Diane had snuck up behind her ordering a black coffee over Blanche’s head.
Blanche added her order for black coffee and the croissant to Diane’s order.
She hurumphed but paid. Blanche thought Diane’s rough treatment ought to have some benefits and she would start with a croissant.
When they’d settled amongst Boca’s well dressed pastry crowd, Diane said, “How soon can you move out to the island?”
Blanche’s hackles went up automatically “Move out there? I’m not living in the care center.”
“I’ve already arranged for you to stay with my ex.”
“At least I’d have the freedom to move around the island,” Blanche said thinking out loud. She’d expected something like this though.
“Look, you need to go now. Today.”
“What’s the rush?” Blanche asked. What made this Dragon lady give such orders?
“Was Mom okay while you were there?”
Blanche’s heartbeat skipped. “Perfectly normal. What’s happened?”
“Mom’s a bit fuzzy. They’re taking her to the medical wing for tests. ”
“Oh, no.” Blanche thought about Antonio and Edna getting drugged. At least at their age, drugged was possibly a best case scenario for disorientation. Poor Edna.
“Yesterday she told me her roommate was dead. This is a major problem,” Diane said.
“What? Why? People out there are stepping across the eternal divide regularly.” Blanche’s concern remained with Edna so what the heck was this about the roommate.
“I looked into her roommate thoroughly before Mom went out there. This lady, a Cuban, she’s in good health. So I call the center and they say no, she’s not dead, but they moved her. I ask where and they can’t tell me. I’m not her family and all that health care crap. Mom is supposed to be in the room with her.”
“Wait, doesn’t the center have it under control?” Blanche knew Edna wouldn’t say the roommate was dead unless it was true or she had lost her wits.
“That’s it. The center is telling me everything is fine. I don’t believe them. Mom must be confused to think she’s dead. I need you to find her roommate. I’m not letting this all go to waste.”
Again Blanche felt a distinct lack of concern for Edna’s fuzzy confusion in this mix. “What do you care about her roommate? What waste?”
The Dragon muttered under her breath looking away but Blanche distinctly heard “old people.”
“None of your business but Mom was supposed to get to know the roommate,” she swirled her coffee mug. “Now I’m going to pay you to do that for me.” It wasn’t a question and it was far from a clarification of the roommate subject. “Go out there, find this roommate. I want to know why the move. Are they avoiding my mother for some reason?”
“You weren’t interested in Edna’s friends in the condo.”
Diane stared a hole in Blanche again. “The roommate has a backstory and I want to know it.”
“Because?” Blanche sensed complications in multiple levels here. Diane drank her coffee down not looking at Blanche. Then she looked up and her eyes flashed.
“Because I want it,” she said firmly like speaking to an errant child. Or to a passive parent, Blanche thought. “It’s important and I’ll pay you to get it. I went to a lot of trouble for mom to share a room with,” she took time to choose her word, ”an appropriate and worthy woman and poof, she’s gone? No. Not possible.”
“Is this about Edna’s safety?” Blanche didn’t see enough concern in the Dragon’s eyes to know if that could ever be an issue for her.
Diane looked searchingly at Blanche a moment. She tucked a lock of expensively treated chestnut hair behind her ear. “No.”
She continued to hold Blanche’s gaze like a game of staring and who would blink first. Blanche realized nothing about this move had to do with Edna.
“While you are finding the roommate. Speak to this woman.” Diane slid a picture out of her bag and held it up in front of Blanche’s face. It was very fuzzy and grainy. It was the side of a face of a woman through a curtain in the Royale Cove dining room. She had on sunglasses despite being indoors.
“Is that from the camera the other day?”
Diane nodded.
The face seemed vaguely familiar, but Blanche had never really tuned in to the celebrity circuit. Not her world.
“What do you want from her?” Blanche thought it wasn’t a Unit 2 resident if Al had gotten a picture. She kept that to herself though.
“Just information. You can record conversations with both these women on the phone and upload those to me.”
Record? Upload? Blanche thought but said, “What’s in it for her? Or the roommate?” She tapped the picture.
“I need information. Look, I said I’d make it worth your while. Get out there today. See what Edna says about her roommate.” She dug around in her purse and came up with the suspicious homing signal GPS phone from the last trip. She added, “See if Edna is okay.”
A belated afterthought, Blanche thought. Why wouldn’t she get on the next boat out there or helicopter if her mom was “fuzzy.” Before Blanche could challenge the matter, Diane added something new.
“My ex, Greg, he’s acting weird. He’s paranoid lately. I want you to see what that is about too. You’ll be at his house anyway, right?”
“Wait. Why do you care if your ex is being weird? I’m guessing you left him for some reason.”
“He’s steady with his money and he is the father of my two girls,” she said this with a duh intonation that Blanche didn’t appreciate. “He needs to keep his sh...uh, act together for the kids. If there’s another woman involved or something weird, I need to know.”
“Another woman would be weird? Do you think he’s been inappropriate...”
“No, no. He’s more of a workaholic and for some reason he’s being paranoid and not leaving the island.”
Blanche decided to go fishing. “I’m going to have to get paid overtime if you think I’m unraveling bills, and ex husbands. Those are two completely different things. Never mind the scavenger hunt for these women. So Greg and the bills are just smoke and mirrors?”
“Not exactly. They are...” her eyes searched the bakery for a moment, “complications I hadn’t expected.” She gave a cold smile. “First, find the roommate and get her story. Priority one. Then talk to this lady.“ She shook the photo and checked her watch, “You need to leave soon. You can’t miss the boat.”
Blanche searched her heart once more to make sure she was up to this. She couldn’t abandon her friend. “I’ll move out to Greg’s house on the island not the care center, but under one condition...”
Diane interrupted. “I’m offering you money and giving you a phone for pity’s sake. What else do you want?”
“If I find something, unsavory or inappropriate, anything, in that care center or the bills, you move Edna back to her condo and get her daily help here.” Blanche tapped her nail on the table between them for emphasis.
“You are in no position to say what kind of care she should have.” The Dragon’s dander rose. Her cheeks flushed. Blanche expected smoke and fire soon. “I will tell you what I want; what I think is useful, what you will do, and I will decide what my mother needs.”
“Well, it was a good idea to verify her bill. I hope you find someone to go check on her and Greg and the roommate. Thanks for the offer anyway.” Blanche took the last swig of her coffee and started to fiddle with her purse. She held her breath that the Dragon wouldn’t call her bluff and let her walk away. How would she help Edna then?
“Good grief. Fine. I’ll consider it, if something really serious is going on.”
“You swear?”
“What are you 12? We are adults here.”
“Yes, and that’s why I want some assurance that you’ll stick to your end of the bargain.”
“Fine. Sure, whatever.”
Blanche didn’t think the Dragon’s response too sincere. Blanch
e thought next about negotiating the “making it worth your while” bit when the rap song flowed from the depths of the Dragon’s Luis Vuitton bag.
She grabbed it up snarling an answer, then listened. Diane the Dragon covered the phone with her hand, “I want you on the next boat.”
Diane strode out of the bakery still on the phone to the Jaguar nearby and went off with a screech of tires.
Blanche felt a sinking sensation for Edna and wondered if she’d made her own deal with the devil.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The housekeeper Ester, let Blanche into Greg’s sprawling Spanish colonial style mansion with a corresponding docked yacht outback. Big bucks.
Thank the good Lord that her suitcase rolled on wheels or she’d have croaked getting to the house. The humidity seemed worse than on the mainland. Directions and streets were not well marked on Royale Cove and the vegetation all looked the same. She felt like she’d circled the whole island. Weren’t people who lived places like this supposed to “send a car” for you? She’d sweat off all her makeup.
Her suitcase felt shabby in the marble front hall. She could see straight through to the glass on the back and the water. Beautiful. Diane the Dragon’s ex had done well for himself or held on to some of his wealth in the divorce anyway. Mirrors and glass reflected back Blanche’s flushed complexion after her hike with the battered purple suitcase. The flush sort of matched her strawberry dye job on her hair though.
The little Latina lady, Ester, was about the same height as Blanche and showed her to the guest room. They passed two Pepto-Bismal puke pink rooms that Blanche thought must be for Edna’s granddaughters. They reminded Blanche of the atrociously over decorated room that Diane had created for Edna at the care center.
The guest room was a colorful mash up of French Provencal blue, orange, yellow, and green fabrics that smacked of money making an effort to be casual.
“Señor Greg is in his office.” Ester pointed down the other end of the long hall.
Despite Blanche’s skepticism over Diane’s true interest in her ex, Blanche for herself must do due diligence and make sure all was well in the Royale Cove mansion as well straighten out the care center. She’d sort of agreed to do it. She glanced down the hall to a closed door and asked, “Is Greg here a lot?”
“He used to come home late from the mainland in his yacht all the time from work and only be here when the girls came to visit.” Her dark eyes glanced down the hall. “I never saw him ever. Now the last few weeks he is working at home a lot.” She glanced down the hall again. “He told me to give you whatever dinner you want. He has to work.”
This girl seemed paranoid, Blanche thought. Maybe the house has bad air or mold? Could that make people paranoid?
“Work late? In there?” Blanche pointed to the closed door and Ester nodded with big eyes and shrugged.
Blanche agreed if this was true something really had changed in the last few weeks for such a behavior modification to take place. It wasn’t just the Dragon imagining things to get Blanche to the island. Of course he might just need to work on a big project without interruptions.
The housekeeper stared at Blanche. “It’d be nice if you could make me some tuna salad, then I can eat whenever I get hungry.” That was one of Blanche’s favorite go-to dinner or lunch snacks.
Blanche unpacked her things quickly and admired the attached bathroom in the same provencal colors. It was all very posh, but she wasn’t here for a vacation and quickly got organized to go over to the care center. She was worried about this disorientation stuff they were pinning on Edna.
When she passed through the kitchen on her way out, Ester wiped her hands on an apron. The smell of tuna was in the air with fresh onion and Blanche looked forward to her dinner.
The housekeeper pulled a ring of keys off the refrigerator and handed them to Blanche. Good grief, she suddenly felt like a janitor with such a wad.
Ester explained the keys one by one. One for the garage entrance. One for the back door, one for the front door, one for the pedestrian gate, one for the car gate. One for the guest room door. The alarm code was 1985.
“Do I really need all these? What about just taking a door key and the alarm code?”
“I don’t know. This is all new and Mr. Greg has been very, very insisting I never leave anything unlocked even in the day. He even yell me one day when I left a window open for fresh air.” She shook her head of bobbed black hair.
“Alrighty then.” Blanche added the weight of the keys to her bag.
Outside, she took a deep breath of humid jungle air. When she negotiated the gated exit with the fist full of keys, she saw an old guy standing looking at the house. He had a black t-shirt tucked into jeans that had a crease ironed down the front of them. When he noticed Blanche, he ran a hand over slicked back gray hair. A full head of it.
He started to walk away at a leisurely pace. Blanche wasn’t 100 percent sure, but she thought it might be the guy from the jungle path at Royale Cove Care Center the other day. It had been such poor light where she’d peeked in, but this seemed like the old guy.
Blanche trotted her short legs a little faster to make it seem like she caught up to him by accident.
“Hello,” she said pulling along side of him on the bare tarmac of the road.
He glanced over and seemed surprised. Blanche guessed he must be lost in his own thoughts. Or maybe he was hard of hearing like Al.
“Are you from the Island?” Blanche wasn’t sure what sort of small talk to make with potential millionaires on a closed-to-the-public island.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said shaking his head.
The tight lipped sort. “Ahh, I’m visiting...” what was Diane’s cover story? “My cousin who is a new resident at the Royale Cove Care Center.”
No response. He put his hands behind his back and took a relaxed pace. At least he wasn’t trying to ditch her. Then she thought about the reporter and the killer. She swallowed hard but looking out of the corner of her eye she decided he seemed kind of old. How do you spot a killer? She decided he was harmless.
“Am I going the right direction? Everything sort of looks the same here. Mansions and shrubs on every corner.” Blanche gave a cheesy laugh and cringed at herself inwardly. She didn’t know why she was trying so hard to converse with this guy.
“I didn’t think you looked like a tourist. But yes, indeed you are going the right direction. I’m headed that way myself.”
“Oh good.” The truth was Blanche had passed the care center on her hike with the suitcase and knew precisely where it was this time, but you have to say something to get people started.
“Are you visiting someone there too?” By now she was sure he was the same guy she’d seen arguing with the tough.
He gave a sigh. “Sadly, that’s my place of residence at the moment. Say, have you got a cigarette by any chance?”
Blanche grinned and fished her supplies out of her pocketbook. They both lit up. He held the cigarette sideways and looked at it after a puff.
“Miss these things.”
“Hardly anyone smokes anymore, it seems like. I know I should quit but it’s so hard to imagine after so many years. They seem like old friends. They don’t let you smoke at all at RCCC?” Blanche said.
“A few can outside of course, but if you have any breathing problems on your chart, they cut you off.” He made a scissor motion with the hand that had no cigarette.
“I thought you had to have someone with you to leave the grounds?” They moseyed along the road. No cars passed. The quiet pressed in with no city noises or road noises. Just birds squawking and unexpected movement in the vegetation.
“I got special privileges.”
“That must be nice. How’s that work?”
“Depends on family and health. And bribes.”
Blanche stopped short and looked at him through the cigarette smoke curling between them in the humidity. She thought of the killer again. Bribes? Killers?<
br />
The man’s wrinkles deepened in his lined face, and he broke into a deep wheezy laugh.
“You should see your face.” He laughed some more, “What are you some kind of Sunday School teacher or something?”
Blanche laughed too. She’d gotten below his surface exterior and really liked what she saw. Not a killer.
“I’m interested in bribes and stuff like that, I guess. Seems like you’re paying enough to live at the care center without having to offer up bribes too.”
“Depends on what you want to do and when. Besides that, I know a guy. We used to have a house on Royale Cove, so it’s sort of like home and so what, I like to walk around.”
Blanche didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she thought maybe she should meet the guy. If she bet, she’d bet “the guy” would know the secrets of RCCC.
She held out her free hand, “I’m Blanche Binkley.”
He reached out a gnarled hand and shook with some serious pressure, “Francis Sabatini. You can call me Frank.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
As Frank Sabatini and Blanche rounded the corner to the Royale Cove Care Center, Frank moved to take a path into the garden. Path was really too grand a word. It was like a deer track through thick jungle shrubbery that must lead out onto the gardens behind the wings of the care center.
“Where are you going?” Blanche asked.
Frank turned around and winked at her, “I like to keep a low profile. No one needs to know when I come and go. It’s none of their business.” He turned to go and Blanche thought about her last visit when Bruce and Benita had followed her and Al around once they realized they were guests.
“Wait, how do you get inside then? The employee entrance?”
Frank had sunk into the darkness of the jungle cover. He turned with an odd look on his face, “What’s it matter to you?” He said it friendly, but Blanche could tell he didn’t want his secrets leaked.
“I just,” she glanced toward the front entrance where she knew the receptionist and who knows who else would be ready to accompany her. “I need to keep a low profile too. I don’t want a watcher hovering over my every move.”
Complicated Care Page 9
