The Grandmother Plot

by Caroline B. Cooney

  She lacked the energy to discuss dead piano smells. She didn’t invite him to sit because there wasn’t anywhere. She poured him a cup of coffee. He wanted sugar. She gave him sugar.

  “We’ve been looking into Mr. Bell’s situation,” said the detective, leaning on the counter. “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s a sweet, good soul. His mother instructed him that if anything should happen to her, Freddy was in charge of his grandmother. His mother did in fact die. Freddy has shouldered that responsibility with grace.”

  Laura prayed for grace.

  Her own mother had been fifty-eight when she got Alzheimer’s. Susan Chamberlain turned into a wreck so fast, she was like a sped-up film of decay. Her beautiful face went slack, her voice became a monotone, she slouched when she walked and missed her mouth when she lifted the spoon.

  Laura could have dealt with that.

  But her mother became sly and vicious. Her speech was mostly swear words. She accused Laura of stealing from her, and she threw things at people.

  The doctors said this behavior was not uncommon; paranoia was a feature of Alzheimer’s.

  Laura hated being around her mother. Hated looking at her destroyed features and hearing her four-letter words. And the terrible day came when Laura simply hated her mother.

  She put her mother in an institution because aides wouldn’t stay. Susan bit them.

  Laura explained to everybody that she had to be excused from the burden of visiting and thus be able remember her mother as the warm, good woman she had once been, not the creature she’d become.

  That was what Laura called her mother. A burden. A creature.

  Susan Chamberlain lived two more years.

  Laura didn’t visit.

  Not once.

  Alzheimer’s ate Susan up and spit her out. Laura not only paid other people to deal with it; she didn’t check to see if they bothered.

  Mother wouldn’t want me to suffer, Laura told everybody in a lofty voice. She would want me to celebrate life.

  So Laura had celebrated life. Her own. She had dismissed the angry, desperate, terrified woman who was formerly her mother and let her sink.

  There were residents at MMC who had no visitors, and oh, how Laura understood. You’ll pay a price, she wanted to tell their families. You’ll always know that you are weak and cruel.

  “Taking care of an old woman with dementia can’t be the life plan of a twenty-six-year-old man,” said Wayne Ames.

  She had forgotten the detective was even here. “No,” she said sadly. “That’s what makes Freddy so admirable.”

  “Do you know what Mr. Bell does for a living?” asked Wayne Ames.

  “He makes glass beads.” She dug into her purse for the little plastic baggie with his gift. “Aren’t they beautiful? Look how the colors bleed into each other. I haven’t had them made into a necklace yet. I have a neighbor who beads and she’d do it for me, but I enjoy having them loose and taking them out to admire.”

  Wayne Ames had a strange expression on his face. After a while, he said, “Freddy never signs in or out. And we know now that the staff is frequently too busy to notice visitors. They’re off in some bedroom or bathroom, the activity room, the nurses’ record room. Freddy could have been there the night of Maude’s murder, and no one would know.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Last night,” he said, “Freddy slept in his grandmother’s room.”

  “Really? I love to think of him doing that.” She had never spent a minute in her mother’s room, let alone slept there. She had never even worried about her mother. She just wrote her off, like a bad debt.

  “He’s a druggie, Mrs. Maple. They’re all dangerous. Why do you suppose he spent the night there? What do you think he had in mind?”

  Laura swung her handbag around and whacked Wayne Ames in the face.

  She did not carry an entry-level bag. Her purse was serious. Her whole life was in there. She had her iPad for music and books and a real book as well, her reading glasses, cell phone, tissues, hand wipes, lipsticks, compact, notebook for lists, Charlie Ives material, a catalog to peruse, and a little envelope fat with grocery coupons.

  He was not expecting the attack. She got him straight on.

  Generally speaking, it was probably unwise to hit policemen, bruise their lips, and give them bloody noses. Probably if Freddy had done it, he’d be jailed.

  But she was thin and gray and decades older than Wayne Ames. She realized with pleasure that this gave her a certain power. What was he going to do about this? Admit it?

  She pulled a tissue pack out of her purse and handed it over.

  He sighed, squished the sides of his nose together, and blotted the blood. “Mr. Yardley told me that you’re taking an unhealthy interest in his wife’s demise. He must really think that, since he just drove down here to yell at you.”

  “I’m taking a sensible interest. My vulnerable aunt lives steps away from where that murder happened.”

  “You told a number of people that dying is not necessarily a bad thing.”

  Laura used his first name to diminish him. “Wayne, dying comes to everybody. It is natural. Maude’s death wasn’t natural. That’s why it is dreadful. But prior to senility, I am sure every resident of Middletown Memory Care would have chosen death over the life they lead now.”

  “A lot of those people seem content.”

  “How do you define contentment? Are you thinking of Mr. Griffin perhaps? Who has spent years trying to find his car keys, his car, and his parking lot? Desperately trying to get to work on time? Knocking on doors and pleading for guidance? Is he content?”

  “So you think it’s a good idea to help someone die.”

  “Somebody suffocated Maude, young man. You are looking for somebody vicious and cruel. That person could be a crazy passerby or a brutal staff member or a greedy relative. But do not so carelessly use the word ‘help,’ because nobody helped Maude Yardley.”

  She escorted him to the door. She would never forgive him for implying that Freddy could be the murderer.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Freddy had just merged onto Route 9 on his way home when his cell rang. Laura Maple.

  Freddy wanted a life without old ladies. He wanted a life where Br and Shawn lived free. He wanted to be rid of the Leper and Doc. He wanted never to cross paths with Auburn again.

  I’m just a guy, he thought. All I want is food and a friend and flamework. Like Snap. He’s just a dog. All he wants is food and somebody to chew on. “Hey, Mapes.”

  “Freddy, the police think I did it.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Kenneth Yardley told them that I am taking an unhealthy interest in the funeral. And then they found Aunt Polly’s watch in Maude’s room.”

  This was meaningless. Half the residents didn’t know what room they lived in anyway and were always going in the wrong one, while the wanderer crowd would go through any door, sit on any chair, pick up anybody’s possession, or abandon their own. The aides generally recognized knickknacks and could return them to their proper owners, but there was a constant drift of stuff.

  “Ames is just poking,” he told her. “Police do that. They’re like wild dogs. They smell fear. They smell secrets. But not to worry. The police have to have evidence, and there isn’t any, for you or anybody else.”

  Although Br was going to be convicted by planted evidence and false statements. In one effortless minute, Auburn and Danielle had destroyed Br.

  “They’re probably going to suspect everybody,” he comforted Mrs. Maple. “They’ll probably suspect me next.”

  Freddy so did not want to be suspected next.

  He was not paying income tax.

  He was driving two vehicles not his own on which he had no insurance.

  He had
failed to notify Social Security that Alice Bell was no longer alive, and he was living off his mother’s monthly income.

  He was making drug paraphernalia.

  He was laundering money.

  And the best glass of his life had died through a fake bid.

  Mrs. Maple told him about Betty Sherwood and the photograph album, proof that Kenneth was in fact Robert Lansing.

  Freddy didn’t give cops much credit, but anything Mrs. Maple could find out, the cops could find out. They had to know by now about Kenneth/Bobby.

  The impersonation made it even harder to believe that Kenneth had murdered Maude. If Kenneth really was Cousin Bobby, he’d be out buying beachfront with Kenneth’s cash, not spooning pudding into Maude’s mouth.

  Except you could spoon something other than pudding. Suppose you crushed up strong heart medication and mixed that in. Suppose you came often so you could overdose her. Nobody would do an autopsy if an old lady’s heart stopped. It was supposed to stop.

  But if she was such a tough old bird that her heart kept beating no matter what you slugged down her throat?

  If all you did was spoon pudding, you could pretend you weren’t killing her. But hold her down hard enough to bruise her, jamming that cloth into her mouth and over her nose, you’d know you were a murderer. You’d feel Maude’s agony in your own personal fingers.

  You probably wouldn’t be caught taking the pudding route. But the suffocation route—you had to be some desperate to consider that.

  What was the desperate part?

  “Kenneth walked right into my house this morning,” said Mrs. Maple.

  “Well, definitely start locking your doors,” said Freddy, hoping he had remembered to lock Grandma’s, especially now that Doc, the Leper, and Auburn were all in the picture. Come to think of it, so was that detective, asking about how to wreck a glass shop.

  It was pretty much a cinch to blow up a glass shop. Just get yourself a good combination of oxygen and propane and figure out how to ignite it without killing yourself.

  Freddy thought of fire consuming generations of family stuff. Photographs since photography began. Teacups and crochet and paint-by-number oil paintings Alice had done when she was ten and they still hung on the wall. In a hideous way, it wouldn’t be so bad. Freddy and his sisters didn’t know what to do with all that stuff anyway.

  Freddy was too worn out to drive, which had never happened to him before. He exited 9 and headed for a coffee shop. At the bottom of the ramp, with no car behind him, he came to a full stop and checked his texts.

  Kara had written.

  I’m flying down.

  Kara? In his actual house, by his actual side?

  There was enough going on without his bossy sister invading. What would happen when Kara gave the bottom level of Grandma’s house a thorough inspection?

  No worries. She’ll see a lot of equipment she doesn’t understand, I’ll give her a pretty bead and shoo her upstairs. If she does catch on to the pipes, I’ll shrug. What did you think I was doing? And it’s none of your business, unless you want to buy one. Or two. And if you think I’m too morally corrupt to take care of Grandma, you do it.

  Freddy realized with a catch in his throat that he did not want his sister to take over Grandma. Kara loved the grandma who had existed in their childhood. But that grandma did not live here anymore. This grandma would not know Kara and, very possibly, had no memory of Kara at all. Kara would be dutiful, but would she love Grandma anyway?

  Because that was the trick. Loving your person anyway.

  Plus he couldn’t let Kara be alone in a house when Doc or Auburn might come calling.

  “Yet another thing happened early this morning, Freddy,” said Mrs. Maple. “That detective, Wayne Ames, came to my house and all but accused you of suffocating Maude. I hit him in the face with my handbag and gave him a bloody nose.”

  Freddy was rather braced by the idea that somebody out there could make even stupider decisions than he did. Mapes, of all people. “It was nice of you to defend me. But what made Ames think about me to start with?”

  “I don’t know. He had a peculiar expression on his face when I showed him your beautiful beads. And he called you—Freddy, these are not my words—he called you a druggie.”

  Freddy parked at the diner. He began thinking of bacon.

  “The policeman said that what you actually do, Freddy, is make drug paraphernalia.”

  Don’t lecture me, Freddy prayed. We’re not gonna be friends if you do.

  “Oh, Freddy!” she cried, his mother reincarnated. “Surely you could go back to school and find a nicer occupation, like being an accountant or something.”

  “Glass isn’t an occupation really,” he said lightly. “Making pipes is more like a sport. Prison to avoid, taxes to dodge, gang members to be invisible to, and all the time, creating things of great beauty for which college men will pay insane amounts of money. Their parents’ money, that is. Come on, Mapes. You hang out with me in nursing homes. You know I’m not a dirty, long-haired dope fiend. See you later.”

  He hung up, and then, remembering other possible dope fiends, called to make an appointment with the Middletown lawyer.

  They put him on hold. He thought about skipping the whole thing, and then, just when he expected to be squeezed in next month, they said to come right now.

  Whoa. Dr. Burnworth’s name was some powerful.

  Once more, Freddy drove north up 9. How could a person make glass with all this commuting? It was probably a good thing he was living rent-free.

  He parked where he was least likely to run into Auburn or Doc: the county courthouse.

  Jenny called before he could get out of the truck. She refused to discuss Australia, although it was having wildfires right now, and Freddy thought fire was a fine topic. “I’m calling because you won’t listen to Kara. I want you to move Grandma out of there. You don’t do anything all day anyway. Find another home for her. That minister will help you.”

  Jenny knew perfectly well who “that minister” was. She had grown up in his church. Plus Dr. Burnworth’s joy was teaching delinquent kids to play tennis, because he believed in the discipline of sports, and Jenny had been a partner with various semi-willing participants and even written her college application essay about it. Furthermore, “that minister” had performed Jenny’s wedding.

  But wherever Jenny had dumped religion, Freddy didn’t go there. He half thought his sisters were jealous of Lily and George Burnworth because they really did visit the needy, the jailed, and the sick, whereas Freddy’s sisters just gave orders from a distance.

  “Kara has researched online, Freddy, and set up interviews at two other memory-care institutions where people are not murdering each other.”

  Freddy had received this email and paid no attention to it. “Jenny, those places are in northwest Connecticut. There are no direct routes from here. There are hardly any indirect routes. It’ll be local two-lane roads with a million traffic lights. How am I going to visit? It’s gotta be hours each way.”

  “Freddy, you make beads. You can take time off. Don’t be selfish.”

  “You’re the one being selfish. We can’t ask Grandma to adjust to another place.”

  “She has dementia,” yelled Jenny. “What kind of adjustment is there?”

  Freddy thought of his grandmother’s first week at MMC: her confusion and despair, how she clung to him, begging to go home. She couldn’t eat, sleep, or figure out who all these blurry strangers were. He thought of the terrible second afternoon when she crawled onto his lap and lifted a tearstained, runny-nosed face. Mrs. Burnworth had peeled her off, told Freddy to leave, and put her own arms around Cordelia Chase.

  When Freddy had stumbled out of MMC that day, sick that he had inflicted this agony on his poor grandmother, he ran into Will, husband of Irene. Will took Freddy ou
t for a drink although Freddy wasn’t into alcohol, being satisfied with nicotine and weed. “Your grandmother will calm down by the end of the week,” Will told him. “She’ll get into a routine and won’t remember how awful it was. It’s the only blessing there is with memory loss. They really do forget.”

  Freddy loved Jenny. He loved all his sisters. But his allies in this nightmare were strangers like Will, ministers like Dr. Burnworth—there were plenty of other ministers and priests who stopped by MMC—and new friends like Tree Lady. “Talk to you later, Jenny,” he said. “I have an appointment.”

  “Freddy! My time zone—”

  Freddy abandoned her to the Australian wildfires and walked two blocks to a nice, old brick building, the kind that says Sturdy, reliable, and historic. Lawyers here overcharge.

  The guy turned out to be a hefty middle-aged man with great hanging jowls. Freddy hoped his own face wouldn’t end up like that. How did you shave? You’d have to yank on the puddles of your cheeks, smoothening them so you could move a razor around.

  He had a hard time spitting out the story, and when he was finally done, the attorney studied Freddy thoughtfully. “Not much surprises me anymore. But this does.”

  “I can pay you. It shouldn’t be that many hours.” He certainly hoped it wouldn’t be that many hours.

  “Pay me from making pipes?”

  Freddy thought of the trombone with wings that Gary Leperov would probably not pay for. “Well, yeah, I don’t earn enough from beads.” Or pay out of Mom’s social security, he thought, ordering himself to call Social Security and deal with that and knowing he wouldn’t. “I can’t be part of this. You do it. The fingerprints on that baggie are not going to be Br’s. The fingerprints are Auburn’s and Danielle’s.”

  “Auburn told you she was in Br’s car with a ‘big baggie of coke,’ right?” asked the attorney. “So she’s a dealer?”

  Freddy nodded, but now he was confused all over again. Would a dealer give away her supply just to sucker punch a stranger? Dealers didn’t want losses; they wanted gains. What would Auburn gain by destroying Br?