I suppressed an anguished moan.
‘Even that horrible Richard person was there,’ Naddie added. ‘He was Christie’s guest at dinner, sitting all lovey-dovey at a corner table for two.’ Naddie stabbed a finger at her open mouth and made a gagging sound.
‘“So great a cloud of witnesses,”’ I muttered.
‘Indeed,’ Naddie said.
‘But I still don’t understand,’ Izzy said. ‘What would anyone at Calvert Colony want with my mother’s scrapbook?’
Hutch, I knew, had kept the identity of his client confidential, so even the staff at the Baltimore Art Gallery – the only people I could imagine having any interest in it – wouldn’t know where to come looking for it.
‘It’s a puzzlement,’ I said.
FIFTEEN
‘The OHCQ licenses and certifies Maryland state health care facilities. Through licensing, a facility gains the authority to operate or do business in the state; through certification, a facility obtains the right to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The OHCQ uses state and federal regulations… to determine compliance. When problems or deficiencies are noted, the OHCQ initiates administrative action against facilities that violate rules and regulations. If a facility fails to correct problems and is unable or unwilling to do so, the OHCQ may impose sanctions such as license revocation, fines, bans on admission, or other restrictions on the operating license.’
Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Health Care Quality, http://dhmh.maryland.gov/ohcq
The team the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality sent to interview me consisted of two overworked civil servants, a middle-aged man wearing a rumpled gray-and-white seersucker jacket and a woman, clearly his supervisor, whose sour expression told me she’d rather be anywhere but in a super-chilled conference room on a blistering hot August day.
The meeting was straightforward. I walked into the room and sat down. A tape recorder, with my permission, was turned on. Yes, I saw Nancy Harper and Jerry Wolcott engaged in sexual intercourse. Yes, I recognized them. Of course, I was sure it was Jerry. No, I could not be mistaken. Tattoo, you know. Yes, the sex appeared to be consensual. Yes, I reported the incident to the memory unit authorities.
End of story.
Following that ordeal, I decided that, come hell or high water, I would find poor Nancy Harper and do something, anything, to coax her out of the debilitating funk she had slipped into. She was clearly grieving the loss of Jerry; everyone was talking about it. She no longer appeared in the lounge during Charlie Robinson’s popular sing-alongs, staff said. She refused to cooperate with any of the volunteers, including me. Getting her to meals was like pulling teeth and, once there, she’d simply sulk over her plate, poking experimentally at the food with her fork but eating nothing. As a result, unit staff told me, she was losing weight. Not good for a woman who weighed only a hundred and twenty-one pounds to begin with. Her advance directive, I learned, prohibited force feeding, so persuasion was the only tool left to us.
Steeling myself for another rejection, I knocked on the door of Nancy’s room. When she didn’t answer, I peeked in. Nancy sat in a chair by the window, barefoot but otherwise fully dressed, staring out into the Tranquility Garden. ‘Hello, Nancy.’
She sat as inscrutable and still as one of the stone Buddhas poking his belly out of the shrubbery in the peaceful garden below.
‘How are you doing today?’
I knew it was a dumb question the minute it fell out of my mouth. She felt like shit, that’s what. And unless I could bring Jerry magically back into her lonely life, there was very little I could do about fixing it.
‘The garden’s very serene, isn’t it? Anything special going on out there today?’
She turned her head in my direction but her eyes remained unfocused, disturbingly empty.
‘He went away,’ she said.
‘I know, sweetie,’ I said, swallowing hard and stepping closer. ‘No wonder you’re sad.’
‘What’s done is done, and that’s all there is to say.’
‘Would you like me to read to you today?’
She turned her attention to the window again, gazing out over the trees and into the distance. The entire Baltimore Ravens football team could have come charging through the Tranquility Garden, hooting and hollering, and I doubted Nancy would have noticed.
‘How ’bout we go for a walk?’
‘I don’t like these shoes.’
She wasn’t wearing any shoes, but I didn’t argue. At least she was talking to me. ‘Do you want me to find you another pair then?’
Nancy shrugged but she’d clearly understood. ‘When they don’t want me to go out, they hide my shoes in the closet.’
‘Well, let’s look in the closet, then, shall we?’
With Nancy in suitable footwear and her arm tucked through mine, we strolled out of the memory unit and down the long hallway that led to the lounge. That Nancy was as popular as the high-school homecoming queen was evident. Other residents greeted her all along our way.
Hi, Nancy.
Good to see you out and about, Nancy.
Missed you in art class, Nancy.
(I’ll bet, I thought, thinking about her last, uh, monumental sculpture.)
After a while I noticed hints of a smile tugging at the corners of Nancy’s mouth.
At Sweet Tooth we were waylaid and summoned inside by the Easy Rider himself who sat at a table for four, putting the moves on Christie McSpadden and another woman I didn’t recognize who used our entrance as an excuse to make a quick escape.
The colonel sprang up like a Pop-Tart and offered Nancy his seat.
I had to laugh. ‘No, thanks, Colonel. Please, go back to whatever you were doing. We’re just getting some ice cream to take out into the garden.’
‘Nancy likes Oreo milkshakes,’ the colonel volunteered, stooping a little so he could look Nancy straight in the eyes. ‘Don’t you, sweetheart?’
I consulted with my friend. ‘Does an Oreo milkshake sound good to you, Nancy?’ The staff had told me she’d refused to eat lunch (again!), even though it was her favorite, macaroni and cheese, so I figured the poor thing would be hungry.
A tiny smile and an almost imperceptible nod.
That was all the confirmation the colonel needed. He bowed gallantly from the waist, executed a perfect about-face and marched off to the counter to place our order.
I sat Nancy down at the table next to Christie and pulled up a chair for myself. When Colonel Greene returned he set our treats on the table and said, ‘You’re friends with the Abazas, right?’
‘With his wife, Safa, yes. I don’t know Mr Abaza at all, really.’
‘He’s making trouble,’ the colonel said, retaking his seat.
‘What kind of trouble?’ I asked, playing dumb.
‘I like it here,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to move.’
Something wasn’t tracking. ‘Why on earth would you have to move, Colonel Greene?’
He laid an ice-cold hand on mine. ‘Nate, please.’
‘OK, Nate.’ I smiled and retrieved my hand. ‘Do you want to move?’
‘God, no, but if Calvert Colony loses its license, assisted living and the memory unit will have to close down, and without the insurance money coming in…’ He made a slashing motion across his throat.
‘Surely…’
‘Insurance money. That’s what keeps this place afloat, trust me. I cashed in everything to buy into Calvert Colony and it would be pennies on the dollar – pennies! – if the place goes belly up.’ He slapped the table so hard it nearly knocked over Christie’s Diet Coke. ‘And all because of a little slam-bang-thank-you-ma’am. Jerry and Nancy are good folk and look what’s happened to them.’ For a moment I thought the colonel was going to slap the table again, even harder. ‘I just don’t get it.’