From the Grounds Up (7 page)

'But wrong,' his main squeeze allowed. 'Very, very wrong.'

Sophie rolled herself closer to Sarah. 'Your Aunt Vi was Clara's favorite mark. Vi was certain the woman was filching her silken petals.'

'Huseby stole my aunt's fake . . . flowers?'

Since taking somebody's 'silken petals' sounded more like
de
-flowering to me, I just kept my mouth shut.

'No. No, even worse.' Sophie's voice dropped to a whisper. 'Her body powder, Silken Petals. I think that's just sick--don't you, Henry?'

He tugged at his collar, though he wore no necktie. 'Well, yes, I suppose so.'

That explained the blossom cloud enveloping NASCAR Granny, aka Klepto Clara. She was wearing her ill-gotten booty.

'The woman parades around, smelling of Silken Petals,' Sophie said. 'The real designer version, mind you. Not some knock-off. Clara has brass, you have to give her that.'

Again, that touch of grudging admiration in the voice.

Henry cleared his throat--theatrically so--and Sophie flushed.

I decided to change the subject. 'So you didn't explain, Sophie. What happened to you?'

'I fell out of bed,' she admitted. 'They have to make those damn things with rails if they're going to frickin' cater to the active senior.'

Four-foot-eleven Sophie had never been mistaken for Mother Teresa, but her language was bluer than her hair these days.

'The "active" senior?' I asked.

She threw back her shoulders and pushed out her breasts, which seemed to ride unnaturally high. 'Sexually, that is.'

No wonder they were the talk of the exercise class. I liked both Sophie and Henry, but I really didn't want to picture them being . . . 'active'.

Sarah, on the other hand, appeared to be perking up. She pointed at Sophie's boobs. 'Are those new?'

'Nah,' Sophie said. 'I couldn't afford that, and neither could Henry, much as I'm sure he'd enjoy them.'

She twisted around in the chair to wink at Henry, who had a pained smile on his face. 'I just shortened my bra straps.' She pulled on the straps to illustrate, making her breasts dance like roly-poly marionettes.

'Smart thinking,' Sarah said in response to Sophie's preening. 'They look great.'

Sophie turned to me.

'Perky,' I managed.

Satisfied with our reaction, she settled back. 'So, what in blazes are you two doing in the Sunrise Wing? It's like that Hotel California. You can check out, but you can never leave.'

'Heh-heh.' The sound came from Henry. We all turned to look at him.

'Sorry,' he said, holding up his hand. 'She breaks me up sometimes.'

I loved that they both knew the Eagles.

'Then why are you here? Physical therapy?' I asked. Despite the amount of time Sophie might spend at the Manor, I knew she had a home in Brookhills.

'Rehab,' she said. 'But Medicare won't pay anymore, so I have to get out of here.'

'To where, though?' I asked. 'Can you get around well enough to go back home?'

Sophie hooked a thumb at Henry. 'I'm selling my place and shacking up with him. We're going to follow our muse and live in sin.'

Henry blushed. Given the quiet, straight-arrow image he'd always projected at our coffeehouse, I was relieved the top of his skull hadn't blown off.

Time--no,
past
time--to go. 'We'd love to hear more,' I said quickly, 'but Sarah has to pick up her Aunt Vi's things.'

Henry threw me a grateful look.

'Such a blasted shame that was,' Sophie said. 'She was about as lively as they come. In my Red Hat group. Went out every day.'

'Which was her undoing,' Henry contributed ominously.

'Why?' I turned to Sarah. 'How did your aunt die?'

'I told you,' Sarah said. 'Kornell dropped her off at a store and pulled away too quickly. She had her hand on the door handle and fell.'

'Broke her hip,' Sophie said. 'A week later, she was worm food.'

'Pneumonia,' Henry pronounced. 'The enemy of the elderly.'

'Right,' said Sarah. 'Can we please get going?'

Having been reminded of our mission, she seemed impatient to get it done. And us out.

'Be nice,' I hissed at her under my breath.

'Nah, don't bother,' Sophie said as Henry started to push the chair again. 'Nobody here is nice. We live this long, we figure we can say whatever damn well comes into our heads.'

And with a wave of her hand, the lovebirds departed.

Contrary to Sophie Daystrom's assessment, Mr Levitt, the Manor's social worker, seemed nice.

'Please sit a bit,' he said, waving us into the two visitors' chairs across the desk from his own.

He took off horned-rimmed glasses and set them on the calendar that covered the small portion of his desk not piled high with file folders. 'I'm glad you found your way over here. This place is a labyrinth, especially since we added the Sunrise Wing. We prefer to have everything on one floor--for the wheelchairs, you know--but that means the building has to sprawl a scosh.'

'A scosh,' Sarah echoed with a straight face.

I elbowed her. 'We met one of the wheelchairs on the way here. Candy-apple-red, motorized model?'

'Ah, yes. Clara Huseby. A charming woman.'

Great, Mr Levitt was both nice
and
delusional. I thought maybe I should set him straight before Klepto Clara added vehicular manslaughter to her Manor rap sheet.

'I'm certain she is,' I started. 'But with the speed of the wheelchair and that battering ram of a leg sticking out, she nearly flattened us coming around the corner.'

'Really?' Mr Levitt's face had changed from friendly to blank. That shade called 'wary of a lawsuit'.

'Really,' I said. 'I thought you'd want to know.' I considered telling him about the stealing, but I had that only via hearsay--and Sophie's hearsay, at that.

'She's a thief, too,' Sarah offered. 'Check her lap-robe sometime.'

'I'll do that,' Levitt said shortly. 'Now, though, back to
your
business?'

The placing of the emphasis on 'your' was nicely done, I thought. And fair as well.

'I'm so sorry about Mr Eisvogel,' Levitt continued. 'It's as if they couldn't live without each other. First, Vi went and then Kornell--what, a week later?'

'Let's call it a scosh,' Sarah said. This time I didn't elbow her. Let the social worker defend himself. 'My cousin Ronny said you had some of my Auntie Vi's things. He asked me to pick them up.'

'Yes. Yes, of course.' Levitt stood up and went to a closet behind his desk. When he opened the door, I saw that the shelves were lined with stuffed grocery bags, recycled from various area stores. Waste not, want not.

Levitt ran his finger along the top shelf, then the next, searching for just the right sack. On the third level, he found what he was looking for. An over-stuffed grocery bag from Schultz's Market.

'Ah, here it is.' Levitt set it on the desk.

I pointed at the closet. 'All personal effects?'

'Yes. Not everyone has a family member, or at least one who cares enough to claim them.' He shrugged.

'Lot of turnover, huh?' From Sarah, naturally.

Levitt shot her a questioning look. 'In the staff?'

'I think she means in the patients.' I was trying to be helpful again. 'You know, by dying?'

'
We
prefer to call the people living here at Brookhills Manor "residents". Even the clients who are in Sunrise, which is what we call the skilled nursing section, prefer not to be referred to as "patients".'

'
Or
coots,' I whispered to Sarah.

Unfortunately, Mr Levitt had especially good hearing, and sat up straighter. 'We would never call our residents "coots", Ms Thorsen, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't either. Or thieves, for that matter.'

'I wasn't,' I stammered, 'I mean, I didn't . . .'

Sarah stood up, grabbed the grocery bag and handed it to me to carry. 'Yeah, Maggy, keep your nasty thoughts to yourself.' She stuck out her hand to Mr Levitt. 'Thanks so much for everything. My cousin Ronny will be in touch to clean out his father's apartment.'

'Good, good,' Levitt said, following us to the door. 'We have a new resident eagerly awaiting it.'

'How did I turn into the bad guy?' I asked Sarah as we made our way down the long hall back to the Manor's front entrance.

'You shouldn't call people names,' Sarah said, sniffing the air. 'Ugh. This place reeks of disinfectant and dead flowers.'

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.