Jess Lourey - October Fest

“That woman is as slick as pirate snot, isn’t she?” Mrs. Berns flipped off the TV.

“I didn’t know you watched that channel.”

“Gotta get my laughs somewhere.”

I smiled. “You never answered me from before. How’re you feeling?”

“That’s a stupid question. My face is purple, my leg is broken, and my ribs are cracked. I’m feeling like a half-eaten lobster. They tell me I get out Wednesday, though, so you better come pick me up.”

“Really? That soon?”

“Insurance doesn’t want to pay to keep an old lady around. They say the rehab facilities at the Sunset will be enough. You bring me any wine with those flowers?”

“Sorry. Doctor’s orders. You must have much better stuff here anyhow.”

She shook her head sadly. “Used to, but I don’t any longer. Got my morphine privileges revoked yesterday. Seems the hospital staff has a different definition of ‘as needed’ than I do. So tell me what you know about who killed the bobber.”

“Blogger. And first you gotta tell me why Elizabeth was in town, remember?”

“Blogger to you too.” She sighed dramatically and flattened her bedspread. “Fine. You know that it’s Conrad’s fault I was checked into a nursing home a few years back, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, that same bug has bit him again. Somebody told somebody about our wild antics at the State Fair, and it got back to him. He’s putting his foot down.”

“ Our wild antics?”

“I’m an old lady. You’re going to put all this on my shoulders?”

I rolled my eyes and got back on topic. “But that doesn’t make any sense. You’re already in a nursing home. What more can he do?”

She handed me a brochure from her nightstand. “Shady Acres Retirement Home” was emblazoned across the top. I flipped it open. It looked like a bucolic place. “I haven’t heard of this one. Where’s it at?”

“South of the Cities. And it’s a maximum security place for elderly patients with dementia. He wants me declared mentally incompetent and shipped off for my own safety. His words.”

“Noooo!”

She furrowed her brow. “He needs at least two family signatures on the commitment form, which is why Elizabeth flew up. She wanted to see firsthand if I was as loony as Conrad was saying.”

I thought back. “That’s why you were wearing granny clothes last time I saw you at the Sunset?”

“Among other things, like going to church regularly and getting a marriage license I didn’t intend to use to prove I’m stable. Told my kids I’d been dating Bernard for a year. We were going to get the license and be engaged long enough for Conrad to lose interest in me and find some other life to ruin. The plan had been working right up until the car accident. Now Elizabeth is back on the fence. She says she believes in personal freedom but doesn’t know if I’m capable of making the best decisions for myself anymore.”

“Wow.” I dropped heavily into the bedside chair. “You did a crap job raising those kids.”

“You’re telling me.”

“So what’re we going to do?”

“ I’m going to get married.”

“What?” The printouts of Bernard’s criminal past were burning through my purse. “Bernard is a dunce.”

“Exactly.” She fiddled with a gaudy glass ring on her finger. “Dumb enough to marry me and do everything I say. He’d be my legal guardian, even if my traitor children managed to declare me incompetent. Of course, if Bernard murdered the bobber, it’s all over for me. He’ll go to jail and my kids’ll ship me off to old lady prison. You’ll never see me again.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” I said, unwilling to admit how hard my heart had constricted at her words. “I’m sure there’s another way. I’ll talk to Elizabeth.”

“Do what you want as long as you do what you promised: find out who killed the man in the motel. What have you uncovered so far?”

I wrinkled my forehead. “I don’t know any more about that than I did last time I saw you.”

“Have you asked that Glokkmann if she did it? She looks like a bad sort.”

“I’ll talk to her this week.” I was stalling. I knew I should tell Mrs. Berns about Bernard, but I didn’t want to increase her stress right now. I’d have to find a different way to keep her out of the maximum security home so she wouldn’t have to marry him. How’s Freda?”

Mrs. Berns grew serious. “She’s out of ICU, but she’ll be in the hospital a little longer. You should visit her before you go. She doesn’t get many visitors. Her sister and most of her friends are too old to drive.”

“Will do,” I said. I was about to tell her I’d had flowers delivered to Freda’s room on my way up when my attention was arrested by one of the top five most annoying sounds in the world: someone saying “knock knock” rather than actually knocking.

“Anybody home?” And in peeked Tanya Ingebretson, whom I hadn’t seen since the debate, where she’d been the only local besides me. She disliked Mrs. Berns for the same reasons she hated me, so seeing her in the hospital room was puzzling.

Mrs. Berns tilted her bed so she was sitting upright. “Tanya! Thank you so much for coming. I wasn’t sure you would.”

I switched my surprise from Tanya to Mrs. Berns. I’d never heard her so polite in her life. I surreptitiously checked to make sure she wasn’t hiding a morphine drip after all.

She glared at me, but out of sight of Tanya. “Mira, you must know Tanya Ingebretson. She does so much good for Battle Lake.”

“Surely I must,” I said sarcastically, reaching my hand out to Tanya. She slipped a business card into it: “Tanya Ingebretson, Life Coach,” written in swirly girl letters.

“I’m board certified.”

“What board?” I asked. A heady dose of expensive perfume wafted up from the card.

“The Global Life Accreditation Bureau. If you ever want to take charge of your life, give me a call.” She turned her attention to Mrs. Berns. “I have to say I was surprised to receive your message. You of all people! But I suppose it makes sense because who needs more help than those who have fallen the farthest from The Light?”

I could hear the capital letters. And see them on the card I was still holding: Let Her Walk with You to The Light. “Where does one go to school to learn to be a life coach?”

She gave me a brittle smile. She was used to naysayers. “I went to the school of life, honey.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should be a life coach.”

“You can.” She didn’t sound convinced. “You have to practice for two years to be certified, not have any ethical violations, and pass a ten-point life coach multiple-choice test with a score of 70 percent or higher to be board certified.”

She said it like it wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. “Mrs. Berns, what’d you call Tanya about?”

Mrs. Berns hid the grin that had been fed by my light bickering with Tanya. “To get my life in order, of course. I’ve made many mistakes”-here Tanya nodded in profound agreement-“and it’s time for changes. I want to live in The Light.”

I rolled my eyes. I was sure that Tanya was in the picture for the same reason as Bernard Mink and the granny pants, but that didn’t make fake Mrs. Berns any easier to swallow. On an up note, however, I was glad she hadn’t put all her buns in the Bernard Mink basket. “I think I’ll visit Freda and leave you two to your business. Call me if you need anything.”

“Of course, Mira,” Mrs. Berns said, in a voice so cultured it made my ears hurt. “And I’d love to treat you to dinner at Stella’s after you drive me home from the hospital on Wednesday. Is that proposition acceptable?”