Better Off Thread, page 17
“He’s apparently a big deal with the hospital.”
“No, that’s not it. It involves a case. An old one.” She shook her head. “You’ve kicked my curiosity into overdrive. I’ll have to call Dad. He never forgets anything.” She took out her wallet and paid for the floss. “Thanks, Marce.”
“If your dad does remember something about Dr. Carstairs, will you let me know what it is?”
“Of course,” she said.
She hadn’t been gone more than half an hour when she called me. “I just got off the phone with Dad. Bellamy Carstairs stood trial about fifteen years ago for the drugging and sexual assault of a med student. It was Dad’s partner’s case. I remember it because I saw the photo and thought Dr. Carstairs was handsome.”
“I suppose he was back in the day,” I said. “Or even before I realized he was such a jerk.”
“Hey, I was fifteen. I didn’t have the best taste back then. And, of course, I probably thought he was innocent,” she said. “I thought just about everybody was innocent when I was that age.”
“What happened in the case?”
“He was found not guilty. A nurse named Carrie Monahan provided him with an alibi for the time of the alleged incident.”
“Carrie Monahan?” I echoed.
“Yeah, why?”
“Carrie Monahan is the head pediatric nurse at Tallulah General.”
“Huh. Well, now. Isn’t that interesting?”
* * *
When Ted arrived at around one, I was decorating a small live Christmas tree that Vera had brought in earlier.
“Isn’t it adorable?” I asked. “Vera said I needed something to spruce up the place, and then she laughed and laughed at her play on words.”
He leaned closer. “That is a spruce. At least she knows her trees. It smells good. Did she bring the ornaments, too?”
“Yes, except for the ones I’ve made.”
“Cute.”
“What smells so yummy?” I asked.
“Clam chowder and sourdough bread.”
Angus had already come over and was snuffling the bag.
“We’d better get into the office and dig in before Angus takes it away from you.” I put the cardboard clock on the door that said I’d be back in twenty minutes.
I went into the office, where Ted was taking our food out of the bag and placing it on the desk.
“I had some interesting visitors today,” I told him.
He froze. “Who?”
“Todd. Riley. Dr. Carstairs.”
His mouth formed a grim line. “What did he want?”
“If by he, you mean Dr. Carstairs, he wanted me to stop butting into his family’s business. If you mean Todd, he came to check on Angus and me while Dr. Carstairs was here. He passed by on his way to get a coffee and thought the situation looked tense, which it was.”
“He told you to stop butting into his family’s business? They’re the ones who keep insisting you come visit and play elf to their little boy!”
“Well, I’m not sure exactly how he phrased it, but he didn’t appreciate my calling the police on his wife yesterday.”
The muscle in Ted’s jaw worked.
“Please stop grinding your teeth and eat,” I said. “We are not going to allow Bellamy Carstairs to ruin our lunch, just like we didn’t allow him and his wife to spoil our evening yesterday. Remember?”
Nothing.
“I do have some interesting news,” I continued. “Fifteen years ago, Bellamy Carstairs was accused of sexual assault, and his alibi was provided by a young nurse named—wait for it—Carrie Monahan.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. Riley came in to buy some white embroidery floss and while we were talking about the unsavory people involved in Captain Moe’s case, Dr. Carstairs’s name came up. She thought it sounded familiar from a case her dad had once worked on. She called him, and, sure enough, that was it.”
“And Carrie Monahan provided the alibi?” he asked.
“That’s what Riley told me.”
“Huh.” He leaned back in his chair. “If Dr. Carstairs would have been found guilty, had Ms. Monahan not testified on his behalf, then he owes her a huge debt of gratitude, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does. Do you . . . Do you think he was guilty of the assault?”
“I don’t know. From what I’ve learned about Dr. Carstairs, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. But, either way, he owes Carrie Monahan. I’ll call Riley when I get back to the office and have her get Harvey Gordon to dig a little deeper into both of their pasts.”
“I’d imagine she’s already done so,” I said. “But it won’t hurt to give her a reminder and have her fill you in on more of the details of the case.”
“In the meantime, if Dr. Carstairs ever comes back in here, call me. I’ll have him arrested for trespassing.”
“But this is a public place,” I said.
“It’s your place, and he’s not coming in here to buy embroidery supplies; he’s coming in here to harass you.”
“You worry too much, sweetheart. Angus and I can handle Bellamy Carstairs . . . and anyone else.”
“You overestimate yourself. You aren’t ten feet tall and bulletproof.”
“Neither are you,” I pointed out.
“Marcy, please just humor me.” He took my hand. “I don’t want that jerk anywhere near you.”
I kissed him. “If he comes back, I’ll call you.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
After work, I rushed home and heated a container of tomato soup in the microwave while I fed Angus. There were some snow flurries outside, so I walked Angus rather than let him go into the backyard after he ate. Back inside, I was more than ready to taste that warm soup. I took a drink, then kissed Angus on the head and left.
I finished the soup on the way back to the Seven-Year Stitch. Amazingly, I didn’t spill a drop onto my white jacket. I was extremely proud of myself.
Vera was the first to arrive at the crewel class. “The tree looks lovely.”
“Yes, it does. Thank you so much for bringing it in.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’d been meaning to get a tree for the shop, but I simply hadn’t gotten around to it yet,” I said.
“It’s not like you haven’t had a lot to deal with.” She took a seat in the sit-and-stitch square. “So, what’s new?”
I told her about the entire Carstairs fiasco.
“I just heard about Melanie being responsible for the brick through her own windshield. Paul learned about that from the police blotter.” She shook her head. “As you well know, John Langhorne was a first-class heel, but I don’t think I’d have had to pretend to be terrorized in order to get his attention.”
Vera’s late husband had been a heel. But she was right: he’d have at least pretended to support her in anything she set out to do. “Here’s something I don’t understand,” I said. “Melanie was one of the three finalists for the hospital-administrator job when Sandra Vincent was hired. Had Dr. Carstairs not wanted her to have the job, why did she make it so far in the hiring process?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want her to know that he was crushing her efforts.”
“True. But then why would she make it seem she was being pressured not to apply for the job this time in an attempt to gain his support?”
“I have no idea,” said Vera. “It seems to me that the Carstairs are both playing a lot of stupid games.”
The bells over the door jingled, and my eyes widened. “Muriel, what are you doing out in this snow?”
Tiny Muriel was about ninety years old and couldn’t have heard a foghorn from five feet away.
“Yes, only three more weeks to go!” she said cheerily, coming to sit on the sofa by Vera. She patted Vera’s shoulder as she sat. “I like Christmas, don’t you?”
“I sure do.”
* * *
I got home and sank into a warm bath. Like a toddler waiting on his mom, I could hear Angus waiting outside the bathroom door.
“We’ll watch a movie when I get out,” I called to him.
His tail thumped against the wall in response. The hallway was a tight squeeze for such a large dog.
My cell phone, which was on the hamper, began playing “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life.” It was Ted. I changed Ted’s ringtone as often as I did Mom’s, and this was his flavor of the month.
I got out of the tub, retrieved the phone, and got back into the warm water. “Hi, handsome.”
“Hello, beautiful. Did you have a good class?”
“Yes, it was nice. And what’ve you been up to?”
“I spoke with Doug after lunch today. Then he and I met for dinner in Depoe Bay. After I told him about Carrie Monahan and Dr. Carstairs, he began to look into the history of both at Tallulah County General Hospital.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Carrie came to work there soon after Dr. Carstairs?”
“Yes, and she came up through the ranks fairly quickly. She beat out another nurse who’d been there for ten years for the head pediatric-nurse position.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it isn’t. The nurse who had seniority left after Carrie got the job.”
“I wonder if it was voluntary or if she tried to fight Carrie’s promotion over her.”
“There was nothing Doug could find about a lawsuit or complaint lodged against Tallulah County General over it,” said Ted. “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t complain, only to realize how futile her protests were. By the way, it wasn’t until Carrie Monahan started working at the hospital that Martin Brothers Construction began winning bids there.”
“But if Carrie has so much pull, why didn’t she get the hospital-administrator job? She was one of the three finalists.”
“I don’t know. I get the feeling somehow that Dr. Carstairs sees himself as a master chess player and that everyone around him is merely a pawn in his game. He moves them wherever he’d like and knocks them out of the way when he doesn’t need them anymore.”
“Did Doug find any solid connection—outside the hospital, I mean—between Dr. Carstairs and Sandra Vincent?”
“Not yet, but he’s looking.”
“This whole thing is so bizarre. And there’s poor Captain Moe, right in the middle of it all.” I sighed. “Could we have dinner at his place tomorrow night? I’d like to check on him.”
“Sure, babe.”
“I have a Christmas ornament to take him. It’s Santa Claus sitting on a dock, fishing. Do you think he’ll like it?”
“He’ll love it.”
* * *
I got up early Thursday morning because I wanted to get some Christmas shopping done before opening the Seven-Year Stitch. I left Angus with the promise to either pick him up before going in to work or to have Ted pick him up at lunchtime.
I drove to the Tallulah Falls Mall and was glad to see that it wasn’t terribly crowded. I thought I’d probably picked a good time to go. The weekends were bound to be a nightmare by now for those—like me—who didn’t like to shop surrounded by a crush of other people.
I had only about an hour and a half before I had to get to the Stitch, so I needed to shop strategically. I stopped in at the jewelry store to see if I could find something for Sadie. I smiled to myself as I thought that Blake would probably have me in here with him on Christmas Eve to help him pick out something for her. Maybe my gift should complement whatever I was going to suggest to him. After mulling over the displays for a good twenty minutes, I didn’t find anything that suited me for Sadie, but I did find a lovely necklace for Veronica. I’d show it to Ted at lunchtime to see if he thought she’d like it.
I wandered on through the mall, hoping something in a store display would catch my eye as the perfect gift for someone on my list. I shouldn’t have waited so late. I always started stitching early so I could decorate my wrapped gifts with handmade ornaments. But it was buying the actual gifts themselves that was my problem. It was always so hard to figure out who might like what.
The signs—SALE, HALF OFF, SPECIAL—promised deep savings inside each store. As I walked around, I began humming along to the music being played over the loudspeaker—in this case, “Jingle Bell Rock.” I could smell gingerbread and vanilla as I passed the candle store. Reggie liked candles. I should go in there to see what scents they had.
As I turned to go inside the candle shop, I spotted Carrie Monahan at a table in the food court, drinking coffee. Someone was with her, but his back was to me. I could tell the man wasn’t Bellamy Carstairs or John Martin, and that was good enough for me. I went over to say hello.
“Hi, Carrie,” I said brightly. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” She nodded toward the chair to her right. “Won’t you join us?”
“Sure.” As I sat, I noticed that the man was Charlie, the security guard. “Oh, hi, Charlie.”
“Good morning, Marcy.”
“That’s right,” said Carrie. “You two know each other from . . . from that awful Sunday.”
I nodded.
“And Marcy and her friend Vera came to the organ-transplant support group the other night,” said Charlie.
Curious as to how Carrie would react to my mentioning Dr. Carstairs, I got to the heart of my reason for coming over. “But I doubt I’ll ever be able to visit the hospital again.”
“Really? Why?”
I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the rich scent of their coffee as I did so. “I’m afraid Dr. Carstairs is furious with me. I imagine you know that Melanie Carstairs had applied for the hospital administrator’s job at the same time as Sandra Vincent.”
Carrie and Charlie exchanged glances.
“I’d heard something about it, yes,” said Carrie.
“Well, apparently, she didn’t feel she had her husband’s full support, so she made it look as if someone was threatening her to keep her from applying for the job now that Ms. Vincent is, well, no longer the administrator.”
“How’d she do that?” Charlie asked.
“She had her gardener come to the bank and throw a brick through her windshield, and then told her husband someone called and threatened her not to apply for the job,” I said. “The next day, Mrs. Carstairs came to my embroidery shop and asked me to stop by and see Brendan that afternoon. When I went to the Carstairs’ home, I saw a pickup truck half-hidden in the driveway.”
I looked at both Charlie and Carrie to see if I could hazard a guess as to what either was thinking. I had no clue.
“My boyfriend is with the police department, so I had a general description of the truck that had been used by the vandal of Mrs. Carstairs’s vehicle,” I continued. “When I saw the truck, I was afraid that the person who’d thrown the brick through the windshield was threatening the Carstairs. So I called the police.”
“That’s when Mrs. Carstairs had to come clean about having the gardener throw the brick,” Charlie said.
I nodded. “Then yesterday morning, Dr. Carstairs came by my shop and was angry that I’d caused trouble for his family. I can assure you that wasn’t my intention.”
“I know it wasn’t,” said Carrie. “And when Dr. Carstairs has time to think it over, he’ll realize it, too. I imagine that, more than anything, he was embarrassed by his wife’s actions.”
“Do you know Dr. Carstairs very well?” I asked.
“Not very,” said Carrie. “But he’s infamous for his quick temper.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met the man,” said Charlie. “But I can believe he’d be humiliated and looking for someone else to blame for his wife’s behavior. Anyone would.”
“I just don’t understand why she’d feel the need to go to such extremes to either get his attention or have him help her get the hospital-administrator job,” I said. “And I wonder if her actions will have the opposite effect and he’ll now refuse to help her out at all.”
“I hope so.” Charlie raised his coffee cup in a salute to Carrie. “I think we’ve got the perfect hospital administrator sitting right here.”
“That’s right.” I feigned sincerity. “You mentioned that the other night at the support group meeting. How could I have forgotten?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Charlie. I’m sure there are a lot of qualified candidates for the job,” said Carrie.
“Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you got the job this time?” I asked. “Charlie said at the meeting that you have some great ideas for the organ-transplant list.”
“Well, that certainly would be a pet project of mine.” She smiled. “And I’d like to think I could make the hospital a better place overall.”
“Just seeing how you deal with the children on the pediatric ward, I’m sure you would.” I turned to Charlie. “Have you seen that playroom up there?”
“No, I haven’t,” he said.
“Oh, you’ve got to get up there. It’s fantastic. The kids love it.”
I smiled at Carrie. “Good luck. Maybe the hospital-administrator job will be an early Christmas present for you.”
“I hope so. I know they need to move on it quickly.”
“I’d better get back to my shopping,” I said. “I’m sorry to have disturbed the two of you.”
“No problem.” Carrie waved my concerns away with a flick of her wrist. “I’m glad you stopped by. Don’t worry about Dr. Carstairs. He’ll come to his senses and probably stop in to apologize within the next day or so.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. “I enjoyed reading to the children.”
“And they love it.” She placed her hand on Charlie’s forearm. “You should see them, Charlie. It’s like she casts a magic spell over them. They adore her.”
I laughed. “They adore Angus. He’s my Irish wolfhound,” I told Charlie.
