Eliza nodded.
“Indeed, it was. Maribelle was a beautiful little girl. Just full of light. Sometimes I thought she’d been born into the wrong family.”
Bette studied the old woman. “Why?”
“The Claudes were… I don’t know how to describe them. Hard, maybe. People of the land. Not the salt of the earth, mind you, just hard like the land itself. The kind of people who till fields for two hundred years. Not only do their faces get ruddy and weathered, but their hearts do as well.
“Joseph Claude had a sharp tongue and a stern hand. His wife died shortly after the girls were born. She had been a quiet, stiff woman, and she died a quiet death. I never saw Joseph hug Greta or Maribelle, but still Maribelle sang and danced and laughed. She was precocious. Claude put her in the children’s ward when she eight. He claimed she was exhibiting mental problems. Some of us nurses tried to shield her, but…” Eliza shook her head and her eyes filled with sadness.
“What happened to her?” Bette asked.
“It’s a mystery. A mystery that was never investigated, of course. The asylum called it a terrible accident. They found Maribelle’s body in the steam tunnels. They said she’d been trying to escape and must have fallen and broken her neck.”
“But you don’t believe that?”
“Her body told another story.” Eliza closed her eyes, her features pinched as if it hurt to remember. “Bruises and broken fingernails. She looked like she’d fought for her life. There were rumors a patient had murdered her. A few of us nurses went to the sheriff in town. He listened to our story, but Joseph Claude went in two days later. No autopsy, he said. No investigation. His daughter had gone insane, and he wouldn’t have the police making a spectacle of her death.”
“And the sheriff listened to him?” Bette asked.
“Two of the sheriff’s sons worked at the hospital. The town relied on the asylum. It wasn’t just Claude who told the police to back down. There were doctors involved too. A few months later, the police office announced it had received a large anonymous donation.”
“And you think someone in the asylum did that?”
Bette thought of the wealthy and mysterious people who’d whisked Greta Claude away from Marquette.
Eliza nodded. “Yes, I do. I could never prove it, and two nurses were fired after they continued pushing the asylum to investigate. Years later Joseph Claude came into the asylum as a patient. A little over a year after that I was injured and had to leave my position. I received a settlement which allowed me to live comfortably, and I still had Jim. That was my husband. He passed three years ago. By the time I left the Northern Michigan Asylum, I knew better than to speak of Maribelle Claude.”
Bette crossed her legs and leaned forward. “I’m trying to understand why the doctors at the asylum would have protected a caretaker. And who could have donated the money? Was Joseph Claude wealthy?”
“I wish I had answers for you, but I was only a nurse,” Eliza admitted. “I will say this, the relationship between Joseph Claude and the doctors was an unusual one. He wasn’t kind to them. He didn’t tiptoe around them like the other asylum staff.
“You have this idea that the caretaker would sort of prostrate himself to the doctors, but in a way, it sometimes felt like Claude called the shots. Never obviously. So many of the goings on happened in secret. I learned of them in whispered conversations with other nurses and orderlies. When Claude was admitted, more than a few doctors seemed downright afraid of him. As far as I know, he didn’t have any money, but many of the doctors were very wealthy. I suspect the donation came from them.”
Bette frowned. “Would that generosity have extended to Greta Claude?”
“Perhaps,” Eliza said.
“What was Greta Claude like?” Bette wondered.
Eliza leaned forward and plucked a stuffed Scottish terrier toy from a shelf near her window.
“Jim and I always had Scotties,” she said, smiling and petting the plastic nose on the stuffed animal. “No pets allowed in here, but my son gave me this to keep me company.” She snuggled the dog into her lap. “Greta Claude was very quiet, watchful. She spied on the staff at the hospital. She hid in the trees and the woods. Most of us believed she reported everything she saw to her father. Greta and Maribelle were like night and day. When Maribelle smiled, Greta frowned.
“After Maribelle’s death, I tried to engage Greta a few times. I was worried about her. Not only had her sister died, but her twin. The girls were homeschooled. They didn’t have friends outside of the asylum. Maribelle played with some of the kids from the children’s ward, but Greta never did. After Maribelle died, Greta became even more withdrawn. We rarely saw her. A few patients claimed to see her through the windows at night. As if she were wandering the grounds after dark, but I never saw her myself.”
“And what happened to her after they admitted her father?” Bette asked.
“I heard she went to live with family in the Upper Peninsula. The girl’s mother had family up there.”
“Did a new caretaker start at the asylum?”
“Oh no,” Eliza shook her head. “I mean, not in the same way. They boarded up Joseph Claude’s house. The hospital hired local men to do the handy work, but no one moved into the caretaker’s property.”
“Why is that?”
Eliza shrugged. “The world of medicine was changing. By the late seventies, institutions all over the country were closing down. Some of our own doctors left to pursue practices that focused on medication for mental illness. And truth be told, half the patients didn’t suffer any illness at all. I mean, in the early days, women were institutionalized for post-partum depression. Men were institutionalized for homosexuality. The evolution of our minds is a big part of what led to the collapse of those asylums. We realized we weren’t treating illnesses at all.”
“Greta ended up leaving the Upper Peninsula after someone with money came to get her,” Bette explained. “Do you have any idea who that might have been?”
Eliza looked mystified. “If I had to guess, I would point towards the doctors at the Northern Michigan Asylum.”
Bette stopped near a flower bed outside Sunny Angels. A paper cup of coffee had been thrown toward the trash can, but missed and now hung from a bush of heavy pink roses.
Bette pulled the cup loose and walked it to the trash.
Higher Grounds, the label read, reminding Bette of the coffee shop Crystal worked at, Sacred Grounds.
Bette paused and stared at the cup. Some memory seemed to be forcing its way up from the depths of her mind.
“Gracie,” she whispered, echoing the name of the supposed friend Crystal had seen at Sacred Grounds the day she disappeared.
Stunned, Bette dropped the cup and ran back into the retirement home.
Linda had returned to the lobby with Jessica.
“I need to use your phone,” Bette panted.
The woman eyed her and shook her head. “Sorry, we don’t permit guest use of the phone. If there were to be emergency…”
“Give me your damn phone!” Bette shrieked, and she dove at the desk, dialing the operator.
Linda looked furious, as if she might snatch the phone from Bette’s hand, but Jessica had stopped filling out her paperwork, alarmed as the scene unfolded.
Not ready to lose a prospective client, Linda plastered on her faux smile and swept across the room.
“Let’s move into the sun room,” she told Jessica.
“How may I direct your call?” the operator asked.
“I need the number for Sacred Grounds Coffee in East Lansing, Michigan.”
“One moment please, I’m connecting you.”