When Boomers Go Bad

by Joan Boswell

  Two cruisers pulled up to next to her car, and she quickly filled the officers in. “There’s nothing but bushes backing onto this spot. No night owls could see over here. Unless someone was out walking a dog. Can you two do a search of the area? An old man out after midnight, someone must be wondering where he is. I’ll check with the info desk and see if there are any reports.”

  Sylvie knew she should take a look at the body but opted to put it off a bit longer, getting back into her cruiser to radio in. She had her answer within a couple of minutes. The family of Georg Salvatros had reported him missing just before midnight. If that’s who it was, she’d met the guy only last month.

  Sylvie walked back to the track and braced herself. Regardless of his identity, it would be gruesome. She clenched her teeth and tried not to gag at the sight of Salvatros’s crushed body.

  Sylvie backed the cruiser into a space in the underground station parking lot, signed off the MTV, grabbed her briefcase and headed for the elevator. The traffic office lacked its usual congestion. Five fifty-five a.m. The patrol shift—the one she wasn’t even working—had ended an hour ago. Traffic, her duty, didn’t usually work nights. Only when big shots came to town. Escorts between important locations. Like tonight when the visiting ambassador wanted to stay late at the embassy party.

  Of course, the other guys in traffic had known better than to answer a late night call. They’d all headed straight back to the station after the escort ended. But good old Sylvie—still trying to score points. Or was it, just trying to be a good cop? Whatever.

  She finished typing her report as the seven a.m. traffic shift began trickling in. The last thing she wanted was questions. She filed the report in the Sergeant’s basket and left by the back door.

  The shower helped. But now, when she needed to be tired, her mind raced, and heading to bed would be useless. She was too wired. Time for breakfast.

  She drove a few blocks to a small diner that lured the morning shift with its slate of breakfast specials. Some of the guys would roll by in an hour or so.

  She inhaled some coffee and leafed through the morning news while waiting for her eggs. She couldn’t concentrate.

  What was a little old man doing on the railroad tracks at that hour? More to the point, why hadn’t he tried to get out of the way? Why had he sat frozen to the track? She had questions. There shouldn’t be any. Write it up as a straightforward accident. But she couldn’t let it go. Maybe because she’d met the old guy. He’d wanted a ride on her motorcycle, for frig sake.

  The family might answer some of the whys. Let her put it to rest. Give an old guy a reason for dying.

  She had to do some fast-talking to get her partner, Ken Tite, to agree to questioning the family of Georg Salvatros. The traffic accident investigators would do all the blocking off and measuring at the scene. The first officers to respond would sign off their own reports. End of the case. He was right, of course, but she couldn’t let it go.

  “Mrs. Kronos, you’ve told me you were sleeping in bed, and your husband had fallen asleep in front of the TV, so neither of you heard your uncle leave the house.”

  “That’s so, Officer. I got up to go to the bathroom, then turned off the set and shook Peter, then checked on Uncle Georg.” She tucked a stray strand of orange hair behind a bobby pin holding the French roll in place. Odd shade for a Fifty-something meek and quiet homemaker, Sylvie mused.

  “What did you do after that?”

  “We checked the rest of the house, and Peter looked outside in the yard. Then we called the police.”

  “Can you think of where your uncle might have been going?”

  Mrs. Kronos shook her head. The stray lock fell from its perch.

  “Had he done this before?”

  “No.”

  The kitchen door swished open, hitting the door-stop. A bulky man, about the same age as Mrs. Kronos, black hair giving way to grey, forearms the size of watermelons, sucked up the space. “I’m Peter Kronos. You are?”

  “Officer Sylvie Moran, Ottawa Police. I’m looking into the death of Georg Salvatros.”

  He snorted. “A waste. Do the police have so much money they can spend time on an old man’s accident?” Kronos commandeered a chair, joining them at the kitchen table. He stared at his wife. She got up and poured him a coffee.

  Sylvie shook her head at the offer of a cup then answered, “We always like to tie up loose ends.”

  “What you talking about?”

  “Well, for instance, why was Mr. Salvatros out at that hour of the night? And why on the railroad tracks? Do you have any answers, Mr. Kronos?”

  “You bet. He was out because that’s what he did. Crazy old man with Alzheimer’s, gets it in his head to go. Nothing fishy about that. Just crazy.” He tapped the side of his head.

  Sylvie let the silence build for a couple of minutes. Mrs. Kronos played with the lace-fringe on her place mat. The husband sat stock still.

  “And you didn’t hear Mr. Salvatros leave?”

  “Not a sound. After the wife’s good cooking, my night cap and the late news on the TV... I fall asleep. Right there in my chair. Next thing, she’s shaking me.”

  Sylvie nodded. “But why would Mr. Salvatros go to the railroad tracks?”

  Kronos shrugged. “Who knows? He lives in his own world. Who knows why he does anything?”

  Sylvie turned to Mrs. Kronos. “What is the name of your uncle’s doctor?”

  “Why’d you want that?” Kronos asked.

  “It’s routine.”

  Kronos finished his coffee in a gulp, slammed the mug on the table and pushed back his chair.

  “Seems my taxes should go to catching car crooks or those hoodlums that tramp through my shrubs and break them off. That’s where the real crime is these days.” He stomped out the back door.

  Mrs. Kronos gathered the mugs. “You’ll have to excuse Peter. He gets the yard looking just right—it’s his pride and joy—and something happens to it. Those kids really upset him.”

  Sylvie shook her head as she walked out to her car. There’s a death in the family, and these folks are worried about the yard?

  “I’d like to speak with Dr. Murchison.” Not much hope of it, Sylvie thought as she looked around the crowded waiting room. The receptionist probably wouldn’t fit her in. No give in that face.

  “You don’t have an appointment.” Small mouth set in an even narrower line. Sharp blue eyes demarcated by no-nonsense round frames.

  “No. I’m not a patient. I’m a police officer, and I’d like to speak with the doctor about a former patient of his.”

  The sign on her desk read Judy Fellows. She moved it over a fraction, as if to get a better view of Sylvie. “Which patient?”

  “Georg Salvatros.”

  “Oh, dear.” The face softened. “Oh, such a shame what happened.”

  Finally, someone who cares, Sylvie thought.

  “I heard it on the radio and told the doctor first thing this morning. Such a curmudgeon he was, but he could be quite a flirt. On his good days.”

  “You said, his good days. What were his bad days like?”

  “I shouldn’t be saying anything.”

  “Why not? I’m not asking you to reveal any medical records. I’m just asking for your observations.”

  “Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then. His arthritis bothered him something bad most days, especially when it rained. You’d hear him growling coming down the hall. He couldn’t bear to be touched. Sometimes he wouldn’t even talk.”

  “What about his mind? Was he lucid most times? Did he forget things?”

  She shrugged. “No more than the rest of us. Never missed an appointment. Of course, his niece always brought him, but he didn’t pay much attention to anything she said.”

  “I thought he had Alzheimer’s.”

  “Not officially. Oh, I probably shouldn’t have said that. But you’d hear it from the husband. He used to worry about it. Days he’d bring Mr. Salvatros in, he
kept insisting how Mr. Salvatros had Alzheimer’s, how he’d keep forgetting things and keep wandering off. He was really worried about him. The niece didn’t seem to care about him or wasn’t worried about his forgetfulness.”

  “I thought you’d said the niece always brought him in.”

  “She had, but these past two times it was the husband. Every two weeks. Standing appointment on Monday afternoons. Like I said, he seemed to be the more worried of the two. It was really touching.”

  The flip chart covered the upper half of the hall closet door. Sylvie lounged on the sofa facing it and stared. She’d divided it in half. One side labelled “fact”, the other “fiction”.

  Fact: arthritis Fiction: Alzheimer’s

  Fact: difficulty walking (sometimes) Fiction: wanderer

  Fact: sitting on train track

  She’d stopped at that. Was there a fiction? No, she’d seen the body. His overcoat had been frozen to the track. Not sure how that had happened, although the temperature had been cold enough for it.

  So he’d been walking...wandering...tired and sat down for a rest. Reasonable. But, if for whatever reason, the coat had frozen to the track, why hadn’t he gotten out of it when he heard the train coming? Just undo the buttons. Maybe his fingers were too painful? She’d have to ask the doctor when he finally got around to calling her.

  Or, had he been sitting? Better check with Ident and see if they could tell his position. Maybe he was already dead and had been dumped on the track. If not, then why hadn’t he moved?

  How was his hearing? Did he hear the train? Another question for the doctor. She couldn’t wait any longer—she’d give him a call. And she’d check with patrol...maybe one of them had seen something that night.

  They sat in the patrol car while Sylvie brought her partner up to speed. “So, the autopsy showed sleeping pills, but the doctor said he hadn’t prescribed any. The will gives the motive. Now the only question, is it a conspiracy?”

  “You’ve got a plan?”

  “Just follow my lead.”

  They approached the front door. Mrs. Kronos answered on the second ring. As they walked into the kitchen, Sylvie asked her to have her husband join them.

  “So, what now?” Mr. Kronos grumbled a few minutes later.

  “Just a few loose ends, Mr. Kronos. Mrs. Kronos, do you use sleeping pills?”

  “Why, yes. Sometimes it’s hard getting to sleep, especially if Peter starts snoring before I sleep. Then I take.”

  “And the night your Uncle died...did you take them that night?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “But why? Your husband wasn’t in the bedroom. He was watching TV, you said.”

  “Yes,” she glanced at Peter. “But I didn’t think I’d fall asleep.”

  “Do you take them every night?”

  She straightened her back. “Yes.”

  “So, noises don’t usually awaken you?”

  She shook her head.

  “But you might wake up to go to the bathroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did your uncle usually use sleeping pills?”

  “No. He always liked his cup of hot milk before going to bed. That put him to sleep.”

  “And you added a few sleeping pills to his hot milk that night, Mr. Kronos?”

  “What?” he sputtered. “You have no proof.”

  “Proof of what? I merely asked if you’d helped Mr. Salvatros get to sleep that night. Maybe he came in while you were watching TV and complained about not being able to sleep, so you gave him some of your wife’s pills. It’s a natural enough thing to do.”

  Kronos sat silent. Sylvie continued.

  “And then when they’d worked, you went into his room, picked him up, stuffed him into his raincoat and took him out to your car. Then you drove to the train tracks where you spilled water on the track, set the old man down and left him to die.”

  Kronos stood up and the chair fell backwards. “You lie. You don’t know that. I didn’t do it.”

  “Oh, but Mr. Kronos, I do know that you were setting Mr. Salvatros up over the last several weeks to make it appear he was getting Alzheimer’s. That wasn’t his doctor’s diagnosis. You as much as admitted that you gave him some sleeping pills. And your car was spotted by a patrol officer at the side of the road, at the Pleasant Park crossing at 12:50 a.m. Not much happening that time of night. The officers always take note of cars in no parking areas. So, if you didn’t take him there and leave him, why didn’t you find him and take him home?”

  “Peter, it’s not true, is it?” Mrs. Kronos started sobbing, not waiting for an answer.

  “Why did you do it, Mr. Kronos? Was it because of all that money, with your wife as sole beneficiary? Was it time for him to pay his bill?”

  Her partner moved to block the back door. Sylvie stood in front of the door to the hall. Mrs. Kronos clawed at her husband’s arm. “It isn’t true. You wouldn’t do that. Not to Uncle Georg.”

  Kronos looked from one officer to the other. “It’s not true.”

  “I think it is,” Sylvie said and went through the scenario again. “You did it, Mr. Kronos. I just wasn’t sure if your wife was in on it or not. I think she wasn’t. Isn’t that so? Or do you want her to be charged along with you?”

  Kronos wouldn’t look at any of them. His shoulders slumped, the powerful arms limp at his sides. “No. She didn’t have anything to do with it. I did it...for her. She was always whining about how she had to do everything for him. Uncle Georg wants this, Uncle Georg wants that. I never got a moment’s peace. And the old bastard never paid for anything. He’s sitting with all that money from his furniture store in the bank. He doesn’t pay a lousy cent. The wife spends my money on the leech and whines. I did it for her.”

  “No, you got greedy. Trouble is, I did some checking into a police report Mr. Salvatros had filed last year. It seems he got involved in a get-rich scheme and was defrauded. If he’d told you he’d lost all his money, he might still be alive.”

  Sylvie pulled a set of handcuffs out of her pocket. “But I think he was worried you’d kick him out.”

  Linda Wiken is the owner of Prime Crime Books in Ottawa. She is a member of the Ladies’ Killing Circle, and her short stories have appeared in their five previous anthologies as well as other mysterious publications. She was shortlisted for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story in 2003.

  A Nice Cup of Something Hot

  Linda Hall

  I was sitting in the back seat of a police car, a grey wool blanket around my shoulders sipping hot coffee from a Styrofoam cup. The snow had turned to a kind of sleet, which on the roof of the car sounded like cutlery dropping. I was sitting there because I had just killed someone. That’s what they do when you kill someone, they give you coffee and a grey blanket and sit you in the back of a police car.

  In the storm, my car had skidded into a drunk who’d staggered onto the road. There was nothing I could do. At least that’s what I told the police officers who came and found me crouched over him, my own good wool coat sopping up his blood and covering his neck, which had bent at that awful angle.

  Shock does strange things to you. It makes you cold when it’s warm and warm when its cold. I sat beside him in the road, in just a cotton sweater and jeans and hadn’t felt the cold until later. Until now.

  I had told my story at least a dozen times. I hadn’t seen him. I’d needed a few things at the drug store, and yes, I had gone out on a night like this. I hadn’t realized the streets were quite this bad until I was around the block from my apartment, and no, I didn’t think to go back. I should have but hadn’t. I was half-way to the mini-mall by the time I realized how deep the snow was, how awful the roads were. That’s what I told them. They wanted to know what I’d bought. Band-Aids, extra strength Tylenol, Nice ’N Easy Dark Ash Blonde and Nail Slicks nail polish in Perle #820. I showed them the bag. They didn’t look inside.

  If you’re wondering if I was being honest with them her
e, I wasn’t. Shoppers Drug Mart hadn’t been my primary destination. Well, yes, I’d been in there. I’d bought all those things that I’d said I bought, but that wasn’t until later. What I’d really needed was scrapbook supplies. I’m a mad scrapbooker, totally hooked since taking a “Preserving Your Memories” workshop at the Needles ’N Trims store. They close at nine, and I needed supplies, so I’d gone out. I’m so hooked that when I want string or ribbons or sparkles, I want them now, if you know what I mean. It was only later that I thought about nail polish, and once inside Shoppers I remembered my grey roots and my headaches.

  Since my husband left me, walked out of a perfectly good thirty-one year marriage and began shacking up with his bimbo, I’ve been trying to do things for me; scrapbooking, colouring my hair, looking nice, making the effort.

  The front door of the police car opened, bringing in the snow and wind. A new face peered back at me, this one belonging to a cop, so young and peach-faced that he looked like Spanky of Our Gang. I’m talking about the television program, not the music group. I remember them both. When I was little, I was always half in love with Alfalfa. The young cop climbed in and shut the door. He smelled like snow, and I had an urge to touch his jacket, feel the cold on him.

  “Mrs. Wilkins? Is there anything you need? Is there anybody I can call? A family member perhaps?” His voice was so gentle that my eyes watered.

  I shook my head. “No. I have no family members. Not since...” My voice trailed off. Why had I started with that?

  He bent his head at me, nodding, urging me to go on.

  “I’m...I’m divorced.” A fresh batch of tears. He reached back and patted my shoulder. He seemed so kind.

  “They’re going to have to take your car for a little while,” he was saying. “They need to have a good look at it. I’ll be driving you home in the SUV.” He was still patting my shoulder awkwardly, like he was unused to such ministrations.

  And I was weeping again, shaking my head and weeping. He handed me a Kleenex, and I blew my nose. I wonder if some scientist somewhere has ever measured tears. How much can a person cry before there’s no moisture remaining in the body, and it dries to a fine white powder and blows away like sand? I had pretty well not stopped crying since Hal had walked out on me.