Dust to Dust (39 page)

“An unopened letter from 1957. I can’t imagine a greater treat. Judging from the date on it, it must have arrived about the time we were packing to come home from Europe. We flew home, of course, but our trunks and the furniture were sent by ship. I guess I just stuck the letter in one of the steamer trunks with my other letters. I always kept my letters together with a pretty ribbon tied around them so they wouldn’t get lost. In all the rush and confusion of packing and unpacking, I must have forgotten it was there. Travel in those days was quite a bit more involved than it is today, you know, particularly with a retinue as large as ours, and if you had an unmarried teenage girl under your arm. You would not believe those European men, their audacity.” Lillian waved her hand as if to dismiss the thought. “But in any event, that which was lost is found again. And what a surprise when we found it. Vanessa, Harte, and I had a wonderful time reading it.”

She took it out of her purse and handed the translucent blue pages to Hanks. He and Diane had to strain to read the spidery handwriting.

They arrived at the retirement home. The chauffeur pulled into a parking place near the door and stopped.

“Oh my. This is a dreary place,” said Lillian Chapman as she stepped out of the car and put a hand on Detective Hanks’ arm.

“I would hate to live here,” muttered Vanessa. “It looks so sad.”

Diane retrieved a box and a file folder from the car, then turned and looked at the building. It was a one-story sprawling structure of concrete blocks painted a pale yellow. The grass in the surrounding yard had turned brown and dry with the coming of fall. The few scraggly trees had already lost their leaves.

“I appreciate your allowing us to come, Detective,” said Lillian. “This is going to be interesting.”

“I’m hoping she will respond to someone who once knew her,” he said.

They entered the building and went into an office just to the right of the front door. A young woman with multicolored hair got up from her desk and came to the counter. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt that said I’LL TRY TO BE NICER IF YOU TRY TO BE SMARTER
.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a bright smile. She quickly scanned the five of them and gathered up several forms. “You’ll have to fill these out,” she said before Hanks could give her an answer. The woman smiled at Lillian. “This is a real nice place.”

“I’m sure,” said Lillian. “Very nice hair extensions you have, my dear. I particularly like the purple and green together.”

The young woman patted her hair. “Oh, thanks.”

Hanks showed her his badge. Diane noticed he had taken off his arm sling and left it in the car. His movements were a little stiff, but he wasn’t wincing in pain.

“We have an appointment to see Miss Gauthier,” he said.

“The police to see Miss Agnes? Well, I hope she hasn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t a bank job or anything, was it?” The young woman giggled at her joke.

“Please send them in here, Miss Jolley.”

Jolley
, thought Diane.
Her name is Jolley
. They went into the office of Ms. Christina Wanamaker, according to the name on the door.

“Please, sit down,” she said. She was a woman in her early forties. She had dyed black hair pulled back in a severe French twist. Thick eyebrows and turned-down lips. She looked around for a moment, seeing that there were more people than chairs.

“Miss Jolley,” she called, “could you bring two more chairs?”

The screeching sound of chairs being pulled across the tile floor split the air. Harte was nearest the door. She ran out to help carry them in. They sat down and Hanks made introductions as Ms. Wanamaker pulled a file out of her drawer and opened it on her desk.

“I’m hoping you know of family for Miss Gauthier,” said Ms. Wanamaker. “We, of course, have a mandate to take care of the indigent, but the economy being what it is, we would welcome it if relatives could help with the expense of her care.”

“We hope this leads to her relatives,” said Hanks. “We have reason to believe it will.”

“Do you have someone in mind?” she asked.

“We have some definite leads we are following,” said Hanks.

Ms. Wanamaker’s face brightened. “Are they in a position to help, do you think?”

“It’s possible,” said Hanks.

Diane could see he was walking a fine line between trying to keep to the truth and trying to keep Ms. Wanamaker cooperative. She referred to Maybelle as indigent. If Everett Walters was indeed her brother, he certainly could and should have been helping all these years.

“Can you tell us something about her?” asked Hanks.

“I don’t know a lot,” said Ms. Wanamaker. “As best I can determine, she’s been in the system for more than fifty years. Over that long period of time there have been many changes in care, and most of her original records were lost. What I do have has been pieced together and is very sketchy. Miss Gauthier was first institutionalized in a clinic in the early or mid-fifties. I don’t have an exact date. That facility was called the Riverside Clinic, in Rosewood. I believe there is now a museum where the clinic used to be.

Diane and Vanessa couldn’t have been more startled if someone had thrown ice water on them.

“Is that your museum?” asked Hanks.

“Yes,” said Diane. “What is currently the RiverTrail Museum building was the location of a clinic in the forties and fifties.”

So, Maybelle Agnes Gauthier had been a resident of the psychiatric clinic that used to be in the building. When renovations of the building were under way in preparation for the opening of the museum, boxes of old records were discovered in the basement and subbasement. Diane wondered whether Gauthier’s name was listed somewhere among them. She would ask her archivist to find out.

“Oh,” said Ms. Wanamaker, “you know it, then.”

Diane nodded. “Yes, we do.”

“It closed down sometime in the fifties, as I understand,” the retirement home director said.

“In 1955,” said Diane.

“Miss Gauthier was moved to a retirement home in Clarksville after that. It burned, and that’s where a lot of the files were lost. After the fire, she was in the hospital for a time, due to burns on her arm. She was not severely injured, but she was hurt badly enough that she needed care for a time. After that, she was in three other nursing and retirement homes before she came here. As I said, she has been in the system a long time.”

“When she was first institutionalized, she would have been in her early forties,” said Diane. “Do you know what she was diagnosed with?”

“We don’t have the original diagnosis, but over the years she has been diagnosed with a list of things,” said Ms. Wanamaker, picking up a piece of paper. “Everything from schizophrenia, delusional disorder, dissociative identity disorder, paranoid personality disorder, bipolar disorder, to Ganser syndrome. Personally, I don’t think anyone knew. I don’t know what symptoms she had when she was first institutionalized. Seriously, if she kept being shuffled from nursing homes to retirement homes, it couldn’t have been that severe. She has always been coherent while she has been here. In fact, she is an artist. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” said Hanks. “Painter, right?”

“She’s done some wall murals for us, even at her age. They are quite good. She’s also a very good potter.” Ms. Wanamaker pointed to a shelf behind them. “She did that.”

They all turned and looked at a ceramic pitcher formed in the shape of a beautiful girl with long curling hair. One lock of hair looped and curled, making the handle for the pitcher. The eyes were empty.

“Would you like to see her now?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Hanks, “that would be good.”

The retirement home smelled like a prison to Diane. She didn’t like it. She walked beside Hanks as Christina Wanamaker led them down a long hallway. Several wheelchairs were in the hall with elderly men and women asleep in them. No one was attending to them. Diane noticed a few visitors, but most of the residents were alone.

The walls of the facility were painted the same pale yellow as the outside of the building. The floors were a green tile. Bad elevator music was piped in from somewhere. The place was clean, but Lillian was right; it was dreary. It made Diane realize that the hardest thing in the world to be is old, poor, and alone. Time to find her inner objectivity. It wouldn’t do to break down and cry here in the hallway.

Ms. Wanamaker led them to a large sunroom. One wall was painted with tropical plants, flowers, and birds. It was the cheeriest thing Diane had seen in the place. Gauthier’s work, thought Diane, was still very good. At the far end of the room a woman, dark against the waning light, sat near a large picture window.

“Miss Gauthier,” said the retirement home director, “you have visitors.”

“Visitors,” came a rough, halting voice. “I? Visitors? I don’t believe I’ve ever had visitors before.”

They approached the woman, their shoes clicking and echoing on the tile floor. Diane set her box and folder down on a nearby table and grabbed a couple of chairs. Harte helped her. They placed them near the woman. The director adjusted the window blinds to reduce the sunlight coming through. Now there was just the ambient light from the fixtures in the room, a harsher light. Diane, Vanessa, Lillian, and Hanks sat down in a semicircle in front of the woman. Harte sat back a little behind Lillian.

Maybelle Agnes Gauthier was a lanky woman. Even at her advanced age she did not look shrunken, but large boned and tall. Her hair, fine white wisps over the crown of her head, was thin and showing a pinkish scalp. Her face was crisscrossed with lines. Her lips had all but disappeared, they were so thin and lined. She wore a pink housedress, a gray bulky sweater, leggings, and house slippers. But most noticeable about her were her eyes. Diane had never seen eyes their color. They were a dark bluish color with flecks of yellow and light blue, almost like copper ore. The eyes followed each one of them as they arranged their chairs. They had a sheen to them as they moved, as if she had had cataract surgery.

“Maybelle,” said Lillian, “it’s been a very long time. The last time I saw you was at one of Rosewood’s cotillions and we were young women dressed in white gowns and gloves.”

“Cotillion. I haven’t heard that word in a long time. Who are you? I don’t recognize you.”

“I’m Lillian Chapman. I used to be Lillian Egan.”

“Lillian Egan? I don’t remember. You say we knew each other? I didn’t know many people.”

“We did not know each other well,” said Lillian, “but our paths crossed on occasion. My father owned the railroad that ran through Rosewood.”

“I remember the railroad. I think my father probably hated your father.” She gave a throaty chuckle. “He hated a lot of people.”

“We would like to know about your life,” said Detective Hanks.

“My life? You would like to know about my life? Why?” she said.

“We think it would be interesting,” he said.

“Do you?” she said. “All of you people have come here thinking my life is interesting? Why is that?”

“You are a famous artist, for starters,” said Hanks.

Gauthier was far more clearheaded than Diane thought she would be. It frankly surprised her. She knew Lillian had a keen mind, but she came from a long line of people who aged slowly.

“And we have been digging in your backyard,” said Hanks slowly.

She looked startled, almost confused. Then she said, “Young man, I don’t have a backyard.”

“You did a long time ago,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

“A long time ago, yes. That was so very long ago. Before . . . before . . .”