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Authors: Marlys Millhiser

BOOK: The Rampant Reaper
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D
ELWOOD BRUNSVOLD STARTED to race up the steep footprint-pocked drift, but instead, brought it down with him, bringing Kenny and his burden, too.
“Edwina? What the hell were you doing up there?”
“Charlie, have a little compassion here. Christ, she's your mom. She was probably looking for her childhood memories and her roots,” Kenny said, untangling himself from the marshal, the snow, and Charlie's mom.
“Looking for Marlys. Ben and I thought we saw her and we were out here trying to avoid the ubiquitous press and—”
“You weren't smelling sauerkraut and onions and carrots and donuts? Reliving your childhood?”
“Charlie, where do you get this stuff?” Edwina slid out of her enormous coat from the home place and rubbed an ankle. “Trust me, nothing smells worse than sauerkraut and no smell lasts longer, unless it's cooked cabbage.”
She and Ben had climbed the drift and Edwina had fallen through a rotted floorboard just far enough to get stuck up to her thigh. Ben had kept going. “There really is a floor up there, and some of the walls and part of the roof. And I swear I saw Marlys Dittberner, naked from the waist up.”
“Must of been creepy with the moonlight and the memories and all.”
“Not as creepy as CNN at Viagra's.”
That's one of the few things Charlie had often appreciated about her mother. She wasn't sentimental.
“Where's Ben?”
“I didn't see him,” Kenny said. “Or Marlys either. Let's see if you can stand on that ankle.”
Edwina winced, the ankle was tender. Kenny and the marshal decided to hobble her over to the Jeep and have Charlie and Del take her to the Oaks for a nurse to check it out, since they had to report to the coroner and sheriff anyway. Kenny would check out the CNN invasion at the pool hall and look for Ben and Marlys.
When they arrived with the injured Edwina, Gentle Oaks was once again in the midst of chaos. The sheriff and the coroner had not been able to contact the marshal, who had inadvertently put his cellular on voice mail. There had been yet another death at Gentle Oaks and Elsina Miller was upset because the loved ones of families, her aging angels, beloved of Jesus, had been disturbed in their blessed sleep by pagans.
Charlie didn't see any pagans but the place had that strange, sour odor left over from dinner still. Edwina identified it as cooked cabbage. Charlie had thought cabbage was eaten raw—like in coleslaw or fish tacos.
“Always seemed to me it grew stronger rather than dissipating.”
“Why do they cook cabbage?” What Charlie had wanted to say was, Did you find out something horrible about my birth mom? Something that would make you hate me like Great-aunt Abigail does? I don't think I could handle it if you did. But I'd pretend to.
“Beats me. Old people like things cooked, mushy. Probably cook lettuce, for all I know. Actually, it doesn't taste bad—cabbage cooked with a little milk and butter, salt and pepper. But the smell gets into your clothes and hair, and the furniture even.”
Harvey was getting ruddy from hypertension or dipping into the meds—as well he might. National newscast exposure about murder at Gentle Oaks would certainly have an effect on filling up the sudden explosion of empty beds. “The economy
of Myrtle, and even Floyd County, could be at stake.”
It seemed that Doris Wyborny's roommate would never again beseech all who came near to help her. Which blew the theory that Marlys Dittberner was responsible for the sudden rash of deaths. She had not returned, and the alarm went off only when people with ankle bracelets went out. Then again, Charlie didn't remember seeing one on Marlys. And she could escape again through the cat door anyway. But Edwina and Ben had seen her on Main Street.
Charlie sort of hoped Kenny had time to get the CNN crew too drunk at Viagra's to get here, and time to find Marlys and Ben, too. “You know, the Grim Reaper has been long overdue at Gentle Oaks. Maybe he's just catching up.”
“I'm afraid not with Wilma Overgaard, Miss Charlie,” the jolly coroner said. He always wore a white shirt and a tie. According to the wrinkles, he changed the shirt once a week. Even his jowls were good-natured, jiggling regardless of whether he was laughing or not.
The sheriff was small, slender, and about half bald. Sheriff Drucker squinted, blinked, and pursed his lips at the coroner's every statement like he was processing information. “Same M. O., but this one was botched. Badly. There's a murderer loose in this place. No doubt about it. Think it's time to call in Mildred?”
That got everything on Leland the mortician jiggling. “Oh, let's do. Time we have some levity around here, right, Harvey? It's getting depressing.”
They'd gathered in the dining/activities room, Nurse Hogoboom inspecting Edwina's ankle, Harvey pacing dramatically, hands behind his back. Deep thoughts going on behind knitted brow? Charlie could only hope he was figuring out who was playing Grim Reaper at Gentle Oaks, so that everyone would quit looking at her like she should have this all figured out by now and so there'd be no reason for her and Edwina not to catch the first plane out of here.
“I will not allow that creature in this facility.” Elsina Miller
glared at Harvey Rochester. “Mildred Heisinger is evil. A daughter of Satan and a charlatan.” Her flowered dress had wilted. She was on the verge of tears. Administrators and generals are not meant for the front lines. How did Harvey manage all this?
“No, she's a psychic,” the sheriff said. “Nice lady, too.”
“Assisted living,” Harvey said, like ancient actors would say
Eureka!
“That's the new thing now, you know. Long-term health-care facilities offer a service nobody wants, everyone dreads it. But assisted living is in your own space and there are merely people close by to help you when needed. Closest thing to being in your own home or that of a family member, but this way, you don't have to upset their lives. Or independent-living apartments with home health-care aides who come in to keep you in your home/apartment. It's the wave of the future. Everybody would want that service. Elderly. Exhausted caregivers.”
Sherman Rochester, his grandfather, wandered by with socks clanking, poking at nothing but air with his cane instead of using it for balance. His socks, a hospital gown, and droopy diapers were all he wore. He still had hair, still asked the air in the hall in front of him for a smoke. Everybody noticed Sherman but his grandson. The coroner didn't even giggle. Just blinked.
“Is there anybody here who can live on their own, even that much?” Charlie asked. “With no mind and no memory? Your grandfather could care less if you as a caregiver were exhausted. He doesn't know who you are or who he is either. All he knows is he wants a cigarette.”
“But we could separate the two wings, Charlemagne Catherine, put a nice central dining room in the less dependent wing. Spruce it up. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I'm a genius.”
Was everybody thinking what Charlie was? The coroner, Sheriff Drucker, Mary Lou Hogoboom, and Edwina watched Harvey thoughtfully. The sheriff's deputy and Marshal Del
appeared sleepy but unconcerned, Elsina simply at the end of her rope. Was this assisted- and or independent-living thing a good way to keep the nursing home viable? Would it mean getting rid of a bunch of human vegetables first? Was Harvey the murderer here?
No wonder law enforcement settled on the most likely suspect and set out to prove his or her guilt. Real life was too up for grabs—just when you think you've figured it out … .
Wilma Overgaard sprawled half out of her bed and so did her bedding, as if she'd put up a struggle. Charlie had never seen her anything but flat out and immobile, but then, she had probably only glimpsed her twice. “I'm trying to remember if I heard her when I was here earlier tonight, or if her vocal agony was so persistent the other times I've been here. Is she the same one who thinks it's so hard now to be alive?”
“No one suffers in agony here. How dare you even imply God would allow such a thing,” the administrator said from the doorway. “You should be glad for her. She has gone to the Lord.”
“I am glad for her. I'm glad for all of them but Darla Lempke. I'm a little concerned as to where this all will end.” Wilma Overgaard hadn't been dead nearly as long as the others, except for Darla. Both of them were fairly fresh kills. Someone had gone on a rampage tonight. Accelerated things. Why? Or was it a copy cat running with the momentum of excitement? Who among the inmates had that kind of mind or mobility? Besides Dolores the tomcat? Who among the staff was in the building to facilitate all the deaths? Or would they have to be, since getting in was easy? How many in the community would be relieved to see some of these people put out of their misery?
“Are we sure Marlys didn't slip back into the building when no one was looking? She manages to slip out regularly.” Charlie didn't wish the poor woman to be the murderer here. But she hated to give up on her instincts, too.
Wilma Overgaard had either struggled against her attacker
or her body had been mussed up after her death or—what was that idea niggling so far back in Charlie's head, so weak but persistent? What was it about the mussing that was similar to the other dead bedridden? God, it was so close and so frustrating. Well, she'd better call it up soon, before this whole institution was wiped out.
Or was the Rampant Reaper really doing all involved a kindness?
The national press, the staggering number of already helpless victims murdered, had either convinced the sheriff of Floyd County to call in state and federal officials or had convinced state and federal officials to convince him. Whatever, a passel of investigators descended on poor Gentle Oaks, this time without helicopters or press fanfare, but the Mexicans disappeared anyway. The administrator's office was commandeered, and to Charlie's relief, real forensic types roamed the building. Unfortunately, so did the residents, particularly since most of the butt-wipers had fled.
At one point, Charlie and Harvey sat in a corner of the dining/activities room, both gray with fatigue, propping their chins in their hands, elbows on a table. Harvey said, “God, what I wouldn't give for one of Kenneth's killer coffees about now.”
“Me, too. But you know what I don't get about you? How, as an ex-Broadway actor, you can really enjoy what you're doing here. I mean, after Broadway, how much empathy can you have with people who drool and leave turds behind when they walk down the hall? Who don't know who they are? I admit I haven't been here long, but I don't see scores of grateful relatives clamoring for an encore. Is it just the money? How can there be that much?”
“Well, insurance doesn't pay that much, but the government shells out once the family fortunes are spent down or the heirs' lawyers have figured out ways to get around that little problem. Most of the people in here came before the new laws and were able to gift any money they had to their
heirs, so we're largely Medicaid here. But, lovely Charlemagne, after practically starving for so long in the arts and now actually earning a living, having money for investments—it's a challenge and a turn-on I would never have believed either.”
Harvey was called off to the administrator's office for interrogation, and Nurse Hogoboom and Elsina Miller allowed out to the dining room. A twit who had no idea what was happening and was too young to have interest in the national news was sent to question Charlie and she fell asleep on him more than once.
The last time he woke her was with an expletive, and behind Charlie, Gladys said, “We got plenty of that.”
The woman had her wrapped leg down and the shoulder strap of a familiar purse hanging from beneath a lacy nightgown.
“I didn't know Gladys could get herself up and out of bed and into her wheelchair,” Charlie told Elsina, who drooped at another table.
“Neither did Miss Miller,” Mary Lou Hogoboom interjected. “Old Gladys can get herself on and off everything but the freaking pot.”
Charlie took another look at old Gladys, who stared back triumphant and sly. Or maybe in her weariness, Charlie imagined that.
She'd promised herself earlier to spend what she hoped would be her last night in Iowa out at the home place, well away from the erotic complications at Viagra's. But in the wee hours, she fell into Kenny Cowper's bed beside her mother, too exhausted by murder to worry about anything so mundane as an oversexed hunk who had the same color eyes she did.
This was not the first time Charlie Greene had been way wrong.
W
HEN CHARLIE AWOKE, the bookcase-divided apartment sounded empty but for a dripping faucet. She lay there in the big bed—well, Kenny was a big guy.
We will
not
think of that.
Right. Wonder how Edwina's ankle is.
Charlie's mom had left the not-so-Gentle Oaks long before Charlie last night. Someone must have driven her. Maybe Kenny had come for her.
The ankle was swollen only slightly and Nurse Hogoboom had found some crutches that would suit Edwina. “Lots of people come in here on crutches but they're soon in walkers, then in wheelchairs, then comas. We kinda recycle the crutches around town.”
Charlie wondered where Edwina and her crutches had gone.
That sly look on Gladys' face last night had really startled her. Then again, Gladys could keep track of the number of fictitious boyfriends to needle Charlie about. The old woman might be strong and mobile and clever enough to plan and carry out the demise of some of the weaker inmates at the Oaks. Fighting that purse away from her in the wee hours had been an eye-opener. But Darla Lempke was young, strong, agile, and quick. Yet the coroner/mortician thought Darla too was smothered.
Charlie hated nonfiction, real-life mysteries. But she couldn't resist mulling puzzles. They just nagged at her.
Harvey wanted to revamp to a ritzier asylum. He'd have
to get rid of half the vegetables to do that, and cordon off the cognizant old, so that the assisted and/or “independent” folks wouldn't be reminded of what was coming next. He was making a good start.
Cousin Helen might wish to get rid of a lot of “born Staudts” so she and Buz could go visit the dark-eyed grandchildren who couldn't visit here—and enjoy what life they had, in the warmth of Arizona before Gentle Oaks.
And the two skeletal Fatties were certainly mobile and strong enough to chase pretty young aides down the hall and figure out how to propel wheelchairs into fighting positions. Rose could remember enough to read. And then there was poor, clever, unbelievable Marlys Dittberner, perhaps the oldest person Charlie had ever encountered. She could have slipped into Gentle Oaks, committed a few murders, and slipped out again. But why did she keep trying to burrow herself into the grave of the town's namesake?
And Kenny-of-the-hormones had spent a lot of bucks on this place. Would he inherit some money if his grandma died? Would it be more convincing if a bunch of other Jack Kervorkian needies died first? The problem with puzzles was that there were always too many pieces with edges that didn't fit. In this one, Darla Lempke stood out like a cut-up piece of a camel swimming in an ocean scene.
The answer is in the way the bedclothes were messed up on Wilma Overgaard, the latest victim, or maybe the latest winner.
Oh, shut up. You know less about puzzles, crime scenes, and mysteries than I do. Which is saying a lot.
Charlie still lay there, still groggy, when footsteps sounded on the outside stairs.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs—Jesus, it's good you're an agent and not an author.
“Oh, bugger off.”
Up at the Oaks early this morning, the doofus who got Gladys going with his reference to excrement was so startled
when Gladys smiled without her dentures and wheeled up to invite him to be her boyfriend that he followed it with “Jesus,” which of course set off Administrator Elsina on getting born again. Charlie wondered what became of him after she, Mary Lou Hogoboom, and Gladys fled the scene.
“Whadya mean, ‘bugger off'? I live 'ere, Sheila.” Kenny's head and part of his torso appeared over a bookcase. He pulled off a sweatshirt and used it to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
“Don't turn around. Wait.” Charlie covered her head with the pillow. “Now turn around.” She kept covered until she heard the shower running. She had to get out of this town.
When Charlie had taken her turn in the shower, coffee fragrance saturated the air of the place. “So where's Edwina? Did you ever find Marlys?”
“You realize you're hyperventilating?”
“Like you did after following me up the drive to the Oaks the second time I saw you? I hate romances. Besides, I'm inhaling coffee air.”
“This has nothing to do with romance.”
“I know.” Her neck hurt just looking up at him.
“Drink your coffee and we'll walk to the Schoolhouse Café for breakfast. Where we'll be safer.”
They stood out on his rickety back porch overlooking his snowmobile and the Sinclair. The air was cool, not cold. Fresh, not rush hour. They drank strong coffee and breathed deeply, didn't talk and didn't touch. Sufficiently caffeinated, they strolled around puddles, patches of ice, frozen mud, gooey mud, up to the Schoolhouse Café and ordered wicked omelets and orange juice. They got toast and potatoes, too. If Charlie had felt stared at the last time she was here, she felt scrutinized this time. At least the trees and sky looked friendlier now.
“I don't know where your mother is, but the Lumina was gone when I got back from my run, so she feels good enough to drive anyway. I hope she's out seeing to old Elmo. He got
a little strange on us yesterday. Far as I know, Marlys has not turned up.”
“I hope she doesn't. I hope she's out of her misery. Oh, God, there goes the sun again. I'd hang myself from a clothes hook in a closet if I lived in this climate.”
“Actually, it's great for moody writing.”
“You write moody nonfiction?”
“When it suits.”
“Hey, Kenny? You seen Ben?” the wait person asked. The entire staff consisted of one waitress and one cook. “Didn't show up for breakfast this morning.”
“No, but he was looking for Marlys last night with the rest of us. You checked the Sinclair?”
“Mayor says his bed wasn't slept in.”
“Maybe Ben and Marlys ran off to get married.” That brought laughter from everyone in the room.
The omelets were the special—eggs, ham, onions, green pepper, and cheddar cheese, for godsake. “I'm going to have to start lifting your weights.”
“So what's this about my not turning around?” Kenny lowered his voice.
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Can Mitch Hilsten turn around without getting in trouble?”
“So what's with Ben? He lived here a long time or just wandered in one day?”
“I don't want to talk about it. You got a problem with buns?”
“Okay, backs. Satisfied? Now, about Ben—”
“What, like shoulder muscles? Sculpture?”
“No, from the waist up. And, yes, Mitch has a great back.” But not as great as yours.
“Would you believe that's one I've never heard of? Okay, okay—” he put his palms up against the tough Hollywood-agent squint “—let's do Ben.” But he grinned and chuckled over her preposterous weakness. At intervals, anyway.
It seems that Ben, the town watchman, was the illegitimate son of one of the dark-eyed girls who got pregnant, and an adoptive home was never found for him. He was sort of passed around among families. “Didn't have the mentality for school, so he dropped out early, but he was a good worker and earned his keep at various farms around, and then at the grain elevator for years. One day he got under a chute that dumped a load of oats on him. Buried for long enough that he wasn't good for much anymore. So he started wandering the town, reporting what he saw to anyone who would listen.”
“Hence the town watchman.”
“Right. Never got violent or nasty. Just watched things. And the Sinclair was the only place around with a lot of cash on hand at all times, so the mayor, who runs it with her husband, gave him a bed there, put in a shower. That was before Viagra's and The Station became viable businesses.”
“So who was his birth mother? Was she a Staudt?”
“I don't know, Charlie. Marlys always kept the identities of the girls as secret as she could in a small town. Are you anxious to find out who your birth mother is?”
“You know, I don't think I am now. My life is so full, I just don't want to deal with it. What if she wants to extort money or horn in on my life with Libby or, God forbid, wants me to sell her screenplay?”
As they walked back to Main Street by another route so Charlie could see what little of the town she hadn't already, Kenny asked, “What have you got against romances? Women are supposed to love them.”
“Yeah, we're supposed to love football, too, if you listen to the right promoter.”
“That's not an answer.”
“They make women out as needy people who have to have a man to survive.”
“I understand that—I don't read them—but I understand that they outsell anything else and those days they portray gutsy women who demand a lot.”
“But who will never be whole without Mr. Right. Hey, I work in Hollywood, I know the female dependency myth. That's what plays there. That's all that plays there. How about you, big guy? Need Cinderella to make your life complete, do you?”
“No, but then I like football.”
“You'll be ready for Cinderella when you're a geezer and can find a blithe and dewy one.”
“Is that why Mitch Hilsten became engaged to Deena Gotmor? And are you why they split up?”
“Actually, Mitch and Deena were starring together in
Paranoia Will Destroy Ya
and somebody's press agent decided it would make great press when the film opened if an engagement were announced. She was already humping Godfrey Arthur of the Gluecks anyway.”
“That's why you're so cynical. A woman working Hollywood, and of course a teen pregnancy before that.”
“That just now occurred to you? Hello? And let us add my welcome to Myrtle, Iowa.”

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