With the motivation of solving this mystery I dressed in record time and met Oliver downstairs in under thirty minutes. We’d get an answer to who exactly was paying these medical bills. Even if Pierce stopped his contribution, it didn’t make it okay for Melissa to try and steal money from him, but it would take away the boyfriend element Pierce was so fond of touting whenever I questioned it.
Oliver drove us there in his vehicle—one he kept stored in Pierce’s garage—and I let myself relax into the leather seats. I hadn’t owned my own vehicle in San Francisco. Traffic and parking were more difficult to deal with than just catching a cab, but I still enjoyed the luxuries an expensive car provided.
If not the music choice.
“Is this the radio?” I asked when the heavy beats of Oliver’s rock music finally lowered to a volume where my ears didn’t want to bleed.
He shook his head “No, just like phones, the radio in Pelican Bay sucks. The water line and trees mess with the signal. This is my own personal mix.”
“What do you call it?” I had a few suggestions, but I didn’t think he would enjoy any of them.
Oliver smiled turning off on a side street of Pelican Bay. “What? You don’t love it?”
“I’ve always preferred my music to be more… upbeat.”
He slowed the car to a stop at the sign and made a disgusted face, peering at me from his side of the vehicle. “Don’t tell me you’re a Bieber fan.”
My cheeks turned pink, and I looked out the passenger side window. “Sometimes he has a good beat.”
“Yes, and a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“Oh, come on. He’s not that horrible.” At least he didn’t used to be.
Oliver shrugged and pressed his foot on the gas, continuing on the way. “I guess that one song wasn’t so horrible. I just find music from the nineties better.”
“This is from the nineties?” I asked turning down the radio a smidgen to still hear him when the next song started.
“Yes, it’s called grunge.”
“I must have missed this. I was more into Britney Spears.”
“We’ll always have banana ice cream, I suppose.” He shook his head as if he wanted to discuss my choice, but a smile let me know it was for fun. We continued, using the rest of the trip to discuss Oliver’s horrible music tastes until we reached a long circular driveway at the end of which he shut off the car after parking in a front space.
The nursing home looked more like a stately mansion. The red brick extended three floors into the sky with many windows and two large wings jetting out on either side. “This is the place Pierce pays for his housekeeper to say?”
“The best place in town. Everybody wants to get into Roses and Retirement. There’s a three-year waiting list.”
The place belonged in the South on a plantation rather than in the northern outcast areas of Maine. Together we walked up the steps, and I admired the large white wrap-around porch quietly in my head.
Oliver opened the front door of the nursing home and a thought I couldn’t get rid of popped into my head. “How did Pierce get his housekeeper into this place if everybody wants to live here?”
His response was only a smile and then he held the door open for me to walk through into a lavish lobby of deep royal blues. It reminded me in ways of the bed-and-breakfast.
Emptiness greeted us, the reception desk at the back of the large entry sat unoccupied for the moment. “Don’t tell me. Pierce owns the place too?”
“No, just a slight controlling interest.”
I was seconds away from rolling my eyes because of course he did. The place was in Pelican Bay, but a young woman who couldn’t have been over twenty-five raced her way to the front desk and slid into the chair.
“I’m so sorry. Don’t let anyone know I wasn’t here right away. I needed to use the bathroom and my replacement isn’t here. I’m not supposed to leave the front desk, but nobody was coming to relieve me. And you understand how it is. Right?”
I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t plan to argue.
“Don’t worry about it,” Oliver said leaning over the desk and reading the name badge on the young woman’s chest. “Sydney. My friend Mari here spoke to someone on the phone this morning, but they were rather unhelpful with answering her questions, so we came in person.”
Sydney rolled her eyes and shook her head in one big coordinated movement. “Probably Hazel. She’s so uppity. You know? She thinks it’s her right to man the phones against everybody. Won’t let a single call go through. One time my boyfriend called to say I’d left my lunch a home, and he’d bring me something from the diner, and she refused to transfer his call to my desk. Told me it wasn’t time for personal calls when I was at work. But it was regarding food. I almost starved.”
Oliver nodded his head as if he agreed with her and sympathized. I followed suit because it seemed like the thing to do. My way hadn’t worked, so it was time to give his idea a chance. She nodded right along with us as if we were three bobble heads joined in conversation.
