Hodges watched Heather’s thin fingers set the cup and saucer in front of Codella. “Thank you, Heather,” she said, but her kindly tone and benevolent smile were not for her assistant’s benefit. Detectives, she supposed, were like psychotherapists. They registered far more than the words you uttered. In the minuscule movements of hands or mouth, they read your fear or anxiety. In the rise and fall of your voice, they detected amiability or animosity. In the angle of your gaze, they distinguished between veracity and deception. Hodges did not intend to provide any windows into her soul, but she would certainly watch for Codella’s unconscious revelations.
As soon as Heather left the room, Hodges said, “Thank you for coming, Detective.”
Codella sipped her tea but said nothing.
Hodges sensed that a hard, protective shell surrounded Codella. But if she could just crack that shell, the two of them would be on equal footing. “I imagine you haven’t had time for lunch, Detective. Let me get you a sandwich from our Manor Bistro.” She picked up her phone.
Codella shook her head. “Please. Don’t trouble yourself. I’m fine. Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Hodges insisted. “How does turkey and brie on a baguette sound?”
“Really, I’m fine.”
“Our chef does a very nice sandwich. Let me order you one.” Hodges gave the order to Heather. When she hung up, she said, “I can only imagine how demanding your job is on a daily basis.”
“We all have demanding jobs,” said Codella.
“Maybe so, but I suspect yours is a bit more demanding than most—and you’re a little too modest. I confess. I Googled you yesterday after you left my office.”
Codella shrugged. “Yes? Well, I suppose we all Google each other these days, don’t we?”
“But we’re not all NYPD celebrities.”
“I just do my job.”
Here was a skillful deflector, thought Hodges, a woman who would make an interesting and challenging patient. Yesterday Hodges had been too unnerved by the detective’s surprise visit to observe her closely, but now she scrutinized her face. She was not beautiful in the “classic” sense—not like Baiba with her long blond hair, large eyes, and voluptuous lips—but her coal black hair, ice-blue eyes, and cerebral intensity made her compelling. Hodges leaned forward. “You’ve been through a lot, Detective. It must be difficult for you, coming back after the terrible health scare you’ve been through.”
Was it irritation or suspicion that caused Codella to frown for an instant? The detective was sensitive about her illness, Hodges observed as she sipped coffee from her clear glass mug. “I trained as a clinical psychologist,” she explained, “and I’ve worked with a number of patients who went through cancer treatment. I know how debilitating it is, and I know how hard it is to come back. I admire your stamina.”
“I’m fine now,” was all Codella said in return. “Why did you ask to see me, Ms. Hodges?”
Hodges folded her hands on her desk. “I want to discuss a staff member I think you should look into.”
“That wasn’t necessary. We’re looking into all your staff members.”
“I realize that,” said Hodges. “But your background checks won’t turn up any criminal records. We have a very rigorous employee review process at Park Manor.” She reached for her coffee again and watched her hand ascend to her lips. There was no tremble, she assured herself. “We use a private investigative firm staffed by former NYPD detectives like yourself. They run criminal checks on all prospective staff members. They fingerprint. They speak directly to friends and neighbors of applicants. We also administer a personality test to future employees.”
“Even caregivers?”
Hodges smiled. “I like to know who I’m working with. And we update our background checks on a yearly basis—no exceptions.”
“That’s impressive,” Codella acknowledged.
“But we’ve had someone on our staff for the last few years who failed to meet some of our employment criteria. Please bear with me while I give you a little history on this. About two and a half years ago, Park Manor denied employment to a male caregiver. He happened to be a gay man. And let me say right up front that I personally have nothing against gay people. I have many gay friends and acquaintances. It’s of no concern to me. But this young man was—well, let’s just say that his effeminate gestures were quite pronounced.”
“And you felt he wouldn’t go over so well with the Park Manor clientele?”
“I knew he wouldn’t go over well here, but that’s not why we denied him employment,” said Hodges. “He’d been treated for depression, and we don’t hire people with known emotional instability. Remember, these caregivers are making life and death decisions for people who can’t make those decisions for themselves. We serve a wealthy and litigious clientele. We have to protect them and ourselves.” Hodges paused.
Codella nodded. “Long story short?”
Hodges opened the file she had pulled for this meeting. “Long story short. He filed a complaint with the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office. He claimed Park Manor had violated his protections under New York State’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act, SONDA.”
“I see,” said Codella. “And what happened?”
“We settled out of court and paid a hefty fine. Since then, we’ve made a few hiring decisions that I would prefer not to have made. And one of them happens to have been Lucy Merchant’s primary caregiver, Brandon Johnson.”
“The caregiver who held her last medicine cup to her lips.”
“That’s right.”
“He is also gay?”
“No. He’s a transgender man.”
Codella sipped her tea. “And that disqualified him for employment?”
“No. What disqualified him was the fact that he was under a psychologist’s treatment.”
Codella shrugged. “But you were a psychotherapist. You know that half the people in Manhattan have seen a therapist. If we disqualified them all from jobs on the basis of that, we’d have a severe workforce shortage on this island, Ms. Hodges.”
“Please, call me Constance. And I agree with you, Detective. All of us have moments when we need to tell our story to someone, don’t we?” She gave Codella a penetrating look that said, Yes, I know about your past. I put my investigative team to work on you. Although Codella did not move a muscle, Hodges could feel her register the unspoken message. “But I think this young man has serious issues,” she continued. “They wouldn’t have concerned me if I were running a restaurant and he were my waiter. But as I said previously, he makes daily life and death decisions for our residents. And I hired him against my better judgment because I felt pressured to do so by the Foster Health Enterprises counsel. You see, Brandon applied for his position right after the case I just mentioned, and although transgender individuals are not explicitly protected under SONDA, he could have argued that we turned him down because of his perceived sexual orientation. Our legal counsel strongly encouraged me not to decline him employment given his credentials.”
“What credentials did he have?”
“He was a certified nurse’s aide in New York State, and he’d worked as an emergency medical technician in the state of Michigan.”
“In other words, he looked impeccable on paper.”
“That’s right.”
“What serious issues did you think he had?” asked Codella.
“Gender dysphoria. Clinical depression. And after observing him for the past two years, I would also characterize him as someone suffering the long-term effects of emotional abandonment.”
“How so?”
“He shows a desperate need to feel connected to someone. And whom does he choose to connect with? A woman who can’t even remember his name. He treated Lucy Merchant like the mother he wished he’d had. He was more doting than her real daughter was, and he wanted her all to himself. He wouldn’t let anyone else near her. He boasted about how she smiled when he came into her room. He bragged about all the things only he could coax her to do.” Hodges sipped her coffee again before summing up. “He met Lucy’s physical needs, Detective, but Lucy sustained him emotionally. He had a fantasy relationship with her. He used her to fill the huge gulf in his life.”
“Then why would he kill her?”
Hodges felt herself in complete command of the interview now. “I can think of at least two reasons, Detective. For one thing, he might have sensed her slipping away from him. Recently Mrs. Merchant’s memory has been deteriorating rapidly, and perhaps he couldn’t stand the prospect of another parental abandonment. Julia Merchant told me a gold charm was missing from her mother’s room the morning she died. The charm was a dancer—like Lucy Merchant—and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Brandon Johnson took that charm as a symbol of her to hold onto.”
Codella was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You mentioned there were two possible reasons?”
Hodges nodded. “The other very real possibility is that he conflated Lucy Merchant with the bad mother from his past. He might have lashed out at her the way he wanted to punish the biological mother who emotionally abandoned him.”
Hodges paused while Codella typed notes into her iPhone. Then the detective looked up at her. “Have you ever seen his temper flare? Has he ever acted violently here?”
“No,” Hodges acknowledged. “But I’ve seen evidence that he has violent impulses. On Monday morning, I brought him into my office along with two other caregivers who worked the shift when Lucy—Mrs. Merchant—died. I was debriefing them, and he got very defensive. At the time, of course, I didn’t realize that the death might be suspicious. In the course of the conversation, I found out he had violated Mrs. Merchant’s care plan. He gave her ice cream before he got her ready for bed. Mrs. Merchant is on a strict no-sugar diet. I was not happy with him, and he gave me a look that let me know he felt nothing but contempt and rage.”
“How old is Brandon Johnson?”
Hodges stared at his employment application. “Almost twenty-three,” she said.
There was a knock at the door and Hodges called out, “Come in.”
Heather set a plate and cloth napkin on Hodges’s desk in front of Codella’s seat. Codella thanked her. When the young woman was gone, she asked, “Is there anyone else on your short list of people with motive and opportunity?”
Hodges shook her head. “Not that I can think of right now, Detective.”
“What about Baiba Lielkaja?”
“Baiba?” Hodges glanced down and readjusted her chair. Where the hell was Baiba, anyway? She hadn’t even bothered to call in this morning, and she wasn’t answering her phone. It was her fault that Brandon Johnson had dispensed medications against protocol. It was her fault that he had been in Lucy Merchant’s suite after she died. If Baiba had been doing her job, enforcing the policies of Park Manor, Julia Merchant would not have had a suspicious video to take to the police, and none of this would be happening.
“She was on duty the night Lucy Merchant died,” pointed out Codella. “And she has keys to the dispensary.”
Hodges shook her head. “Yes, but she doesn’t prepare or dispense medications. I just don’t see that, Detective.” The fact that she didn’t want to see it was more to the point, of course. Whoever had ended Lucy Merchant’s life was going to end up on the front cover of national news magazines and go down in the annals of crime history. It would be far better for Hodges if the killer was Brandon Johnson. At least Hodges could defend herself against him. She had been coerced into hiring him. The laws of the land had left her powerless to exercise her better judgment. Sometimes good sense should be allowed to trump political correctness, she could argue.
“What about the Merchants?” asked Codella.
“What about them?”
“Could either of them be involved, in your opinion?”
Hodges thought immediately of Michael Berger’s comment. Could Merchant be behind this? She knew Merchant well enough to know he was capable of many things, but she didn’t think murder was one of them. And although Julia had surprised her by initiating this whole inconvenient investigation, she didn’t see her hand in murder, either. “The question is why?” she said. “What would be in it for them?”
“An end to Lucy Merchant’s misery? The elimination of expense?”
“But you must know that expense is of no concern to the Merchants.” Hodges shrugged. “And Mrs. Merchant has been very comfortable here. Her quality of life was as good as it could possibly be.”
Codella looked at her watch and stood. “I’ll think about what you’ve told me,” she said. “I appreciate your insights.”
Hodges had the distinct impression the words were intended merely to placate her.
“I do have a request,” Codella added.
“Of course. Whatever you need.”
“We’re going to need to speak with several people on your staff. It would be helpful if you could designate a room in which Detective Muñoz or I could conduct interviews here, on site. Otherwise, we’ll be forced to bring your staff members to a precinct.”
Hodges concealed her dread with a smile. “We’ll make arrangements, Detective.”
Then Codella was gone, and Hodges stared at the turkey and brie sandwich on her desk. The detective had not even touched it.