by Sue Grafton
“I know it hurts, Gus. We’re doing the best we can.”
“I mean, you. Be careful.”
“I will,” I said, and to Peggy, “Go.”
Peggy closed the car door, shutting it with the tiniest click. She moved to the driver’s-side door and slid under the wheel, shutting her door with scarcely any sound. She started the car as I slipped through the fence into Henry’s backyard. She pulled away slowly, but then accelerated with a snap of gravel. The plan was for her to take Gus straight to the ER at St. Terry’s, where she’d have a doctor examine him and admit him if necessary. I wasn’t sure how she’d explain their relationship unless she simply presented herself as a neighbor or friend. No reason to mention the conservatorship that had made him a virtual prisoner. We’d had no discussion on the subject beyond the initial rescue, but I knew that in saving Gus, she was reaching back in time far enough to save her Gram.
Henry appeared around the corner of the studio and racewalked across the patio. There was no sign of his garden tools so he’d apparently abandoned them. When he was in range of me, he took me by the elbow and herded me toward his back door and into the kitchen. We shed our jackets. Henry turned the thumb bolt and then sat down at the kitchen table while I went to the phone. I put a call through to Cheney Phillips at the police department. Cheney worked vice, but I knew he’d be quick to grasp the situation and set the proper machinery in motion. Once I had him on the line, I bypassed the niceties and told him what was going on. According to Peggy, there was already a warrant out for Solana. He listened intently and I could hear him tapping away on his computer, pulling up wants and warrants under her various aliases. I gave him Solana’s current whereabouts and he said he’d take care of it. That was that.
I joined Henry at the kitchen table, but both of us were too anxious for idleness. I picked up the newspaper, opened it at random to the op-ed page. People were idiots if the opinions I read were any indication. I tried the front section. There were the usual troubles in the world, but none of them matched the drama we’d launched here at home. Henry’s knee was jumping and his foot made little tapping sounds on the floor. He got up and crossed to the kitchen counter, where he plucked an onion from a wire basket and removed the papery outer skin. I watched as he cut the onion in half and again in quarters, reducing it to a dice so small it sent tears running down his cheeks. Chopping was his remedy for most of life’s ills. We waited, the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock as the second hand swept the face.
With a rattle of newsprint, I turned to the “Business” section and studied a spiky graph that depicted major market trends from 1978 to the present. I hoped the boring article would settle my nerves, but it didn’t seem to help. I kept expecting to hear Solana shriek at the top of her lungs. She’d start by abusing her son, and after berating him at length she’d appear like a banshee pounding on Henry’s door, wailing, screaming, and otherwise denouncing us. With luck, the cops would show up and take her away before she managed any further acting out.
Instead of uproar, there was nothing.
Silence and more silence.
The phone rang at 5:15. I reached for the handset myself because Henry was busy assembling a meatloaf, his fingers squishing oatmeal, ketchup, and raw eggs into a pound of ground beef.
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Peggy. I’m still at St. Terry’s, but I thought I better bring you up to date. Gus was admitted. He’s a mess. Nothing major, but serious enough to require a couple of days’ care. He’s malnourished and dehydrated. He has a low-level bladder infection and his heart is acting up. Bruises galore, plus a hairline fracture in the radius of his right arm. From the X-rays, the doctor says it looks like it’s been there a while.”
“Poor guy.”
“He’ll be fine. Of course, he didn’t have his ID or his Medicare card, but the admissions clerk looked up his records from a previous hospitalization. I explained the security issues and the doctor agreed to admit him under my last name.”
“They didn’t make a fuss about that?”
“Not at all. My husband’s one of the neurologists on staff. His reputation is the stuff of legend, but more to the point, he has a temper like a junkyard dog’s. They knew if they made a stink, they’d have to deal with him. Aside from that, in the past ten years, my father’s donated enough money to add a wing to this place. They were kissing my ring.”
“Oh.” I’d have verbalized my surprise, but her husband’s occupation and her dad’s financial status were two facts out of the many I didn’t know about her. “What about the girls? Shouldn’t you be home by now?”
“That’s the other reason I called. They’re having supper at their playmate’s. I talked to her mom and she was cool, but I did assure her I’d pick ’em up within the hour. I didn’t want to take off without giving you the lowdown.”
“You’re incredible. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t worry about it. I haven’t had that much fun since grade school!”
I laughed. “It was a hoot, wasn’t it?”
“Totally. I did make it clear to the charge nurse that Gus was to have no visitors except for you, me, and Henry. I told her about Solana…”
“Naming names?”
“Of course. Why should we protect her when she’s a piece of shit? It was obvious he’d been badly abused so the nurse got right on the phone and put in calls to the police and the Elder Abuse hotline. I gather they’re sending someone out. What about you? What’s happening on your end?”
“Nothing much. Sitting here waiting for the bomb to go off. Solana must know by now he’s been snatched. I can’t understand why she’s so quiet.”
“That’s unnerving.”
“For sure. In the meantime, I called a friend of mine at the police department. Given the warrant out on Solana, a couple of officers should be arriving shortly to arrest her fat ass. We’ll come over after that.”
“There’s no big rush. Gus is sleeping, but it’d be nice if he saw a familiar face when he wakes up.”
“I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
“Don’t forfeit the chance to see Solana handcuffed and thrown in the back of a black-and-white.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
After she rang off, I gave Henry the update on Gus’s medical status, some of which he’d gathered from listening to my end of the conversation. “Peggy’s put everyone on notice about the possibility that Solana might show up and try to see him. She won’t get anywhere so that’s good news,” I said. “I wonder what she’s up to? You think the cops have arrived?”
“There hasn’t been time enough, but hang on a sec.”
He washed his hands in haste and toted the dish towel with him as he left the kitchen and stepped into the dining room. I followed, watching as he pushed the curtain aside and peered out at the street.
“Anything?”
“Her car’s still there and I don’t see any sign of life so maybe she hasn’t figured it out yet.”
That was certainly a possibility, but neither of us was convinced.
34
By then it was close to six. Henry packed his meatloaf in a cake pan, covered it, and put it in the fridge. His plan was to bake it for supper the next day. He extended an invitation, which I accepted, assuming we would both be alive. In the meantime, his homely activities had introduced a note of normalcy. Given that it was happy hour, he took out an old-fashioned glass and poured his ritual Black Jack over ice. He asked if I wanted wine, which in truth I did, but I decided to decline. I thought I better have my wits about me in case Solana showed up. I was of two minds about the possibility. On one hand, I thought if she were going to blow her stack, she’d have done it by now. On the other hand, she might be out buying guns and ammo in order to give full expression to her ire. Whatever the reality, we deemed it unwise to keep ourselves on prominent display in the brightly lighted kitchen.
We removed ourselves to the living room, whe
re we closed the drapes and turned on the TV set. The evening news was all bad, but restful by comparison. We were beginning to relax when the knock came at the front door. I jumped and Henry’s hand jerked, slopping half his drink.
“You stay there,” he said. He set his glass on the coffee table and went to the door. He flipped on the porch light and put his eye to the spy hole. It couldn’t have been Solana because I watched him remove the burglar chain, prepared to let someone in. I recognized Cheney’s voice before I caught sight of him. He stepped into the room, accompanied by a uniformed officer whose name tag read J. ANDERSON. He was in his thirties, blue-eyed and ruddy-complexioned, with features that spoke of Irish ancestry. I flashed on the only line of poetry I retained from my days of making mediocre grades in my high school English class: “John Anderson, my Jo, John, when we were first acquent…” That was the extent of it. No clue who the poet was, though the name Robert Burns lurked somewhere at the back of my brain. I wondered if William’s father was correct in his belief that memorizing poetry served us later in life.
Cheney and I exchanged a look. He was adorable, no lie. Or maybe my perception was colored by the comfort of his being on the scene. Let him deal with Solana and her goon of a son. While Cheney and Henry chatted, I had the opportunity to study him. He wore dress slacks and a shirt with a button-down collar, over which he’d pulled a caramel-colored cashmere coat. Cheney came from money, and while he had no desire to work in his father’s bank, he was smart enough to enjoy the perks. I could tell I was weakening in the same way I weaken at the notion of a QP with Cheese. Not that he was good for me, but who cared?
“Did you talk to her?” Henry asked.
Cheney said, “That’s why I’m here. We’re wondering if the two of you would step next door with us.”
Henry said, “Certainly. Is something wrong?”
“You tell us. When we pulled up, we found the front door standing open. All the lights are on, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone there.”
Henry left with Cheney and Officer Anderson, without bothering to put a coat over his short-sleeved shirt. I paused long enough to retrieve my jacket from the back of the kitchen chair. I grabbed Henry’s as well and scooted after him. The night was chilly and the wind was picking up. There was an empty expanse of curb where Solana’s car had been. I trotted along the walk, reassured by the notion that Cheney had the situation under control. He was right about Gus’s house. Every room was ablaze with light. By the time I crossed his front yard, I could see Anderson on his way around the side of the house with his flashlight, the wand of white zigzagging across windows, the walkway, and surrounding shrubbery.
Cheney had Solana Rojas’s arrest warrant in hand and I gathered that gave him a certain leeway to check the premises in search of her. He’d also uncovered two outstanding warrants for the arrest of Tomasso Tasinato, one on charges of aggravated battery, and the other for battery with great bodily harm. He told us Tiny had twice been caught on tape shoplifting items from a Colgate minimart. The owner had identified him but then decided not to file charges, saying he didn’t want the hassle over some beef jerky and two packages of M&M’s.
Cheney asked us to wait outside while he went in. Henry shrugged himself into his jacket and tucked his hands in the pockets. Neither of us said a word, but he must have worried, as I did, that something awful was in store. Once Cheney assured himself the place was empty, he asked us to walk through with him to see if we noticed anything out of the ordinary.
The premises had been picked clean of personal items. In my earlier unauthorized home invasion, I hadn’t noticed how barren the house was. The living room was intact, furniture still in place: lamps, the desk, a footstool, fake roses on the coffee table. The kitchen was untouched as well, nothing out of place. If there’d been dirty dishes in the sink, they’d been washed, dried, and put away. A damp-looking linen dish towel had been folded and hung neatly across the rack. The spray bottle of cleanser was gone, but the smell was still strong. I thought Solana was taking her compulsive tidiness a bit too far.
Gus’s room was just as we’d left it. The covers were flung back, sheets and spread rumpled and looking not quite clean. Drawers still stood half-open where Peggy’d hunted up a sweater for him. The humidifier had run dry and no longer hissed with steam. I continued down the hall to the first of the two spare bedrooms.
Compared with the last view I’d had, Solana’s room was empty. The carved mahogany bed frame remained, but the other antique pieces were gone: no burled walnut rocking chair, no armoire, no plump-shouldered fruitwood chest of drawers with ornate bronze drawer pulls. She couldn’t have loaded furniture in her car in the scant hour she had available after she returned home. For one thing, the items were too cumbersome, and for another, she was in too great a hurry to bother. This meant she’d disposed of the furniture earlier, but who knew what she’d done with it? In the closet, the hangers had been shoved apart and most of her clothes were gone. Some garments had tumbled to the floor and she’d left them in a heap, indicating the haste with which she’d packed.
I moved to Tiny’s room. Henry and Cheney stood in the doorway. I kept expecting to find a body—his or hers—shot, stabbed, or hanged. Uneasily, I eased in behind Cheney, hoping he would shield me from anything gross. The air in Tiny’s room was dense with “guy” smell: testosterone, hair, sweat glands, and dirty clothes. Overlying the ripe odor was the same smell of bleach I’d noticed throughout. Had she been using the spray cleanser to wipe the surfaces free of prints?
The two heavy blankets that served as blackout curtains were still nailed to the window frames, and the overhead light was tawny and ineffectual. The television set was gone, but all of Tiny’s toiletries were still strewn across the counter in the bathroom he shared with his mom. He’d left his toothbrush behind, but he probably didn’t use it anyway so no big deal.
Officer Anderson appeared in the hallway behind us. “Anybody know what kind of car she drives?”
Cheney said, “A 1972 Chevrolet convertible with the word ‘dead’ scratched into the driver’s-side door. Pearce made a note of the plate number in his field notes.”
“I think we got it. Come take a look at this.”
He went out the back door, flipping on the porch light as he passed. We followed him down the steps and across the yard to the single-car garage at the rear of the lot. The old wooden doors were padlocked, but he held his flashlight against the dusty window. I had to stand on tiptoe to see in, but the car inside was Solana’s. The convertible top was down and the front and rear seats were empty to all appearances. It was clear Cheney’d need a search warrant before he went further.
“Did Mr. Vronsky own a vehicle?” he asked.
Henry said, “He did, a 1976 Buick Electra, metallic blue with a blue interior. His pride and joy. He hadn’t driven it for years and I’m sure the tags on the license plate expired. I don’t know the license number, but a car like that shouldn’t be hard to spot.”
“The DMV will have the information. I’ll notify the sheriff’s department and the CHP. Any idea which direction she might’ve headed?”
“No clue,” Henry said.
Before he left, Anderson secured both the house and garage with crime scene tape in anticipation of a return with a warrant and a fingerprint technician. Cheney wasn’t optimistic about recovering the cash and other valuables Solana’d stolen over the years, but there was always a chance. At the very least, latent fingerprints would tie the cases together.
“Hey, Cheney?” I said, as he was getting in his car.
He looked across the top of his car at me.
“When the techs dust for prints? Tell ’em to try the vodka bottle in the cabinet above the sink. She probably didn’t think to wipe that down before she left.”
Cheney smiled. “Will do.”
Henry and I went back to his house. “I’m heading over to the hospital and after that, I’ll hit Rosie’s,” I said. “Care to join me?”
&n
bsp; “I’d love to, but Charlotte said she’d stop by at eight. I’m taking her to dinner.”
“Really. Well, that’s interesting.”
“I don’t know how interesting it is. I treated her poorly over the business with Gus. I was a butt and the time has come to make that right.”
I left him to get himself gussied up and walked the half block to my car. The drive to St. Terry’s took less than fifteen minutes, which gave me time to ponder Solana’s vanishing and Cheney’s reappearance. I knew it wouldn’t be smart to renew that relationship. On the other hand (there’s always that other hand, isn’t there?), I’d caught a whiff of his aftershave and nearly whimpered aloud. I parked on a side street and headed for the brightly lighted hospital entrance.
My intended visit with Gus was short-lived. When I reached the floor and identified myself, I was told he was still asleep. I chatted briefly with the charge nurse, making sure she was clear about who was allowed to see him and who was not. Peggy had laid all the necessary groundwork, and I was assured his safety was uppermost in everyone’s mind. I did peek in at him and spent half a minute watching him sleep. His color had already improved.
There was one bright moment that made the whole excursion worthwhile. I’d rung for the elevator and I was waiting. I heard the whir of cables and the ping announcing its arrival from the floor below. When the doors opened I found myself face-to-face with Nancy Sullivan. She had her good Girl Scout briefcase in one hand and she was wearing her sensible shoes. As proof there’s justice in the world, she’d been assigned to Gus’s case after having blown me off. She greeted me coolly, using a tone that implied she hoped I’d fall in a hole. I didn’t say a word to her, but I did gloat in my heart. I resisted the urge to smirk until after the elevator doors closed, shutting her from sight. Then I mouthed the sweetest four words in the English language: I told you so.
