G Is for Gumshoe

  Hell, I thought. "Well, I don't want Jo argue, Irene, but I can't believe I'd be of any help. Your mother hasn't the faintest idea who I am and, furthermore, she doesn't care. When she saw me this afternoon, she threw a bedpan across the room."

  "I'm sorry. I know it's a nuisance, but I'm at my wit's end. I tried talking to her myself by phone, but she's incoherent. Mrs. Haynes says sometimes the medication has that effect; instead of calming these older patients down, it just seems to rev them up. They have a private-duty nurse driving up from El Centre for the eleven-o'clock shift, but meanwhile, the ward's in an uproar and they're begging for help."

  "God. All right. I'll do what I can, but I don't have any training in this kind of thing."

  "I understand," she said. "I just don't know who else to ask."

  I told her I'd head on over to the hospital and then I hung up. I couldn't believe I'd been roped into this. My presence on a geriatric ward was going to prove about as effective as the padlock on the trailer door. All form, no content. What really bugged me was the suspicion that nobody would have even suggested that a boy detective do likewise. I didn't want to see that old lady again. While I admired her spunk, I didn't want to be in charge of her. I had my own ass to worry about.

  Why does everybody assume women are so nurturing? My maternal instincts were extinguished by my Betsy Wetsy doll. Every time she peed in her little flannel didies, I could feel my temper climb. I quit feeding her and that cured it, but it did make me wonder, even at the age of six, how suited I was for motherhood.

  It was in this charitable frame of mind that I proceeded to the Rio Vista. I drove with an eye to my rearview mirror to see if anyone was following. I watched for pickup trucks of every color and size. I thought the one I'd seen was a Dodge, but I hadn't been paying close attention at the time and I couldn't have sworn to it.

  Nothing untoward occurred. I reached the convalescent hospital, parked my car in a visitors' slot, walked back through the front entrance and headed for the stairs. It was ominously quiet. No telling what Agnes was up to. It was only 8:00 p.m. but the floor lights had already been dimmed and the facility was bathed in the muted rustle and hush of any hospital at night. The old sleep restlessly, pained limbs crying out. Nights must be long, filled with fretful dreams, the fear of death, or, worse perhaps, the certainty of waking to another interminable day. What did they have to hope for? What ambitions could they harbor in this limbo of artificial light? I could sense the hiss of oxygen in the walls, the pall of the pharmaceuticals with which their bodies were infused. Hearts would go on beating, lungs would pump, kidneys filtering all the poisons from the blood. But who would diagnose their feelings of dread, and how would anyone provide relief from the underlying malady, which was despair?

  When I reached the ward, I could see that Agnes's bed was the only one with a light. A male aide, a young black, set his magazine aside and tiptoed in my direction with a finger to his lips. We spoke briefly in low tones. The medication had finally kicked in and she was dozing, he said. Now that I was here, he had his regular duties to attend to. If I needed anything, I could find him at the nurses' station down the hall. He moved out of the room.

  I crossed quietly to the pool of bright light in which Agnes slept. The counterpane on her bed was a heavyweight cotton, harsh white, her thin frame scarcely swelling the flat coverlet. She snored softly. Her eyes seemed to be opened slightly, lids twitching as she tracked some interior event. Her right hand clutched at the sheet, her arthritic knuckles as protuberant as redwood burls. Her chest was flat. Coarse whiskers sprouted from her chin, as if old age were transforming her from one sex to the other. I found myself holding my breath as I watched her, willing her to breathe, wondering if she'd sail away right before my eyes. This afternoon, she'd seemed sassy and energetic. Now, she reminded me of certain old cats I've seen whose bones seem hollow and small, who seem capable of levitating, so close are they to fairylike.

  I glanced at the clock. Twelve minutes had passed. When I looked back, her black eyes were pinned on my face with a surprising show of life. There was something startling about her sudden watchfulness, like a visitation from the spirit world.

  "Don't make me go," she whispered.

  "It won't be so bad. I hear the nursing home is lovely. Really. It'll be much better than this."

  Her gaze became intense. "You don't understand. I want to stay here."

  "I do understand, Agnes, but it's just not possible. You need help. Irene wants you close so she can take care of you."

  She shook her head mournfully. "I'll die. I'll die. It's too dangerous. Help me get away."

  I felt the hair stiffen along my scalp. "You'll be fine. Everything's fine," I said. My voice sounded too loud. I lowered my tone, leaning toward her. "You remember Irene?"

  She blinked at me and I could have sworn she was debating whether to admit to it or not. She nodded, her voice tremulous. "My little girl," she said. She reached out and I took her shaking hand, which was bony and hot, surprisingly strong.

  "I talked to Irene a little while ago," I said. "Clyde's found a place close by. She says it's very nice."

  She shook her head. Tears had leaped into her eyes and they trickled down her cheeks, following deeply eroded lines in her face. Her mouth began to work, her face filled with a pleading she couldn't seem to articulate.

  "Can you tell me what you're afraid of?"

  I could see her struggle, and her voice, when it came, was so frail that I had to rise slightly from my chair to catch what she was saying. "Emily died. I tried to warn her. The chimney collapsed in the earthquake. The ground rolled. Oh, I could see... it was like waves in the earth. Her head was bashed in by a brick. She wouldn't listen when I told her it was dangerous. Let it be, I said, but she had to have her way. Sell the house, sell the house. She didn't want roots, but that's where she ended up... down in the ground."

  "When was this?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation afloat.

  Agnes shook her head mutely.

  "Is that why you're worried? Because of Emily?"

  "I heard the niece of the owner of that old house across the street died several years ago. She was a Harpster."

  Oh, boy. We were really on a roll here. "She played the harp?" I asked.

  She shook her head impatiently. Her voice garnered strength. "Harpster was her maiden name. She was big in the Citizens Bank and never married. Helen was an ex-girlfriend of his. She left because of his temper, but then Sheila came along. She was so young. She had no idea. The other Harpster girl was a dancer and married Arthur James, a professional accordion player who owned a music shop. I knew him because we girls at the Y used to go over to his place and he would play for us after he locked the door," she said. "It's a small world. The girls said their uncle's house was their second home. She might still be there if he left it to her. She'd help."

  I watched carefully, trying to understand what was going on. Was there really something she was too frightened to talk about? "Was Emily the one who married Arthur James?"

  "There was always some story... always some explanation." She waved a hand vaguely, her tone resigned.

  "Was this in Santa Teresa? Maybe I could help you if I understood."

  "Santa came over special and gave us all a stockingful of goodies. I let her have mine."

  "Who, Emily?"

  "Don't talk about Emily. Don't tell. It was the earthquake. Everyone said so." She extracted her hand and a veil of cunning dropped over her eyes. "My arthritis is in my shoulder and knee. My shoulder has been broken two times. The doctor didn't even touch it, just X-rayed. I had two cataract operations at least, but I never had to have a tooth filled. You can see for yourself." She opened her mouth.

  Sure enough, no fillings, which is not that big a deal when you have no teeth.

  "You look like you're in pretty good shape for someone your age," I said gamely. The subject was careening around like conversational pinball.

  "Lottie was the other one
. She was a simpleton, but she always had a big smile on her face. She didn't have the brains God gave a billy goat. She'd go out the back door and then she'd forget how to get back in. She'd sit on the porch steps and howl like a pup until someone let her in. Then she'd howl to get back out again. She was the first. She died of influenza. I forget when Mother went. She had that stroke, you know, after Father died. He wanted to keep the house and Emily wouldn't hear of it. I was the last one and I didn't argue. I wasn't really sure until Sheila and then I knew. That's when I left."

  I said, "Unh-hunh," and then tried another tack. "Is it the trip that worries you?"

  She shook her head. "The smell when it's damp," she said. "Never seemed to bother anyone else."

  "Would you prefer to have Irene fly down and travel back with you?"

  "I worked cleaning houses. That's how I supported Irene all those years. I watched Tilda and I knew how it was done. Of course, she was dismissed. He saw to that. No financial records. No banks. She was the only casualty. It was the only time her name was ever in the papers."

  "Whose name?"

  "You know," she said. Her look now was secretive.

  "Emily?" I asked.

  "Time wounds all heels, you know."

  "Is this your father you're talking about?"

  "Oh dear, no. He was long gone. It would be in the footing if you knew where to look."

  "What footing?"

  Her face went blank. "Are you talking to me?"

  "Well, yes," I said. "We've been talking about Emily, the one who died when the chimney fell."

  She made a motion as if to lock her lips and throw away the key. "I did it all to save her. My lips are sealed. For Irene's sake."

  "Why is that, Agnes? What is it you're not supposed to tell?"

  She focused a quizzical look on me. I was suddenly aware that the real Agnes Grey was in the room with me. She sounded perfectly rational. "Well, I'm sure you're very nice, dear, but I don't know who you are."

  "I'm Kinsey," I said. "I to a friend of your daughter's. She was worried when she didn't hear from you and she asked me to come down and find out what was going on."

  I could see her expression shift and off she went again. "Well, no one knew that. No one even guessed."

  "Uh, Agnes? Do you have any idea where you are?"

  "No. Do you?"

  I laughed. I couldn't help myself. After a moment, she began to laugh, too, the sound as delicate as a cat sneezing. Next thing I knew, she'd drifted off to sleep again.

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  I did not sleep well. I found myself thinking about Agnes, whose fears were contagious and seemed to set off worries of my own. The reality of the death threat had finally filtered down into my psyche, where it was beginning to accumulate an energy of its own. I was sensitive to every noise, to changes in room temperature as the night wore on, to shifting patterns of light on Venetian blinds. At 1:00 a.m., a car pulled into a parking slot near my room and I found myself instantly on my feet, peering through the slats as a couple emerged from a late-model Cadillac. Even in heavy shadow, I could tell they were drunk, clinging to one another in a hip-grinding embrace. I moved away from the window, my senses heightened by anxiety as the two of them fumbled their way into the room next to mine. Surely, if they were killers they wouldn't postpone my demise for the noisy grappling that started up the minute the bolt shot home. The bedframe began to thump relentlessly against the adjoining wall like a kid drumming his heels. There were occasional lulls while the woman offered up suggestions to her hapless companion. "Hop on up here like a puppy dog," she would say. Or "Get that old bald-headed thing over here."

  On my side of the wall, the picture of the moose would start to rattle out another little tap dance. I had to reach up and hold it, lest the frame jounce right off the hook and smack me in the face. She was a screamer, sounding more like a woman in labor than one in love. The tempo picked up. Finally, she uttered a little yelp of astonishment, but I couldn't tell if she came or fell off the bed. After a moment, the smell of cigarette smoke wafted through the walls and I could hear their murmured postmortem. Twelve minutes later, they were at it again. I got up and took the picture off the wall, stuffed a sock in each cup of my bra and tied it across my head like earmuffs, with the ends knotted under my chin. Didn't help much. I lay there, a cone over each ear like an alien, wondering at the peculiarities of human sex practices. I would have much to report when I returned to my planet.

  At 4:45,I gave up any hope of getting back to sleep. I took a shower and washed my hair, returning to the room wrapped in a motel towel the size of a place mat. As I pulled on my clothes, she was beginning to yodel and he was yipping like a fox. I had never heard so many variations on the word oh. I locked the door behind me and headed out across the parking lot on foot.

  The smell of desert air was intense: sweet and cold. The sky was still an inky black with strands of dark red cutting through the low clouds at the horizon. I was nearly giddy from lack of sleep, but I felt no sense of endangerment. If someone were waiting in the bushes with an Uzi, I would leave this world in a state of sublime innocence.

  The lights in the cafe" were just blinking on, vibrant green neon spelling out the word cafe in one convoluted loop, like a squeeze of tooth gel. I could see a waitress in a pale pink uniform scratch at her backside at the height of a yawn. The highway was empty and I crossed at a casual place. I needed coffee, bacon, pancakes, juice, and I wasn't sure what else, but something reminiscent of childhood. I sat at the far end of the counter, my back against the wall, still mindful of the plate-glass window and the gray wash of dawn light outside. The waitress, whose name turned out to be Frances, was probably my age, with a country accent and a long tale to tell about some guy named Arliss who was systematically unfaithful, most recently with her girlfriend, Charlene.

  "He has really tore himself with me this time," she said, as she plunked down a bowl of steaming oatmeal in front of me.

  By the time I finished eating, I knew everything there was to know about Arliss and she knew a lot about Jonah Robb.

  "If it was me, I'd hang on to him," she said, "but now not at the expense of meeting this doctor fella your friend Vera wants to fix you up with. I'd jump right on that. He sounds real cute to me, though personally I've made it a practice not to date a man knows more about my insides than I do. I went out with this doctor once? Actually he's a medical student, if the truth be known. First time we kissed, he told me the name of some condition arises when you get a pubic hair caught down in your throat. Tacky? Lord God. What kind of person did he think I was?" She leaned on the counter idly swiping it with a damp rag so she'd look like she was busy if the boss stopped in.

  "I never heard of a doctor dating a private eye, have you?" I said.

  "Honey, I don't even know any private eyes, except you. Maybe he's tired of nurses and lab technicians and lady lawyers and like that. He's been dating Vera, hasn't he? And what is she, some kind of insurance adjuster..."

  "Claims manager," I said. "Her boss got fired."

  "But that's my point. I bet they never sat around having long heart-to-heart chats about medical malpractice, for God's sake. He's bored with that. He's looking for someone new and fresh. And think of it this way, he probably doesn't have any communicable diseases."

  "Well, now there's a recommendation," I said. "You better believe it. In this day and age? I'd insist on a blood test before the first lip lock."

  The front door opened and a couple of customers came in. "Take my word for it," she said, as she moved away. "This guy could be it. You could be Mrs. Doctor Somebody-or-other by the end of the year."

  I paid my check, bought a newspaper from the vending machine out front, and went back to my room. All was quiet next door. I propped myself up in bed and read the Brawley News, including a long article about "palm gardens," which I learned was the proper term for the groves of date palms strung out on both sides of the Salton Sea. The trees, exotic trans
plants brought in from North Africa a century ago, transpire as much as five hundred quarts of water a day and have to be pollinated by hand. The varieties of dates – the Zahid, the Barhi, the Kasib, the Deglet Noor, and the Medjool – all sounded like parts of the brain most affected by stroke.

  As soon as it seemed civilized, I called the convalescent hospital and talked to Mrs. Haynes about Agnes Grey. Apparently, she'd been as docile as a lamb for the remainder of the night. Arrangements for her transport to Santa Teresa by air ambulance had been finalized and she was taking it in stride. She claimed she couldn't even remember what had so upset her the day before.

  After I hung up, I put a call through to Irene and passed the information on to her. Agnes's outburst still felt unsettling to me, but I didn't see what purpose my apprehension might serve.

  "Oh, Mother's just like that," Irene said when I voiced my concern. "If she's not raising hell, she feels she's somehow remiss."

  "Well, I thought you should know how fearful she was. She sure raised the hair on the back of my neck."

  "She'll be fine now. Don't be concerned. You've done a wonderful job."

  "Thanks," I said. As there didn't seem to be any reason to remain in the area, I told her I'd be taking off shortly and would give her a call as soon as I got back to town.

  I packed my duffel, gathered up my briefcase, the portable typewriter, and miscellaneous belongings, and locked everything in the car while I went up to the front office to settle my bill.

  When I returned, the lovers were just emerging from the room next door. They were both in their fifties, a hundred pounds overweight, dressed in matching western-cut shirts and oversize blue jeans. They were discussing interest rates on short-term Treasury securities. The slogan painted on the Cadillac's rear window read: just merged. I watched them cross the parking lot, arms around each other's waists, or at least as far as they would go. While the car warmed up, I pulled my little .32 out of the briefcase where I'd tucked it the night before and transferred it to my handbag on the passenger seat.