On the other hand, it was a psycho stalker thing to do. “I don’t have the whole picture,” he said. My motto, he thought glumly.
The attorney rocked back in his swivel chair, which had several handles for the proper adjustment to height and weight. Freddy, who stood up to work, had no knowledge of chairs, but it looked pretty comfy. “Done,” said the attorney, offering his hand.
“You didn’t tell me the fee.”
The guy shrugged, whatever that meant. “You say hello to George Burnworth for me.”
Freddy didn’t actually skip back to the truck, but he felt kind of lighthearted. Br was getting saved, or maybe, or partly, and—
“Freddy.”
Doc was leaning against the truck, a fleshy barricade in a T-shirt with the sleeves slit to fit his biceps. Freddy did not think of himself as small, but next to Doc, he was a twig. If Doc swatted Freddy with the flat of his hand, he’d break Freddy’s jaw. And if he wanted to crush Freddy’s head in a car door, he could grip Freddy’s skull in one hand—the hand whose massive fingers wore sharply protruding rings.
Still and all, Freddy couldn’t see Doc mutilating Shawn’s dog.
“You’re getting on the Leper’s nerves,” said Doc. “This is the second time I’ve had to drive to your stupid little state with all its stupid trees.” He handed his phone to Freddy, and the phone began ringing wherever Gary Leperov was.
It went to voicemail, which was worse. Whatever he said would last forever. “Gary, now that I know it’s cocaine, I really can’t do it. I’m out.” He handed the phone back.
“Where did you get the idea that he’s in coke?” said Doc. “We’re weed, all weed.”
“What about the cocaine jar pendants you’re selling at Auburn’s?”
“Huh?”
“The Leper fingers.”
“They’re pendants, Freddy. Regular old pendants.”
Freddy looked away, trying to gather his thoughts. Doc’s white Toyota Corolla was parked right next to his truck, and he hadn’t even noticed. The passenger window was down, and Skinny was sitting there.
The guy was scary thin, like he ate a week ago and might eat again next week, because all his calories were drug calories. Even his hair was thin and his pitiful beard. Around his neck, Skinny wore a Leper nose. He was grinning. His teeth were rotted out, and his lips were crusty and swollen. He actually resembled his pendant.
You didn’t get like that from weed. This looked like meth.
And this was Doc’s sidekick? Freddy could totally see this guy with a machete and paws.
“The Lep is building your career, Freddy,” said Doc, using his best bedside manner. “Every bid he makes on your glass impresses everybody else. You’re going to be somebody someday. Or you’re going to be dead meat. You choose.” Doc took off his cap to scratch his head. He was going bald.
He’s too old for this game, thought Freddy. He wanted to be a surgeon, but he’s just running errands, and the years are turning into decades.
Doc held out a large yellow envelope. “Sales receipts. Your BABE information, your hotel and plane. I’ve got you flying out of Providence.”
Freddy didn’t take it.
Doc let go. The envelope fell flat on the sidewalk. “Your name’s on everything, Freddy. And just so you know, down Main Street here, cops are walking into Auburn’s. You want some advice? Stay away from Auburn. She’s a predator.”
“You deal with her.”
“Freddy, I’m a predator. We’re a match. You’re prey.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Laura looked at her previously beautiful, currently hideous music room.
She considered covering the piano shrink-wraps with her white damask tablecloths and setting bouquets on them, but that would look even more peculiar.
She had inherited linens, silver, crystal, and ridiculous amounts of china. Her children had no interest. When Laura died, everything she cherished would go to the thrift shop. Her daughter and daughter-in-law were not going to set the table with silver and crystal. In fact, they didn’t set a table at all but ate like scavengers. Watching her grandchildren dine was like watching a nature show, where the vultures flew in, ripped off a piece of flesh, and flew away.
“I changed my mind,” said Kemmy. “I want to see it.”
“Kemmy! You’re shortening my life, creeping up like this.”
“You didn’t lock your front door,” said Kemmy severely. “When you come inside your house, you lock it behind you, Laura. How hard is that? At least answer when somebody knocks and yells. I thought you had fallen. That’s why I walked in. I bet you need hearing aids.”
“My hearing is perfect!”
“No, it isn’t. Is that it? On the piano?”
Laura nodded. She already cherished her possible Charles Ives more than any music in her library. Kemmy stroked the soft old page and inspected each side.
According to the biographer, there was quite a bit of lost Charles Ives music. In 1891 and ’92, when he was in his late teens, he composed dozens of pieces for organ, chorus, band, and voice, including elegies for departed pets, and much of this had vanished without being published.
“I Googled Charles Ives,” said Kemmy. “Pictures of his manuscripts look kind of like this, but not really. This looks fake.”
Laura bristled.
“All these wavy lines and cross-outs and jottings,” said Kemmy skeptically.
“The paper itself is very old,” Laura pointed out. “Nobody makes paper like this now.”
“Somebody could have forged it.”
“Oh, please. Back then, nobody thought highly enough of Charlie to bother.” Laura forced herself to present the likelier possibility. “It could have been written by his father, though. ‘Sweet By and By’ was George Ives’s trademark hymn. And since this is the Seeley family piano, Seeley people also played it. One of them could have been a musician.”
“We have to get this authenticated,” said Kemmy briskly. “Luckily we know a doctoral candidate who has an Ives background.”
“You mean Gordon Clary? He’s a jerk,” said Laura.
“That’s a little strong. But he’s our jerk and he’s been bragging about his Ives knowledge, so I’ll ask him to look at it.”
Kemmy left with the manuscript. The empty house loomed around Laura: all her silly projects, ridiculous collections, and foolish plans. If only she liked shopping. Then she’d always have a destination because there was always another store.
But it wasn’t possessions for which she yearned.
Doc and Skinny drove away without slamming Freddy’s head in the door. Freddy was tense around Doc but not scared. He was scared of Skinny. And definitely scared of Auburn.
Freddy looked down at the envelope.
Probably should pick that up, he thought. Probably incriminating.
Instead he backed out of his parking space and drove over it. He left Middletown by a weird little road next to the railroad tracks, got on 9, immediately exited, made a turn, and circled a block.
No white Toyota Corolla followed him.
He was taking a slow, circuitous country-lane route back to Grandma’s house when Dr. Burnworth called. Did the minister want to check on why Freddy needed a criminal attorney? He so didn’t want a discussion.
But it was way worse. “Kara phoned,” said Dr. Burnworth.
“Yeah, she wants to visit,” said Freddy glumly. “Tell her the house is sliding into a sinkhole and it isn’t safe.”
“My worry, Freddy, is that Middletown Memory Care is sliding into a sinkhole. How about you have dinner here tonight and we’ll talk about our options?”
If the pastor was straight from a conversation with Kara, the option they had in mind was for Freddy to shop around for new nursing homes. Plus work out interim raised-ranch care.
“
Pie for dessert,” said Dr. Burnworth.
Freddy said nothing.
Dr. Burnworth upped the ante. “Home-baked, fresh-from-the-oven pie using local apples. Brown-sugar crumb topping. Real whipped cream. No spray cans, no plastic tubs.”
Oh, well then. “What time?” asked Freddy.
“Five. We’re eating early because I have a church committee meeting this evening.”
Freddy didn’t often have dinner at five, but it could also be said that Freddy didn’t often have dinner. He ate when he was starved or it was convenient.
“Wow!” said Freddy, full of pie and food happiness. “Mrs. Burnworth, you are a great baker.”
“George told you the pie was home baked,” said Lily Burnworth, “but I don’t think he said I baked it. I haven’t baked in a hundred years. I buy these from a neighbor, so we always have homemade goodies around, and people think I’m an outstanding pastor’s wife, which I am. I’m just not the baker.”
Freddy liked that. He didn’t like the Skype call Mrs. Burnworth now set up with Kara. “Really?” he said. “The pie was a trick?”
Lily Burnworth smiled. “Sit next to me, Freddy.”
South Dakota came into focus.
How beautiful Kara was. She resembled their dead mother so much it hurt.
Kara gave him a stretched-tight smile. “Freddy, I check my Facebook all day long. Our high school class has a website. So I know about Shawn. On top of everything else, your best friend on the shoreline deals coke?”
The Burnworths gasped.
Freddy didn’t think they would have known Shawn. Their only kid was a lot younger and had gone to a different high school, plus the Aminettis were Catholic so they wouldn’t cross paths in church. But the Burnworths sure didn’t like finding out that Freddy hung around with dealers. If he wanted more pie, he’d have to cut his own slice.
“I’ll send you my flight number and arrival time as soon as I have arranged it, Freddy,” said Kara sternly, “and you will pick me up at Bradley Airport. Write this down, Freddy. I need you to buy me vanilla soy milk. I need—”
Freddy walked away.
Mrs. Burnworth leaned into Skype view. “Kara, darling, we so want you to stay with us instead. Freddy is a young bachelor, and perhaps housekeeping is not his strength, but our guest room is charming and we love your company. Now give me the shopping list.”
Why am I fighting Kara’s visit? Freddy wondered. It’s good that she’s coming. I can resign from all this. It’s Kara’s turn anyway, and she wants her turn, and she’ll be good at it. Better than I am.
Freddy left the Burnworths, went to Grandma’s and fed Snap, got back on 9, and drove to Middletown for the third time that day. Night, actually. By the time he took the MMC exit, it was nearly eleven. He wasn’t going back because of Auburn. Not because of Doc either. Maybe because of Skinny. Maybe because of his sisters. Definitely because of Grandma.
He was bone tired. He could probably sleep tight even on cot wires.
A block away, he saw a sea of bright-red and white circling lights.
By the time he turned into MMC, he was in full panic mode. He expected an ambulance, a fire truck, and a rescue vehicle: those were protocol. But the visitor lot was also full of cop cars. So it wasn’t a fall. It must be a homicide.
His sisters had been way right. But they always were. How come he kept pretending he knew anything?
Please, God, he prayed, please let it not be Grandma. He managed to park, turn off the car, and drop the keys in his pocket. When he ran toward the front entrance, his legs felt like they were different lengths.
A cop stopped him, hands up, like for cars in traffic. He was in uniform, heavily equipped. Burly. Big gut.
Don’t shove him, Freddy told himself. Don’t get in a fight. “My grandmother,” he said. “I gotta check on her.”
“Yeah? How’d you find out anything was going on?” asked the cop, as if Freddy might be the murderer, coming back to gloat and observe.
Freddy was instantly furious. “Wild guess,” he said, gesturing at the badly parked, idling emergency vehicles. “I have to check on my grandmother,” he repeated, trying to get past.
“Calm down,” said the cop.
People who told him to calm down went straight to Freddy’s hate list.
“The victim is male,” said the cop.
Victim. People weren’t “victims” of falls. So his guess had been right. Somebody else had been suffocated. And at this hour, who could have done it but a staff member?
Freddy’s thoughts throbbed in circular blinking color, like the lights on the roof of each squad car. He couldn’t grab a thought and make it go anywhere. The cop was holding his arm, which normally Freddy would not ignore, but he had better things to do than worry about a cop’s grip. On his cell, he clicked the MMH contact.
“Middletown Memory Care. Constanza speaking. How may I direct your call?”
“Constanza, it’s Freddy. I’m outside. They won’t let me in. Is my grandmother all right? Mrs. Chase? Cordelia Chase?” He thought, Wait. Constanza works days. What does it mean that she’s here tonight? The old short-staffing excuse? Or getting herself in position to commit a homicide?
But he couldn’t imagine Constanza ever hurting anybody.
“I’m sure she’s fine, Freddy,” said Constanza. “I’ll have an aide from her wing call you, though. But it’s Philip, Freddy. They’re all here for Philip.”
“Philip?”
“They found him outside in the garden. In the dark. Alone. By himself. He didn’t have his cane or his walker. He was just there on the grass. And he was dead. And how did he even get out there? Who opened the door for him? Who walked him there? Freddy, they’re talking to everybody because they think… Oh, yes, Mrs. Reilly, I’m simply reassuring Mrs. Chase’s grandson that she’s fine. Excuse me, Freddy, I have to put you on hold.”
Philip.
Poor angry, desperate Philip.
Freddy’s eyes smarted. He wiped at them. Philip, always trying to protect his desk. Philip, singing “In the sweet by and by.”
And then the detective guy was next to him. Wayne Ames. Who had asked how to destroy a glass studio. “Mr. Bell,” said the detective in a slow, skeptical drawl. “What are you doing here?”
Like it was a crime to show up. “Checking on my grandmother.”
“The staff just finished a check on every single resident. So she’s fine.”
“I’m not taking your word for it. I have to see her. Anyway, I’m spending the night.”
“Not tonight. We have plenty of people here to make sure the residents are safe. How did you find out anything was happening here, Freddy?”
“I guess the cop cars, the fire truck, and the ambulance tipped me off.”
A swarm of cops were floating around the building. A few of them headed in Freddy’s direction.
“Okay, I’m back,” said Constanza in his ear. “Sherry, she’s the night nurse tonight, she thinks Philip just fell or maybe had a heart attack because he had several over the years before he came here. But still, somehow he got out, or somebody took him out, and the police are calling it a suspicious death. They don’t actually know what killed him. I mean, there’s no blood or anything. It’s just that he couldn’t have gotten outside by himself.”
He could have actually. Rather easily.
When an employee or a family person went out to the garden, they’d put in the code, and the heavy exit door could then be pushed open. It would slowly close by itself, leaving time for a wheelchair or walker to get through, and its own weight would cause it to relock. But you could catch it before it closed and slow its momentum, and then it would rest against the lock instead of catching it. There was also a wooden wedge you could kick under the door to keep it open. You might do that if you were going out for just a moment, to water a hanging p
ot of flowers, say, or if you needed the door to stay open while you brought a whole group of residents outdoors for an activity.
He remembered suddenly that Mr. Griffin had gotten himself locked outside in that garden a few days ago. He, Freddy, had let Mr. Griffin back in. It hadn’t occurred to Freddy to report the incident. It hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder about it.
He didn’t think there was a patient on the wing who could learn, let alone apply, the code. Certainly not Mr. Griffin or Philip.
He had a chilling image of a serial accident causer, some lunatic staff member smirking as a resident fell.
But it could be an accident. The door could have been left ajar this evening because somebody had previously gone outside or was still outside.
Constanza said Philip didn’t have his cane or walker, but Philip could have used the walls as support to reach the door. He was definitely strong enough to open it, which Grandma, say, could never do. He could have tottered along one of the paths. Tripped out there. Fallen facedown and broken his neck. Fallen backward and hit his head. Or had another heart attack and collapsed.
Except—Freddy glanced at his phone—it must have happened after dinner. Say after eight or nine or ten.
Nobody took excursions then. But who would entice Philip outside? Who could possibly want to hurt him?
His phone rang again. Jade—not calling on the MMC phone but her own cell. Jade working evenings? Double shifts? He should be impressed and grateful, but he remembered with nausea how Jade got her jollies.
“Constanza told me to call you,” she said irritably. She had definitely not forgiven him for the whole Polly video thing. “Your grandmother’s fine, Freddy. Slept through most of it. Woke up a few minutes ago for the bathroom. I tucked her back in.”
“I was going to spend the night again.”
“They won’t let you. But she’ll be safer than toast with all these people here.”
“Toast?” repeated Freddy.
“Yeah, you know. Bread. With butter. Can you think of anything safer?”
Freddy had never thought of toast in terms of safety, but okay. Whatever. “Thanks, Jade.” His phone had barely any power left. It upped his anxiety to think that he could be phoneless in a minute.
The Grandmother Plot Page 17
