فصل 05 - بخش 06

5

Now ninety-nine per cent sure the van had been gone well before Terry Maitland arrived in Dayton with his wife and daughters on April 21st, Holly drove her Prius to the Heisman Memory Unit. It was a long, low sandstone building in the middle of at least four acres of well-kept grounds. A grove of trees separated it from Kindred Hospital, which probably owned it, operated it, and made a tidy profit thereby; it certainly didn’t look cheap. Either Peter Maitland had a large nest egg, good insurance, or both, Holly thought approvingly. There were plenty of empty guest spaces at this hour of the morning, but Holly chose one at the far end of the lot. Her Fitbit goal was 12,000 steps a day, and every little bit helped.

She paused for a minute to watch three orderlies walking three residents (one of the latter actually looked as if he might know where he was), then went inside. The lobby was high-ceilinged and pleasant, but beneath the smells of floor wax and furniture polish, Holly could detect a faint odor of pee wafting out from deeper in the building. And something else, something heavier. It would have been foolish and melodramatic to call it the smell of lost hope, but that was what it smelled like to Holly, just the same. Probably because I spent so much of my early life staring at the hole instead of the doughnut, she thought.

The sign on the main desk read ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN. The woman behind the desk (Mrs Kelly, according to the little plaque on the counter) gave Holly a welcoming smile. ‘Hello, there. How may I help?’

To this point, all was ordinary and unremarkable. Things only went off the rails when Holly asked if she could visit Peter Maitland. Mrs Kelly’s smile remained on her lips, but disappeared from her eyes. ‘Are you a member of the family?’

‘No,’ Holly said. ‘I’m a friend of the family.’

This, she told herself, was not exactly a lie. She was working for Mrs Maitland’s lawyer, after all, and the lawyer was working for Mrs Maitland, and that qualified as a kind of friendship, didn’t it, if she had been hired to clear the name of the widow’s late husband?

‘I’m afraid that won’t do,’ said Mrs Kelly. What remained of her smile was now purely perfunctory. ‘If you’re not family, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave. Mr Maitland wouldn’t know you, anyway. His condition has deteriorated this summer.’

‘Just this summer, or since Terry came to visit him in the spring?’

Now the smile was gone entirely. ‘Are you a reporter? If you are, you are required by law to tell me, and I will ask you to leave the premises at once. If you refuse, I’ll call security and have you escorted. We’ve had quite enough of your kind.’

This was interesting. It might not have anything to do with the matter she had come here to investigate, but maybe it did. The woman hadn’t gone all poopy, after all, until Holly mentioned Peter Maitland’s name. ‘I’m not a reporter.’

‘I’ll take your word for that, but if you’re not a relative, I still must ask you to leave.’

‘All right,’ Holly said. She took a step or two away from the desk, then had an idea and turned back. ‘Suppose I had Mr Maitland’s son, Terry, call and vouch for me. Would that help?’

‘I suppose,’ Mrs Kelly said. She looked grudging about it. ‘He would have to answer a few questions, though, to satisfy me that it wasn’t one of your colleagues pretending to be Mr Maitland. That might sound a trifle paranoid to you, Ms Gibney, but we have been through a lot here, a lot, and I take my responsibilities very seriously.’

‘I understand.’

‘Maybe you do and maybe you don’t, but it wouldn’t do you any good to speak to Peter, in any case. The police found that out. He’s in end-stage Alzheimer’s. If you talk to the younger Mr Maitland, he’ll tell you.’

The younger Mr Maitland won’t tell me anything, Mrs Kelly, because he’s been dead for a week. But you don’t know that, do you?

‘When was the last time the police tried to talk to Peter Maitland? I’m asking as a friend of the family.’

Mrs Kelly considered this, then said: ‘I don’t believe you, and I’m not answering your questions.’

Bill would have gotten all chummy and confidential at this point, he and Mrs Kelly might even have ended by exchanging email addresses and promising to stay in touch on Facebook, but although Holly was an excellent deductive thinker, she was still working on what her analyst called ‘people skills.’ She left, a bit disheartened but not discouraged.

This kept getting more interesting.