The piercing ring startled Constance Hodges out of deep sleep. She groped for the phone, her blind fingers grazing the alarm clock, tissue box, and stack of nighttime reading. She lifted the receiver. “Yes?” Her voice was a gravelly whisper.
“Ms. Hodges?”
She cleared her throat. “Speaking.”
“It’s Cheryl O’Brien.”
Hodges pushed herself up in the bed and glanced at the dial on the clock. Clarity quickly dispersed the fog in her brain. The Park Manor night nurse would not call her at four fifteen AM unless something was wrong. Had a resident with dementia rolled out of bed and hit their head? Had an independent living resident suffered a sudden heart attack or stroke and been rushed to the hospital in the private ambulance on call for just such occasions? Or had death—life’s inevitable equalizer—once again visited their privileged confines? Based on Cheryl O’Brien’s grave tone, Hodges sensed that the latter occurrence had precipitated this call. “Who is it?” she asked.
She held her breath and wondered which name the nurse would utter. Virtually every Park Manor resident was a once prominent New Yorker or relative of a now prominent New Yorker, and whenever one of them passed the veil, they prompted a lengthy New York Times obituary, a high-profile funeral at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue, where all of Manhattan’s elite went out in style, and at least one new exposé about the obscenely privileged care given to Park Manor’s “senior one percenters.” Each of their deaths required Constance to play many parts—grief counselor, funeral planner, family therapist, and personal advisor—in addition to her official role as Park Manor’s executive director.
“It’s Lucy Merchant,” Cheryl O’Brien answered.
The name ricocheted through Hodges’s brain, and she was so surprised that she failed to edit her first reaction. “How can that be?”
“Maybelle Holder found her during the four AM check.”
“Found her where? What happened?”
“We don’t know. She was just lying in bed.” The nurse’s tone suggested that she was equally stunned by the turn of events and that she had enough insight into the dynamics of Park Manor’s business to appreciate at least some of the consequences. Lucy Merchant was no frail octogenarian whose peaceful passing in the night would signal the sad but acceptable culmination of a long life lived to the fullest. Lucy Merchant was only fifty-six years old. Her obituary would tell the tale of a musical theater legend turned choreographer stricken with early onset Alzheimer’s and dead within two years. It would spotlight her grieving daughter, Julia, and her high-profile husband, Thomas, chairman of the Bank of New Amsterdam.
Hodges turned on her bedside lamp and tried to focus on all the tasks Lucy Merchant’s death would entail today, but the familiar death steps wouldn’t crystallize into a coherent mental checklist. Focus, she thought, as if this silent admonition would magically shift her mind into gear.
As she scanned the room, her eyes registered the Courvoisier XO bottle and minisnifter sitting next to her clock. There was still an inch of cognac from last night in the bottom of the glass, and she imagined gulping it down right this minute. It would spread a soothing numbness through her extremities, she thought, like one of those heat-producing analgesic creams that athletes and arthritis sufferers used. She felt her left arm begin to reach for the snifter. But if she sipped the cognac now, before she was even out of bed, wouldn’t it signal that she had crossed an invisible line, that she had a serious alcohol problem? Wouldn’t it mean that she was out of control?
“Ms. Hodges?” Cheryl’s voice brought her back to the moment.
Hodges picked up the snifter and swallowed. She closed her eyes and relished the hot burn down her esophagus. Her thoughts coalesced into a mental flowchart of what she must do: Get to Park Manor. Call Thomas Merchant. Speak to the physician on call. Debrief the night staff. “Is Baiba there?” she asked Cheryl.
“I’ve phoned her. She’s on her way.”
“Good. I’ll be there shortly,” she told the nurse in a now commanding voice. “Leave Mrs. Merchant where she is. Lock her door. Tell Baiba to let no one in. Keep the Nostalgia night staff on site until I have time to speak with them. And call Dr. Fisher immediately. Have him meet me there. We need him to certify the death as soon as possible.”