“Is that why he was hospitalized?” Judith asked, remembering Vito’s medical notes including the letter C.
For cocaine, apparently.
“That’s right,” Angela said with a bitter note. “It
scared him, so he went into rehab. He’s been clean ever
since. Lucky him.”
“Not so lucky since he’s dead,” Judith remarked.
“You say he’d been an addict for years?”
“Yes.” Angela looked bitter. “Some people can
function forever on coke. Bruno thought so. I did, too.
Maybe I still do. As Bruno told me, coke can enhance
the creative process. He truly believed it did for him.”
Maybe, Judith thought, that explained The Gasman
disaster. “It’s more like Russian roulette,” she asserted.
“Eventually, you’re going to reach the chamber that
takes you out.”
“Sure, sure. Easy for you to say.” Angela made a
face at her.
“So who got Bruno hooked?” Judith inquired.
Angela shook her head. “You’re not going to get me
to tell you about that.”
“But Bruno’s dead,” Judith said as she heard the
faint sound of the doorknob turning. A nurse no doubt,
coming to take the endless vital signs. “What difference does it make?”
“Because the person who got him started is still
alive,” Angela said. “And if you ask me, very dangerous. You don’t want to know.”
But Judith did want to know. Despite the odds, even
the risks, she had to know.
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Yet she could get nothing more out of Angela. And
to be fair, the young woman seemed not only agitated,
but tired. Judith was heading out of the room when another click sounded at the door. She waited for the person in the corridor to come in.
But no one did, and when she turned the knob she
discovered that the door was firmly shut.
SEVENTEEN
SLOWLY, SHE OPENED the door and peered into the
hallway. A pair of orderlies had their heads together
by the elevators. Wanda was sitting at the reception
desk. A doctor in scrubs was talking to a nurse at the
far end of the corridor. None of them seemed interested in Room 704.
But someone was. As she’d turned the knob to
open the door a few inches, she’d heard footsteps
close by. Not the soft, almost noiseless tread of
shoes worn by members of the medical profession,
but high heels. Tap-tap-tap. They’d stopped
abruptly just as Judith had looked into the corridor.
The door on the right of Angela’s room was open.
Moving as silently as possible, Judith looked inside. It
was dark, but she could tell that the single bed was
empty. On a whim, she opened the bathroom door and
flicked on the light. Nothing. Leaving the light on and
the bathroom door open, she went to the closet. Nothing there, either. But just as she was closing the closet
door, she heard the tap-tap-tapping again. Quickly
switching off the bathroom light, she hurried into the
corridor. The tableau remained the same, except that
the orderlies by the elevators had gone.
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Judith walked softly to Room 702, on the other side
of Angela’s private room. There a light glowed above
the bed, where an old man with paper-thin skin
breathed with noisy effort. Judith gave up. She
couldn’t search every room. Besides, she reasoned, the
high heels might have belonged to a visitor who had
tried to get into the wrong room.
But she didn’t quite believe it. Feeling defeated, she
headed for the elevators. There was one good thing
about her visit, though. As she exited on the main floor,
Judith felt a sense of freedom at leaving the hospital
under her own power. It hadn’t been that way when she
exited Good Cheer on a cold day in January. She’d
been wheeled out to a cabulance and had spent the following week learning to walk again.
Fifteen minutes later she was back at Hillside Manor.
Joe was sitting in the living room, studying Bill’s chart.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I
was about to file a missing-persons report.”
Judith explained everything except the hospital
visit. She had a question of her own that wouldn’t wait.
“What about Mother? It’s eight o’clock. She must be
starving.”
“Your mother is fine,” Joe replied. “Arlene brought
her dinner over a couple of hours ago. It seems that
none of the Rankers clan showed up. Arlene was furious—right up until she insisted she hadn’t wanted to
see any of them in the first place.”
“Dear Arlene.” Judith sighed, collapsing next to Joe
on the sofa. “A sea of contradictions. And a heart as big
as Alaska.”
“So what good did all your sleuthing at Capri’s do
for you?” Joe asked, putting Bill’s chart aside.
SILVER SCREAM
271
“I’m not sure,” Judith said, suddenly hearing her
stomach growl. “Goodness, I haven’t eaten in hours.
What’s left from the caterers?”
Joe peered at her. “You look beat. Let me fix you a
drink and bring you something to eat. How about
Winifred’s field greens and Chips’s chicken pot pie?”
“Sounds wonderful,” Judith said, slipping out of her
shoes as Sweetums crept up to the sofa. “I should see
Mother, but I’ll wait until I get my second wind.”
Joe had gone into the kitchen when the doorbell
sounded a minute later. Wearily, Judith trudged to the
front door. Eugenia Fleming and Morris Mayne stood
on the front porch with three small trick-or-treaters.
The youngsters, who had an adult waiting on the sidewalk, chorused their Halloween greeting. Eugenia
practically trampled them as she entered the house.
“It’s very damp out there,” she complained. “Did
Vito mention that he and I and Morris are staying in
your vacant rooms tonight?”
“I’m . . . not . . . sure,” Judith replied, scooping
candy bars out of a cut-glass bowl in the entry hall. She
stepped aside as Morris barged his way inside. Judith
scowled at him, then addressed the children. “Two
ghosts and a witch,” she said, dropping two chocolate
bars into each of the three pillowcases. “Very scary.
Don’t get a tummy ache.”
The children said thank you with varying degrees of
confidence, then turned around and ran off to join their
adult companion. Judith managed to flag down Eugenia before she reached the second landing of the main
staircase.
“Excuse me,” Judith said, “but the rooms aren’t
made up yet. It’s been a very busy day. Besides, there’s
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Mary Daheim
only one vacant room. Bruno’s,” she added, lowering
her voice. “We’ll have to see if Ellie or Winifred or
Chips or Dade will consent to share a room.”
“Chips and Dade wouldn’t share a bomb shelter if
a nuclear device went off,” Eugenia retorted. “You
might have better luck with Win and Ellie. Just tell
me which room is mine. I need to lie down. I’m quite
fatigued.”
Judith was forced into a quick decision. “Morris