Peering over the wood railing at the Du Page River, I tried to interpret Felitti’s and my conversation without too many shades of wishful thinking. I believed what I’d said to him at the end: he did know who I was. Chamfers had been in touch. That meant I really had to focus on Diamond Head.
On the other hand, I believed what he’d said about U.S. Met. He was the wrong person to ask about marketing plans. The way he phrased it made me think it was his brother Peter I should be talking to: I’m not clever enough, ask anyone. Even though his tone wasn’t especially bitter, it was the expression of someone who was used to being told about his own stupidity. Peter, after all, was the one who’d been trusted with the family business. Jason had never been invited to participate.
I should have done a search on Peter at the same time that I looked up Jason. I didn’t know much about him, but I was willing to bet he was on the U.S. Met board.
Chapter 27 - Boardinghouse Reach
I got off the Stevenson at Damen and drove up to County Hospital. My bones were aching with exhaustion. I negotiated the distance from my car to the building, and then down its endless corridors, by sheer willpower. Although it was past seven, Nelle McDowell was still at the nursing station.
“When do you go off duty, anyway?” I demanded.
She made a wry face. “We’re so shorthanded here I could work a hundred-and-sixty-hour week and it wouldn’t make a dent. You here to see the old lady? It’s good some of you neighborhood folks care enough to keep in touch. I see she’s got a son out in California and he hasn’t even bothered to send her a card.”
“Is she talking yet?”
McDowell shook her head regretfully. “She keeps calling for that dog, Bruce, I guess. I don’t know how much she understands of what anyone says to her, but we’ve given strict orders to all the shifts not to say anything about it.”
“Has either Todd or Chrissie Pichea been by? They’re the couple who got themselves named her guardians.” I was afraid their native cruelty might lead them to tell Mrs. Frizell the bad news in the hopes it would hasten her death.
“Hotshot young couple? They came by last night, kind of late, maybe ten. I was gone by then, but the night charge nurse, Sandra Milo, told me about it. Seems they were desperate for her financial papers. Title to her house or something. I guess they figured they needed it to put up as security for her medical bills or something, but they were much too rough for her in the state she’s in—shaking her shoulder, trying to make her sit up and talk to them. Sandra threw them out in pretty short order. Other than that no one’s been by but one of the neighbor ladies. I couldn’t tell you her name.”
“Hellstrom,” I supplied mechanically. “Marjorie Hellstrom.”
So Todd and Chrissie didn’t have her critical papers. I’d just assumed they were down in the Jurassic layer of the old secretary, but the Picheas could have searched the house at their leisure. If they hadn’t found the title, where was it?
“How long are you going to keep Mrs. Frizell here?” I finally asked.
“She’s not fit to be moved right now. The hip isn’t healing very fast. Ultimately she has to go to a nursing home, you know, if the guardians can find one she can afford, but that’s a ways in the future.”
She sent me down the hall to Mrs. Frizell’s cramped cubicle. The death mask of the old woman’s face was more pronounced than before, the hollows under her cheeks sunk so deep that her face looked like gray putty lightly patted over a skull. A thin stream of drool ran along the right side of her mouth. She snorted heavily as she breathed and kept tossing restlessly on the bed.
My stomach gave a convulsive twist. I was glad I hadn’t eaten since my toasted cheese sandwich six hours ago. I forced myself to kneel next to her and take her hand. Her fingers felt like a collection of brittle twigs.
“Mrs. Frizell!” I called loudly. “It’s Vic. Your neighbor, Vic. I have a dog, remember?”
Her agitated movements seemed to slow a bit. I thought she might be trying to focus on my voice. I repeated my message, placing special emphasis on “dog.” At that her eyelids did flutter slightly and she muttered, “Bruce?”
“Yes, Bruce is a wonderful dog, Mrs. Frizell. I know Bruce.”
Her parched lips curved infinitesimally upward. “Bruce,” she repeated.
I massaged her frail fingers gently between my own. It seemed a hopeless prospect, to move her from Bruce to banking, but I tried anyway. Hating myself for lying, I suggested that Bruce needed to eat, and that for that he would need money. But she couldn’t respond enough to talk about something as complicated as her decision to change banks last spring.
She did finally say, “Feed Bruce.” That was hopeful in terms of her mental state—it showed she was connecting what I was saying to the right synapses—but it didn’t help me investigate her finances. I patted her fingers one last time and stood up. To my surprise Carol Alvarado was standing behind me.