The driver lowered the shaded windows. “Hop in, Laura,” said Kemmy decisively. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Oh, thank you, but I’m headed the opposite direction.”
“I know, but we have things to talk about.”
“Kemmy, didn’t we have an emotionally draining session just a minute ago? Let’s not have another episode.”
“It was an hour ago, and in the midst of all that sharing, I forgot about the problem with Gordon Clary. I just now made my third stop at your house in one morning.”
“Second,” said Laura.
“No, remember, I stopped by before we sobbed on the couch, so the sobbing was the second visit. This is my third. We’re going back to your house to discuss the piano. That’ll be my fourth visit before lunch. My life isn’t usually this ridiculous.”
“Don’t worry about the piano. I had it taken to the dump.”
“You what?”
“Kemmy, it was smelly. The junk guys just left with it.”
“We have to get it back!”
“It’s a dead piano,” said Laura, “and it’s my dead piano. You gave it to me. But you were right all along. The only thing it was good for is a beach bonfire. But fires are outlawed now, so I sent it to the dump.”
“Laura! Gordon Clary called me back yesterday evening, informing me that he knew best and he would decide what to do with the manuscript. You were absolutely right. The combined arrogance of youth and Yale is not to be believed. I drove right down to New Haven and took it back. Early this morning, when you should have been home, you weren’t home, and the front door was literally open! I dropped the manuscript off. Then the second time I came, I got you so upset, I forgot to tell you. I mean, who cares about a piece of paper when a friend is weeping?” Kemmy leaned way across her front seat and opened the passenger door. “Your house was wide open each time, Laura,” she scolded. “When are you going to start locking it anyway?”
She’s right, thought Laura. I just wander off. Why can’t I remember the simple, basic task of using keys? Probably because I’m opposed to all this locking of doors.
In her childhood, they hadn’t even taken the car keys out of the ignition.
“Well, it’s your house,” said Kemmy. “You want people to break in, it’s your problem. Although they don’t have to break, they can just saunter. Listen. We have to get the piano back. Call the junk-run people.”
“I don’t have their number on my cell. I used my landline.”
“Get rid of the landline. It’s a waste of money. We’ll drive back to your house, you’ll look up their number and pay them to bring the piano back.”
“Remind me,” said Laura. “Why do we want a dead, smelly piano back?”
“Because when I walked into your empty unlocked house and I didn’t find you, I stored the manuscript where it belongs. In the piano. I love that crazy little shelf inside the knee door.”
Laura was amazed and touched by this romantic maneuver. Kemmy! Who was as practical as a dishrag—tucking Charlie’s manuscript back on Charlie’s secret shelf.
At Laura’s house, they huddled over the kitchen landline and finally reached the junk-run guys, who had already dumped the piano and were not interested in bringing it back. They didn’t think they could get the manuscript out anyway, because the piano had fallen facedown. They’d need a backhoe to flip the thing.
“Or an ax,” said Kemmy. “Just chop up the piano.”
Laura offered another hundred dollars to the junk-run guys. No, they said, we’re busy, we have a client we’re already late for.
Kemmy, using her cell phone at the same time as Laura used her landline, could not reach a supervisor or, for that matter, a minor grunt at the dump.
Laura went up to two hundred. Three. They settled on five.
“We’re paying five hundred dollars for these guys to flip a piano and take out a piece of paper,” she said to Kemmy.
They giggled hysterically. “Your share is only two hundred fifty,” Kemmy pointed out.
“Do we believe they’ll really do it? Carefully? Right this very minute, before it rains, or the piano gets covered with the contents of port-a-potties?”
“Yes, because they want their five hundred. Here’s my share.”
“You carry that much cash with you?”
“Sure. I’m going shopping.”
“You don’t use your debit or your credit card? That’s silly, Kemmy. It’s like me not getting rid of my landline. Hey. Where are you going?”
“I told you. Shopping. You can handle a manuscript return by yourself, Laura. I have a coupon I need to use today, and I have to be back home in time to get my husband to his doctor’s appointment because he won’t drive himself, he’ll pretend he didn’t remember the appointment, and then we’ll have to wait another month for an opening.”
Laura remembered this kind of marital detail.
If only she could have it back.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The cop ignored Freddy’s rant. “Mrs. Chase? Tell me about OxyContin.”
Freddy thought Grandma regarded Ames with exactly the right expression. You’re who? You want what? “Grandma,” he said, “you don’t take opiates, do you?”
Silly question. No resident had the slightest idea what meds they took. Faceless people held out little white pleated paper cups full of pills plus a glass of water and told them to swallow. “Who here does take it?” he asked Vera.
“Not your grandmother. And only one resident. That is a narcotic pain reliever, and generally in this facility, there is no need for such a strong pharmaceutical. We provide memory care but not intensive medical care.”
“Did Maude Yardley take it?”
“Physical pain was not one of Maude Yardley’s difficulties.”
Lily Burnworth had told Freddy to count his blessings, which mainly he couldn’t think of any, but now he did have one to count: Grandma was not in pain. How much worse would this be if she hurt to the point of needing narcotics? How would she even tell the doctor it hurt? Would the doctor believe her?
“However,” said Vera, “the autopsy of Maude Yardley turned up OxyContin. One must wonder how it got into her system and why Mrs. Chase would be thinking of it now.”
Had Kenneth fed Maude an opiate crushed up in her soft food? When this failed to kill her, had he squeezed the life out of her instead? That would take a level of rage Freddy hadn’t seen in Kenneth. On the other hand, Freddy had just experienced that level. Out of nowhere had come anger so intense he was lucky he’d had his arms full of grandmother and couldn’t squeeze the life out of Wayne Ames. Maybe that had happened to Kenneth.
The big wall clock over the exit doors said twelve. Which must mean noon, although it felt like midnight. Freddy was exhausted. But at least Grandma had forgotten tears, fears, and OxyContin. She was dozing in his arms.
“Maybe the med techs made a mistake?” said Jade. “I know we got a new policy for meds. I know that’s why you’re on today, Vera. To get that going.”
Nightmare. MMC would need new policies on everything. Or get closed down. Should they get closed down?
Vera gave the detective a serious stare-down. “It would be helpful if you were to give me more information, Detective Ames, because I am responsible for the safety of my residents and my staff. To say the least, your people let us down last night. My faith in you is low. Now. Do you believe that Mr. Yardley is involved in his wife’s death?”
“Maude Yardley did not die from a drug overdose,” said the cop, skipping the Philip issue. “She got suffocated. Kenneth Yardley was definitely not here the night she was suffocated.”
So the cops knew for sure that Kenneth hadn’t killed Maude, thought Freddy. They wouldn’t base that on faulty sign-in sheets, so they had knowledge Freddy didn’t, like maybe Kenneth’s bowling team vouched
for him or something. Freddy was relieved but now seriously worried about the staff. Because if Kenneth was out of the running, who was left?
“Freddy, we need to talk,” said the cop. “Want to follow me down to the station?”
Want? Half a million U.S. citizens were arrested last year for marijuana possession even though it’s mainly legal—and you think I might want to follow you down to your little police station?
They wouldn’t find anything if they searched him. In his pockets were his key fob, wallet, a little change, cell phone, pocketknife. Grandpa had given him the pocketknife when he was maybe seven years old, refusing to accept that boys today were no longer allowed to have knives. Freddy’s mother agreed he could keep it, but he was never to take it out of the house, or she would be arrested for bad parenting. (Grandpa had said, “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean, Alice?”) Freddy loved his knife and always took it out of the house, except when flying on planes, which in his opinion was when he needed it most. If there were hijackers, what was Freddy supposed to do? Frown at them?
“Detective Ames,” said Vera, drawing herself to her full tower position, “it was necessary for me to telephone Mrs. Chase’s only family member to drive all the way up here to resolve a situation caused by your questioning. You should have asked me for permission prior to approaching my resident. I wholly agree with Mr. Bell that you were unnecessarily forceful in your approach, thus bringing his grandmother to tears. Mr. Bell’s duty is here, at his grandmother’s side. He will not be going to your police station.”
Whoa, thought Freddy. I seriously have to get to know Vera better.
The detective held up his hands in surrender. “I apologize. I was completely in the wrong.”
A humble cop? No such thing. This was technique, although where it led, Freddy didn’t know.
“How about I just drop in tomorrow at your studio?” he said to Freddy.
Nicely done. If Freddy refused to talk now, he’d have cops on his property again, and overnight was plenty of time to get a search warrant, on what grounds he couldn’t imagine, but guaranteeing a one hundred percent lousy experience.
Freddy’s cell phone rang. Broken glass smashed on pavement.
Jade jumped, Vera flinched, the cop blinked, and even Grandma woke up.
The glass crashed a second time and then a third, and Freddy touched the green button. The Leper’s voice began immediately. “I’m sick of this, Freddy. I got hundreds of people watching Instagram where I’m supporting your career, and they know you aren’t supporting me back. You haven’t accepted the bids, and you’re making me look like a fool.”
“I’m sick of this too,” said Freddy. “I’m here at my grandmother’s with a cop who wants to question me about OxyContin.”
“No, I don’t,” said Wayne Ames irritably.
“A cop?” repeated the Leper in an entirely different voice.
“Because of the murder,” said Freddy.
“What murder? Freddy, what’s up with you? Nobody’s murdered anybody. Nobody’s going to. I’m not the Mafia or whatever. I’m your goddamn friend. You owe me. Do the right thing. Now. Or else. Got it?” The Leper disconnected.
I’m your goddamn friend. Car salesman talk. Although the Leper just sounded honestly peeved. But what was honest about a Russian gangster who dealt drugs, laundered money, and mutilated dogs? Well, threatened to mutilate. Once again, Freddy had forgotten to ask him about Snap’s paws and Shawn’s jail. “Thank you for calling me about Grandma,” he said to Vera. “I’d be grateful if you wrote up an incident report regarding Detective Ames’s actions.”
“It will be done,” said Vera regally.
But the cop had the last word. “See you in the morning, Freddy.”
Ames left. Vera and Jade went back to work. Grandma slept. In his anxiety and fury, Freddy had not asked for details about Philip’s death, and what kind of incident report Vera was filing on that, and what Marty was going to do, and a hundred other things that Freddy couldn’t keep straight. He soothed himself by checking messages, which were anything but soothing.
Mrs. Maple had the nerve to ask him to go to Kenneth/Bobby’s house and collect Betty Sherwood’s photo album for her. He had to run her errands as well as hear her confessions? No thanks.
Kara. He didn’t open that one. She’d be staying with the Burnworths. Let her call them.
Mrs. Aminetti. He’d already taken the dog. He didn’t even want to think about her next request.
The only thing Freddy was sure of was that the cops knew Kenneth hadn’t killed Maude. That was probably enough sureness for one day.
Grandma smiled at him, her real smile, as if she’d been hiding in there all along, so Freddy kissed her forehead and left the ward. He was still starving. He’d go to a diner and have breakfast for lunch.
Jade lifted a palm, telling him to wait until she could leave her patient.
He was pretty sure he’d put Cynthia’s pipe in the glove compartment. Was he going to give it to Jade or not? He thought about the OxyContin, which in fact, one patient took. Jade was not a med tech and did not have access to the med cart. Except maybe they all colluded, the way they all looked at snapshots that should never have been taken.
Snap.
Snap.
Auburn knows where I live. Therefore the Leper knows where I live. Therefore Doc knows. And they all know I have Snap, because I put Snap in my hashtag poetry.
Did Freddy believe that anybody would slice the paws off a dog?
Shawn had believed it.
Freddy forgot Jade, tore out of the building, and got on 9 South. It was a divided parkway, with woodsy acres running down the middle, sometimes so sparse you could see traffic going the opposite direction but more often deep, wide, and rocky. Freddy had always meant to explore the wilder parts, which looked like great places to hide out. Again today, he didn’t have time. The divider stretch just before his exit was not woods, just fifty feet of grass, and he glanced across to see a turquoise Cube going the opposite direction.
Off 9, Freddy raced down a bunch of roads, whipped up Grandma’s driveway, drove over the grass, around the house, and right up to the row of forsythia. He leaped out and ran, jumping over the tiny brook, crossing the swamp of skunk cabbage, and crashing through the woods.
“Snap!” he shouted.
Snap was gone.
No leash hung from the tire swing branch. Snap could maybe bite through the leather, but he could not have removed the leash.
If they were going to mutilate him, they’d have done it here, leaving an agonized, bleeding dog for Freddy to find, because that was the point.
So somebody had taken Snap. Couldn’t be Shawn; he was in jail. Couldn’t be Mrs. Aminetti; she was sane and had just unloaded this biting mutt.
An animal-control officer? Neighbors complained about barking? What neighbors? There weren’t any back here.
Auburn, who considered dogs worthless? Had that been Auburn’s turquoise Cube? She drove up 9 every day. But why take Snap?
Had the Leper closed in on Auburn as well? Ordered her to get Shawn’s dog? Maybe Doc was busy? Maybe Auburn was retailing Doc’s rip-off cocaine-jar finger pendants and those two were in business together? But Doc didn’t seem to think the pendants were anything but pendants.
Was Shawn thinking of ratting on Auburn? Was Auburn thinking that a video of Snap in agony would stop him?
But he’s in jail, thought Freddy. His cell phone’s been confiscated. She can’t send him a video, and he can’t see it anyway.
Freddy checked every door of Grandma’s house. The place was locked up nice and tight. No windows were broken, so the dognapper was not also a burglar. Snap had no dollar value, while the house was packed with value, floor to ceiling, already in cartons ready to carry. A good opportunity to trash or steal, and the Snap-taker had passed.
Freddy got back on 9. If that had been Auburn, he was ten or fifteen minutes behind her. He caught up with two other cars also going way over the speed limit, and they huddled together, hoping for safety in numbers.
What would he do if he found Auburn cutting Snap to pieces?
In Middletown, he turned left at the red light, went over the railroad tracks, turned right on Main, passed Auburn’s shop, street-parked in front of the Hispanic grocery, squeezed between buildings, and trotted down the alley behind the long block of stores. Auburn’s Cube was parked at her back door.
A wet black nose poked out of a window left open two inches.
Stooping to keep the body of the Cube between himself and the little window in Auburn’s back door, Freddy tried the car door handle. Locked.
He wrapped his fingers over the open window and pulled down with his whole body weight. The window sank just enough for him to wriggle his arm down, accept a nip from Snap, and unlock the door. Gripping Snap’s collar, he ran crouching back to the Avalon.
Freddy didn’t have a crate, and Snap was a very poorly trained animal. Freddy cracked the windows to entertain the dog with scents he hoped were interesting enough to keep Snap from chewing on his exposed forearm.
He drove a few blocks to the same parking lot he had used to visit the lawyer, which reminded him that at some point, he needed to call up and find out if Br was Josh Burnworth. He Googled Norwich jails and called the visitor line. They did not have a prisoner named Shawn Aminetti. Great. Shawn had already been transferred or whatever. Freddy couldn’t ask what Shawn wanted him to do with the dog.
He Googled Middletown boarding kennels and clicked on one with five stars. It cost as much as a motel, with separate fees for playtime and trail walks.
Seriously? Playtime fees?
The kennel was several miles northwest of Middletown. It looked like a nice place, and the owner looked like a nice woman. Too bad she wasn’t getting a nice dog. “Snap is a little nippy. Sorry about that.”
The Grandmother Plot Page 20
