Lurleen had that look about her, one eyebrow raised, her hazel eyes focused on mine, her mouth in a half smile.
“From the look of you,” I said, “you didn’t believe what Stephanie told us.”
“Not entirely. I believed her boyfriend, Nate, more. How about you?”
“Her boyfriend?” I asked.
“You saw how flushed she was when she opened the door, Ditie. I’ll bet you had the same thought I did, that they were up to something.”
“I wondered.”
“Did you notice anything funny about how she was dressed?”
“Enlighten me.”
“The cardigan she wore was buttoned wrong—done in a hurry I’d say—and we know how careful Stephanie is about her house and what she wears.”
“I didn’t notice that. So you think she and Nate are having an affair?” I asked.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s a good looking man and it sounds as if Jonathan might not have been entirely meeting her needs.”
“That could explain why she wasn’t eager to have us in her house,” I said.
“Yes,” Lurleen said. “Do you think she could be a suspect in Nicole’s death, perhaps with the help of family friend, Nate?”
“That’s a reach for me, Lurleen. I can imagine an affair or a flirtation with Nate but murdering her ex sister-in-law? Why would she do that?”
“To keep Nicole quiet?” Lurleen asked. “Maybe Nicole knew about the affair. Remember, Stephanie said she talked to Nicole, but she claimed it was over the phone. What if she went there and Nicole wouldn’t promise to keep quiet?”
“Murdering someone over an affair?” I said. “I know people do that but it’s hard to imagine Stephanie doing it, and I’m not sure Stephanie would have the strength to murder Nicole. They’re close to the same size.”
“What do you think about Nate? Could he be involved?” Lurleen asked.
“I don’t know what to think of Nate,” I said. “He’s been around the family a long time if what he says is true. He might know a lot about what happened to Luke and the father a year later. I wonder if there is any way we could get him alone and talk to him.”
“Leave it to me, chèrie.” She turned the motor of her car back on. “Where to next?”
“Josephine Strout,” we both said together.
“She’ll be working today, I would imagine,” I said.
“Good,” Lurleen said. “I have her business address, downtown in a high rise. I know the building, very upscale.”
“So,” I said, “if she ever was close to financial ruin, it doesn’t seem she is now.”
“No, not with that high-rent office,” Lurleen said.
“Let’s ask for a few minutes of her time. After all, she got us into this mess, and she might want to know what we’re thinking.”
“We can’t possibly tell her the truth, can we?” Lurleen asked. “That we think she might have been Luke’s mother?”
“No,” I said, “but maybe we can get a feel for where things stand between her and Stephanie. They looked so close and now Stephanie makes it sound as if they’re not in contact.”
As it turned out, Josephine Strout wouldn’t see us. She was so sorry according to the receptionist but she had several meetings back to back and could not be interrupted.
I turned to leave when Lurleen put a hand on my arm.
“Dr. Brown is a physician,” she said to the receptionist. “She’s thinking about expanding her work into the field of nursing home care, possibly as a traveling doc to several facilities. I understand that Josephine Strout is busy, but perhaps there is someone else we might talk to.”
I gave Lurleen a look but kept my mouth closed. What did she think she was doing? Josephine would hear about our visit. She’d know I was pretending to be a geriatric physician not the pediatrician I was. Mason and Kevin Delaney would be furious with us for interfering with an investigation. It was all going to be a giant mess.
Time to intervene.
“It’s not actually for me,” I said. “I have a friend who is a geriatric psychiatrist, and she wanted me to find out whether there were any openings in Josephine’s facilities.”
“I see,” the receptionist said. “As I said Ms. Strout asked not to be disturbed even when I mentioned who you were. Perhaps you could see one of her assistants.”
She scanned a list in front of her. “Let me call Rebecca Foxwood and see if she’s available.” She made the call and moments later, an attractive woman in her forties came to the desk. She was dressed smartly in a rose-colored jacket, brown hair back in a bun and she greeted us warmly.
“I understand you’re inquiring about a position for a friend in psychiatry. Physician or nurse practitioner?”
“Physician,” Lurleen said. She knew I didn’t enjoy making up stories, so she took over. “Dr. Brown has a friend from medical school who is a geriatric psychiatrist and is thinking of relocating to Atlanta if the situation looks promising. Do you have time to talk to us about that, Dr. Foxwood?”
She smiled. “I’m not a doctor. I’m a nurse practitioner, but I do head up the psychiatry department here, and we are expanding. The needs are great as you might imagine. Your friend can call me anytime.”
“I’ll have her do that,” I said. “She simply asked if we could find out a little more first-hand about the possibility, and since we knew Josephine slightly it seemed like a reasonable request.”
“Certainly. Hold my calls for half an hour, Maggie.”
Maggie, the receptionist, nodded, and we followed Rebecca Foxwood to an end office filled with floor to ceiling windows.
“Lovely office,” Lurleen said.
“We just moved in here. We’ve been able to expand since COVID, but for a while it was touch and go.”
“I’m so curious about how you survived,” Lurleen said. “We heard one of your major facilities shut down during the pandemic.”
“Yes. It was hard on us, hard on everyone, but we’re back on our feet. We’ve changed our approach somewhat. We still have the large facilities but we’re looking into smaller ones, safer for patients if we get hit with another pandemic. Your friend would be traveling to multiple facilities.”
“I thought Ms. Strout was opposed to the smaller units, the family type homes,” Lurleen said.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Rebecca asked.
“I saw a photo of her beside a giant state-of-the-art facility in Buckhead,” Lurleen said. “I assume that’s where I got that idea.”
Rebecca nodded. “There was a time when that seemed the appropriate way to go, most profitable and most efficient. But times change, don’t they? With an influx of money several years ago, the organization was able to explore other possibilities.
“By an influx of money, you mean after the death of Josephine’s brother?” Lurleen asked. “I know they worked closely together on projects.”
Rebecca sat quietly for a moment. “I thought you said you’d only just met Josephine, so how is it you know so much about the family? Are you really a reporter? We don’t give interviews.”
Lurleen didn’t bat an eye. “No, no, I’m not a reporter. We only met Josephine recently but Stephanie is a friend of mine, and Josephine is her aunt.”
Rebecca settled back in her chair. “I know Stephanie. She’s going through a rough time right now, what with her husband’s accident.”
“Yes, and the death of her sister-in-law,” Lurleen said.
“Ex sister-in-law,” Rebecca said. “It’s terrible what happened to Nicole Ash but no one around here shed a lot of tears over that one.”
Bingo.
Lurleen gave me a quick glance. She’d found what she wanted, someone who might share a bit of gossip about the family and recent events.
“That’s what I heard,” Lurleen said. Then she waited for Rebecca to say more.
Lurleen didn’t have to wait long. Rebecca picked up the story. “You knew Nicole?” she asked.
“We met her once,” Lurleen said, nodding in my direction. “I heard later from Stephanie and others that she could be a difficult person, not a person one should trust.”
Rebecca sat forward. “Stephanie would know that better than anyone, I suspect. Her brother Don Junior married Nicole against the family’s advice, particularly Mrs. Strout’s. She thought Nicole was only after the family money. I probably shouldn’t say more, but since you’re friends it can’t hurt. There was a very messy divorce after the poor boy, Luke, died. Nicole had been working as a student nurse in the hospital at the time and some people thought she should have spotted something was wrong with the boy before she did.” Rebecca leaned in and whispered, “Some people even thought she might have had something to do with his death.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“Do you think she did?” Lurleen asked.
“I have to say I wondered. I know Josephine was distraught when it happened and thought malpractice might be involved . . . or something worse.”
“Something worse?” This time it was Lurleen who leaned forward and her eyes widened. “You seem to be suggesting Nicole might have killed Luke. Who would kill a young boy?”
“I know. It’s unbelievable. I’m only reporting what Josephine seemed to think at first. I’d just started working here when the whole thing happened. Josephine was very close to her nephew. She never married or had children of her own, so she doted on Luke. Anyway, at first she was happy to have Nicole in the hospital where Luke was staying. It was a for-profit hospital, something her brother owned. I remember Josephine wasn’t particularly happy with the surgeon who did the emergency appendectomy. She told me she knew an outstanding pediatric surgeon who worked at another hospital, but her brother wouldn’t hear of bringing him in. Too expensive, he told her. Then everything went south. Luke got horribly sick after the surgery and died several days later.”
“Sepsis?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s what the doctor said.”
“His appendix had burst?” I asked.
She nodded. “It was a mess in there, not the terms the surgeon used exactly, but he said he tried to clean it up as best he could.”
“All of that can happen,” I said. “It’s rare, but it’s not unheard of. Where does Nicole come into this story?”
“As I said, at first Ms. Strout wondered if Nicole could have done something, but later she wondered about the hospital itself and the surgeon. I think Nicole planted those doubts in her mind. Off the record, Nicole seemed to love to stir up trouble.”
“I’ve known people like that,” Lurleen said.
“It seems that Luke was everyone’s favorite,” Rebecca said. “Mr. Strout Senior had put a great deal of money in a trust for the boy, and Nicole might have been resentful of that. She’d told her husband to fight for his fair share of any inheritance that might be coming down the pike but Don Junior refused to do that. So, while Ms. Strout began to put the blame on her brother, I wondered what Nicole might have done.”
“We’ve heard almost nothing about Don Junior,” Lurleen said, “except that he and Nicole split up after the boy’s death. Was the breakup related to Luke’s death?”
“Maybe. I don’t know anymore about that.” She paused. “Well, I know a little more. The rumor is Nicole started having affairs after Luke died. It was all too much for Don Junior.”
Lurleen nodded sympathetically. “That poor family. It seems as if everyone was devastated by Luke’s death except Nicole.”
“Pretty much everyone else,” Rebecca said. “I know Josephine, Mr. Strout Senior and Don Junior all seemed crushed. I went to the funeral and it was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Mrs. Strout had already died, so at least she didn’t have to live through the death of a son.”
“I have a very indelicate question,” Lurleen said, “and I certainly wouldn’t ask anyone else about it, but you seem so knowledgeable about the family, and you seem discreet.”
I looked over at Lurleen, She was laying it on pretty thick. Then I saw how Rebecca responded.
“I’m always discreet. It’s why I got this job in the first place. What is it you want to know?”
Lurleen took a deep breath. “It’s about this poor boy, Luke. Mrs. Strout would have been in her early forties when Luke was born, and she wasn’t in good health.”
Rebecca snorted, a quiet, lady-like single snort. “You’re asking the question most of the rest of us were asking. Who was Luke’s real mother? It couldn’t have been Mrs. Strout. She was way too sick for that from all I’ve heard. But I think she loved pretending to be his mother. Josephine said Luke added years to Mrs. Strout’s life, something that pleased her brother immensely.”
“Did you come up with an answer as to who might be Luke’s biological mother?” Lurleen asked.
“No. We wondered if it might have been an out-of-wedlock child Don Junior had and that Nicole refused to raise. Nicole never seemed the type to raise someone else’s child. I doubt she could have been a good mother to her own child. If she found out Luke was going to inherit the bulk of the estate upon the death of Mr. Strout, which seemed to be the plan, well, she would have been enraged, and Nicole had a temper. I was at some party where she got drunk. She tried to throw a bottle of vodka at her husband’s head. That was right before their divorce.”
Rebecca looked at her watch. “Goodness,” she said. “I’ve kept you way too long. It’s been delightful to meet both of you. Please have your friend call me directly if she wants to pursue a part-time position with us.”
“Part-time?” I asked. “It seems as if the job would require a full-time commitment.”
Rebecca smiled. “I agree, but Josephine likes to have people on contract. It saves on benefits and makes it far easier to fire them if things don’t work out.”
“I’ll let her know that,” I said.
Rebecca stood and we followed her lead. “I’ll let Josephine know of your friend’s interest. May I get her name?”
Lurleen stepped in. “I think one of the reasons she asked us to come first was so that she could keep things private for now. She doesn’t want her current boss to know she might be thinking of relocating.”
“Makes sense,” Rebecca said. “Tell her to call me. We can keep this very private at least for now. As I said I’m very discreet.”
Lurleen and I didn’t speak until we were out of the building.
“If that’s being discreet,” Lurleen said, “maybe I don’t have the correct definition of the word.”
“Do you think she’ll tell Josephine about our conversation?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Lurleen said. “Rebecca seems very gossipy, and I’m not sure Josephine would be happy to know how indiscreet her trusted employee could be.”
“She confirmed one thing at least,” I said, “that Mrs. Strout was not Luke’s mother.”