story.”
I shook my head.
“Want to tell me what you’re doing with his necklace?”
“I can’t.”
She stared at me. I went on, “But please trust me when I say I’m one of the good guys, and I need you to tell me what happened to Jean Kingsley that night.”
She gazed at me for a moment as if measuring my words, then looked straight ahead, bit her bottom lip. “She was murdered.”
“Give me something to back it up.”
She looked back at me quickly. “You read the records, right?”
“I did. But there’s nothing that points to a murder.”
“But it points to a suspect.”
“You mean Michael Samuels,” I said, “Sam I Am.”
She raised her eyebrows, nodded.
“Who was he?”
“Claimed to be her nephew.”
I looked out my window at nothing, scratched my head. “You know, being afraid of someone is one thing. Getting killed by them is completely another. If that’s all you’ve got—”
“There’s more.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a greedy drag, then opened the window a crack as she exhaled. “Her nightgown.”
“What about it?”
“Supposedly, she hung herself from the door with it.”
“Okay…”
“That wasn’t the gown she went to bed in that night.
“How do you know?”
“She was agitated that evening. Spilled food all over herself. I should have changed her into a clean one, but I was dog-tired, so I just sponged it. That’s why I remember, because I was breaking a rule. And it left a stain.”
“But why would someone switch her gown?”
“Because hers got torn. Kind of hard to make it look like she hung herself with it that way.”
I waited.
Another drag, a quick exhale, then she tossed the half-smoked cigarette through the crack in her window. “When I went outside for my break, I saw Samuels in the shadows of the parking lot. He stuffed something into a trashcan and walked away really fast. So I went over and looked, found a nightgown all bunched up and torn. With the stain.”
“Okay. So this Samuels guy. Did you see where he went after that?”
“No. The alarm went off, and everything went to hell real fast. I had to rush inside. That’s when they found Mrs. Kingsley hanging in her room.”
“And that’s when you put two and two together.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
A scornful smile. “I tried to. Told the sheriff and Faraday about it. I even took them outside to show them the gown, but when we got there, it was gone.”
“What do you think happened to it?”
She threw her hands up and shook her head. “He came back to get it? I don’t know. But I saw it, and then it was gone.”
“So nobody believed you.”
“Nope. With no gown, there wasn’t any physical evidence, just my word. I didn’t even have a clear description except that he was wearing a cowboy hat, and that’s every guy in Texas.”
“And the guest log for that night was missing from the files you gave me. So no proof he was even there.”
“You got it. Sheriff ruled it a suicide. And I looked like an idiot.”
“Do you remember anything else about Samuels?”
She looked out through the front windshield, shook her head. “Just like every other yahoo you see around here.”
“Can you get a little more specific for me?”
“Faded blue jeans, flannel shirt. The hat was pulled down low, I never saw his face very well.”
“Age?”
“If I had to guess, maybe in his twenties.”
“Anything else?”
She thought for a moment. “I smelled cigarette smoke when I walked up to the trash can.”
I paused, contemplated. “You said you were risking your job by giving me the records. So why did you?”
She looked down at her purse, began running her fingers along the outer edges as she spoke. “Faraday didn’t want trouble on his watch. He didn’t believe me, and he was not happy with me at all for making a fuss.”
“So you felt uncomfortable.”
“To put it mildly. And it only got worse from there. A few days later, he comes over to me, starts talking about how a psychiatric nurse seeing things that aren’t really there is the kind of thing that could get someone fired, and maybe that particular person would be best-served not to stir the pot.”
“Subtle.”
“As a brick.”
“So you shut up.”
“I was a single mom with a leukemic child and medical bills piling up. You bet your ass I did.”
I thought about the photo on her desk.
“Guess it didn’t matter anyway.” She looked down at her hands, started rubbing them together. “I lost him in eighty-three.”
“I’m so sorry…”
“But I would have died for that kid. I would have. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose my job and my chance to fight like hell for his life. That’s what mothers do.”
I said nothing.
She looked back up at me, tears in her eyes. “You don’t know how many times I prayed for God to take me instead. I was angry as hell that He didn’t.” She brought both hands up to wipe her cheeks, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”
“Don’t be.” I waited while she found a tissue in her purse, blew her nose. Then I said, “But why now? Why me?”
“It’s complicated…most of the people who work at Glenview don’t let themselves have feelings for the patients. They can’t, and pretty much, neither do I. But Mrs. Kingsley was different.”
“Different how?”
“I felt horrible for her. She lost her son, and I had one fighting for his life. I felt a connection. You know?”
I nodded.
“Then, what do I go and do? In order to keep mine alive, I kept a secret, one that that did her a horrible injustice.” Her eyes began welling with tears again. “I did her wrong.
“You did what you had to. What any mother would do.”
She closed her eyes. “It’s been eating at me for years, this whole thing…the guilt. Then you come along, and you’re right, you
I gave her a sad smile.
She laughed a little. “Pretty stupid of me to think I could just give you the records and walk away. But I was scared, you know?”
