Джон Гришэм - Camino Winds

“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?”