Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel) Read online

  Lee watched him disappear and then pulled her purse open, looking for the sharp instrument that had just impaled her. She shifted her wallet and car keys to one side, and felt the blood drain from her face. The onyx bird peeked out from behind her wallet.

  A few minutes later, she joined her colleagues looking and feeling very much like she’d just stuck her finger in a light socket. As the meeting began, she attempted to quiet the thoughts buzzing in her head by purposely looking around the room and focusing on the team members.

  The group was an odd mixture of intellect, impressive credentials, and less than dazzling personalities. Martha Jackson, the new CEO, ran the meetings like a military boot camp, and the room often felt as if the oxygen had been sucked out through the air vents. Andrew sat to Martha’s left. Next to him was Fran Van Sickle, the VP of Patient Services. Next to her was Robin. Lee sat across the table from Robin. To Lee’s right was the head of Information Technology, and then the Chief Financial Officer.

  The meeting started with an announcement from Martha that she had a conference call at ten o’clock. Lee silently thanked God for small favors. Fran Van Sickle ran through some capital equipment requests, and then it was Andrew’s turn as VP of Operations to come out from under Martha’s thumb and report on the construction of the new radiology unit. His muscles tightened, making his body so rigid he could have been injected with starch. He’d just begun his report when Martha raised a stubby hand to stop him.

  “What happened with Dr. Roberts last week?” she barked.

  Andrew’s speech faltered. Everyone could feel the reprimand coming.

  “I believe Dr. Roberts had a few words with the project manager,” he almost whispered.

  “A few words?” Martha prodded.

  “I think Dr. Roberts was unhappy about something,” Andrew replied vaguely. “But I believe it’s all worked out now.”

  “It’s not worked out!” Martha slammed her pencil on the table. “He was in my office yesterday complaining that no one had consulted him about selecting the new CAT scanner. I thought you said you’d discussed it with the radiologists.”

  “I did. Well, I mean, I discussed it with Dr. Sinner and Dr. Boswell.”

  Andrew’s speech disintegrated into a stutter. As Lee glanced around the table, she saw that everyone had become very interested in their notepads.

  “You have to talk to Roberts, not just Sinner and Boswell. And, this time, fix it.”

  Andrew pretended to write himself a note. “I’ll take care of it right away.”

  “See that you do. Let’s move on,” Martha commanded.

  Andrew opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and just sat back in his seat. Lee felt sorry for him, but wondered for the umpteenth time why he didn’t just leave. He’d been at the hospital as VP of Operations for over six years, but hadn’t even been considered for the top spot when it became available. As someone who had always played at the top of her game, Lee didn’t know what it would feel like to be so undervalued.

  As VP of Human Resources, Robin chaired the Safety Committee, and it was her turn to make a safety report. Lee took the opportunity to draw circles on her notepad, glancing up once or twice just to give her friend confidence that she wasn’t being ignored. The doodling helped to calm her nerves and even contemplate how the bird had found its way into her purse again. In the background, Robin began.

  “The Safety Committee met yesterday,” Robin referred to two typed sheets of paper in her hands. “There were two security incidents reported last month. It seems the hood ornament from Dr. Olson’s Mercedes was stolen again.”

  This brought chuckles from around the table. Dr. Olson’s hood ornament had been stolen some twelve times over the past four years. A few times it was discovered in the bushes. Once it was mailed back to him, and once it had shown up lodged in the plumbing of the men’s bathroom. The entire surgical floor hated Dr. Olson, and everyone suspected someone on staff was to blame.

  “The second incident happened two weeks ago. It appears that someone may have broken into the lab’s GCMS room.”

  Robert Bask was the Chief Financial Officer and the kind of guy who didn’t have the personality for much more than the numbers he spent his life with. He was tall and thin and wore wire-rimmed glasses that made him look like a character from Charles Dickens. He looked up when Robin mentioned the GCMS room.

  “What’s the GCMS room?” he asked, as he toyed with his glasses.

  Robin referred to her notes. “It holds two pieces of equipment. The gas chromatograph and the mass spectro-phometer,” she stumbled over the words.

  “It’s where all the positive drug screens are confirmed,” Fran interjected.

  Robin continued. “Some of the lab techs work around the clock, but the GCMS room is closed and locked at six o’clock. Only five people are supposed to have access to it.”

  Lee was thinking about the bird when she heard this, and continued doodling.

  “Apparently, nothing was taken,” Robin said. “However, the computer was still up and running at five o’clock the next morning when security checked, and the door was unlocked.”

  Lee finished coloring in a circle and looked up with interest.

  “What about the technicians? Did they see anyone?” Andrew inquired.

  Lee thought Andrew was making a valiant effort to appear credible again in Martha’s eyes. Unfortunately, Martha continued to act as if he wasn’t in the room.

  “No one saw anything,” Robin answered. “There is a side door to the hallway, and they think whoever it was may have come into the department the back way.”

  “So,” Robert began, adjusting his glasses again, “we really don’t know what happened. Maybe someone just left the computer on when they went home.”

  “And left the door unlocked?” Fran scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

  As the executive in charge of patient care, you’d expect Fran to have the bedside manner of Florence Nightingale. Unfortunately, she was as soft and cuddly as a drill bit.

  “Well, the five people who have access to it were all interviewed the next day and denied any knowledge,” Robin said. “But the key to the room is left in a central location.”

  “You think one of our technicians is fooling around with the computer for personal use?” Fran jumped to the negative.

  “I’m only reporting the facts,” Robin replied a bit defensively.

  “The trouble wouldn’t be in leaving the computer on. It would only be a problem if someone were entering the lab files,” Andrew offered authoritatively, sneaking a glance at Martha.

  “I understand that, Andrew,” Fran snapped. “Was a file left opened?” she asked Robin.

  Robin checked her notes again. “I’m not sure.”

  Lee glanced over to see if Scott Summers was awake. He was the Chief Information Officer and in charge of all technology and phone operations. Though more content to interact with computers than people, he was a borderline genius as far as Lee was concerned, and she often wondered why he had chosen a small hospital in Oregon on which to waste his talents. This should be his area, but he was browsing through some other paperwork.

  “Scott, could you find out if anything had been tampered with?” Martha inquired.

  “Possibly,” he said without looking up. “I can take a look. Who has access to that computer?” he asked, finally lifting his chin.

  “The Lab Manager. Three lab techs and the pathologist,” Robin replied.

  “Which lab techs?”

  “John Swain and Bud Maddox. I don’t know who the third was.”

  Lee stopped doodling and looked up.

  “Did Maddox work that day?” she asked, suddenly engaged in the conversation.

  Robin shrugged, giving Lee a guarded look. “I have no idea.”

  “Scott,” Martha Jackson interrupted, “have one of your guys check it. I doubt it’s anything to worry about, but we have the Joint Commission survey this spring, and I don�
�t want any deficiencies.”

  Lee sat back, staring at the outdoor print of a riverboat on the wall across the table. She had no idea if this was important information. If Bud had killed Diane, there had to be a motive. Lee had racked her brain trying to generate a plausible reason why he might have wanted Diane dead. The computer incident provided something interesting. If he was doing something illegal and Diane had found out about it…well, then.

  “I understand it was a nice funeral, Lee,” Martha Jackson said in the background.

  Lee heard the comment a split second after Martha made it and snapped to attention with a nervous jump. Everyone was looking at her, waiting for a response.

  “Yes, it was,” she said, hoping she hadn’t missed enough of the comment to make her response sound stupid.

  “Perhaps you and your staff can put this tragedy behind you now.” Jackson gazed at her with a blank expression. “You can get on with your work.”

  Lee clenched her fingers into fists under the table. “We’ve never stopped working, Martha.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. I just meant that it must be difficult.” She smiled, but there was no animation in her face. “I was wondering, in fact, if there was still time to get an article on the new Cath Lab in the next newsletter.”

  Lee struggled to get back on track. All Jackson cared about was the stupid Cath Lab.

  “Actually, Sally’s already written the article. I believe the copy is on your desk.”

  Jackson looked at her assistant, Miranda, who sat taking minutes. “Is that true, Miranda?”

  Miranda looked up. “I have a stack of things that just arrived from Marketing. I’m not sure what’s in the pile.”

  Miranda Gonzalez was Jackson’s assistant and saw herself as the right hand to God. She took immense pleasure in the power she had over everyone else as a result. With this remark, she looked across the table at Lee knowing full well that Lee’s marketing staff had delivered the materials nearly two days earlier.

  Martha Jackson glanced back at Lee. “Well, now that I have the article, I’ll take a look at it. You look tired, Lee. A close friend’s death is difficult for anyone, but when it’s suicide, it’s doubly hard to accept.”

  Lee felt the heat rise to her cheeks at this poorly disguised attempt at compassion.

  “God, I can’t imagine killing myself,” Fran cut in rudely. “How could life be that bad?”

  “Life wasn’t that bad, as you put it, Fran,” Lee snarled, looking at Fran as if she were an alien life form. “And Diane didn’t kill herself!”

  Seven sets of eyes stared back at Lee as the room fell silent. A pin dropped squarely in the middle of the table would have sounded like an iron pipe hitting pavement. Jackson fixed a steady gaze in her direction. Finally, she spoke with measured control.

  “I understood the police had ruled it a suicide.”

  Lee stared into those steely gray eyes knowing what she should say. Instead she replied, “She was murdered.”

  There, Martha’s icy eyes flinched.

  Martha sat back in her chair, pulling her pencil into her lap. “Did the police discover something new?”

  A hot flash washed over Lee, and she sat staring dumbly at her boss, a tense silence hanging in the room.

  “I assume the police are investigating this,” Martha prompted her again.

  “No,” Lee finally whispered.

  “Then I’m confused.” Martha’s voice was infused with renewed patience. “How do you know she was murdered?”

  Robin shifted in the chair next to Lee.

  “I don’t know that she was murdered. I just know that she wouldn’t kill herself.”

  “Jesus, Lee,” Fran broke the silence. “Don’t start jumping to conclusions.”

  “Who in the world would kill Diane?” Andrew blurted.

  The room had come suddenly to life.

  “The police ruled it a suicide, didn’t they?” Robert asked, anxious to contribute. “They don’t have any suspects, do they?”

  “No. They believe it was a suicide.”

  “Well, then, maybe you’d better forget it,” Andrew cautioned.

  “I can’t forget it!” she flared.

  “It seems like an issue for the police,” Martha’s voice rose above the others as she placed her fleshy palms on the table in an effort to call a halt to the dialogue.

  Lee looked at her with her jaw set. “That’s the problem. The police won’t do anything. They hardly even questioned Bud Maddox!”

  Robin groaned, while Martha’s eyebrows arched into twin peaks.

  “Just what does Bud Maddox have to do with Diane’s death?”

  “They were having an affair,” Fran added salt to the wound.

  Now everyone shifted. Andrew glared across the table at Fran. Although the affair was widely known among hospital staff, gossip normally didn’t make its way to the oval office. Martha Jackson wasn’t pleased with what she’d just heard. Her eyes seemed to shrink behind her glasses, and she leaned forward, resting her heavy forearms on the table.

  “I believe your fondness for Diane is affecting your objectivity, Lee. This is none of your concern. You need to leave it to the police.”

  Lee opened her mouth to object, but Martha cut her off with a wave of her hand.

  “Maybe a few days off would help,” Martha said.

  Lee thought she’d gone deaf. All the sound around her abated. Although Miranda was busily writing everything down for the record, her pen was silent. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath, and Lee’s eyes began to burn. God, what was she doing? Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut?

  “Lee?” Martha asked.

  Lee stared at her boos without really seeing her.

  “A few days off, Lee?” Martha’s voice seemed to echo through a tunnel. “You haven’t had proper time to grieve.”

  This woman didn’t know anything about grieving, Lee thought, and her superficial concern was pathetic. But Lee needed time to think. Perhaps she should take a few days off. Maybe then she could find out what had happened to Diane. Lee swallowed and stuck out her chin.

  “I’ll take you up on that offer, Martha. I think I could use a couple of days off.”

  “Fine,” her boss replied. “If there is nothing else, I need to prepare for the conference call.”

  Martha Jackson got up, signaling an end to the meeting. Everyone else rose to leave. Robin turned to Lee, mouthing the words “Call me” before she left the room. Lee gathered up her notebook and few papers. Fran and Andrew waited for her at the door.

  “Lee, have you arranged for the photo shoot at Green Valley, yet?” Fran wanted to know.

  “It’s scheduled for Friday night, at eleven o’clock,” Lee replied without enthusiasm.

  They had arranged a photo shoot at a local lumber mill to illustrate how their 24-hour Occupational Health program worked to promote wellness for more than five hundred companies in the area. Since most lumber mills ran night shifts, the Director of Public Relations had arranged for a nurse to give onsite flu shots to the employees during the graveyard shift.

  “Well, it wouldn’t hurt if you were there. I saw Jay Gilman yesterday,” Fran said. “I think he’s very excited about it.”

  “I’ll be taking a few days off,” Lee retorted. “Sally is the Director of Marketing. She’ll just have to go solo without me.”

  “You could make nice with Gilman. He’s a big client and could become a big donor. Sally is good, but she doesn’t carry the weight a vice president would.”

  Lee felt her face begin to burn. “Martha’s word is my command.”

  Fran touched her arm. “Lee, you were close to Diane. Everyone knows that. Take the time off. This isn’t the best place to deal with your grief.”

  Fran’s empathy took Lee by surprise. Fran would never be described as a warm personality. With her severe features and frizzy short hair, even her appearance kept you at arm’s length. Then, Lee remembered a year earlier that Fran
had gone through a difficult divorce. Maybe she had more empathy than Lee realized.

  Lee merely nodded. “Thanks.”

  Fran and Andrew left Lee alone. She stared for a long moment at her notepad, not really seeing the image she’d doodled there. Her mind was a million miles away. With a sigh, she ripped off the top sheet and tossed it into a nearby trashcan, leaving behind the sketch of a large black bird perched on the branch of a tree.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lee closed the door to her office and sat with her head in her hands. She would not cry. The word humiliation was not in her vocabulary. Humiliation meant you’d lost the game, the match, or the competition. In her whole career, she’d never been given a bad review, let alone a public reprimand. Now she’d been reprimanded in front of the entire executive team and forced to take time off, when it was work that kept her sane. News of this would spread like wildfire throughout the hospital, perhaps even to members of her foundation board of directors. She should have just kept her mouth shut.

  With a deep sigh, she spun around to look out the window to the hills and dark clouds beyond. So be it. She would take the time off, but she wouldn’t sit idle. She had something to prove now, and she would employ whatever she could to find the answers. Perhaps the time off was a blessing in disguise. She turned back to her computer to finish checking her emails before leaving. Just then, the phone rang.

  “Are you okay?” Robin asked at the other end.

  Lee cradled the phone to her ear as she opened emails. “Yeah, I just feel stupid.”

  “It probably wasn’t your best move. However, you really could use the time off. Look at it as an unscheduled vacation.”

  “Thanks, but I have more important things to do. Will you be in your office this afternoon?”

  Lee continued to skim down the list of emails as she talked. She stopped at the one with the strange poem again, allowing her eyes to skim across the words. There was a pause as Robin consulted her calendar.

  “I have a meeting right after lunch which should take me up to about two o’clock.”

  “Mind if I come down then?” Lee asked, rubbing her eyes. “I have something to tell you.”