“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?”

“No, of course not. If you know what meds a patient is getting, and you tell me that over a beer, then no law is broken. But if you copy the file and hand it over, then we could be in trouble.”

“Where’s all this going?”

“It’s headed for the courtroom eventually, but you won’t be involved in that part of it.”

“Is there any cash for this intel?”

“Yep. We’ll pay two thousand bucks a month in greenbacks for the next few months.”

“That’s more than I clear at ten bucks an hour.”

“Is the answer yes?”

“Sure, I guess, but you gotta promise me I won’t get into trouble.”

“I can’t promise anything, Brittany. But if you’re careful we’ll be okay. I’m assuming security is not that tight.”

“Are you kidding? Patients are getting raped by the staff. I could walk into the pharmacy tomorrow and walk out with anything I want, not that the good stuff is there. The manager forgets to lock her door half the time. The only guard is an old fart who should be a dementia patient down the hall. No, Raymond, security is not a priority at dear ole Serenity. Security costs money and that company cares about nothing but profits.”

Jumper was amused. He offered his right hand across the pizza and she shook it.

3.

Glinn Valley was in a chain of ninety nursing homes owned by a private company called Barkly Cave, which was in turn owned by a private company called Northern Verdure. Layered above that were several other corporations in various states. Thankfully, through a federal investigation two years earlier, it was known that the entire and intentionally dense ownership structure came down to a group of investors in Coral Gables, Florida. Their front was called Fishback Investments, and it owned and operated 285 nursing homes in twenty-seven states. It was a shamelessly private corporation that was constantly at war with regulators about how much financial data it should reveal. It had been caught lying many times, with blame always pinned on some junior accountant who was immediately paid off and terminated. Its compliance history was pathetic. Its facilities habitually racked up some of the worst violations in the country, and lawsuits were common.