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  The cocktail waitress arrived bearing a trayful of attractive drinks.

  “Let it ride! Let it ride!” Shirlene laughed, accepting her vodka-tonic and taking a ladylike sip. The game went on, and within ten minutes she won some more, then apparently lost a bunch, then won a little back.

  I circled away.

  ----

  I arrived in the Penobscot lobby a few minutes later. I took the elevator to twelve, found the DeMedHo suite, and walked in.

  A white lady with a major boob shelf sat eating a large souvlaki sandwich. She looked up in irritation and wiped yogurt sauce from her chin, then removed her earbuds and set aside her smartphone. With eyes enhanced by mascara and olive eye shadow, she regarded me darkly.

  The reception area was a few feet of carpeted space with two chairs for people to wait in, then the bulwark-like reception counter, then three office doors opening off it, one on each wall, each with a nameplate on it.

  I said, “I’m sorry to disturb you at lunchtime, but I was wondering if I could get some information about your services. For my aunt and uncle.”

  Maintaining her silence, she reached under the counter, produced a sheet of paper with printing on it, and slid it across.

  “So,” I said, “this is the DeMedHo office.”

  The receptionist, who didn’t have a nameplate, glared at me. “You can apply online,” she said.

  “Ah! Will do. Um, so is this the whole thing? I mean, the whole DeMedHo crew works here?”

  “Who are you looking for?” she said sharply.

  “I just—I thought the organization being so big…doing so much for so many…I just wondered where the main staff works.”

  She looked at me and said finally, “Everybody works here.”

  While we were talking, I made out the nameplates on the doors behind her.

  SHIRLENE R. CORD

  CLARK JOHNSON

  The third had been ripped off its door. Abigail Rawson, rest in peace.

  “All right!” I said cheerfully. “You must be incredibly busy!”

  The place was absolutely silent: no ringing phones, no voices.

  “Well, thank you,” I said.

  I decided to walk the city for a while. I ranged down Fort Street to Washington and went over to see how things were going at the Book Cadillac, one of the old hotels that had gotten a major redo by Westin and was now one of the poshest places in town.

  I pressed my nose to the glass of the ground-floor restaurant, half expecting to see Shirlene Cord splitting a Chateaubriand with, oh, say, Lieutenant Sorrel, but it was closed, and staff was preparing for the dinner service.

  I did see, however, a red BMW flash by, reflected in the window, headed back toward the Penobscot.

  17

  The next day, Saturday, I returned to work at the Pomeroys’. As I cut and chopped and pruned, I thought about the triangulation of Abigail’s body, the bat, and her purse. I remembered the odd fact that her fingertips had been abraded. A thought struck me, but it was so insane I discarded it. But it was sort of there anyway.

  When I took a break, I got Jackie on the phone. “Hey, you,” she said. “Been thinking about you.”

  Always gratifying to hear.

  “Me too,” I told her. “Hey, I have a question. What was the story about Abigail’s dad? What did he die of?”

  “You know, Abby was upset about that. I think she blamed herself for not being more on top of his case. But he wasn’t all that sick for very long. Pneumonia got him in the end.”

  “Wasn’t the Happy Van helping out?”

  “Yes, they were supposed to be.”

  “What do you mean ‘supposed to be’?”

  “I think Abby thought they dropped the ball.”

  “Did he die at home?”

  “No, at the hospital.”

  “Well, I’d be shocked if Dr. Briggs had been careless or negligent. I know the guy from way back.”

  But I thought some more then asked Jackie to describe Abby’s DeMedHo ID. From what she said, and from what I remembered from looking at the one on the receptionist at the DeMedHo offices, I figured I could construct one for myself.

  “Hey, I have one more question,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Want to come over tonight?”

  A delighted chortle. “What shall I bring?”

  “Just you.” I liked the sound of that chortle.

  ----

  I cooked a humble but hearty skillet of ground beef, potatoes, and onions. Beer on the side. We talked about a building Jackie had inspected that day that had been constructed six years ago by a corrupt contractor who had evidently used all the remaining contaminated Chinese drywall in North America, as well as salvaged foundation beams that had the load capacity of playground equipment. The contractor could not make reparations because he had died in a plane crash over Nicaragua while fleeing indictment. Sounded like a case for Calico Jones.

  I set Raquel’s crate on the balcony, then took out my mandolin and filled the room with music, mostly hillbilly love songs like “Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” “The Lady of Carlisle,” and “Cripple Creek.” All was mellow. I showed Jackie how I’d been practicing picking up objects with my toes: a thimble, a pen cap. I brought Raquel’s crate inside and made sure she was all right.

  Jackie and I lounged and kissed, then bathed and moved to the bedroom, where I lit a couple of candles in firesafe pots designed by some famous pyromaniac who had landed a contract with Interiors Plus.

  My pre-lovemaking energy level was high as usual. Jackie seemed to be in an appropriate state of tension, and we got right down to dreamy business.

  “Think you might deserve a back rub after all that music?” asked my inamorata.

  “Just so long as it doesn’t last more than an hour,” I responded, flopping facedown.

  Jackie straddled me, her solid thighs hugging mine. She used her strong hands to find the trigger spots that release more stored tension than you knew you had. The points of the shoulder blades, the base of the neck…I heard a low sound and realized I was purring, in danger of melting away completely.

  “I want to make you feel this good,” I murmured.

  “You can.” She pushed off me and lay beside me.

  I propped my head on my elbow, drinking in the lovely firm symmetry of her breasts. “They’re like magic hills made of gossamer,” I asserted, slightly unsure whether gossamer was supposed to be silk or linen or spider web or what, but I liked the word. Gotta look that one up, I thought as I began to touch and kiss that lovely real estate. “What would you like?” I asked, caressing softly.

  “Get on top of me, please.”

  I did so, my pelvis slightly above hers. I bent down and kissed those perfect confections, one, then the other, then the one again.

  Looking directly into my eyes, Jackie said, “Slap them.”

  I paused.

  “You mean like this?” I tapped them with my fingers, making them wiggle like freshly unmolded Jell-O cups.

  Clearly and slowly, my lover said, “No. Not like that.” She reached up and slapped one of mine.

  “Ow!” I rubbed the sting.

  “Only harder than that, Lillian, much harder.” She closed her eyes, waiting.

  A sick feeling ran from my salivary glands down into my guts. I swallowed. “Couldn’t I just talk mean to you?”

  “I wish you would. But you have to slap them.” Her dark blond, post-shower ponytail had come undone, and a sheaf of shining, damp tendrils lay along the side of her smooth neck. Why would a creature this beautiful wish to be hurt? By me?

  The room was so pleasant, with the flickering candlelight and comfy pillows—which I had bought new, having decided my old ones contained too many former-lover molecules—and the warmth of the night blowing over us from the open window was so soothing that this turn of events was, well—upsetting.

  As Jackie lay there waiting, one of my inner-self debates started up.

  Me
: I can’t do this.

  Me: Yes, you can. Lots of people like it rough, don’t they?

  Me: I know, I know.

  Me: You’ve got to try.

  Me: This is so not my style.

  Me: Think of something to say. How ’bout “I hate you”?

  Me: Can’t. Can’t.

  Me: How ’bout something less personal, like “You’re ugly”?

  Me: I can’t say that!

  Me: Then just smack her.

  “Come on,” Jackie murmured encouragingly, reading my mind. “Just slap them. You can do it. You might like it.”

  I straightened my spine, took a deep breath, and drew back my open hand. I tried to will it to whip forward and deliver the stinging blow my lover demanded. My hand hovered in the sultry bedroom air. Come on, I told myself. Come on. It’s not like you’re even going to draw blood.

  I picked a target, the side of her left breast, which lay there as exposed and pale as a sleeping infant. I looked at it. It seemed to look back at me, the nipple like a roseate eye, watching, waiting.

  I dropped my hand. “Jackie, I can’t.”

  She sighed heavily.

  I unstraddled her and sat back on my folded legs. She sat up too. “I’m sorry I asked you,” she said.

  “What’s it about?” My reportorial instincts were never far from the surface.

  She gazed into the flame of the futon-side candle. The light danced over the planes of her cheeks, the curve of her ear. “I…I just like the feeling. It’s not a big deal, is it? I mean, it’s not—unusual.”

  “It sure isn’t. I’m aware that people like different things—you know, whips and chains, Great Danes and all that. Do you like just your breasts slapped or other parts too?”

  “Well, my breasts are sensitive. So are the backs of my legs.”

  The sick feeling ran through me again, in spite of my effort to be open and au courant. I said, “You know, I sensed, the first couple of times we made love, that something was missing for you, but you wouldn’t say. What does it do for you? Is it sort of like—”

  “A peak experience. It just heightens everything for me. Tonight I wanted to see if you could—get into it.”

  “Did your parents or somebody hit you?”

  “It’s not that.” But she wouldn’t say more.

  We lazed on the bed, twining, untwining, twining again. I woke up in the middle of the night with one ankle trapped beneath Jackie’s thigh, gently readjusted things, and fell back to sleep until dawn.

  18

  Flora told me the Happy Van came around on Wednesdays, so the next Wednesday I fired up the Crown Vic and drove over to Palmer Woods.

  I had hacked a copy of the DeMedHo logo, a person in a wheelchair with wings on it, from the city’s website. Not having a color printer, I used a Magic Marker to hand color it the correct bright blue. I glued on a spare passport photo and slipped it into a clip-on ID sleeve I’d kept from a press convention.

  I cruised the streets until I caught sight of the Happy Van then tailed it in a lazy fashion. The neighborhood was so compact I only had to see it parked in front of a house, note the address, then go along and circle the streets until I saw it in front of another house. I collected five addresses this way in the space of two hours, then took off.

  At home I put on one of my wrap skirts, returned to the neighborhood, saw that the Happy Van had moved on, and went up to the first house on my list, with my DeMedHo ID prominent on my chest.

  I rang the bell and knocked an upbeat rhythm on the rock-maple front door. After a couple of long minutes, I heard the chain latch slide on and the deadbolt ca-chuck off. The door opened to the six-inch extent of the chain, and an emaciated, ancient face appeared. Man or woman? Hard to tell.

  “Hello!” I said with a bright smile. “I’m Laura Henry, with DeMedHo? I’m here to see how you’re doing! May I come—”

  “Go away!” The door slammed shut and the bolt shot home.

  I stood there for a moment. DeMedHo is a caring organization. We’re the good guys, I thought, unconsciously in character.

  At the next house, a friendly-looking woman answered the door. Behind her a man I assumed was her husband huddled in a wheelchair, framed by the kitchen door. I introduced myself, and she stiffened in an instant.

  “May I come in?”

  “Oh,” she said, “you’re not with the Happy Van?”

  “No, I’m from DeMedHo.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think so.”

  The man in the wheelchair shouted, “No!” in a froggy voice.

  “Ma’am, please,” I said, my hands open. “What’s the matter?”

  The man croaked, “Nobody from DeMedHo gets in!”

  “You see,” she began, “we were told—”

  “Shut the goddamn door, Frances!”

  And that was the end of that.

  When you’re gathering information, whatever you learn has value, even if it’s not what you wanted or thought you needed. Remember that.

  I went home and founded a new organization called Shopping Carts for Seniors. Armed with a corresponding ID, I tooled into the outer reaches of the Meijer parking lot after dark, cut my lights, and set the brake next to a couple of shopping carts. I popped the trunk, jumped out, and keeping my face hidden in my hoodie, hoisted the carts in. I quickly laced the lid shut with a bungee.

  “Hey!”

  I turned to see a middle-aged cart boy running toward me. “Hey! Stop!” he shouted, red in the face.

  “Sorry!” I yelled. “It’s for a good cause!”

  The next morning I affixed a large paperboard tag proclaiming, carts for seniors on each cart handle. I went to visit the fourth of my Happy Van houses, one of the smaller ones in the Woods. Pushing the cart up the walk, I channeled Mary Poppins.

  The morning air felt clean and cool, and I was fortunate that the occupant of this house, an old man with a cane, was enjoying the breeze on his front porch, sitting in a wooden Adirondack chair. With interest he watched me approach.

  “Hi, I’m Mary Higginbottom with Carts for Seniors! Want a shopping cart? It’s a new program.”

  “Hi, young lady.” His teeth and eyeballs were old-piano-key color. Yet his brown irises were clear and quick, and he seemed all there mentally. He was somewhere in his eighties, I guessed.

  “What’s the catch?” he said.

  “No catch. This cart’s yours. It’s a new program the city’s doing.”

  He eyed the cart. “I could use this.” I could see him thinking about the distance from here to the crappy mini mart on Livernois. He rocked forward and leaned his hands on his cane under his chin, in perfect old-dude form. “What have I done to deserve this largesse?”

  “It’s a pilot program,” I explained.

  His chair squeaked gently. “How on earth can the city afford this?”

  “Well, see—”

  “This cart says ‘Meijer.’”

  “They’re partnering with us.”

  “I used to run a grocery. People would steal these like you wouldn’t believe.”

  The same instant I realized this guy was impossible to snow, he said, “What is this really?”

  I dropped my hands. “Well, sir—”

  “Would you like to sit down, young lady? There’s something you want to talk about.”

  “Yes! Yes, thank you!”

  I took the other Adirondack chair and hauled it around to face his. I told him who I really was, and he introduced himself as Peter Allwood, retired from a position in senior management at Kroger.

  “I’ll be frank, Peter. I’m looking into the relationship between the Happy Van and DeMedHo.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  Sometimes with a stranger, when you’re forced to drop pretense, you stay on your guard and hold back as much information as possible, only revealing what you absolutely have to. But in Peter Allwood I recognized a kindred spirit—a no-BS, gets-the-big-picture, can-keep-his-mouth-shut guy.

  I tol
d him how people were slamming doors in my face, hence the shopping-cart scam. “It all relates to a story I’m doing for the Motor City Journal on a murder investigation in the neighborhood.”

  “Abigail Rawson?”

  “Yes. Did you know her? Did she check in on you?”

  “She did. Lovely person. But stressed out beyond belief. I only met her a couple of times. I think she was trying to follow up with every DeMedHo client herself.” He paused, closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deeply, then tilted his chin to the sky. “I just love to sit in the sun.”

  “It’s a very pretty day.” I paused to enjoy a full breath of the summer air and listen to the treetops rustling in the breeze. “Which DeMedHo services did you receive?”

  “Well, I didn’t think I qualified for DeMedHo—I’m not poor. But a few months ago, my doctor mentioned the Happy Van, given that I don’t get around so well anymore. Nurse Viv came and saw me, and then she got Dr. Briggs out. I’m supposed to have physical therapy for my leg, but they don’t really make me do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Viv showed me a few exercises. She comes, and we drink tea and chat for a few minutes. Then she leaves. She’s very pleasant company.”

  “I see.”

  “Most important, they make sure I get my medications.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I used to see a different doctor who, I think, gave up on me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have chronic pain from a car wreck eleven years ago. Took the life of my wife.” He closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Mr. Allwood, I’m very sorry to hear that. Doc Briggs helps you with the pain then?”

  Peter Allwood gazed down at his hands. “The man’s an angel. He writes the correct prescriptions for the pills I need.”

  “I see.”

  “The ones I don’t use, he collects up for people who can’t pay.”

  “I see.”