by Joan Hess
I tapped on the door to get her attention, then said, “The translator is here. Please send the employees out to the pool area.”
Brenda dropped the clipboard she’d been holding. “What about Alexandra Swayze? Have you found her? I read the entry in her journal. We can’t have her out there in the mental state she’s in. She could harm herself.”
“Or worse,” I said, thinking about Estelle’s missing gun. “I drove around, but I didn’t see her. She may be holed up in somebody’s storage shed, or hiding in the woods. The best we can do is get a police dog out here first thing in the morning. As soon as I question the employees, I’ll go back to Maggody and keep searching for her.”
“Three of the orderlies are here now, but only two of them were on duty that night. The fourth orderly drove some of the women back to the motel. He should be back in ten minutes.” She picked up the clipboard and clutched it to her chest as if it were a life preserver. Stonebridge had sounded desperate, but she sounded perilously close to hysteria. “We have to keep functioning, you know. The patients are our responsibility. Toby was so upset that I told him he could work out in the gym for the rest of the afternoon, even though I couldn’t find Walter to supervise. Dr. Dibbins was very uncooperative when I went in to administer his daily enema, and is refusing to do anything except listen to his opera CDs. The Hollywood brat has been prowling around like a stray cat. I had to shoo her back to her suite half a dozen times. She’s currently watching videos in the day room. But I can promise you one thing—they’re all back on their meds. I myself stood over them and made sure they swallowed every single tablet and capsule.”
“It’s good to know you finally decided to lock the barn door. I’ll be by the pool.” I looked at her for a moment, envisioning her digging graves in a backyard. It was not hard to cast her in that role. After I finished with Norberta’s services and sent her back to have her hair done, I definitely was going to have a chat with Brenda about identity theft and prison food. And Walter, too, when he showed up. Although his whereabouts were not my first priority, I hadn’t spotted his van in Maggody. I suspected he was eating ribs and drinking beer at one of Stump County’s less savory taverns.
Deputy Quivers had wasted no time in heading off in pursuit of lunch. Norberta was not in sight, presumably having been lured into the garden by the prospect of more peonies, but I could call for her when an interviewee showed up. I sat down and tried to sort through what I knew—and didn’t know. For one thing, sweet Molly Foss wasn’t as saintly as Randall Zumi had claimed. She’d played the ingenue to the hilt, but her track record was spotty. It was obvious that she was open to bribery. She’d lingered after the staff meeting, then slipped into Toby’s suite. He was probably right in claiming she’d led him on in hopes of forcing him to pay for her silence. He had a motive to kill her, but so did Brenda Skiller (as I’d decided to keep calling her) and Vincent Stonebridge if she’d made it clear to either one of them that she’d go public with a charge of attempted rape unless she was paid off. The Stonebridge Foundation would lose its precious anonymity, as well as its credibility as a rehab center. Maybe she’d threatened Randall, and the disillusionment had pushed him over the edge. I couldn’t fit Walter Kaiser into the scenario, but he had disappeared and was therefore suspect.
Or, I thought, perhaps Alexandra Swayze had concluded that Molly was part of the conspiracy. Eliminating the gatekeeper would lead to confusion, and give Swayze a better chance to escape. That was based on the presumption she was capable of lucid thought. I dearly hoped she was.
The orderly who’d been minding the desk earlier approached me, his expression wary. Norberta emerged from the garden at the same time. I gestured at the chairs, and the two sat down. I asked Norberta to find out his name.
“Guillermo, señorita,” he said, looking at me.
“Ask him if he was on duty on Thursday, the night Molly was killed by the fountain,” I said to Norberta. “And what, if anything, he knows about the patients and their treatment.”
They had a lengthy, incomprehensible conversation, then she said, “Yes, he sits at the front desk every night until six the next morning. He responds if the patients press their buzzers for attention. A few times he’s had to wake one of the doctors if a patient was unable to sleep and needed medication. He doesn’t understand much of what goes on, and he’s reluctant to offer many opinions. He thinks the fat man is amusing in a gruff way, like an uncle he has back in his village. The others are rude. He was at the desk when the girl was found dead.”
I agreed with his assessment of the patients. “Did he see or hear anything in the hall that night around ten o’clock?”
Norberta asked him, then listened to his reply. “He heard doors open and close. Low voices, male and female. No one came into the reception room.”
I hadn’t expected to get that lucky. “Ask him about the little bottles in the room at the end of the unfinished wing.”
An even lengthier conversation took place. This time Guillermo was alarmed, his eyes darting and his scarred hands trembling. Norberta kept pressure on him, sometimes shaking her head and leaning forward to hiss at him. Finally she sat back and said, “The little bottles, or ‘las pequeñas botellas de whisky,’ as he calls them, were in a box outside the kitchen, where the garbage is set to be taken away by the cook and his helpers. He refuses to say who found them, but all of the men and a couple of the women have been enjoying them. The food they’re served here is dreadful, he says. They do some cooking at the motel, but they have no access to liquor.”
“Did they find any drugs in the box?”
“He says not, just the bottles and food. He’s worried he’ll be accused of theft.”
“Please assure him that he won’t, and ask him to send out whoever found the body in the garden,” I said. After she’d done so and Guillermo had returned inside, we waited at the table. I’d expected her to be at least a little bit curious, but she seemed content to gaze at the garden. After a few minutes, another orderly appeared. He was short and wiry, with sharp features that reminded me of a fox. I’d seen him before, pushing a cart with stacks of clean towels. Like Guillermo, he was wary.
“Me llamo Rodolfo,” he blurted out, having been briefed by his compatriot. “Sí, encontré el cuerpo muerto por la fuente. Ella era una mujer joven, muy agradable.”
Norberta smiled. “Yes, he found the body by the fountain. She was a nice woman, very pretty.” She asked him questions, listened to his responses, then added, “His job is to mop and wax the floors, sweep the sidewalks and areas around the pool, and wipe off the tables and chairs out here. The birds…ah, leave droppings. He’s not sure of the time, but around four he decided to have a cigarette. He was afraid that Dr. Skiller—the bruja, or witch, as he calls her—might catch him if he stayed near the pool, so he went into the garden. As soon as he found the body, he went to Dr. Stonebridge’s door and woke him up. That’s all he knows.”
“Ask him,” I said slowly, “if he saw anyone between ten and midnight.”
She turned to Rodolfo and quizzed him. At first, he shook his head, but after a moment he nodded and said something. Norberta was finally beginning to sound somewhat curious as she said, “He says the doctor with the long hair came out of his office about two hours after it got dark and wandered around for a while, then sat down at this table and stared at the pool. Eventually he went out to the parking lot, but didn’t drive off. Rodolfo isn’t positive, but he thinks he may have heard voices from that direction. They were whispering, so he isn’t sure if they were male or female.”
I thought about this for a moment. Maybe Toby Mann did have an alibi—unless the second person had been Molly. Walter had claimed to have little interest in her, but he’d admitted that the two of them had parted on hostile terms. He could have been a lot angrier than he’d implied. A woman scorned was purportedly a dangerous creature, but testosterone could be a potent drug. Ask Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great.
“What time
did he hear this?” I asked.
Norberta relayed the question, but even I could translate Rodolfo’s shrug.
I took a final shot. “Does he, or any of the others, know the names of the patients or why they’re here?”
She asked him, but once again he shook his head and shrugged. She persisted, and after a long exchange, she sent him away and said, “He suspects one of the male patients is a professional athlete, but that’s about all. Marisela, a maid, worked in a border town in Texas a few years ago and claimed that she’d seen one of the female patients in a movie shown on TV one afternoon. They all agree the patients are here because they’re crazy.”
“No argument from me,” I murmured. “I don’t guess there’s any reason to question the others, since they weren’t on duty that night. I’ll take you back to your car so you can get ready for the wedding.”
I dropped her off at the PD, then resumed my search for Senator Swayze. I wasn’t about to go door-to-door and risk getting shot between the eyes by one of Mrs. Jim Bob’s militia ladies. If the senator had gone up on Cotter’s Ridge and stumbled onto Raz’s still, no one would ever find her. The best I could hope for was that she’d hitched a ride out of town. If not, we were in for a rough night.
“Just smile,” whispered Ruby Bee as she and Estelle walked down the motel parking lot to the units at the end. She was carrying an apple pie fresh from the oven; Estelle had a pan of cornbread that had been liberally laced with jalapeño peppers on account of everybody knowing how Mexicans like spicy food. Two women were sitting outside on a bench made of concrete blocks and a plank. One of them was wrinkled and plump, with a few white hairs mixed in her neat black bun. She looked like she might prove to be ornerier than Perkin’s mule, given half a chance. The other was younger and had a flat sort of face, like someone had squashed her features when she was a baby. A gawky boy sat on the ground nearby, a guitar in his lap. All of them stared as Ruby Bee and Estelle joined them.
“This is for y’all,” Ruby Bee said loudly, pausing between each word. She put the pie on one end of the bench and beamed broadly at them.
“And this, too,” Estelle said as she set down the cornbread.
The older woman nodded, and the younger one smiled timidly. The boy did not respond, although he was watching them like they were some sort of wild animals.
Ruby Bee nudged Estelle and whispered, “Go ahead and say what we planned.”
Estelle gulped, then managed to say, “Bonos dee-as.”
“Buenas días,” said the older woman, her expression stony. “Muchas gracias por sus regalos.”
“That means thank you,” Estelle said.
Ruby Bee snorted. “I figured that out by myself. Now go on.”
Estelle opened the pad where they’d written down significant words and phrases. “¿Como está usted?”
Apparently Estelle’s accent was hard to decipher, but after the two women had a whispered consultation, the older one said, “Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y usted?”
“That means fine, thank you, and how are you doing,” Estelle said, proud of her success. “This one’s gonna be a mite trickier.” She took a deep breath, squinted at her notes, and painstakingly read aloud each word. “Me llamo Estellita. Esta es Ruby Bee.”
“Me llamo Marisela,” said the younger one, looking pleased with herself. “Su nombre es Ofelia, y su nombre es Miguel.”
“Pleased to meetcha,” Ruby Bee said. “Okay, Estellita, we’re making progress. Now ask them about the celebrities’ names.”
“Easy for you to say.” She smiled at the three foreigners. “Los patients en el hospital. What are sus nombres?”
Indeed, it was more than a mite trickier for the women. They gestured for Miguel to join them. After a discussion, Ofelia said, “¿Los pacientes en el hospital, si? ¿Sus nombres?”
“That’s right,” Estellita said, getting into it. She figured if she kept this up, she’d be speaking like a foreigner in no time flat. “Sus nombres, por favor.”
“No sabemos.”
Ruby Bee peered at their notes. “I don’t see that. What does it mean?”
“Right offhand, I’d say it means they don’t know,” said Estelle. “Lemme try a few names and see if they get the idea. She took a deep breath and said, “Sharon Piedra? Is she a paciente?”
“Sharon Piedra?” echoed Marisela. “¿Quien es ella?”
Estelle drew a line through Sharon Stone’s name. “Okay, then, what about Russell Cuervo? Is he a paciente?”
Marsiela glanced at the other two, then looked up with a puzzled frown. “¿Un pájaro negro? No hay pájaros en el hospital, señoras.”
Ruby Bee stepped forward. “You know, a crow.” She tucked her hands in her armpits and flapped her elbows. “Caw, caw!”
“You’re spooking ’em,” Estelle said, getting frustrated. “Hush up and let me try another one. “What about Jude Ley?”
Ofelia stood up and crossed her arms. “No somos criminales, señoras. ¡No rompimos la ley!”
“Good work,” muttered Ruby Bee. “Now you’ve got them thinking they broke the law. This ain’t gonna work, Estellita. I got better things to do than scare these poor folks half to death. They’re just trying to make a living, same as the rest of us. Now you tell ’em to have a nice day and let’s go.”
“You can give up if you want, Rubella Belinda Hanks, but I ain’t ready to turn tail as of yet.” She gave Ofelia, Marisela, and Miguel her most congenial smile, like she was a contestant in the Miss Stump County Watermelon Pageant. Doing her level best to enunciate each syllable of the phrases in her notepad, she asked, “Are any of los pacientes estrella de cine, celebridades de Hollywood?”
“¿Celebridades de Hollywood? Si, señora,” Marisela replied happily. “Uno de los pacientes es Dawn Dartmouth. La ví en una película hace varios años. Ella entonces era mucho mas bonita. Ella es gorda y fea ahora.”
“My goodness gracious,” said Ruby Bee, gasping. “I didn’t catch all that jibber-jabber, but I heard the name Dawn Dartmouth clear as day. Can you imagine that? Dawn Dartmouth, right here in Maggody! Well, right near Maggody, anyway, not a mile away from where we’re standing. Ain’t that something?”
Estelle fanned her face with her notes. “Never in my life could I have come up with that. Dawn was the cutest little ol’ thing when she wasn’t much more than a toddler, and she had that impish smile that made me want to give her a hug. Remember when she sang that lullaby to her doll on Christmas Eve? I liked to have bawled my eyes out.”
Ruby Bee jabbed at the notes. “Ask ’em who else is there.”
This time Estelle had to take out the book and thumb through it until she found a dictionary at the back. She licked her thumb as she turned to the page she wanted. “¿Los otros? ¿Celebridades?”
While Ruby Bee and Estelle had carried on about Dawn Dartmouth, Ofelia had pulled Marisela aside for a terse conversation. Marisela, now chastened, kept her eyes lowered as she said, “No sé, señoras. Ahora iremos a nuestros cuartos. Debo escribir una carta a mi familia. Buenas tardes.”
“What’s that mean?” demanded Ruby Bee, who’d been hoping to hear that Charlton Heston or somebody like that was out at the Stonebridge Foundation, too.
“If I was to guess, I’d hazard to say the last thing meant goodbye,” Estelle said drily as the three Mexicans went into their motel rooms and closed the doors. “I have a feeling that older woman wasn’t real pleased with Marisela for talking out of school like she did. Should we leave the pie and cornbread sitting here?”
“It’ll be gone afore too long. That Miguel fellow looked real interested in it.” As they walked toward the back door of the kitchen, she said, “I know Dawn was born in Arkansas, but I disremember where. Somewhere down by Arkadelphia, wasn’t it?”
“In that neck of the woods,” agreed Estelle. “The newspaper made a big deal about how she was from Arkansas when ‘Rock the Cradle’ became a big hit. She and her twin sister, I mean. What was her name?”
“Sunny, I seem to think. There was some law saying that children could only spend so much time in front of the camera, so they was always on the lookout for identical twins. It didn’t matter one whit to me, since I couldn’t tell them apart. They took turns playing…what was the name?” She allowed Estelle to go into the kitchen first because of her hard work trying to talk Spanish. “Tinkerbell?”
“Twinkle, I think they called her. Her TV family, that is. Just imagine how hard it must have been on those little girls to have three names. They had their real names, their actress names, and their name on the show. I’d have been mighty confused.”
Ruby Bee decided to get started on the braised ribs on the menu for that evening. She put on an apron, then began to gather up what-all she needed. “Dawn made some movies after the show was canceled. Whatever happened to Sunny?”
Estelle chewed on her lip while she tried to recall. “It’s kinda hazy, but I think she died when she wasn’t more than thirteen or fourteen. The family didn’t want any publicity, so there was nothing but an announcement from their lawyer that Sunny had passed away. I remember hoping it wasn’t from some disease that ran in the family, like that mysterious ailment that killed all four of Ambrosia Buchanon’s daughters.”
“Who all just happened to be pregnant by Ambrosia’s seventeen-year-old boyfriend. I wouldn’t go so far as to call rat poison a ‘mysterious ailment,’” Ruby Bee said as she started browning ribs in a skillet. “Now something like heart disease is different. What with Dawn and Sunny being identical twins, they must have shared all the same traits. Do you think Dawn could be at the Stonebridge Foundation on account of being real sick?”
“I’d like to think you aren’t planning to show up at the gate with a pot of chicken soup,” said Estelle, “because that’s as far as you’ll get. The only way we’re gonna find out about Dawn is if you ask Arly.”