The Ragman's Memory (28 page)

With no plan in mind, I silently crept forward. I wasn’t moved to smack a snowball against the glass, or pound on the door with my fist, like some of the others would have done in a heartbeat. Merely appearing by his side and bidding him good evening seemed good enough, since I knew the effect would be the same.

But I ended up being the one caught off guard. The reason he’d pulled up under the light, and that I’d been allowed my covert opportunity, was that Willy Kunkle was hard at work. Spread across the steering wheel, held in place by two small spring clips, was a broad, flat artist’s pad, and appearing across its surface, under Willy’s confidently held pencil, was a fanciful rendering of the scene before us—a snow-draped building, half lit by a streetlamp, huddled up against a looming black mass of hills that blended into a star-filled sky. It was beautiful—at once detailed and impressionistic, realistically capturing the night-clad nursing home, and yet endowing it with a grace and charm that escaped the clinical eye.

My astonishment was absolute. I forgot the cold, and my earlier intentions. All was wiped away by this glimpse of a curmudgeon’s heart. Hopefulness, serenity, and insight poured from his pencil as they refused to in his everyday life, and with obviously practiced ease. The clips on the steering wheel were evidence this was a long-standing habit. I had often thought he had to have an outlet to keep his inner core quiet, something he could call his own. That it turned out to be so utterly out of character made me feel at a loss.

I had never felt myself such a trespasser and now wished I had warned him of my approach, giving him time to protect his privacy. Moving twice as furtively, I tried to slip away.

But I’d lingered too long. Responding to some territorial instinct, Willy suddenly turned and caught sight of my shadow. His reaction was startling, frantic, and terrifying, leaving me rooted in place with my hands held up in instinctive surrender. He moved in a blur, slipping from my line of sight, knocking the pad from its perch, sending it sailing to the floor, and reappearing through the half-opened door, crouched behind the very wide barrel of a .357 Magnum.

“You fucking asshole,” he hissed at me through clenched teeth.

“Relax, Willy,” I said calmly, seriously.

“How long you been there?” The gun had not moved—a telling oversight.

“Just got here,” I lied. “What’re you so twitchy about?”

The gun vanished, the door swung wider, and he got out of the car, closing it behind him with his hip. “You’re no cop if you have to ask that.”

It was a typical comment—melodramatic, wrong-headed, and hurtful—which I just as typically ignored. But given my newfound knowledge—and his lingering doubts—I felt entitled to return with a veiled warning shot. “I don’t have as much to hide as you do.”

His eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

“Nothing.” I glanced toward the building and changed the subject. “It’s almost ten. I take it that’s what you were waiting for.”

When he answered, his words were no softer, but his tone had been muted several notches. My generosity, however roundabout, had been acknowledged. “I thought you said I was running this one.”

“With as much help as you can get.”

He quickly moved into a self-serving compromise. “How ’bout we split up, then? You take the bottom, I take the top.”

Sawyer had been killed on the second floor. I accepted without hesitation.

The only unlocked door at this hour was the front entrance, opening onto the lobby with the guard’s alcove off to one side. He was sitting there now and asked if he could help us. We both showed our badges, and Willy left for the stairwell.

We watched him go, the guard scratching his head. “What’s wrong with his arm? He bust it or something?”

“It’s permanently disabled—sniper bullet, years ago.”

His eyebrows shot up. “And he’s a cop?”

I didn’t bother confirming the obvious. “What’re your hours?” I asked him.

“Ten to six. I just got on… Little early tonight—had to drop off the wife. Other car’s in the shop.”

“You were on last night?”

He suddenly looked uneasy. “Yeah, but I never heard a thing and I didn’t take a nap, like that other guy said—the one who came to my house.”

I didn’t inquire who that had been. I would’ve asked the same question. “What happens when you have to pee?”

He gestured with his thumb. “It’s around the corner, but I lock the front door. It’s a deadbolt, so nobody can get in or out.”

I looked at the telltale bulge of a pack of cigarettes in the left breast pocket of his uniform shirt, and at the “Absolutely No Smoking” sign stuck to the wall behind him.

“You have a flashlight I can borrow?” I asked. Mystified, he handed over a long, black, metal brain-basher. “Be right back,” I told him and left the building. Between the front entrance and the curb was a short, well-shoveled walkway bordered by hedges on both sides. I played the light along where the bushes met the cement until I found what I was looking for—a five-inch-wide gap, leading off into the gloom. Stepping through it, I followed a narrow footpath along the wall for some twenty feet, to the far side of a darkened bay window. There, the path ended at a well-trampled four-foot-wide circle shielded from view by several tall plants. Around the edges of the circle were a dozen dead cigarette butts, all of the same brand.

I cupped my eyes with my hands and pressed my face against the window. Dimly, I could make out a room with several desks in it, with all the earmarks of a business office.

I collected one of the butts from the ground and returned to the lobby.

“Find what you were looking for?” the guard asked as I returned his flashlight.

“Yeah. Let me see your cigarettes.”

His face froze. “What?”

I tapped the counter with my fingertip. Slowly, as if hypnotized, he brought his hand to his breast pocket and removed a pack of Marlboros. He put it on the counter. I laid the butt I’d recovered next to it.

“This is a one-time question. Answer it truthfully, and the conversation stops here. Jerk me around, and you can kiss this job good-bye. Got it?”

He nodded, his eyes fixed on mine.

“When you go outside to smoke, do you lock the door behind you?”

“No,” he barely whispered.

“How often do you do this?”

“Once or twice an hour.”

I picked up the butt and handed it to him. “Thanks.”

I left him and turned right at the back of the lobby, down a wide hallway running the length of the building’s east wing. There were several glass-paneled doors on either side, crowned by decoratively lettered signs advertising each office’s function. Some twenty feet down, on the same side as the building’s front, I came to one labeled “Accounting.”

Again, I cupped my eyes and peered into the darkened room. Not only was it the same office I’d seen moments earlier, but I could easily pick out the tall plants outside the bay window, clearly outlined by the street lamps beyond. A man standing in their midst would cut a clearly distinct silhouette.

I left the east wing for its opposite number and passed through a pair of double doors leading to a section dedicated to the home’s social functions—a dining room with a locked kitchen beyond it, a well-stocked library, an exercise/game room, and—predictably occupied, probably all around the clock—the TV room.

I opened the door and peered into the darkened space. There were six people, either fully dressed or in bathrobes, sitting in sofas and armchairs, all in silent awe of a huge glowing set mounted halfway up the wall. The volume was what I’d expect for a mostly hearing aid crowd, but the door was heavy and insulated, which I assumed was true of the ceiling and walls, too—a thoughtful touch. I retreated and took the elevator upstairs.

Kunkle was in the corridor, leaning with his bad arm against the wall, looking down the length of the empty hallway.

“Got anything?” I asked him.

He tilted his head slightly. “Just getting a feel for the place—the comings and goings. Fair bit of activity for a dump like this. ’Course,” he had to add in the inevitable rejoinder, “most of them just sit there and drool.”

Down the hall, I saw Sue Pasco, now dressed in uniform whites, leave one room to cross over to another, a medicine tray in her hands.

Willy stuck out his chin in her direction. “She’s in the section where old lady Sawyer died. Most of ’em can get around, but they need their regular meds. At the far end is the hard-case unit—the veggies, the nutsos, and whatever else. What’d you find downstairs?”

“The guard’s a smoker. He takes periodic trips outside to feed his habit. He leaves the door unlocked and always goes to the same spot. Getting in is no problem—he can’t see the door from where he hangs out. And getting out is even easier—you can see him through one of the office windows.”

Willy let out a small grunt. “That’s where my money is—an outside hit. I talked to a lot of these geezers this afternoon—and the staff—and no bells went off. They all thought Sawyer was a grade-A bitch, but she wasn’t the first, and everyone knows she won’t be the last. It’s part of the routine here.”

“So why break in to kill her?”

There was a loud shout from down the hall, followed by a distant crash. Sue Pasco appeared in the hallway and then broke into a fast trot toward the double doors at the far end.

“She’s headed for the hard-case unit,” Willy muttered, running after her.

I followed, hearing more as we got closer. Ahead of us Pasco paused to open the door blocking the corridor. It hadn’t quite swung to before we reached it. On the other side, the hall was more brightly lighted, the floor uncarpeted, and the overall look more institutional. A small cluster of people stood before us, looking into a room at the source of the commotion.

Willy and I muscled our way past them to the open doorway. Inside, Sue Pasco was kneeling by a bearded man in a chair, talking to him quietly. Across the room a large muscular orderly was standing almost nose-to-nose with an old man wearing a bathrobe and pajamas.

“Bernie,” the orderly kept saying, “Rolly’s one of the good guys. You know that.”

The old man shouted past him, “Who’s the Splendid Splinter?”

Willy smirked. “Jesus Christ.”

The orderly’s voice was low and gentle. “He doesn’t know, Bernie, but he’s on our side.”

“Who’s Yehudi?” The old man shouted.

I crossed over to Sue Pasco. “What’s going on?”

She looked up, startled to see me. Rolly, her bearded patient, answered me. “That crazy bastard tried to strangle me, that’s what. Says I’m a Kraut spy, that he’s going to force it out of me.”

“Rolly,” she soothed him. “There’s hardly a mark on you. I’m sure it was some misunderstanding.”

“Yeah. Well, I want him locked up from now on. I was asleep, for Christ’s sake. There was no misunderstanding.”

“Who’s the Splendid Splinter?”

“Shut up, you crazy fuck,” Rolly bellowed, rubbing his throat.

“Tell him Ted Williams,” I suggested quietly.

Both Rolly and Sue stared at me. “Just tell him,” I repeated to Rolly.

“Ted Williams,” Rolly said halfheartedly.

“Who’s Yehudi?” was the response.

“The guy who turns off the refrigerator light after you close the door,” I murmured.

“Do it,” Sue urged Rolly.

Rolly unhappily did as he was told.

We heard some quiet discussion between Bernie and the orderly, and then they both approached us. Rolly threw his arms across his face in a dramatic defensive posture. “Get him away from me.”

But Bernie was all smiling apologies, “Rolly, Rolly. I’m real sorry, buddy. Word was out they’d broken through—more spies. They got Johnnie. They talk better English than we do. Dressed in our uniforms, know who we are and where we are. Only way to trip ’em up—ask ’em stuff only a real American knows. I had to know you were the real McCoy, see? For the rest of us.”

His left hand was extended in friendship. The right one was encased in a small cast. After some prodding, Rolly gave Bernie a halfhearted handshake before the orderly escorted the older man out of the room.

“I want him out of here,” Rolly repeated with a little less conviction.

Sue Pasco rubbed his shoulder soothingly. “Rolly. Has he ever done this to you before?”

“It only takes one time.”

“Oh, come on. Besides giving you a bad scare, what was the damage, really?”

Rolly’s outrage climbed a notch. “What’d you mean? You ever been woken up with someone trying to strangle you?”

“If we make a big deal about this, Rolly, he’ll be sent to Waterbury and maybe lose his bed here. You’ve been to Waterbury… You could even go back yourself if things got bad again, like they used to be. You don’t wish that on Bernie, do you?”

Rolly’s eyes widened at the threatening implication, and he nervously rubbed his bristly cheek. “No, I guess not. But keep him away from me, okay?”

She stood up and patted his shoulder. “You got it. We’ll leave you alone so you can get back to bed.”

Rolly nodded, lost in his own thoughts, and Sue escorted Willy and me outside. “Let’s go into the other section. It’s easier to talk there.”

We followed her beyond the corridor’s double doors. She stopped and smiled weakly. “Sorry about that.”

“What’s Bernie’s problem?” Willy asked.

She sighed. “He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia. He’s also been an alcoholic for the past fifty years and has related, permanent short-term memory loss. Bernie is a Battle of the Bulge vet—he’s shell-shocked, as they used to call it. He spent years in VA hospitals, was finally let go, managed a few decades as a classic ‘normal citizen/closet drinker,’ complete with wife and daughter, and ended up abandoned, broke, and mostly talking about a world that’s been gone for fifty years.” She looked at me gratefully. “Thanks for your help, by the way. How did you know what to say?”

“I’ve read a lot about World War Two, and what he said rang a bell. The Germans did put troops behind our lines in the Battle of the Bulge, dressed in American uniforms. And he was right—once word got out, the real American troops started inventing cultural quizzes, designed to trip up any foreigners. One American general almost got killed because he didn’t know anything about baseball. What did Bernie mean about seeing spies around here, though?”