Part 16 (1/2)
”It's a complete cliche. I was a psychiatric nurse at Silver Glenn. He was rounding on patients, and his wife had died, and ... the rest was a rather short but sweet time.” She looked down at an over-stuffed Queen Anne wing chair she'd excavated from a pile of clothing. Her shoulders sagged, she looked at Barrett. ”I thought it was cute at first, the way he liked to bring me gifts. I told him it wasn't necessary, but he liked doing it. It got to the point where I had to be careful when we walked down the street, because if there was something in a shop window that I admired, the next thing you know his credit card would be out, and nothing I could say would stop him.”
”This has something to do with Jimmy Martin?” Barrett asked, wondering how she could gently reel in Sheila's reminiscence.
”Everything to do with it. Morris had a very good practice. His patients loved him. It's not like we needed more money, at least I didn't.”
”What changed?”
”This,” she said. ”I guess I wasn't clear. What a surprise, I hardly make sense to myself anymore, I can't imagine what it must be like for someone else. This apartment. Do you have any idea what eight rooms in this building go for?”
”No clue,” Barrett cut Ed a look.
”I didn't know until he ... died ... just how much. It's obscene. That's why he was so excited when he got the job through the clinic.”
”Do you know who contacted him?” Barrett asked.
”I do, come to think of it. It was an Anton somebody.”
”Anton Fielding,” Barrett said.
”That's right, Morris had been his supervisor years ago when Anton was a resident. I guess that he thought that Morris would be a good match. It is a little odd though.”
”What is?”
”As far as I know that's the only forensic client that Morris had. I wonder why ... I guess now it doesn't matter.” Sheila finally sat-she looked across at Barrett and Hobbs, her expression troubled. ”There's something I don't know, isn't there?”
”Some things don't add up,” Barrett admitted. ”I'm seeing Jimmy Martin now, and there were some irregularities I'm trying to resolve.”
”That involved Morris?”
”Maybe. I mean you were ... are ... a psychiatric nurse. What would you think of someone who was on lithium and didn't have their level checked?”
”Either ignorance or incompetence.”
”Right. Did your husband have many patients on medication?”
”Who doesn't? And when I worked with him at Silver Glenn you know all of those patients were on a truckload of pills.”
”Was he thorough? Would he check levels and do all of that?”
”Of course. Why? What are you getting at?”
”Jimmy Martin was on lithium and your husband never checked his level.”
”That doesn't make sense,” Sheila said. ”Are you sure?”
”The only time he checked it-or attempted to check it-was right before his death.”
”What do you mean attempted?”
”The bloodwork never made it to the lab.”
Hobbs leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. ”Mrs. Kravitz,” he began softly, ”I was wondering if you could tell us what happened the night your husband died?”
Sheila looked up from her lap and into Hobbs' hazel eyes. ”They said it was natural causes.”
”What happened that night?” Ed urged.
”That's the part that makes no sense. We were having such a good time. We'd been out with friends. He'd been laughing and joking, and he always took care of himself. You know that he was a diabetic, don't you?”
Hobbs nodded.
”I never thought about it much. We'd been together for almost seven years and I'd never seen him have any trouble with his sugars. Whenever we'd go out he'd just give himself a little short-acting insulin to cover a bigger dinner and a couple drinks. He wasn't one to overdo it. But I should have known something was different-he wasn't acting right.”
”How so?” Ed urged.
”On the cab ride home he kept saying how tired he was. Considering he'd been up since six in the morning and had a full day ahead of him, I didn't think much about it.”
”And then?”
Sheila closed her eyes tightly and gripped the edges of her chair. She tried to speak, but was overwhelmed with tears.
”It's okay,” Barrett fished a tissue out of her pocketbook. ”Take your time.”
”And then the alarm rang, and I didn't hear him getting up. He was always the first one up. He brought me coffee in bed every single day, and then he'd kiss me. But he didn't get up and I rolled over because I knew he liked to get up early and ... he was dead. He was cold. I called 911 and they told me to give him CPR ... but he was cold. I did it anyway. I couldn't really think, and now that's all I think about is the feeling of his cold lips and the sound of bones cracking in his chest as I tried to give him CPR.” She shook her head, and reached for a pack of cigarettes lying on top of a half-packed box. ”They did an autopsy,” she said, lighting up and taking a deep first drag. ”They said that he'd had a ma.s.sive coronary brought on by low blood sugar. There wasn't anything they thought suspicious. h.e.l.l, death by insulin and the first person they'd be pointing fingers at would be the wife, especially if she's twenty years younger ... that's not why you're ...”
”No,” Hobbs interjected. ”And I have to say how sorry we are for the loss you've suffered.”
Sheila looked at the burning cigarette. She sniffled and tears squeezed from her eyes. ”I wasn't going to do this today,” she said. ”I wanted just one day or even a few hours where I wouldn't feel like a total wreck.”
”It doesn't work that way,” Barrett advised, ”you know that.”
”The funny thing is, I do. It's just different when you know something and when you're in the middle of it.”
”True ... Sheila, you said that in all the years you knew Morris he never had a problem with his blood sugars.”
”That's right, he was very careful.”
”But that night something happened. When you went out, did he not eat or drink as much as usual?”
”Hardly, if anything I would have thought his sugars would have been high.”
”Any chance he could have taken the wrong amount of insulin, or even the wrong type?”
”Morris had a whole a.s.sembly line for doing his syringes. I've still got all his bottles in the refrigerator. You'd think that's something I would have thrown out, but I don't know if it's the wastefulness of that, or on some weird level I'm still waiting for him to come through the door.”
”Could we see them?” Hobbs asked.
”If you'd like,” Sheila stubbed out her cigarette and led them down the hall into a black-and-white, eat-in kitchen. She opened the brushed-chrome Sub Zero and reached inside.
”Wait a minute,” Hobbs stopped her.