own, but mostly it’s old people who come to us. We
see that everybody takes the medications their doctors
have prescribed and we keep them clean and dry, but
we’re not equipped for serious problems and we only
have one LPN on staff. The rest are aides who have had
first aid training, CPR, that sort of thing. We wouldn’t
have kept Mr. Mitchiner here except that his family was
always in and out to help with him and he had a sweet
nature. Eventually, he would have had to transfer into
a place with a higher level of care. They knew that. But
this was convenient for now. His grandson could ride
his bicycle over after school and his daughter could stop
in before or after work.”
“Who last saw him that day?” asked McLamb.
“We just don’t know,” the woman said, with exas-
peration both for the question and her lack of a defini-
tive answer. “We don’t make visitors sign in and out.
We want people to feel free to come in and sit with
their loved ones, bring them a piece of watermelon in
the summertime or some hot homemade soup in the
winter. Put pretty sheets on their bed. Bring them a
new pair of bedroom slippers. I think it makes them feel
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HARD ROW
good to know that they can pop in any time to check
up on us because we have nothing to hide. It’s just like
they were running in and out of their grandmother’s
house, you know?”
The men nodded encouragingly and Dalton said,
“Sounds like a friendly place.”
“It
son with any complaints is Miss Letty Harper. She says
our cook scrambles the eggs too dry, but that’s because
she always wants a fried egg with a runny yolk. All the
same, Ramsey’ll cook one like that for her if he’s not
too jammed up.”
She opened the folder and took out copies of the state-
ments she and her staff had given back in December.
“Mary Rowe. She’s due back any minute. She gave him
his heart pills that morning. Then Ennis Stone. That’s
his grandson. He just got his driver’s license around
Thanksgiving and he took Mr. Mitchiner out for a ride
and got him a cheeseburger for lunch. That man did
love cheeseburgers. Then Ennis brought him back here
and put him in his room for a nap. His room was down
there on the end and Ennis usually came in that end
’cause it’s closer. He could park right next to the door.
His roommate, Mr. Thomas Bell, says Mr. Mitchiner
was asleep on the bed when he came back to take a nap
