Hard Row dk-13

by Margaret Maron

stood in the driveway. On the small porch, a young man in

  a UNC hoodie with a black-and-silver backpack dangling

  from his shoulder shifted his weight from one foot to the

  other as an older woman carrying a big red-and-green

  striped umbrella came out and locked the door behind her.

  He held out his hand and she gave him the keys. Both of

  them looked at the detectives suspiciously as McLamb got

  out of the prowl car and approached in the pouring rain.

  “Mrs. Stone?”

  “Yes?” A heavyset, middle-aged black woman, she

  wore a clear plastic rain bonnet over her graying hair.

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  MARGARET MARON

  “Colleton County Sheriff ’s Department, ma’am.

  Could we step inside and talk a minute?”

  Mrs. Stone shook her head. “Is this about my daddy

  again?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What is it?”

  “Ma’am—”

  “I’m really sorry, Officer, but if I don’t go on now,

  I’m gonna be late for work and they told me if I’m late

  again, they’re gonna lay me off. Whatever you got to

  say’s just gonna have to wait till this evening. I’ll be

  back at five.”

  “Where do you work? Maybe we could drive you?”

  She paused indecisively and the teenager jingled the

  keys impatiently. “Let ’em drive you, Mom. I’m gonna

  be late for school myself if you don’t.”

  “All right,” she said, but as the boy dashed through

  the rain to the Honda, she called after him. “You bet-

  ter be on time picking me up today, you hear? You not

  there when I come out, you’re not getting the car for a

  week. You hear me, Ennis?”

  But he was already backing out of the drive and into

  the street.

  “Boys!” she said, shaking her head. “Soon as they

  turn sixteen, they start climbing Fool’s Hill. Let ’em

  get to talking to their friends, flirting around with the

  girls, and they forget all about what they’re supposed to

  be doing and where they’re supposed to be. I believe to

  goodness he had more sense when he was six than he’s

  got now that he’s sixteen.”

  McLamb smiled, having heard the same words from

  his own mother when he first started driving. He mo-

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  tioned to Dalton, who drove up to the porch so that

  they wouldn’t get too wet. McLamb helped Mrs. Stone

  into the front seat and he climbed in back.

  “So what’s this about?” Mrs. Stone asked after she

  had told them where she worked and they were under

  way.

  As gently as possible, McLamb told her that the med-

  ical examiner over in Chapel Hill was pretty sure that

  her father’s hand had been detached from his wrist not

  by an animal, but by human intervention.

  Mrs. Stone turned in the seat and faced him, her face

  outraged. “Somebody cut off my daddy’s hand?”

  “Well, not the way you’re probably thinking. Mostly

  they say the flesh was so—” He searched for an inof-

  fensive word that would not sicken the woman. “—so

  degraded, that the hand probably pretty much pulled

  loose by itself when it was lifted, but there was a liga-

  ment that was holding it on and when the pathologist

  looked at the edges under a microscope, he could tell

  that it was definitely a recent cut. You’re his only rela-

  tive, right?”

  “Me and Ennis, yes.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted

  your dad dead?”

  Mrs. Stone shook her head. “The only person who

  couldn’t get along with him was my mother and she passed

  six years ago, come June. You can let me out right here,”

  she said and opened the door as soon as Dalton slowed the

  car to a stop in front of the motel where she worked.

  McLamb hopped out to hold the door for her. She

  handed him her umbrella and waited for him to open it.

  “Mrs. Stone—”

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  “I told you. I can’t be late today!” she snapped and

  hurried inside.

  “You didn’t ask for her alibi,” Dalton said, handing

  him some paper towels to mop the worst of the rain

  from his jacket.

  “Yeah, I know. Looks like we have to catch her this

  evening after all.”

  From Mrs. Stone’s place of work to Sunset Meadows

  Rest Home at the southern edge of Black Creek was

  just over ten minutes and Dalton parked the car as close

  as he could get it to the wide porch that ran the full

  width of the building.

  “Here’s good,” said McLamb. A slender man of

  medium height, he prided himself on staying in shape

  and usually looked for opportunities to take a few extra

  steps, but not when it was raining this hard. His navy

  blue nylon jacket had COLLETON CO. SHERIFF’S DEPT.

  stenciled in white on the back and he pulled the hood

  low over his face before making a dash for it.

  Dalton followed close behind in an identical jacket.

  Younger and chunkier than McLamb, at twenty-four, he

  was still kid enough to be excited by his recent promo-

  tion to the detective squad. “Provisional promotion,”

  he reminded himself as he took a good look at the facil-

  ity accused of letting one of its patients wander off to

  drown back before Christmas.

  “Don’t just look at what’s there,” McLamb had told

  him on the drive out. “Look at what’s not there, too.”

  Although certified and licensed by the state, the nursing

  home had begun as a mom-and-pop operation and was

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  a drab place at best. Built of cinder blocks, the utilitarian

  beige exterior was at least three years overdue for a new

  coat of paint. The shades and curtains looked sun-faded,

  and the uninspired shrubs that lined the porch needed

  work, too. Cutting them back to waist height would make

  them bush up at the base and would also allow anyone

  standing at the doorway an unobstructed view of the park-

  ing lot. As it was, the privet hedge was so tall and strag-

  gly that a casual observer might overlook someone leaving

  without authorization, especially if it was getting on for

  dark on one of the shortest days of the year.

  The porch was a ten-foot-wide concrete slab set flush

  with both the paved entrance walk and the sills of the

  double front doors beyond. Easy wheelchair access,

  thought Dalton, but also easy for unsteady old feet to

  walk off without stumbling.

  The fifteen or so rocking chairs that were grouped

  along the porch were worn and weather stained, but

  they were a thoughtful amenity for men and women

  who had grown up when porches were a place for social-

  izing, for shelling beans, for watching children play, for

  resting after lunch in the middle of a busy day. Indeed,

  despite the cool spring morning and the pouring rain,

  three of the rockers were occupied by residents swa
d-

  dled in blankets from head to toe who watched their

  approach with bright-eyed interest.

  Not a lot of money to spread around on paint and

  gardeners, thought Dalton, but enough money to pay

  for staff who would help their patients out to the porch

  and make sure they were warm enough to enjoy the

  fresh air, even to tucking the blankets around their feet.

  The nursing home where his grandmother had recovered

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  from her hip replacement was beautifully landscaped

  and maintained, but there had been a persistent stench

  of urine on her hall and she complained that her feet

  were always cold. Somehow he was not surprised to fol-

  low McLamb into the building and smell nothing more

  than a slight medicinal odor overlaid with the pungency

  of a pine-scented floor cleaner.

  Immediately in front of them was a reception area

  that doubled as a nursing station. Long halls on either

  side led away from the entrance lobby with a shorter hall

  behind. Sam Dalton soon learned that Sunset Meadows

  Rest Home was basically one long rectangle topped by a

  square in back of the middle section to accommodate a

  dining room, lounge, kitchen, and laundry. Each of the

  forty “guest” rooms held two or three beds and there

  was a waiting list.

  “Does that sound like we’re careless and neglectful?”

  demanded Mrs. Belinda Franks, the owner-manager. A

  large black woman of late middle age, her hair had been

  left natural and was clipped short. She wore red ear-

  rings, black slacks, and a bright red zippered sweater

  over a white turtleneck. The sweater made a cheerful

  splash of color in this otherwise drab setting. She pos-

  sessed a warm smile but that had been replaced by a

  look of indignation as she glared up at the two deputies

  from her chair behind the tall counter.

  “Would people be lining up to put their loved ones

  here if they thought we were going to let them come

  to harm?”

  “No, ma’am,” Raeford McLamb assured her. “And

  we’re not here to find fault or put the blame on you or

  your people, Mrs. Franks. We came to ask for your help.”

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  “Like how?”

  “We’re now treating Mr. Mitchiner’s demise as a sus-

  picious death.”

  “Suspicious?” Her brow furrowed. “Somebody took

  that sweet old man off and killed him?”

  “Too soon to say for sure, but someone did disturb

  his body after he was dead, and we need to find out who

  and why. I know you and your staff gave statements at

  the time, but if we could just go over them again?”

  Mrs. Franks sighed and rolled her chair back to a

  bank of filing cabinets, from which she extracted a ma-

  nila folder.

  Standing with his elbows on the counter between

  them, McLamb looked in both directions. The front

  edge of the counter was on a line with the inner walls

  of the hall. Although he could clearly see the exit doors

  at the end of each hallway, there was no way someone

  behind the desk could.

  “I know, I know,” Mrs. Franks said wearily when

  McLamb voiced that observation. “We’re going to

  curve this desk further out into the lobby this spring

  when we get a little ahead so that anybody on duty can

  see these three doors. Right now, though, we had to

  borrow money to set up the monitor cameras.”

  She motioned to the men to come around back of

  the counter where a split screen showed the three doors

  now under electronic watch.

  “What about a back door?”

  “That’s kept locked all the time now except when

  somebody’s actually using it.”

  “But it used to be unlocked before Mr. Mitchiner

  walked off?”

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  She nodded. “You have to understand that we’re not

  a skilled nursing facility. Most of our people are just

  old and a little forgetful and not able to keep living by

  themselves, and we have a few with special problems.

  My first daughter was a Downs baby and we couldn’t

  find a place that would treat her right. That’s how my

  husband and I started this home. We wanted to take

  care of Benitha right here and have a little help once

  she got too big for us to handle. We still have a cou-

  ple of Downs folks, the ones who can’t live on their

  own, but mostly it’s old people who come to us. We

  see that everybody takes the medications their doctors

  have prescribed and we keep them clean and dry, but

  we’re not equipped for serious problems and we only

  have one LPN on staff. The rest are aides who have had

  first aid training, CPR, that sort of thing. We wouldn’t

  have kept Mr. Mitchiner here except that his family was

  always in and out to help with him and he had a sweet

  nature. Eventually, he would have had to transfer into

  a place with a higher level of care. They knew that. But

  this was convenient for now. His grandson could ride

  his bicycle over after school and his daughter could stop

  in before or after work.”

  “Who last saw him that day?” asked McLamb.

  “We just don’t know,” the woman said, with exas-

  peration both for the question and her lack of a defini-

  tive answer. “We don’t make visitors sign in and out.

  We want people to feel free to come in and sit with

  their loved ones, bring them a piece of watermelon in

  the summertime or some hot homemade soup in the

  winter. Put pretty sheets on their bed. Bring them a

  new pair of bedroom slippers. I think it makes them feel

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  good to know that they can pop in any time to check

  up on us because we have nothing to hide. It’s just like

  they were running in and out of their grandmother’s

  house, you know?”

  The men nodded encouragingly and Dalton said,

  “Sounds like a friendly place.”

  “It is a friendly place. You ask anybody. The only per-

  son with any complaints is Miss Letty Harper. She says

  our cook scrambles the eggs too dry, but that’s because

  she always wants a fried egg with a runny yolk. All the

  same, Ramsey’ll cook one like that for her if he’s not

  too jammed up.”

  She opened the folder and took out copies of the state-

  ments she and her staff had given back in December.

  “Mary Rowe. She’s due back any minute. She gave him

  his heart pills that morning. Then Ennis Stone. That’s

  his grandson. He just got his driver’s license around

  Thanksgiving and he took Mr. Mitchiner out for a ride

  and got him a cheeseburger for lunch. That man did

  love cheeseburgers. Then Ennis brought him back here

  and put him in his room for a nap. His room was down

  there on the end and Ennis usually came in that end

  ’cause it’s closer. He could park right next to the
door.

  His roommate, Mr. Thomas Bell, says Mr. Mitchiner

  was asleep on the bed when he came back to take a nap

  himself; but he wasn’t there when he woke up.”

  “No one else saw Mitchiner that afternoon?” Dalton

  asked, thumbing through the statements McLamb had

  read back in December.

  “Not to remember. But it’s not like anyone would

  unless it was his family. He was in his own world most

  of the time, so he didn’t have any special friends here.

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  A real nice, easygoing man, but you couldn’t carry on

  much of a conversation with him. He kept thinking Mr.

  Bell was his cousin and he’s white as you are.”

  “Could we speak to Mr. Bell?” McLamb asked.

  “Well, you can,” she said doubtfully, “but he’s had

  another little stroke since then and his mind’s even

  fuzzier than it was at Christmas.”

  She led them into the lounge where several men and

  women—mostly black, but some white—sat in rockers

  or wheelchairs to watch television, something on the

  Discovery Channel, judging by the brightly colored fish

  that swam across the screen. In earlier years, Mr. Bell had

  probably been strongly built with a full head of hair and

  shrewd blue eyes. Now he was like a half-collapsed bal-

  loon with most of the air gone. His muscles sagged, his

  shoulders slumped, his head was round and shiny with

  a few scattered wisps of white hair, his blue eyes were

  pale and rheumy. Large brown liver spots splotched his

  face and scalp.

  This is what ninety-four looks like, Sam Dalton told

  himself. Pity and dread mingled in his assessment as Mr.

  Bell struggled to his feet at Mrs. Franks’s urging. We all

  want to live to be old, but, please, God! Not like this! Not

  me!

  The old man steadied himself on his walker and obe-

  diently went with them to the dining room where the

  deputies could question him without the distraction of

  the television.

  While Dalton steadied one of the straight chairs,

  McLamb and Mrs. Franks helped him lower himself

  down. He kept one hand on the walker though and

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  looked at them with incurious eyes as Mrs. Franks tried

  to explain that these two men were sheriff ’s deputies.

  “They need you to tell them about Fred Mitchiner,”

  she said, enunciating each word clearly.

  “Who?”

  “Fred Mitchiner. Your roommate.”

  “Fred? He’s gone.”