"Where did you hear about this life insurance policy?" she asked her friend, her hold on her glass tight enough to leave dents.

Mattie smiled, then frowned, then cast looks at both Murphy and Micklind. "From Barb."

Timmie repeated the pattern, now trailing Mattie behind as well. They all saved time, though, because Barb was standing by the front window with a predictably crying Cindy.

"Cindy," Barb answered when asked.

Cindy looked up, eyes red-rimmed and watery. "But his parents told me," she said. "Yesterday, at the wake."

At least they all didn't follow Timmie in when she confronted her ex-in-laws.

"But we naturally thought you knew," Betty Parker said in her perfectly modulated voice, the only hint of real grief tucked way at the back of her eyes. "Actually, we paid the premiums for him while he was... well, so uncertain of everything. He paid us back, though. Every penny. And, of course, his will was never changed. You're still executor for Meghan, who gets everything else he has." She shook her head apologetically. "But we thought you knew, dear."

Timmie couldn't do much more than shake her head. "No. And you told my friend Cindy about it yesterday?"

"We talked about it, I guess. Yes. People should know that Jason would never really desert you or Meghan, you see? I talked to Jason the night before... the night before it happened, and he wanted me to know that he'd talked to you. That he was going to see you. I thought... I hoped..."

Timmie nodded, mute with shock. She had lived a long time on self-righteous indignation. It was just too much to ingest the concept that Jason had been trying to grab her security with one hand and hand it back with the other.

"Which meant that his death really was a benefit to me," Timmie finally managed to admit to Murphy fifteen minutes later as the two of them stood with Micklind and Mattie in the Florida room. "Is it possible that this isn't about Restcrest after all?"

Mattie just kept shaking her head. "This is all way beyond this poor girl's head."

"If it's not about Restcrest, what's it about?" Murphy asked.

Timmie wished like hell she hadn't heard about the insurance policy. The will that would see her daughter safely educated and raised, when Timmie had been worried about affording peanut butter and jelly. It was confusing her, distracting her from the original question.

"We've been working on the assumption that Victor was killed to keep him quiet about Restcrest," she said. "That Jason was a threat to me. What if they were just part of the same pattern? A mercy killer who's just moving a little wider than the hospital."

"You really don't think that your husband's murder was a threat to you?" Micklind demanded.

Timmie was having trouble breathing again. "No," she said. "I think it was a gift. So, what the hell does that mean?"

* * *

Two hours later Timmie drove home with Mattie, but without Meghan. Betty and Jason, their eyes brittle with weary grief, had begged Timmie to let her daughter stay with them for a couple of days, and Timmie, seeing the matching need in Meghan, had said yes.

"Are you okay that I'm staying, Mom?" Meghan had asked, her arms around Timmie's neck.

Timmie squeezed hard, inhaling her daughter's scent. "No," she admitted. "I'm selfish. I always want you with me. But I bet Gram and Gramps would like to tell you stories about your daddy when he was little like you. And I'd really like you to hear them."

Meghan pulled back. "You mean it? You're not just being nice because Cindy blabbed about that insurance thing with Gram before Ellen said it was okay?"

"Nah. I'm being nice 'cause I'm nice. Now, I have to go, or Renfield doesn't get any flies."

"Stay with Mattie," Meghan insisted.

"I will, baby. I'll call you tonight."

Timmie stayed with Mattie. In truth, she couldn't imagine how she was going to live in her own house again after what had happened. Micklind had pointed her to a company that actually cleaned up the kind of mess they'd left in the living room, but the afterimage tended to linger a lot longer than the stains, like a bad smell caught in upholstery.

The problem was that Timmie couldn't imagine staying at Mattie's, either. Not that she didn't love Mattie and Walter and the six kids of various ages who were tucked into every nook and cranny of that tiny house. But no matter how much Mattie and Walter insisted Timmie wasn't in the way, she knew she was. So she went back to work the next afternoon and actually sighed with relief at the relative quiet.

She also had the chance to sit with her dad, who really had settled down some on the new dosage of medication.

"When are they going to come question us?" one of the nurses asked Timmie.

Timmie blinked up at her. "I'm sorry?"

"The police. We know they're going to crucify this place. Word is, the media's already preparing the skewer. It isn't fair, you know."

Timmie got to her feet. "They haven't been by yet?"

The nurse stiffened in renewed outrage. "This is a good place," she insisted. "You don't think they're dismantling it fast enough?"

Timmie straightened herself, tired of being batted back and forth like a shuttlecock between all the special interests in this town. "This isn't a good place," she said in her most quelling voice. "This is a great place. Which is why at least one person should have had the balls to stop what was going on, because you can't tell me that not one of you knew it was happening."

"Last of the idealists, my Timmie," her father suddenly said.

Both nurses glared at him for a minute. Then Timmie decided to take it outside where she couldn't rile him.

Too late. By the time she reached the middle hallway, he was singing the first words of "The Patriot Game," a lovely song about idealism gone bad. The other nurse was fortunate enough not to be familiar with it.

"You know, of course, that two of the nurses on unit five are getting pink-slipped."

All right. She had Timmie there. "Why?"

"Because they didn't report the possible problem."

"Of course they did. Nobody did anything."

Another glare, hands on hips. Nurse's sign language for "Well, no shit."

Timmie shook her head. "Doesn't it just fuckin' figure. Okay, I have contacts in the press. Let's see what we can do. In the meantime, help the police, okay? If you don't, this whole place could go up in flames."

She didn't bother to wait for an answer. Just stalked over to unit five to find Gladys finishing paperwork in her civvies.

"What happened?" Timmie demanded, grabbing a seat next to her. Another nurse, who was dressed for work in her best white polyester, made it a point to ignore Timmie as she walked by.

"What do you think happened?" Gladys asked quietly, never once raising her eyes from her task. "The shit rolled downhill, and I happened to be standing at the bottom."

Timmie almost smiled. She hadn't thought Gladys had it in her. "What reason were you given for being let go?"

"Poor performance. Lack of faith by the families. Typical bullshit. My last review, which was rated exceptional, evidently doesn't count. The next thing we probably need to address in this facility is a union."

"One thing at a time. Did they fire you before or after you talked to the police?"

That got Gladys's attention. "I haven't talked to the police."