A Brew to a Kill (40 page)

My mind began casting about for logical answers. My ex was spending a lot of time with Mike Quinn, giving statements, working out strategy.
That must be it.
Quinn told Matt something that he didn’t want him to share with me.
A sacrifice I had to make…

“Matt, what are you and Quinn keeping from me?”

“Clare! Oh, Clare!”

Terry Simone couldn’t have approached our table at a worse time. The second Matt saw me distracted, he excused himself and fled.

“You wanted to talk?” Terry asked. Slight and energetic with short-cropped yellow hair, she was already wearing pale blue nurse’s scrubs for her shift.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to shift gears. “Sit down, Terry…”

I motioned to Nancy to bring us coffees. Then I started my interrogation.

“I was wondering,” I began lightly, “have you spoken with that policeman who hangs around Lilly’s hospital bed?”

“Detective Buckman?” said Terry, her voice pitched far too high. “Oh, no, no… not since the first time we talked.”

“That’s funny. I mean, you work right there at Beth Israel, and Buckman’s there an awful lot. I thought you would have gotten to know one another.”

Terry’s shook her head so forcefully I thought she’d lose an earring. “I mean, I saw him last night, but I was on duty and too busy to chat.”

“Then Buckman didn’t ask you about Lilly’s life? He didn’t press you to tell him about those lost years of employment as a nurse—after Lilly quit the graveyard shift at Beth Israel and before she earned her registered dieticians degree?”

“Lilly was just going to school, that’s all.”

“So she wasn’t working for plastic surgeon Dr. Harry Land?”

Terry’s nervous ticks stilled, but she didn’t say a word, only continued to shake her head.

Thus far, none of these denials surprised me. After all, if Buckman had gotten the whole story from Terry, he never would have come to me…

“Well, never mind that,” I said. “I need your help with something else.”

Terry seemed relieved to change the subject. “Sure, anything.”

I pulled out the papers I’d found folded up in Lilly’s jar, placed them flat on the café table marble, and attempted to press out the years of crinkles.

“I’m not a medical person, you understand? But these sure do look like important records to me. There are a lot of terms here I don’t understand. Could you tell me what they mean?”

Terry’s hands settled on the paper, and she skimmed the first few lines, blinked in surprise when she saw the patient’s name. “What is this?”

“You tell me,” I said. “I found these in Lilly’s apartment. What was she doing with Meredith Burke’s medical records?”

Terry pushed the papers back at me. “I don’t know what you’re trying to find out here, Clare. But I promise you, Lilly Beth did nothing wrong. She tried to save that poor girl. It was the doctor’s fault. And because of Lilly’s arrangement with Land—”

“What kind of arrangement? Were they having a love affair?”

“No! Lilly was working off the books for the man at his private surgery center, that’s all. She needed cash to pay for school, for Paz, and to help with her mother’s money troubles—”

“So Lilly was Meredith’s nurse?”

Terry frowned and looked away. This was a terrible crossroads for her, and I could see her struggling with her moral compass.
Which way should I go here? Am I about to help my friend or hurt her?

I knew how Quinn would handle Terry. By now he would have seen her emotional button—the thing that mattered most to her. Ironically, I had the same button, and I knew what I had to say.

“Terry, listen carefully to me. Detective Buckman isn’t interested in punishing Lilly. It’s clear whatever she did involving Meredith Burke’s young death has been eating her up inside. Lilly convinced herself that she should be punished in some way for it—but so did the driver who’d nearly killed her.
Nearly
is the key word. When Lilly gets out of her hospital bed, that hit-and-run driver may be waiting to strike her down again. Only this time that driver won’t be running until he or she is sure Lilly’s corpse is left behind.”

Terry blanched at my brutal picture, but I had to make her understand.

“To find the driver who hit Lilly, the truth has to come out…”

Terry closed her eyes. For almost a full minute, she hung her head, and I got the distinct impression she was praying. Whatever she was doing, however, I knew more babbling from me wasn’t going to help, so I simply sat, waiting for her to make her decision.

Finally, she lifted her head. “Okay,” Terry said quietly. “I’ll tell you everything I know…”

According to Terry, Dr. Harry Land had performed three procedures on Meredith at the same time, what he called his three-in-one. During recovery at the surgery center, the girl seemed anxious and frightened. She complained of light-headedness, shortness of breath.

The anesthesiologist was already gone for the day. As the nurse on duty, Lilly notified Dr. Land of the change in Meredith’s vital signs, but he dismissed her fears. He was busy giving a Botox treatment to another patient and didn’t want to take the time to cross the hall and check Meredith’s vital signs for himself.

“I can’t believe Dr. Land wasn’t concerned,” I said.

“Believe it,” Terry assured me. “When Meredith checked in, she was already suffering from nervous anxiety. The girl had a history of emotional issues, and she’d been prescribed valium by another doctor. Post-op, Meredith was eating and drinking normally, so Dr. Land thought she was just fine and ordered her discharged, even though the vitals Lilly took showed indications of a problem. It wasn’t until the next day that Lilly learned the poor girl had died.”

“What happened?”

Terry explained how Meredith had acquired a blood clot during surgery. “That can happen, and it’s nobody’s fault. Where Dr. Land erred was in attributing symptoms of a blood clot to
anxiety
. Sure Meredith had a history of it, but he wasn’t careful enough. If he’d acted properly, been more vigilant, Meredith could have been treated for the clot before it went to her lungs, and her life might have been saved.”

Terry drained her cup. “When Lilly went back and double-checked Meredith’s records, she found they’d been re-created, right down to her handwriting and the little
L
she used to end her entries. Dr. Land struck all evidence of shortness of breath, and he normalized the vital signs. Lilly knew it was a lie. She found the original records in the trash.”

“Why did Lilly keep these papers?” I asked.

“She wanted to do the right thing and confess, but Dr. Land convinced her the facts would ruin them both, professionally and financially. Lilly did absolutely nothing wrong—until she let Dr. Land convince her to disappear, bought her and Paz a little vacation visiting family in Makati. There was no record of her employment, only several other nurses he’d hired on a revolving basis through a service. He said it would be easy. But it wasn’t easy, because of Helen Bailey-Burke…”

According to Terry, during the malpractice suit, Helen insisted “some Spanish or Filipino nurse” had discharged her daughter, though she couldn’t recall the nurse’s name or even be sure of the woman’s national heritage. Dr. Land lied and claimed he’d discharged Meredith himself.

In the end, Helen lost her suit. The jury concluded that Dr. Land had acted appropriately, but only because they didn’t have all the facts and evidence. Helen Bailey-Burke knew Dr. Land had lied and covered his error, and she hired private detectives to hunt for Lilly.

“I talked to three in the space of four months!” Terry said.

“You claimed you knew nothing?”

“I was trying to protect my friend.”

I understood that motivation, but I wasn’t so sure Lilly had benefitted from it. She was lying in a hospital now, and she might never walk again.

“The only reason Lilly took that awful off-the-books job was to boost her salary fast. She was trying to help her mother. And she did, for a while.”

It when then I recalled the term that Lilly’s mother kept using, an “extra payment.” I asked Terry if she knew what it meant.

“You’ve been to her restaurant, right? Amina’s Kitchenette in Woodside?”

“Yes, it’s adorable.”

“Well Amina’s been there for close to two decades, built up a loyal clientele. They’re practically family to each other.”

“Believe me, I can relate to that.”

“Well, for years that woman had a handshake agreement with the old landlord, this Filipino guy who owned a lot of property along Roosevelt Avenue. When he died a few years ago, his young widow took over, and that one really knows how to work the rent regulation system. She’ll slap a coat of paint in the hall of her buildings and raise the rent to cover the cost of ‘major renovations.’ Or buy new garbage cans and raise the rent again for ‘external improvements.’ You’ve lived in this city long enough, Clare. You know the type.”

I did indeed. Madame owned the town house we now sat in, but I’d seen far too many businesses in the neighborhoods around us build loyal customers at one location, only to find themselves at the mercy of a greedy landlord.

I felt for Lilly’s mother, but as awful as her new landlady sounded, there was nothing I could do about her. On the other hand, there was one lady I could do something about—Helen Bailey-Burke.

“She’s obsessed with getting justice for her daughter,” Terry insisted. “She has the money to do it, too.”

But did she have the criminal mind to go even farther than justice? Did Helen exact vengeance by killing Dr. Land and attempting to kill Lilly? Or did someone else drive that van? Was this an instance of murder for hire? Would the murderer try to kill Lilly again?

“Sorry…” Terry glanced at her watch. “I have to go. I’m working the three-to-eleven.”

I appreciated Terry’s help and told her so. Now I had plenty of answers. I just had to let Buckman know what they were. So I pulled out my phone and began to dial…

It seemed to me that Dr. Land had protected his career. Terry had protected her friend. Lilly had protected her mother and son. But no one had protected an eighteen-year-old girl named Meredith Burke—and somebody out there cared deeply about that.

Whether it was the girl’s mother or someone else, Buckman would have to find evidence to prove it. I wasn’t thrilled
about giving Max these incriminating papers, but this wasn’t a kid with a slingshot. This was life and death.

At least I could be sure of one thing: Mad Max would do everything he could to protect Lilly Beth Tanga, and that was good enough for me.

T
HE
Driver
took a sip from the cup, glanced around the coffeehouse. No one was looking. This was going to work. It truly was going to work…

Calm down. Just wait. Watch and wait.

At tonight’s reception in Central Park, victim and patsy would be together again. The Driver expected to be there, too. All the plans were drawn up—and the payoff would be huge.

The Driver felt confident, yet a spider of apprehension began to creep its way in…

The wineglass didn’t work. What if something else goes wrong?

This next deadly outing was inevitable, ingenious. But what if…

No. No! No changing lanes!

The wheels are in motion for a greater good. No matter who has to die, there is no turning back…