Tomorrow's Vengeance

FIFTEEN

‘The OHCQ licenses and certifies Maryland state health care facilities. Through licensing, a facility gains the authority to operate or do business in the state; through certification, a facility obtains the right to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The OHCQ uses state and federal regulations… to determine compliance. When problems or deficiencies are noted, the OHCQ initiates administrative action against facilities that violate rules and regulations. If a facility fails to correct problems and is unable or unwilling to do so, the OHCQ may impose sanctions such as license revocation, fines, bans on admission, or other restrictions on the operating license.’

Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Health Care Quality, http://dhmh.maryland.gov/ohcq

The team the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality sent to interview me consisted of two overworked civil servants, a middle-aged man wearing a rumpled gray-and-white seersucker jacket and a woman, clearly his supervisor, whose sour expression told me she’d rather be anywhere but in a super-chilled conference room on a blistering hot August day.

The meeting was straightforward. I walked into the room and sat down. A tape recorder, with my permission, was turned on. Yes, I saw Nancy Harper and Jerry Wolcott engaged in sexual intercourse. Yes, I recognized them. Of course, I was sure it was Jerry. No, I could not be mistaken. Tattoo, you know. Yes, the sex appeared to be consensual. Yes, I reported the incident to the memory unit authorities.

End of story.

Following that ordeal, I decided that, come hell or high water, I would find poor Nancy Harper and do something, anything, to coax her out of the debilitating funk she had slipped into. She was clearly grieving the loss of Jerry; everyone was talking about it. She no longer appeared in the lounge during Charlie Robinson’s popular sing-alongs, staff said. She refused to cooperate with any of the volunteers, including me. Getting her to meals was like pulling teeth and, once there, she’d simply sulk over her plate, poking experimentally at the food with her fork but eating nothing. As a result, unit staff told me, she was losing weight. Not good for a woman who weighed only a hundred and twenty-one pounds to begin with. Her advance directive, I learned, prohibited force feeding, so persuasion was the only tool left to us.

Steeling myself for another rejection, I knocked on the door of Nancy’s room. When she didn’t answer, I peeked in. Nancy sat in a chair by the window, barefoot but otherwise fully dressed, staring out into the Tranquility Garden. ‘Hello, Nancy.’

She sat as inscrutable and still as one of the stone Buddhas poking his belly out of the shrubbery in the peaceful garden below.

‘How are you doing today?’

I knew it was a dumb question the minute it fell out of my mouth. She felt like shit, that’s what. And unless I could bring Jerry magically back into her lonely life, there was very little I could do about fixing it.

‘The garden’s very serene, isn’t it? Anything special going on out there today?’

She turned her head in my direction but her eyes remained unfocused, disturbingly empty.

‘He went away,’ she said.

‘I know, sweetie,’ I said, swallowing hard and stepping closer. ‘No wonder you’re sad.’

‘What’s done is done, and that’s all there is to say.’

‘Would you like me to read to you today?’

She turned her attention to the window again, gazing out over the trees and into the distance. The entire Baltimore Ravens football team could have come charging through the Tranquility Garden, hooting and hollering, and I doubted Nancy would have noticed.

‘How ’bout we go for a walk?’

‘I don’t like these shoes.’

She wasn’t wearing any shoes, but I didn’t argue. At least she was talking to me. ‘Do you want me to find you another pair then?’

Nancy shrugged but she’d clearly understood. ‘When they don’t want me to go out, they hide my shoes in the closet.’

‘Well, let’s look in the closet, then, shall we?’

With Nancy in suitable footwear and her arm tucked through mine, we strolled out of the memory unit and down the long hallway that led to the lounge. That Nancy was as popular as the high-school homecoming queen was evident. Other residents greeted her all along our way.

Hi, Nancy.

Good to see you out and about, Nancy.

Missed you in art class, Nancy.

(I’ll bet, I thought, thinking about her last, uh, monumental sculpture.)

After a while I noticed hints of a smile tugging at the corners of Nancy’s mouth.

At Sweet Tooth we were waylaid and summoned inside by the Easy Rider himself who sat at a table for four, putting the moves on Christie McSpadden and another woman I didn’t recognize who used our entrance as an excuse to make a quick escape.

The colonel sprang up like a Pop-Tart and offered Nancy his seat.

I had to laugh. ‘No, thanks, Colonel. Please, go back to whatever you were doing. We’re just getting some ice cream to take out into the garden.’

‘Nancy likes Oreo milkshakes,’ the colonel volunteered, stooping a little so he could look Nancy straight in the eyes. ‘Don’t you, sweetheart?’

I consulted with my friend. ‘Does an Oreo milkshake sound good to you, Nancy?’ The staff had told me she’d refused to eat lunch (again!), even though it was her favorite, macaroni and cheese, so I figured the poor thing would be hungry.

A tiny smile and an almost imperceptible nod.

That was all the confirmation the colonel needed. He bowed gallantly from the waist, executed a perfect about-face and marched off to the counter to place our order.

I sat Nancy down at the table next to Christie and pulled up a chair for myself. When Colonel Greene returned he set our treats on the table and said, ‘You’re friends with the Abazas, right?’

‘With his wife, Safa, yes. I don’t know Mr Abaza at all, really.’

‘He’s making trouble,’ the colonel said, retaking his seat.

‘What kind of trouble?’ I asked, playing dumb.

‘I like it here,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to move.’

Something wasn’t tracking. ‘Why on earth would you have to move, Colonel Greene?’

He laid an ice-cold hand on mine. ‘Nate, please.’

‘OK, Nate.’ I smiled and retrieved my hand. ‘Do you want to move?’

‘God, no, but if Calvert Colony loses its license, assisted living and the memory unit will have to close down, and without the insurance money coming in…’ He made a slashing motion across his throat.

‘Surely…’

‘Insurance money. That’s what keeps this place afloat, trust me. I cashed in everything to buy into Calvert Colony and it would be pennies on the dollar – pennies! – if the place goes belly up.’ He slapped the table so hard it nearly knocked over Christie’s Diet Coke. ‘And all because of a little slam-bang-thank-you-ma’am. Jerry and Nancy are good folk and look what’s happened to them.’ For a moment I thought the colonel was going to slap the table again, even harder. ‘I just don’t get it.’

Ah ha, I thought. It didn’t take long for word about the investigation to get around. Not surprising, though, since people like me were being called in for interviews.

‘I’m taking steps to protect my investment,’ he said.

‘Steps? What kind of steps?’ Christie wanted to know.

‘A little friendly persuasion,’ he said, looking grim.

I didn’t like the way the conversation was going. ‘Nate…’ I paused to consider my words carefully. ‘I don’t think there’s much anyone can do now that the incident’s been reported and the health department’s already involved.’

‘Him and his big, blabby holier-than-thou mouth.’

I frowned and opened my big, blabby mouth in protest. ‘We don’t know…’

The colonel cut me off. ‘See this?’ he said, making a fist and thrusting it in my direction. It was hard to miss an opal set in a gold signet ring so large it should be registered as a lethal weapon. He rapped it three times on the Formica tabletop.

Ring knockers. Service academy graduates. We had them at the Naval Academy, too.

‘West Point. Class of 1956.’ Tap-tap-tap. ‘I have buddies who fought guys like Abaza in Operation Desert Storm. They’re not our friends. None of them.’

‘That’s right,’ Christie chimed in. ‘Dickie’s writing a book. His experiences in Afghanistan would make your hair stand on end.’

The colonel winced.

‘Seems to me that Al-Qaeda is the enemy,’ I said, ‘or the Taliban. Not Muslims in general.’

‘Don’t be naive, Hannah. Look around you. They’re out there trying to kill Americans every single day.’

‘They’re cowards,’ Christie said. ‘You’ve seen the videos, Hannah. They wear masks.’

I wondered how much of this diatribe, if anything, Nancy was picking up on, but she seemed oblivious, sipping contentedly on her milkshake, quietly humming along to a fifties tune playing softly in the background.

Still, the colonel had wound Christie up. ‘What kind of person hijacks a schoolbus and shoots a thirteen-year-old girl in the head?’ she sputtered. ‘And what was Malala Yousufzai’s crime? Huh?’ Christie paused but didn’t wait for an answer before practically shouting, ‘She wanted to go to school!’

‘The shooter and the cleric who ordered that attack are hiding out in Afghanistan,’ the colonel informed us. ‘It’s one of the most corrupt governments in the world. The U.S. has squandered billions of dollars there. About as effective as giving a teenager a bottle of booze and the car keys.’

‘Savages,’ Christie grunted. ‘You can’t make peace with savages.’

The colonel reached across the table, covered Christie’s hand with his own and squeezed. ‘Kindred spirit,’ he said, winking.

Paul and I had friends, former midshipmen, who’d lost their lives in Afghanistan. At some visceral level I agreed with the colonel, but I refused to tar the Abazas and our other Muslim friends with the same brush used to tar the Taliban. Nothing was going to budge this old vet from his anti-Muslim platform, however, so I decided to retreat from the battlefield before I said something I ended up regretting.

I pasted a smile on my face and said, ‘Be a sweetie and fetch me a couple of plastic lids and one of those cardboard caddies, would you, Nate? I promised Nancy a walk in the garden, and so far I’m failing miserably.’

The blast of hot air that hit us as we stepped out of the building with me carrying the caddy nearly took my breath away. I urged Nancy along the path as quickly as I could, seeking a spot in the shade where we could finish enjoying our shakes. I remembered the stone bench in the cherry grove and headed that way – through the flowerbeds, up the path and over the bridge spanning the lily pond where the rowboat and the remarkable glass sculptures lay.

The Tranquility Garden was beautifully designed, so perfect in every detail, I thought as we settled onto the bench, that not a single leaf or blade of grass would dare to be out of place. Elves undoubtedly swept through the garden while the rest of us slept, putting everything to rights.

I slipped fresh straws out of their paper sleeves, tucked the trash into my pocket, jammed the straws through the plastic lids, then handed the Oreo shake to Nancy. She put the straw to her lips and began sipping happily.

‘Ahhhh, perfect,’ I said to nobody in particular as I took a sip of mine. Plain chocolate, thank you very much, as rich and delicious as a Dove bar.

But not everything was perfect. Something was off in the garden today. A wrong note, a discrepancy, a flaw in the carefully staged landscape around me.

It was the rowboat, I decided. When we sat there before, hadn’t it leaned at a slightly different angle? And the glass balls had completely filled it, surely, but now some of the smaller ones had tumbled out, littering the ground.

I squinted. Was that a shoe? Had one of the residents lost…?

‘I’ll be right back,’ I said to Nancy. Her head bobbed as she took another sip of her Oreos and cream. She closed her eyes, smiled with pleasure and took another sip. You do good work, Hannah, I thought as I rose from the bench.

Slowly, still casually sipping on my milkshake, I approached the rowboat. When I was about ten feet away I could see that the shoe was a sandal. It had a sock-clad foot in it and, as I moved closer still, I saw that the foot was attached to a leg wearing khaki trousers.

Paul’s parting words echoed in my head: ‘You, too, Hannah. And no dead bodies, OK?’ Shit. Was I cursed, doomed to stumble over bodies for life, rerun after rerun like Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote?

I should back off now, I knew. Take Nancy by the hand, return to Blackwalnut Hall. Call 9-1-1. But… perhaps he – she? – was alive and needed help.

I glanced back at Nancy and was relieved to see she was still concentrating on her milkshake, oblivious.

I approached the rowboat cautiously and leaned far to the right to get a better view.

The leg belonged to Masud Abaza, who was beyond any help on this side of paradise.

Safa’s husband lay face up, his sightless eyes staring at the sky, the tremor in his hands stilled forever. Blood had congealed on a vicious wound to his temple and stained the manicured grass under his head. It seemed obvious that some savage blow had killed him, and yet, protruding a good two feet out of the center of Masud’s chest was a giant purple icicle. An art installation gone bad, I thought, suppressing an insane urge to giggle. As if a blow to the head wasn’t sufficient, Masud’s killer had uprooted one of the artist’s decorative glass reeds and driven it straight into the poor man’s heart.