for a long time.”

ReeAnn slapped a pile of files down on the counter and shot me a knowing look of exasperation.

“Well, boys, here’s a batch of D & Cs for you to look through. Did I guess right?”

“Nah, we need C-sections,” Brandon announced
brightly. “They’ve been missing even longer than homework papers.” His laugh was infectious, and I found myself smiling in spite of myself. To ReeAnn he said, “Should we start in there?” He motioned down the hall to the filing office.

“That sounds just great.” ReeAnn didn’t do sarcasm well. “As if I had some choice, right? I’ve got to stay here and do the phones.”

“Here’s the list of the files we’ll be looking for,” Chris said meekly as he squeezed his pudgy body behind the counter and consulted a clipboard. He waited a moment until Brandon was out of earshot. I nipped over to the counter. “Did you do a dummy duplicate of Patricia McCracken’s file?” Chris asked ReeAnn urgently.

“Yes,” she whispered back. “Just the way you told me. I’ve got the original up here.” She pointed to a shelf. The phone rang; she snatched it.

“What?” she squawked. “It’s
your
turn to bring lunch! You think I can handle one more thing today? Forget it! Tuna sandwiches!” Then she slammed down the phone. It didn’t sound as if she got along very well with whoever it was.

I said, “Chris! I thought you wanted ACHMO to be caught trying to take the file!”

He harumphed and readjusted his capacious belt. “If Brandon takes the dummy with McCracken’s name on it before the police get here,” he whispered impatiently, “then they’ll still be committing an illegal act. And with ReeAnn keeping the real file, your husband’s lawyer can still have the information he needs.”

“He’s my ex-husband, okay?” I hissed fiercely. “And I thought you said it would be a Medical Management
lady coming here today. What has Human Resources got to do with checking billing? Does Brandon ever do that?”

Chris shrugged grandly. “They’re scared.” And then, balanced precariously on his cast, he lumbered off after Brandon.

“Don’t remove anything, fellas!” I called after them. “My husband’s a cop and I’ll tell on you!” To ReeAnn I said softly, “The sheriff’s department is on its way?”

“Supposedly.” She eyed the telephone on the marble counter, as if debating which friend she should complain to next.

“Uh, I guess we’ll be going,” Macguire announced. His face was as sallow as I’d seen it since he’d been living with us. Despite his words, however, he didn’t seem to have the energy or the will to move.

“ReeAnn,” I whispered as I scooped up the back copies of
Architectural Digest
she’d spewed on the floor during her first manic phone call. “Can we please talk for a few minutes? It’s for Arch.”

“I don’t know where his homework is.”

“Please.”

“I have to answer the phone.”

“I know you were romantically involved with my ex-husband,” I improvised. When I said this, ReeAnn shot Macguire a withering look. “It’s okay,” I added.

“I’m involved with somebody else right now, not an old geezer. And I was with
him
all Friday night. My new boyfriend can vouch for me, and I told the cops that, too.”

“Fine.” I tried to think. “Just tell me— What
was Suz Craig working on that she was trying to delegate? Delegate to you, I mean? It seems odd she’d ask you to do work for her, when she had a whole army of secretaries to choose from at ACHMO.”

ReeAnn snorted again, her trademark. “I’m not a secretary, I’m an
assistant.
And the stuff Ms. Crank had me do was penny-ante. ‘Make our dinner reservations.’ ‘Call Aspen Meadow Nursery. Get them to come out and fix my steps.’”

When she seemed reluctant to go on, I prompted, “That’s it?”

“Well. Not exactly.” She bit the inside of her cheek, then confided, “It’s what John Richard told me she tried to delegate to him that was really weird, if you want to know the truth.”

“The truth would be great.”

She leaned close. “She wanted him to put some stuff—I guess it was papers or something—in a safe place, somewhere the ACHMO people couldn’t find them.”

“What stuff? How do you know it was papers? The kind of papers they’re trying to find now?” Suddenly I remembered what John Richard had said to me on the phone:
Suz had some kind of delicate material….
What material? I’d thought it related to Ralph Shelton, but was that wrong? “Are you sure it was papers?”

She shrugged indifferently. “Who knows?” The phone rang. ReeAnn answered it and started to redirect another patient. To my surprise Brandon Yuille suddenly appeared at my side. He flashed me his movie-star smile.

“Goldy? May I talk to you for a minute?”

“More Thai sauce?” I said brightly.

“Please. Just right outside the front door. Just for a sec, if you don’t mind.”

I walked outside with him. I’d tell him what he wanted to know—maybe—if he’d answer a couple of questions, too. I made my voice pleasant. “Brandon, I was wondering … Was Suz Craig as hard to work for as some people say?”

His fine-featured face bloomed pink. “Some people thought she was … difficult.” His tone grew guarded.

“So, what people are we talking about?”

He brushed my question away. “Goldy, there’s something important I need to ask you, but it’s … delicate.” Man, they all loved that word, like they had to rinse out some lingerie. “You know how folks going through a divorce will sometimes hide assets from each other? Like money?”

I laughed. “Of course I do. Who’s getting the divorce?”

He squirmed. “I … can’t say. But you know about hiding assets?”

“Sure. One person in a marriage hides assets, the other gets to hire a forensic accountant, as I had to do, to go through the books of the person doing the hiding. Sometimes you find the stash and sometimes you don’t. Lucky for me, I did.”

Brandon’s eyes, ordinarily deep brown, turned almost black. His voice became painfully earnest. “I promise, Goldy, if John Richard has given you anything to hide … we … I … need to know.”

I almost laughed again. I imagined a list of intimate—make that
delicate
—questions: Have you had cosmetic surgery? Do you dye your hair? How much
do you weigh? which could develop into How much money do you make? Now, apparently, to that invasive list I could add: Has your abusive ex-husband given you anything incriminating to hide?