THE GRUNEWALD REST HOME sat on one of two nearly identical hills a mile north of I-90, ten miles west of the Minnesota line, with a county highway running through the groove between the two hills. Both hills were nicely wooded, with broad lawns beneath the trees. The one on the right showed the Grunewald, a wide brick box, three stories tall, with white trim. The one on the left showed neat rows of white stone; a cemetery.
Nice, Virgil thought. The Grunewald residents could look out the windows every day and see their future. Virgil pulled into a visitor's slot in front of the home, and walked inside.
The Grunewald was run like a hospital or a hotel, with a front reception desk and lobby with soft chairs. A tiny gift niche was built to one side of the reception desk, and was stocked with candy, soft drinks, women's and family magazines, and ice cream. A tall black woman in Somali dress was working behind the desk.
She nodded at Virgil and he took out his ID, showed it to her, and asked to see Betsy Carlson. The woman's eyebrows went up, and she said, "She doesn't have many visitors…You'll have to ask Dr. Burke."
Burke was a busy bald man in a corner office down the hall from the desk. He listened to Virgil's story and then shrugged, and said, "Sure. Go ahead."
"What kind of shape is she in?"
"She is…damaged. Hard to tell why. Could be genetics, bad wiring, or she might have taken some drugs and had a bad reaction, or even environmental poisoning. She grew up on a farm. Lots of bad chemicals on a farm when she grew up-they used to spray DDT around like it was rainwater. So, it's hard to know. She's not crazy, she just goes away. Her memories are screwed up, but she has a lot of them. She's never been active and she's gotten less active, so her legs don't work very well anymore…So. She is what she is."
On that note, Burke called back to the Somali woman at the front desk, told her to get somebody to escort Virgil into the home, smiled, and wished Virgil good luck.
Virgil's escort was a middle-aged but still apple-cheeked nurse carrying a plastic garbage bag full of something Virgil didn't ask about. They went through a set of locked doors and Virgil asked, "Everybody's locked in?"
"No. We have a locked area for Alzheimer's victims, because they tend to wander and the younger ones can be pretty aggressive. But those doors"-she jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder, at the doors they'd just come through-"they're only locked one-way, to keep people out. Years ago, before we started locking the doors, we had a very nice man as a visitor. He'd visit every couple of days. It turns out he was molesting some of our residents."
"Nice guy."
"When we started to suspect something was going on, we set up some video cameras and caught him at it." She smiled cheerfully at Virgil. "A couple of our Alzheimer's orderlies escorted him to the lobby so the police could pick him up. He resisted on the way, tried to fight, and was somewhat beaten up before they got him to the lobby. He won't come back here, even when he gets out of prison."
"Hate it when they resist," Virgil said.
"It's a bad idea," she agreed.
THE NURSE SPOTTED Betsy Carlson in a chair facing a television that was showing a man chopping up onions and cabbage with the world's sharpest knives, guaranteed not to get dull. "There she is," the nurse said. She put a hand on Virgil's sleeve and said, "She can be a little difficult, so it's best to be sweet with her. If you push too hard, she gets stubborn."
"Dr. Burke said her memory is messed up."
"Yes, but the memories that go back…those generally tend to be better. She can't remember what day it is, but she can tell you what she was doing in 1962. And she likes telling you. Another thing, though, is that she sometimes gets…she has…hallucinations. She sees bugs in her food."
"And there aren't any?"
"Please. Not only bugs, she sees people. She sees people's faces in the knots in wood. We're scared to death that someday she's going to see the Virgin Mary in a rust stain and we'll wind up with ten thousand pilgrims on the lawn." She paused, and then said, "She'll be happy to see you-but she'll forget your name all the time, and ask for it."
BETSY CARLSON was tucked into her chair with an afghan. She was the ruin of a beautiful woman, with high cheekbones, an elegant, oval face, and what must have been fine, delicate skin, now furrowed with thousands of tiny wrinkles. Her hair was cut short, and her hazel eyes were glassy and placid. She smiled reflexively when Virgil pulled up next to her.
The nurse said, "Betsy, you have a visitor."
She stared at Virgil for a moment, uncomprehending, then frowned, and asked, "Who are you?"
"Virgil Flowers. I'm a police officer from Minnesota."
"I haven't done anything," she said. "I've been here."
"We know," Virgil said. The nurse nodded at him and drifted away with her garbage bag. "I need to talk to you about Bluestem and some things that have been going on there."
"Bluestem. Founded in 1886 by the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. My great-grandfather was among the first settlers. Amos Carlson. His father fought the Indians in the Great Uprising. My father owned six hundred and forty acres in Stafford Township, the best land in Stark County. He was killed in an automobile accident on County 16 in a blizzard. His skull was crushed. I was born the very next day. My mama always said I was a special child, God's gift. There was a death in the family, and then new life, all at the same time. What did you say your name was again?"
Virgil reintroduced himself, and then began pulling out memories of Bluestem, and Bill Judd and her sister, the days after her sister's heart attack.
She remembered the day of the heart attack: "My sister drank too much, and then she'd fight with Bill; you could hear them screaming all over the house. Usually, about money-he had it, but he hated to spend it. The day she had the heart attack, she was drinking, but she wasn't fighting. She started feeling sick in the morning, and thought maybe she'd drunk too much the night before. Anyway, she decided to move some furniture around in the living room, and we were dragging couches here and chairs over there, and pushing this old upright piano around, and we were just about done when she cries out, 'Lord almighty,' and she falls down. I ask her what's wrong, and she says, 'I hurt so bad, Betsy, I hurt so bad. Go get the doc, go get the doc.' So I ran and got the doctor…"
"Dr. Gleason?"
Her eyes faded a bit, and she seemed confused, and then said, "I don't think Dr. Gleason. I don't think we went to Dr. Gleason then. We went to him later."
"Do you remember the doctor?"
"I did. But then, you said Gleason, and that got me sidetracked…I, uh, I can't remember."
She did remember about manure spreaders and the funny things that might happen with them; about canning tomatoes, and how everything changed when freezers came in; she remembered playing the piano with her sister, and her sister's wedding to Bill Judd.
"Christ Lutheran Church. I was maid of honor. All the maids wore yellow and carried bouquets of yellow roses. But Bill Judd…He was a bad man. He was even bad when he was a boy. He used to steal, and then he'd lie about it, and get other children in trouble. You know what he'd steal?"
"No, I don't," Virgil said.
"Money. He wasn't like other children, who might steal somebody's toy or candy or something. You'd have him to your house and he'd always be looking around for loose change. My mother used to keep a sharp eye on him, after she figured it out. He was bad right from the beginning."
Tears trickled down her cheeks and she said, "After my sister died, there was all kinds of trouble. Bill didn't care about anything, then. She used to hold him back, but after she died, nothing could hold him back."
She began to weep, and a nurse stepped toward them with a question on her face.
"Are you okay?" Virgil asked.
"Bill did bad things, bad things," she said. Her eyes cleared a bit and she said, "Men are no damn good."