Page 37 of Dying to Read

Then she opened her email. William Jully’s prior position at a Tucson nursing home had been listed in his bio. She looked up the nursing home and found its administration email addresses. Admissions would probably be a marketer, like Cindi, and not helpful. But if she could get the social worker, maybe that person would be more open about why William had left. Rarity carefully crafted an email, letting them know that William had died and wondering if they had contact information for other facilities where he’d worked since he didn’t seem to have family in the area.

Rarity read the email again and then hit Send. The social worker’s name wasn’t listed, only the title in the email address. The message seemed to hit the right notes. Friendly but curious. She might get some information on William Jully that could lead to a reason he’d been killed, besides George’s jealousy. Or Terrance defending his friend.

The tent was starting to get busy, so she tucked the murder book and her laptop away. She might have some big news for Tuesday night’s gathering. Or at least she could list off the things she had done, so they wouldn’t all be doing the same things and getting nowhere.

* * *

Shirley had shown up after church to help, so by the time the festival closed at two, they were in a good place to start boxing up the unsold books. Rarity grabbed the leftover cardboard and headed out to the recycling dumpster.

Sally Ball, the administrator for Sedona Memory Care, was heading toward Rarity. She smiled and waved, but the woman didn’t acknowledge her. Sally was on the phone and walking fast. One of the boxes slipped out of Rarity’s hand, and she stopped to pick it up and adjust the rest of the cardboard. As she juggled everything, Sally strolled by her.

“I hated doing this, but it’s gone. Protecting the facility is my only goal at this time. You need to make sure your working files are clear too. I hate to see you have issues,” Sally said into the phone as she passed by Rarity.

Rarity looked up when she didn’t hear anything else. Sally was gone. What had Sally been talking about getting rid of? Something about William Jully? Or was there something else she was hiding? What was she protecting thefacility from?

She’d have a lot to talk about on Tuesday night. Maybe Shirley would have some clue.

When she got to the oversized recycle bin, there were stairs leading up to the opening. There had been a lot of cardboard from the festival. Including a lot of empty candy boxes. She started to throw her boxes into the bin, but then she saw the manila file folder. She set down her boxes then reached in to grab the folder, holding on to the side of the bin and hoping she wouldn’t fall inside.

Her fingers grazed the file and she stretched a little farther. She felt herself falling forward as she grabbed the thick file. Fear gripped her as she felt her balance shifting. She was going in.

But as she tipped forward, strong hands surrounded her hips and pulled her back onto the metal landing of the stairs. She turned and looked up into Jonathon’s concerned face. “Thanks. What are you doing here? I thought you werein Flagstaff.”

“I came back early this morning to help Drew with a project. What did you drop into the bin that was so important you’d risk being trapped in there?” Jonathon glanced inside the recycle bin. “Youknow, I used to find bodies in dumpsters like this when I worked theNew York job.”

“I’m not sure.” Rarity nodded toward the file. Then she told him about the conversation she’d heard—well, at least Sally’s side of the phone call. “She was coming from this bin area, so when I saw a file, I thought maybe it held some evidence.”

“If it does, you know Drew’s going to be upset with you for not calling for help.” Jonathon grabbed the cardboard and tucked it all into the recycling bin. “Let’s go back to your tent. I’d rather not be seen out here reading that file if it’s important. Plausible deniability sometimes works with my son. I don’t want to be kicked out of using his house as my Sedona crash pad.”

When they got back, Shirley was alone in the tent. All the boxes had been packed and all but one of the tables and chairs folded up. She was on one of the folding chairs, crocheting as she waited, and Killer was still sleeping in his bed. “I see you found her.” Shirley smiled as she looked up from her pattern. “I sent Katie home when Jonathon agreed to help load Archer’s bus. She’s working on a paper.”

“Sorry, I should have taken Killer with me so you could have gone too.” Rarity set the file on the table. “Let’s hope the papers I found are the current setup pages for the festival and not what it looks like.”

“There used to be a tab, but it was ripped off,” Jonathon added as he pointedat the folder.

“Here goes nothing.” Rarity met his gaze, then opened the file.

On the left was a note page with medical notations by day and time. The name on top of the page had been blacked out, and the signatures were a blur. “Not much to go on.”

Rarity flipped through all the notation pages on the left; they had all had the name blacked out. Then she went to the right side. Tests, x-rays, blood work. Physical therapy and occupational therapy notes. Even the social worker’s observation of mood and activities had the patient’s name blacked out on the top. Any mention inside the notes onlysaid,patient.

She looked up at Jonathon and Shirley. “This has to be Ruth Agee’s file. What is in here that’s so incriminating to the facility that Sally had to go to the trouble of throwing it away off-site?”

“She probably thought that since it was the festival, it would get lost with the other garbage. But why did she throw it in recycling? Doesn’t someone go through that?” Jonathon frowned as heturned pages.

“The garbage bin was right next door. She was on the phone; maybe she didn’t notice the difference.” Rarity pointed out Sally’s mistake.

Shirley tucked her blanket into her bag then came around to look at the file. “This has to be from Sedona Memory Care, though. See the watermark on the note pages? That’s their crest. It changed a few years ago when they were bought out by a group out of Phoenix. They had to change what forms they used to be consistent with the corporation rules. Everyone was mad because they had to redo any notes in the last three months, while the merger was in place, on the new paper and in the new format.”

“So Sally did throw this away.” Rarity heard a noise at the front of the tent. Archer and Jack stood there,watching them.

“Is this a bad time?” Archer glancedat his watch.

Rarity closed the file and reached for her tote. “Nope. We were checking something out. Jonathon, I’ll read this at home and then call you to come get it, or I could drop it off at Drew’s.”

“I’ll be in Flagstaff tonight. I need to pick up Edith and the girls from the egg hunt and we’re staying over and having dinner. I’ll come get it tomorrow when Edith and I get back.” He nodded to Archer. “Where’s your bus? Let’s get this taken care of fast. I’ve got to get backto the girls.”

Packing up and then unloading at the bookstore didn’t take much time at all. Shirley had walked over from her church, so Jonathon drove her there to pick up her car. They all hit the bookstore at about the same time. On the bus with Jack and Archer, Rarity listened to Jack talk about his vortex hikenext Saturday.

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