Death In Duplicate

FIFTEEN

THE PERRY ISLAND CARE CENTER WAS GETTING READY FOR Easter. Cute cardboard cutouts of improbably attired bunnies had been taped up in the hallways. Plastic eggs hung from the budding branch of a quince tree standing by the front door and a gigantic basket of drooping tulips took up an unreasonable amount of space on the receptionist’s desk. The young woman seated at that desk looked up, and around the plant, as Susan entered the building.

“May I help you? Oh, you’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I met with Astrid Marlow a few days ago. She said I could return at any time and look around, and… and I have a few questions about… about security. My mother worries more and more as she gets older… about fire and things like that,” she added, not sure exactly what was like fire.

“We have a state-of-the-art fire alarm system. It connects directly to the volunteer fire department as well as to the police station,” the receptionist assured her. “The state inspected it just a few months ago and found everything completely satisfactory.”

“Oh.” Susan wasn’t quite sure how to continue.

“Have you seen the results of the inspections?”

“No.”

“They’re printed up and are part of the prospective resident package. I’m surprised you weren’t given one on your first visit.”

Susan realized that she had been given one, but she hadn’t bothered to look at it. “I did have one, but it was misplaced somehow.”

“Let me get you another then. Perhaps two copies so you can share one with your mother?”

“That’s a wonderful idea.”

“I believe there are extra copies on a bookshelf in the living room. I’m not supposed to leave this desk unmanned, but-”

“I could go get them,” Susan said quickly.

“That would be helpful. Do you know the way?”

She didn’t, but she could bluff. “It’s down that hallway, right?” She pointed to the left.

“I’m afraid you’re turned around. It’s that way.” The receptionist pointed in the opposite direction.

“Of course. I’ll just go get them. You did say on the bookshelf, didn’t you?” Susan asked, hurrying off to the right.

She recognized the living room from Mandy’s description. A few groups of residents congregated in the elegantly decorated space, sitting on the chintz-covered couches and chatting as they perused today’s newspapers and current magazines. Three women sat around a card table, working on a large, nearly completed jigsaw puzzle. Susan removed two Perry Island Care Center brochures from a nearly empty bookshelf, then walked over and peered down at the table. “What is that?” The puzzle seemed to have been created from thousands of small brightly colored disks.

A woman with a gray bun on top of her head looked up. “Bottle caps of the world. My grandson sent it to me for Christmas. He’s a hotshot student up at M.I.T.-probably thought it would stump a bunch of senior citizens. He’s going to be up here for my birthday next week. We’re determined to get it done before then.”

“Yes, nothing is quite as motivating as proving to the young that we’re not completely brain dead.” This from a chubby woman with twinkling pale azure eyes and white curls bobbing on her head.

“It looks impossible,” Susan said.

“Nothing’s impossible when you have as much free time as we do,” the last woman in the group assured Susan, getting up and wandering off to another group.

“I wonder if I could ask you some questions,” Susan said to the remaining women.

“You can ask what you want, but you won’t necessarily get any answers,” the grandmother of the M.I.T. student answered, not even bothering to look up.

“Ignore her,” said the woman with curls. “She’s suffering from low blood sugar. Her endocrinologist can’t seem to get her meds adjusted.”

“That’s what’s wrong with this place-too much talk about doctors and medications,” the woman being discussed growled, putting another piece of the puzzle in place.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about-what’s wrong with this place?”

“Which relative are you planning on sticking here? Your mother? Father? Mother-in-law?”

“How do you know I’m interested in putting someone here?” Susan realized that her cover story was being accepted as the truth.

“Well, you collected the publicity info from the shelf and you’re wandering around looking uncomfortable. Those are two unmistakable signs that we’re going to be joined by another unwilling inmate-”

“Sally!” Her white curls bobbed. “Please ignore my friend, Mrs…”

“Henshaw. Susan Henshaw.”

“Mrs. Henshaw, nice to meet you. I’m Tally Consadine. This is my friend Sally Worth. We are all very happy here despite what Sally says. Believe me, this is the third nursing/rehab facility I’ve lived in and it’s by far the best. P.I.C.C. is wonderful. Everyone knows it. If it hadn’t been for the murders, there wouldn’t be any openings here.”

“Sure, tell her about the murders, Tally. That will encourage her to think highly of P.I.C.C.” Sally looked up from the puzzle. “There were people killed here, you know. And the murderer-or murderers-has never been identified.”

“I know,” Susan said simply, sitting down in the empty chair. “That’s what I was hoping to talk to someone about.”

“Well you’d better talk to my fellow inmates then. The staff has orders to pretend they didn’t happen.”

“Sally is exaggerating-as usual,” Tally said. “Management was concerned, quite legitimately, I believe, with maintaining the quality of care here. The police investigation was fairly discreet, but the influx of what I can only call gutter press was more than a little distressing to many of us. It’s shameful to benefit from the unhappiness of others, but if that dreadful movie actor hadn’t shot his mistress between the eyes at a restaurant down in Greenwich, we might never have gotten rid of those nosy parkers!”

“The murderer was never found, was he?” Susan asked.

“No, but you don’t have to worry, dear. We all agree that the killer is long gone from Perry Island Care Center.”

“How do you know that?”

“We don’t know anything. Tally’s just talking. She’s like that.”

“We know that a lot of problems ended when he left.”

“You’re confusing murder and petty theft, Tally.”

“No, I’m not. There’s a huge difference between taking someone’s wristwatch and someone’s life. But I do know that a lack of morals leads to both things and I don’t believe even you will argue with that, Sally Worth.” Tally stood up. “It’s time for dinner, Mrs. Henshaw. We are allowed to have guests so if you would like to accompany me to the dining room you could sample our healthy-but slightly dull-cuisine.”

“I think I’ll stay here,” Susan said. “It’s a bit early for me.”

“Then don’t get old. You’ll hate living in a nursing home. We have breakfast at eight, dinner at eleven, afternoon tea at three and supper at five-thirty. If the staff is lucky, we’re all tucked into bed by nine at night,” Sally said, still moving around puzzle pieces.

“Aren’t you eating lunch… ah, dinner?” Susan asked now that they were alone together.

“No. I have a stash of fresh fruit and cookies in my room if I get peckish before teatime. Have a seat if you want to help me with the puzzle-or if you have more questions.” She looked up and smiled, deep wrinkles almost obliterating her eyes.

“I came here wondering about the murders, but I didn’t know anything about watches being stolen,” Susan started.

“Tally is a sweet woman, but she lived a fairly sheltered life. She knows about crime-well, can anyone who turns on television these days not know the intimate details of the most horrendous events?-but she doesn’t know the criminals.”

“And you do?”

“My grandson is a cocaine addict-oh, not the one at M.I.T., although I’m not so naive as to believe there aren’t a few addicts at every institution of higher learning. It’s perfectly possible to be smart and an addict. Anyway, my grandson the addict has been in and out of jails, prisons, rehabs for the last twenty years of his life. He’d steal you blind-well, he has to feed his addiction-but he’d never kill anyone. He’s been through a lot, but he’s still a good person underneath all the evil drug crap.”

“You think the person who stole things was-is-an addict, someone who worked here and has now left,” Susan guessed.

“Got it in one. And so did I,” she added, fitting another piece of the puzzle into its place.

“Do you know the identity of the person?”

“Yes. Mike Armstrong. Nice young kid. Not that we see many kids here, nice or not nice. But I liked Mike and he’s sort of family here. He was in trouble with the law while he was in high school-graffiti. I don’t approve of vandalism, of course, but he definitely has real artistic talent. Not that talent will make any difference if he gets involved in drugs.”

“And was he?”

“I don’t know. He might have been. I noticed that his eyes were red on more than one occasion. I do know that he was very, very upset the day before he vanished.”

“And when was that? After the murders?”

“The day after the last one. I’m not telling this story very well, am I?”

Susan didn’t want to criticize. “Well…,” she began reluctantly.

“You don’t have to tell me. I know I’m not. My mind is not as sharp as it was, and there are days when I’m confused. Time goes so slowly here and, despite the inane decorations they’re always taping up on the walls, it is not always easy to tell one season from another. But I remember this… I remember the day Mike Armstrong left. And the circumstances.”

Susan sat and quietly waited for Sally to put her thoughts in order and begin her tale.

“We were all upset about the murders. Death is all too familiar to those of us who live with other elderly people. But unnatural death, death intentionally caused by another human being-well, that’s different, isn’t it? We were all on edge.”

“Thinking you might be the next to die?” Susan asked.

“I don’t know about everyone else, but that didn’t concern me much. I wanted-I want now-to know who was killing the other residents, but murder is not the way I expect my life to end.”

Susan thought that was probably true of most victims of murder, but she didn’t interrupt.

“But some residents and staff were very upset, and Mike was among them. I was surprised by his reaction. I mean, a lot of old people get weird and paranoid and of course the murders upset them a lot. But Mike always impressed me as being a pretty tough kid-self-sufficient, streetwise. I didn’t expect the murders to have quite such an effect on him.”

“What had happened?”

“He was a wreck-nervous, on edge. I swear, he looked as though he was going to cry.”

“What did he do here exactly? What was his job?”

“He was an aide, a health care assistant. He helped out in any way he was asked to-feeding residents, helping the male residents get in and out of bed, things like that.”

“Was he good at it?”

Sally smiled. “Sometimes. He was wonderful working with the people he liked, residents as well as staff. But he wore his heart on his sleeve and if he didn’t like someone, they knew it. So he wasn’t always the most popular of the staff, but he did what he was supposed to do even if he didn’t always have a smile on his face.

“But as I said, the murders upset him. At first I thought he was shocked-this was his first job working in a nursing home and he just wasn’t used to people dying. It sounds callous, but if every time a resident died the staff became distressed, things would be much more difficult around here.”

“But murder…”

“Of course we were all upset by the thought that there was a killer among us, but Mike more so than normal-if there is a normal in an abnormal situation…” She stopped speaking and frowned.

“You were going to tell me about the day before he vanished,” Susan reminded her.

“Sorry. It’s so easy to get lost-there is little logic to my train of thought these days, I find. I was telling you about Mike stealing things.”

“He did? Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure. I actually saw him. He was cleaning up after one of our hideous art therapy sessions. The teacher who comes in to help us explore our artistic capabilities-that’s what she calls it; I’d say make messes-had removed her watch while she demonstrated painting on silk. Mike was cleaning up the room after the class had ended. He just slipped it into his jeans pocket. I was walking by and happened to see him.”

“Did you say anything to him?”

“I certainly did! I told him to put it right back and he said that he hadn’t been going to keep it. Of course, he was lying, but I knew a lecture about the virtues of honesty wouldn’t change him. I’m over ninety years old and I’ve never known anyone to change their life because someone lectured them about it.”

“And did he give it back?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t take other things and get away with it.”

“No, of course not. But you were telling me about the day before he left,” Susan said.

“He was upset-well, I told you that didn’t I?-and he came into my room late in the afternoon and said that he was being accused of things that weren’t true and he wasn’t going to put up with it. He was angry and I thought for a moment that he was talking about me. I explained that I hadn’t told anyone about what I’d seen and he laughed. He said that if I’d seen what he’d seen, I’d be dead from the shock.”

“Did you ask him what he was talking about?”

“Yes, of course. And he answered with one word. Murder.”

“And?”

“That’s all-murder. And then he turned and left my room and I never saw him again. The next morning the police were around asking about him. They never found him, though. Two or three days later his cousin quit her job and left P.I.C.C. as well.”

“His cousin?”

“Oh, yes, she worked here too. She’s a nurse. Her name isn’t Armstrong though. It’s Tapley. Shannon Tapley.”