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I didn’t normally break the law.
But desperate times called for desperate measures.
I left the dining room, convinced Lola might be hiding something. It was no secret that Arthur Griggs had not been a fan of Lola’s cooking; in fact, he’d apparently been pretty vocal about his grievances.
Denise had mentioned that he’d filed numerous complaints, which meant those reports were probably on file somewhere.
And I wanted to get my hands on them.
I knew exactly where I would find them.
Anne’s office.
But it wasn’t as though I had free range to sift through employee records. After all, I was an employee myself.
There was no way Anne would hand over a file, nor did I expect her to. I wouldn’t if I were in her shoes.
But Anne was on a tour with the family of a prospective resident, which meant her office was empty.
I knew this because I was standing in her vacant office, a spreadsheet for her in my hand, staring at the placard she always left on her desk that indicated she was on a tour and would be back shortly.
I glanced from her desk back to the open door. And then, I extended my foot and gently nudged it shut. Not all the way, but just enough so my actions would be hidden from view.
I hurried over to her filing cabinet before I could change my mind. Lola’s file was easy to find. My hand shook as I pulled the manila folder from the drawer. I stood next to the cabinet and opened the file. Right on top, there was a stack of sheets paper clipped together. All complaints. As I thumbed through them, I noticed that most were from one person.
Arthur Griggs.
I skimmed the contents. All were handwritten, a spidery scrawl that was hard to read, but I could make out the gist of what he’d written. Tough meat, watery gravy, lumpy potatoes, soggy vegetables, rubbery eggs, limp bacon. He had something negative to say about nearly every food Lola had ever served.
Just behind the stack of complaints was a printed summary, and I read those carefully. It referenced a meeting Anne had held with Lola just a couple of weeks earlier. According to the notes, Anne had shared the criticism from “concerned residents,” and had offered Lola the chance to provide commentary of her own. She’d defended her cooking, pointing out that it was impossible to please everyone in an environment with two hundred residents. Everyone had unique tastes, she said.
I agreed.
The last sentence read: “No disciplinary action taken at this time.”
I thought about these words.
Anne had clearly decided that there wasn’t much merit to Arthur’s complaints. Judging from the stack of comment sheets in Lola’s file, he had been the only one to take the time to write down his critique of her food. There was no indication, other than Anne’s phrase “concerned residents” that indicated anyone else had complained. For all of Anne’s shortcomings, especially when I thought about how she interacted with me, I had to admit she’d handled the situation with Lola fairly diplomatically. She hadn’t necessarily sided with the cook, but she hadn’t rushed to judgment, either. One unhappy and vocal resident did not mean there was a problem for everyone. A problem for him, certainly, but not a problem that seemed to be shared by the masses. Other residents might have grumbled about the food, but none of them had taken the time to fill out comment cards about it, and the fact that nothing else was in Lola’s file seemed to indicate it had stopped at that: grumbling.
It certainly seemed that Lola had every right to be upset and angry with Arthur, but his comments hadn’t resulted in any disciplinary action. She didn’t have anything to fear from him, at least in respect to her job security.
I restacked the sheets of paper, trying to make them as neat as possible, when I noticed another piece of paper in her file. The words stamped across the top made me freeze.
DISCIPLINARY ACTION REPORT
I yanked the sheet to the top of the stack.
Two words jumped out at me.
Food tampering.
I scanned the page, trying to pull out the most pertinent details, but there was something else I was focusing on.
The sound of Anne’s voice as she walked down the hall and back toward her office.
I shoved the paper back where it belonged and jammed the file back in the drawer. I sprinted to one of the chairs positioned across from her desk and dropped on to it just as she crossed the threshold.
To say she was surprised to see me was a massive understatement.
“Sunny,” she said with a slight frown. “What are you doing?”
I stood up and thrust the report I’d brought with me in her direction. “This is for you.”
Her eyes narrowed behind her green glasses. She turned to look at the people who’d stepped into the office with her. A couple, close to my own parents’ ages. They were probably shopping around for retirement communities for an aging parent of theirs.
“This is Sunny Springfield,” Anne said to the couple. “She is our activity director here at Oasis Ridge.”
Recreational therapist, I silently corrected. I smiled and transferred the report to my left hand so I could shake their hands. “A pleasure to meet you.”
Anne cleared her throat. “Did you not see the sign on the desk?”
I glanced at the placard. “I did,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure you got this.”
Suspicion lurked in her eyes but I knew she wouldn’t say anything in front of this couple. She wanted new residents more than she wanted answers from me.
She took the form without comment and placed it on her desk. “Did you need anything else?”
“Nope,” I said brightly. I turned to the couple. “I hope you enjoyed your visit. We have so many wonderful activities available for residents, and a lot of new ones coming down the pipeline soon.”
“Oh?” The woman, a petite lady with blonde hair just starting to go gray, perked up. “What kinds of activities?”
I stole a furtive look at Anne. I could plant the seeds now, vocalize some of the ideas Anne had shot down, so she could see how potential residents and their families might react to those ideas.
“Sunny, I believe you’re needed up in the activity room,” Anne said quickly.
“I am?”
She nodded. “Bingo is starting soon. One of the gals mentioned something about missing cards? Our residents can’t play bingo without cards, can they?”
I knew she was talking out of her rear end, but I grudgingly took the hint.
Because it got me out of there.
I said goodbye to the visiting couple and headed back toward my own office.
But as I walked, all I could think about was one thing.
Lola Covich had tampered with food once before.
And she just might have done it again.
This time, with deadly consequences.