"Yeah, right," said Bolt.
"Why not?" said Quentin. "It's not like we have an appointment."
"I could do this at home!" Bolt protested.
"Yes, but here we'll be doing it out of pure virtue." He was already washing his hands.
"Thank you!" cried the harried cook.
"Does this mean I can go back to bedpan duty now?" said one of the attendants.
"Break's over, back on your heads!" said the other. Nobody laughed.
Quentin took a big knife and started hacking at the lettuce. Soon Bolt was beside him, peeling and slicing cucumbers. "I always feel like I'm emasculating something when I do this," said Bolt.
"Didn't know you cops lived such metaphorical lives."
"Told you I was a poet."
They chopped for a while in silence, except for the songs the cook began but never finished. A line or two of some Elvis song or a Four Seasons tune in full falsetto, and then she'd peter out, humming and getting the melody wronger and wronger until it was some other song which she would drift into singing till she ran out of lyrics.
"I know why we're doing this," said Bolt.
"Oh?"
"Because you're scared of the old lady and you're putting off meeting her."
"That's why I'm doing this," said Quentin.
"Yeah, well, I have no will of my own."
"No wonder you send the other cops out to run your speed traps. 'No, Officer, I was only going twenty-five.' 'Oh, sorry, my mistake, what was I thinking?' "
It took longer than Quentin thought it would. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, but finally it was done, three huge bowls of green salad, with cucumbers, radishes, cherry tomatoes sliced in half, carrot shavings, and garbanzo beans. It actually looked pretty good.
"If only some of the customers had teeth," said Bolt.
"They all have teeth," said an attendant, "if they remember to bring 'em." By now he was in full sweat, taking trays of chicken out of the oven and putting more in.
"Hate to chop and run," said Bolt.
"You were a great help," said the cook. "I was really joking when I asked you to help, and I probably broke sixty regulations by letting you do it, but I usually do this with a staff of four, some of which know what they're doing."
"Bon appetit," said Quentin.
Out in the dining room, a few residents were scattered around at the tables, though no food was being served. Apparently they brought the ones in wheelchairs early. And some of the slow walkers probably needed a head start. Shorthanded as they were, the attendants were running around like country club towel boys.
"Hard to believe this," said Quentin. "Working so hard, and no tips."
"Yeah, well, that's because the nurse who runs this place is a cast-iron bitch," said Bolt.
In a moment the nurse in question charged into the dining room heading for the kitchen. At first glance she seemed middle-aged, but that turned out to be the uniform and her businesslike air and her complete lack of makeup. Actually she couldn't be much over thirty, maybe younger, and if she hadn't stopped cold and given Quentin and Chief Bolt a hostile look, she might even have been attractive. "My evening shift can't get through the blizzard," she said, "but I still get visitors."
"We made the green salad," said Quentin.
"Oh, get real," said the nurse. "There is no salad fairy." She brushed past them and went on to the kitchen. At the door she stopped and called out to a big Polynesian-looking attendant, "Bill! Escort these two guys to the reception area, would you?" Then she disappeared into the kitchen.
As Bill the Polynesian approached, Bolt pulled out his badge and held it up. Bill took a few more steps as he recognized what it was, then gestured for them to sit down wherever they wanted.
The nurse emerged from the kitchen in a slightly better mood. "I shouldn't let non-employees handle the food, but I can't think of what you could do to poison a green salad," she said. "Mrs. Van Ness says you washed your hands."
"Could have done surgery," said Bolt.
"I know you," she said to him. "You're the cop from Mixinack who used to visit Mrs. Tyler."
"It's nice to be recognized."
"Who's the other salad fairy?"
Quentin rose to his feet. "Quentin Fears," he said.
"Sally Sannazzaro," she said. "I'm the medical officer and acting superintendent of this medium-care facility." They shook hands. "Are you a lawyer?" she said. "You don't look like a lawyer."
"Good," he said. Why had she thought he might be a lawyer? "You don't look like the medical officer and acting superintendent of a medium-care facility, either."
"Yes I do," she said pointedly.
This is going so well, thought Quentin.
Bolt took a step toward the door. "You won't be feeding the bed-care patients till later. Mind if we go visit Mrs. Tyler right now?"
"I mind very much," said Sannazzaro. "I don't allow unsupervised visits of my total-bed-care patients." To Quentin she added, "They're helpless and every visitor is a potential heir in a rush."
Bolt's face reddened. "I'm an officer of the law."
"I remember that and I don't care," said Sannazzaro. "Don't rattle my chain, Chief. You always want to see her alone and we always get mad at each other so let's skip straight to the part where you do what I say without any further argument so I don't have to get another restraining order."
"You have never had a restraining order against me!"
"Wasn't that you?" She didn't seem interested in them anymore. "I have places to go." She headed for the door.
"I always prefer a woman who knows her place," said Bolt loudly.
She didn't even look back at him.
"Why are you goading her, Mike?" asked Quentin.
"She just brings it out in me."
Sannazzaro was brusque, but she was under a lot of pressure tonight and certainly didn't need to deal with visitors.
"It's no surprise when women like that never get married," Bolt added.
This wasn't like Bolt. He had always been barbed, yes, but Quentin had never seen him mean. Till now. "Knowing men the way I do," said Quentin, "I'm surprised women ever marry."
Bolt answered with a sneer. "You didn't tell me you were so politically correct. Is somebody keeping your balls in a freezer in case you need them later?"
Was this even the same man? "It doesn't take balls to call hardworking women bitches and make their lives harder," said Quentin.
Bolt's face got ugly then, but instead of answering he stalked off to the reception area. Quentin only caught up with him when he sat down and picked up yesterday's paper. Quentin didn't try to talk to him, just sat and read the latest Time while Bolt cooled off.
But Bolt didn't want to cool off. Quentin had barely gotten into the story about the new fat substitute that caused anal leakage before Bolt was talking again. "I can't believe she still has it in for me."
"What?" said Quentin. It had seemed to him that it was Bolt who had it in for her.
"That crack about never knowing who was an heir in a hurry."
"I thought that was interesting, that they have to have a rule like that. Do you think there are a lot of murders in rest homes?"
"No," said Bolt. "That was nothing but a jab at me. The first time I visited Mrs. Tyler here, some nurse had moved her pillows around and she looked uncomfortable. So I pulled out one of the pillows to plump it up and for a split second I set it down so a corner of it was across her face while I was reaching under her to lift her up and get the pillow under her, you know, and at that exact moment Nurse Ratched walks in and jumps to the conclusion that I was smothering Mrs. Tyler."