Head Case

by Michael Wiley

  FIFTEEN

  The next morning, Kelson drove to the sixteen-story building at the corner of Ainslie Street and Claremont where Patricia Ruddig lived. ‘And died,’ he said, stepping over an ice-encrusted drift between the street and the sidewalk.

  He walked past a sign that said The Glenview, Senior Assisted Living and through a set of automatic glass doors into a clean lobby. A man in his forties stood at a round, dark-wood reception desk. His sweater had a picture of a smiling red-nosed reindeer.

  Kelson stared at the sweater. ‘Really?’ he said.

  ‘It’s Christmas all year around here, buddy. Whatever keeps them happy. Juanita does a Santa’s elf thing every Fourth of July.’ The man had friendly deep-set blue eyes.

  ‘You’re screwing with me,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Yeah, I just like reindeer. Not that the residents mind. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I have some questions about one of your former tenants. Patricia Ruddig.’

  ‘Patty?’ He did something with his eyes, making them look forlorn. ‘Sad thing. Everyone here loved Patty.’

  ‘You knew her well?’

  ‘Knew her and knew her husband Phil until he died a few years back. Know Dougie.’

  ‘Dougie?’

  ‘Her boy by her first husband. Lives in Barrington. Came every Sunday for lunch with his ma. You from the hospital?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Insurance company?’

  ‘No.’ He gave the man a business card. ‘A client asked me to find out about Ms Ruddig.’

  The man slipped the card into a pocket. ‘I don’t know what anyone would want to find out. Patty wasn’t what you’d call normal, but what’s normal nowadays, right?’

  ‘Not me,’ Kelson said.

  ‘You aren’t into reindeer, are you?’ The man winked. But then the desk phone buzzed, and he picked up. After listening for what seemed a long time, he explained the daily lunch menu for the Glenview dining room.

  Kelson glanced around the lobby. The floor was hardwood, polished to a gleam. The sofas and easy chairs looked clean and expensive. A man in thick trousers, using a walker with a wicker basket buckled to the front, crossed to a set of double doors. A sign above the doors identified the next room as a lending library.

  When the receptionist hung up, Kelson asked, ‘What wasn’t normal about Ms Ruddig?’

  ‘Her house guests,’ he said. ‘Before Phil died, they had four parakeets. The day they buried him, the birds were gone. Just gone. She chased them out her window, I suppose. She looked like a parakeet herself. Maybe five feet tall. A hundred pounds. Hair dyed so blond it was almost yellow. Lipstick – always lipstick. After Phil died, she started bringing in visitors to stay. She had a two bedroom, plenty of space. She kept them until Dougie made her kick them out.’

  Kelson gazed at the man. ‘You’re a chatty one, aren’t you?’

  The man leaned across the desk, confidentially. ‘Number one job requirement. Talk to folks. They’re lonely, most of them. Don’t matter what I tell them. Truth, lies, some of both. But I talk. I make them feel connected.’

  ‘Who were these visitors?’ Kelson said.

  ‘I don’t gossip, but they say she found them at Spyner’s Pub. She liked the ones you’d call downtrodden.’

  ‘Tell me about the accident that broke Ms Ruddig’s hip.’

  ‘Can you really call it an accident?’

  ‘I don’t know, can I?’

  ‘She was walking out of the building New Year’s morning. She went out every day like that since Phil died, right at nine. She’d get a paper and a roll. Coffee in the winter, juice in the summer. Nice days, she ate the roll on a bench. Lousy days, she brought it back and ate here in the lobby. On New Year’s Day, she went out to the sidewalk, and wham, a kid on a bike hit her. What was the kid doing riding on the sidewalk outside a place like this? He didn’t stop when he hit Patty. Just pedaled away. Far as I’m concerned, that kid killed her. She stayed a week in the hospital, but the damage was done.’

  ‘What did the police say?’

  ‘They said bikes hit people all the time. Maybe not so much in January. They said Patty was the first for the New Year. Like that was an honor. At first it looked like Patty would be OK. An ambulance came almost before she hit the ground. They took good care of her.’

  ‘And then she died,’ Kelson said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you get the accident on your security camera?’

  ‘Uh-uh. Broken since before Christmas. I’ve got to get it fixed.’

  ‘The police ever catch the kid?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  The phone on the man’s desk buzzed again. Again, he answered and explained the lunch menu.

  The man in thick trousers came from the lending library with a book in his walker basket and a look of pure pleasure on his face. He saw Kelson watching and called to him, ‘Cheers.’

  Kelson raised an imaginary glass. ‘Cheers.’

  The receptionist hung up the phone and nodded after the man, who disappeared into a corridor. ‘Would you believe he had prostate surgery last week?’

  ‘It wouldn’t cross my mind,’ Kelson said. ‘Has Dougie cleaned out the apartment?’

  ‘Nope. Hasn’t been back since right after Patty broke her hip. He came for her magazines and prescriptions – and the pillow she liked.’

  ‘Could I see the apartment?’

  ‘That was Patty’s home,’ the man said. ‘We protect the privacy of our residents.’

  Kelson grinned at him.

  The man didn’t grin back.

  ‘You’re screwing with me again?’ Kelson said. ‘You just dished half the secrets of this place to me.’

  ‘I certainly did not.’

  Kelson went out to his car, cranked the heat high, and searched his phone for the address and hours of Spyner’s Pub. It opened at 11:00 a.m., so Kelson drove a half mile north.

  The pub occupied the ground floor of a two-story brick building across the street from a 7-Eleven and kitty-corner to a liquor store. Someone had painted the front blue, the entrance door schoolhouse red. A Michelob Light sign hung from a metal post over the entrance.

  When Kelson walked in, a dozen women sat on bar stools or stood at the bar. The bartender wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Her short hair stood straight up. A skinny woman with a ponytail and a tattooed neck made small talk with her. A small, balding man swept the floor.

  ‘Lesbian-ish,’ Kelson announced.

  The drinkers and bartender turned and glared at him.

  ‘Not that I care one way or another,’ he said. ‘I’m just – noticing.’

  The glare got colder.

  ‘I’ll shut up now,’ Kelson said. ‘Or try to.’

  ‘Get the hell out,’ the bartender said.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Kelson said. ‘I—’

  ‘What’s to understand? Get out.’

  ‘Right – sorry.’ He ducked back out the door into the cold and stood on the sidewalk for a full minute, berating himself. Then he stepped back inside.

  The bartender seemed to expect such behavior. She came around the bar and grabbed the broom from the small man, looking ready to beat Kelson to the floor. ‘I said, get out.’

  ‘Patricia Ruddig,’ Kelson said. ‘Patty.’

  The bartender stopped. Her anger seemed to melt. She handed the broom back to the small man. ‘Yeah, right … Patty.’

  ‘I’m looking for people who knew her.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sam Kelson.’ He gave her a card.

  ‘What’s this about?’ she said. ‘Did her boy send you? ’Cause if he did, you can get the hell out again.’

  ‘Dougie? No, I’m working for a bull rider and his fiancée.’

  ‘A—’

  ‘Never mind. Dougie’s out of it. I never met the man.’

  The bartender crumpled the card and dropped it on the floor. ‘I don’t know what
I can tell you about Patty. She was a regular. Came in for an old fashioned in the winter, a gin and tonic in the summer. Always just one drink. Quiet until she had that drink. She took in more than a couple of women when they needed a friend – until her prick of a son stuck his nose in.’

  ‘She took me in,’ said a short woman. ‘My wife kicked me out. I needed a place to stay. I needed to clean up. Dougie’s not so bad. He watched out for his mom.’

  ‘Dougie’s a prick,’ the bartender said.

  ‘What do you know about the kid who hit her with the bike?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘Another prick,’ the bartender said.

  ‘Didn’t even stop,’ said the woman Patty Ruddig took in.

  A tall woman, who’d gone back to her morning beer as soon as the bartender returned the broom to the small man, said, ‘Patty was a tough old bird. She picked up others when they were broken. I never thought she’d break too.’

  ‘Who dies from a broken hip?’ said the woman who got taken in.

  ‘One thing for sure,’ said the tall woman, ‘she wasn’t gay.’

  ‘She thought she wasn’t,’ said her companion.

  ‘She married twice,’ the tall woman said. ‘Men. Wore them out, one after another. The first was poor as poor, Patty said. The second had money.’

  ‘Phil,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Right. She liked her men and liked to talk about them after she had her drink.’

  ‘Pricks,’ the bartender said.

  ‘You never met them,’ said the one Patty Ruddig took in.

  ‘Never needed to.’

  Kelson looked from one woman to the next. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Like I said, nothing to tell,’ said the bartender.

  The tall woman turned back to her beer. The small woman stared silently at Kelson. The bartender went behind the bar. The small man swept the floor.

  ‘Thanks, then, I guess,’ Kelson said.

  The bartender shrugged like it was no big deal. The others didn’t bother.

  Kelson headed to the door. Then he stopped. ‘Sorry about when I first came in. I didn’t mean anything. I just – I talk.’

  ‘What you’re saying,’ the bartender said, ‘is you’re a prick.’

  ‘Sometimes, yeah.’

  She said, ‘Don’t worry about it too much. You are what you are. Just keep it zipped up if you come in here.’

  SIXTEEN

  Early that afternoon, Kelson drove south out of Chicago, hooked east into Indiana, dropped to Valparaiso, and rode US-30 the rest of the way to Fort Wayne. As he drove past stubble fields, the temperature outside the car dropped. The sky cleared and was a pale blue, as if the cold drained it of color. Kelson notched up the heat and said, ‘Snug.’

  When he reached Ellis Funeral Home, he got out and kicked his legs in the freezing air. The funeral home was in the biggest, fanciest, best-kept house in its residential neighborhood. A white Victorian with a broad front porch, it had a turret built out over the porch roof and, to the side, a partial second floor with a high, dormered attic. ‘Like a Scooby-Doo house,’ Kelson said, and he climbed the porch steps and rang the bell.

  A wide-shouldered man in an untucked teal dress shirt and black dress pants opened the door. His dark skin had a luster, as if he buffed it with a soft cloth. ‘Can I help you?’ he said. His voice went with the luster.

  ‘Comforting and consoling. I can tell you’re a professional.’

  Nothing flickered in the man’s face. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘Right. I’m hoping to find out about a funeral you handled last month – for a college kid named Josh Templeton.’

  ‘Yes,’ the man said, ‘please come in.’

  Kelson said, ‘I only want to know …’ But the man started up the hall. Kelson followed him to a small sitting room with red upholstered chairs and a stiff gold-and-white sofa. A tiny crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling and, on the far wall, white curtains covered a broad window – except where they parted in the middle, exposing the afternoon sun. ‘Great effect,’ Kelson said. ‘The bright-light-at-the-end?’

  The man gestured at a chair. ‘Please.’

  They both sat, and the man said, ‘We handled the service and burial for Mr Templeton, yes. The flowers, the casket, the cemetery arrangements. The limousine for Ms Smithson.’

  ‘Ms Smithson?’

  ‘Josh Templeton’s mother. Deneesa Smithson.’

  ‘Ah, I thought—’

  ‘I understand there was a divorce some years ago.’

  ‘Right,’ Kelson said. ‘Do you have any nervous habits?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Your face is remarkably still. No weird mannerisms – just right for the job.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Would it be possible to get Deneesa Smithson’s address?’

  The man excused himself and, after a minute, returned with a gilt-edged card on which he’d written an address.

  Kelson said, ‘When I die, you’re the man for me.’

  The funeral director showed him out.

  Kelson drove to a little single-story pink house, built shoulder to shoulder with two other little single-story pink houses. No trees grew in the front yards. No trees grew in the back or side yards. ‘The great Indiana wasteland,’ Kelson said as he pulled to the curb. The sun was lowering in the west.

  When Kelson knocked, a dog barked deep in the house, and then a woman in a yellow pantsuit opened the door. She had the same light-brown skin as her son in the online pictures Kelson had seen. But unlike Josh’s neat cornrows, her hair looked as if she’d spent the day running her fingers through it. ‘Yes?’ She lifted a hand toward her hair but stopped without touching it. The dog barked and scratched at a door in another room. ‘Is this about—?’

  ‘Your son,’ Kelson said. ‘It’s probably nothing. I feel bad for intruding …’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘Unanswered questions. Not mine. Not so much. Other people’s. Fascinating people. I tried to convince them there’s nothing here, but they insisted.’

  ‘Look, I just came in from work. My dog is frantic. I—’

  ‘Could I come in for a few minutes? I have a couple questions – then I’ll leave you alone.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what you want to know.’

  ‘Maybe it’s only one question. Was there anything strange about how Josh died?’

  ‘Anything?’ She looked as frantic as the yapping dog sounded. ‘Yeah, everything was strange. It was strange he was driving back to Chicago from Melanie’s at three in the morning. I didn’t even know he was here. It was strange a car ran him off the road when no one in their right mind would be out. It was strange he broke his leg but then stopped breathing. Nothing wasn’t strange.’

  ‘A car ran him off the road?’

  ‘Of course it did. Have you seen pictures of the wreck? Damage on both sides.’

  ‘What did the police say?’

  ‘They said Josh shouldn’t have been drinking and driving. They said he shouldn’t have been speeding. They didn’t say Josh got what he deserved, but they meant it.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was drinking – or speeding.’

  ‘Josh and Melanie shared a bottle of wine before he drove back to Chicago. A three-hour drive. He wasn’t drunk. The police say that for the car to be so badly damaged, he had to be moving fast.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Look, I spend my days with troubled boys. Josh wasn’t like them. I left my husband when Josh was fourteen. I work long hours. Josh had every opportunity to go wrong. He was by himself most of the time as a teenager. But you know what? He turned out good. He was a good kid.’ She twisted her hair in her fingers. ‘Sometimes on holidays, I brought kids home on passes from Lutheran – the ones whose parents couldn’t visit for legal reasons or chose not to—’

  ‘Lutheran?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Lutheran Center for Boys. Where I work. A place for kids who can’t be placed through the fost
er system.’ She forced a smile. ‘High risk. It’s us or the warehouse.’ The smile fell. ‘I brought them home, and Josh shared the holidays with them – he shared me, even though there was too little of me to share. That’s who he was. A smart, generous child. Not a reckless drunk. Some things you don’t get over.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘Some things you never will.’

  ‘Nothing’s worse,’ Kelson said.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘nothing.’

  In the back room, the dog stopped barking. Deneesa Smithson glanced, as if concerned by the silence. Then the dog barked again.

  ‘One other thing,’ Kelson said. ‘When Josh died, how did the hospital explain it?’

  ‘They told me it was a blood clot. Pulmonary embolism.’ She wiped her eyes again, ran her fingers through her hair. She forced another smile. ‘Honestly, I feel fortunate the ambulance took him to Clement Memorial. If Josh had a chance, he got it there. I have insurance but not enough. They kept him comfortable and operated on his leg without demanding proof he could pay.’ For a moment the smile became easy. ‘There was one nurse – he used to be a rodeo clown or something – he took care of Josh real good. I know how hard it is to treat kids in need.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kelson said, ‘they’ve got some good people at that hospital.’ Since he said it, he realized he must think it was true.

  When Deneesa Smithson closed the door and went to quiet her dog, Kelson got back in his car. Before he could pull away from the curb, a girl approached on the sidewalk. She wore white leggings, a white down coat, a white hat over her bleach-blond hair, and red mittens. Her skin was as white as— ‘Alabaster,’ Kelson said aloud.

  Kelson rolled down the window on the passenger side. As the girl turned on to the concrete path to Deneesa Smithson’s house, he called out, ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you look like alabaster?’

  She kept walking. ‘They told me never to talk to jagoffs.’

  ‘Alabaster,’ he called out.

  She was almost to the front door.

  He said, ‘You’re Melanie?’

  ‘And you’re a spooky man who talks to girls.’

  ‘Could I ask you a couple questions about Josh?’

  ‘So you like boys, not girls?’

  ‘You’re too quick for a kid.’