“I don’t give out information about my tenants. I have their safety and privacy to consider.”
“Can you let him know he has a visitor?”
She blinked, her expression unchanged. “I could, but there’s no point. He’s out.” She closed her mouth, apparently not wanting to plague me with more information than I’d requested.
“You have any idea when he’ll be back?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, dear. Mr. Downs doesn’t keep me apprised of his comings and goings. I’m his landlady, not his wife.”
“Do you mind if I wait?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you. Wednesdays he doesn’t get back until late.”
“Like what, six?”
“I’d say closer to ten, judging from past behavior. You his daughter?”
“I’m not. Does he have a daughter?”
“He’s mentioned one. In point of fact, I don’t allow single women to visit the tenants after nine at night. It sends the wrong message to the other residents.”
“I guess I’ll try another day.”
“You do that.”
When I got home I went directly to Henry’s house and knocked on his door. We hadn’t had a chance to visit in days. I caught him in his kitchen pulling a big bowl from one of the lower cabinets. I tapped on the glass, and when he saw me he set the bowl on the counter and opened the door.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
“No, no. Come on in. I’m making bread-and-butter pickles. You’re welcome to lend a hand.”
In the sink I could see a large colander piled high with cucumbers. A smaller colander held white onions. Small glass jars of turmeric, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and cayenne pepper were lined up on the counter.
“Are those cucumbers yours?”
“I’m afraid so. This is the third batch of bread-and-butter pickles I’ve made this month and I’m still up to my ears.”
“I thought you only bought one plant.”
“Well, two. The one seemed so small, I thought I ought to add a second just to keep it company. Now I’ve got vines taking up half the yard.”
“I thought that was kudzu.”
“Very funny,” he said.
“I can’t believe you’re still harvesting in January.”
“Neither can I. Grab a knife and I’ll find you a cutting board.”
Henry poured me half a glass of wine and made himself a Black Jack and ice. Occasionally sipping our drinks, we stood side by side at the kitchen counter, slicing cucumbers and onions for the next ten minutes. When we finished, Henry tossed the vegetables with kosher salt in two big ceramic bowls. He pulled a bag of crushed ice out of the freezer and packed ice over the cucumber-onion combination and covered both bowls with weighted lids.
“My aunt used to make pickles that way,” I remarked. “They sit for three hours, right? Then you boil the other ingredients in a pot and add the cucumbers and onions.”
“You got it. I’ll give you six pints. I’m giving Rosie some, too. At the restaurant, she serves them on rye bread with soft cheese. It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes.”
He filled a big soup kettle with water and put it on the stove to sterilize the pint jars sitting in a box nearby.
“So how was Charlotte’s Christmas?”
“She said good. All four kids gathered at her daughter’s house in Phoenix. Christmas Eve, there was a power failure so the whole clan drove to Scottsdale and checked into the Phoenician. She said it was the perfect way to spend Christmas Day. By nightfall the power was on again so they went back to her daughter’s house and did it all again. Hang on a second and I’ll show you what she got me.”
“She gave you a Christmas present? I thought you weren’t exchanging gifts.”
“She said it wasn’t Christmas. It’s early birthday.”
Henry dried his hands and left the kitchen briefly, returning with a shoe box. He opened the lid and pulled out a running shoe.
“Running shoes?”
“For walking. She’s been walking for years and wants to get me into it. William may be joining us as well.”
“Well, that’s a good plan,” I said. “I’m glad to hear she’s still around. I haven’t seen much of her lately.”
“Nor have I. She’s got a client in from Baltimore and he’s driving her nuts. All she does is drive him around looking at properties that somehow don’t suit. He wants to build a fourplex or something of the sort, and everything he’s looked at is too expensive or in the wrong area. She’s trying to educate him about California real estate and he keeps telling her to think ‘outside the box.’ I don’t know where she gets the patience. What about you? How’s life treating you these days?”
“Fine. I’m getting my ducks in a row for the coming year,” I said. “I did have a curious run-in with Solana. She’s a prickly little thing.” I went on to describe the encounter and her touchiness when she realized I’d been talking to Gus’s niece long-distance. “The call wasn’t even about her. Melanie thought Gus was confused and she wondered if I’d noticed anything. I said I’d check on him, but I wasn’t meddling in Solana’s business. I don’t know beans about geriatric nursing.”
“Maybe she’s one of those people who sees conspiracies everywhere.”
“I don’t know…it feels like there’s something more going on.”
“From what I’ve seen of her, I’m not a fan.”
“Nor am I. There’s something creepy about her.”
17 SOLANA
Solana opened her eyes and flicked a look at the clock. It was 2:02 A.M. She listened to the hiss of the baby monitor she’d put in the old man’s room beside his bed. His breathing was as rhythmic as the sound of the surf. She folded the covers back and padded barefoot down the hall. The house was dark but her night vision was excellent, and there was sufficient illumination from the streetlights to make the walls glow with gray. She was drugging him regularly, crushing the over-the-counter sleeping medications and adding them to his evening meal. Meals on Wheels delivered a selection of hot foods for the noon meal and a brown-bag supper for later in the day, but he preferred his hot meal at 5:00, which was when he’d always eaten supper. There wasn’t much she could do with an apple, a cookie, and a sandwich, but a casserole was excellent for her purposes. In addition, he liked a dish of ice cream before bed. His sense of taste had faded, and if the sleeping pills were bitter, he never said a word.
He was easier to get along with now that she had him on the right routine. At times he seemed confused, but no more so than many of the elderly she’d had in her care. Soon he’d be completely dependent. She liked her patients compliant. Usually the angry and obstructive ones were the first to settle down, as though they’d waited all their lives for her soothing regimen. She was mother and ministering angel, giving them the attention they’d been robbed of in their youth.
It was her belief that the contentious oldsters had been contentious as kids, thus garnering anger, frustration, and rejection from the parents who were meant to give them love and approval. Raised on a steady diet of parental aggression, these lost souls disconnected from most social interactions. Despised and despising, they had a hunger masked by rage and loneliness masquerading as petulance. Gus Vronsky was neither more nor less cantankerous than Mrs. Sparrow, the acid-tongued old harridan she’d tended to for two years. When she’d finally ushered Mrs. Sparrow into the netherworld, she’d gone out as quietly as a kitten, mewing only once as the drugs took effect. The obituary said she’d died peacefully in her sleep, which was more or less the truth. Solana was tenderhearted. She prided herself on that. She delivered them from suffering and set them free.
Now while Gus lay immobilized, she searched his dresser drawers, using a penlight she shielded with her palm. It had taken her weeks of incremental increases in his doses before she’d been able to justify staying overnight. His doctor checked on him just often enough that she didn’t want to arouse suspicion. He was the one who suggested that Gus needed the supervision. She told the doctor he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night, disoriented, and would then try to get himself out of bed. She said she’d caught him on two occasions wandering through the house with no idea where he was.