Which made our arrival the cause of some excitement.
I had called from the funeral home to have a patrolman guard Mrs. Sawyer’s room and possessions, pending a judge’s signature on the bottom of a search warrant. By the time I got to the Skyview with Sammie, Ron, and J.P., the lobby and hallways were filled with curious staffers and residents.
On the second floor, a gray-haired woman wearing a white uniform and a very worried expression waited with our patrolman. “Are you in charge?” she asked me as we approached, each of us carrying some of J.P.’s cumbersome equipment.
“Yes-Lieutenant Joe Gunther. Brattleboro PD.” I stuck out my hand as the others filed by me into the room.
She gave my fingers a distracted shake. “Janet Kohler-I’m the head nurse here. What is going on? You really think Mrs. Sawyer was murdered?”
Impressed once again by Brattleboro’s amazingly efficient grapevine, I gave her a cautionary shrug. “Right now, we haven’t the slightest idea. Were you on duty when she died?”
“No-Sue Pasco covers nights, but I have her report.”
“Good. I’d like to see that. I’d also appreciate it if you could call her and ask her to come here as soon as possible. I want to talk to her personally.”
Janet Kohler hesitated a moment. “What does this mean… If she was murdered?”
I gave her a supportive smile. “Let’s take it a step at a time. By the way, I gather Dr. Riley is the attending physician. Has he been associated with the home for long?”
“A few years-seven or eight, I guess. I don’t remember right off.”
“You two get along?”
She looked surprised and then guarded. “Of course.”
I smiled and patted her forearm. “Sorry-that was a dumb thing to ask. I just wanted to know what kind of a guy he was.”
Her face relaxed. “Well, you know doctors. But he’s nice enough, and he’s always done good work here. We never had any complaints.”
“Okay. I’m going to join my crew, so if you could get Ms. Pasco’s report and make that call to her, I’d appreciate it. It might also be a good idea to keep any rumors to a dull roar for the time being. No point getting everyone all excited.”
She nodded and left. I paused for a moment, watching the patients and a few staffers still standing in the corridor, murmuring among themselves. For a split second, I visualized the same hallway dark and deserted, in the middle of the night, occupied only by someone with murderous intent. It was a sad and sinister image to superimpose on a place already so saturated by decline and death. But despite what I’d told Nurse Kohler about the murder needing to be confirmed, I had no doubts about what had happened. The big question was how to put a face on the “someone” responsible.
And that wasn’t our only problem. For a department used to handling one or two homicides a year, this one was going to stretch our resources to the limit. That alone was worth a prayer that we would reach the bottom of it fast and neatly.
Tyler already had the others at work on different aspects of the room-Ron checking the floor, furniture, and curtains, and Sammie the contents of the drawers and the one closet. J.P. himself was bent over the night table, dusting it for fingerprints.
“Anything yet?” I asked him.
He didn’t say what I wanted to hear. “Nothing obvious. They stripped the bed. That was too bad. But nothing else seems to have been messed with. Surprising, in a way. Normally, the next of kin clean out a place like this pretty fast.”
It was an interesting point, and something else to ask Janet Kohler when she returned. In the meantime, I was more hindrance than help here, so I left the room and went next door-to the room sharing the wall against which Mrs. Sawyer had kept her bed.
The door was open, so I knocked on the frame and stuck my head in. A bird-like woman, thin, small, and with an odd, quick way of moving her head, looked up from the book she was reading in an armchair.
“Yes?” she asked, smiling, marking her place with a gnarled finger.
“Hi-not interested in what’s going on next door?”
“Oh, I already know about that-Adele was murdered in her bed last night.”
I walked farther into the room, looking around. It was bright and cheerful, something I’d noticed Adele Sawyer’s was not, and the walls were decorated with a dozen small, energetic oil paintings of rural scenes. The slight but pervading odor of disinfectant-over-human-waste that lingered throughout the rest of the building seemed thwarted by the room’s atmosphere. “You know that for a fact?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“Did you hear anything last night-through the wall?”
“No. I sleep like a log.”
I introduced myself and we shook hands. Her name was Esther Pallini, and her hand felt like a small bundle of brittle sticks wrapped in smooth, warm cloth. Her eyes glittered with friendly enthusiasm. “What you do must be very exciting.”
I sat on the edge of her bed. “Not really. Paperwork and phone calls, mostly.” I tilted my head toward the shared wall. “Were you and Adele friendly?”
She shook her head vigorously. “She was a complainer-I don’t like that.”
“How was her health? Did she get around easily?”
“For a woman her size, she was lucky she could move at all. She was an encyclopedia of every pain known to God, but I think her heart may have been the real problem-she had those fat ankles heart patients get.” With forgivable vanity, she tapped her own trim, tiny feet briefly on the floor.
“Did other people like her?”
Her eyes widened and she smiled broadly. “Do I think one of them could have killed her? What a wonderful idea. I suppose so. Most people think we just sit around in a place like this and turn into vegetables. But there’s lots of intrigue that goes on.” She suddenly lowered her voice and leaned toward me. “And sex. People are jumping into bed with each other all the time. Causes jealousies sometimes.”
I raised my eyebrows and matched her conspiratorial tone. “Did Adele fool around?”
Esther Pallini looked utterly startled and burst out laughing. “What a picture. I couldn’t even imagine it-oh, think of the poor man. No, no. Adele just liked to talk about it. She usually got her facts mixed up, of course, getting everyone riled.”
“Upset a few people?”
Only then did my spirited informant become pensive. “A few. But to the point of murder? I don’t really care that she’s dead-we’re used to that here. But I can’t imagine one person killing another.” She gestured to a radio situated on the windowsill. “You hear about it all the time… I don’t know if it could happen here-I mean… That one of us could actually do it.”
I laid my hand on hers. “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. We don’t know what happened yet.”
“Lieutenant Gunther?”
I turned at the voice coming from the doorway. Janet Kohler stood on the threshold, holding a file in her hand. “Be right there,” I said.
I returned to Esther Pallini. “Thanks for talking with me. I’ll see you again later. And don’t worry about it, okay?”
“Thank you. I’ll be fine.”
I stepped out into the corridor with Janet Kohler.
“I called Sue Pasco. She’s coming right over. I also called Dr. Riley… Was that okay?”
“Sure,” I said, although I’d been planning to do that later, after I’d gathered a few more facts. “Is there somewhere we can talk more privately?”
She led me down the hall to a small, cluttered office and closed the door behind us. I gestured for her to sit at the desk while I chose a small bench lining the wall. “Did anyone here contact the next of kin?”
The head nurse looked vaguely insulted. “Of course. Once the doctor’s signed the certificate, that’s the next thing we do. Sometimes the family likes to visit the body in the room, sometimes not, but it’s our policy to give them the opportunity.”