Sorrow Road

by Julia Keller

  Yet on this day, a day of bone-white sky and insinuating cold, the Terrace also had a mildly sinister feel, as if rampant unruliness lurked just out of sight, waiting to break ranks and smash through all that carefulness, all that neatness, all that steady poise. Most people were brought here against their wills, angry and confused, by family members at the end of their tether. Their minds were disintegrating, piece by piece, like that early morning fog as the day advanced, and the internal violence of the loss—the terrible whirling flight of reason, the fleeing of memory—should somehow be palpable, Bell thought. There should be panic radiating from the outer walls like a heat signature on an infrared map. No one ought to give up the core of themselves without a struggle. No one should let the memories go without a fight.

  But the fury and the desperation were all subdued, struck down by time and by futility and by the very fact of institutionalization—the dull soothing sameness of routine. Bell had a rough idea of what she would see on the inside of the Terrace. She would see women and men in baggy clothes shuffling slowly through carpeted corridors. Their faces would be blank. Their eyes would be like clear lakes in the wilderness, reflecting the sky above but not the depths below. There were no depths below. Not anymore.

  Bell hated the idea that someone could be defeated by something as miniscule as plaques and tangles in the brain, that memories could be stripped away, layer by layer, until the only thing left was a spongy once-bedrock of nothingness. A wiser part of her, however, understood that it was not a matter of defeat, or of weakness. It was not a matter of will. It was just what happened.

  She opened the double doors.

  A receptionist behind a circular wooden counter looked up, offering Bell a neutral face. The lobby was otherwise deserted; no one sat on the couch or chairs. That surprised Bell, even considering the weather. Fifty-seven people lived here, she had learned from her research, and you’d think at least a few of them would have visitors waiting to see them. Or be walking through the lobby themselves. Then she reminded herself that this was not a regular nursing home. It was a place for people with Alzheimer’s. She saw the thick green metal door leading to the hallway, and the keypad on the wall next to the door. There would be an identical keypad on the other side, Bell knew. The code was usually simple—1,2,3,4—but it was enough to keep vulnerable residents inside.

  “I have an appointment with Bonita Layman,” she said.

  The receptionist, an older woman with short gray hair that glinted with bobby pins, nodded. She stood up, smoothed down the front and sides of her pink smock, and came out from behind the counter. She led Bell toward the executive director’s office on the other side of the lobby.

  Layman was waiting for her. She stood behind her desk. She got rid of the receptionist with a curt, “Thanks, Dorothy.”

  The woman in charge of Thornapple Terrace was not what Bell had anticipated. For one thing, she was young, perhaps no more than thirty, with a round cocoa-brown face and close-cropped hair that lay in tiny flat circles across her scalp. Gold hoop earrings shifted when she leaned forward to shake Bell’s hand. Layman’s dark eyes snapped with alertness and intelligence. And she seemed to be cheerful, whereas Bell had suspected that anyone who dealt daily with the tragedy of Alzheimer’s would of necessity be somber and glum. Dressed exclusively in dark garments. Prone to deep sighs and frustrated frowns. Layman, though, wore a pale green skirt topped by a cream blouse and yellow cardigan, and her smile looked genuine, if a trifle wary.

  One more time, Bell gave herself a quick private talking-to about expectations and stereotypes. She had fallen into some bad habits. Bad—and dangerous, too, for a prosecutor.

  “I appreciate your time this morning,” Bell said. She sat, taking off her gloves and her coat. She draped the coat across her lap.

  The office was simple to the point of austerity. A red Keurig coffeemaker and a square black printer were the only items atop the credenza along one wall. On the opposite wall, two medium-sized prints offered ubiquitous mountain scenes, one set in daffodil-rich spring, the other in iron-gray winter. The director’s desk featured a monitor and keyboard, a small brass lamp, a phone console, and a black mug bristling with sharpened pencils arranged in a tilting spray, each one equidistant from the one next to it.

  “As I told you on the phone,” Bell said, “and as I’m sure Rhonda Lovejoy mentioned yesterday, Darlene Strayer was a friend of mine. Shortly before her death, she asked me to look into the circumstances surrounding her father’s passing.”

  “I saw the story online about Darlene’s accident. It was shocking. Totally shocking.”

  “So you knew her.”

  “Oh, yes. She came by frequently to visit her father.” Layman’s small brown hands were clasped on the top of the desk. Her attitude was affable but puzzled. “Your assistant seemed startled yesterday by the death of Mrs. Delaney, but I’m not sure why. Our residents are quite elderly. Many are also gravely ill, in addition to having Alzheimer’s. Sadly, we do see some deaths here. It’s not uncommon.”

  “Some, yes,” Bell said. “But three in such a short span? Surely that’s unprecedented.”

  Layman cocked her head to one side. Her thinking pose. “We’re a relatively new facility, Mrs. Elkins. We opened about three years ago. So there’s really no precedent here yet. For anything. But based on the statistics at our other facilities, it’s not an anomaly. We sometimes have clusters of deaths. And then there might be a long span—several years, in fact—with none.”

  “So you’re a chain?” Bell asked. She knew the answer, having had Lee Ann Frickie do a Google search on the company yesterday, but she wanted to keep the conversation matter-of-fact, focused on numbers, before heading into the hard part.

  “Yes. American Care Network is based in Dallas. We have twenty-seven facilities in fifteen states. We expect to open a dozen more by the end of next year,” Layman declared, in a voice that knew its way around a PowerPoint presentation.

  “No problem filling the rooms, I suppose.”

  “Quite the contrary. We have a waiting list.” Layman offered a small, perfectly timed frown. “Alzheimer’s is the coming storm, Ms. Elkins. Roughly half the population over the age of eighty-five has been diagnosed with it. It’s on track to overwhelm the resources of our health care system—not to mention the patience and stamina of caregivers. In the next forty years, the number of new cases could very well triple. The cost of that? Twenty trillion dollars is the latest estimate I’ve read.”

  Bell nodded. Time to move past the bullet points. “Can you tell me a bit about the three people who died?”

  “Of course.” Layman reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a file folder. She opened it and used an index finger to find her place on the fact sheet. “Polly Delaney had just recently joined us. She was deteriorating rapidly, I’m sorry to say. One of our aides found her in her bed. She immediately called the front desk, and Dorothy notified the sheriff, which is always our procedure, even when there’s nothing even remotely suspicious about the death. Deputy Wilkins came right away. The coroner immediately informed us that—just as we thought—Polly died of natural causes. It’s a common progression with late-stage Alzheimer’s. First they lose the ability to walk, and then they stop eating or holding up their head. Next the heart stops. It’s usually a very quiet death—and it was for Polly Delaney. The same for Margaret Jacks. Three weeks ago, she was wheeled back to her room after dinner. She’d not been feeling well. She was found later that night by an aide. Margaret, too, had died in her sleep.”

  “Same aide?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Was it the same aide who found both residents dead?”

  Layman searched the sheet. “Why, yes. Yes, it was. Marcy Coates. One of our best employees. Very reliable. Been with us since we opened.”

  “And who found Harmon Strayer?”

  This time Layman did not need to look down. “That was Marcy as well.”

  “I’d like to speak to her.
”

  The director frowned. “She’s already been interviewed by Deputy Wilkins. And it’s really not something she enjoys talking about, Mrs. Elkins. It was quite traumatic.”

  “I’ll try my best not to upset her. But it’s important.”

  A beat. “Fine,” Layman said. “I’ll get a phone number for you. She has the next few days off. It was the least we could do.” She hit a few keys on her computer. “Yes. Here it is.”

  Bell put the number in her cell. “Thank you.”

  Now she waited. When Layman did not speak, Bell filled the silence herself. “How did Harmon Strayer die?”

  Layman closed the file folder. She re-linked her fingers on top of it. Her dark eyes moved to the single window in her office. It looked out on another parking lot at the side of the building, a gray rectangle in which only two cars were parked, on opposite sides of the lot. At the edge of the space was a long pile of frozen snow, shoved there by a plow and heaped up. It wasn’t much of a view.

  After a few seconds Layman looked back at Bell.

  “That was difficult,” she said, her voice grave. “And it’s even sadder, given what happened to his daughter this weekend. Harmon was a favorite with all of us. He was very respected around here. Respected and loved. Did you know he served in World War II? He was part of the D-Day landing. The thing about Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Elkins—and maybe this is old news to you—is that you often lose short-term memories but not the longer-term ones. Not the oldest ones, the ones that you’ve had for decades.

  “So Harmon couldn’t tell you what he had for breakfast five minutes after his meal—but he could describe every detail of being on a U.S. Navy ship on D-Day. I mean everything—the gray color of the sky, the smell of the ocean. The way the Normandy coast looked as they got closer and closer. They weren’t part of the original landing force—their ship was there to search for survivors. Or for any soldiers, alive or dead, who were still in the water. They were going to take them home.”

  “Did all those details come from Harmon?”

  “Some. And some came from Darlene. She and I had a lot of conversations about her father. She’d grown up hearing the stories about his experiences on D-Day. And I got the rest of it from his oldest friend, the Reverend Alvie Sherrill, who also visited here quite often. Twice, three times a month. He’d sit with Harmon in the lounge. Always brought a checkerboard. I guess he hoped they’d play a game. That was never going to happen—Harmon was well beyond the ability to play checkers. But that’s what they had done, for so many years, and so the reverend brought the checkerboard. It was a kind of symbol, he told me. Of what they’d meant to each other. Finally he just left the checkerboard here. Said he didn’t need it anymore.

  “He and Harmon would sit there at a little table in the lounge, hour after hour, with that checkerboard between them. When Harmon first came to live here, you might hear some conversation, but in the last few months, Reverend Sherrill did all the talking. That’s what happens, Mrs. Elkins. Most of our residents don’t talk at all anymore. I can tell you this, though. Harmon was blessed—blessed to have a loyal friend like that, as well as a devoted daughter. Harmon was one of the lucky ones.”

  “And the cause of death?”

  “Same as the others. Natural causes. Harmon just didn’t wake up one morning.” Layman paused. “You would think we’d be ready for it,” she said. “I mean, our residents are in their eighties and nineties, for the most part. And in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. Their lives are basically over. But Harmon’s death hit us hard.”

  “How did Darlene take it?”

  “Not well. I was concerned about her. She seemed so—so torn apart, really. The news just destroyed her. She was definitely having trouble accepting it. Asked me a million questions. Demanded to talk with the staff. She told me she’d been a federal prosecutor—and wow, did it ever show! She could argue like nobody’s business. It was her way of coping, I suppose—charging around, getting all the facts. But you know what? I’m going to miss her.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Oh, don’t misunderstand. She was tough on me, sure. But I’d rather deal with irate family members all day long than have to think about the residents who are truly alone. The ones nobody makes a fuss over. The ones nobody ever comes to see. The ones nobody cares about.”

  “I can understand that.”

  Layman laughed a quiet, soon-concluded laugh. “Well, I’m not sure my staff understands it. They get pretty weary of being screamed at by children or grandchildren or spouses who stop by once in a blue moon and want to know why Daddy’s shirt is on backward. Or why Grandma’s trying to flush the forks and spoons down the toilet. They don’t understand. They’re not here often enough to know how much their family member has deteriorated. And so when they do come by, and they see someone who looks an awful lot like their father or their husband or their great aunt—but who is acting like a demented stranger, they’re shocked. And then they feel guilty. Guilty people have to find somebody else to blame. Lashing out is a pretty typical response.”

  I like this woman, Bell thought. And I admire the way she handles her job.

  Liking and admiring, however, did not automatically equate to trusting.

  “So you had a few run-ins with Darlene,” Bell said.

  “Nothing serious. We always worked it out. Everything she did was in her father’s best interest—and it’s hard to argue with that.” Layman looked as if she was trying to find a way to describe the Darlene Strayer she had known. “I think what impressed me most was how she let Harmon have his dignity. She refused to treat him like a child. No matter how much he’d declined.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, a few months ago, she found out that one of her father’s best friends had been killed. A hit-and-run accident in Bluefield. A man named Victor Plumley. They’d all grown up together in a little town called Norbitt—Harmon, Reverend Sherrill, and Plumley. As teenagers they’d joined the service together. They were all on that ship on D-Day. After the war, they settled back in their hometown. Anyway, Darlene came to me with the news about Plumley. Asked if I thought she should tell her father. I told her not to. All it would do at that point was upset him. See, the thing about Alzheimer’s is—he was likely to forget about his friend’s death in about two minutes, anyway. So why tell him? Why put him through all that grief for nothing?

  “But Darlene didn’t agree. She thought about it a little while, and then she said, ‘I have to tell him. Vic was his friend. Even if he forgets it a few seconds after I break the news, he deserves to know.’ She wanted to honor her father with the truth. For Darlene, it was always about the truth.”

  Hardly, Bell thought. She pictured the small blue chip Deputy Oakes had found in her friend’s pocket, revealing the secret of her alcoholism.

  The phone on the desk rang. Layman held up an index finger. “Just a sec,” she said to Bell. “Yes. Yes. No,” she said into the phone. “I’ll have to get back to you on that one.” Pause. “Okay, then—if you have to know right now, then no.” She hung up. “This job has toughened me up considerably. My new motto is, ‘She who hesitates is ignored.’”

  Bell rose. “I’d better let you get back to work.”

  “One thing.” Layman kept her seat. “I’ve answered your questions. Will you answer one of mine?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you come here today?”

  “I told you. Darlene asked me to.”

  “It’s more than that, though. Isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean,” said Layman, who by now had decided to rise, too, putting herself at Bell’s level, “that it wasn’t easy for you to get way out here. I know what those roads are like. You could have just called. And I also know that county prosecutors don’t have a lot of spare time. I don’t think you would have gone to all this trouble just to hear about a death from natural causes. And anyway, it’s old news now. It’s history.”


  Bell let a few seconds go by. “Are you from the area?”

  Layman hesitated. Her face indicated that she wondered if this was some kind of trap.

  “No,” she finally said. “Born and raised in Indianapolis.”

  “I’m not surprised. If you were from these parts, you’d understand that there’s no such thing as history.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “There’s no such thing as history,” Bell went on, “because it’s all still right here. The past never goes away. It’s in the air. It’s all around you, every second. It’s just another name for the present.”

  “Still don’t understand.”

  “Stick around long enough,” Bell said, “and you will. Thanks for your cooperation.” At the doorway, she turned. “Mind if I give myself a quick tour?”

  “Not at all. I’d be happy to escort you, but I have a conference call with corporate coming up. Can’t miss it.” Layman gave her the code for the keypad.

  For the next twenty minutes, Bell walked through the corridors of Thornapple Terrace. She did not doubt that Layman really did have a conference call scheduled. But she also knew that letting a visitor nose around without a chaperone made a compelling point: The staff here had nothing to hide.

  A muted calm pervaded the place like an odorless scent. The carpet was a light plum shade. The ceiling was creamy white. A waist-high wooden rail ran the length of both sides of the hall, broken only by the doors to the residents’ rooms. Most of the doors were open, and most of the rooms were occupied. The person inside either sat in a straight-backed chair next to the single bed, or stood by the window, looking out at the gray-and-white world of deep winter. Sometimes they noticed Bell, and offered her a face devoid of curiosity. Mostly, though, they did not notice her.