Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries)

by Ryan, Annelise

“Because he cares about you and he’s concerned. As am I.”

  “I’m fine.” Even I know this is a lie. I’m far from being the equivalent of a psychiatric code blue, but my mental state isn’t exactly stable, either. My life over the past two months has been a hot mess of frustration, confusion, and self-loathing.

  “I think you’re okay for the moment, but the fact remains you haven’t seen Hurley yet, correct?”

  I sigh. “That is correct.”

  “And whether or not you’re willing to admit it, this gambling thing has me concerned. So here’s what we’re going to do.” She gets out of her chair, walks over to her desk, and sets her notebook and pen down. Then she picks up another notebook. It’s one of those black and white composition books, the kind that I used to have in middle school. She walks over and hands it to me.

  “I want you to start keeping a diary. At least once a day, I want you to sit down with this notebook and jot down what you did for the day, and what your thoughts and feelings were at the time. It doesn’t have to be very detailed as far as activities are concerned, but I do want you to be honest in recording your thoughts and feelings. No one will see what you write unless you want to share them with me, and what you decide to share with me is up to you. I think it will help you zero in on some key emotions and feelings that will help us over the long term.”

  “The long term? I have to come back?”

  “At least once more,” Maggie says. “Let’s plan on meeting again on Monday after your weekend on call and we’ll see how things have gone. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

  Great. It’s not bad enough that Izzy has forced me to see a counselor when he knows how much I hate shrinks, he’s also managed to hook me up with one who’s giving me homework. This can’t end soon enough for me, but first I know I’m going to have to convince Maggie that I’m not addicted to gambling. It won’t be easy; in my mind’s eye I see the weekend stretching out before me, sitting in my cottage, twiddling my thumbs, aching to hit up the casino, but unable to go. The very thought of it makes my palms start to sweat.

  That’s when I realize that if I’m going to make it through the weekend and get rid of Maggie, someone will have to die.

  Chapter 2

  Saturday, March 1

  Dear Diary,

  This is the first of my entries, dictated not only by the shrink Izzy made me see, but also by my new personal trainer, Gunther, who I’m convinced is a throwback to the era of Medieval torture chambers. Both Dr. Maggie and Gunther want me to record my feelings, emotions, and activities each day, though Gunther also wants me to track what I eat. He says it’s part of what he calls my new life plan, which I find ironic since I’m pretty sure the end result of the “exercise circuit” he ran me through last night will be my death. First he strapped me into some contraption that looked like a birthing chair and kept pulling my legs apart like I was the wishbone on a turkey. Then he put me on another machine where I had to pull on a bunch of bars with weights connected to them. It made my boobs bounce like beach balls in an ocean surf. Then I had to ride a bicycle to nowhere while sitting on a seat about as wide as the average thong, which gave me a severe case of ’rhoid rage. I think I must have blacked out after that because I don’t remember the rest of my “circuit.”

  This morning when I tried to get out of bed, my muscles screamed at me and I ended up walking like a ninety-year-old woman. My arms hurt so bad I couldn’t hold my coffee cup and when I tried to brush my teeth, the pain made me want to rip my arm off my body and beat Gunther over the head with it. I was so tired by the time I finished with the machines that I flat out refused to get on the treadmill, which should be called a dreadmill. I kind of wish I had one here now, though, so I could walk Hoover on it instead of having to leash him up and take him outside.

  I was surprised how fast the stiffness set in. By the time I got home, I was already walking as if I had a broomstick up my ass and the hot shower I had hoped would help, only made me more tired. I didn’t sleep much, though. Every time I moved, it hurt so much it would wake me up. And it’s hard to sleep without breathing. The worst part of it all was watching Bob Richmond run through his circuit, which included some of the same torture devices Gunther made me use. Richmond, who was the fattest person I knew three months ago, breezed through the circuit with only a tiny pant to show for his efforts. I, on the other hand, was wheezing like a broken accordion and vacillating between fearing I was dying and wishing I was dead. It took four ibuprofen and two extra-strength acetaminophen tablets this morning to get me to where I could pull my own pants up.

  The good news is my utter exhaustion and near-death experience with Gunther kept me from going to the casino last night. I didn’t even miss it. This should make Dr. Naggy happy and maybe get me paroled soon.

  Before starting my note this morning, I thought about what I should write to comply with her assignment. That’s when I realized how diabolical it was of her to give me a notebook with the pages sewn into place. I know she said she wouldn’t ask to look at or read what I wrote, and it is up to me if I want to share, but I don’t believe her. If I commit something to these pages that I later want to delete, I’ll have to tear the page out or scribble over it. With this composition style notebook, I can’t do either of those things without leaving evidence, and I’m afraid of what conclusions she might draw from my second guessing. So I’ve done the next best thing, instead. I’m using a pencil to write everything down. At least then I can erase the evidence if I think it’s too damning.

  This is the start of my first weekend on call since I got my old job back. Since Dr. Naggy wants me to record my activities and feelings, I will say that I’m happy to be back at a job I love doing. But I also find myself longing for a call because the weekend is stretching out before me bereft of anything fun to do. Not that someone dying is fun, but it is something to keep me busy. Right now I need that to distract me mentally and because if I stop moving for very long, I may not be able to talk my protesting muscles into starting again. Of course, work will mean seeing Hurley again and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  Gunther’s request that I record what I eat isn’t off to a great start. I’ve been eating out a lot lately, grabbing stuff on my way to and from the casino, so my cupboards are looking a little bare. For breakfast this morning, I finished off half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. I would have behaved better, but aside from pet food and a can of peach slices that I didn’t have the strength to open—it hurt too much when I tried to pull the tab—it was all I could find. As it was, I had to let the ice cream sit out for a bit and soften up so I could get it out of the container.

  I’m bored, I don’t want to sit still, and I don’t want Gunther’s tortures to be for naught, so I suppose the smart thing to do at this point is to go grocery shopping. Since I’m turning over a new leaf, I’m making up a list of healthy crap to stock up on.

  Maybe this diary thing isn’t such a bad idea after all.

  Chapter 3

  It’s strange how life works out, and sometimes, like today, death is even stranger. It is the ultimate equalizer, eliminating the barriers that separate the Haves from the Have-Nots, the blacks from the whites, or the young from the old. It can be feared or revered, expected or surprising, welcomed or shunned. But it cannot be avoided. It is the one thing we all have in common: some day we are going to die.

  That day has arrived for the man I’m staring at and I’m not sure which part of this scenario is stranger: the fact that I’m standing in a men’s room with another woman, the fact that there is a corpse on the floor, or the fact that the woman standing beside me is alive, but looks deader than the body at our feet.

  Since I live in a small town of about 11,000 souls and the odds of me knowing any one of them are pretty good, I should probably feel guilty that someone is dead since I was sort of wishing for exactly that less than an hour ago. But I don’t. God is punishing me enough as it is by making every
movement feel like the bite of a Taser.

  It all began with my decision to go grocery shopping. I loaded myself and my dog, Hoover, into my car, a midnight blue, slightly used hearse. Inconspicuous it is not, but it’s reliable, has relatively low mileage, and most important, it was what I could afford back when I bought it.

  It’s a beautiful spring day—forty-eight degrees outside already—atypically warm and sunny for early March in Wisconsin. But then the whole winter has been kind of wonky, with warmer temperatures and much less snow than usual. Because of the warm temperature, I cracked the windows in the hearse and Hoover forwent his usual spot in the back where the smells keep him in sniffing heaven, and settled into the front passenger seat, instead.

  I got out of the hearse and shut the door, leaving Hoover inside with the windows half down. I didn’t bother to lock the doors. Sorenson is a small, Midwestern town with Midwestern values, and unlocked doors on cars and even houses are fairly common. Not that we don’t have our share of crime. But I’m not too worried about my car since most people, thieves included, are reluctant to look or search around inside a hearse.

  I turned to head into the grocery store and nearly got run over by a big white car that braked at the last second. Had it been going any faster, I’m sure it would have hit me, but it was moving so slow I hadn’t realized it was moving at all. The car was a large, mostly white Cadillac, circa 1980-something. One of the perks of living in a small, self-sustaining town is the low mileage on many of the cars. There are plenty of vehicles on the roads in Sorenson that are older than I am. Between the winter salt, the springtime potholes, and the summer and fall collisions with drunken tractor and combine drivers, most of the cars around here have had more body work than an aging Hollywood star.

  Behind the wheel was Irene Keller, who is eighty-something years old and the owner of the Keller Funeral Home. She leaned out her side window. “Oh, Mattie! Thank goodness I caught you!”

  This struck me as an odd thing for her to say considering that she doesn’t know me all that well and has never been overly friendly toward me unless she’s trying to sell me a casket. Our main connection is Bjorn, an elderly gent who taxied me around for a week or so after I wrecked my car and before I bought the hearse. Bjorn is Irene’s husband. They tied the knot almost two months ago after a very hasty courtship. Then again, when you’re both past eighty, the definition of hasty when referring to courtships is likely not what it is for the rest of us. My only other connection to Irene is Barbara, Irene’s hair and makeup artist to the dead. Barbara is also my hairdresser, and a very talented one. The fact that she works in the basement of a funeral home, makes me lie down on an embalming table, and always smells faintly of formaldehyde are minor transgressions I’ve learned to overlook in exchange for her wizardry. Seeing Irene reminded me that I was long overdue for a visit to Barbara.

  “I was on my way to your house when I saw you pull out,” Irene said, wringing her arthritic, veiny hands. “I didn’t think I’d ever catch up to you. Thank goodness you pulled in here.”

  I’ve seen Irene drive. She’d have trouble catching a cripple on crutches as slow as she goes. But since I suspect she can’t see all that well anymore, it’s probably just as well. She looked genuinely upset and I’m certain she would have been pale if she’d ever had any color to begin with. But she’s had skin as flimsy and transparent as one-ply toilet paper for as long as I’ve known her.

  “What’s wrong, Irene?”

  “It’s Bjorn,” she said, and for a second I was certain she was going to tell me he had died. But then she shocked me by saying, “I think he killed someone.”

  “You think Bjorn killed someone?” I was certain I must have misheard her because the Bjorn I know can hardly figure out how to get his pants on each morning and forgets who he is each night after sundown. Then I remembered that up until a few weeks ago he was driving a cab for the local service. Had he run over someone? “Did he have an accident with the taxi?” I asked her.

  “No no. He quit that job right after we got married.”

  “Then why do you think he killed someone?”

  Irene shook her head and the skin beneath her chin flapped like a turkey wattle. “Not here, not in public,” she says in a whispery voice. “I need to show you.”

  “Show me what?”

  “The biggest mess you’ll ever see.”

  That was saying a lot because I’ve seen some pretty big messes in my time. A smart person would have run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. A smart person would have written Irene off as a nut job with an overactive imagination. But curiosity is my third biggest vice, right behind food and gambling, and today smart was taking a holiday. I was already trying to figure out how to spin this for my diary.

  I got back in the hearse and followed Irene out of the parking lot and toward the east side of town at a snail’s pace. Several minutes later, she pulled into the lot of the Twilight Nursing Home and parked. I found a space near the end of a row, realizing that a hearse out front was probably less likely to attract attention here than it would in other places. I again cracked the windows and told Hoover to stay.

  When we reached the main entrance, which took longer than it should have since neither of our bodies were moving very well, Irene grabbed my arm and leaned in close, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t think the staff knows yet so just pretend you’re here to see someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Pick someone. Don’t you know someone who lives here from your days working at the hospital?”

  There were several someones who fit the bill, and I picked a name at random. “Okay, I’ll say I’m here to see Gladys Stumper.”

  Irene had her hand on the door handle. Instead of pulling the door open, her head whipped around so fast her neck made a loud snapping sound.

  I waited, wondering if her head would fall off, or if she’d fall to the ground paralyzed. Neither happened.

  “Hell, no, Winston,” she sneered. “Gladys died a month ago. Had the big one during the night. They found her cold and dead in bed the next morning, the lucky bitch.”

  I was a bit appalled by both the news of Gladys’s death and Irene’s comment.

  “What?” Irene said, seeing my expression. “You don’t know what hell it is, getting old. Wait until you get to be my age. You develop furniture disease, your farts turn to dust, and your face starts looking like a prune, which by the way, will become one of your favorite fruits. Every time you move, your bones creak like a haunted house . . . assuming you can move, since your joints work about as well as a rusted hinge. If you’re lucky, you won’t end up like Bjorn, who is so senile most of the time he could hide his own Easter eggs. As if that’s not enough, you watch all your friends die these long, painful deaths and hope you’ll be one of the lucky ones, like Gladys, and go quick, painless, and in your sleep.”

  Though I should have known better, I had to ask. “What is furniture disease?”

  She looked at me like I had the IQ of a grape. “It’s when your chest falls into your drawers. Get ready for it, honey, because with that rack of yours, you’ll be using them as knee pads before you know it.”

  I straightened up and pulled back my shoulders to prove to myself that I was a long way away from furniture disease. “Okay, how about George Cummings?” I offered. “Is he still here and kicking?”

  Irene shook her head sadly. From behind us, we heard the sound of Hoover barking and Irene’s eyes lit up. “I have an idea. Go get that dog of yours and we’ll take him in like he’s one of those therapy dogs.”

  “I don’t know, Irene. He’s well behaved and all, but he’s never been around a lot of people.”

  Irene dismissed my concerns with a wave of her hand. “He’ll be fine. Go get him.”

  Since Irene was clearly determined, I did as she said and fetched Hoover from the car. Fortunately, I carry a leash in the car at all times so I hooked him up and headed back to Irene.r />
  “Perfect,” she said, giving Hoover a tentative pat on the head. “Now follow me and try to act like you don’t know what’s going on.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem since I don’t,” I reminded her.

  We entered the facility and any semblance of normal living intended to be implied by the tasteful, homey decor and warm wall colors was immediately undermined by the faint but distinctive smell of stale urine. There was a small sitting room to our right and a door with a sign that told us it led to an administrative wing. To the left was a very long hallway with rooms on both sides, and I could see another hallway that broke off halfway down and ran to the right.

  A heavyset woman with short, gray hair was sitting behind an enclosed area with a sliding glass window straight ahead of us. She was dressed in a white nurse’s uniform and a name pin on her left breast identified her as CONNIE LANE, LPN.

  “Back already?” Connie said to Irene.

  “I have a lot of friends here,” Irene said as she picked up a pen and signed her name in a logbook labeled GUEST REGISTRY.

  “Not to mention potential customers,” Connie said with a sly laugh.

  “Really, Connie?” Irene said, setting the pen down and staring at the woman with a distasteful look that made Connie cough and flush bright pink in her cheeks. “Funeral humor? In this place?”

  “Sorry,” Connie muttered. She looked over at me then and said, “Sorry, but we don’t allow dogs in the facility.”

  “This isn’t any old dog,” Irene said. She slid the book over to me and I signed my name on the next line. “He’s one of those therapy dogs. You know, the ones that go into hospitals and such to cheer up the patients. We set it up with Bernie like two weeks ago.”

  Though I knew Irene was lying, she was good enough at it that she had me convinced. Connie still looked doubtful and she stood up and peered over the desk at Hoover, who was busy sniffing every square inch of the floor.