We stopped in front of the door and I beat a tattoo on the wood. Young Tommy opened the door, gave me a smile and Priscilla a blatant once over. “You’re Eva’s kin ain’t you?”
As she peered into Young Tommy’s home she said, “Her granddaughter,” she murmured. “Listen, can I check out your yurt?”
“Sure, you’ll find some wine in the cooler toward the back. If you don’t mind, you can pour us a mug.”
Young Tommy and I made ourselves comfortable in beach chairs around the fireplace. I stretched out, put my hands behind my head and kept an eye on Buster we was eyeing Cat who was peeking out of the sling eyeing Buster. Young Tommy nodded toward Priscilla. “Young face, old eyes.”
“She’s thirty-four. Used to be in the MP’s and seems pretty tough.”
“I believe it. She been helping you dig around in Frank’s life?”
I nodded as she came back with three mismatched mugs full of wine, handed us each one, then sat down in a beach chair, crossed her ankles and said, “So, did your sister get copies of Frank’s hospital records?”
Young Tommy nodded, pulled some papers out of a book laying on the floor, and handed them to her. She read them and handed them to me. One form detailed that a patrolman named David Rundle had delivered the body of Frank Janky to the hospital emergency room where he was pronounced dead by a Doctor Amos Conrad. The body was then released to T. William Chapman of The Chapman Funeral Home. The other form was a death certificate stating that the cause of death was Myocardial Infarction. It was signed by Doctor Amos Conrad. I gave the forms back to Priscilla, looked at Young Tommy and said, “Well, that tells us something I guess. Thanks, Tommy.”
Young Tommy looked at me for a moment. Then he glanced at Priscilla, looked down at Buster and said quietly, “There’s a bit more.” He stopped talking, sipped his wine, and scratched Buster’s ears.
After fifteen or twenty seconds of silence, Priscilla rolled her eyes and said, “Listen, whatever you do, don’t tell us okay? Because we pedaled and pushed the bikes through this water logged swamp for an hour just so we could sit here and watch you pet that perverted fleatrap.”
He grinned, made a production of petting Buster for a few seconds more, then looked up, coughed twice and said, “Sis figured since she was getting paid a fair price to look into your grandfather’s death, she might as well do more than just copy a couple of forms. So she checked through the old logs. And according to them she wasn’t working that day, but a couple of nurses she knows were.” He paused to drink some wine, looked at Priscilla and said, “Sis talked to them. It’s a small hospital, and ten years ago it was quite a bit smaller and she said both of them would have been called to the emergency room had something happened. But neither of them remembers a policeman bringing in a body. In fact, neither of them remembers anything at all about that day and Sis says that means it probably was a boring day in which nothing much went on.”
Young Tommy refilled his glass, drank, looked at Priscilla and said, “And there’s one other thing. Doctor Conrad, the man who signed the death certificate wasn’t at the hospital that day. According to the records a Doctor Stevenson had the emergency room and a doctor-doctor, hell, I don’t remember who Sis said was also there, but it wasn’t Conrad.”
“Is Conrad still at the hospital?” I asked.
“Nope. Retired now, lives in that place for old rich types, on the river over by Ashland.”
“Quiet Pines?”
“Yep. You got a few hundred thousand you can go there too.”
I looked at Priscilla and said, “I think a trip to Ashland to talk to the good doctor is in order.”
She nodded and said, “It tis, it tis.”
We stayed a bit longer, drinking Tommy’s wine and chattering aimlessly. At one point Priscilla gave him an update on Eva, and he in turn related his tale of lost love for her. Then we finished our wine and made ready to leave. As Priscilla moved past him, Young Tommy turned sideways and slapped her hard in the gut with the back of his hand. It made a dull smack, like a sock full of wet sand hitting brick. Priscilla smiled. It was a dangerous smile. He grinned and said, “Thought so, you’re not skinny, you’re muscle, like some damn feral cat.”
Priscilla snapped her fingertips against his crotch. He grunted and sank toward the ground. Forcing himself erect, he looked at her and giggled. “And you’re all gristle,” Priscilla said. “Just like that perverted, crotch sniffing flea trap you call a dog.”
… . .
A WEATHERED SIGN WITH A FADED green arrow on the bottom said to turn right for Quiet Pines Condominiums. We did so, and swooped down a blacktopped road that ran through a thin line of pines and into the complex. Five large buildings formed a shallow U that followed the line of the river. High and asymmetrical, with an abundance of sharp angles, oddly shaped windows, and small porches off narrow glass doors, the condos looked alien in the wooded landscape.
Despite the temperature several couples, all old, were wandering about. They didn’t seem to have a purpose other than to walk around a dirt road that formed an ellipse inside the U of the buildings. A barely legible sign informed us that units were still available, starting at $399,999, and to inquire at the office, which was in the last building on the left. While Priscilla guarded Cat and the bikes from any marauding walkers, I went into the office and was told by a gaunt woman in a brown pantsuit that Doctor Conrad lived in unit eleven.
Unit eleven was on the ground floor of the center building and faced the river. After pounding on the door for several minutes, we walked back to the road and asked an ancient couple dressed in layers of expensive clothing if they knew where Doctor Conrad was. The ancient woman looked at the ancient man, at me, then at Priscilla. They both gazed at Priscilla for a time, then simultaneously raised their arms and pointed toward a man in a wheelchair on the other side of the ellipse.
We left Cat to guard the bikes and walked over to him. When a young man he was probably medium height. Sitting in the wheelchair, bundled up in a parka, skier’s gloves, and with a navy watch cap pulled over his ears, he appeared small. His face, dominated by a hooked nose, was totally lacking in expression. He wore thick gold rimmed glasses that made his eyes look like they were bulging out of his head. He was old, looked it, and those bulging eyes were wet and gummy looking. His left leg had been amputated just below the knee and his right leg didn’t have a foot. A middle aged woman wrapped in several layers of wool, and with a stethoscope poking out of her coat pocket, stood watch several yards away.
We stopped in front of him and I bounced my head in a nod, tried a smile and said, “Good afternoon, Doctor Conrad, my name is Harry Neal and this is my friend, Bambi Gabonzo. I wonder if we may talk to you for a moment.”
He looked at us without expression, gave Priscilla an extra once over, frowned and said, “What about?”
“About a man named Frank Jankey. He died of an apparent heart attack ten years ago, and according to written records, a policeman named David Rundle brought him to the hospital, where you pronounced him dead.”
“If that’s what the reports state, then that is what transpired. Is there a reason you’re asking these questions?”
“Yes, there is. You weren’t at the hospital that day, Doctor Conrad, a Doctor Stevenson and another doctor had the day shift.”
That got us a few moments of hard silence. Finally, he grunted and said, “What I did or didn’t do is none of your concern, and I have no intention of sitting here justifying myself to two bums on bicycles. Leave here now or I shall cause you a great deal of trouble.” With that he put his gloved hands on the wheels of his chair, spun around and headed toward his condo. The nurse gave us a look and shuffled after him.
We stood in the road watching the good doctor wheel himself away. As he and the nurse turned the corner of his condo Priscilla bumped me hard with her shoulder, slapped the back of my head several times with her glove and said, “Bambi Gabonzo? What’s the matter with you?”
… .
.
WE PEDALED BACK TO TOWN AND settled in the Gazebo with large cups of coffee and watched Cat limp after windblown leaves until I spied Betty coming up the street. She saw us and made a little gesture and we left the Gazebo and walked the bikes down Gretchen’s alley to the dirt road in back of Main Street.
Betty came out of the back door of Kreb’s Hardware and walked over to us. While smiling at Priscilla she handed me a large brown envelope which I tucked under my sweatshirt and said, “Betty, this is Priscilla Matson, Frank Jankey’s granddaughter.”
They shook hands and Betty grinned and said, “I hear your aunt would like to string me up in the park.”
“Listen,” Priscilla said. “Forty-five dollars is a hell of a charge just for a few parking tickets. It must be a real rush, hassling an old lady and charging her a bunch of bucks she can’t afford to part with.”
“I don’t make the rules, Sweetie. All she has to do is slip a dime in the machine. If she doesn’t and I happen by, she gets snagged fifteen dollars.” She raised her hands palms up, looked at the left one, raised it and said, “One thin dime, ten lousy cents. Or,” And she looked at the other palm and let it drop a few inches and said, “Fifteen dollars, a hundred and fifty dimes. It’s her choice, Sweetie, so don’t try to put that monkey on my back.”
Priscilla got sort of stiff and slack faced, so I eased between them, and with my back to Priscilla, slipped Betty three twenties and said, “Thanks for the favor, Betty.” I gave her a quick hug and she smiled at me, winked at Priscilla, and headed back up the alley.
The walk to The Muscle Stop was quiet as Priscilla’s scowl precluded any chitchat. We checked in at the desk and went our separate ways. I hung Cat on the wall, did three sets on the machines, handed Cat over to the man at the counter and spent thirty minutes broiling myself in the sauna while drinking a half a gallon of ice water. Twice I forced my seared butt off the cedar bench and stretched. Stretching in a room that’s a hundred and eighty degrees is a unique experience. When I walked out of the sauna I was as limber and supple as a thirty year old… almost.
When I appeared at the front desk to claim Cat, the man with the neck like a buffalo smiled and nodded toward a nest of towels at the end of the counter. Cat was deep in the middle of the nest, half asleep and looking very content. As I gently lifted her up and slipped her into the sling the man said, “You should take her to a vet, I don’t think she’s doing very well.”
I found Priscilla in the free weight room talking to a chunky young woman dressed in white Spandex with red stripes. The woman was a living, breathing, hundred and fifty pound barber pole. She had a ten pound dumbbell in each hand and was doing alternate curls as she talked to Priscilla. If she was fat, it was hard fat, and the raw, casual power of the woman impressed me. It occurred to me that we were members of the same club, that we were fellow bodybuilders. Although I certainly wasn’t in her league, I felt an odd sense of kinship. But I had a hunch the kinship might be one sided so I thought it prudent to keep my thoughts to myself and refrained from spewing forth about protein intake, triceps definition, and other esoteric stuff related to the-the what? Sport? Craft? Obsession?
Priscilla said goodbye and we left. After the sauna the thirty degree day seemed almost comfortable. We clumped into Gretchen’s and settled in the back booth. Clara was nowhere in sight, but Gretchen shuffled over and put a pitcher of wine and soda on the table, slid in next to Priscilla and said, “You two look like you’ve been pulled through a knot hole. All flushed and slack eyed, limp looking.”
I smiled and said, “The joy of exercise, something nobody should miss.”
“Don’t think so, Harry, if that’s what it does to you. Seems like a lot of effort just to make a body tired and hungry.”
Cat, who had been sitting quietly by the napkin holder, got impatient and meowed and waved her bad paw at Gretchen. Gretchen smiled warmly and put a piece of turkey between her paws, then filled our glasses, took a drink out of mine and asked, “You getting any closer to that five thousand?”
I shrugged and said, “What do you know about the Chapman Funeral Home?”
A lipless smile turned her face into a grim mask. “I think the Chapman Funeral Home is an expensive way to hell.”
“Gouge a bit, do they?”
She grunted and said, “Remember when my older sister Isabella died of a stroke some years ago? The Chapman’s buried her. Charged an arm and a leg and tried to steal her wedding ring to boot.”
She grabbed my glass, sucked down more wine and continued. “After the wake, just before we took the trip to the cemetery, I wanted one last look at Isabella so I went into a little room just off the chapel where the coffin was. One thousand one hundred and eighty seven dollars for the goddamn thing. Dorthea Chapman was pulling the ring off my sister’s finger and that T. William was standing beside her, smiling like a lizard. I put my finger against his chest, pushed a little, and asked just what the hell did they think they were doing. She said they were just making sure it was on tight. Like it mattered since she was gonna be rotted down to the bone in a couple of years or so.
“Now I hear it’s illegal to bury stuff with the body. Anyway, I said bullshit and held out my hand. It was shaking and I was kinda growling, so she dropped the ring in my hand and I walked out and we got on with it.” She held out her right hand and showed us a diamond ring on her little finger. “I’m a bit bigger then Isabella was. You people want anything to eat?”
We ordered chicken breasts baked with herbs, a bowl of stir fries, and coffee. Except for an occasional can of tuna I can go weeks without eating meat and never miss it, then suddenly I’m a starving Puma.
The chicken was superb. Cat thought so too, and sat in the middle of the table flicking her broken tail in the stir fries and meowing, yowling, mewing, and waving her paws in the air for tidbits until the last piece of meat was gone. Then she put both front paws on Priscilla’s plate and licked it clean. Finished, she licked her chops, looked up at Priscilla and meowed. Priscilla put her face close to Cat’s and blew a puff of air in her face. Cat reared back and batted her with her good paw, leaving a red line down her nose. Priscilla sat back, rubbed her nose and said, “Remember, this ratty hunk of hair sleeps with you tonight.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Nay nay. You remember, she’s your buddy until you leave, which seems right, as your personalities and your attitudes are obviously quite similar.” I quickly dropped my eyes and opened the police report on Watson. Slouched in the booth, I read it while sipping Gretchen’s prime stock. When I finished I slid it over to Priscilla, refilled my mug and waited.
She read it, put it back in the envelope and said, “Might as well use it for fire starter.”
I agreed. The official report on the disappearance of Charles Watson was several pages of ambiguous doublespeak that had little of consequence to say about anything except that a bunch of policemen spent a lot of time achieving nothing.
“Well,” I said, “We’re zero for two concerning official reports.”
Priscilla made a coarse sound deep in her throat and said, “Maybe. Remember, according to those rednecks, Frank was still alive and running a quarter mile further down the road than what Rundle wrote in his report. And what about what that old goat’s sister said?”
“Rundle wrote in his report that he took your grandfather to the hospital, but according to the nurses Young Tommy’s sister talked to, that didn’t happen. So the question is who’s right? If it’s Rundle, then the nurses are mistaken. If it’s the nurses, then Rundle is lying and covering up, covering up something very significant.”
“Those nurses his sister talked to were probably wrong,” said Priscilla. “It’s been ten years. Who the hell remembers what they were doing ten years ago? And hospitals are hell on earth when it comes to records. They have to be, everybody and their brother checks them out, and the records say Rundle brought Frank into the hospital. And, we have a copy of the death certificate Conrad signed. He may
be an asshole, but paper is paper.”
“Too bad the good doctor wasn’t more forthcoming,” I said. “He’s in a position to clear a few things up for us.”
Priscilla grunted and said, “That’s not gonna happen. Maybe you should work on the way you talk to people. You should have kneeled down and talked to him, got on his level instead of lording it over him like you were some kind of superior dude.”
“Superior dude? Next time we talk to someone, I’ll let you lead. Your submissive, feminine countenance will undoubtedly induce a veritable torrent of pertinent information.”
Her glass stopped halfway to her mouth. She looked at me for a moment and shook her head. “Feminine countenance? Veritable torrent? What the hell do you do every morning? Scarf up a few pages from Webster’s? Christ!
“May an unclean rodent build a nest in your, in your… ”
The look on her face was the same she gave Stewart Coe. “In my what?” she asked softly.
“Armpit,” I muttered.
She grinned and shook her head. She drank, put down her glass and said, “We gotta talk to Rundle.”
“Yes we do. I’ll ask Betty where he moved to. If it isn’t very far we can go to wherever and interview him.”
“She said that he drank himself off the force. If he’s still alive, he probably wouldn’t remember anything about it.”
“Finding a body in the road is memorable, even for an alcoholic policeman. I wonder why he didn’t call an ambulance. Why stick the body in the back of his cruiser and drive it to the hospital himself?”
Priscilla shrugged. “That’s one of the things we can ask when we find him.”
Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said Page 11