Coughing & Donuts: A Mercy Mares Cozy Mystery (2 page)

The woman finally appeared in full view and added more stress to my poor heart. Makeup plastered her face and not in a good way. She looked like something out of a circus sideshow and, if that dog hadn't been begging to eat me alive, I would have stared for a few minutes more, but since my life was on the line, I wasn't so inclined.

“Is this your dog?” I asked, feigning a smile so Big Bubba wouldn't take a chunk out of me.

She couldn't hear me over his barking and spoke directly to him. “Phoebe, stop that right now. Leave that poor woman alone.”

Phoebe? This monstrous beast is a female?

The woman turned her attention to me, speaking between her heavy breathing, “Sorry, she just loves people.”

If I wasn't such a nice woman, I would have strangled this woman!

“Loves people? You're kidding me.” I pushed the pool of water that settled on my forehead while Officer Friendly did nothing to help me and tried my darndest to calm my frayed nerves. “That beast looks like he... I mean, she will eat me and my entire family for dinner.”

The woman started laughing, not just an ordinary laugh, but a howling, cackling laugh – the kind that made milk curl. “Phoebe is a good girl. She's all bark and no bite. She just wants to play. She loves the rain.”

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought of her killer dog, but was interrupted by the creaking of the door behind me. The guard stepped outside, covered from head to toe in rain gear. I took a quick breath, ready to spar with him, when he rudely stepped by me, ignoring the toes that he stepped on in the process and started yelling in the woman's face. Phoebe, in the meantime, forgot all about me and decided to take her aggression out on him by lunging for him, her teeth catching in his raincoat and tugged him hard enough to almost knock him to the ground. The urge to cheer occurred to me for a brief second, but I was plum out of energy and had another very serious issue to contend with – I was incredibly late for my shift.

I had to fight the urge to interrupt his screaming and bring the focus back to me and my pressing issue, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Mr. Slowicki failed to secure the door shut before he walked outside to berate Phoebe's owner. After making sure that the guard wasn't paying any attention to me, I bolted up the stairs and into the security office. No sooner had I started wiping the water from my face when the guard ran in after me, pinning me up against the desktop.

“What do you think you're doing?” He yelled.

I squirmed my way out of the tight grip he had on my shoulders and proceeded to explain myself. “You left me standing out in the rain. What did you expect me to do? I'm soaking wet and I'm late for my shift.”

He backed away, looking me up and down. I assume he noticed that the sopping wet clothes I was wearing weren't pajamas, but were my favorite teddy bear covered set of scrubs, so my claim that I was an employee was confirmed. He pointed to the door.

“Get out! You can't be in here and the night shift starts at six, so get your facts right before you try to pretend you work here.” He ordered.

I practically begged him to let me stay indoors. I was angry, but not out of my mind. I'd had enough of the rain.

“I work here,” I said. “Tonight is my first shift. The nurse manager told me to be here at ten.”

He turned his back to me and started picking up the mess that he'd created when I scared the living daylights out of him. “Get out!”

I backed away, looking outside to see if the giant pooch and her owner were still out there. They were walking away as if nothing had ever happened.

“What, no apology?” I mumbled.

The guard spoke again. “You're not moving fast enough. Get out of here and wait outside. Leave your name tag on the desk.”

“Go outside? It's still raining.” I protested.

He turned to glare at me.

Okay, buddy, if you say so.

I grabbed the door handle, but took my time to actually turn the knob, hoping he'd take pity on me.

“Your badge? Where is it?” He was looking at my uniform.

Instinctively, I reached up above my breast pocket to show it to him, but it wasn't there. I closed my eyes.
Where is it?
“I must have dropped it when I was scaling the side of the building to find the front entrance.” I smiled at him, shrugging.

“No badge. No name. Your hours late for the start of a shift. You're not getting in there. Now leave before I have you arrested.” He said, turning his attention to the mess on the floor underneath his chair.

I didn't know what to say. I looked up at the monitors to see what he would have seen while I was wandering around lost and quickly remembered how angry I was. From where he was sitting, he had full view of the lot I'd pulled into and the buildings I'd walked in between
and
the doors I tried to enter.

What gives? Why didn't he help me?

“Wait a minute! Isn't it your job to keep this hospital safe and secure?” I asked, pointing to the array of monitors that he would have had no problem monitoring, if he bothered to do his job right. “Why didn't you help me or, at the very least, get your behind up from that chair and find out what in the world I was doing out there in the rain?”

The stern look on his face softened for a moment as he took in the magnitude of his error, but rather than offering an apology, he lashed out at me. “Get out now! You don't have an employee badge. I've never seen your face before and no one mentioned anything about a new employee to me.” With that, he promptly ushered me out the door and back out into the pouring rain.

I had two choices, neither of which sounded at all appealing to me. I could leave with my tail between my legs and navigate across the parking lot that was now a pond and hop in my car and go to the apartment or I could do something a tad bit more drastic and much more prudent, given my state of mind at the time. At least, that's what I planned on saying if my impending assault on the security guard ever went to trial.

I banged on the door like my life depended on it. No way, no how was I going to let some smug jerk, treat me like something less than human. I'd had quite enough and he was going to have to endure my wrath. All five feet three inches (on a good day) of it!

“Open this door right now!” I demanded as my fists pounded on the door. “I'm soaking wet. I'll probably catch pneumonia out here and it will be all your fault, you bully!”

Rather than getting under his goat, I do believe I was providing entertainment for him. He looked at me curiously for a moment, then, that curiosity turned to amusement and he laughed and mocked me and my feeble efforts to get back inside the building.

“Oh, this is just ridiculous!” I shouted. “Let me in, please.” Okay, so my angry approach didn't garner the results I'd hoped they would. I figured that I'd better try something a little bit more low key. After all, he was a man and I was a woman, so one could only assume that a part of him would have a soft spot for a damsel in distress.

I took a deep breath and forced myself not to beat on the door. With a strained smile on my face, I batted my five dollar eyelashes at him and clasped my hands together in front of me and said, “Please, let me in.”

He stared back at me, seeming to contemplate his next move. I had hoped that I'd finally reached him. He took a step toward the window. I inhaled slightly, anticipating kindness. He stuck his tongue right out of his mouth and put his hands up on either side of his head and said the equivalent of a schoolyard chant, before turning around, plopping himself back into his seat, and laughing a maniacal belly laugh at my expense.

“What a jerk.” I said under my breath as I stared at him through the glass. I was out of options and way beyond being out of patience, but my limbs were nearly frozen solid from my long plight in the monsoon like rain that, even if I tried, I couldn't move. I just stood there, watching him take pleasure in my misery. He made a point of rubbing my predicament in my face.

His next move was one I'll not soon forget. Reaching in front of him, he adjusted the monitors. I heard movement above my head. I looked up to see the eye of the camera being turned in my direction, right on my face. I quickly looked back into the windows and watched him as he zoomed in on my face, laughing and, now, talking on his cell phone.

Is this guy for real
, I thought.

“Well, looks like you made it after all.”

“Looks like I did, frizzy hair and all.” I studied my reflection in the glass as myself and, Amy, the nurse assigned to train me, stood outside of the building, waiting for the police to escort in a police hold. “So, is this man a patient you've had before?”

She smirked, tying her long mousy brown hair up into a ponytail. “Definitely. I've been here almost six years and nearly every patient we get, we've seen over and over again.”

I nodded, remembering what my supervisor and best friend in the world, Ruby, told me about this facility. Apparently, I wasn't well-versed in all things Hollywood, because Ruby couldn't believe that I'd never heard of anything about it before, after spending my entire life just a few hours away.

She'd pulled up a number of tabloid stories on the computer to prove her point. According to the reports, Pleasant Cove was dubbed the convalescence home for the burned out, torn up, or worn down Hollywood types and their offspring. It was the place where secrets were held and scandal ran amok.

I never really paid attention to which “It” girl or boy was “suffering from exhaustion” or “needed a little rest and relaxation”.  I had my own problems. I didn't need to worry about
Life Styles of the Rich and Famous
because I was nowhere near their station in life and I was plum happy nonetheless.

I had everything I needed in life: a beautiful daughter, fantastic friends, and a home that I owned free and clear. Granted, it was a double wide trailer and not a mansion, but it was mine and I could never see myself living anywhere else in the world.

“It's the nature of the game. We, as nurses, do what we can. Help them get through the acute issues and hope that they will do or be better.” I said.

Amy looked at me, wide-eyed for a moment, then, fell into roaring laughter. “Girl, this isn't that kind of place. Usually our patients consist of A-listers whose movie just bombed or marriage just ended. They come here to hide out from friends, family, and mostly, paparazzi. No one comes here to actually get any help or work on their issues and, believe me, they have plenty.” She grabbed my arm to brace herself as she continued laughing about my belief that this facility did anyone any good.

“If you don't actually help anyone, then, why are we here?” I asked, not understanding what their role was. “I mean, I passed medications and did vitals, so obviously these patients were being monitored by someone.”

Amy took a deep breath to calm her laughter down and answered, “Oh, I didn't mean that we don't try. We just really don't get anywhere with our patients. To them, we are just a bunch of peasants and they are superstars. We are beneath them.”

I knew I hadn't had the most spectacular night and I may have been a little more than preoccupied, but it seemed it me that the patients I'd met thus far during my shift were in need of help. Nothing about their behavior indicated to me that placement in a psychiatric facility was a joyride for them.

To avoid an argument, I agreed to disagree with her views and moved on to another question. “Do we know why this patient is being admitted?”

Amy shrugged. “The usual. His name is Eli Pardo. He's just a young kid. Twenty-two years old and a whole lot of attitude. If he wasn't such a schmuck, he'd probably be just as adorable as the next dark-haired, blue-eyed guy, but I've never once seen him sans bad attitude and foul language.”

Great!

The police car pulled up next to the staircase we occupied. I could make out a figure, seated in the backseat, but he had his head hung low.

“Here we go,” Amy said, waving to the officers in the car.

“Okay,” I answered, following her down the stairs, getting a full view of the young man. I'd expected him to be agitated, but he seemed incredibly calm, given his situation.

After the officers stepped out of their vehicle, Amy made the introductions. “Hey, Lou! What are you doing here? I thought, you had people to do the dirty work for you these days, Captain.”

He looked over her shoulder at me before responding to her high-pitched flirtatious welcome. “Who do we have here?”

I smiled, offering my hand. “Hi, I'm Mercy Mares. I'm a traveling nurse. Looks like I'll be here for the next month. Nice to meet you.”

“Mercy? Nice name for a nurse. Well, welcome. I'm Lou and that's Reggie.” He pointed to the other officer, who nodded in my direction. “Looks like we're getting your time here started with a face you'll probably see a lot of.” He nodded at the handcuffed man in the back seat. “That's Elias. He's a regular. I'm sure you'll love him just as much as we do.”

Amy giggled as if he'd said the funniest thing she'd ever heard. The smile on Lou's face vanished as soon as she started. Either he wasn't impressed by her antics or he needed to put his game face on before he helped his back seat occupant out of the car.

I took the paperwork from Lou and waited, noticing his name badge: Capt. L. Benetto. Oh, so that wasn't just some inside joke. He was an actual captain.

“Watch your head, Eli.” Lou said as he yanked on the prisoner's arms. “Play nice and we won't have any problems. You wouldn't want this new nurse to get a bad first impression of you, would you?” Lou winked at me as the young man stepped out of the car.

“Who are you?” Eli looked directly at me, assessing my wrinkled scrubs and the remnants of what was supposed to be the perfect hair style for my face shape.

If he was trying to intimidate me, I wasn't flustered. Nothing about his presence, other than the handcuffs, told me he was dangerous. What he looked like, was a sulking kid who had gone a few too many nights without sleep and a good meal. I wondered where his family was in all this.

I didn't have to respond because Amy was already speaking a mile a minute, two octaves higher than she had been only a few minutes earlier.

“Now, Eli, this is Mercy. She's new here, so tone it down a little, will ya? She doesn't need to see you throwing fits.” She spoke to him like he was a child.

His nostrils flared as she spoke. Not that he would have any reason to, but he really didn't like her.

Glaring at her, he asked me a question. “You from here? I've never seen you before.”

I knew better than to answer personal questions, so I provided him with only necessary information. “I'm Mercy. I'm an RN.”

“A nurse. Really? I'm fascinated. Tell me something I didn't know.” His blue eyes fell on mine. “I didn't ask you for your address. I just asked if you were from here, but now that I get a closer look, no way are you from here. I definitely would have remembered seeing you before.”

Under different circumstances and minus the torrential rains, I'd found myself in for over an hour before finally finding an entrance door, I'd have taken those words as a compliment, but when the corners of his mouth quirked up as he said it, I knew full-well that he was mocking my disheveled look.

I didn't care what anyone, including him said, he wasn't some thug. To me, he looked like someone begging for attention and willing to do whatever it took to get that attention.

“Alright, that's enough of that. Where do you want him?” Lou asked us. “I'm tired of listening to his mouth.”

Amy started to giggle like a hyena again, but when she didn't get the response she thought she'd get, she changed her tune. She cleared her throat. “His usual room is open. Welcome back, Eli.”

Lou and Reggie lifted him by his elbows and carried him up the stairs, completely ignoring his screams of protest. 

They navigated the narrow hallway that housed a row of small rooms, where all patients held on police holds were kept to receive acute psychiatric treatment.

They sat him on the lone piece of furniture in the room – a small metal bed, cemented to the floor. The windowless room smelled of the souls of what had probably been an endless parade of disruptive, suicidal, or homicidal patients. I shivered at the thought of it.

Over the years I'd seen more than my fair share of patients suffering from any variety of mental illnesses and, regardless of the way society looked down on the mentally ill, I had a profound respect for them and their plight. Whether we admitted it or not, we were them in more ways than we'd ever truly know.

“Which one of you people is going to do the intake stuff?” Eli asked as Reggie removed his handcuffs and Amy grabbed the one piece garment he'd have to wear during his stay.

Amy looked at me. I took that as my cue to step forward and volunteer. “I'll do it.”

Eli's eyebrows quirked up. “Newbie? Are you sure you can handle this?”

Lou snapped at him. “Cut it out! You'll behave yourself or I'll take you right back to lock up and you'll spend Easter weekend, staring at my pearly whites. Understood?”

Eli didn't flinch. He said, “Mercy. Mercy. So, is that short for Mercedes? You were named after a car? That's so cute.” He snickered.

I figured that choosing to not engage was a lot better than giving him something else to latch on to. When I didn't respond, he tried to get my dander up by laughing a maniacal laugh.

Lou moved to intervene, but I knew that would only trigger more bad behavior from Eli, so I stepped in between the two and asked the officers to leave, so that Amy and I could get him into the gown and securely fastened into four point restraints.

He didn't need an audience. As much as his behavior said the opposite, I had a feeling that deep down what he craved most was genuine, authentic attention to what he did right, not what he did wrong.

As soon as the officers left the room, the brute-like facade faded away. Eli didn't suddenly become a kinder, friendlier version of himself, but he did allow us to do our job without incident. By his movements, I could see that he'd done this before. He seemed to just be going through the motions. The furrowed eyebrows on his head, indicated that his thoughts were elsewhere.

I'd not seen his chart and didn't know his diagnosis, but I'd hazard a guess and say that he was clearly depressed and probably had antisocial personality disorder. Not that I could be touted as any kind of expert or anything, but I'd seen and worked with enough people in my almost forty-five years of life to be able to recognize some of the classic signs and, if I was wrong, so be it. I'd call that a lesson learned and I'd be more knowledgeable the next time.

After we had him properly secured per the facility standards, Amy excused herself to catch up with Lou and Reggie before they left.

“Looks like it's just me and you, Mercy.” Eli lay with his eyes closed as he spoke to me.

I didn't think that he was dangerous, but I sure wasn't going to risk finding out, so I said, “The cameras are on for your safety and mine and Captain Benetto and Officer... “ I paused. I didn't look at Reggie's name badge, so I had no idea what his last name was.

Eli finished my thought. “Jones. His name is Reggie Jones. He's harmless. He hasn't been tainted by Benetto yet.”

“Tainted?” I asked.

“Yeah, good old Captain Chicago walks around town like he runs the place. He's a police captain, not master of the universe. I don't care what he says, he's not as tough as he pretends to be. It's his fault I'm in here in the first place. If someone hadn't called my Dad, none of this would have happened.”

I wondered what kind of accent Lou had. I thought it sounded Midwestern. I didn't stop  Eli from complaining about him, figuring he probably needed to vent a little. It appeared that he and Lou knew each other pretty well and had some kind of history. I guess if I was a twenty-two-year-old kid, who had a habit and getting himself into trouble, I wouldn't exactly be thrilled with members of law enforcement.

“Tell me what happened tonight. How did you end up here?” I asked in an attempt to bring the conversation back to him and off of Lou.

“The cops didn't tell you?” He asked, well aware that everything I needed to know had been relayed to the nurse that took the call when the police had alerted us to his impending arrival.