Sorrow Road (14 page)

“Interrupt my day? Lordy, Miss Belfa, you just
made
my day. What can I do ya for?”

“I was thinking about heading over to Thornapple Terrace this morning. To have a chat with the director. Just wanted to keep you in the loop, in case I run into anything you need to know about.”

There was silence on the line. When Black spoke again, his voice was a tick less friendly. “Really. Well, I know I don't need to tell you this, darlin', but that place is the first new business we've had starting up in this county in—hell, I don't know
how
long. Years, for sure. They employ a good number of folks. Pay a nice big tax bill, too, which is a mighty welcome development. I wouldn't want any trouble stirred up out there for no reason. Wouldn't want them to regret having located themselves in Muth County.” That was a lot for Black to say all at one time. He stopped, and took a few makeup breaths. “So I'd like a little more detail, if you don't mind sharing. Whaddaya think you might find?”

“Probably nothing. But the father of a friend of mine recently passed away there. And I've heard about two other recent deaths. I thought I'd take a look around.”

“This friend of yours. What's her father's name?”

“Harmon Strayer.”

“Strayer.” He seemed to taste the word as he repeated it. “Lady by that name died over the weekend, yes? Coming too fast down the mountain in that godawful weather on Saturday night—that was a Strayer, too, right?”

“Yes. Darlene was killed in a one-car accident.”

“Oh, Lordy. Thoughts and prayers're with you, Miss Belfa. And with the lady's family. Thoughts and prayers. Lots of 'em.”

“Thank you.” Bell let a moment pass. “In our last conversation, she asked me to look into her father's death. Just thought I'd poke around a bit, ask a few questions. Out of respect for her memory. Nothing official.”

“Forgive me, darlin'—I hate to even bring this up, but I need you to relieve my mind.” Black really did sound reluctant. “This inquiry of yours—it wouldn't happen to be a sort of unofficial payback, would it, for the parent company picking Muth County over Raythune? I mean, we won it fair and square. We made a good deal with 'em. Had the perfect spot and all.”

“Steve. Come on.” It was too outlandish even to prompt a decent amount of ire. “You know better than that.”

“I do. I do.” He sounded pleased, though, to have her denial on the record. “What's the coroner say about Harmon Strayer?”

“Pretty much what you'd expect. An old man died in his sleep. Complications from Alzheimer's caught up with him.”

Before Rhonda had ended her workday yesterday, she had faxed Bell the Muth County coroner's reports for the first two deaths. Early this morning, Rhonda stopped by the coroner's office in person to pick up the third one, the moment it was ready, and faxed that one, too. It had reached Bell before she asked Lee Ann to dial Black's office.

Natural causes. Natural causes. Natural causes.

“Those folks at the Terrace,” Black said, “are already in pretty bad shape by the time they get there. The fact that a few of 'em pass away from time to time—well, it doesn't really call for an official investigation, you know what I mean? If we jumped into action every time an old man with Alzheimer's passes away, we'd have no resources left over to handle the real crimes. Just last month, we had four gas stations held up at gunpoint. Took a boatload of cash. Robbers're still at large. That's an
actual
threat, Belfa. We're just scrambling here to keep folks safe.”

“Yes, of course. But you know what, Steve? This is the last thing I can do for my friend. She loved her father deeply. He was old and sick, and she knew that, but she was having trouble getting her head around the fact that he could just—just
go
like that, you know? After everything else he'd been through?”

“Gotcha. Makes perfect sense, honey.” Black's voice was instantly cordial again. Playing the family card had worked. In these parts, Bell knew, sentimentality was as effective as a glue trap used to catch a mouse. “I'm not at all surprised that you're honoring your poor friend's memory by granting her final request. You're that kinda woman. You help folks out.” His voice began to inch toward the lascivious, which is what usually happened at this point in any conversation with him. “Matter of fact, I've always hoped you might be willing to—well, to help
me
out a little bit, you know? I've got a few suggestions as to how that might be accomplished, if you ever find yourself feelin' lonely on one of these here cold winter nights.” He chuckled. He was a man who parlayed his age and his position into a free pass for his sexual harassment and innuendo. If ever called on it, he would claim—while an expression of outraged innocence seized his wobbly, many-chinned face—that he'd been grievously misunderstood.

The fact that he was married and had six children was just an add-on to the disgust Bell felt after most contacts, on the phone or in person, with Steve Black. But she could not show it. Alienating a fellow prosecutor would only make life harder for her; there was always a fair bit of horse-trading and deal-making and favor-granting between country prosecutors, with goodwill as the necessary emollient.

And so she had headed on out to the Terrace—not exactly with Black's blessing, but at least he'd been notified.

Bell parked her Explorer in the second row of spaces. She backed in, so that she would be facing the facility. There were only three other vehicles in the lot. They probably belonged to staffers, she thought. In this weather, the number of visitors surely suffered a precipitous downturn.

Arms squared over the steering wheel, she took a moment to appraise the exterior. The main building was a large two-story redbrick box with decorative white shutters framing the second-floor windows, apparently to give it a homey touch. There was a smaller, one-story structure off to one side, also brick. It was linked to the main building by a winding concrete path that had been shovel-cleared; the strokes were still visible in the frosty residue glittering in the muted winter sunshine. A sign indicated it was a skilled nursing and rehab adjunct to Thornapple Terrace. A third structure on the other side, much less grand, appeared to be a maintenance shed.

Overhanging the main entrance was a dark green awning that jutted out at least two car widths, with the letters
TT
in swirling white on the front. If anyone was being dropped off or picked up here, they would be protected from the elements. Indeed, protection seemed to be the real cornerstone of the place, Bell decided. The bricks rose in straight rows, the edges met in sharp points, the roof was weather-tight. Quiet calmness prevailed. It was all very tasteful, and orderly, and civilized.

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.”