Seven years later they buried her father under that stone. By then he had forgotten he had once been a full human being.
Rene finished cleaning the headstone. “I’m doing better, Dad,” she said. “Making an effort to stay active. Even Nick is after me. ‘You’re too holed-up with your computer.’ ‘You have to end this self-exile,’ he says. ‘Meet a nice guy.’ Well, I’m going to a party tomorrow. Should be some interesting people there besides Nick.”
Birds fluttered overhead and changed direction with a flick. She watched them swirl around and return overhead, then blow away toward the west.
“Remember the time we went fishing off the pier at Scusset Beach? Caught a striper the size of my leg. Missed being a keeper by two inches, but you let me bring it home and scale it. You said they looked like quarters flying off it. Always had a way with words.” She touched the stone.
“I miss you, Dad.”
9
RENE ARRIVED AT BROADVIEW AROUND NINE the next morning. The receptionist told her the old 3-2-1 security code had been replaced by 63082, which struck her as excessive given that the ward was for dementia patients, most of whom were bereft of short-term memory. She tapped the code on the keypad and the door to the AD unit clicked open. She passed through and the door closed and locked behind her as it was supposed to. Just as she started down the hall, her attention was arrested by something above her head—the ceiling security camera.
Even though it was Sunday, Alice was in her office. “Her records aren’t back, if that’s what you’re wondering. The police still have them. Sorry.” She looked away and began shuffling papers.
“Okay. Then maybe you can call me when they’re back,” she said, wondering why Alice was acting as if Rene were a giant botulism spore.
“No problem,” Alice said without looking up.
“Oh, one more thing,” Rene said, as Alice started away. “The patient census you gave me? There are forty- two names and forty-six patients on the ward.”
Alice looked at her blankly.
“Mary Curley, Louis Martinetti, Anthony Marsden, and Gloria Breed. According to my records, none of these people are residents.”
Alice gathered her things. “Well, they’re under Dr. Carr’s care.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you should speak to him.” She began to move away from the desk.
“But you’re head nurse on the unit.”
“And Dr. Carr is head physician,” she snapped.
She tried to get away, but Rene stopped her, “Alice, are you telling me there are patients here whose medical records I don’t have access to?”
Alice took a deep breath, puffing up like a bird in defense. “Really, I have to go.”
“Sure, but maybe you can tell me about the security cameras.”
“What security cameras?” Alice’s voice skipped an octave.
“Outside the unit doors. Has anybody checked them?”
“Checked them?”
“To see who might have let Clara out of the ward?”
“Let her out? Nobody let her out.” Again she tried to get away.
But Rene took her arm. “Alice, I don’t know what’s going on here, but let me just say that if word got out to the state and federal regulatory boards that there are irregularities in the medical records of a patient arrested for murder, that there are more patients on the ward than listed, that critical pharmaceutical documentation is missing or locked away—there are going to be questions about patient neglect and patient abuse, and we could see a SWAT team of regulators come down on us like banshees demanding to know what other irregularities Broadview is up to, raising questions about patient security and wondering all sorts of things about the nursing staff and criminal negligence or, worse—that somebody here let Clara Devine out of the home, intent on murder. And since I’m professionally responsible for reporting irregularities in patients’ status, my job is on the line. So maybe somebody should tell me what’s going on or I’m calling the state.”
Alice stared at Rene for a long moment, her face rippling with expressions under the glare of Rene’s threat. Finally she sighed, and her body deflated like a balloon. She glanced down the hall to an aide. “Bonnie, I’ll be right back.” Then she nodded Rene inside a small back office and locked the door behind them. “They’ll probably have my head, but I’m sure you’ll find out anyway.”
“Find out what?”
“You know nothing about this,” she whispered, her eyes full of pleading.
The axes of the room felt as if they had shifted a few degrees. Rene nodded. “Okay.”
Alice unlocked a desk drawer and removed a videocassette. On a table behind them was a television monitor and VCR where they often viewed patient behavior or educational videos. Alice popped in the video, and after some flickering the screen filled with a grainy black-and-white ceiling shot of the unit’s security door from maybe ten feet back. For several seconds nothing moved, as if they were looking at a still. Then a figure appeared in the jerky time-lapsed motion of security cameras. Clara Devine.
She was alone and carrying a shopping bag. She looked about her, then, unbelievably, she went to the wall and with a finger she tapped the keypad and pushed her way through the door, which closed behind her. It happened so fast that Rene just said, “What?”
“Yeah, I know. She let herself out.”
Rene felt a flash of gooseflesh across her back. What she was seeing could not be—like witnessing a dog suddenly speaking English or seeing someone levitate. Dogs don’t talk, and Alzheimer’s patients don’t recover their short-term memory. The disease, like gravity, was a downward, persistent force.
“I don’t believe this.” Rene’s mind raced for a rational explanation: Clara had been misdiagnosed all along. She had faked her dementia. It was somebody else. None of the above.
“There’s more,” Alice said, her voice grim. She hit a few buttons and the tape switched to another venue. The main entrance outside. Again a shadowy figure, but with Clara’s face and body, and this time she was dressed in a rain poncho pulled over her head.
“We think she changed in the elevator and slipped by the front desk. It was raining out.”
On rare occasions, a patient managed to elope from a nursing home, usually because of understaffing. Two winters ago a man wandered outside and froze to death. As a result, Broadview had installed an elaborate security system. But no Alzheimer’s patient was capable of figuring out a pass code or remembering it even if she had heard it from one of the staffers. Nor were any of them capable of long-range planning of a disguise on a rainy night.
“My guess is she must have watched one of us use the keypad, and she memorized the combo.”
“Alice, she has middle-stage Alzheimer’s. She’s not capable of memorizing anything longer than a second, and you know that.”
Alice didn’t respond.
“Do the police know about this?”
“No. They never asked. Their job was to solve a murder. Broadview’s security is Broadview’s problem and not a police matter.”
“If they ask?”
“The system was down, the cameras weren’t working. Not my area.” Alice popped out the cassette and locked it in the drawer again. Then she got up and put her hand on the doorknob to leave.
“Alice, what the hell’s going on up here?”
“I think you’d better ask Dr. Carr. He’ll be in tomorrow.” And she hustled away.
10
MORNINGSIDE MANOR WAS A RED BRICK, three-story nursing home nestled among birches and evergreens
