Page 61 of Pretty Poison
“Herb has a crush on Ms. Girard,” the lady beside Nana said.
“I do not, Dottie. You’re just jealous.”
Dottie scoffed as she looked up at Rocky. “Herb likes his ladies a little on the naughty side.”
“Counts you out,” Herb countered.
Dottie leveled the man with a death glare before returning her attention to Rocky. “Rumor has it that the lovely Ms. Girard got fired from her previous nursing home.”
“It’s just a rumor,” Herb said. “Kinda like the one I heard about you being easy.”
Dottie took a deep breath. “Herb, I can’t be both boring and slutty at the same time. Stick to one insult. Christ,” she said, shaking her head.
“What did she steal?” Rocky asked.
“Yep, she’s part of his case,” Queen Bea said.
Dottie shrugged. “No one has said what she took.”
“Allegedly took,” Herb reminded Dottie.
“Interesting,” Rocky said. He’d bet money it wasn’t dentures, eyeglasses, or canes. It could’ve been money or jewelry, but drugs were the safe bet since they had the highest street value. “Do you guys remember which nursing home?”
The card players looked at one another, then shook their heads collectively.
“Ow, my neck,” Herb said, lifting his hand up to massage it.
Queen Bea crooked her finger for Rocky to come closer, so he bent toward her. “I’ll ask around for you.”
Rocky kissed her cheek. “It’s not necessary. I’m not on a case.”
Queen Bea patted Rocky’s cheek. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
Rocky grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Be careful, Rockford.”
He hugged her tight. “Always.”
He didn’t need his nana to snoop around now that he knew her name and current employer. The rest should be child’s play to uncover.
Rocky debated going through a different drive-thru but decided against it when he remembered he had leftovers from the Irish feast Asher had made. Rocky reheated and assembled the boxty, but this time he skipped smearing the mustard on the potato pancake. Since Asher wasn’t there to get his feathers ruffled, Rocky decided to eat the meal the traditional way and dip the boxty in the mustard. He regretted his decision when the healthy dose of horseradish made his nose burn and his eyes water. It didn’t stop him from wolfing down three potato pancakes loaded with corned beef and cabbage.
Afterward, he cleaned his dirty dishes and headed to his office to see what he could find out about Helen Girard. It didn’t take him long to discover she’d worked at Whispering Willows, a retirement community similar to Queen Bea’s but a whole lot swankier. They wanted more than a hundred thousand dollars upfront to secure a villa, and the monthly bill depended on the level of care a patient needed. Independent residents like Queen Bea would still pay a small fortune, but the ones who required more nursing care could spend upwards of ten thousand dollars a month.
An establishment like Whispering Willows had a reputation to uphold and couldn’t afford a scandal. They would hire the best and fire the rest, so Rocky was more curious than ever about why they’d parted ways with Helen Girard. He didn’t question how Queen Bea and her friends had even heard about this woman’s employment history. Nurses and aids like to gossip like everyone else. The question was, how could he get someone from Whispering Willows to loosen their lips? The obvious solution was to call them up and pretend to be a potential employer looking for a work reference. Rocky could play it by ear based on the reaction he got from his request.
He didn’t bother updating Felix or Jonah because he knew nothing more now than he had when the day started. Okay, he knew Grant Duncan had a rocking hot body and that Tess’s friend worked at Queen Bea’s retirement village after supposedly getting fired from another facility. That wasn’t enough to tap out in a text message, let alone call an emergency meeting.
Rocky switched gears and logged in to his agency program. There were a host of little, low-priority tasks he could knock off his list. Those small items started to pile up after a while, so Rocky worked his way through them. Trudy would never know if he didn’t give her a reason to check the activity log.
Fatigue started to seep into his bones, weighing him further down the longer he sat, so Rocky pushed back from his desk. He could scrub the bathroom, check the bird feeders, and water the flowers. After that, he could—
His eyes snagged on one of his mother’s watercolor paintings as he crossed the room. Instead of her usual wildlife, this one looked more like a fairy tale complete with a blond-haired prince, a castle, and a white horse with a flowing silvery mane. She’d painted it for his nursery, and though he’d long outgrown fairy tales, Rocky favored this piece more than the others. He had been the little prince his mother dreamed about but never got to hold. On most days, he felt more like the fabled frog.
Rocky thought of the photos he kept hidden in a box inside the office closet. Opening the door felt similar to breaching Pandora’s box, but he couldn’t stop once the idea came to him. He wanted to see the photographs of his mother again. They deserved to be displayed and treasured, not hidden away because he was ashamed of himself.
He retrieved the box from the closet and carried it out to the living room. Rocky grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and sat down on the rug next to the coffee table. Pandora’s box didn’t just include his parents’ framed photos; it held his mother’s journals and sketchbooks and her favorite throw blanket. The collection wasn’t only a tribute to his mother either; he’d find proof of the life he’d started to build with Asher too.