The Grandmother Plot

by Caroline B. Cooney

  By the time he’d listened to the satisfying racket of glass crash about a hundred times, he knew that Jason was melodramatic, Gary Leperov’s only interest was weed, and Maude hadn’t been murdered anyway.

  He called Gary’s number.

  “Yo!” yelled the Leper. “Dude! Timing is everything. I’m here in Austin putting on a demo, got my headset. We can talk while I work.”

  Freddy could hear the ventilation system of whatever shop the Lep was working in and people in the background talking. There could be fifty or a hundred lampworkers gathered to watch Gary Leperov lampwork; they’d be hanging on his every word. This was not going to be a private conversation.

  “Saw that bitch online,” said the Leper, meaning Freddy’s glass, “and I had to own it. I’m sending Doc for it.”

  The Lep was not addressing Freddy but his Austin audience, lampworkers already so impressed by the Lep they had bought tickets, and the Lep would make sure they were even more impressed now. Freddy wasn’t going to run this conversation, but what else was new? “Thank you for the bid.”

  “You’re all signed in!” shouted the Lep. “Paid for your booth in full. Got your hotel set. And your paperwork, Doc’s got that under control.”

  Freddy tried to sound confident and casual. “Sounds like you’re busy, so let’s just use PayPal Invoicing and I’ll ship the rig. You’ve been great to me, and I really appreciate it, but I’m not doing another show.”

  The Lep’s voice turned to ice. “Really? After you gave me your word? You’re gonna screw me over? I don’t think so.”

  Freddy imagined a crowd of pipe makers listening to this. It would certainly amplify the Russian mafia image.

  “I’m just an ordinary guy trying to make a living,” said the Lep, and Freddy knew every artist in the studio wished they could be one-tenth of the ordinary that Gary Leperov was. “And you know what?” said the Leper. “You’re fulfilling our agreement, or you’re getting your head crushed in a car door.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Laura reached the part in the Ives biography where Charlie has composed a “nice” work, which is performed in New Haven, and people say nice things about it, but what his soul yearns to write—the wild cacophony of his musical heart—nobody wants. Probably the worst time in anybody’s life: when you realize nobody wants what you have to offer.

  She kept coughing from the smell of Kemmy’s peeling piano. Was it the stink of ancient varnish dying? Or were there mice inside, their little fleshy bits rotting?

  She decided to open the lower panel with the rusted hinges and see if the problem was mice. If so, she was calling somebody who did junk runs to the dump. Down in the cellar, she found a pry bar, and perhaps because she didn’t care if she split the wood, it yielded easily. Laura swung the door back.

  Fastened to the inside was a slender homemade shelf, with several pieces of sheet music held in place by wooden pins. She lifted the music out carefully and set it on the plastic wrap of the nearest grand piano.

  The top piece was an arrangement of Edvard Grieg’s “Solveig’s Song.” The second was Edward MacDowell’s “To a Wild Rose.” The third, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” A predictable vintage pile.

  The fourth and final piece was not mass produced.

  On a sheet of heavy paper were hand-drawn staffs. A ruler had not been used. Each staff wandered in a pleasant wavy manner over the page. Notes were strewn on the lines and in the spaces. Accidentals were everywhere. Melodies and chords were scribbled like grocery lists, words scattered like birdseed.

  Laura retrieved the library biography and opened to the center package of glossy pages. She studied a photo of a real Charles Ives manuscript.

  Her mouth went dry.

  There probably was a real situation somewhere in which somebody got his head crushed in a car door, but Freddy put Gary’s threat in the melodrama column and entered his studio. He flicked his lighter and stared into the flame of the torch for a second before putting on his dark safety glasses.

  He was ready for the brass band with wings.

  It was an almost spiritual aspect of his craft, maybe of any craft—how the inner layers of your mind assessed, designed, prepared, and then nudged you. We’re ready.

  He couldn’t rush his trombone project. After all, he wasn’t on live TV. Nobody knew what he was doing. He couldn’t worry about possible mediocre results, about putting it on Instagram and getting posts that said:

  Good for you, Freddy, you made a boring piece you’re pretending is a trombone and it took you three days. Yay.

  First, the prep work: each separate part of his trombone.

  Freddy worked for hours, floating in the rare assurance that everything he did was good, maybe beyond good.

  It was three in the morning when he paused from exhaustion and thirst. Grandma’s refrigerator not only didn’t have a cold-water tap in the door; it also didn’t have an ice maker. You still had to fill little metal trays and get your fingers stuck on the cubes, and Freddy for sure hadn’t refilled the trays last time.

  The steps up to the rest of the house seemed really tall. Halfway up, Freddy just sat. He was too tired to climb on, and anyway, all the stuff up there would crush him.

  It wasn’t just Grandma’s stuff. When their mother died, his sisters had sold their mother’s house quickly in a hot market and divided the profits four ways. Freddy’s fourth was sitting wherever Jenny had put it; he needed money, but he didn’t need that money. The girls had found it too painful to sort their mother’s possessions, so a hundred or maybe a thousand sturdy cardboard boxes of Mom’s stuff were stored all over Grandma’s house. One bedroom was solid to the ceiling with furniture stacked on furniture.

  Freddy was oppressed by so many objects whose owners would never use them again. He himself barely owned a thing. He generally slept in the guest room, having cleared out a large collection of dolls dating from who knew when.

  The warning light came on.

  Freddy had installed motion detectors along the driveway. Nothing lit up outside to tell an intruder that his presence was known, but at the stop of the stairs and in the windowless hall going down to the bedrooms, Freddy had rigged small red bulbs. So far, only deer had set them off. If Freddy turned to deer hunting, he could stand in his doorway or else just mow them down with the car.

  He eased into the dark living room. He never closed the drapes because by day, he wanted all the sunlight he could get, and at night, he didn’t use that room, so whatever. He peered around the edge of the drapery.

  People of goodwill did not drive down a strange driveway at three in the morning. Especially not with their headlights off.

  Doc? This property was a fine place to slam Freddy’s head in the car door. But the Leper needed Freddy to get on a plane. Fatal injuries would not bring about the desired result.

  A crescent moon hung like a shard of white glass in a dark sky. The wind picked up and the clouds shifted. The car was not white. It was dark and ungainly, almost a box. Could it be a Nissan Cube?

  Auburn drove a turquoise Cube.

  Auburn? How could she know where he lived? Why would she care? Why would she care in the middle of the night? Was she alone or had she brought Doc? Did she want to be in on the head-smashing?

  The Cube made a U-turn on the lawn and drove away.

  For a moment, Freddy was relieved, and then he thought, Grandma.

  Auburn had loved getting Br locked up. And hadn’t Freddy actually thought that Auburn and Danielle could have dismembered the guy?

  Could Auburn have killed Maude?

  No. Auburn had nothing to do with anything at MMC. But she had had nothing to do with Br either and had enjoyed ruining his life. Freddy had a vivid, horrifying image of Auburn’s long, thin fingers with their heavily decorated nails closing on an old wrinkled throat. He called MMC. It rang s
ix times before a thick, sleepy voice he didn’t recognize said, “Middletown Memory Care. Sherry speaking.”

  “This is Freddy Bell. My grandmother, Cordelia Chase, is a resident.” His hands were damp and shaking.

  “Yup.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I checked an hour ago. What exactly you worried about?”

  “I don’t know. Maude Yardley, I guess.” If Grandma was fine an hour ago, Auburn couldn’t have done anything to her yet. But what if she checked on Freddy first, before she went up to do something? She could have made sure—

  Made sure of what? What was Freddy even thinking here?

  “I got my call log here. You never been worried before.”

  “Maude was never murdered before.” He couldn’t believe he had to argue in order to get information.

  “I’m sorry,” Sherry said. “We got reporters calling. We’re not supposed to comment. Wait a sec.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Mr. Bell? This is Vera.”

  The relief that filled Freddy was like helium in a balloon, lifting his whole body. “Oh, hi, Vera. I just all of a sudden panicked. About Grandma and stuff.”

  “I understand. I will go to her room now, but I am sure that she is fine, because Sherry checked on her an hour ago. Do you wish to hold the line while I look?”

  “Yes, please.” I’m crazy, he told himself. Auburn has no way of knowing where my grandmother is. Or even that I have a grandmother.

  But what about the Leper pendant, which Freddy had totally forgotten to think about? What had it been doing at that front desk?

  Freddy had been a hundred percent wrong about his own invisibility. If that had been Auburn out on the grass, he had been wrong that nobody could find him at Grandma’s house. He could also be wrong that nobody knew about MMC.

  Except, who would care?

  “She’s fine, Mr. Bell,” said Vera. “Sleeping soundly.”

  Freddy drank tap water, drank some more, and headed back downstairs. He worked until dark was turning to dawn when he stepped outside to taste the air and feel the temperature. From the Way Back came the howls of a dog.

  He’d forgotten Snap.

  He raced down barely visible paths to find Snap lunging against the noose of his leash. “Sorry,” he said to the dog. “I’m really sorry. I forgot I have a dog now. Go ahead, bite me, I deserve it.”

  Snap obliged, but Freddy was wearing jeans, so not too much happened. He and Snap ran around the property for a while, and then Freddy took Snap into the shop, filled a small heavy mixing bowl with dog food and a medium heavy mixing bowl with water. He scrounged upstairs for old comforters and made a pile in the corner of the studio.

  Snap ate, drank, sniffed corners, settled down on the comforters, and went to sleep.

  Freddy lit up. For a few minutes, life was simple and he was happy. When you smoked, being a misfit didn’t matter. To thine own self be true, said literature, teachers, ministers, and parents. But being yourself was no symphony. Your themes and fragments didn’t harmonize. Your family didn’t want to listen to your music anyway.

  SATURDAY

  Chapter Eighteen

  Laura was up way too early on Saturday morning. She had dreamed of Maude. She fixed coffee because she knew she couldn’t go back to sleep. Her landline rang, startling her. Who would call at this hour? Had Aunt Polly fallen? Had heart failure? Been murdered?

  I have plenty of gas in the car, Laura thought. I can get up there right away. “Hello?” she said anxiously.

  “It’s Howard, Mrs. Maple. Sorry to bother you so early. We got an emergency. I’ve been there half the night. This really old Presbyterian church in Westchester County? We rebuilt their whole organ a few years ago, and it’s a great instrument, and they were doing roof repairs on the slate roof—slate, you know, not that many people know how to work on it anymore—and they didn’t attach the tarps as well as they should, and there was this really serious windstorm, which you didn’t get up in your area, you might have seen it on the Weather Channel though, and the rain came in all over the pipes. Can’t get to your place this week. I’m really sorry.”

  Laura stared at her shrink-wrapped grand pianos. Her plastic-covered bookcases. The coffins of pipe, the pieces of console, and the dead, smelly summer piano.

  “Or maybe two weeks,” he added.

  Was she supposed to say Thank you, you’re so kind to call? If she went all rude on him, she’d wait months for him to show up again. “It sounds difficult,” she said. She wanted to cry.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” Howard said brightly, as if he were going to Europe and might send a postcard. “Have a nice day.”

  Grandma’s landline rang. Freddy never paid attention to that phone. He kept it for the same reason he kept the furniture: Grandma wasn’t dead. It was still her house and her phone.

  But then his cell rang, and the caller ID said Laura Maple. Freddy was freaked. He didn’t have her number and she didn’t have his. They were MMC buddies but they weren’t buddies. “Mrs. Maple,” he said nervously. “How did you get this number?”

  “I called the desk and said I had misplaced your number and they gave me both of yours. No one answered the one with the local area code, so I called this.”

  So just like that, she knew both Grandma’s landline and his cell number. If she knew how to do a reverse phone search, then she knew his (Grandma’s) street address. And if she could get it, anybody could.

  Yesterday, a rodent was smarter than I am, thought Freddy. Today roadkill is smarter.

  “Freddy, have you looked at the news?”

  Freddy’s interest in the news hovered close to zero. Sometimes less than zero, such as when he really didn’t want to hear what the Federal Reserve was up to. “No,” said Freddy. He decided to give Mrs. Maple her own ringtone. It should be Bach. Did they have the Toccata in D minor? They had to, it was classic.

  “There were television crews at Memory Care,” she told him.

  He should have expected this. What’s more deranged and headliney than murder in a dementia ward?

  “Bad publicity is hurtful to institutions,” said Mrs. Maple. “We need MMC. We don’t want it damaged. I’m going up. Are you?”

  Freddy couldn’t stand the thought of going to MMC again so soon. His back and arms ached from a whole night of glass. He was hungry, his eyes were burning, and he wanted to sleep all day. “I might,” he said cautiously.

  “I want to know whether the residents are in danger and precisely what Detective Ames is doing to keep them safe.”

  Freddy had to laugh. “Get out. You’re just dying of curiosity.”

  “That too,” she admitted.

  Freddy rounded up dog food, filled a pail with water, woke Snap, got nipped, and dragged Snap back to the tire swing.

  Up Grandma’s driveway came the oxygen truck.

  The truck left the driveway and came down the grassy slope to the patio on the lower level. As the lift gate was coming down, Freddy asked after the driver’s kids, and the driver said his daughter had made JV basketball and his son was doing a robot project. The driver was seriously burly and had no trouble wrestling the gleaming stainless-steel tank over to the connection.

  Propane you could get anywhere. Oxygen, not so much.

  The delivery guy knew Freddy wasn’t using this for medical reasons. In fact, he had bought some of Freddy’s beads as a gift for his wife’s birthday. He wouldn’t rat on Freddy, but nobody needed to rat. Doc would check oxygen delivery. There were only two suppliers in this part of the state. The deliveries were made to the house of Vincent Chase, no mention of a guy named Freddy Bell, and that might delay Doc for a day or a minute but not more.

  Getting oxygen was like getting a timer. It lasted for about a month, so it was a use-it-or-lose-it asset. He was debating between sleep and mo
re glass when his cell rang again. “Hey, Karrie Darrie.”

  “Freddy, I believe I’ve outgrown the nickname ‘Karrie Darrie.’ I just saw the news. You went national, Freddy. Grandma is in an institution where staff members are murdering people? You didn’t call us? We didn’t all Skype about where to move her? I certainly hope you now have her safely at home with you.”

  Home was full of steps and stairs, a gas stove, a yard that led to railroad tracks, and a dog that bit. It was not safe; it never would be. “Kara, Grandma is fine at MMC. The staff is wonderful. I trust them.”

  “I suppose you know every single one of them well.”

  “No, I don’t. It doesn’t matter. They’re good people.”

  Kara lectured her brother on his feckless ways. “If our grandmother is in danger,” Kara finished threateningly, “and you aren’t working to protect her, Freddy, I will never forgive you.”

  Kara had not forgiven Freddy for a number of things, and he didn’t want to add to her list.

  “They’re taking steps,” he said, although he couldn’t think of any.

  “Freddy, bring Grandma home,” his sister ordered.

  “How about I drive her to your home instead? Get her room ready. Stock up on disposable adult underpants. You’ll need to change her about every two hours. She’s leaky. Sitting in her mess will give her infections. You’ll feed her, because she forgets. You have to encourage every bite and remind her to swallow. She needs exercise, so you’ll force her to use her walker. She’d rather slump in the wheelchair. You have three floors in your house and a lot of stairs, so start remodeling. You need a handicapped bathroom. Half her medications are given before meals and the other half—”

  His sister was crying.

  “What? You think this is a joke, Kara? You think she’s just there because I’m lazy? She needs care twenty-four seven. And MMC is the right place.”