The nurses had wheeled the empty gurney back into the room. Even as the cousins departed, clumping away, they prepared to lift Mary Nell onto the rolling cart. Wrapping Mary Nell’s blanket around her, and one nurse lifting her shoulders while the other supported her hips, they set Mary Nell on the cart for her return to Nursing. But as they slid her acquiescent body off the bed and onto the gurney, her blanket caught and was pulled awry, pulling her off-balance. She kicked out against the bed, to right herself.
Dulcie, looking up from beneath the bed, saw Mary Nell’s bare foot kick out beyond the edge of the cart. A slim, smooth foot, without the blue veins and knobby joints of an old woman. A lightly tanned foot that might easily run and dance.
She paused, frozen with amazement, then reared up beneath the blanket for a closer look. Staring at that healthy, slim foot, she was so fascinated that she forgot herself and let her whiskers brush Mary Nell’s skin, catching a whiff of disinfectant from the blanket. At the tickle of her whiskers, Mary Nell grunted, startled, and reached to scratch her instep. Dulcie dropped down, crouching deep beneath the bed, in the far corner. Mary Nell scratched her foot vigorously with a white-gloved hand, drewher foot back beneath the covers, and pulled the blanket closer around herself. And she was wheeled away.
Dulcie remained hidden until they had gone, her mind fixed on that slim, smooth foot with its neat, professional pedicure of bright red toenails, and on the sudden, vigorous movements of that frail old lady.
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It was getting dark in the grove. Susan knew she should head back, should turn her wheelchair around. She had only to speak to Lamb, and he would circle back toward Casa Capri. Bonnie would be wanting to leave; she had scheduled this afternoon an hour later than usual, having had to work later, and now it looked like rain, the clouds so dark and low overhead they seemed to cling in among the oak trees. Beyond the grove, the lights of the dining room and the long line of bedrooms shone brightly, the big squares of the glass doors marching along behind the wrought-iron fence. She could see, down at the end, a portion of Teddy’s wheelchair behind his open drapery, saw movement as if perhaps he sat reading. He didn’t stay long at the Pet-A-Pet sessions. Mae Rose thought the proximity of so many animals annoyed Teddy, irritated him.
The wind was picking up. Speaking to Lamb and stroking him, she gave him the command to turn back. Willingly he led her around, pulling her chair in a circle off the path and back again. It was at that moment, as they turned, that she saw Teddy rise from his wheelchair, stand tall, move away from it.
She spoke to Lamb, and he stopped in his tracks, stood still.
She watched Teddy walk across the room to the other side of the glass doors. No mistaking him, his hanging stomach forming a pear-shaped torso.
She watched him reach to pull the draperies, saw him pause a moment, looking out-then step back suddenly against the wall, out of sight.
Saw the draperies slide closed as if by an invisible hand, from where he had concealed himself.
He had seen her, despite the gathering dark. Had seen some glint, maybe her white blouse, seen her here in the grove. Seen her watching him.
She shivered deeply, unaccountably frightened.
Now the draperies obscured the room. Those drapes on the outside windows were not like the thinner casement curtains that faced into the patio. These window coverings, facing away from Casa Capri, were opaque, totally concealing.
She sat still, watching the obscured glass door, still shaken, chilled.
Teddy couldn’t walk. Not at all. His spine had been crushed. He was completely incapacitated from his waist down, could use only his arms. Drove his car with special hand equipment.
That is what they had been told. That is what Adelina Prior told them.
Ice filled her.
And in her fear she made some movement, some little body language that made Lamb whine and nose at her. Stroking him, hugging the big poodle to her, she felt very alone suddenly, the two of them, too vulnerable alone here in the gathering night.
But Bonnie would be waiting. She spoke to the poodle, urging him on, and headed fast for the social room. Wanting Bonnie, wanting company, wanting to be around other people.
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The cats read the newspaper article while standing on the front page, on the Damen kitchen table. They were not amused at the eveningGazette’streatment of Max Harper. Behind them at the stove, Clyde and Wilma were cooking lasagna, boiling pasta and making sauce, Wilma’s silver hair tied back under a cloth, Clyde wearing an ancient, stained barbecue apron. The steamy kitchen smelled deliciously of herbs and tomato sauce and sauteed meat; and the room reverberated with banging from the roof above, where Charlie was at work replacing shingles. Working for her supper. There was, Joe thought, nothingverycheap about Clyde.
Dulcie sat down on the paper and read the article again, her tail lashing with annoyance.“This is really a cheap shot,” she said softly.
Joe agreed. He might make fun of Harper, but when theGazetteput Harper down, that made him mad.
“Not only bad for law enforcement,” Clyde said, chopping cilantro, “but bad politics.”
“And poor taste,” Wilma said, glancing up toward the roof. Further banging told them Charlie was still out of hearing. “Max Harper is a fine man. He keeps this town clean, and that’s more than I can say for some city officials.”
There was a big difference, Joe thought, rolling over on the newspaper, between his own good-natured and secret harassment of Max Harper, and theGazette’scaustic misinformation.
POLICE FAIL TO NOTICE OPEN GRAVE
Molena Point Police, searching earlier this week for the body from which a finger bone was stolen supposedly by a neighborhood dog, failed to find during their investigation of the Prior estate, the wide-open grave of Dolores Fernandez. The excavation, in plain sight in the historic Spanish cemetery, had been dug into so deeply that the dirt was scattered across the grass and the body uncovered. Police gave reporters no explanation for their failure to find the body until their second visit to the estate, just this morning.
On Tuesday of this week, the human finger was brought to Captain Harper’s attention by Mrs. Marion Hales, who had taken the bone away from her dog. Harper claims his men searched the cemetery at that time but says they failed to find any ground disturbed. Yet this morning, inexplicably, the Prior caretaker reported the grave open, the body revealed, and the finger missing.
The grave of Dolores Fernandez is an historic landmark. Fernandez, who died in 1882, was first cousin of Estafier Trocano, one of the original settlers of Molena Point and founder of the Trocano Ranch. The Prior estate is part of the original Spanish land grant given to the Trocano family by Mexico. Police have sent the finger, and samples from the body, to the State Forensics Lab in Sacramento for analysis.
Sacramento forensic expert Dr. Lynnell Jergins told reporters that several weeks may be required to make positive identification.
Dr. Jergins said the county forensic laboratory is facing a large backlog of work because of a shortage of scientific personnel. The grave is not open to public observation, and is under police surveillance until their investigation is completed. The Prior Ranch is private property and is patrolled.
Joe rolled over and began to wash. Above their heads, Charlie’s pounding came steady and loud as she fitted in new shingles. Last night’s rain had flooded Clyde’s hall closet, drenching half a dozen jackets, Clyde’s suitcase, and an old forgotten cat bed. It was about time Clyde got around to some repairs. Typical, of course, to get the work for free, if he could manage it.
But better free than not at all. In this household, it was a big deal if he remembered to buy lightbulbs before the old ones burned out.