Keys dangled, locks clicked, and the black woman pushed the door open into a dark room. Tom and Olivia walked in.
Sue flicked a switch and as she shut the door said, “The police made copies of the tape. I hope they catch the asshole soon. But in here we keep all the originals.”
The room was a regular-sized one. Two shelves on the wall contained case files. A third one and more spacious was on the far side of the wall. There were tapes on it. Each one was labeled: day, month, and year. Then a serial number that Olivia figured only Sue probably understood.
Sue picked the tape from last night and put it in the slot of the VCR. Tom pulled a chair out for Olivia to sit in.
The door opened, Sue was there. “I’m gonna let you two do your thing.”
Olivia’s eyes were glued to the screen.
They were back outside the door five minutes later.
“Nothing there, Tom.”
The sheriff said he knew. “It was a professional job. And that’s what worries me.”
“Yeah.”
Olivia looked up and down the hall. The old man who was in a wheelchair had moved away. Her eyes screwed in deep thought.
The intruder from last night had made sure his face was bowed all the time. And he walked like a robot. His stride would be difficult to match. It was indeed a professional job.
Which begged a lot of questions.
She looked at Tom. “Why would anyone want to murder an old man in Baker Home, and also have a professional do it?”
“The boys are still running a match as we speak.”
“They are not gonna find anything, Tom.”
“It's worth a try, though.”
Olivia looked across the hall again. She got her bottle out and sipped. She caught the pain in the sheriff’s eyes again. She sighed. It was like a hole inside her. A gaping chasm that never filled, but kept demanding more.
How could she explain how much she wanted to quit drinking to Tom?
“There was a man…”
Olivia started off the way they had come.
“What man?” Tom hurried after her.
“The man in a wheelchair, he was here.”
4
Sue stopped Olivia and Tom Garcia in the lobby. She was carrying a huge collection of files in her underarm. She gave Olivia the rundown again.
“I hope you found something new—” she started saying.
“Did Harald have friends here?” Olivia asked.
Sue looked at Tom before answering. Tom was getting tired of having to give her permission to speak all the time so he said, “Sue, we are both trying to catch Harald's killer. Just tell Olivia whatever she wants to know.”
She frowned. “These old people don’t exactly have favorites among themselves. Any one of them could as soon latch on to you for asking about the weather. You know, that sort of way.”
Olivia stared at the woman for a long time.
Sue was about to glance at Tom again but she went on. “Harald Kruger was a recluse. He didn’t make friends well.”
“He wasn’t one to latch on to a stranger, then how about a neighbor?” Olivia prodded.
“Then you’d wanna talk to Stitch.”
“Stitch who?” asked Tom Garcia.
Sue started walking again, making an effort to gesture with her hands, and hold on to her files. They followed her.
She walked out the door and took a sidewalk that went ahead and around the corner of the building. From here they got a full view of the woods. Olivia noted how dark it was in there even in the day. Anyone could be watching from there now.
“They call him Stitch on account of his injuries,” Sue was waddling ahead and saying. “He served in Nam, I been told. Got an early discharge when he stepped on a mine that miraculously didn’t take off his legs. But he sure got the most amount of cuts I’d seen on a being.”
They went through a large entrance without a door. It led to a large hall like a mess. Olivia and Tom were presented with old age in almost all its guise.
Olivia quickly scanned the place for the man in a wheelchair but half of the population here was sorted in one.
Sue pointed at a corner of the hall. There was a thin man licking ice cream and staring at a 50-inch TV on the wall. A baseball game was on.
Olivia didn’t care much about baseball. She wasn’t sure Tom was into it either. There was a rumble in the room as someone made a home run.
Olivia said to Sue, “Thank you, Sue. We’ll take it from here.”
Sue glanced at the men in the hall once and left.
“Huh?”
The man they called Stitch hovered between 70 or 75. His open face was covered in liver spots and his mouth was open even before Olivia began questioning him.
“I ain’t done nothing.” His voice rang with a Texas twang.
Olivia chuckled. She crouched beside Stitch. Tom wandered off.
“Easy pops, I just want to ask you about another friend,” she said mildly. “Your friend Harald Kruger was knifed in his room last night, you heard about it?”
Stitch's face remained cool, his eyes held the little light in it with such tenacity Olivia thought they might go out if she took the ice cream cone away.
Stitch had fine, curly brown hair, a well-trimmed beard, and he smelled nice enough. Olivia counted six stitches on his forehead alone. He must have dabbed aftershave on himself, thought Olivia.
“Harald had no friends. He loved it by his own lonesome,” Stitch said.
“Go on, pops.”
“Sue says Harald was your friend.”
“Sue knows nothing about anything but nail files. That woman could file your sins away, I swear to Jesus.”
“That’s her vice, right. Each man to his own.”
“What’s your vice, ma’am?” Stitch gazed into her eyes. Olivia realized, too late, that her breath may have given her away.
“Was Harald afraid of anything? Did he talk about family?”
“We are all the family he got.”
“And yet he had no friends?”
Stitch's blue eyes faltered. Tom was weaving his way back through the old men. There was another uproar. On the TV, a player slid through a cloud of dust.
Stitch glanced at Tom.
He pointed his cone. “I know you. You the sheriff, right?”
“Yes that’s me, papa.”
Olivia Rose from her crouch. She checked out the place again for that man in khakis and his book. She mentioned it to Tom. “Brown khaki shorts, he was in a wheelchair, reading.”
Tom spread his hands at the place. “Well, half the old people here have books open on their laps. I even saw a couple of comic books, Archie and Tintin.”
Olivia cursed under her breath and fingered the outline of her bottle in her jacket.
“Brown khakis?”
Olivia and Tom turned to face Stitch.
“Yes,” she said, stepping back to a crouch, her face inches from Stitch's own.
“Oh I know that one, weird but nice guy, those military types who still think they’re out there in Afghanistan or someplace where they’d done a lot of killing. He’s been here as long as anyone, long as Harald himself,” Stitch piped.
Pink tongue snaked out of his mouth and licked cream.
“Where can we find him?”
“He’s out by the woods this time of day,” said Stitch. “Kowalski, that’s his name. Eddie Kowalski.”
5
They rounded the corner of the hall where they left Stitch and the other seniors. Better not have to answer curious questions from Sue again, thought Olivia.
The walkway was a short winding one that went up a small hill behind the main building of Baker Home. It had shaped into a bright day already, a good one for exercise. But Olivia was already gasping before they reached the top.