Catherine was comfortable enough in her ponytail, sleeveless dark brown T-shirt, and pinstriped brown slacks; and Warrick, at the wheel of the Tahoe, in his light green T-shirt and blue jeans, looked cool in several senses of the word.
But it was early-they'd walked from the air conditioning of the police station to the air conditioning of the SUV. The hot day hadn't really had at them, yet…
They pulled up to the gate of the Sunny Day Continuing Care Facility. Detective Sam Vega had tagged along and was in the backseat, leaning up like a kid wondering how-many-more-miles-Daddy. The same silver-haired guard from yesterday was on duty, and Warrick had barely come to a stop when the guy waved them through.
"Hold up, Warrick," Vega said, hand on the CSI's shoulder. "We still need to talk to him. First chance I've had…"
The guard came out of his air-conditioned shack, frowning and clearly worried; this was apparently the biggest commotion he'd had to handle in some time.
"Hey!" he said to Warrick, who'd powered down the window. "Didn't you see me wave you through?"
Warrick nodded. "Yeah-we're Crime Lab, remember?"
The guard peered into the vehicle, his eyes finding Vega. "Yeah, I remember you people…. How are you doing, Detective? You need some backup?"
Catherine couldn't hold back the grin, but Vega remained stony as he unhitched his seat belt to lean even farther up, talking to the guard past the back of Warrick's headrest.
"We do need to ask you a few questions, sir. Starting with, what's your name?"
"Fred Mason. I'm an ex-deputy from Summerlin. Retired ten years ago."
"Meant to check with you yesterday, Fred, but you'd gone off shift. The other gentleman said that you each lock up your own clipboard. That right?"
"We each have our own responsibilities, yes."
"Could you check yesterday's sheet, and tell me if anybody signed in to see Mrs. Elliot?"
"Mrs. Elliot died yesterday morning. You know that."
"Before she died, Fred. Could you check?"
"Sure."
The retired deputy-did he have a single bullet in his pocket, Catherine wondered, like Barney Fife?-went back to his shack, got his clipboard and returned, flipping sheets. "Yeah, yeah, here she is…Martha Hinton."
Warrick and Catherine exchanged looks, Catherine mouthing: the neighbor.
"Fred," Vega was saying, "I'll need that sheet."
"Well-I'll have to get it photocopied before I hand 'er over."
"No problem, Fred. But if you go off shift, leave the original in an envelope with the guard who comes on after you. I'll give him a receipt for it."
The guard nodded.
Behind them a car honked.
"Anything else?" the guard said. "They're really starting to pile up."
One car was waiting.
Vega said, "Thank you, Fred. Appreciate your professionalism."
Fred liked hearing that.
Warrick pulled ahead. "Martha Hinton, huh? That's the best friend, right? But she said she didn't visit Vivian, right?"
"Said she hadn't been to see Vivian," Vega said, "for a day or so."
"Could she have been confused?" Warrick asked.
"Possible." Vega shrugged. "She was upset, hearing about her friend's death. Could have rattled her a little."
Catherine said, "In any case, you'll be talking to the good neighbor again, then."
"Yes…" Vega's eyes narrowed in thought. "…but we're here. Let's deal with what's in front of us."
"Agreed," Warrick said.
Catherine nodded, ponytail swinging.
Within five minutes the detective and the CSIs were again seated in Dr. Larry Whiting's office.
The doctor did not look thrilled to see them, but he remained professional and polite. Again, he wore a lab coat, his tie brown-and-white striped and neatly knotted. Vega and Catherine sat in the chairs opposite Whiting while Warrick opted not to sit on the couch this time and leaned against the door.
The detective wasted no time. "Our crime lab has conducted an autopsy. The evidence indicates that Vivian Elliot was murdered."
"That's terrible," Whiting said, obviously surprised.
Catherine wondered if the doctor considered it "terrible" for Vivian that she'd been murdered, or for the Sunny Day facility?
Sitting forward, the doctor asked, "Do we know how it happened yet?"
Catherine noted the doctor's editorial "we"-as in, a doctor on rounds greeting a patient with, How are we feeling today?
"I'm not at liberty to say at this point, Doctor," Vega said. "But the CSIs and I will be looking into the backgrounds and records of all the employees here."
Whiting sighed, but said, "I understand."
Getting out his notebook, Vega asked, "I'll need the names of Vivian's caregivers."
"I would have to pull the records to know for sure. When do you need that?"
Catherine said, "Now would be good."
Whiting reached for a file on his desktop; he had vaguely implied it would take some doing finding the file, and here it was, at his fingertips-clearly he'd anticipated needing it.
He read, "Kenisha Jones…Rene Fairmont…and Meredith Scott." He lay down the file. "Those were the main ones. Various nurses might enter for assorted small tasks."
Vega was writing down the names. "What shifts did these three work?"
"Kenisha works days, Rene is second shift, and Meredith works overnight."
"What can you tell us about them?"
"Nothing beyond that they're professionals," Whiting said, gesturing with open palms. "Frankly, I don't know what kind of information you're looking for. Do I think any of them killed Vivian or any of the others? No. Of course not."
"Can you be specific about their individual performance?"
"I don't work with Meredith that much, as you might imagine-I'm seldom here overnight. As for the other two, Kenisha is a first-rate nurse; I've worked with her for as long as I've been here. Rene, the second shift nurse, strikes me as a dedicated caregiver as well. Never had a bit of problem with either of them."
Looking up from his notebook, Vega asked, "And how long have you been here, Doctor?"
"Two years last April."
"Any particular reason you're at Sunny Day, and not at a bigger hospital?"
Catherine added, "Or in private practice?"
Whiting closed the file on his desk and shunted it aside. "I view medicine as my calling," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But, temperamentally, I crave a slower pace than a bigger hospital or a private practice would grant me. I prefer the tempo of Sunny Day or, I should say, I preferred it before the last eight months."
"How so?"
"You're here, aren't you?…Things have been getting further and further out of hand, and until your assistant coroner noticed certain suspicious trends, I think we were all simply writing these deaths off as a streak of bad luck."
Catherine asked, "People dying? Streak of bad luck?"
"I don't mean to sound flippant," Whiting said. "I'm anything but.…It's just that this isn't the first assisted care facility I've worked in, and over the years you notice that sometimes deaths seem to come in…yes, streaks."
"Life and death," Catherine said, "just another game in Vegas?"
"I told you I didn't mean it in any kind of flip way. It's just…sometimes you'll go months without a death…then suddenly…" He snapped his fingers, once, twice, three times. "…three people go in a single month. Then we'll go a month with nothing, and get one or two in a row again. You have to understand-over five hundred people reside in the various wings of Sunny Day. Twenty-two seems like a lot of deaths but, truth is, there are extenuating circumstances."
Catherine arched an eyebrow. "Such as?"