“Yes, Eleanor, you have.”
“Then, pray tell, why do you not do so?” Her eyes bore into Lynn.
Lynn squirmed slightly.
“Well…” she began lamely.
“Cookie?” Ruth asked, holding the plate to Lynn’s face. “I made them for you. You have been so kind and gentle with our girl! Have a cookie.”
“Oh,” Lynn muttered. “Thank you.”
“They have cinnamon,” Ruth smiled broadly, handing the platter to Lynn. As Lynn gingerly took one, Ruth giggled. “They’re for you.
Good heavens, yes. Natural ingredients.”
“Oh…thank you.”
“Keep the platter.”
“We shall speak no more of Abbey,” Eleanor interjected as if Ruth did not exist. “Abbey has suffered through a series of life-altering, extremely traumatic events, would you not say?” Lynn nodded. “And now the painful repercussions of these incidents are retreating into a place within her which allows Abbey to begin leading a full and happy life, would you not also say?” Lynn’s smile twitched. How could this woman make her feel so idiotic?
“I feel it’s important to discuss how Abbey will transition from The Meadows into her daily routine with you and her…aunts.”
“She will transition beautifully.” Eleanor’s face carried no hint of sarcasm and Lynn faltered in her response.
“I have no doubt,” Lynn managed to say. “But sudden changes can be disconcerting to people transitioning into the home environment again.” “Sudden changes?”
“Yes.” Lynn searched for words that wouldn’t belie her annoyance. “For example, you were scheduled to collect Abbey tomorrow afternoon, not today.”
“Is that a problem, doctor?” Eleanor snapped.
“I’m not a doctor.”
“Correct.” Eleanor smirked. “You are not.”
“Abbey’s well-being and recovery are my main concern.”
“We shall bake!” Ruth said with a giggle. “Do you remember, Eleanor, how Abbey loves to bake?” Ruth shuffled to the young woman and took Abbey’s face in her hands. “Do you remember, dear? Bundt cake?”
“See?” Eleanor hissed, “she will have Ruth, her aunts, me AND Bundt cake.”
“Eleanor, I can’t stress strongly enough how crucial it is to continue our intensive therapy sessions. In a short time, Abbey has remembered so much…”
“What?” both women shot back simultaneously. The speed of their response amazed and surprised Lynn.
“I am remembering...much,” Abbey whispered.
“That is wonderful, darling!” Ruth said, kissing the girl’s cheek. She started humming a lively song and grabbed Abbey’s hands.
“Not now, Ruth, we’ve a function at the Bastille,” Eleanor snapped. Ruth dropped her hands. Eleanor turned her attention to Lynn.
“I am certain you have done wonders for her.” Eleanor descended upon Lynn in sharp, quick steps, stopping only when she reached Lynn’s desk. “I am confident the support and love of her family will continue to heal her.”
“We still have discharge paperwork to complete. And, there’s the treatment plan I outlined…”
Eleanor cut her off as she adjusted her hat upon her head. “Of course, my dear. And you shall do an outstanding job of describing the exact details of those plans.” She slid the gloves onto her hands. “In addition, I am of the understanding that when you work out the exact dates of your visits, you shall notify us in advance. Of that, I am grateful.”
She turned to Abbey and gestured to the duffle bag. “Take your things, dear.”
“No,” Abbey answered.
“What did you say, dear?”
“No,” she repeated. “I want to remember. I need to know who I am.”
Eleanor stepped closer to Abbey, turning her back slightly on Lynn and Ruth. With a deft movement, she dug something out of her purse and held it out to Abbey. It was a small, brass, toy prop airplane about four inches long and two inches tall. Abbey took it, stared at it a moment, and held the small trinket closer. On the right side of the plane, beneath where the pilot would sit, were four words:
FOR ABBEY
LOVE ELEANOR
Abbey turned the plane around to the other side of the fuselage and read the four words etched into the side of the toy:
AND YOUR
G.I.W. FAMILY
Eleanor leaned into Abbey’s ear and spoke in barely a whisper, “I know who you are.” She pulled back and locked eyes with Abbey. “Do you want to know?” She snatched the brass bobble from Abbey’s hand and shoved it back into her purse.
“Abbey?” Lynn spoke up.
“I shall be fine,” Abbey managed to say, her face still blank. “May I call you if I have difficulty?”
Lynn nodded. “Yes. And we can conduct an impromptu therapy session, if you’d like, during my home visits.” She glanced at Eleanor.
“Remember? We discussed that on the phone.”
Eleanor nodded. “You also mentioned faxing several documents.”
“Yes. The work I’d like Abbey to continue. Her journaling, some writing exercises to stimulate her memory.” Ruth laughed uproariously.
“Oh! What a delightfully clever idea!” Ruth said through guffaws. Eleanor shushed the woman and grabbed Abbey’s bag.
“No,” Lynn said, standing up, “we have someone who will do that.”
“No bother,” Eleanor said. “You shall find that our estate is a bastion of self-supporting women. We come from healthy stock.” She turned to Abbey. “Come along, dear. I have taken the liberty to call for our limo to meet us around back.” She turned and focused her gaze upon Lynn. “Thank you for all you have done. The aunts and I shall take it from here.”
“I’ll be in touch.” Lynn held Eleanor’s gaze.
Ruth hugged Lynn. “You are such a dear. Tell me, do you like maple bars?” Lynn nodded. “Good. So do I. Bye.” She hurried out the door.
By the time Lynn looked up, Abbey had gone.
9
“Cause of death, old age.”
“Old age? Is that a medical condition?” Mathers asked, jiggling his keys and scratching his nose. The stench of antiseptic burned the insides of his nostrils. Damn! Why didn’t he carry a handkerchief?
“If I start rattling off terms like ‘obstructive pulmonary disease,’ ‘hepatic system failure,’ and other medical jargon, would you understand any of it?” The young woman spoke from behind plastic frames with lenses as thick as bottles. Mathers shook his head. “Then please don’t waste my time,” she continued.
Mathers assessed the woman. Dr. Helen Zyback couldn’t be more than twenty-five, but she certainly knew her job. He arrived at the medical examiner’s office shortly after the corpse of the old woman arrived; he was sure he’d wait for hours while the usual process of examining the body dragged on. To his surprise, the young woman with stringy hair and protruding overbite was already elbow-deep in the procedure. As he entered and stood reeling from the thick air of formaldehyde, she glared at him with disapproval and motioned for him to leave. He wandered out through the hallway trying to clear his head when he noticed the worn door on his left with the freshly painted words: MEDICAL EXAMINER: HELEN ZYBACK and realized he had just met the new county employee. He made a mental note to ask Janet where her predecessor, Henry, had gone.
“So you are certain this woman died of natural causes?” Mathers asked, studying the corpse of the old lady that lay on the exam table.
Helen’s response had a crisp vibrato, the vocal equivalent to the snapping of a whip. “It’s quite a stretch, but I’m willing to bet my two hundred-thousand-dollar medical school loans on the odds that this woman died of old age.” She glared at him and unblinkingly asked,
“What’s your guess, Detective?”
“I’ll trust your judgment.”
“Good boy.” She sighed and shook her head. “The one medical condition we can never counter—death. Eventually, we all must die...
pay taxes...get the flu...”<
br />
“I don’t.”
“You don’t pay taxes?”
He shook his head. “Get the flu. Never have. I just don’t get sick.”
“Then I guess you won’t die of old age, either?”
Mathers smirked at her not-so-subtle condescension. This was a game he was good at. Growing up with a mother and two sisters taught him a few things about women.
“I trust your judgment,” he said.
“Goody for me. Are we done?”
Mathers lowered his head so she wouldn’t see his smile. God, how he loved ballsy women! “I do have a few questions.”
“Imagine. A detective with questions.” She peeled off her latex gloves and turned on the water in the sink. “Learn that from Law and
Order or are you naturally curious?”
“I assume she’s eighty-ish. Agree?”
“More emphasis on the ‘ish,’ but yes.”
“Why would her heart just…stop?”
Helen pulled at the paper towel and dried her hands. “That’s what happens when you’re old.”
“A heart attack is usually associated with a sudden shock, isn’t it?” Helen sat down at the small table and logged into her computer. “People die. Old people die because their hearts are old and arteries get clogged with junk food. Remember that the next time you shove a donut in your mouth.” She spun her head and shot him another icy glance. “Want me to reel off the medical descriptions of organ failure?”
“Please don’t.”
“Then ask me smart questions.” Helen began typing up her report while Mathers walked around the body.
“Any sign of trauma?”
“No. Next.”
“Any sign of foul play?”
Helen sighed loudly. “Again, NO. I would have told you that. While we’re at it, ‘no’ on any sign of sexual violation, ‘no’ on any sign of struggle, ‘no’ on naturally developing distinguishing marks such as moles, birth marks or discoloration and ‘no’ on toxicology.” She stared at him for a moment before continuing in a voice rich with sarcasm. “I am ready for your smart questions. Will you be asking them anytime soon?”
“How old is that tattoo? The one of Mickey Mouse.”
“Why?”
“I’m a detective. I’m curious.” He shrugged. “Okay...I confess...I saw it on an episode of Law and Order.”
Mathers thought he saw her smile. “I’d estimate fifty years or so. Next question.”
“How many eighty-year-old women have you seen with a tattoo of Mickey Mouse?”
“One. Our Jane Doe. Next.”
“Don’t you find that strange?”
“What I find stranger,” Helen stared at him unblinking, “is why an eighty-year-old woman had her tongue and labia pierced.” Mathers froze. “Did you hear me?” He nodded at her. She sighed and continued. “You DO know what a labia is, I assume. Or…I apologize. Perhaps labias don’t interest you.”
“I’m intimately familiar with labias,” Mathers said.
“Okay.” She turned back to her report. “Not that I care one way or the other. Live and let live I always say.”
“So we have an eighty-year-old that has Mickey Mouse tattoos, pierced labia…”
“…pierced tongue,” Helen added. “And an MP-3 player inside her skirt.”
“Does this make sense to you?”
“Detective, I graduated as the valedictorian from medical school and was forced to accept a job in Backwoods, Vermont, because my parents’ health deteriorated unexpectedly. I passed up a job in Los Angeles as ship’s doctor with Carnival Cruise lines, AND an enticing offer from an oil company. NOTHING makes sense to me.” She turned and began typing.
Mathers looked at the dead woman’s face peering out at him over the top of the thin sheet. Under these bright lights, he saw the high cheekbones, pug nose and broad forehead that he hadn’t noticed in the field behind the Bastille. The face looked familiar to him. Had he met her before? He couldn’t remember meeting any elderly people since his parents died, so what was it about this woman that struck him as familiar?
“Detective?” Helen’s voice replaced the clicking of the computer keys. He looked over at her. “Anything else? I’m busy.”
He shook his head. “I need to go talk to the women at the Bastille and question them regarding Jane Doe.”
“When you get there, send me a postcard. Bye-bye now,” Helen shot back.
“The reason I’m telling you this,” Mathers explained, “is that if any possibility of foul play exists, I’m going to…”
“There is no foul play. Go check the old folks’ homes for Alzheimer’s patients who may have wandered off.”
“I did. Everyone is accounted for.” He checked his notebook before continuing, “and there have only been two missing persons reports in the past few months.”
“Congratulations,” she said. “Detective, I speak three languages, so if you’d prefer I can tell you the same thing in French or German, but I prefer my native tongue, so please listen,” Helen muttered from her computer screen. “She’s old. She died. She probably wandered onto the property chasing pretty butterflies.” Helen entered a few more notes, then without looking up, said, “Go tell the ladies to continue with the Faire.”
“How do you know about that?”
“It’s a small town. That Faire brings in lots of money.” She hit ‘save’ and pushed away from the computer. “Bye-bye now.” With that, Helen dismissed Detective Mathers.
10
“Mr. Rix?” Heather whined at the thin figure wearing the sequined dress striking a pose in the day room. Huge chunks of costume jewelry sparkled in the sunlight, making the trim body look like a thrift store mannequin.
“Liza,” Mr. Rix snapped, smoothing her blazer.
“Liza, will you please sit down?”
“Fucker can’t!” the grizzled voice shot from the back of the room.
“Mr. Stewart? Language?” Heather sighed, handing a folder to Lynn.
“You gonna walk me home?” Mr. Stewart asked.
“No,” both Heather and Lynn responded in unison.
The desk phone gave a shrill ring. “Want me to get that?” Heather asked.
“It’s your desk.” Lynn shrugged.
“Station?”
“Station. Desk. Whatever.” Lynn spun back to Mr. Stewart. “I would really like it if you read that book I gave you.” “’bout women?” he spat.
“About relating to women.”
“I know ‘bout women,” the old man laughed. “I’ve been bangin’ ‘em for years!”
“You’re disgusting!” Liza quipped, as she spun and shot a double jazz hand at him from the window seat of the day room.
“Goodbye, everyone,” Lynn said, winking at Heather. “Have a good weekend.”
“Wait?” Heather motioned to Lynn to step closer. She covered the phone and whispered, “It’s Martha? She says she doesn’t have your progress notes? They’re due?”
“Not until tomorrow. At FIVE.” Why was she explaining this to Heather? “Never mind. I’ll go tell her myself.” She spun away from Heather, who was now nodding her head at the receiver, eyes wide and growing paler by the second.
“You leavin’, Miss Lynn?” a voice cried from the corner.
“Yes, I am, Mrs. Bailey. Is everything okay?”
“No, it ain’t!” the heavy woman said, rocking gently. “Fung Shi is scared.”
Lynn motioned to Heather to get the girl’s attention, but the C.N.A. was engrossed in her conversation. Lynn turned her attention back to Mrs. Bailey. She didn’t care what the official research stated— people’s behavior changed on full moons.
“Why is Fung Shi scared?” Lynn asked, moving closer to the hefty woman who rocked herself and clung to the imaginary creature. As she approached, the sting of stale urine overwhelmed her. “I smell urine.”
“He heard something last night. In the yard. It scared him.”
“Heard something? That’s what made h
im pee? Maybe it was a fox.”
“No,” Mrs. Bailey whispered, “it wasn’t any animal.”
“What do you think it was, then?”
“Something bad. Real bad.”
Before Lynn could respond, the woman’s head shot up and stared directly over Lynn’s shoulder. “You take that thing out, I’m cutting it off and feeding it to Fung Shi!”
Lynn turned just as Mr. Chow pulled out his penis and flashed it at Mrs. Bailey. Before Lynn knew it, the fat woman jumped up, shoved her aside and dashed at the small man. “I’M GONNA SNIP OFF THAT WANG, BOY!”
Pandemonium broke out. Liza launched into a chorus of “Come On, Get Happy!” and tap danced her way across the day room. Mr. Chow, screaming in fear, raced down the hallway with Mrs. Bailey hot on his heels. Mr. Stewart lifted his fist and shouted, ‘GO, GIRL!’ and from somewhere a woman’s scream pierced the air. Heather slammed her fist against the red panic button and a pleasant mechanical voice announced, “Code Red, Day Room.” Heather chased after Mrs. Bailey, leaving Lynn squatting alone as a chunky, pink-faced young man rounded the corner, Snickers bar in his hand.
“Kenny, give me the Snickers.” The boy handed it to her and Lynn removed the wrapper. Kenny had a penchant for eating Snickers bars, wrapper and all. “Did you steal this from the nurse’s station?” Lynn asked. The boy gave a shy nod, snatched the candy from her, and shoved the chocolate into his already-stained face.
On her way past the chaos to the administration building, Lynn noticed Mr. Graves standing motionless, staring out the window.
“Mr. Graves?” When he didn’t answer, she strolled up to his side and followed his stare out over the manicured lawn that separated this wing from the visitor parking lot, a sliver of which was visible past the trees.
“What is it?” she asked. “You miss Abbey?” As an answer the man lifted one arm and pointed. Lynn followed his gesture, but saw nothing. “He was here last night. He scared Fung Shi.” “Who?” Lynn asked again.
“The angel of death.”
Lynn sighed. Mr. Graves hadn’t had the Grim Reaper vision in such a long time that this was a disappointing setback. “Mr. Graves, I’m sure he’s not coming for you or anyone else here.”
Guild Of Immortal Women Page 4
