“Yes, speed dating seems to be one of Hunny’s favorite pastimes.”
“And these Briening people. Surely you can be helpful dealing with them. You’ve dealt with extortionists before — though none 58 Richard Stevenson that I can recall who were quite as grandiose in their expectations as the Brienings.”
“I’m trying to figure out whether the Brienings’ delusional venality will be an advantage or a disadvantage. Lack of rationality is generally an obstacle in situations like this, but these people are so off the wall that I may mau-mau them and they’ll just go poof.
Anyway, I should soon get an inkling as to what I am dealing with. I’m going to drive out to Cobleskill this afternoon.”
Something somebody was saying on Meet the Press caught Timmy’s attention, and then my cell phone went off.
“Strachey.”
“Don, I need your help,” Hunny said, his voice shaky. “Can you drive over to East Greenbush? Art and I came out to Golden Gardens to see Mom. But she’s gone.”
Gone? “Hunny, do you mean that your mother has passed away?” This could solve certain problems.
“No, she’s just not here. And nobody knows where Mom went. ”
I said I’d be there in ten minutes.
“They say they’re going to have to notify the police,” Hunny said. “They’re searching the premises one more time, and if Mom doesn’t turn up they are going to have to call the sheriff ’s office.
I’m thinking maybe they shouldn’t wait. I mean, they found her wheelchair by the front door, for heaven’s sake. It sounds like she somehow just left. Got out the door and wandered away somewhere.”
“There’s a receptionist,” I pointed out. “Or isn’t she always at her desk?”
Art said, “We’ve come in here when she’s back out of sight in the office, catching some zees, or trimming her nose hairs, or whatever.”
“Mom rides around in that chair — she calls it her taxi to nowhere — but she can walk in her slow, rickety way. There was nothing to prevent her from strolling right out the door and -
CoCkeyed 59 what? Hitching a ride to almost anyplace.”
“The other doors are alarmed,” Art said, “but not the front.”
“What was she wearing when she was last seen?”
“Just her bathrobe and slippers. Mom has been meticulous about her appearance all her life. Or she was until recently. She might not have been aware that she was dressed somewhat inappropriately for appearing in public.”
I was standing and Hunny and Art were seated on a bench in the corridor outside the administrator’s office. Elderly men and women in various stages of inert disrepair were slumped in wheelchairs up and down the hallway. Some had looked up at me as I walked in, but most took no notice. The place was decorated with pretty-posy wall stencils, under the apparent assumption that none of the inmates would have found Motherwell interesting or gotten a charge out of a Munch or two. The hall we were in did not smell fetid, but the stench of disinfectant was not much of a substitute.
“I talked to Mom yesterday afternoon,” Hunny said, “and she told me how much she was looking forward to my visit. The staff here had told Mom about me winning the lottery even before I called her on Thursday, so I guess everybody here knew I was coming. And I told Mrs. Kerisiotis, the administrator, that I would donate new flat- screen TVs to all the rooms. That went over big, and I have to say, it went through my mind that Mom might get a little extra tLC as a result.”
Art said, “Hunny also offered to have the dietician sent on a long trip to Hawaii and replaced by somebody who could cook, but nobody here has said any more about that.”
“Was yesterday afternoon the last time you spoke to your mother?” I asked.
“Not long after I got home from your office.”
“And she sounded normal?”
“Normal? Well, normal for Mom in the past couple of years is not exactly what Dr. Joyce Brothers would call normal.
Sometimes she’s her good old self. Other times she forgets things and people. And she gets frustrated and mad. A couple of weeks ago one of the nurses told me that Mom had thrown her Depends at an aide and told people to stop treating her like a baby. I asked her about this, but she said she didn’t remember doing it, and we both had a good laugh over that one.”
Hunny and Art both stood up as a tiny middle-aged woman wearing a blue business suit, a pink ruffled collar and a huge brooch that looked like a sea urchin came striding up the corridor.
“That’s Mrs. Kerisiotis,” Hunny said. “When Mom went missing, she came in, even though it’s Sunday.”
I was introduced by name but not title or function, and Mrs.
Kerisiotis said to Hunny, “Did you telephone your mother early this morning, Huntington?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Your mother’s roommate, Nola Conklin, says your mom received a phone call at about a quarter of eight. Nola was half asleep and she couldn’t make out what was said. It wasn’t long after that that Rita left the room in her wheelchair. She was dressed only in her nightie and bathrobe, so of course any staff seeing her headed down the hall would have thought she was going in the direction of the lounge or the game room. Can you ask around among friends and relatives and try to find out who might have phoned her?”
“Yes, I will do that. Oh God.”
“Huntington, there is still no sign of your mother, and I think I will have to notify the sheriff ’s department. Some of our staff have even walked up and down the highway asking if any neighbors might have noticed your mum, but no one reported seeing her. I am so, so sorry this has happened. I think that Rita may have been determined to leave the building, and cleverly she took advantage of the front desk shift change at eight o’clock.
She has certainly never done such a thing before. Has she talked to you at all about wanting to leave Golden Gardens or of wanting to go to a particular place?”
CoCkeyed 61
“No,” Hunny said. “Mom has always said this place suits her. I mean, she says it’s boring and smells bad and the food is revolting and sometimes she feels like she would just as soon be rotting in a grave as rotting in a nursing home. But she says most of the staff are nice, and the heating system works fine in the winter.”
“Yes, she seems to like it here, and Rita is well-liked by both the staff and the other residents. Now, Mrs. Conklin told me your mom became agitated while watching the six o’clock news on TV yesterday evening. I know that you have been in the news, and I am wondering if she may have become upset over a report on you and your lottery prize and these Albany people who are trying to have your prize revoked. Did she not mention anything about this to you?”
Hunny looked stricken and reached for his cigarettes and then quickly put them back. “No, but she means to tell me things and then things slip her mind. She has mentioned that this happens.
So she might have seen me being maligned by those religious nut cases and she decided to give them a piece of her mind or something. That would be just like Mom.”
“Mother Rita is a cheerful lady who likes to have her bit of fun,” Art said. “But she doesn’t suffer fools, either.”
Hunny said, “I wonder if she went to find the fPAAC people and tell them off. But how would she even know who they were or where to find them? Now I’m really worried. Maybe the sheriff ’s people could look for her wherever the FPAAC idiots are.
Do they have an office, or a den, or a nest, or what? And Donald, girl, you could check out fPAAC, too, and maybe infiltrate them or keep an eye on them or something.”
“I’ll add them to my list. This afternoon I may visit the Brienings in Cobleskill. But if your Mom doesn’t turn up soon, she’ll be my first priority.”
Hunny grabbed his cigarettes and in the same motion jammed them back in his shirt pocket. “I almost forgot about the putrid Brienings. Good grief, maybe they kidnapped Mom. Called her up and lured her outside and then whisked her away!”
