For the ambush, Lindsey Wheat wore a pair of loose-fitting jeans, white sneakers, and a beige blouse under a navy jacket. Dressing down was not easy for a woman who cared about her appearance, but slumming as she was, she still felt overdressed for the early morning crowd eager for chicken biscuits. She recognized Vera Stark the moment she walked in the door and glanced around as if guilty of something. She was twenty-six years old, black, married, a mother of three, and for the past four years had worked as an orderly at the Glinn Valley Retirement Center. Her husband drove a truck. They lived in a neat trailer in a park just outside the town limits of Flora, Kentucky, population 3,600.
Lindsey had called her cell phone an hour earlier as she was dropping her kids off at her mother’s house for the day. Quite naturally, Vera was suspicious and didn’t want to talk to a stranger. Lindsey, using an alias, had offered her $500 cash for ten minutes of her time, plus coffee and a biscuit.
She coaxed her to the table with a huge smile and a firm handshake, and they sat across from each other. The fact that Lindsey was also black helped ease the introduction. Vera glanced around again, certain there was trouble coming. Her older brother was in prison and the family had a history with the police.
Lindsey handed over an envelope and said, “Here’s the money. I’m buying breakfast.”
Vera took the envelope and shoved it into a pocket. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.” It was obvious she had not declined too many biscuits. “You a cop or something?” she asked.
“Not at all. I work for some lawyers out of Louisville and we’re investigating nursing homes throughout the state. We sue a lot of them for neglect and abuse, and, as you probably know, Glinn Valley does not have a great reputation. I need some inside information and I’m willing to pay for it.”
“And I need a job, okay? What I got ain’t much, but they ain’t no jobs around here.”
“You will not get in trouble, I promise. Nothing is illegal, okay? We just need a set of eyes inside to make our cases stronger.”
“Why me?”
“If not you, then we’ll simply find someone else. We’re offering two thousand a month cash for the next three months.”
So far, Lindsey had left no trail. If Vera suddenly bolted, drove to work and told her boss about the meeting, they would never find her. She would disappear from the sad little town and never come back. But Vera was thinking about the money. She earned just over ten dollars an hour for a forty-hour week with no benefits. Her husband was about to be laid off. They lived from paycheck to paycheck, and if they missed a single one there was nobody to help.
Lindsey, of course, knew all of this. She pressed on with “It’s easy money, Vera, and we’re not asking you to do anything wrong.”
“Well, it sure smells wrong.”
“I assure you.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you? Hell, we just met. You call me out of the blue and say meet me for a biscuit.”
“We’re offering a lot more.”
“What am I supposed to do? Be a spy?”
“Something like that. The lawyers I work for are experts in the field of nursing home abuse. You’ve seen the cases.”
“I ain’t going to no courtroom, no ma’am.”
“We won’t ask you to. That’s not part of your job.”
“And so what happens if these lawyers bring all these cases to court and Glinn Valley goes bankrupt? What am I supposed to do then? Like I said, lady, there ain’t no jobs around here. They pay me minimum wage to clean bedpans and you think I like it? No, I don’t, but my kids also like to eat, now don’t they?”
Lindsey was always quick to admit defeat. She would leave and go to the next name on the list. She raised her hands in mock surrender and said, “Thank you for your time, Ms. Stark. I’ve paid you. Have a nice day.”
Vera said, “Three thousand a month for five months. That’s fifteen thousand total, in cash, more than I clear after taxes for the year. First month in advance.”
Lindsey smiled and studied her eyes. A hard life had sharpened her edges and made her nimble. Quietly, she said, “Deal.”
Vera smiled too and said, “I don’t even know your name.”
Lindsey pulled out a business card with little accurate data on it. The name was Jackie Fayard. The phone number was for a burner with a monthly plan. The law firm’s address was in downtown Louisville at a corporate registry, along with a hundred others. She said, “Don’t bother calling the firm, because I’m never there.”
“When do I get the advance?” Vera asked.
“Tomorrow, but let’s meet at the Food Center on Main, by the produce, same time.”
“I don’t shop there. That’s where the white folks go.”
“All the more reason to go there. The meeting won’t last five minutes.”
“Okay, what am I looking for?”
“Let’s start with the names of the patients with advanced dementia. Those who can’t get out of bed.”
“That’s easy.”
On the other side of Flora, a colleague of Lindsey’s, one Raymond Jumper, walked into a redneck dive and took a stool at the bar. Though the WHITES ONLY signs had long since been removed, their policies were still in effect. The blacks had their honky-tonks, the whites had their beer joints, and for everyone in town the nightlife was as segregated as ever. Jumper ordered a beer and began surveying the crowd. Two large young ladies were shooting pool. One of them was his target, a Miss Brittany Bolton, age twenty-two, single, no kids, a high school graduate currently taking night classes at a community college an hour away and living with her parents. For the past two years she had worked at Serenity Home, a facility in Flora that was marketed as a “retirement village” but was nothing more than a low-end nursing home operated by a company with a long history of cutting corners.
Jumper watched them butcher the game while laughing and talking nonstop, then he bought two bottles of beer and sauntered over. He was thirty-two, divorced, and knew his way around a pool table. He offered them fresh refills and talked his way into the game. An hour later they were in a booth eating nachos and drinking a pitcher of beer, courtesy of his expense account. His story was that he was in town for a couple of days investigating an accident for a law firm out of Lexington, and he was bored and looking for someone to talk to. The motel walls were closing in, so he’d headed for the nearest honky-tonk. He fancied neither woman and was careful with his flirting. Brittany in particular seemed eager for any of his advances.
Her friend, April, had a boyfriend who kept calling. Around 9:00 p.m., she finally had to go, leaving Jumper all alone with a thick young woman he had no desire to leave with. He asked about her job and she said she worked at a terrible place, a nursing home. Jumper seemed fascinated by this and asked questions. The alcohol kicked in and Brittany rambled on about her job and how much she hated it. The nursing home was always understaffed, primarily because it paid slightly more than minimum wage to orderlies, cooks, janitors, everyone but nurses and management. Patients were neglected in more ways than she wanted to talk about. Most of them had been forgotten by their families, and while she was sympathetic, she was just sick and tired of the place. She had bigger dreams. She wanted to become a nurse in a large hospital, a real job with a future, somewhere far away from Flora, Kentucky.
Jumper explained that he did a lot of work for a law firm that specialized in nursing home neglect, and finally asked the name of her employer. They drank some more beer and it was finally time to leave, either together or separately. Jumper claimed he had a long phone call to make and begged off after swapping phone numbers.
The following day, he called Brittany at work and said he wanted to talk. They met after hours at a pizza place and he bought dinner again. After a couple of beers, he said, “Serenity has fifty facilities in the Midwest and a lousy reputation in the business.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “I hate the place, hate my bosses, can’t stand most of my coworkers, but that’s no big deal because most will be gone in three months anyway.”
“Has the facility here ever been sued?”
“Not sure. I’ve only been there for two years.” She set down her beer mug and wiped her eyes. Jumper was surprised to realize she was crying. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head no as she wiped her cheeks with a paper napkin. He glanced around, hoping no one had noticed. No one had. There was a long gap in the conversation as he waited for her to say something.
She said, “You say you work for a law firm.”
“I’m not on their payroll but I consult, primarily in nursing home cases.”
“Can I tell you a story?” But it was not a question. “No one knows this but everyone should, okay?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“There’s this patient on my wing, a girl, we’re the same age, twenty-two, so she’s not really a girl, you know.”
“A twenty-two-year-old woman in a nursing home?”
“Hang on. She was in a bad car wreck when she was a kid and has been brain-dead since she was four. She can breathe on her own, barely, and we keep her alive with a feeding tube, but she’s been gone for a long time. Weighs less than a hundred pounds. You get the picture. Just pitiful. Her family moved away and forgot about her, and who can blame them? Not really any reason for a visit, you know. She can’t open her eyes. Anyway, I have this coworker named Gerrard who’s probably forty years old and is making a career there. A real loser who enjoys being the senior bedpan handler. Loves our patients and is always doing fun and games with them. You gotta worry about a man who’s content making minimum wage with no benefits, but that’s Gerrard. He’s been there for fifteen years and just loves the place. However, I think he hangs around for another reason.”
A pause. “Okay?” Jumper finally said.
“Sex.”
“Sex? In a nursing home?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jumper said, though he had not.
She wiped her cheeks again with another paper napkin and took a sip of beer. “Gerrard likes to hang around this girl’s room. I got suspicious a few months back but said nothing. There is no one to trust at the place, and everybody is afraid of getting fired. So one day I left my wing to go to lunch in the cafeteria. I passed Gerrard and told him a fib, told him I was going to Wendy’s to pick up lunch and did he want anything. He said no. Ten minutes later I circled back. Her door was locked, which is against policy and very unusual. But her room adjoins the next one, with a bathroom in between. I had left the other door unlocked and Gerrard didn’t check it. I peeked through the bathroom door and that son of a bitch was on top of the girl, raping her. I started to scream but couldn’t. I started to pick up something and attack him, but I couldn’t move. I don’t remember backing away, don’t remember anything until I got to the ladies’ restroom where I sat on a toilet seat and tried to stop crying. I was a mess. I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t do anything but cry.”
She wiped away some more tears.
“I made it through the day without seeing the creep. I checked on the girl and bathed her, something I still do every day. I managed to swab her vagina and I think I collected his sample. Still have it. That poor child, just lying there, dead to the world. I wanted to tell someone. I thought about my parents but they’re not much help and wouldn’t know what to do. I thought about talking to a lawyer but those people scare me. I can’t imagine being on the witness stand in a courtroom with lawyers yelling at me and calling me a liar. So I waited. At one point I was determined to march into the manager’s office and tell her everything, but I can’t stand the woman. She always protects the company, so she can’t be trusted. About a week later I saw Gerrard enter the girl’s room and I followed him. I pointed my finger at him and said, ‘Leave her alone.’ He ran like a scared puppy. He has no spine. Anyway, time passed and here we are.”
Raymond Jumper was fascinated by the tragic story but also stunned by it. It was not part of the plan. He had been hired by Lindsey Wheat and her mysterious company out of D.C. to bribe employees to turn over confidential patient records and, hopefully, medications. They had selected Brittany Bolton as their first prospect at Serenity Home. Now, Brittany had chosen him as her confidant. His brain spun as the story went off script. “And that’s all?” he asked.
“One small late-breaking item,” Brittany said. “The girl is pregnant. Imagine. Brain-dead for eighteen years, alive because of a tube, and now she’s pregnant.”
“Are you positive?”
“Almost. I bathe her every day, okay, and I’d say she’s about six months along. No one else knows it. When she gives birth a quick DNA test will nail Gerrard. Since consent is out of the question, the company will be liable for…”
“Millions.”
“That’s what I thought. Millions. And he’ll go to jail, right?”
“I would think so. Probably for a long time.”
“Such a creep.”
“And the company has insurance, so the matter will be settled quickly and quietly,” Jumper said as he sipped his beer. “It’s a gorgeous lawsuit.”
“It’s a killer. I’ve buried myself online and read a thousand cases of nursing home abuse. You know what, Raymond?”
“What?”
“I haven’t found one nearly as good as this. And it’s mine. I want a piece of it. I’m an eyewitness and I have his semen. And more importantly, I want out of this job and this town. I’m tired of bathing ninety-year-old men who want me to touch their privates. I’m tired of old saggy flesh, Raymond. Tired of bedpans, and bedsores, and tired of trying to make forgotten people feel good when they have no reason to feel good. I want out, and this is my ticket.”
Jumper was nodding, already on board. “Okay, what’s your plan?”
“I don’t have one, but I’ll bet some lawyer would pay me some money for what I know. What about the lawyers you work for?”
They don’t exist, Jumper thought, but said, “Oh, I think they’d kill for this case. Assuming all the facts are in place.”
“Facts? You doubt me?”
“No, but her pregnancy hasn’t been confirmed yet. Gerrard hasn’t been tested for DNA.”
“The facts are there, Raymond, trust me. I like to think of myself as the whistleblower, the insider who gets paid for what she knows. Is there anything wrong with that, Raymond?”
“Not in my book.”
Each took a bite of pizza and tried to sort things out. There were issues, scenarios, unknowns, and a lot at stake. Jumper washed his down with beer, wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve, and said, “This could take months or years, and I’m on board. But right now I have a more pressing matter. The lawyers I work for need information from Serenity.”
“What kind of information?”
“It’s sort of vague right now, but they’re concerned with the patients with advanced dementia, the poor folks who are bedridden, gone far away and not coming back. What’s the slang for them?”
“ ‘Nons,’ ‘veggies,’ there are a number of nicknames for the nonresponsive. Call them anything you want because they don’t care.”
“And there are some at Serenity?”
“The place is full of them.”
“Can you give me their names?”
“That’s easy enough. I know a lot of them. We’re down to a hundred and twenty-three patients and I could almost rattle off all the names.”
“Why are you down?”
“Because they’re dying like crazy, Raymond. It’s the nature of the place. It’ll fill up soon enough. I can’t wait to get away.”
“How many have advanced dementia?”
“A lot of them, and we’re seeing more all the time. I have nineteen patients on my wing and seven of them haven’t spoken a word in years. Feed ’em with a tube.”
“What’s in the tube?”
“Gunk. Geezer formula. We feed them four times a day and load ’em up with about two thousand calories. Usually we add the meds with the meal.”
“How difficult would it be to get a list of their meds?”
“Is this illegal, Raymond? Are you asking me to do something that’s illegal?”
“No, of course not. If you know what meds a patient is getting, and you tell me that over a beer, then no law is broken. But if you copy the file and hand it over, then we could be in trouble.”
“Where’s all this going?”
“It’s headed for the courtroom eventually, but you won’t be involved in that part of it.”
“Is there any cash for this intel?”
“Yep. We’ll pay two thousand bucks a month in greenbacks for the next few months.”
“That’s more than I clear at ten bucks an hour.”
“Is the answer yes?”
“Sure, I guess, but you gotta promise me I won’t get into trouble.”
“I can’t promise anything, Brittany. But if you’re careful we’ll be okay. I’m assuming security is not that tight.”
“Are you kidding? Patients are getting raped by the staff. I could walk into the pharmacy tomorrow and walk out with anything I want, not that the good stuff is there. The manager forgets to lock her door half the time. The only guard is an old fart who should be a dementia patient down the hall. No, Raymond, security is not a priority at dear ole Serenity. Security costs money and that company cares about nothing but profits.”
Jumper was amused. He offered his right hand across the pizza and she shook it.