Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries) (2 page)

I
t’s strange how life works out, and sometimes, like today, death is even stranger. It is the ultimate equalizer, eliminating the barriers that separate the Haves from the Have-Nots, the blacks from the whites, or the young from the old. It can be feared or revered, expected or surprising, welcomed or shunned. But it cannot be avoided. It is the one thing we all have in common: some day we are going to die.

That day has arrived for the man I’m staring at and I’m not sure which part of this scenario is stranger: the fact that I’m standing in a men’s room with another woman, the fact that there is a corpse on the floor, or the fact that the woman standing beside me is alive, but looks deader than the body at our feet.

Since I live in a small town of about 11,000 souls and the odds of me knowing any one of them are pretty good, I should probably feel guilty that someone is dead since I was sort of wishing for exactly that less than an hour ago. But I don’t. God is punishing me enough as it is by making every movement feel like the bite of a Taser.

It all began with my decision to go grocery shopping. I loaded myself and my dog, Hoover, into my car, a midnight blue, slightly used hearse. Inconspicuous it is not, but it’s reliable, has relatively low mileage, and most important, it was what I could afford back when I bought it.

It’s a beautiful spring day—forty-eight degrees outside already—atypically warm and sunny for early March in Wisconsin. But then the whole winter has been kind of wonky, with warmer temperatures and much less snow than usual. Because of the warm temperature, I cracked the windows in the hearse and Hoover forwent his usual spot in the back where the smells keep him in sniffing heaven, and settled into the front passenger seat, instead.

I got out of the hearse and shut the door, leaving Hoover inside with the windows half down. I didn’t bother to lock the doors. Sorenson is a small, Midwestern town with Midwestern values, and unlocked doors on cars and even houses are fairly common. Not that we don’t have our share of crime. But I’m not too worried about my car since most people, thieves included, are reluctant to look or search around inside a hearse.

I turned to head into the grocery store and nearly got run over by a big white car that braked at the last second. Had it been going any faster, I’m sure it would have hit me, but it was moving so slow I hadn’t realized it was moving at all. The car was a large, mostly white Cadillac, circa 1980-something. One of the perks of living in a small, self-sustaining town is the low mileage on many of the cars. There are plenty of vehicles on the roads in Sorenson that are older than I am. Between the winter salt, the springtime potholes, and the summer and fall collisions with drunken tractor and combine drivers, most of the cars around here have had more body work than an aging Hollywood star.

Behind the wheel was Irene Keller, who is eighty-something years old and the owner of the Keller Funeral Home. She leaned out her side window. “Oh, Mattie! Thank goodness I caught you!”

This struck me as an odd thing for her to say considering that she doesn’t know me all that well and has never been overly friendly toward me unless she’s trying to sell me a casket. Our main connection is Bjorn, an elderly gent who taxied me around for a week or so after I wrecked my car and before I bought the hearse. Bjorn is Irene’s husband. They tied the knot almost two months ago after a very hasty courtship. Then again, when you’re both past eighty, the definition of hasty when referring to courtships is likely not what it is for the rest of us. My only other connection to Irene is Barbara, Irene’s hair and makeup artist to the dead. Barbara is also my hairdresser, and a very talented one. The fact that she works in the basement of a funeral home, makes me lie down on an embalming table, and always smells faintly of formaldehyde are minor transgressions I’ve learned to overlook in exchange for her wizardry. Seeing Irene reminded me that I was long overdue for a visit to Barbara.

“I was on my way to your house when I saw you pull out,” Irene said, wringing her arthritic, veiny hands. “I didn’t think I’d ever catch up to you. Thank goodness you pulled in here.”

I’ve seen Irene drive. She’d have trouble catching a cripple on crutches as slow as she goes. But since I suspect she can’t see all that well anymore, it’s probably just as well. She looked genuinely upset and I’m certain she would have been pale if she’d ever had any color to begin with. But she’s had skin as flimsy and transparent as one-ply toilet paper for as long as I’ve known her.

“What’s wrong, Irene?”

“It’s Bjorn,” she said, and for a second I was certain she was going to tell me he had died. But then she shocked me by saying, “I think he killed someone.”

“You think Bjorn killed someone?” I was certain I must have misheard her because the Bjorn I know can hardly figure out how to get his pants on each morning and forgets who he is each night after sundown. Then I remembered that up until a few weeks ago he was driving a cab for the local service. Had he run over someone? “Did he have an accident with the taxi?” I asked her.

“No no. He quit that job right after we got married.”

“Then why do you think he killed someone?”

Irene shook her head and the skin beneath her chin flapped like a turkey wattle. “Not here, not in public,” she says in a whispery voice. “I need to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“The biggest mess you’ll ever see.”

That was saying a lot because I’ve seen some pretty big messes in my time. A smart person would have run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. A smart person would have written Irene off as a nut job with an overactive imagination. But curiosity is my third biggest vice, right behind food and gambling, and today
smart
was taking a holiday. I was already trying to figure out how to spin this for my diary.

I got back in the hearse and followed Irene out of the parking lot and toward the east side of town at a snail’s pace. Several minutes later, she pulled into the lot of the Twilight Nursing Home and parked. I found a space near the end of a row, realizing that a hearse out front was probably less likely to attract attention here than it would in other places. I again cracked the windows and told Hoover to stay.

When we reached the main entrance, which took longer than it should have since neither of our bodies were moving very well, Irene grabbed my arm and leaned in close, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t think the staff knows yet so just pretend you’re here to see someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Pick someone. Don’t you know someone who lives here from your days working at the hospital?”

There were several someones who fit the bill, and I picked a name at random. “Okay, I’ll say I’m here to see Gladys Stumper.”

Irene had her hand on the door handle. Instead of pulling the door open, her head whipped around so fast her neck made a loud snapping sound.

I waited, wondering if her head would fall off, or if she’d fall to the ground paralyzed. Neither happened.

“Hell, no, Winston,” she sneered. “Gladys died a month ago. Had the big one during the night. They found her cold and dead in bed the next morning, the lucky bitch.”

I was a bit appalled by both the news of Gladys’s death and Irene’s comment.

“What?” Irene said, seeing my expression. “You don’t know what hell it is, getting old. Wait until you get to be my age. You develop furniture disease, your farts turn to dust, and your face starts looking like a prune, which by the way, will become one of your favorite fruits. Every time you move, your bones creak like a haunted house . . . assuming you
can
move, since your joints work about as well as a rusted hinge. If you’re lucky, you won’t end up like Bjorn, who is so senile most of the time he could hide his own Easter eggs. As if that’s not enough, you watch all your friends die these long, painful deaths and hope you’ll be one of the lucky ones, like Gladys, and go quick, painless, and in your sleep.”

Though I should have known better, I had to ask. “What is furniture disease?”

She looked at me like I had the IQ of a grape. “It’s when your chest falls into your drawers. Get ready for it, honey, because with that rack of yours, you’ll be using them as knee pads before you know it.”

I straightened up and pulled back my shoulders to prove to myself that I was a long way away from furniture disease. “Okay, how about George Cummings?” I offered. “Is he still here and kicking?”

Irene shook her head sadly. From behind us, we heard the sound of Hoover barking and Irene’s eyes lit up. “I have an idea. Go get that dog of yours and we’ll take him in like he’s one of those therapy dogs.”

“I don’t know, Irene. He’s well behaved and all, but he’s never been around a lot of people.”

Irene dismissed my concerns with a wave of her hand. “He’ll be fine. Go get him.”

Since Irene was clearly determined, I did as she said and fetched Hoover from the car. Fortunately, I carry a leash in the car at all times so I hooked him up and headed back to Irene.

“Perfect,” she said, giving Hoover a tentative pat on the head. “Now follow me and try to act like you don’t know what’s going on.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem since I don’t,” I reminded her.

We entered the facility and any semblance of normal living intended to be implied by the tasteful, homey decor and warm wall colors was immediately undermined by the faint but distinctive smell of stale urine. There was a small sitting room to our right and a door with a sign that told us it led to an administrative wing. To the left was a very long hallway with rooms on both sides, and I could see another hallway that broke off halfway down and ran to the right.

A heavyset woman with short, gray hair was sitting behind an enclosed area with a sliding glass window straight ahead of us. She was dressed in a white nurse’s uniform and a name pin on her left breast identified her as
CONNIE LANE, LPN
.

“Back already?” Connie said to Irene.

“I have a lot of friends here,” Irene said as she picked up a pen and signed her name in a logbook labeled
GUEST REGISTRY
.

“Not to mention potential customers,” Connie said with a sly laugh.

“Really, Connie?” Irene said, setting the pen down and staring at the woman with a distasteful look that made Connie cough and flush bright pink in her cheeks. “Funeral humor? In this place?”

“Sorry,” Connie muttered. She looked over at me then and said, “Sorry, but we don’t allow dogs in the facility.”

“This isn’t any old dog,” Irene said. She slid the book over to me and I signed my name on the next line. “He’s one of those therapy dogs. You know, the ones that go into hospitals and such to cheer up the patients. We set it up with Bernie like two weeks ago.”

Though I knew Irene was lying, she was good enough at it that she had me convinced. Connie still looked doubtful and she stood up and peered over the desk at Hoover, who was busy sniffing every square inch of the floor.

“I don’t know,” Connie said.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Irene said, clearly exasperated. She took out her cell phone. “I’ll call Bernie and let him tell you.”

“No no, that won’t be necessary,” Connie said, sitting back down. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Come on,” Irene said, tugging at my shirtsleeve. “Let’s go.”

We headed down the hallway to our left, past some offices, a large cafeteria-style dining room filled with empty tables, some public restrooms, an activity room, and a therapy room. At the intersection of the next hallway was a nurse’s station that wrapped around the corner of the intersection. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Irene.

“Most of the nurses are either on break or in the wing that runs off the end of the hall down there,” she said, nodding straight ahead. “That’s where the bedbound patients are, and some of them have to be fed. This wing is for the walkers and wheelers. Those are the folks that can get around on their own either on foot or with a wheelchair. There are a lot of Alzheimer’s patients and other types of senile dementia in the mix. Physically, they are in decent shape, but mentally, they require a living situation where they can be monitored more closely. You can tell which ones they are because they all have ankle alarms on, like they’re some housebound prisoner. That’s so the current administration can keep an eye on them, but still cut back on staffing.”

The rooms we passed were all set up with the same basic layout of hospital-type furniture: adjustable beds, over-bed tables, bedside cabinets, and handicapped-friendly bathrooms with plenty of grab bars. Each room also had plenty of personal items, things that belonged to the individual patients, tiny touches intended to make the room seem more like home. It didn’t work. The place reeked with the sad scent of institution.

We passed a staff break room where I saw another woman in a white uniform and two nursing assistants—identifiable by their youth, their colorful scrubs, and their ID tags—sitting around a table drinking coffees and sodas.

“After lunch is afternoon free time,” Irene said. “That’s when everyone gets herded into the TV room to watch a soap opera, or work on a jigsaw puzzle so the staff can take a break.”

We reached the end of the hallway and entered a large dayroom with two big-screen TVs—one at each end—and French doors that led to an outside garden and patio area. There were a couple dozen residents here: some in wheelchairs, some seated at one of the four circular tables in the room, and some standing around conversing.

I also saw a group of people out in the garden area. Despite the unusually warm weather, which typically will have a lot of hearty Wisconsinites running around outside with nothing more than long-sleeved shirts on, here in the land of old-age metabolisms and thin skin, the dress was a bit warmer. There was a faint haze hovering above the heads of the people outside and when I saw thin contrails of smoke circling upward, I realize they weren’t out there just to enjoy the weather; they were smoking.