“Good. I think. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And Arnie said he’d like both of you to come up to his office when you’re done here. He has some information for you.”
“Will do, Cass,” says Izzy. “Thanks.”
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” I say once Cass is gone. “Arnie made it sound as if meeting Cass would be a strange experience.”
Izzy chuckles. “It is, but you’ll get used to it.”
“What’s to get used to? She seems just fine to me.”
“Wait until the next time you meet her. Then you’ll understand.”
We clean up and head for Arnie’s office. I can tell from the look on Arnie’s face that he is excited about something.
“I have a tentative ID for the Owenby woman,” he says. “I tracked down a hospital in Kentucky where the real Karen Owenby used to work. Seems there was an operating room assistant named Sharon Carver who worked at the same hospital and who gave notice a few days after Owenby’s death. Then Carver just disappeared from the face of the earth. There’s no further work history, no bank accounts, no nothing.
“However, someone claiming to be Karen Owenby and using her nursing license was hired as an OR nurse in a Chicago hospital two months after the real Owenby’s death. According to personnel records at the Chicago hospital, the work history that the fake Owenby provided conveniently excluded any employment during the period that the real Owenby worked at the Kentucky hospital. During an interview, the applicant apparently explained the gap in employment by saying that she took some time off to help a sick family member.”
“Good work, Arnie,” Izzy says.
“Thanks.”
“How did you figure it out?” I ask him.
“I just assumed that the person who stole Karen Owenby’s identity had to be both someone who knew her and someone who had a working knowledge of an OR. I backtracked from the reference information the hospital here had on file for Owenby and noticed a gap of several years. Using the information from the death certificate for the real Karen Owenby, which listed her place of death as Ashland, Kentucky, I started calling area hospitals. Sure enough, I found one where she’d worked.
“So I asked the hospital if they had any employees who quit or were fired around the time of Owenby’s death and they came up with two names: a man and a woman. The woman was Sharon Carver and she worked as an aide in the OR, which also happened to be where Karen Owenby worked. So I had the hospital scan and e-mail me a picture of the Carver woman from her personnel file. Had them send one of Owenby, too. Check it out.”
He turns to his computer and pulls up two photos side by side. I look over Izzy’s shoulder and sure enough, the woman labeled as Sharon Carver looks exactly like the woman we knew as Karen Owenby but with lighter hair. The real Karen Owenby was quite pretty, I note, her features delicate and refined looking.
“How soon before we can verify?” Izzy asks.
“Sharon Carver has no prints on file,” Arnie explains. “And I haven’t found any family yet. She listed parents as the next of kin on her job application at the hospital in Kentucky, but apparently the names, address, and phone number she gave for them were fake. No one at the hospital seems to know much about her. Apparently she only worked there for a few months. I’ve got some inquiries out to dentists in the area to see if we can find anyone she might have gone to. Other than that, I’m not sure where to go.”
Izzy says, “The application Carver filled out at the Kentucky hospital. They still have it?”
Arnie nods.
“Give this information to Hurley and see if he can get that application and check it for finger or palm prints. If we can match one up with the woman in our morgue, it won’t be proof positive, but it certainly adds to the slate.”
“Will do,” Arnie says.
“The thing I don’t get is why,” I say. “Why did this woman impersonate a nurse and take over her identity?”
Arnie shrugs.
Izzy says, “Drugs maybe?” He looks at me. “Do you know if there were any incidents of drug diversion at Mercy during the past few years? Maybe she was copping and selling on the street.”
“I know there was a problem back about four years ago, but they caught the nurse who was behind that one and fired her. Sent her away for rehab, I think. And she wasn’t selling, just using.” I shake my head as I think. “I really doubt that Karen was involved in anything like that. She worked there for six years. If she was diverting drugs, someone would have tapped her by now.”
“You’re probably right,” Arnie says. “But just to be on the safe side, I’ll have Hurley check and see if there were any suspected drug problems at the Kentucky hospital around the time Carver was working there.”
“Another possibility,” Izzy says, “is money. After all, Carver was only an aide and they don’t pull down much of a salary. So maybe she just wanted the higher pay that an RN gets. She paid attention while working as an aide in the OR, picking up tips, lingo, and techniques. Then, when the opportunity arose, she passed herself off as an RN by using the dead woman’s name, license, and work history.”
“How’d she come about a work history if she didn’t use the Kentucky hospital?” I ask.
Arnie says, “Simple enough if you think about it. Mentions of prior places could have come out in conversation. Plus, there might have been info in the obituary. Or Carver could have attended the funeral and subtly pumped family or friends for information about past jobs. Once you get a hospital name, it’s simple enough to call the personnel department and say you’re checking a reference. Most places won’t tell you much without written permission from the employee, but they will give you dates of employment and often the area where the employee worked. That’s all you really need for a job application.”
Amazing. Not only was Karen Owenby not really Karen Owenby, she wasn’t really a nurse. Molinaro was going to shit a brick when she found out.
“You know, there’s something else we need to consider,” I say, recalling my talk with Deborah the night before. I tell them what Deborah said about Karen’s investment scheme involving doctors. “I have no idea what it might be,” I tell them. “I wasn’t aware of anything going on while I was working there, but I might not have been in the loop. Maybe we can find out more at the dedication tonight.”
“We can certainly give it a shot,” Izzy says.
“Which reminds me. Can I leave a little early today? I still have to find a dress to wear.”
“Sure, if things stay quiet,” Izzy says. “Just promise me you won’t try to do anything textured and pouffy again. That dress you wore to the mayor’s ball last fall made you look like a giant puffer fish.”
By the time I leave work I have just under three hours to find the perfect, non-pouffy dress and make myself presentable. Both of these tasks carry the threat of being overwhelming, if not impossible, although the latter is going to be less so thanks to Barbara’s magical ministrations.
I hate shopping for clothes. Most women love it and treat me like a traitor to my gender simply because I loathe it. But then, most of those women are blessed with something close to a normal body whereas I am short- waisted, have arms like a baboon, and have thighs that rub together so tightly, I sound like a belt sander when I wear corduroy pants.
If I find a dress that’s long enough for my body overall, the waist is usually somewhere around my hips. When I try to wear long sleeves, they often end up being three-quarter length instead. Tight-fitting or slim-line skirts bunch up at the thighs and make my ass look huge, whereas snug-fitting slacks tend to make me look like I’m heading out to the riding range in my jodhpurs. I have pretty decent cleavage with any bra but hesitate to wear the type of neckline that will show it off. The last time I did that, I was picking crumbs out of there most of the night.
I head for the only women’s clothing store in town that has ever managed to provide me with passable stuff. Located just off Main Street, it is owned by a fifty-something German woman named Olga who is both tall and wide. Consequently, she carries a good assortment of clothing to fit women who possess either trait…or someone like me, who possesses both of them.
The first thing Olga digs up for me is a cocktail dress that fits snug to the waist and then flares out around
