What Rose Forgot

by Nevada Barr

  CHAPTER 22

  The following morning Royal lets Rose into the basement for a quick shower while Grandma listens to the news at top volume upstairs. When Rose finishes, she finds Mel has bicycled over to the teepee, laden with fresh clothes from Izzy’s closet. Applegarth, they decided, was too dangerous to risk a supply run.

  Rose’s taste in clothes falls somewhere between flamboyant and Barnum & Bailey. In Izzy’s fitted slacks and tailored shirts, she feels as if she’s wearing a costume, disguising herself as a real person. It is for the best. Izzy’s excellent taste and conservative fashion bent blend nicely into the Charlotte habitat.

  Mel is dressed like a bright middle school girl: skirt, camp shirt, and sandals.

  “It isn’t Saturday or anything, is it?” Rose asks, frowning.

  “Uncle Daniel called school and told them I was sick,” Mel says. “All I have to do is say I have ‘female problems’ and Uncle Dan can’t get out of the house fast enough.”

  “Poor Uncle Daniel,” Rose says.

  “Such a tool,” Mel agrees. “So I go to the TV station and do my ‘student project’—cunningly finding out who told the news people the nurse was in ICU, and you were dangerous, et cetera, while you go to Goodman’s Used Cars to see who bought the truck for Eddie,” she confirms as they leave the confines of the tent.

  Since Marion is still wading through years of patient files—and none too pleased about it—Goodman’s is the only avenue Rose can think to pursue.

  “Unless you can think of anything better to do,” Rose says.

  As they round the corner of Royal’s house, crossing from backyard to front, Mel throws out an arm to stop Rose.

  A woman with shoulder-length blond hair swinging, crisp white linen suit gleaming like Sir Lancelot’s armor, is folding her long slim legs into a red Lexus.

  “Who was that?” Rose asks when the car is out of sight. The woman absolutely reeks of power.

  “Royal’s grandma,” Mel tells her.

  That isn’t quite how Rose pictured deaf old Granny. “I feel like I should vote for her or something.”

  “She used to be with this big-deal law firm. Since she retired, she does pro bono work for undocumented immigrants.”

  “How does that work with the Secret Service son?” Rose asks.

  “They don’t talk politics at the dinner table, if that’s what you mean,” Mel replies.

  “Here’s my silver Honda, driven by”—Rose checks her phone—“Belva. Good luck. Text when you’re done. We can meet you back here and swap war stories.”

  “Sure. You can tell me what a ‘gipper’ is.”

  * * *

  Goodman’s Used Cars is on the south side of Charlotte, where the city peters out in a drizzle of unglamorous commercial enterprises. Like many other car sales lots Rose has seen, Goodman’s has enough pennants flying, it could’ve been signaling the Coast Guard.

  Rose waves her driver away and wanders down between the rows of cars under a star-studded sign—literally, yellow plywood stars the size of garbage can lids—wondering where she should begin. Surely, close by will be a slightly balding, middle-aged man, with too many teeth, wearing a cheap suit.

  Seeming to materialize out of the chrome and metal, a guy twenty-five or forty, lean and tanned—skin weathered rather than aged—appears, leaning on the cab of a Toyota Camry a row from where Rose meanders. He wears a straw cowboy hat, rolled up on the sides and dark from years of sweat. A black T-shirt, worn loose over plaid shorts, reads WIDE SPREAD PANIC. His long thin feet are encased in leather sandals, probably Mexican made. Chestnut-brown hair waves to his shoulders.

  Tilting his head back to shade his eyes, he smiles at Rose. “I saw a midnight blue Miata convertible on the other side of the lot that would look real good on you.”

  Rose knows this man. He is the guy girlfriends warned her about, but she never listened. He is the man with a wicked streak, who seems to have all the time in the world for little ol’ you. He sees the devil in a woman and winks at her.

  At twenty-two, Rose couldn’t resist him.

  At sixty-eight, why bother?

  She smiles back. They share a psychic wink.

  “Unfortunately, I’m just looking for a car salesman,” she says.

  “Carter Goodman at your service.” He sweeps the hat off and bows. When he stands, he flourishes his hand and, like magic, a business card appears between his fingers. Rose takes it.

  Used car salesmen have changed a lot in the last forty years, Rose thinks.

  “Now I wish I was here to buy a car,” she confesses. “I’m on an information-seeking mission.”

  “If the information regards cars, music, or philosophy, I’m your man.”

  “Cars,” Rose says.

  “Any one in particular?”

  “A black 2005 Chevrolet Silverado,” Rose says. “A man named Martinez picked it up a week or so back.”

  “Right. Good vehicle for the money.”

  Though she dreads the answer, Rose has to ask. “How much did it cost?”

  “Sold for three thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars,” Carter says. “Sweet deal. Had less than seventy-five thousand miles on it.”

  Less than four grand. Rose’s life is valued at less than five figures.

  “Do you remember the details of all the cars you sell?” she asks.

  “Sure. I’ve got one of those memories that lasers facts in stone.”

  “What a drag,” Rose says.

  “What’s special about that particular truck?” Carter asks. “I can probably find one like it for you.”

  Rose wonders how much she should tell him. Her father always told her and Marion to “tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and damned little of that.”

  “I’m just curious who the previous owner was,” she says.

  “Now, that, I don’t know. The truck was an internet sale. People get deals on the net. The vehicles are delivered to my lot for pickup. That way the buyers and sellers get a safe transfer, a buddy of mine gets first crack at selling them auto insurance, and maybe next time they don’t go to the net, they remember what a swell company Goodman’s is, and they come to me.”

  “Maintaining the flow of kindness,” Rose says.

  He smiles, his teeth very white against the tanned cheeks. “And, of course, there’s the hundred-dollar fee I charge for the service.”

  “No paperwork?” Rose queries.

  “There’s always paperwork,” Carter says. “Cars leave a paper trail a cross-eyed termite could follow all the way back to Detroit. Want to take a look? See if we can find the origin story of your previously owned Silverado?”

  “That would be great,” Rose says. Sunshine. Used cars. Nice man. Questions answered. Help freely offered. This is what sanity looks like. Commuting at night, by bicycle express, to teepees, and having drinks with hit men—that is the aberration. Of course, Rose knows there are people who live and die in the shadow of lies, betrayals, violence, and crime.

  It has to be exhausting.

  People should love one another right now.

  Buy the world a Coke and keep it company.

  The Age of Aquarius was way too short as far as Rose is concerned.

  Carter’s office, though the traditional glass-walled fishbowl, is as refreshing as he. A cheap Mexican rug lights up the floor. A Boston fern on the sill softens the square of the window overlooking the lot. Two acrylic paintings, one of a truck in the desert, broken down, hood open, and one of a fog-shrouded winter beach, a classic VW Bug up to its doors in the tide, do the same favor for the walls.

  “History of my life,” Carter says.

  “You did these?” Rose is impressed.

  “I did. Good looks and talent. You don’t find guys like me hanging on trees.” Turning to a filing cabinet, he opens the top drawer. “Let’s see what we got here on your Silverado.”

  Rose studies the truck painting, admiring the way Carter has managed the rust an
d dust on the metallic curves of the hood. “Do you do your own framing?” Both pictures have frames made from car parts. The frame of the truck painting looks as if it had once been a grille.

  “That I do,” Carter says. “Here we go.” He lifts out several sheets of paper stapled together at the corner.

  “No computer?” Rose asks, taking the leather sling chair opposite the desk.

  “Can’t do business without it.” Sitting down, he brushes a pile of shiny brochures off a paper-thin laptop. “However, car dealers still cling to hard copy, signatures, pink slips. Probably will for at least a couple of years. Okay, here we go.” He peruses the pages one at a time. “Local guy, Gastonia—not too far from here, next county over. We’ve moved a couple of cars for him. Name is Jack Gaines. Good mechanic on older models—less computer control. Fixes them up, then sells them on the internet. Does great bodywork.

  “Are you in the market for a vintage?” He flashes a grin at Rose. “That’s what we call vehicles not quite old enough to be marketed as antiques. I’ve got a couple of other trucks I could show you.”

  “Not today.”

  “What’s special about this truck?”

  “I think it might have been used in the commission of a crime,” she says.

  “You don’t smell like a cop.”

  “More a Miss Marple.”

  “Nah. Chris Cagney.” He scans the second page. “Says here it was bought by an Edward Martinez. Paid by PayPal. Need Martinez’s address?” Carter starts to pass the pages to Rose. His eye catches on the second page, and his hand stops in midoffer. Rose reaches for the document, but he takes it back. Holding the pages upright, he taps the bottom edge on the desk to align the pages. Given they are stapled together, the gesture strikes Rose as not only unnecessary but self-conscious, too.

  “That’s all I got,” Carter says. “You might be able to track Jack down—Gastonia’s a small town. Oh, sorry.” He grimaces as he takes his cell phone from his pocket. Glancing at the screen, he says, “I’ve got to take this. Sorry. Good luck.”

  Rose hadn’t heard his phone chime, nor the buzz of a vibrator. Maybe newer phones sent a tingle directly to the owner’s cerebral cortex. In this instance, however, Rose guesses she is being politely thrown out on her ear.

  Nodding thanks, she stands and leaves the office. Carter shows her his back, speaking heartily into the phone, the rectangle of plastic held to his ear by his shoulder as he replaces the Martinez file in the cabinet.

  Rose doesn’t turn right and leave the building but left and into a room marked TOILET— IF YOU NEED IT, USE IT, a small rebellion against North Carolina’s infamous bathroom law.

  Keeping the door open the merest crack, she watches Carter Goodman. He turns around to check the hall and the front showroom. Phone in hand, punching buttons as he walks, he leaves the building. Moments later, Rose sees him pacing between rows of midsized sedans, phone to his ear.

  Keeping an eye on him, she sneaks back into his office. He reaches the end of the row and turns back, walking directly toward the office window, free arm gesticulating, showing every evidence of having a heated conversation. Rose drops to her hands and knees. Crawling over to the Boston fern in the window, she squints through the fronds, eyes barely above the sill. When he reaches the end of the row, no more than twenty feet from Rose’s eyeballs, he turns again and paces the other way.

  Rose pops up, feeling a bit like a prop in a game of Whac-A-Mole, and scurries to the file cabinet. The drawer is still open, the Martinez file not completely slid back into its folder. Rose plucks it out. In a quick scan she sees nothing Carter hasn’t already told her, but clearly something in these sheets of paper set him off.

  Feeling every inch a rat and a rotten citizen, she stuffs the file in her purse, then slinks surreptitiously from Goodman’s used car lot.

  CHAPTER 23

  Searching for individuals who matched Rose’s patient profile, Marion had worked through three years of the files Rose videoed at the MCU. She searched by date of entry, diagnosis, primary care doctor, length of stay, date of death—any venue that might produce a pattern or a repeated name.

  In the previous three years five people, including Rose, were placed in the MCU with a diagnosis of rapid-onset dementia. Of those five, Rose and three others were diagnosed with both rapid-onset and early-onset dementia. The others were Camilla Reynolds, James Madding, and Charles Boster—Chuck.

  Reynolds and Madding are deceased. Three months after becoming a resident of the MCU, Reynolds, a seventy-three-year-old white female, broke a femur in a fall and died of heart failure six days later. She was survived by her son, who sold his home in Charlotte shortly after his mother’s death and moved to parts unknown. Madding, a sixty-nine-year-old white male, suffocated after a chunk of meat became lodged in his throat seven weeks after placement in the MCU. He was survived by a younger brother, who sold the family home in Charlotte and moved to Aspen, Colorado, two months after James Madding died.

  Chuck Boster, seventy-one, white male, is still living. But for Rose, he is the most recent inductee, incarcerated in the Memory Care Unit forty-three days before Flynn put Rose there. If victims are being put in the MCU for sinister purposes, Chuck fits the criteria for “not lasting the week.” Chuck is top priority. Not only is he alive, but he also has a wife living in Charlotte. Even if Rose could locate Reynolds’s son, or Madding’s brother, travel by air is out of the question. She is a fugitive from the law.

  More than that, Chuck is her friend. Through her drug fog and his severe dementia—or drug-induced confusion—they connected. They shared comfort and compassion under difficult circumstances. Given the state of her mind when in the Memory Care Unit, Rose marvels at the effort and concentration it must have taken Chuck to yell “Help!” and “Fire!” when she’d needed a distraction.

  Madding seven weeks, Reynolds three months—if death is the goal, why not kill the victims the day they arrive? Because, to use Andre the Uber driver’s word, it would look “hinky.”

  … these things can happen too fast and too often. We need to be careful of our special needs patients … Wanda said that, Rose remembers. The deaths must be spaced out, made to look natural.

  “What are you thinking?” Mel asks. Mel, flopped on the faux animal skins, is watching as Rose does her best to apply makeup using a palm-sized piece of mirror the “Indians” use to signal one another when they are in residence.

  “About how long it takes the world to cease caring about an old, demented person.”

  “Like a day and a half,” Mel says heartlessly. “I talked to Dad last night,” she says. “Nothing. Nobody called to tell him his stepmother broke in, iced a nurse, and escaped. Again.

  “Also I called Longwood and asked for an Adele Bonniface, supposedly the assistant communications director who called the TV station about your great escape.”

  “And?” Rose says, putting on her lipstick—Izzy’s lipstick. It is deep red with cobalt undertones. The effect is that of an instant tooth whitening. Most satisfactory.

  “They’d never heard of her. No such department, no such position, no such person.”

  Once Rose would have been shocked that a news service would broadcast unverified information. Those halcyon days were as gone as the eight-track tape player.

  “Fake news,” Mel says. She has come of age during the rise and realization of fake news. Like most kids her age, Mel has little interest in what is happening in the adult world. Rose likes that about kids. They have the rest of their lives to suffer anxiety attacks about unverified rumors of flesh-eating bacteria in Outer Slabovia.

  “If Longwood was innocent, they would have informed Flynn. The MCU must be where the deed is done, where I was drugged,” Rose says. “We need to find out who inside the MCU is participating, who is providing the victims, and why. Longwood is not doing the Angel of Mercy thing, offing pathetic oldsters. Victims are being provided by the criteria of early onset, rapid onset. We need to find out what
value we—the aforementioned victims—have dead that we don’t have alive. Hopefully Barbara Boster will shed light on that.”

  “You should call first,” Mel says. “Nobody drops by like in the olden days. Not ever. You call first, even if you’re sitting in a car at the curb in front of their house.”

  “She’s probably deaf and doesn’t answer her cell phone,” Rose replies. “If she even has one.”

  “You are such an ageist!” Mel tells her.

  Rose is affronted. Some of her best friends are old people. “I’m still not going to call. Barbara Boster might refuse to see us—”

  “Or won’t be home. Or will be in the bathroom and not hear the doorbell,” Mel interjects.

  “That could happen, but the element of the sudden unknown is a powerful thing. In art, theater, dance, life, when people are presented with the sudden unknown they wake up for a second or two. Occasionally for long enough you can be in the moment with them, see who they really are.”

  “Yeah. Then they chase you onto the roof with a knife in their teeth or spike your OJ.”

  “There’s that,” Rose concedes. “I’m not going to call. Don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  Mel rolls her eyes.

  Rose is wearing a tea-length watermelon-colored linen sheath dress and black ballet-style flats from Izzy’s wardrobe. Mel is disguised as her granddaughter in skinny jeans, with artful damage at the knees, and a floaty lime-green top longer in back than in front.

  “Knock, knock.” Royal’s voice comes from beyond the entrance of the teepee.

  “Enter at your own risk,” Mel calls.

  Royal pokes his head through the flap. “Grandma’s gone,” he reports.

  “Thank you, Royal.” After having laid eyes on Grandma, Rose has become more careful of attracting her notice.

  “Sure I can’t come? I could be your other grandchild, the smarter, better-looking one,” Royal says with a grin.

  Mel chucks a pillow at him.

  “I will do my best to include you in any dangerous, unsavory, or illegal actions we take in the future,” Rose promises.