Heather says, “But …”
Mrs. Ambler looks her straight in the eye. “But what, Heather?”
Heather blinks at her a minute, but what can she do? Finally she says, “Nothing, Mrs. Ambler,” and switches slips. And when she looks over her shoulder at me, I give her that little smile again and tuck Rudy’s name in my folder.
Now, to tell you the truth, I had no idea what I was doing. But all day long I found myself going out of my way to follow Heather. Instead of avoiding her like I usually do, I’d run clear around buildings so I could walk behind her. And when she’d notice me, I’d just stare at her like I was going to get her.
By the end of the day, she was checking over her shoulder for me, walking faster and faster between classes, looking really unhappy.
Me, I was feeling like a bumblebee at a barbecue.
On my way home, I was so busy thinking about how amazing it was that what I’d done had freaked Heather out so much that I was a block past Landview Elementary before I remembered I was supposed to pick up Elyssa.
I ran back and found her sitting on the top step, waiting. And when she saw me coming, she grabbed her papers and lunchbox and came charging toward me, calling, “Sammy!”
I laughed and put out my hand, and the whole way to the nursing home she talked about the class hamster, Snowball, and how this kid Shane had emptied the pencil sharpener into his cage and turned him all black. It seemed like in no time we were there, looking for Mrs. Keltner.
Elyssa tugged me past the reception desk and down the hall, saying, “C’mon! She’s probably down here.”
Now, I’d never been in a nursing home before, and really, I’d never given much thought to what they were like. But the minute we turned down the hall, it hit me that I didn’t like the place. Not at all. And it wasn’t because the walls were green or the plastic flowers were faded. It wasn’t even the woman in the hallway with tubes in her arms yelling” at a cart of bedpans. It was the smell. Like antiseptic and chlorine sprayed over with lilacs.
I followed Elyssa down the hall, but I wasn’t keeping up. Every time we passed an open room I had to stop and stare. I tried not to, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Some of the patients were napping; some were staring out a window. Some of them were fat; some of them were skin over bones. But all of them looked kind of gray—like they hadn’t actually felt the sun in years.
All of a sudden I wanted out of there. Fast. But Elyssa called, “C’mon, Sammy, she’s right down here!” so I kept following her. And my brain was telling me, Hurry up so you can say good-bye and get out of here! but my eyes kept slowing me down, looking in the rooms.
And that’s when I saw her.
At first I didn’t believe it. I just stopped and stood in the hallway for a minute telling myself, Nah … it can’t be! but then I took two steps back and looked in the room again. Sure enough, there she was, half asleep, with a little stream of drool running down her cheek—Mrs. Graybill.
Her hair was matted, as usual, but her mouth wasn’t smeared with lipstick and her eyes weren’t on fire like they usually are when she sees me. They were just dull. I whispered, “Mrs. Graybill?” because I still wasn’t really sure.
She licked her lips and blinked at me once, and then she closed her eyes. “Sammy.”
I just stood there, staring.
Finally her eyes opened again, and for the first time since I met her she smiled at me. “It’s nice of you to visit.”
I felt like I was having a very strange dream. I took a step inside and whispered, “What are you doing here? I thought you broke your arm.”
She pulled her cast from beneath the sheets and grumbled, “Doctors.”
I took another step and said, “But I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
Just then Mrs. Keltner walked in. She straightened Mrs. Graybill’s covers and poured her some water. “Well, Daisy, look at this. It seems you do know somebody in town.”
Mrs. Graybill sighed and said, “Just leave me be, would you?”
Mrs. Keltner patted her hand, then whispered to me, “It worked out well with Elyssa?”
I nodded.
“See me before you go, okay?”
She left, and I looked back at Mrs. Graybill. “Grams called over at the hospital trying to find out how you were doing. They wouldn’t tell her anything because she’s not family.”
Mrs. Graybill nodded. “Well, that was nice of her.”
“She’ll be glad to know you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you?”
She shrugged and sort of nodded, and then just looked at me.
I looked back, not knowing what to say. And it’s funny, for all the trouble Mrs. Graybill has caused me you’d think I’d be glad she was stuck in a nursing home breathing in sterile lilacs, but I wasn’t. Finally I asked, “Do you want Grams to pick up your mail or water your plants or something?”
Mrs. Graybill closed her eyes and shook her head. And after a couple of minutes of watching her lie there, I whispered, “Well, I’d better be going.…”
An eye opened and she gave me half a smile. “Don’t want to worry that grandmother of yours?”
I just toed the linoleum with my high-top, and when I turned to leave she said, “Oh, Samantha? There is something. Would you mind bringing me my robe sometime? These gowns are so scratchy.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
She sat up and pulled her apartment key off a ring and handed it to me. “It’s hanging in the bathroom.”
I took the key and asked, “Do you want anything else? Your slippers? Your lipstick?”
She pulled the sheets up around her. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, and rolled over.
I tiptoed out and practically tripped on Elyssa sitting on the floor around the corner. She stood up and said, “How do you know her?”
“She’s my grandmother’s neighbor.”
“Oh.”
Just then Mrs. Keltner came up, so I asked, “Why is Mrs. Graybill here?”
She cleared her throat a bit and said, “She isn’t well, dear.”
“But what’s wrong with her?”
Mrs. Keltner let out a little sigh. “Sometimes when people get older they need a little help caring for themselves. That’s why she’s here, and that’s why we’re here.”
“But …”
She eyed Elyssa like maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this anymore, and then said, “Thanks again for bringing Elyssa over.” She stuffed some money in my pocket. “I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
Now, it’s not that I didn’t need the money. I didn’t want the money. I took it out of my pocket and stuffed it right back in her nurse shirt. “See you tomorrow,” I said, then called to Elyssa, “Don’t let Shane put any paint in Snowball’s water dish!”
She giggled. “I won’t!”
I was on my way outside when Mrs. Keltner called after me, “Sammy! I almost forgot to ask you …” She came hurrying toward me. “You were on the dog float—do you by chance have any idea who threw those cats into the parade?”
“Um … I don’t know, maybe.”
She looked over both shoulders like she was afraid someone would hear. “If you do, you need to tell Officer Borsch.”
“Why?”
“Gil is a very proud man, and I’m afraid they’ve been roasting him down at the station. There’s this one fellow down there that I know from the time my husband was on the force. Andy’s a real instigator, and he takes things too far. Apparently he had a huge poster made of Gil falling off the horse and hung it up in the ready room, and he brought in a cake that said ‘Giddy-up!’—childish stuff like that.”
I had to look away to keep from busting up. I wanted to say, Giddy-up! and fall down laughing, but instead I bit the inside of my cheeks and got busy toeing at the ground.
“I think Gil would feel a lot better if he could produce the people who threw the cats. He’s got a lead that they were a group of girls about your age—have you heard anything???
?
I almost just said no. I mean, Officer Borsch is someone I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. At least that’s what I’d always thought. But here I was, able to do just that, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure. Finally I looked up at her and said, “I’ll see what I can find out.”
She smiled and said, “Oh, that would be wonderful!”
I hurried outside and stood there for a minute taking in deep breaths, trying to flush the lilacs out of my nose. A picture of Heather sweating under Officer Borsch’s light-bulb went dancing through my brain, and it left a strange taste in my mouth. Like eating lima beans and licorice.
I shook off the thought and told myself to get going. I had lots of work to do and not much time. I took out the notes I’d made at the Landvogt mansion, then ran across Main Street to a gas station. On the posted map I found Braxton Way—it was a cul-de-sac a few blocks east of College Street, about half a mile away.
So off I went to visit Paula Nook and her hairless mutt, Ribs. And I guess I was so busy thinking about what I was going to say if she answered the door that I wasn’t really noticing the scenery—or the pickup truck parked in front of Paula’s home. Not until the dog inside the cab about broke his nose trying to charge through the window to get me, that is.
I jumped and ran, and as I looked over my shoulder it hit me—there was only one dog in the whole world that looked like that. I went back to the cab, and sure enough, it was Hero. For a minute I thought I was at the wrong place—that maybe I’d mixed up addresses. I put some distance between me and the truck and checked my notes. Hero belonged to Lance Gigoni on Elizabeth Street, not on Braxton Way. So what, I wondered, were he and Lance doing at Paula’s?
I put my notes away and went up the walk to her house, thinking that the best way to find out was to just dive in and see. I stood at the front door for a minute, wondering if I should risk electrocution by ringing or knock through the rip in the screen. I decided to knock.
I could hear country music playing inside, and I wasn’t real sure if anyone had heard my knock, so I did it again, only this time I pounded.
All of a sudden the music stopped. For a little while I heard footsteps shuffling back and forth inside, then the peephole flipped open and a great big blue eye said, “Yeah?”
“Ms. Nook?”
The eye blinked. “What do you want?”
I felt like telling her she’d won tickets to the rodeo so she’d at least open the door. “I … um … I need to ask you some questions.”
The eye just stared. “About?”
“About the Christmas parade.” I felt like I was talking to a wooden Cyclops.
“I got nothin’ to say,” she said, and slammed the peephole closed.
I stood there for a minute staring at the rip in the screen, thinking. Finally I got off the porch and walked around to the garage. I put my ear up to the door and listened, but I didn’t hear any tortured dogs whining inside. I whispered, “Marique! Here, girl!” and then peeked over the backyard fence and did the same thing.
Now, the backyard was like a little corner of the city dump, and I was so amazed by all the junk that was piled up that I must have stared at it longer than I thought, because all of a sudden I’m being attacked. By Hero.
I scramble up the fence the best I can, and for a minute he just stands there, barking at me. Then he tries to figure out some way to lift his leg on me. So there I am, hanging onto a fence post for dear life, while he’s dancing around, squirting away, trying to nail me with pee, when his master comes up and says, “That ought to teach you to go snooping around where you’re not wanted.” He whistles and calls, “C’mon, boy!” and then shuffles off in his dirty cowboy boots and jeans. Hero chases after him, whipping his little red rat around behind him, but I didn’t let myself off the fence until I heard them grinding gears down the street.
Now, there was no way I was going to go knocking on the door again. I mean, maybe she only showed her one eye, but Paula Nook’s got a shotgun behind her door, you just know it. And the last thing I wanted was to see it aiming at me through that peephole—that blue eye of hers was bad enough.
I decided to give up on Paula and Ribs, and I obviously wasn’t going to get far with Lance and Hero either, so I headed out to Carriage Court to see if maybe Nora Hallenback and Fiji knew anything. But the closer I got to the Hallenbacks’, the more useless going there seemed. What could she possibly know about Marique? And why would she even care about helping me?
All of a sudden I felt really panicky—like I was running through a swamp with a mama crocodile at my heels, and everywhere I turned, another set of jaws opened up to bite me.
NINE
There were no pickup trucks parked on Carriage Court. No broken screen doors, either. And when I found Nora Hallenback’s house, I didn’t have to go sniffing around the garage door—it was wide open.
There was a white Mercedes-Benz parked inside, and a lady with puffy red hair was going back and forth between the house and the car, unloading flower arrangements.
I walked partway up the driveway and called, “Mrs. Hallenback?”
She turned and said, “Yes?”
I stepped into the garage. “My name’s Samantha and I’m writing an essay for my English class about the dogs in this year’s calendar …”
“Really?”
I crossed my fingers and nodded. “And I was hoping I could interview you about Fiji.”
She handed me a flower arrangement, then dived behind the driver’s seat for another. When she came up, she gave me a little squint and asked, “Aren’t you the one that was on the float with Marique?”
I nodded.
“What a mess, huh?” She closed the car door, then headed inside the house. “I entered Fiji on a lark. It was a first, and it will definitely be a last.”
I followed her. “Why’s that?”
“Those people are insane!” She looked at me. “Well, okay, not all of them. But a lot of them act like their child has been chosen as the next Gerber baby.”
I put my arrangement on the counter next to the others. “Yeah. Mrs. Landvogt seems like that.”
She laughed. “Lilia! What a perfect example. And she has a child. A beautiful young lady. You’d think she’d channel her energies into promoting Tina instead of that prissy little dog of hers.” She took out a spray bottle and began squirting the arrangements. “I’m sorry. Franklin’s right. I tend to run off at the mouth when I shouldn’t.” She looked at me and smiled. “After all, you’re the one who showed Marique. I was just under the impression that you got shanghaied into that. Am I wrong?”
I laughed and said, “No, that’s exactly what happened.”
She seemed relieved. “Well, good. My intuition is usually right; it’s my execution that’s sometimes lacking.”
“What do you mean?”
She got back to spraying tiger lilies. “Sometimes I really put my foot in my mouth.”
I laughed and said, “Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me! I do that all the time. Besides, Mrs. Landvogt isn’t exactly easy to like.”
She glanced at me. “You do know her, then?”
I nodded. “I’ve been to her house. She’s kind of scary.”
“That she is. Very intimidating.” She laughed and said, “You’re a brave young lady to have gone over there.”
I shrugged. “She seems to know everything about everybody.”
“Oh?” She stopped spraying. “Such as?”
“Not gossip,” I said, looking up at her. “More like facts.”
She walked an arrangement over to the dining room table and turned it a few times, finding the best angle. Her mouth twitched into a smile as she asked, “And what did Lilia have to say about me?”
My heart was busy doing a war dance, but I tried not to let it show. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m going to put it in my report or anything.”
She came a few steps closer. “Put what in your report?”
; I toed at the tile floor with my high-top. “Look, maybe I could just ask you some questions about Fiji? Where is she, anyway?”
“Outside.” She put her hands on her hips and said, “First I’d like to know what Lilia said.”
“Really, Mrs. Hallenback, it doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me!”
I toed the floor some more, then mumbled, “She says you can’t balance a checkbook. That you’re allergic to nuts and smoke on the sly to keep your weight down. That you do a lot of charity work”—I looked up at her—“and that you’ve had three miscarriages.”
Nora’s eyes popped open and she gasped, “She told you that?”
I scuffed at the floor and mumbled really fast, “She also said that you should’ve married an obstetrician instead of a psychiatrist—that it would’ve done you more good.”
“What?” She stared at me a minute with her mouth hanging open, then slammed a flower arrangement onto the mantel over the fireplace. She took another and slammed it on an end table.
“I … I’m sorry, Mrs. Hallenback. Like I said, it’s not like something I would put in my report.”
She spun around. “The nerve of that woman! And after all I’ve done for her!”
“After what you’ve done for her?”
Her hands flew onto her hips. “Fifteen years ago when she came into town, Lilia Landvogt was a nobody with a five-year-old daughter and a pocket full of life insurance money. I hooked her up with a friend of Franklin’s who helped her invest her money. She made an absolute killing on some stocks she bought, and now she’s in that mansion on East Jasmine acting like the queen. Besides connecting her with Franklin’s broker, I’m the one who assimilated her into society. Do you know how many times I’ve had that woman over for a dinner party? Do you know how many functions she’s been invited to because I suggested we include her on the list? She would be nowhere in this town if it weren’t for me!” She whipped a towel over the kitchen counter. “Well, that does it.”
“Pardon me?”
Flames about shot from her eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, Lilia Landvogt can sit in that gaudy mansion and rot.” She started flipping through an address book, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sure this is not what you wanted for your report. Why don’t you come back some other time. Right now I’ve got some phone calls to make.” She turned her back on me and started punching in numbers, so I just let myself out the garage door.