“That’s why we use them,” responded Violet Hendrickson. “They’re quite strong—and fool-proof. You can’t remove one without the key.”
“That’s wonderful!” noted Essie, stuttering. “Really, wonderful! I’d hate to see anyone break into Mr. Weiderley’s apartment while the poor man is stuck in the hospital. He’s such a nice gentleman. All of the ladies at my table admire him so much, we all . . .”
“That’s fine, Essie,” interrupted Violet, with a deep intake of air, “but that’s enough curiosity for now, I believe. Why don’t you get going and finish your walk.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I’ll do that!” Essie grabbed the handles of her walker, and guided it around and back down the main residential hallway of the second floor. When she reached the elevator, she risked a glance backwards. Violet Hendrickson was still standing there, staring at her.
Chapter Eight
“To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us.”
—William Hazlitt
Back on the main floor, Essie exited the elevator to find Marjorie seated in the family room in front of the television with several other residents. She caught her friend’s eye and gestured for her to follow her. Essie rolled her walker to a table near the back of the family room and parked. Marjorie soon arrived and docked her vehicle nearby as the two women pulled out chairs with their backs facing the rest of the residents on the other side of the family room.
“I didn’t find Bob’s room,” reported Marjorie.
“I did,” countered Essie, “and that’s not all! Violet found me!”
“She was in Bob’s room?” asked her pert, red-headed friend.
“No!” said Essie, shushing Marjorie. “She caught me trying to break into Bob’s apartment.”
“What?”
“And I would have gotten in too—and Violet would have been none the wiser, but they put one of those security locks on his doorknob!”
“Oh my!” gasped Marjorie. “And you were trying to pick the lock?”
“I didn’t have a chance!” added Essie. “Old eagle-eye Hendrickson must have been lurking around just waiting for someone to break into Bob’s place.”
“Oh, Essie,” scoffed Marjorie, “I think that’s unlikely. She was just probably passing by. You know she tends to make a lot of unscheduled visits. I think she’s checking up on the aides and the workers.”
“Yeah, probably wants to make sure she squeezes every penny of work out of them,” added Essie. “That woman scares me. The way she stares at you down her long, skinny nose. And those eyes. It’s like they’re little radar machines following you and your thoughts. I feel creepy when she looks at me, like she’s looking right inside my head.”
“What did you say when she caught you?”
“I think I mumbled and bumbled well enough. At least, she let me go with a warning. But I’ll have to be really careful that I stay clear of her the next time. If she catches me anywhere near Bob’s apartment again, I’ll be in really big trouble.”
“I know what you mean,” Marjorie said. “Once I threw a candy wrapper in the trash bin outside the dining hall and I missed and it fell on the ground. It felt like someone was staring at me and when I looked around, there was Violet standing in the door of her office glaring at me and the wrapper on the ground. So I quickly bent over—well, as quickly as I can bend over—and picked it up and put it in the waste bin. She gave me this anemic little grin and then went back into her office. She scares me too.”
“ Good gravy train, Marjorie! Just listen to us! We sound like a couple of school kids who’ve been caught jumping in mud puddles. Why should we be scared of Violet? We’re both adults. We have nothing to be scared of.”
“Actually, you do, Essie,” noted Marjorie. “I didn’t do anything wrong. If I’d found Bob’s apartment door with a padlock on it, I surely wouldn’t have tried to break in.”
“You’re such a goody three shoes.”
“Two shoes.”
“I don’t care how many shoes you wear, Marjorie!” sputtered Essie, trying to keep her voice low. She turned back to see if any of the other residents in the family room were paying any attention to their conversation. “The point is, we have to get inside Bob’s room.”
“How? We can’t break open a padlock!”
“Not if we can get the key,” suggested Essie, her eyes twinkling.
“Essie!” exclaimed Marjorie. “Just where do you think you’re going to get the key to that lock?”
“I don’t know,” replied the feisty woman. “Obviously there has to be a key. One of the workers has to have it and probably more than one must know where it is.”
“What about the worker who cleans Bob’s apartment? Would that person have the key? Or know where it is?”
“Probably,” answered Essie.
“Then we need to ask Opal. She probably knows the second floor workers better than we do.”
“You’re right. I’m not going to bother her now, but we’ll ask her at supper.”
“But, Essie. I just don’t think it’s wise to do this. They put that security lock on Bob’s apartment for a reason. To keep people out—and that means you.”
“Marjorie, I’m trying to help Bob. They have that lock there to prevent theft. I’m not going to steal any of Bob’s prized possessions. I just want to look for something that might have upset him yesterday—upset him so much that he collapsed. You don’t really think that Violet or any of the aides or workers at Happy Haven would actually go to that extent to help Bob, do you?”
“No,” replied Marjorie, chewing on her small lower lip.
“Good,” Essie said, standing. “Now, I have to get to my room asap if I don’t want a major bladder event to happen right here in the family room. Need I say more?”
“No, actually, I’m in the same boat, Essie. I’ll see you at supper.” With that, the two women and their wheeled chargers maneuvered expertly out of the family room and back towards their own hallways and their own rooms. Essie arrived at her doorway and scooted into her bathroom just in time. Blessed relief, she thought. Hmmph! Field trip to the botanical gardens, forget it! It’s all I can do to get from the lobby to my own bathroom. What would I do if I had to find a toilet on the outdoor grounds of Reardon’s botanical gardens? It would be horrible—embarrassing and uncomfortable.
Sitting there in bliss, she looked up behind her at the shelving above her toilet. She couldn’t help but notice several boxes of products designed for such delicate situations. Her daughter Prudence kept bringing different brands of pads over for her to try. That’s why she had such a collection stacked up. There were thick ones and thin ones, short ones and long ones, scented ones and plain ones. There were pads that tucked and ones that didn’t. But it all boiled down to one thing. They were all diapers and she was not going to be caught dead wearing a diaper. Hell’s cowbells! she thought. The people who invented those things obviously didn’t use them. Who wanted to walk around all day with wet pants? Well, she wasn’t a baby and she didn’t plan on spending one single minute wearing a diaper. No, she’d get to her bathroom (or some bathroom) when nature called and that was all there was to it.
Luckily, now that she had her little wheeled walker, she could move like the wind. She remembered when she’d had a wheel-less walker years ago. It was much slower going. She loved her new, sleek, little red wheeled number. It was surely the Ferrari of walkers. She could go really fast in it—and at times—like now—she needed to do just that.
Finished with her task, Essie pulled up her comfy pants and trousers. After washing her hands, she headed out into her apartment with her trusty wheeled steed. She plopped herself down into her favorite armchair and—taking a cue from Fay—promptly fell asleep.
Chapter Nine
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
—Oscar Wilde
“Residents!” sang out the intercom, prying Essie from her slumber. “Residents, don�
�t forget that after dinner tonight, our favorite ventriloquist Geoffrey George will be here with his pals Ducky and Doozy to perform for you in the lobby. You won’t want to miss the fun! Seven sharp. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the field trip to the botanical gardens at the front desk. Only three slots left. You won’t want to miss the beautiful roses in bloom. Also, anyone who might have seen Agnes Woolwhistle’s gold-handled cane, please report to the front desk.”
“Heavens to hollyhocks!” declared Essie, rousing from her nap. “Agnes Woolwhistle is always losing her cane. Someone ought to tie it around her neck.” Then, glancing at her wristwatch, she rubbed her eyes and pushed herself up from her chair. “Where did the afternoon go? I thought I just closed my eyes for a second.”
Essie knew that the evening announcements signaled the start of the supper hour. She stood and straightened out her trousers and pulled up her socks which had rolled around her ankles like little donuts. “I guess that’s enough primping,” she said to herself, and, grabbing onto her walker, she headed out her front door and down the hallway towards the dining hall. As she got closer, she could see that Fay, Marjorie, and Opal were already in line. She pushed her machine faster and joined them at the back of the line.
“I understand you had quite a little adventure today,” said Opal with a grimace. “Marjorie tells me you’re on Violet’s blacklist now.”
“Hoot galoot, Marjorie! Can’t you keep your mouth shut?” said Essie to her shorter friend as they waited for the line to move into the dining room. The residents dined in shifts and the four friends had the first shifts for all three meals. It was now five o’clock. As the waiter at the door opened the entrance, the line of residents piled through on their canes, walkers, and wheelchairs. Essie led the other three women across the dining hall to their regular table where they each took their regular seats. This consistency made the wait staff’s job much easier.
“I managed to divert Violet’s suspicions,” Essie explained to Opal when they were all seated. “I was appropriately obsequious.”
“I assume that means you apologized for trying to break into Bob’s apartment!” said Opal, who apparently had been holding in her annoyance.
“Actually, Opal,” said Essie, “I couldn’t break in, even if Violet hadn’t caught me, because they’d put one of those security locks on his front door.”
“They always do that when a resident is gone from the building for a day or more,” said Opal.
“I remember once I saw one of those strange locks on someone’s door in my hallway,” offered Marjorie, excited, “and I had no idea what it was for.”
“Now you know!” said Essie, annoyed. She returned her attention to Opal. “All we had intended to do this afternoon, Opal, was to find out where Bob’s apartment was—and we did that. He’s on the second floor on the hallway to the left as you exit the elevator. You go all the way to the end and then turn left again. Bob’s room is the first door on the left.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this, Essie,” huffed Opal. “They’ve locked his door, so I’m certainly not going to join you in trying to break into Bob Weiderley’s room.”
“No one is going to break into his place,” said Essie with a shrug.
“Good,” said Opal. “I’m glad to hear you’ve given up on this ridiculous plan.”
“Oh, I haven’t given up!” declared Essie. “I’m just using a different method.”
“What method?” asked Marjorie, obviously still excited from the afternoon’s adventure.
“Now that we know where Bob’s room is and now that we know there is a security lock on his door,” she detailed her idea to the women, “we need to find the key to the lock.”
A waiter—not Santos—but a new (to them) older man arrived at their table and took their orders with little fanfare. The women spent little time deciding their choices from the menus as the offerings remained similar from one day to another. When he had gone, the discussion again returned to the situation with the security lock on Bob’s apartment door.
“What I need to find out is where they keep the keys to this lock,” announced Essie.
“Wouldn’t the cleaning people have them?” Marjorie asked.
“If there’s only one key for each lock,” explained Essie, “then the cleaning people couldn’t keep it all the time. I mean, what if it’s on someone’s door and one of their relatives needs to get inside the apartment?”
“But Bob doesn’t have any relatives,” argued Marjorie.
“I’m speaking hypothetically,” retorted Essie.
“I know that when Herman Anspach was hospitalized several months ago, they had one of those things on his door. Once I saw his daughter taking it off of his door when she dropped by to pick up some of his clothes,” said Opal, warming to the subject matter. “Surely, there must be a key for each security lock and they must keep them somewhere centrally located so that when family members come and need to get into a resident’s place, someone can let the family member in—or give them a key so they can let themselves in.”
“Yes, exactly!” said Essie, pointing her finger at Opal with glee. “I knew you’d know how all this must work. Now the question is where do they keep the keys to these security locks?”
The older waiter returned with their salads, beverages, and a basket of rolls.
“Roll!” yelled Fay, and Essie chose a particularly crispy looking one from the basket and handed it to her.
The other three women nibbled at their salads and sipped their drinks.
“I don’t know,” said Opal, continuing to chew the carrots in her salad.
“I wonder how many of these locks they have all together?” asked Marjorie.
“Good question,” noted Essie, as she swallowed her tea. “They’d need enough to cover however many residents might be out for any particular number of days.”
“And how many do you think that would be?” asked Opal.
“How many do you think? You’re the one with the math background.” Essie directed this to Opal who had spent her career as an administrative assistant doing balance sheets and inventories.
“That’s not a math question. Even so, I’m guessing with the number of residents at Happy Haven—around 300—and the number of them who might feasibly be away at any one time, I’m guessing they’d have at least five, but probably no more than ten.”
“That sounds about right to me,” agreed Essie.
“Me too,” said Marjorie.
“Me too,” said Fay, her mouth full of roll. The other three women chuckled, wondering if Fay had any idea what she was “me-tooing.”
“So what does that prove?” asked Opal.
“This is what I’m thinking,” said Essie in a whisper. “Once they put these locks on a resident’s door, they would have to have the key available in a convenient spot in case a family member showed up suddenly and needed to get into the apartment. That’s why I’m guessing they must keep them—the locks and the keys—at the front desk. You know Phyllis has all sorts of stuff on that desk of hers behind the counter. There’s the back room too. Here’s what I’m thinking. They probably keep the unused locks and their keys in the back room, but they probably keep the keys for the locks that are in use on Phyllis’s desk.”
“Makes sense,” agreed Marjorie.
“She has little boxes with paper clips and erasers in them. I think she has a little basket on her desk and I think I’ve seen small keys in there,” said Opal.
“What I wouldn’t give to be tall like you, Opal,” said Essie. “I can never see over that counter for love or lipstick.”
“How many keys have you seen in it?” asked Marjorie.
“I can’t remember,” said Opal. “It’s not like I had any interest in the doodads on her desk. Just a lot of junk, if you ask me.”
“Think, Opal,” urged Essie. “I mean, were there dozens? Hundreds? What?”
“No, no!” replied the tall, stern woman. “Just a few. I thin
k each one had a little brightly colored tag on the end—I think—with a number.”
“It’s probably how they keep the locks and the keys matched together. Yes! That must be it!” said Essie.
“So what?” asked Opal. “What good does it do us to know that they keep these keys at the front desk?”
“We can’t just have you grab all of them,” mused Essie.
“Me!” screeched Opal. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the only one tall enough to reach over the counter!” said Marjorie. “Keep up, Opal!”
“Quiet!” said Essie calmly.
The old waiter arrived with their main courses and they curtailed their discussion until he left.
“What?” whispered Opal. “What wild caper do you have planned now, Essie? Something to jeopardize my residence here at Happy Haven?”
“No,” said Essie, “you can’t just go up to the front desk and grab all the security lock keys.”
“Thank God!” said Opal, taking a deep breath. “For a minute I thought you were going to appoint me your hit man.”
“I think you mean front man,” suggested Marjorie.
“Oh, you will be the most important part of this plot, Opal,” said Essie, “but not quite yet. First, I need to do some reconnaissance.”
“What?” replied both Opal and Marjorie.
“You said the keys are color coded? Right?” Essie asked Opal.
“Yes, if I remember correctly,” said Opal.
“Then, what I need to do is sneak back up to Bob’s apartment and check to see what the matching color is on the security lock. Surely if the keys are color coded to the locks, the locks must have the matching color marked on them somewhere. Once we know the appropriate color of Bob’s lock, then Opal, you can go grab the correct colored key from Phyllis’s desk.”
“Essie, are you crazy?” said Opal. “She’ll see me!”
“Not if Marjorie and I are right there to distract her,” said Essie. She smiled with her hands stretched out palms up, and a look on her face that said it was obvious.
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