by Kym Roberts
Frank held out his jar and pouted like a sad clown with his head tilted to the side. I stuffed the twenty inside and he asked, “What do you call an alligator that wears a vest?”
I grew up in Texas. I knew this joke inside and out, but his enthusiasm was infectious. He pulled on the bottom of his T-shirt like he was adjusting a fancy vest, and the way he took on the role of the ancient reptile with his arms out in front of him was pretty comical. He held his arms together at the elbows as he slapped his palms together inches from my face. He was an alligator ready to feast on me for dinner, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I don’t know. What do you call an alligator that wears a vest?” I asked.
Frank leaned in to share his punch line. “An investigator!” he snapped. Then he winked and sauntered down the hall with a giddy-up in his step.
I looked to Scarlet and Joan, and the three of us burst out in laughter. It was the best laugh I’d had all week.
“It won’t even be Red Nose Day for a couple months,” I said.
As she turned to proceed down the hall, Joan looked over her shoulder, put her hand up to her mouth, and whispered, “The love of his life was British. The two of them loved Red Nose Day.” She began walking toward the last doorway on the right of the hallway, and I suddenly knew this story wasn’t going to have a funny ending.
“They celebrated the British and the American charity drives equally. His husband died last year, so I’m glad Frank is able to enjoy the day by bringing a smile to people’s faces and reminding them to give, while he honors the man who made him whole.”
“O.M.W.”
I looked at Scarlet, who was wiping her eyes. I didn’t think she said it for me to hear. It was just something that slipped out with her emotions. I gulped the knot threatening to bubble to the surface of my throat as we turned off into a library and found several people seated in comfortable chairs reading books, magazines, and newspapers. Off to our right was a glass-enclosed room with a few tables and chairs and a long shelf containing neatly stacked board games against one wall.
Isla and Mason Andrews were hunkered over a board game, both of them staring down at the pieces in front of them. Joan turned and held a finger up to her lips, indicating that Scarlet and I should be quiet as we weaved our way through the seating areas in the room and entered the glass enclosure.
Isla picked up two small white tile pieces from the long wooden tray in front of her and laid them down on the game board. A smile lifted her sagging cheeks and a sparkle lit up her face as Mason tried to discern the meaning of the word she spelled during her turn of Scrabble.
“You went for laughter, but I changed it into something entirely different,” she said and spelled out the transformation she’d done to the word snicker. “S-N-I-C-K-E-R-S-E-E. Snickersee.”
Mason looked at her, completely stumped by the word.
“Would you like to challenge me?” Isla asked as she rubbed her hands together.
That lump in my throat surfaced. I coughed and gagged. Scarlet began patting my back. Isla and Mason turned in my direction, but all I could think about was the word she had spelled out across the Scrabble board. I didn’t need to challenge Isla. My daddy had used the word since I was a kid. A snickersee was a knife, but not just any knife. A snickersee was a knife used as a weapon.
The type of weapon that killed Ava James.
Chapter Ten
I’d heard people claim that Alzheimer’s attacked the core of a person’s humanity. That an abusive individual could become docile, and a kind-hearted soul could become brutal. I just never imagined I would witness it in someone I cared about. Certainly, my visit to the Oak Grove Manor had disturbed me. My questions remained long after I’d recovered and Scarlet and I wished Isla happy birthday. Scarlet did a quick set of Isla’s hair while doting over her. I smiled and listened to their conversation, too disturbed to add much to it. Mason stayed and joined in on the conversation with ease. His true caring nature and concern for Isla’s well-being was obvious. Yet the whole scene just seemed to add to the tragedy of tonight’s memorial . . . and I needed answers.
“Did you like your chocolate-covered fruit, Isla?” I asked.
“Oh, Princess, it’s divine, but there’s entirely too much for me to eat. Would you like a chocolate-covered strawberry?”
I grinned, because at that moment, Isla was the woman I remembered from my childhood. The woman who brought in chocolate-covered strawberries for me and my mom—we devoured them. After my mom was gone, she brought them every year on my mother’s birthday. “We celebrate life,” she said. “Always, but especially on the day of our loved one’s birth.” It had turned the day into a joyous occasion for me, instead of another day to dread as it approached.
“I would love one.”
“Then git yourself down to my room and grab a few for all of us.”
I stood up, patted her hand, and smiled, but my insides were pulling apart as I made my way to room 123. This was my opportunity to get a better look at Isla’s room and find out if she had a snickersee stashed somewhere. I prayed I didn’t find one, but the coincidences were mounting up. Isla had threatened to cut Ava’s throat. A fact I was pretty sure Mateo would know by now. And there was a possibility that Isla had somehow escaped from the facility again last night. Granted, she would need a ride, but it was possible.
I looked over my shoulder as I pushed open the door to the hallway. There was only an elderly man hunched over a walker making his way along the wall. I closed the door behind me, leaned against it, and closed my eyes to catch my breath, which had become erratic, as if I’d just run a mile at full speed. I hadn’t gone running in over a year. I was pretty sure it could kill me at this point. And that was something Mateo had been harping about.
“You need to start running again, Charli. Did you go running this morning? Want to go for a run along the river?”
My eyes shot open.
I was not going to think of Mateo. That would lead to more guilt for deceiving him as well. I let my gaze fall across the room filled with Isla’s grandmotherly scent. It was furnished with a wine-colored love seat and a gliding rocking chair with roses flourishing the tan cushions. A small television sat on top of an antique radio console. I’d visited Isla on a few occasions and found her reading a book in her glider while listening to the radio, which still worked. Its sound wasn’t as clear as a modern-day stereo, but that didn’t seem to bother Isla in the least. Off to my right was the bathroom, and beyond that, her bedroom set, which consisted of a hospital bed that was neatly made with frilly pillows and a dresser from the same era as her radio.
Scenic paintings created by Isla’s own hands decorated the walls. My favorite was one she called Grinter House. It was of an old red farmhouse with split-rail fencing and snow covering the landscape. The house was real, located somewhere in the Midwest. Isla and the Judge had visited it during their marriage. The only person in the painting was a young boy about eight, who was frolicking in the snow with a little black terrier. The boy and the dog seemed to be having the time of their lives.
I steeled my resolve and began searching the room. I had to find out the truth, to protect my dad and this woman I loved more than I had known. The fruit basket was on her dresser, looking gorgeous and adding to the welcoming scent of the room. I ignored it and began opening the drawers of the dresser. My hands trembled with my deceit as I moved her panties and bras, socks and T-shirts, shorts and pants. Nothing.
I moved to the small nightstand next to her bed. It only contained one drawer that held the latest thriller by Lisa Jackson, a bottle of eye drops, and a pad of paper and pen. I glanced at the writing on the pad and noticed an address had been jotted down on the page with a shaky hand. I quickly took my phone out of my purse and was about to snap a photo when my phone rang. I jumped as if caught in the act and answered before the caller ID appeared.
; “Hello?”
“You have company.” That’s all Scarlet said before she hung up and the door to Isla’s room opened.
I turned around to find Mason Andrews in the doorway watching me. His eyes moved to the open drawer of the nightstand. I smiled and shifted my phone to my shoulder.
“I would love to stop by and pick up your donation. Can you give me the address?” I asked the dead air on the other end of my phone as I grabbed Isla’s pen and pad of paper. I shifted my body so the director couldn’t see that the address I wrote was actually already written on the pad of paper.
“Twelve-fifty-seven Armadillo Drive, River Oaks. Got it. Thank you. I’ll stop by in about forty-five minutes, if that’s okay?” I paused, waiting for my imaginary answer. My heart was pounding in my chest as I tore the piece of paper from the pad and folded it in half. “Thank you. See you then.”
I clicked my phone off and shoved the piece of paper into my purse. Before I turned back around, I placed the pen and paper back in the drawer and closed it. “Sorry. The literacy drive has got me busy. Losing Ava didn’t just hurt emotionally. It’s caused some major issues with the drive. She was the force behind the charity. It’s going to be hard to manage without her.”
Mason was the true picture of grace, his forehead wrinkled with concern and his eyes full of sorrow. He held his hands in front of him with his fingers laced together. “I’m sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine how hard something like that is to deal with. Losing a loved one is hard enough. Losing a loved one to murder is unimaginable.”
My heart began to slow its roll and I decided there was no better time than now to ask some question about Isla’s whereabouts the previous night.
“I know Isla wasn’t very fond of Ava.”
Mason shook his head. “No, she wasn’t, but in her mind her dislike is justified.”
“So . . . you think Isla is making it up about the Judge having an affair?”
“It’s hard to say. Isla has been here since I arrived. She reminds me a lot of my own mother. She’s a very kind and giving person.”
I pushed for the answer I needed, then held my breath. “Was she here last night around seven to eight o’clock?”
“If you’re asking if Isla signed out last night and went out? Then no, she didn’t. She was here.”
I exhaled and smiled as I grabbed a few chocolate-covered strawberries. “Well, we better get back there with these strawberries. We don’t want to keep the ladies waiting for their chocolate.” I turned for the door, but Mason hesitated.
“You weren’t thinking that Isla could have hurt Ava, were you?”
“No, I . . . I was just worried about her.”
I started to walk past him, but Mason touch my shoulder. It was a light, gentle touch meant to put me at ease, yet at the same time, prevent me from leaving the room. “Isla isn’t capable of hurting anyone,” he said and I could see the conviction in his eyes. “The Judge, on the other hand, is a dangerous man.”
Mason got my attention with that statement. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve already said more than I should, and I have no evidence of abuse or I’d have reported it long ago, but there are some things that come up in my conversations with Isla that are very disturbing.”
“Do you think the Judge is capable of murder?” I asked.
“I think there are many things in the Judge’s past that we don’t fully know, or understand, and I’m not sure Isla would be able to help guide us through those events. She’s just not that coherent these days.”
I wanted to disagree. Yell and scream that the disease had not gotten the best of her. Isla didn’t deserve this, but who did? I should accept that Isla’s mind was trapped in a convoluted web of truth, mysteries, and lies—except I couldn’t. Unlocking her memories would be next to impossible for an expert. For me it was downright improbable.
But I was determined to get it done.
Chapter Eleven
Scarlet and I left Oak Grove Manner in our own vehicles. She was going to make a stop to pick up the candles and I was going to find out whose address was on Isla’s notepad. I wasn’t that familiar with the town of River Oaks. Not because it was far away—it was only five miles southeast of Hazel Rock—but the town wasn’t really a town. It was a few trailer parks and a couple dead-end streets with small houses. There was no town center, and I didn’t think it held one business. It was also known to be the wrong side of the tracks of the wrong side of the track. That was saying something.
The inhabitants were hardened by bad luck and known for making bad choices. Whenever Mateo had a bruise or a cut, it came from making an arrest in River Oaks. I wasn’t heading out there lightly. Luckily for me, I didn’t drive a fancy car, and my daddy’s old beat-up pickup would fit in well with the socioeconomic stratum of the town.
At least that’s what I was hoping.
I let the GPS on my phone guide me to a trailer park, where it decided to send me in circles. It was during one of those circles that I noticed a little white BMW Isetta following me.
I immediately picked up my phone. “You’re supposed to be picking up the candles for the vigil.”
“I called Joellen. She’s got it covered.”
“I’ll pull over and you can hop in the truck.”
“No can do, Charli. I’m not abandoning my vehicle on these streets.”
“When did you become street smart?”
“When you came back to town and gave me a new type of education.”
I wanted to argue that it was her ability to solve puzzles that gave her the education, except before my return, the most violence Scarlet had witnessed was a bar fight over a football game. And even those weren’t really fights; the people engaging in them were normally too drunk to land a punch.
“Fine, but stay close.”
We hung up and continued down the road, but my GPS kept telling me to make one U-turn after another. With Scarlet on my tail in her adorable little car and her perfect hair and perfect skin, we stuck out like a mini caravan from the homecoming parade that took a wrong turn and ended up in the trailer parks of River Oaks.
The name of the town was a bit deceiving. It didn’t exactly fit the landscape. There was no river, and no oaks. There was nothing appealing to the town at all. It wasn’t homecoming parade material. I’m not sure I’d call it livable, either.
The street signs were missing from the barren poles, and the trailers didn’t have house numbers that were visible from the street. To make matters worse, the neighborhood we were driving through looked like it belonged at the dump on the moon. There wasn’t a speck of green in sight. Not a weed. Not a shrub. Not a tree. Just dirt and rock and trash everywhere. We drove by broken toys, a toilet sitting along the pitted roadway, and furniture tattered and rotted from the weather and stray critters.
The trailers didn’t fare any better. Blankets and sheets draped across the windows of the upscale units. Black paint and foil covered the windows of the rest. I felt my mood slip into darkness just driving through, especially when I saw two kids no older than three and five sitting on a crumbling stone wall wearing nothing but their underwear. The young girl’s hair was snarled and matted—worse than mine had been. And that was saying a lot. Her younger brother sported a buzz cut. I didn’t want to speculate as to the reason behind it, but the way the little girl was scratching her head, my bet was on lice. Initially I thought they were tanned from the recent heat wave we’d had in Texas, but as I got closer, I realized the smudges of dirt covering their bodies weren’t created by the sun. But the worst part was their eyes. They held a sadness no young child should experience, and I was compelled to lift it.
I shouldn’t stop. It was all wrong. I knew better than to approach children in front of their home, but they had so little, and the ex-kindergarten teacher in me was dying to rear her head and offer something to thes
e two kids who had nothing. I pulled past them and waved Scarlet in front of me. Then I grabbed four books I thought they might like from a box on the passenger seat. I made my way out of the truck and the girl pulled her feet up underneath her bottom, ready to run away at any moment. Her little brother glanced at her and followed suit, but not nearly as quickly. Nor was the expression on his face as wary, but he mimicked the movements of his big sister, and I had no doubt within the year he’d also exercise due caution when approached by a stranger. It was a good instinct to have in any neighborhood, let alone this one.
“Hi. I’m Princess,” I said, figuring my nickname would sound friendlier to the kids.
The little girl turned and was ready to run; her brother followed.
“I’ve got some extra books that I was going to bring to a friend of mine, but I thought you might like them.”
The little girl whispered something to her brother, and he took off at a dead run to their house, his pudgy little legs moving faster than I’d thought possible.
I smiled and encouraged her protective nature. “That’s what you should do when a stranger approaches you. I’ll leave a couple books for you and your brother on the wall,” I said. “They’re for kids your age.”
The girl backed away without saying a word. I laid the books down and turned toward the truck about the time a barefoot and pregnant woman younger than me yelled from the iron steps of her trailer. “Git yourself away from my kids before I call the cops!”
“I’m sorry. I’m the owner of the Book Barn Princess in Hazel Rock. I was driving through the neighborhood and saw your children. I thought they might like a few books I had in my truck.”
I waited for her response. The last thing I wanted her to think was that I was afraid of the police even if I didn’t want to answer any questions about what I was doing in River Oaks. If a deputy came and ran my identification, Mateo would know . . . and he wouldn’t be happy.
“Lily, git yourself in the house,” the woman instructed, and the little girl turned tail and ran toward the trailer. “Are you Princess?” her mother asked as she made her way across the dirt yard.