One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest Read online

  I looked down at my arm and saw a syringe.

  A haze started to cloud the room. Or maybe it was … my … mind. My mind was … fuzzy. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Stop that, Pączki. I laughed. The fuzzy nun pushed me into the bathroom. “Ouch.” I bumped my head on the wall. “Daddy calls me Pgczki.” I giggled, stumbled. “It’s a Polish prune-filled donut.” Jagger.

  Where the hell was Jagger?

  I rubbed at my arm. Make that three arms. I saw three arms attached to me on one side, four on the other. “You pinched me. That hurt. Nuns shouldn’t … pinch … what did you give me? I hope to hell that syringe was sterile!”

  Without a word, she pulled off her veil.

  He?

  He pulled off his veil, and he wasn’t at all like Goldie. It didn’t seem as if he usually dressed like a nun. I pushed at his chest and made it to the doorway of the restroom. Thank goodness there was no door that I had to open. My three arms felt as if they were made of rubber. Whatever was in that shot had kicked in, and I felt like crap.

  My mouth went dry.

  My skin prickled.

  My heart raced until the room spun, turned dark and started to wink out.

  In the distance, on the other side of the glass doors, watching—stood Jagger.

  Three

  Talk about cottonmouth.

  My eyelids refused to open and my mouth felt as if the dentist had left reams of cotton between my gums and my cheeks. Cool air swirled around me and I heard the hum of an air conditioner.

  And there was a familiar, medicinal smell in the air.

  My forehead wrinkled as I tried so damn hard to open my eyes. Maybe I’d overslept, and Goldie had left for work without me. Why did Miles have the A/C on in March? Was it really March? What the hell was that smell?

  Just because I’d turned thirty-five didn’t mean I should be losing my memory. Airport. I thought about the airport. What was that all about? I sucked in a breath and decided I wanted to sleep for about a year.

  But I had a case to start.

  That’s right. I had a case to start. Open, eyes. Open, says me.

  My eyelids moved in slow motion, until I could see through a haze. Stark white. Miles’s condo was done in designer white. White beanbag chair. White leather sofa and love seat.

  I lifted my head. White walls. No window. Twin bed with some kind of iron footboard. Not Miles’s condo by a long shot. More like a hospital. Yeah. A hospital bed.

  Had I been in an accident?

  Frightened, I tried to push up to a sitting position. Hm, nothing hurt more than a few sore muscles and my arm. If I’d been in an accident, I’d expect more pain. I went to grab the iron bedrail.

  My hands were shackled to it!

  The “scream heard round the world” came out of my mouth with such force, I thought I’d damaged something important in my throat.

  Silence.

  My head flopped back down. I shut my eyes to try to think. Airport. Me. Woman. Man. Nun. Male nun. Jagger.

  Jagger.

  Jagger watching through the glass doors—and doing nothing to help me!

  Without attempting to get up, I screamed, “Jagger!” My screaming kept up until the door opened. “Jagger?” I asked hoarsely.

  But it wasn’t Jagger who came in. Nope. It was the nun. He came closer and looked at me with clearly forced sympathy. “You are going to hurt yourself, my child.”

  “I’m not your child, buddy. And why the ridiculous outfit? What the hell is going on?” I yanked at my hands. “And I demand you let me out of this barbaric get up! Where am I anyway?”

  Silence and more staring.

  “Come on, buddy. Black does nothing for you anyway against that pale skin. Why the hell are you pretending to be a nun?”

  The “nun” came closer. “I am a sister of Saint Margaret of Cortona. I am Sister Dolores, Mother Superior.”

  “Yeah, right, buddy.” I clucked my tongue. “Oh, I get it. Dolores from the Latin dolor meaning ‘painful.’ Good one, buddy. But even though you apparently are a real pain in my—”

  The “nun’s” eyes darkened.

  “Do not be so ornery, my child.”

  Suddenly I felt as if the wrath of God was going to sweep me into hell. I looked through the blur at the “nun’s” face. Oops. Looked real. Looked sincere. Looked female. “Oh, dear. Sorry, Sister. I mean … in the airport that man dressed like a nun gave me some kind of shot. Some kind of intramuscular mickey. Please let me up from here. I’m confused and pissed … er … angry.”

  She, and I mean she this time, patted my arm. With a deep sigh she said, “I do not know what you are talking about, my child. There is no man. This is not an airport.”

  “I know this isn’t an airport. And I know what I am talking about. Bradley International! It’s in Windsor Locks, outside of Hartford. You have to know about it.”

  “Of course I know there is an airport there. That’s about a forty-five-minute drive from here. But what does it have to do with you?”

  “I was drugged and kidnapped from there!”

  It seemed like hours before the nun came back in. Well, it was close to an hour, I was guessing, since my watch had been pilfered along with my scrubs. She’d turned and scurried out when I’d told her I was being held here against my will. Why she hadn’t come back with the key to unlock these shackles and send me home was beyond me.

  Sister Pain in the Butt was looking at one juicy lawsuit. I’m sure Miles knew some good lawyers.

  Miles. Goldie. Mother. Dad. Uncle Walt. My four siblings. Ex-nun, Mary, my oldest sister. I lay looking at the ceiling, wondering about my family. Daddy would be worried. Mother would be beside herself, and Uncle Walt, the consummate Rip Van Winkle, would lose sleep over my disappearance. Without a window I couldn’t even tell if it was night or day. How long had I been here?

  Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. Not that I was scared, okay, maybe a little, but I was going to let anger take front and center. That emotion might get me farther than being scared could.

  I lifted my head up enough to see my hands and feet. Shackles were designed to keep patients from harming themselves or others. And, damn it, they were pretty escape-proof. I yanked at my hand. Even Houdini would have a time with these. Sister Pain, or someone else maybe, had tightened it so that I couldn’t wiggle my hand through.

  Why would she be holding me here? In a hospital?

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This was no ordinary hospital. This had to be the Cortona Institute of Life, and Mary Louise Huntington should be lying here manacled to the bed—not me. She was the nutcase. Me, I was as sane as … well, I was sane.

  Talk about having a bad day.

  I actually chuckled at the irony. “Sister? Hellooooo! Sister Dolores!” I lifted my head. “Hey. Someone!”

  Silence.

  Damn it. I had done my psychiatric nursing training in a similar mental institution—not my favorite subject, by the way. And I knew from experience that no one was going to believe a patient. I had to convince Sister Dolores, or whoever came into the room, that I was not Mary Louise.

  Suddenly the door opened.

  A petite nun, dressed in the same black-and-white habit as Sister Pain came bustling in. She gave new meaning to the word perky.

  When she got close to the bed, I thought of strangling her to escape, but knew that wouldn’t bode well with trying to convince anyone I was not mentally disturbed. “Hello, Sister. My name is Pauline. Pauline Sokol.”

  She made the sign of the cross, then shook her head. My Catholic upbringing said shaking one’s head like that was not part of the ritual.

  “I am Sister Christina Elizabeth Zawacki.” She chattered on about something (I think I heard the words corn, sunshine, and pea soup) and placed her hand against my temple.

  I flinched and pulled away, and then realized she was trying to take my temporal pulse. I cooperated by moving closer to her and waiting.

  “Good girl.”

  I smile
d at her. “Sister Christina Elizabeth, there’s been a mistake. I’m not Mary Louise. My name is Pauline Sokol.”

  She stared at me a few seconds.

  I bet she wished she had a nickel for every patient who pulled that line on her. But mine wasn’t a line! I decided Sister Wacky was just that. She might be my ticket out of here. “You see, Sister.” I motioned for her to come closer. “May I call you Sister Liz?”

  She chuckled.

  “Fine. Look, Sister Liz, a man shot me in the arm with something at the airport.”

  She lifted the sheet to uncover my arm. “There are no bullet holes in your arm, Mary Louise.”

  Sister Wacky it was. “I know that. You see I mean that he shot me with a syringe. Some kind of medication that knocked me out. I’m a nurse. I was supposed to chaperone Mary Louise Huntington from the airport to here.

  And she looked an awful lot like me. What a coincidence, huh?”

  She pulled at her earlobe as if that helped her to think. “I guess.”

  “The guy I work with can explain it all.” And he’d better soon, or I would strangle him.

  “Oh, my, dear. It all does sound bad.”

  Hooked. I had Sister Wacky hooked like a New England scrod. “So, if you let me up, I’ll be on my way. I have to get back to work.”

  “Where do you work?”

  She hadn’t budged to get the key, but I smiled and said, “Scarpello and Tonelli insurance company. I’m an—” Oops. That almost slipped out. I was consoled, though, by thinking I’d caught myself in time, but if you couldn’t trust a nun, who could you trust?

  Sister Wacky leaned near and rubbed her hand across my forehead, much like my mother used to do when I was sick as a kid. Very compassionate. “Poor child.”

  “What?”

  “I thought you said you were a nurse, child?”

  Why did these nuns insist on calling me a child? Wait, maybe that was better than reminding me I’d turned thirty-five a few days ago. I really hoped it was only a few days ago. I decided I liked being called “child.”

  “Oh, no. I am a nurse. You see. That sounds bad. I mean it sounds as if I really am mixed up or lying.” I chuckled. “But I’m actually a very honest person. Sometimes to a fault. Who tells their elementary school principal that they didn’t do their homework ’cause they were watching The Brady Bunch? I had a wicked crush on Greg.”

  She wiped harder.

  Damn. I relaxed and blew out a breath. “Are you the charge nurse?”

  “Oh, no.” Now she chuckled, and I figured whoever ran this place didn’t think Sister Wacky was charge-nurse material. “Sister Barbara Immaculatta is the charge-nurse on Ward 200. She doesn’t use her family’s last name. Sister Dolores is the Mother Superior.”

  “Already met her. Could I please talk to Sister Barbara without the last name?”

  She did the earlobe pulling thing again. It was getting annoying. Of course, I couldn’t fault the dear nun. When you’re shackled to a bed, everything is annoying. I grabbed her habit. “Please, Sister. Please let me talk to whomever is in charge.”

  My grip tightened.

  Fear built up in her sparkly eyes. “Oh, dear.” She tried to move away.

  Suddenly I felt like a mental patient as my teeth clenched. “I’m not crazy! Let me talk to her! Now!”

  Sister Wacky pulled away so fast, the sound of tearing fabric filled the little room. As she scurried out and slammed the door, I thought how sad it was that my life was going to end in this closet of a room with me as a mistaken-identity victim.

  Never to be married.

  Never to give birth.

  Never to sleep with …

  I opened my mouth and once again screamed, “Jagger!”

  He’d come. I knew he would. Jagger would come in some stupid disguise. Most likely a doctor. Yeah, I had it all figured out.

  I yelled again, “Jagger!”

  No one came. So, I laid back and decided to give into the crappy feeling I still had of being drugged. normally I’d keep screaming to get out, but knowing the inner workings of a psychiatric hospital, I knew I’d lose brownie points for that kind of behavior.

  Maybe I could fall asleep and wake up at home.

  Yeah. I yawned. This was all a bad dream.

  Sunlight touched my eyes.

  I slowly started to open them, then stopped. “Please, Saint Theresa, please find it in your heart to let it have all been a bad dream. Let me be home.” Saint Theresa was my favorite saint and never let me down.

  But as my mother always said, some prayers go unanswered for good reason. By the smell in here, I knew I wasn’t home. I opened my eyes. “Okay, Saint T, there better be a good, noble reason for my being here.” I could see a light coming through the window in the door.

  A ray of hope.

  I was going to kill Jagger.

  As soon as I allowed myself a momentary curse, the door opened. A different nun came in. Actually stomped in with purpose. She was much taller than Sister Wacky and very slender. Model material if I ever saw one. The unflattering black robes hid what had to be a dynamite figure. Made me wonder why a woman who looked like her would turn to the nunnery. Then I admonished myself for thinking so selfishly and thought that she must have had a calling. And she had chosen to devote her life to God. Had to admire someone like that.

  She came closer and stared at me with gorgeous deep green eyes. I wondered if she was Irish. A tendril of reddish hair peeked from beneath her veil. At least that blew the old adage that nuns were bald.

  “I’m Pauline Sokol. It’s very nice to meet you, Sister.”

  She leaned closer. “The chart says you have blue eyes, Mary Louise. Do you wear gray contacts?”

  “I … no. Wait!”

  She pulled back with the reflexes of someone who’d worked with the mentally ill for some time.

  “That proves it. I have gray eyes. Me. Pauline Sokol. So, please let me out of here. If you get my clothes, I’ll call a friend for a ride.”

  Then strangle him for getting me into this.

  I paused for a few moments. Had Jagger really known that I’d get shackled to a bed in here? Had he really stood there watching me get shot in the arm like that? And had he really not come to get me out yet?

  He would come and get me, I knew it.

  I lay silent for a few seconds. Then, it dawned on me. “Son of a bitch. Why, you son of a bitch!”

  The nun pulled back. “Excuse me, child?”

  I clucked my tongue. “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you.”

  She looked around the naked room. “Oh … I see.”

  “No! No, you don’t see. And I don’t see anyone in here either. I’m not seeing things!”

  “Do you see me, child?”

  I clucked my tongue. “Yes, of course.”

  Things were taking a downward spiral.

  Because right then, I realized that Jagger had told me to wear my royal blue scrubs—the same color Mary Louise Huntington had on.

  He knew.

  She stepped closer and patted my shackled hand. “I’m Sister Barbara Immaculatta. But you can call me Sister Barbara.”

  Barbie Doll. I decided she looked like a nun-covered Barbie doll from some career collection. Maybe she entered the nunnery after her breakup with Ken. “Thanks,” I murmured, still taken aback about the scrubs. I felt my eyes tear up. Maybe because I was stuck here so helplessly. And maybe because this had to be the pinnacle of betrayal on Jagger’s part.

  I thought he liked me—as a friend.

  Sister Barbie Doll rubbed my hand. “If you promise you will not try anything foolish, like running into the wall, I’ll let you go wash up and have breakfast.”

  Run into the wall? Nothing like giving a whacko a stupid idea. Then again, I was sane. She must have gotten some good vibes from me to trust me like that. “I promise, and thanks. It would be wonderful to take a shower and get dressed.”

  She raised one eyebrow.

  “Okay, showe
r and stick on a hospital gown.”

  Soon I was showering under the watchful eyes of Sister Wacky who looked more upset than I felt. I guess Sister BD really didn’t trust me to run into a wall or drown myself. Then again, it had to be a policy around here.

  How in the world would I ever get out of this place?

  Sister Wacky handed me a pile of clothing after I’d covered myself in a towel. My hair dripped onto my shoulders, and I figured they’d never trust a mental patient with a blow dryer or curling iron. Great. Not only was I going to be miserable, but I was also going to look like crap and have a bad hair day.

  There had to be laws against holding someone against their will.

  Yeah! That was it. I looked at Sister Wacky. “There are laws against this, you know. You could be a codefendant in a lawsuit for holding me captive.”

  She smiled. “We have the necessary paperwork for having you involuntarily committed, child. It’s called a ten-day paper. We can keep you that long before we decide what needs to be done for you. But we will help you get back your life.”

  I got teary-eyed at that thought and grabbed the clothing. While I shoved on the hospital johnny coat with blue cotton pants, I said, “I want to go home.” The damn top only had a few ties in the back to hold it together. You know, the kinds of backless gowns that patients in hospitals wore. Who ever came up with these “fashionable” outfits? I know they were used so patients couldn’t pretend to be a visitor and try to escape. Not in this attire.

  Sister rubbed my arm. “Your doctor is due here any minute, child. Why don’t you relax until then? Have your breakfast with the other patients.”

  As I followed her to the communal dining room, I got a load of the unit. Not too drab-looking out here in the patient lounge, with colorful red, blue, and yellow printed wallpaper. Some nice landscape paintings like the ones sold at starving artists’ shows hung on the walls above vinyl couches and seats sans pillows (obviously so patients wouldn’t smother each other).

  I figured since this was a private institution, it was kept up pretty nicely. The patients had to have damn good insurance or their own money to come here. I knew private places like this were not cheap.

  When we got to the doorway, Sister Wacky stepped to the side—and I got a load of the patient population here.