Something Shady at Sunshine Haven

Chapter One

My childhood home had faded in the harsh Arizona sun and now showed its age—rather like me. I’d never dreamed of living here again after thirty years of traveling the world.

This is temporary. You’ll find a way out.

Do you need help? My sister’s tone made it clear the correct answer was no. She’d already hinted that picking me up at the airport had been one more burden in her busy life.

I got it. I eased out of the car and limped to the trunk to retrieve my travel backpack, still getting used to my new cane. My thigh throbbed where the doctors had dug out the shrapnel and stitched it back together with Frankenstein scars. My usual fast stride was an awkward hobble up the walkway. My luggage might have been light, considering it held everything I owned, but it still nudged the airline’s weight limit.

The front door opened, and I forced a smile. Jen disappeared inside, and Dad and I stood face-to-face.

Our smiles faltered. I dropped the backpack and stumbled into his arms. Tension drained out of my body. I blinked back tears and felt his frailty, the tremor in his hands. He smelled like Dad with a hint of a newer scent, something that only seemed to come from old men.

Welcome home, he whispered.

It’s good to be home. I needed to rest and heal, and where better to do that than in my parents’ house? In a few weeks—I promised myself weeks, not months, and definitely not years—I would be well enough to return to journalism. How’s Mom?

Good. Well, you know. She’s settled in. She can’t wait to see you.

I didn’t ask if she’d remember me. I hadn’t noticed signs of Alzheimer’s on my last visit, but that had been a year ago, and Jen assured me Mom had faded fast. She also made it clear that since I was home with no job, it was my turn to take care of our parents.

Sit, Dad said. You need to rest that leg.

Behind him, Jen sighed loudly. Don’t coddle her. She needs to stay active. You wouldn’t know from the way she acted that Jen was younger by two years.

Dad winked at me. Come and sit anyway.

Jen hustled outside. She glanced back through the open door. Welcome home. She sped down the path without waiting for an answer.

I closed the door and looked at Dad. I guess I caught her on a bad day.

No, just a day. Hey, a friend of yours runs the care home. She gave me a message for you. Said it was urgent. He shuffled through the mail on the little table by the door.

I couldn’t think of any friends in Arizona. I hadn’t had any here since my childhood. My friends were scattered around the world, wherever news was happening. If she ran the nursing home, she might hope I’d write a story on the facility to promote it, or do some free PR work. Drat. Were people going to treat me like I had nothing better to do than give away my time?

Double drat. I did not, in fact, have anything better to do. And I wanted a nap.

Dad handed me an envelope. I leaned on the door and propped my cane against the table so I had two hands to tear open the envelope. The handwritten message inside was brief:

Kitty—Please come see me ASAP. I need your help.

—Heather Garcia

She sounded . . . Dad hesitated. She asked about your journalism and begged me to bring you in as soon as possible.

Begged? This could be interesting after all. But who was Heather Garcia? Someone I knew in high school, given her use of my old nickname. Maybe I’d recognize her when I saw her. Or maybe not. I hadn’t changed a bit, of course, but other people sure looked different after thirty years.

We can go see your mother whenever you’re ready, Dad said.

See Mom in a nursing home, literally losing her mind? I’d never be ready for that.

No time like the present. Plus I could find out more about Heather Garcia’s desperate plea for help.

The nursing home was less than twenty minutes away in low traffic. Automatic doors opened into a large lobby with clusters of cushioned chairs, like a fancy hotel lounge. A woman sitting behind a reception desk greeted Dad by name. When he paused before a waist-high gate, something buzzed, and Dad pushed open the gate. Handrails lined each side of the hallway ahead, but the pale yellow paint took away some of the hospital feel. It smelled of lemon-scented cleaning fluid. Better than medicine and sick people.

Mom’s room was the third on the left, small but cheerful, with a single bed, dresser, desk, and chair. She looked like herself, although her face twisted in confusion when I entered.

Dad said, Look who’s here to see you, Mother. Our daughter Kate has come home.

Mom reached out with both hands. Kitty!

I hadn’t gone by that nickname in decades, but it was better than being forgotten.

You look tired, she said. And you’ve cut your hair.

I was tired, but I’d worn my hair short for over a decade. Was she remembering me from some previous era? If she thought I was still twenty, then tired was a delicate understatement for how I’d changed.

She brushed hair off my forehead. You should grow your hair out again. It looks so nice long, when you bother to style it.

Thanks, Mom. Maybe she hadn’t changed much after all. How are you? Are you . . . happy here?

It’s a hospital. Too many people die here. So much death! I’ll be happy when I get to go home.

I wasn’t about to explain that she would never move back home. This might be the one area where her confusion benefited her.

She seemed cheerful enough as we chatted. Still, seeing my parents fade wasn’t easy. She frowned at my cane a few times, but she didn’t say anything about the bombing. Had she forgotten? Had she never been told? I struggled to find safe topics of conversation. Certainly not her health or mine, or the people dying around her. We wound up mainly talking about my sister’s kids, my smile stiff as I tried not to cry.

Shoes squeaked in the hall, and a loud voice passed, talking about hospice.

Don’t forget to visit Heather Garcia while we’re here, Dad said.

Was he giving me an excuse to escape? I took it.

The director’s office was behind the reception counter. I walked in, prepared to pretend I recognized the person. A glimmer of familiarity hit me as the woman looked up from her desk. She was my age, with brown hair to her shoulders, a strong jaw, and dark eyes framed by laugh lines. She stood and extended her hand. Kitty! Or I guess you go by Kate now.

Yes, I prefer Kate. Technically, my name was Katherine. I’d grown up as Kitty, but I’d started using Kate the first year of college as it sounded more like a serious journalist.

She beamed as we shook hands. I’ve followed your career. You probably don’t remember me.

The vague familiarity wasn’t clicking into anything definite. It was a long time ago.

Isn’t that the truth? I was two years behind you. I took journalism my sophomore year, when you were a senior.

It was coming back. You were on the school paper that year.

Right. You were such a go-getter, even then.

We gazed at each other long enough for it to become awkward. I’d never attended a high school reunion and didn’t follow childhood friends on social media. Heather seemed nice enough, but nostalgia for the good old days held no appeal. I hadn’t hated high school, but people who called it the best years of their lives had peaked early, had poor memories, or were liars.

She broke our gaze and headed for the door. Was this strange reunion over already? What about her request for help?

She closed the door and returned to her desk. Please, have a seat. I shouldn’t have kept you standing, with your leg. We were all horrified when we heard.

I managed a tight smile. I wasn’t surprised my injury had made the local news, or the grapevine anyway, as I was something of a hometown celebrity simply for getting my byline in the papers via the Associated Press. I wasn’t supposed to be the news story, but at least I wouldn’t have to explain the limp over and over. I sat in the chair across from her and leaned my cane against her desk.

I have a problem, Heather said.

I tensed. About Mom?

Oh, no, she’s delightful, very popular with the staff and the other patients. Heather shuffled some papers on her desk. No, this is . . . something else. She glanced at the closed door, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. Can I tell you something in confidence?

My journalism senses, dormant and neglected for weeks, gave a faint tingle before subsiding in exhaustion.

It depends. I won’t spread gossip. I hardly know anyone around here to tell. I smiled. But if you confess to murdering someone, I’ll have to report you.

Ha. Nothing like that. I hope.

I stared at her. You’d better tell me what’s bothering you. If I can keep it a secret in good conscience, I will.

Her hands clenched on her desk. I need to know that you’re not here as a reporter.

I nodded and settled back into the chair with the trustworthy expression I’d mastered. Or possibly I simply looked tired. This is off the record. I’m on leave anyway.

Okay. She spread her fingers and pressed her hands on the desk. Two of my patients died last week.

My stomach churned. People came to this place for the ends of their lives. My mother . . .

Shut down that thought. Snap into journalist mode.

It was more of an ooze than a snap, but I found a logical question. Is that unusual?

Most of my patients are going to die here eventually, except those in the short-term care wing. Still, people can live for years with Alzheimer’s and dementia, if they are otherwise healthy. Now she had the soothing, professional voice she’d no doubt perfected on hundreds of patients’ families. Our usual turnover is one every month or two.

Two in a week could be a normal variation then. Good. I sounded calm, even if part of my mind still ran in circles screaming, No! Not my mommy! I cleared my throat and asked, Was something suspicious about these deaths?

She sighed. Not exactly. I mean, they were old, but both women were in reasonable health and died suddenly. That happens sometimes. Some sick people will survive for days or weeks, even after they can no longer talk or eat. Others seem fine one day and the next morning they’re gone.

She gazed into the distance, perhaps replaying some of those scenes.

Her focus snapped back. These two were like that. One complained of stomach pains and vomited a few times. The other seemed unusually weak and confused, according to the nurse who gave her medicine that evening. With Alzheimer’s patients, it can be hard to identify a separate illness from the normal disease progression. Her voice wavered. They were both dead by morning.

The vomiting could be food poisoning. That can kill a person in poor health.

These two incidents were a week apart, and no one else got sick either time. With food poisoning, you’d expect a wider outbreak.

I frowned. What was the cause of death?

Officially, heart failure. We file death certificates, but unless the death is clearly questionable, no one would order an autopsy. She clenched her hands together. One more thing. Two weeks ago, another woman got very ill, yet she recovered. Now she’s fine. No one else in the unit got sick at the same time and we don’t know what she had.

Food poisoning seems unlikely with three patients sick that far apart. Could a virus spread that slowly?

With the first woman, the nurse tested for bacterial infections, and for antibodies, which should show up if the immune system is fighting a viral infection. The tests didn’t show any sign of either. The other two died so quickly we didn’t have time to test. One of these cases alone wouldn’t worry me, but the three of them together . . .

Alarm bells clamored in my mind. Was I reacting as a reporter or as a daughter? I dragged in slow, deep breaths to force back the nausea and become the logical, skeptical correspondent. I’d covered stories where hundreds or even thousands of people had died in natural disasters or acts of war. Two old women dying in a nursing home wasn’t much of a story.

Except that my mother was now an old woman living in a nursing home. What exactly do you suspect?

I’m probably being paranoid. But once in a while, you hear stories about a nurse or aide who decides the people in their care would be better off if they didn’t have to suffer any more. She looked away and whispered, How could I forgive myself if more people died because I wasn’t willing to ask questions?

Have you talked to the police?

Definitely not. Her eyes pleaded with me. It would be disastrous for the home. People would want to remove their parents and spouses. Even if these deaths were perfectly natural, the rumors would destroy us. I can’t do nothing, but I also can’t put the entire operation at risk over a vague possibility.

I couldn’t argue with that. The press would love a story about a murdering caregiver, and a false rumor could taint a business for years. I suspected I knew the answer, but I asked, What exactly do you want from me?

I’d like you to investigate. You’re a journalist, you know how to find out things, and I trust you more than some random private detective. I want you to learn what happened, which hopefully will put my mind to rest. Am I being paranoid, or is someone killing my patients?

Chapter Two

Heather kept quiet while I pondered the situation. Part of me knew if there was any chance my mother was in danger, I had to investigate. A larger part of me wanted to be back in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan, covering important world events, not checking on the slim possibility that some twisted mind might be killing people who were already old and ill. I would have attacked a story like this as a young reporter trying to make my name, but it was, at most, local news.

And part of me still wanted to go home and sleep.

I’d never in my life passed up a story for a nap.

Fear shot through me, not for my mother or the other patients, but for myself. I’d been afraid often enough, afraid for my life. This was different—I was afraid of losing myself.

I’ll help. It came out too fast, too loud.

Heather sighed. Thank you. What’s the first step?

Stop taking prescription painkillers and hope that cleared my brain fog. She didn’t need to know that, though. I thought a moment. I assume you do thorough background checks on employees before hiring them?

She nodded. No one with a criminal record can work here. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ve never committed a crime.

Understood. I’ll investigate everyone. Things that don’t make it into criminal records may still appear in a news story.

Heather pulled a paper from the stack on her desk. I printed a list of employees for you. Legally, I can’t give you personal information, but this is public.

I folded the paper. I’d better investigate the patients in question as well and interview their families.

She pursed her lips. That might be tricky. Maybe I can arrange to hire you as a temporary outside consultant. We can say you’re doing a follow-up on behalf of the home, to check satisfaction, or something vague.

My leg twitched, bumping my cane leaning against her desk. I grabbed the cane before it could fall and pressed my foot to the floor to steady my leg. There’s always the possibility someone will recognize me as a reporter, so I’ll say I’m working on an article.

On what exactly?

I needed something to encourage people to talk. Emotions would be fragile so soon after a loved one’s death.

People tend to have strong opinions about what the government should be funding. We can say I’m looking into the financial strain it puts on families when someone has a long-term illness. I surreptitiously squeezed my thigh where the muscles were knotting and threatening to spasm again. That gives me an excuse to ask about money.

Heather frowned. Most patients here have little money of their own. They sign over assets to us in order to get the promise of continued care.

My sister had complained about the nightmare of dividing Mom’s and Dad’s finances, so Mom could get the long-term care she needed without bankrupting Dad. Some couples wound up divorcing after decades of marriage so they wouldn’t both lose everything.

Then no one leaves an inheritance?

I wouldn’t go that far. We don’t take literally every penny. Sometimes, the patient signs over a house, and that’s enough to offset the cost of care. Most people have a small bank account, usually administered by a family member, so they can buy special items for the patient. Clothes, flowers. Take the patient to lunch. Get their hair done. Depending on the individual’s situation, they might leave a few thousand dollars. But we cater to the middle class, so anyone really rich wouldn’t be here.

People have killed for a few thousand dollars.

Heather’s nose wrinkled. I suppose that’s true. Do you think an employee could be coercing patients into changing their wills? Surely, I’d hear about any unusual bequests. It’s only been a few days since the last death, so maybe not yet.

I shrugged. A more direct way would be to steal bank cards and empty the accounts.

And kill the patient . . . why? To hope no one notices in the confusion and grief after death? She pushed back in her chair, her hands gripping the edge of the desk. Somehow, that’s more horrible than the thought of killing someone out of the misguided idea that you’re ending their suffering.

We live in a horrible world.

I guess you’d know that, the things you’ve seen. I’ve spent my life trying to help people. Her eyes widened. I didn’t mean—that is, what you do is important too. I wasn’t criticizing.

I understand. I hauled myself to my feet. My leg cramped and I had to grab the desk for support. I tried to keep my face calm as I commanded the pain to go away. It didn’t obey.

Heather rose as well. Honestly, I admire you. I didn’t have the nerve to pursue journalism. I could never do all the things you’ve done.

I resisted the urge to say, Yeah, but you can walk. She probably assumed I’d stood with a grimace because I was upset. I was worse than upset, I wanted to scream and smash things and then curl up sobbing. But that had nothing to do with what Heather had said. We each do what we can. I hoped that was appropriate. I’d already half forgotten her comment.

Heather looked down. I couldn’t tell if she’d noticed my suffering and was trying to give me privacy, or if she was wrapped in her own thoughts.

I dragged my focus back to the practical questions. The point is, we shouldn’t assume anything. If you have an ‘angel of mercy,’ that first patient might have been a trial run or a failed attempt. Then why didn’t the killer try again with the same target? Maybe the victim passed some kind of test by surviving. Or maybe the two deaths and the illness aren’t even related. You’re suspicious because of the timing, but maybe that part is a coincidence. Maybe one death was natural and one was murder.

She winced.

I fumbled for my cane and shifted my weight onto it. I needed to get out of there, get home, take a painkiller, lie down . . .

Damn it. Getting off those things would be hard.

I put the list of employees in my shoulder bag. I’ll start on this and let you know what else I need. We probably shouldn’t do anything by e-mail, in case your system isn’t secure. I’m at my parents’ house. You have the address.

I headed for the door.

I have an idea, she said.

I closed my eyes and held back a sigh.

There are physical therapists working next door. Massage therapists too. They see our patients, but they also take other clients.

I turned to face her. My smile felt stiff enough to crack and fall off. I didn’t need yet another person telling me what I should do to get over my injury.

She leaned close and lowered her voice. If you start going there, you’ll meet more of the staff and patients. People chat a lot during their therapy, so you can get gossip. Between that and your mother being here, you’ll have every excuse to visit anytime and go almost anywhere.

I’d seen enough of doctors to last me the rest of my life. Still, I would need ongoing physical therapy, and Heather’s plan saved me the trouble of finding another clinic.

I’ll do that, I said.

I have to admit, as much as I hope you don’t find anything wrong, this is sort of exciting. Being part of an investigation again.

My smile came more easily. Like our exposé about how much filler was in the cafeteria hamburgers?

She chuckled. Or our breaking story about the basketball team getting suspended for drinking in the hotel after an away game. We were really changing the world.

I shrugged. It was the world we knew. A small, simple world in retrospect, but we cared about it.

Her humor faded. Yeah. Things aren’t so simple anymore. She locked her gaze to mine. Maybe my world is still small compared to yours, but I care about it.

I put my free hand on her arm. I understand. We’ll find the truth.

She nodded and opened the door. I felt her watching as I limped down the hall. I must have looked more like one of her patients than a source for answers.

Stop it. It’s not all about you.

Most of the people in this building had it worse than I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t take comfort in knowing other people were suffering too.

Still, I could help Heather, and the patients, by uncovering the truth. If Heather’s suspicions were right, I might even save a life or two, if only to give them a few more months of dying slowly.

What a heroic job I had.

By the time I found my mother’s room, the worst of the cramping had eased, but if I sat down again, I might not be able to get up. Then I really would have trouble convincing people I wasn’t a patient.

My parents held hands as Dad said goodbye. I’d rarely seen them so openly affectionate. Her illness was drawing them closer together, or at least encouraging them to express their feelings more. But would a point come when she no longer recognized him?

I bent to kiss Mom’s cheek. I should haul her out of there. If someone was killing patients, how could I leave my mother in danger? But