Abandoned. John Schlarbaum
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saw the man stroll by the nurse’s station without stopping and disappear down the far right hand corridor. She noted the wall signage indicating rooms 7101-7109 were to the left and 7110-7116 were to the right. Jennifer let go of the door, which closed in front of her. “Go left. Go left. Go left,” she repeated to herself. “Third room – 8103.”
She’d already decided there’d be no need to talk to the nurses, or anyone else for that matter. Her objective was only to get a feel for Helga’s room and the surroundings. Were there surveillance cameras installed in the hallways? Could anyone get to Helga without a nurse becoming aware of their presence?
The elevator door opened and Jennifer stepped confidently out onto the 8th floor, turning left at the nurse’s station. She noted three nurses, each busily filling out patient paperwork in green binders. None looked up as she passed 8101, then 8102 and 8103, where a housekeeper was running a mop across the floor. Jennifer didn’t see any belongings or flowers on the housekeeper’s cart. These employees don’t waste any time here.
Jennifer walked through a short corridor to the right hand hallway and back to the elevators, pushing the down wall button. Stepping into the car upon its arrival, Jennifer heard one of the nurses say that yellow carnations were her favourite flowers.
Jennifer’s immediate impulse was to investigate further, but reconsidered. Nothing useful could come from questioning staff who might not know Helga was dead yet.
Time to go home. I’m sick of this place already.
She smiled at the irony.
Back in her car, she paid another exorbitant parking fee (not wanting to bother Maryanne) and headed to her apartment.
“This dress stain isn’t going to come out on its own,” she said as she pulled into traffic.
EIGHT
In her converted loft apartment, Jennifer took off her dress and sprayed a copious amount of spot remover onto the offending area above the hemline. While it soaked she changed into a comfortable pair of jeans and casual collared top, hoping she wouldn’t be rushing out again this late in the evening. Plus, she wanted to bang out the John Doe story that Mitch had requested for the Metro section.
Twenty minutes later, she emailed the piece with the instructions: MITCH: ONLY RUN WITH THE POLICE COMPOSITE DRAWING!
While not famished, Jennifer figured she should eat something and opened her fridge that showcased take-out boxes from three different restaurants. “Thai, Italian or Greek?” she said to herself, deciding the portion of eggplant parmigiana would tie her over nicely. Reaching for the container, her mind flashed back to when she’d dated a semi-famous chef. She had offended him on numerous occasions by eating cheap restaurant leftovers before the succulent personal-sized dinners he prepared for her. “It’s force of habit. I see that food as a day closer to being thrown in the garbage and can’t do it,” she had explained. To smooth things out, as a joke she’d bought a dozen small cardboard boxes from the Chinese restaurant on her block and presented them to Oliver on their next date.
The playful idea had had a very surprising outcome.
Jennifer figured the gravy train, as tasty as it was, had left the station when Chef Loverboy started to rant about the integrity of his food and his craft, instead of smiling, kissing her and filling a box or two with his delicious food. The scene became more surreal when a tabloid newspaper quoted an unnamed source saying their budding relationship failed due to her insatiable appetite for fast food and “dirty, greasy cooks.” Following its publication Jennifer received dozens of date offers from pizza makers to short order cooks to bakers, none of which appealed to her as did the new man-boy barista at the Don’t Be Latté! coffee shop she regularly frequented. Sadly, he fell below her current off-limits age, although under the right circumstances he might be made the exception to the rule for a couple of nights.
With her food heated, Jennifer sat on her couch with the plate in one hand and the TV remote in the other. “Let’s see what I’ve been missing out on,” she said, tuning into the What’s Next? show on the National Cable Network (NCN) channel.
As the weekend came to a close, the stories were a rehash of the week’s main news events, and random speculation of how each storyline could develop in the days ahead. The talking heads consisted of three male and two female so-called journalists, sitting around a table that couldn’t possibly fit in Jennifer’s living room. They were in their early 30s and photogenic. None, however, had worked in the reporter trenches or had broken any significant news stories on their own. She’d once broached this subject to Mitch in the paper’s bullpen and he had the nerve to suggest she was jealous.
“Twenty years ago I’d have given my left nut to be on that panel,” he’d stated with a huge smile to the assembled crowd.
“As visually disturbing as that is, too bad your wife got them in the divorce,” Jennifer said to a chorus of laughter. “I guess it’ll remain a mystery if you truly had the balls to play with the big boys.”
“Laugh all you want, Malone,” Mitch countered. “While you’re schlepping it here at The Daily Telegraph, your journalism classmate Susan Donallee has become a household name because of that show.”
“Fame and fortune are overrated if you have to sleep your way to the top,” Jennifer countered. “Although I wouldn’t mind having a hairstylist and a fashion designer at my beck and call. Can you talk with the Old Man upstairs about that, or should I do it in person?”
“Definitely in person,” Mitch answered, “and I want to be in the room. I promise to keep a straight face the whole time.”
“You can’t keep a straight face now as you’re telling me that!”
Jennifer knew her editor had a point and was only half kidding about wanting to be pampered by her employer from time to time. That she’d been offered a guest spot on What’s Next? but declined, wasn’t a topic she’d discuss with her colleagues anyway, fearing she’d be dubbed a hypocrite.
After finishing the leftovers and bored with the idiotic topic “Should Pets Be Cloned?”, Jennifer caught sight of an interesting line running in the news scroll at the bottom of the screen.
... Becky Mayville offers to sell her story to the highest bidder ...
“Bless her little cheating heart,” Jennifer said, grabbing her cell phone.
The number she called rang fifteen times before being answered, which was always expected due to Jeffrey’s profession.
“Hamill Investigations here. Whatcha need, Malone? I’m kind of busy.”
“Busy eating or private investigating?”
“Both!”
“Shocker.”
“It’s easy to multi-task while on stationary surveillance. It’s when the subject leaves that things get tricky.”
“Where are you?”
“George and Pike. Three blocks south of City Hall.”
“Until when?”
“Maybe midnight.”
“Do you want some company?” Jennifer asked. “Also, something’s happening with Hot Beckster.”
“Her pitch letter to the media?”
Jennifer let out a moan. “You heard already and didn’t tell me? Some partner you are.”
“Don’t get your thong twisted, Missy Malone,” Jeffrey replied. “I heard about it a half hour ago from a contact who owns a video production outfit in the west end. I was going to call you, only right then my subject and his girlfriend left the strip club and I had to follow them.”
“A likely story,” Jennifer said. “Who’s your client – his wife or her husband?”
There was noise on the line as