Twenty-Five Years Ago Today (23 page)

The phone jingled. To her mixed relief and
disappointment, it was Holly, not the crank caller.

"Dad told me you were laid off," her sister
said. "I'm so sorry. Want to meet for lunch? You could come to the
hospital. I'll bring sandwiches up to my office."

Kris narrowed her eyes. "I don't know. Can
you get through an entire lunch without insulting my choices?"

"Look, sorry about what I said at the dinner
party. It's great that this guy you’re interested in is a teacher
and a musician. You’re right, I was being judgmental. Let's forget
about it, okay?"

Kris sighed. Her sister sounded apologetic,
and she needed to escape the confinement of her apartment. "It's
forgotten."

"How did things go that night?"

"Great. He's terrific, Holly. I've never met
anyone like him." Kris grinned. She had to admit, shocking her
sister with the love affair would be fun.

"Then let's get ready for some old-fashioned
girl talk," Holly said.

***

Kris halted in the doorway of Holly’s office.
Her mother and sister, both in white jackets, shared a small round
table in the corner. Kris hoisted an eyebrow at her sister.

"Sorry," Holly mouthed.

"There she is. Holly mentioned you were
coming, so I figured I'd join you. What's this about you getting
laid off?" Their mother poured low-fat Italian dressing over her
salad.

Kris thought about fleeing, sighed and
dropped into a chair. If she could challenge a killer, she could
certainly handle her family. "Are you sure you want to talk about
it in the hospital? Your friends and co-workers might overhear. If
they find out your daughter is unemployed, they might kick you out
of the country club."

Her mother closed her manila folder of
patient notes. "I don't appreciate your sarcasm. I was trying to be
sympathetic."

"You should taste this," Holly interrupted,
pushing a chicken sandwich and Fritos toward Kris. "It's pretty
good for cafeteria food."

Kris stared past her at their mother. "Since
when do you care about my feelings? You tramp all over them and
never ask what I'm thinking. There were things I've needed to tell
you for years, and I couldn't. You wouldn't have loved me
anymore."

Dead silence.

Her mother leaned forward, gripping the side
of the table. "What a horrible thing to say. All mothers love their
children unconditionally."

"Really? What would you say if I told you
that it was my fault Nicole was walking alone? That I played a
trick? I've been carrying that secret for fourteen years, torturing
myself, all because you live your life in denial. You run from
things, and pretend life is perfect. We've all lived by your rules,
and I'm sick of it." Kris fidgeted in her seat and tugged the front
of her jeans, her cheeks hot, but the rest of her body ice cold.
She crossed her arms over her sweatshirt.

She hadn't meant to mention Nicole. The
confession had surged to her tongue, propelled by a force from
within.

Her sister gaped, then hopped up and closed
the door to the corridor. She huddled in the corner, as if afraid
to sit back down. "What kind of trick?" Holly whispered.

Their mother paled. She pushed away her salad
and rubbed her earlobes. "Don't you think I knew there was more to
the story? You were the last person who saw Nicole alive. Aunt
Susan never forgave you for letting your cousin go off alone. She
suspected something had happened between you girls. She treated you
differently from Holly and that infuriated me. You were too
absorbed in your own world to notice. Why do you think she isn't in
our lives anymore? I didn't want you around her."

In her own pathetic way, her mother was
protecting her. That news froze Kris’s tongue, but only for a few
seconds.

"Didn't you realize that you were treating me
differently, too, and that it’s a whole lot worse when the
rejection comes from your own mother? What is it, Mom? Did you
blame me for the fall-out with Aunt Susan? For Uncle Neal moving to
Florida? I was twelve."

"I don't know what you're talking about," her
mother said. "You're the one who's rebellious and difficult."

"Difficult! My whole life has been difficult
and you haven't cared. If Holly wasn't here, acting as a barrier,
you wouldn't even be eating lunch with me."

"That's not fair. This is what I mean, I
can't even talk to you. You lash out, trying to hurt me. I
should've known this lunch would be a disaster. Now let's end this
conversation before we both say more things we don't mean." Her
mother flipped through her folder and squinted over her handwritten
notes.

Kris staggered to her feet. "I meant every
one of them. You did, too. If you want to discuss it further, let
me know. I'm through pretending."

Holly cleared her throat. "You're being hard
on Mom. You shouldn't leave without apologizing."

"I'm sorry about lots of things, Holly. This
isn't one of them." Kris elbowed past her sister and strode down
the gleaming white hall.

She stopped near a gurney at the end of the
corridor and caught her breath. After a couple minutes, she resumed
her walk to the elevator.

Her mother and sister hadn't come after
her.

What a surprise.

***

Three messages blinked from Kris's machine
when she got home. All from Irene. Kris wiped the film of tears
from her cheeks and dialed the number. Between her work and family
problems, thank God she had the Ferguson case to distract her.

"I'm so glad you're home," Irene said. "A
woman called with a tip about Diana. Will you meet her with me?
Today?"

A tip? Was it real? Kris walked a few feet
with the phone and turned at the living room end table. "Of course,
but maybe I should check it out alone, or with Eric."

"I've been waiting twenty-five years for a
call like this."

"I'll tell you everything. I promise."

"How do I know she'd talk to you and Eric?"
Irene asked. "She called me. I have to go. Diana was my
daughter."

Kris gave in. Eric would understand if she
didn't wait. It wasn't as if she were meeting Vince Rossi in a dark
alley. "Okay. I'll be right over."

"Good. I want to judge this woman for myself.
She sounded alert, but she's ... she's a patient at the Rutledge
Nursing Home."

"She's elderly?"

"Not only that," Irene said. "The Rutledge
Nursing Home is a center for Alzheimer's patients."

Chapter 21

25 Years Ago Today

The Remington Country Club celebrates its
50th anniversary, making it the oldest club in the area.

K
ris and Irene
followed a nurse's aide down a pristine white corridor. Strains of
Big Band music echoed throughout the hall.

The aide pushed a cart of ginger ale and
cookies. "The group's probably exercising. Mae gets really into
exercise."

They entered a large room decked out for
Valentine's Day. Red and white crepe paper scalloped the walls and
cardboard Cupids dangled from the ceiling. Pastel candy hearts
filled plastic bowls. Kris wondered what festivities were planned
for the actual holiday, early next week.

Elderly people sat in a circle, some in
wheelchairs, others near walkers and canes, but all squeezed the
handles of a rainbow parachute. Kris hadn't seen a parachute since
first grade gym class. She would've thought senior citizens would
find it degrading, yet most laughed as they tugged the edges,
bobbing balloons into the air.

"You can talk to Sandra, the recreation
director." The aide gestured toward a table in the corner, where a
thirtyish redhead in a blazer and skirt worked with an elderly
lady. Sandra rolled a plastic ball back and forth across her
patient's liver-spotted palm.

Chipmunk had a ball like that, a small bell
inside it. Kris hoped the patient wasn't Mae Schaffer. Fragile in
her pink and white striped nightgown, the woman stared out the
window.

"That can't be her," Irene whispered. "She
couldn't have called."

"Sandra, these people are here to see Mae,"
the aide said, wheeling the cart toward the group.

"Mae?" Sandra rose. "How nice. You're not
relatives, are you? I didn't think Mae had family besides her
brother."

"She contacted us in response to a newspaper
article," Kris said.

"Oh, no. This isn't about the murder of that
poor girl, is it?"

"Yes," Irene said quickly. "You know about
it?"

"Mae was rambling about how she'd given a
clue to the police a long time ago, but I thought it was harmless.
She tracked you down and called you? Oh, God, you must be related
to the girl."

"I'm her mother."

"You poor thing. I'm sorry Mae put you
through this. She's very stubborn."

"Then you don't think there's any truth to
her story?" Kris asked.

Sandra sighed. "I doubt it. I won't deny that
she's one of my most alert patients. She's in the early stages of
Alzheimer's, so she responds well to our recreation activities. Not
like Dorothy here."

She smiled wistfully at the woman gazing out
the window. Kris breathed a little easier. So that vacant lady
wasn’t Mae after all.

"However, Mae has a tendency to exaggerate,"
Sandra went on, "and she's been slipping in and out of reality more
often. She talks a lot about her childhood. Alzheimer's patients
find it comforting to speak of their childhood as they remember it
vividly. Their short-term memory is the first thing to go."

"In this case, it's her long-term memory
that's important, isn't it?" Kris said, for Irene's benefit. "Mae
must be alert if she reads the newspaper."

"One of our activities is current events, and
we read aloud from newspapers and magazines." Sandra glanced at
Irene. "I skipped over the story about your daughter, as we avoid
depressing topics, but Mae skimmed through the paper on her own.
When she said she knew something about the murder, I humored her,
but Mae talks about these things a lot. Her brother says Mae bugged
the police all the time, convinced her neighbors were drug dealers,
kidnappers, even ax murderers."

She shrugged. "That has nothing to do with
Alzheimer's Disease. That's just Mae."

"Can we at least meet her?" Irene asked, but
hope had drained from her face.

"Of course. I thought it was only fair to
warn you. Just a minute." Sandra approached the circle and
whispered to a birdlike woman in a wheelchair. She pushed the chair
toward Irene and Kris.

Kris recognized Mae Schaffer as one of the
patients who had laughed during the parachute game. Mae dipped a
peanut butter cookie into her ginger ale, wet crumbs sticking to
the top of her flowered housedress. Blue veins spidered down her
wrists like ink marks. She wore faded sneakers, her white anklets
revealing pale matchstick legs. She gummed the cookie like a baby
with an animal cracker.

"Mae, these people have come to see you about
that old murder," Sandra said. "I'm afraid I didn't get their
names."

"I'm Kris, and this is Irene Ferguson, the
woman you called. We'd love to hear about your tip."

Mae ogled them through thick glasses too
large for her face. Thin gray hair fuzzed her scalp like a thatch
of down. She had to be in her mid-eighties, at least. She whipped a
gnarled finger at Kris. "You look like my older sister, Betsy. She
moved to Italy when her husband was in the service. You ever been
to Italy?"

"Can't say that I have," Kris replied.

"Betsy had breast cancer. She died when she
was forty. Seems like yesterday when she told me the doctors
couldn't do anything. You have to live every day to the fullest. I
tell this nice girl that all the time." She turned to Irene. "You
smell like animal pee."

Irene stiffened. "What?"

"Doesn't bother me none, but that perfume
doesn't cover it up."

Sandra coughed. "Mae, didn't you say you knew
something about a murder? It would have been twenty-five years ago,
in Fremont. The girl was named -"

"Diana," Irene cut in.

Mae wrinkled her brow. "I didn't know her
name back then. I just recognized her from MacDougall's. She helped
me to find shampoo."

Shallow breaths whistled between Irene's
chapped lips.

"I wish I could go to MacDougall's right
now," Mae was saying. "They don't make drugstores like that
anymore. It was in Westwood Plaza. When it first opened, when I was
a girl, it had a soda fountain. Chocolate floats. You haven't lived
till you've had a MacDougall's chocolate float."

"Tell us more about Diana," Kris said. "You
mentioned to Irene that you had a tip. Did you see something
unusual?"

"The man in the parking lot. He wouldn't
leave her alone. She was crying, but he kept bothering her."

Irene trembled, her cheeks whiter than the
nursing home walls. Sandra rushed to her side and eased her into a
chair.

"What man?" Irene asked.

"It was at night," Mae said. "I had gone to
fill my prescription. Have you ever had a urinary tract infection?
They ain’t fun."

"While you were in the parking lot, you
noticed Diana with a man," Kris reminded her. "Had you ever seen
him?"

"Yeah, with the same girl. He'd bugged her by
her car before, but she was more upset this time. I went to
MacDougall's every day, you know. Even though they didn't have
chocolate floats. They really should've brought back the soda
fountain." Mae swished another cookie through her ginger ale. "You
must think I'm rude. Would you like one, dear?" She extended the
soggy cookie.

"Uh, no thanks," Kris said. "Was anyone else
around when this man was bothering Diana?"

"I don't think so. It was late. She was
getting ready to go home." Mae offered a gap-toothed grin. "I'm a
night owl, you know. When I get bored, I go out. MacDougall's is
right down the street from my house. I have the most beautiful
house. All my neighbors want to rob it."