Stuart Kaminsky - Denial

I told her and she checked the list on her clipboard.

“Don’t see your name here. They expecting you, the Churches?”

“Tell them I’m from Seaside.”

“Check,” she said, moving back into the shack and picking up the phone. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but she was back out again in a few seconds.

“You know how to get there?” she asked.

I said I didn’t so she gave me directions to 4851 Tangerine Drive Circle. The gate went up and I passed Tangerine Drive, Tangerine Parkway, Tangerine Drive Street, Tangerine Drive Avenue and made a right turn onto Tangerine Drive Circle.

The house was small with a finely manicured lawn of something that resembled but wasn’t grass. There were no cars in the driveway so I pulled in and walked up the narrow brick path to the front door, which opened before I could push the button.

An old woman in a flowery dress and a necklace of colorful beads stood before me. Her hair was white, neatly frizzled, her skin unblemished but slightly wrinkled.

“Ellen Gallagher?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“You were at Seaside Assisted Living?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you left?”

“Who are you?”

“Miles Archer,” I said. “Assisted Living Quality of Care Office.”

She pursed her lips, thought for a moment and said, “Let’s see. The food is mediocre. The conversation inane. The staff patronizing. The lure of twice-a-week bingo resistible. The complaints of my fellow inmates repetitious. I doubt if I was much better but I didn’t have to listen to me. Reasons enough?”

“Why now? I mean, why did you pick that day to leave?”

“Because my grandson and his wife invited me, as my own children had not,” she said. “They just moved here from Buffalo. Want a sandwich? Some coffee? My grandson and his wife are at work.”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Foggy,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I was a high school English teacher for more years than you’ve been on earth,” she said. “Now I have the run of the house, my own television with cable.”

“That’s great.”

“I told you that because I thought I was beginning to see the I-feel-sorry-for-the-old-lady look on your face.”

“No,” I said. “I always look like this.”

“Any more questions?”

“No,” I said.

“Then have a foggy day. I’ve got an Ann Rule book I want to get back to.”

She closed the door. I turned and took a few steps. The door opened behind me.

“Here,” she said. “Take this.”

She handed me a very large chocolate chip cookie and went back into the house, closing the door.

I ate the cookie as I drove east on University to 1-75 and then went south, getting off about ten minutes later at the first exit to Venice. The new address of Mark Anthony Katz, the second name on my list, was a low-rise apartment complex in Osprey, which was still under construction; piles of dirt dotted the landscape. There was no gate. There were no guards. There were plenty of trucks rumbling in and out.

Mark Anthony Katz’s name was on Apartment 4, Building 2, first floor. I knocked. The building smelled like fresh wood and concrete. I knocked again and was about to give up when the door opened.

A lean old man with a wisp of hair on his speckled head stood in front of me. He wore a long-sleeved orange cardigan buttoned to the neck and held on to a walker. Across the walker was a bumper sticker that read: I CAN’T REMEMBER SHIT!

“Mr. Katz?”

“No soliciting,” he said. “You see the signs?”

“I’m not selling anything,” I said.

“Not insurance?”

“No,” I said.

“Cemetery plots, subscriptions to Things to Do When You’re Nearing Death magazine?”

“No.”

“You don’t want me to sign some petition to save the manatees, whales, seals or sea grass?”

“No,” I said.

“I miss anything?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“So what the hell do you want? And who the hell are you?”

“Archie Goodwin, Consumer Advocates for the Retired,” I said.

“Bullshit,” he said. “I watch Nero Wolfe on television. I can’t remember shit, but I do remember names.”

“My mother was a Wolfe fan,” I said. “Father’s name was George Goodwin.”

He regarded me with prune-faced distrust.

“I want to know why you left Seaside.”

“Why? You want to talk me into going to the Assisted Living Home for Retired Housepainters or to join Geriatrics Anonymous?”

“Can I come in?”

“No,” he said. “No offense. I just don’t want you knocking me down, stealing whatever I’ve got and leaving me to crawl to the phone.”

“Fine. Why did you leave Seaside?”

“Don’t need it. Drove me nuts. I don’t like people much. Winn-Dixie’s right over there.” He pointed. “I can take a taxi anywhere I want to go, including the movies at…”

“Sarasota Square,” I supplied.

“Right. I can’t remember shit.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s written on your walker.”

“It’s been a nice visit, Goodwin,” he said and closed the door.

I checked him off my list, got in the Saturn and headed toward escapee number three. Her address was on Orchid, the east side of 41 where the houses were smaller, the costs were lower and the lawns not all kept neat and trim.

Finding the house was easy. It was a one-story white frame that needed a coat of paint. I parked on the street. Next to the house was a weed-filled lot with a sign on a stick saying the lot was for sale.

The woman who opened the door was big, probably about fifty. She was built like an SUV and wearing a business suit. She looked like she was on the way out or had just come in.

“Yes?” she said.

“I’m looking for Vivian Pastor,” I said.

“Why?”

“Just have a few questions.”

“About?”

“Why she left Seaside,” I said. “I’m with the Florida Assisted Living and Nursing Home Board of Review. It’s routine. Is she here?”

“Yes.”

The woman blocked the door.

“Can I talk to her?”

“You can, but I don’t think you’ll get your answer from her,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you need to know, but it will have to be reasonably fast. I’ve got to get to work.”

“I’d like to talk to Ms. Pastor,” I said. “Actually, I have to. Board rules.”

She looked at her watch, sighed and said, “Come in. Vivian is my mother-in-law. I didn’t think they were taking proper care of her. I’m Alberta Pastor.”

She held out her hand. I took it. She had a grip that could crack walnuts.

“My name is Lew Fonesca.”

I followed her into the small dark living room filled with a 1950s padded couch and two matching chairs with indentations where people had plopped for decades. There wasn’t much light coming through the windows, whose curtains were closed, and the single standing lamp in the corner was vainly trying to hold back the darkness with a sixty-watt bulb.

“I promised my husband, David, God rest his soul, that I’d take care of his mother.”

She opened a door and we stepped into a small dining room with a round wooden table for four. At the table sat a very small old woman with bent shoulders and large glasses that made her eyes look enormous. She was wearing flannel pajamas with red and blue stripes against a white background. In her hand she held an advertising insert.

“Mother,” Alberta Pastor said. “This man wants to ask you a few questions about Seaside.”

“See what?” the old woman said, bewildered.

“The place I got you out of,” the younger woman said patiently. “Where you were living. Remember?”