5 From the Grounds Up

by Sandra Balzo

  I slowed as we approached the first blind corner. 'Lysol and bouquets are better than the alternative, don't you think?'

  'If you're referring to stale urine,' Sarah said, wrinkling her nose, 'I can smell that, too.'

  'I suppose the spray products and cleaners can mask only so much.' I rounded the corner and then stopped dead.

  Sarah rear-ended me. 'Geez, what's the matter? The crazy coot in the motorized wheelchair is long gone.'

  'Gone, yes,' I said. 'But I don't think all that long.'

  On the floor in front of us was the motorized chair, one wheel still revolving. The other one was twenty feet down the hallway, as though the chair had hurled it like a horse throws a shoe.

  Klepto Clara, though, was still in her saddle, seat belt tight, eyes glazed open, hand on the reins--or, in this case, the throttle of her candy-apple-red wheelchair.

  Chapter Eight

  Add the vacant eyes to smells that even the cloud of pilfered body powder couldn't mask and what do you have?

  Dead Clara 'Klepto' Huseby.

  I stayed with the body while Sarah backtracked to Mr Levitt's office. As I waited, I noticed something wedged under one arm of the wheelchair, partially hidden by the lap-robe Henry had mentioned.

  I stepped around the chair to get a better look, but I still couldn't make out what it was. Likely something else the woman had stolen. I moved the blanket a smidge.

  Ah, yes. A crushed blue cardboard box, denture-cleaning tablets spilling out of it, and a used bar of Ivory soap. Proof of Klepto Clara's thievery. Now let Levitt deny—

  'May I ask what you think you're doing?' Levitt had skidded to a stop around the corner, followed by Sarah.

  'I "think" I'm confirming what we told you.' I pointed at the Efferdent and Ivory. 'The woman was a thief.'

  'You mean the poor resident lying dead at your feet?'

  'Yes, the very one,' I said, feeling sheepish. Crowing over thievery seemed a little petty, given the mortal circumstances.

  I stepped back, letting the lap-robe fall. 'You could be right. Maybe Mrs Huseby had just come from the bathroom.'

  'Which is why she has a family portrait on her?' Sarah pointed at a plastic-framed photo I'd missed, half-hidden under the leg cast.

  'Oh, dear,' said Mr Levitt, salvaging the picture. 'Mrs Chin has been looking for this.'

  Sure enough, the posed portrait featured an elderly Asian woman surrounded by a family. Her Asian family.

  'Are you accusing this "poor resident lying dead at your feet", of thievery?' I asked.

  Levitt was saved from answering by the avalanche of nurses and aides in sherbet-colored scrubs descending on us.

  Since this was an unattended death, I wasn't surprised when deputies arrived shortly thereafter, along with an ambulance crew. I was surprised, though, when the sheriff himself showed up twenty minutes later.

  By this time, at the suggestion of Levitt, Sarah and I had retreated to the employee cafeteria.

  The 'cafeteria' was more closet than room, with a concrete floor, folding tables and vending machines. Sarah had a two-pack of Pop-Tarts and I was drinking a Fresca. The bag containing Auntie Vi's things sat on top of a table.

  'What do your deputies do?' I asked Pavlik when he tracked us down. 'Call you when they see me?'

  I was a little irritated. A normal person could stumble over a body without having their 'other'--significant or not--know it.

  'Pavlik looked like he had intended to deny it, but changed his mind. 'Oh, what the hell? Yeah, they call me.'

  He glanced at the can in my hand. 'I didn't know they still made Fresca.'

  'It's probably been here since 1972,' Sarah said, proffering her snack. 'Pop-Tart?'

  'No, thanks,' Pavlik started, then amended his answer. 'Wait a second. Is it the kind with the pink frosting?'

  'Will you two stop?' I demanded. Then, turning to Pavlik. 'Are you having your deputies spy on me?'

  'Of course not.' Pavlik had a mouthful of Sarah's Pop-Tart. Yes. I know it sounds dirty. 'They do it on their own.'

  'Why?'

  'It amuses them.' Pavlik gestured toward my hand. 'Can I have a swig of your Fresca?'

  I handed him the thing. 'And you? Do you think it's funny?'

  'Not so much.' Pavlik gave me back my Fresca. 'The social worker,' he took a pad from his jacket pocket and consulted his notes, 'one Lloyd Levitt, says you had an earlier run-in with Mrs Huseby.'

  'We both did,' Sarah offered from the vending machine, where she was going for seconds. 'That was the last Frosted Strawberry. How about Brown Sugar Cinnamon?'

  'No Chocolate?' Pavlik joined her.

  'Will you two pause long enough in your trip down Junk Food's Memory Lane to let me explain?' I stood. 'Klepto Clara . . . I mean, Mrs Huseby came around the corner fast and nearly hit us on our way to see Levitt. I simply told him so he could slow her down before someone got hurt. Which they did.'

  No reaction. I pointed to the vending machine. 'How about the Blueberry?'

  'Ugh,' they said in unison.

  'Fine.' I threw up my hands. 'If no one is listening to me on any topic, I'm heading home.'

  'We're listening to you.' Sarah deposited coins in the slot. 'Just not about flavor options on Pop-Tarts.' She pushed a button and a foil packet slid down. Sarah pulled it out of the bin.

  'You're saying Levitt should have done something?' Pavlik asked, watching her.

  'To be fair,' I said, 'he wouldn't have had time to track Clara Huseby down before she took her spill and we found her.'

  'Levitt's suggesting that you may have taken matters into your own hands.' Pavlik accepted a Tart from Sarah.

  I couldn't believe it. 'Levitt thinks we tipped over an old lady's wheelchair?'

  'Nah. More like purposely ran her into the rail.' Pavlik gestured out the door at the wooden bar that was attached to the wall on both sides of the corridor, presumably to provide support for those unsteady on their feet. Or to protect the walls from wheelchairs gone wild.

  'And you honestly buy that?'

  'Nah.' The sheriff took a bite of Pop-Tart. 'He's just looking for someone to blame because he's worried about the liability issues. Maybe they didn't maintain the wheelchair properly.'

  'Well,' I said, more relieved than I wanted to admit, 'I'm glad you know me better than that.'

  'Yeah.' He was chewing. 'Besides, the surveillance video shows the wheel flew off the chair as Huseby took the corner.'

  I smacked him lightly on the arm and the Pop-Tart flew out of his hand and across the room.

  'My Pop-Tart,' Pavlik said, looking forlornly at his empty palm.

  I'd actually assaulted the sheriff. 'I'm sorry. It's just that you were trying to scare me. On purpose.' I began scrabbling through my purse for spare change. 'Want me to buy you another?'

  'Nah,' Pavlik said, tugging half a thin napkin out of the aluminum dispenser on one of the tables. 'I have to get going anyway.'

  'So what did you come here for?' I asked. 'Just to haze me?'

  'Exactly.' He kissed me on the lips. 'My guys do that to me. I figured I--and you--should see how it feels.'

  'And how does it feel?' I said, running my fingers down his arm.

  He took my hand and kissed the heel of it. 'Feels just fine.'

  Then he hooked my Fresca and left.

  We'd forgotten Auntie Vi's bag, so I ran back in to get it while Sarah went to start the car. I reached the cafeteria just in time to see Mrs Huseby's body rolled on a gurney toward the back door.

  Demoralizing, to say the least, for members of the exercise class to see their inevitable fate wheeled past them and out the front door. The hell with the shoulder shrugs and arm circles--let's break out beer and potato chips.

  When I returned to the Firebird, I stashed the Schultz's sack in the trunk, trying not to suck in a lung-full of the exhaust that billowed out of the car's tail-pipe. Models as old as Sarah's didn't have to pass emissions checks like the ones built after 1995. More's the p
ity.

  Still holding my breath, I slammed the trunk lid closed. The thing bounced back up at me. Like its owner, the Firebird had some eccentricities.

  I stuck my head out of the exhaust cloud, took a cleanish breath and then went back in. This time, I lowered the trunk lid gently. When it reached the latch, I pressed down firmly. Success.

  'Good car,' I said, patting its tail light.

  As I climbed into the passenger seat, two seniors hobbled past. Sarah drummed her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as she waited to back out. 'Talk about a wasted morning.'

  I checked my cellphone for the time. 'Morning and early afternoon. It's nearly one thirty. Do you think your cousin will still be at the depot?'

  'Sure. Ronny is dependable--too dependable, I always thought. Probably from living with Kornell and doing what he was told. I doubt Ronny would even think to leave.'

  A back-hand compliment coming from anyone else. For Sarah, though, it was high praise. Hell, any praise escaping her was high praise.

  'Well, we certainly have an excuse for being late.' I rolled down the window and stuck my elbow out into the fresh air. 'Who could expect to have someone die practically in front of us?'

  I saw Sarah roll her eyes.

  'What?' I asked.

  'Please.' She looked sideways at me. 'That . . . repository is God's Waiting Room, crammed with hundreds of people, just months, days or even hours away from the perpetual vacation. And I took you, Brookhills' own Angel of Death, there. I should have known better.' She jammed the transmission into reverse.

  I thought that was unfair. I also thought a change of subject was in order. 'I'm confused. Levitt said that stuff I put in the trunk was from your aunt's room. Didn't your aunt and uncle live together there?'

  'Sure,' Sarah said. The pair of seniors behind the Firebird had finally cleared the driver's side bumper, so she started to back out. Cautiously. 'Until Auntie Vi broke her hip and had to go to "Sunrise".' She laughed. 'Should have named it "Sunset". Or "Lights Out". Even Sophie's lucky to still be alive.'

  'Oh, come on,' I said. 'I'm sure lots of people recover and go on to live productive "autumns".'

  Sarah slammed on her brakes as a man walking a fat wiener dog crossed diagonally behind us. 'Recover?' she demanded. 'You don't recover from being old. You die. We all do.'

  Sarah stared over the steering wheel. 'People leave us. It's just a question of when.'

  'Geez. You talk about me being "Little Mary Sunshine",' I said. 'Are you OK?'

  She finished backing out of the parking spot and barreled straight across the intersection to Junction Road.

  'Sarah?' I tried again.

  She slowed the Firebird as we approached the railroad tracks. After we rumbled over them, Sarah took a quick left and eased into an angle parking spot, nose-in to the depot.

  It was only when we'd come to a complete stop that she turned to me. 'Courtney and Sam want to visit their cousins for the summer.'

  A little over a year ago, Sarah had become the guardian for our friend Patricia's two children after Patricia's death. Sam and Courtney were now both in high school and Sarah, who'd never so much as babysat, had turned out to be a much better 'mom' than anyone had ever expected.

  However, a whole summer without them now? Sarah would go crazy.

  'What cousins?' I asked. 'I thought Sam and Courtney didn't have family.'

  'Not on their father's side, but Patricia's mother was married a bunch of times.'

  'Only, as I recall, Grandma didn't want anything to do with her daughter's kids.'

  'True.' Sarah took her foot off the brake in preparation for getting out of the Firebird and we started to roll toward the building.

  'We're still moving,' I warned, opening my door and dragging a foot, like I was going to be able to stop the vehicle.

  Sarah slammed on the brakes and I grabbed the buffering dashboard to keep from flying out with the door as it swung wildly. No passenger-side airbags on this baby.

  Sarah set the parking brake, then looked at me like nothing had happened. 'You were saying?'

  I had to think for a second before I realized we were talking about Courtney and Sam's family. Or lack of same. 'We agreed that Patricia's mother had no interest in the kids. Did something change?'

  'Not with Patsy--that's Patricia's mother. But she has a second daughter.'

  Wait a minute. 'The mother named Patricia after herself?'

  Sarah shrugged. 'Men do it all the time and nobody thinks it's weird.'

  She was right. I'd have to give that some thought another time.

  'So Patricia had a sister?' I asked. 'And that means Sam and Courtney have a blood aunt?'

  'And cousins. A boy and a girl, wouldn't you know it? The boy is a little younger than Courtney and the girl is a year older than Sam.'

  Sam, by my calculations, was seventeen and Courtney, fourteen. 'So how did you find all this out?'

  'I didn't.' Sarah climbed out of the Firebird. 'The kids found each other on Facebook. They've been e-mailing or twitting or whatever the hell they call—'

  'Tweeting,' I offered as I hoisted myself out of the bucket seat. 'Eric keeps telling me I need to do it, but I don't see the point. If people want to know what I'm doing, they can just call me. I have a cellphone and text messaging. As far as I'm concerned, that already makes me far too accessible and—'

  'Do you mind?' Sarah grew cranky. 'We were talking about me. For once.'

  That was a little rude. True. But rude, nonetheless.

  'Sorry,' I said, biting my tongue. 'You were saying Courtney, Sam and their two cousins have been in touch by e-mail and Twit—'

  'Yeah, yeah, that,' Sarah said impatiently. 'Anyway, they've been communicating about six months now and their Aunt Patrice—'

  My turn to interrupt. 'Patsy bore two daughters, Patricia and Patrice?'

  'And one son.'

  'Don't tell me. She named him Patrick.'

  'No. Bert.'

  'After the father?' I asked.

  'Who knows?' Sarah exploded. 'For all I care, they watched Sesame Street and he has a twin named Ernie. Now, can I continue?'

  'Sure. Sorry.'

  'Anyway, Patrice seems a nice enough woman, I guess, and they want Sam and Courtney to spend the summer with them on Cape Cod.'

  'Cape Cod? Well, that's unobjectionable, isn't it?'

  'I suppose.'

  I didn't respond right away because I had closed my car door and was looking at the depot. This side, the facade that faced the train tracks, had a large plate glass window, probably for train watching. The boarding platform was to the rear of the building--the left side as we faced it--with the wrap-around porch ending where the platform began.

  I turned to my friend. 'You've checked them out, right? You're sure they are who they claim to be?'

  I was thinking about online predators. Someone could pretend to be anybody. In a well-publicized case, a young girl thought she was applying for a nanny job, only to be greeted at the door of a nice house by a supremely not nice man with a gun. She never left.

  'I'm sure of Patrice and her kids.' Sarah stepped back on to the tracks and pretended to survey the building.

  'Be careful,' I said. 'We don't need another casualty.'

  Sarah didn't answer.

  I studied my friend. 'So what are you worried about? Sam and Courtney will have a nice summer with their cousins and be back with all sorts of stories to tell.'

  'If they come back,' Sarah muttered, kicking at one of the rails.

  Ah, that was it. 'You're afraid they'll like living on Cape Cod so much they won't want to return to Brookhills.'

  But Sarah's face was stony. 'Sam has two more semesters of high school after this, then he'll leave for college. Courtney will take off three years after that. One way or the other, they'll both leave.'

  Sarah shrugged. 'And I say good riddance.'

  I smacked her one.

  Chapter Nine

  'Don't be a weenie.' I
was leading the way around the depot building to the porch. 'When I used to play tag with my older brothers, I knew they would catch me eventually, so I'd just sit down. I let them tag me to get it over with.'

  'Nice analogy.' Sarah stomped up the steps. 'But you're calling me the weenie?'

  'I was four years old,' I said. 'You're forty—'

  '—ish,' Sarah finished. She tried the door. Unlocked.

  'Ronny?' she called from the threshold. 'Where are you?'

  I said, 'Avoiding the subject isn't going to change the way you're feeling,' following her in. 'You're suffering empty-nest syndrome, but Courtney and Sam aren't even gone yet. In fact, you want to shove them out of the nest, so they won't have the satisfaction of flying away on their own.'

  'Thanks, Dr Phil,' Sarah said, 'but that's ridiculous. 'I was fine before they came. In fact—'

  'Here I am.' Ronny appeared from behind the ticket windows and looked back and forth between us. 'Is everything all right?'

  'Sure,' Sarah said quickly.

  Except for the fact his father was smashed by a train and we'd just come from the nursing home with his stepmother's meager personal effects. Oh, and then there was Klepto Clara, deceased as well.

  'We were just talking about Sarah's wards,' I explained. 'Sorry to be late, but one of the . . . residents at Brookhills Manor died. Everything was fine, though, with Mr Levitt.'

  Besides him suspecting us of chair-hicular homicide.

  'Just call Levitt and he'll let you into Kornell's apartment to clear it out,' Sarah said.

  'No need. I have a key.' Ronny was looking at his cousin with concern. 'You said, "before they came". Is something wrong with Sam and Courtney?'

  Of course Ronny would know them. Sarah and he might not share a blood parent, but the cousins were family after all.

  'Nope,' Sarah said, holding up her hands as if to deflect any further conversation. 'They're just visiting mom's-side relatives for the summer.'

  'That's great,' Ronny said, a smile lighting his face. He wasn't a bad-looking guy, despite his quirky taste in dress. 'Are they staying with their cousins on Cape Cod?'

  Sarah scowled at him. 'How'd you know that?'

  'Facebook.' Ronny shrugged. 'They're very excited about going and I'm glad you're letting them.'