The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (30 page)

“Oh, yeah. I should have done this sooner, before the weather got so hot, you know? But well, I been busy with other things around this place. Sprucing it up. Gonna sell it soon.”

“Really? That’s nice.” Jess hated small talk. She had no idea if it was nice or not.

“Yeah. My uncle’s in the nursing home over on Oak Hill Drive. This is his place. The grandson don’t want it, so you know how it is. Someone has to care for it.”

Jess nodded. “Is your uncle William Ecklund?”

“Yeah. Are you looking for him? If you are, you’re too late to find him here.”

Jess stammered, “I’m s-sorry…”

“Oh goodness.” The woman put a gloved hand on Jess’s arm, rubbing dirt against her skin. “I don’t mean too late that way!” She laughed. “He’s only gone up to the nursing home.”

“Oh good. That’s good.”

“Why do you want my uncle?” She tilted her head and the brim of her hat made a sharp shadow that cut diagonally across her face.

“I don’t. I’m an old friend of John’s. From college. I was hoping to track him down and this is his last known address. To me, I mean. We came here sometimes and visited his grandparents, so I thought I’d stop by.” Jess couldn’t believe how easily she was lying. And then she couldn’t believe how happy Johnny’s aunt was to stand there chatting in the sun. Twenty minutes passed before she was able to make her getaway, each minute of chit-chat making Jess feel more and more like an impostor about slip her cover. She waved to Johnny’s aunt as she pulled away from the house, relieved and a little guilty.

The Oak Hill nursing home sat at the top of Oak Hill Drive and did have some oak trees on the lawn. It was not, however, a very pleasant looking building. It had two cinderblock wings that came off a circular structure in the middle. Signs warned that only emergency vehicles were allowed to park in the drive, and it occurred to Jess that they probably had a lot of emergency vehicles stopping under the carport at the front doors. She parked in a visitor’s spot and gazed at the rows of evenly-spaced windows. Oak Hill’s cinderblock walls resembled something constructed out of Legos—difficult to damage, easy to wash and paint year after year.

A few clusters of faded armchairs sat about under a wall of apartment style mailboxes, and at the back, a sliding glass door opened onto a patio and a courtyard. Down a grassy slope, cut in half by a carefully paved path, sat a duck pond circled by benches. On the far side of the pond, a weeping willow draped its branches to the ground, creating a gazebo of green.

“Can I help you?” A young man working behind the reception desk asked her.

“Yes.” Jess approached and folded her hands on top of the counter. “I’m here to see William Ecklund.”

The receptionist had the broad athletic shoulders of a swimmer and a recently shaved head, which confirmed Jess’s suspicion of team swimming. He also had slightly bloodshot eyes and a rash just inside the collar of his Oak Hill polo shirt. A party Friday night and skin made sensitive by too many hours in chlorinated pools. Jess couldn’t help grinning at how clever she was, how like Sherlock Holmes. The kid looked up from his computer and Jess swept the grin off her face. “Mr. Ecklund is in OT right now. If you wait in the gathering place someone will bring him down after his session.”

“Thank you.” Jess almost couldn’t believe how easy that was—probably a kid with a hangover didn’t bother with too many questions. She went down the hall he had pointed toward and found a comfortable lounge with large windows facing the duck pond.

The room was furnished with a gas fireplace and bookshelves on one end, a television on the other, keeping the quiet and the noisy a reasonable distance apart. Throughout the room, round tables with four chairs at each sat topped with a bud vase with a carnation and fern leaf poking out of the hobnailed glass. Banqueters could file in at any moment and fill the tables. Were it not for a family sitting around one, playing Monopoly, Jess would have thought she was in the wrong room. The elderly woman lifted a steady hand from her lap and plucked the dice off the table. With a quick shake of her hand she tossed them back down. Her shoulders had curled forward with age to the extent that her face was almost horizontal. Despite this unnatural bodily configuration, she moved sharply, snapping up the boot and tapping it across the board to its new square. Jess realized she’d been staring and took a seat at a table near the door, then took out a small notebook and pencil, more to appear occupied with her own business than for any need to take notes.

A woman in a conservative blouse and wrinkle-free pants approached Jess’s table, leading an elderly man by the arm. He looked healthy enough, maybe even strong for a person his age, yet his eyes darted around the room, searching for something like trouble. Jess assumed the woman held his arm more for comfort than any physical need. She directed him to have a seat across from Jess. She joined them and offered Jess her hand.

“I’m Marcy. Are you a relative of Bill’s?” Marcy wore her ash-blonde hair pulled back into an unfashionably tight bun. She wore no rings and her earrings were small pearl studs. Despite this general lack of adornment, she did wear a noticeable coat of coral lipstick.

Jess glanced at Mr. Ecklund. “No. I’m an old family friend. I haven’t seen Bill in years. I thought I’d pay my respects.” Mr. Ecklund stared out the window as though he’d sat down to an empty table. His hair had thinned to wisps curling off his head like feathers that had just come to rest and would alight again at any moment. He kept his hands in his lap below the table.

“Oh, that’s nice.” Marcy’s face betrayed her. The lowering of her brow and downtown of her lips worried Jess. “You understand that he has Alzheimer’s?”

Jess nodded, though it was impossible not to look unprepared for the news. “I had heard, but I don’t have any experience with it.”

Marcy patted Mr. Ecklund’s arm. “He might recognize you. He might think you’re someone different. He might know what you’re talking about. He might not. The best thing is to let him run the show. If he thinks you’re…Mary Jo, let him think that. You can gently remind him of who you are once or twice, but to be insistent upsets him. It causes confusion and disturbs the patient. He’ll have a much better day if he is not agitated.”

Jess nodded. Marcy was doing her duty all right, and Jess hoped she would leave them alone. She didn’t know what, if anything, she could get out of Mr. Ecklund, but she still had to try. Marcy pushed her chair back just as Jess thought of a question. “Can he remember the distant past?”

Marcy relaxed onto her chair again. “Yes. Frequently, people with Alzheimer’s can remember the past vividly. It’s like they remember events, but have lost the context for them. Their timeline has vanished, which often creates distress because what they are experiencing does not fit with who or where or what they think they are in that moment.”

“I think I understand. Thank you.”

“All right, then. I’ll be close by if you need me.”

Jess watched her leave and wondered how she would be close by. She glanced around the room and found an opaque dome in the ceiling at each end—video surveillance. It seemed Oak Hill, despite first impressions, was up to date on their technology, if only to cover their ass against insurance claims.

“Mr. Ecklund?” Jess leaned forward over the table and said his name again. Bonnie’s father finally looked at her. She was surprised by the intensity of his gaze and drew back.

“Get me out of here,” he snarled.

“What?”

“Get me the hell out of this shit-box.”

“Mr. Ecklund, I…” Jess looked around the room, wondering if Marcy or big men in white coats would come running at the first whisper of escape.

“They make me play games. Every Tuesday and Sunday. Do they think I’m in kindergarten?”

“No, Mr. Ecklund, I’m sure they don’t. They just want you to have fun.”

Mr. Ecklund’s hand shot across the table and clamped onto Jess’s wrist. She jerked back reflexively, but his grip was solid and he held her hand pinned to the table top. Jess stared into his eyes and was reminded of a dog deciding whether to lunge. “Are you one of them?” he said in a raspy whisper.

“No. I’m a friend of Bonnie’s.” That at least felt like the truth. Mr. Ecklund relaxed his grip on her wrist and she pulled free. Her hands went to her throat and fiddled with the knot in her scarf.

“That’s nice. That’s nice.” He nodded and his eyes lost some of the sharp focus. “How is Bonnie?”

Jess considered a moment, wondering where on his timeline Mr. Ecklund sat today. “She’s doing great. She wanted me to say hello.”

Mr. Ecklund brightened at word from his only child. He rested his hands on the table. They were lean and strong, dappled with age spots. He tapped his fingertips against the table top in a ragged rhythm. Just when Jess thought she’d caught onto a pattern, it changed. Outside, a small flock of Canada geese landed in the courtyard with noisy honking. Jess was always surprised by the size of their wingspan when she saw them up close. The geese, five of them, waddled down to the pond. Mr. Ecklund fixed his gaze on the geese. Jess took out the photo of the Sykes. She had tucked it into her notebook to keep it from getting bent again.

“Mr. Ecklund, do you know these people?” She slid the photo across the table to him.

He picked it up in both hands and held it close to his face. He studied it for a long moment, then snapped it back down on the table. “Of course. Why would you ask me if I know my own daughter? Is that some kind of trick questions?”

“No. I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure I had the right photo.”

He nodded as though that made sense.

“What’s the little boy’s name?”

“That’s Johnny.” He picked up the photo again. “They grow so fast. He was only a baby last time I saw him. They come down for Christmas this year.”

“Do you and John get along?”

“Oh sure. He’s a nice enough fellow. He’s good to my Bonnie. That’s what counts. He’s a bit quiet for my taste. A little…
bookish
.”

“Sure, Mr. Ecklund.” He went quiet, gone into his thoughts. Jess looked around the room. The family playing Monopoly was putting away the game, standing up and stretching. A woman exchanged a quick look with Jess as she took hold of the old woman’s wheelchair, then backed it carefully away from the table. Jess leaned closer to Mr. Ecklund. “Do you know where Bonnie is now?”

His head snapped up and he looked at Jess, his gray eyes rimmed with tears. “What? Bonnie? Now?” He looked down at the photo that he held so gingerly by the white border.

Jess couldn’t help looking up at the dome in the ceiling, directly into the security camera. If she upset him, she had no doubt Marcy would bustle in and lead him away, back to the seclusion of his room. She hoped John was a safe subject. “Was John ever in Vietnam?”

“Huh? No. He was a college boy. Like I said,
bookish
.” Mr. Ecklund said the word bookish with a pronounced snap on the K and an incriminatingly long
sh
at the end of it. “Bonnie’s high school sweetheart, Carl, he went to Nam. Left us his purple heart, yes sir.”

“Carl? Carl who?”

“Hi, Pops,” a man greeted Mr. Ecklund as he strode into the room with a big smile on his face and a Snoopy balloon waving about his head. He stopped short when he noticed Jess, his face transforming from pleasant expectation to rising anger in an instant. “Ms. Vernon.” It was a pronouncement, not a question. Jess knew Johnny, or John Ecklund, from his faculty photo on the St. Thomas website. The eyeglasses were the same, the hair was now long enough to look windblown, like he’d driven the River Road from St. Paul in a convertible, and the sport coat and tie had been exchanged for jeans and short sleeves. She didn’t know if he knew her—if he’d rummaged through her online presence after their exchange—or if it was only a hunch.

“Dr. Ecklund.” She sat upright on the edge of her chair, bracing herself for some degree of anger.

“Doctor? Are you here for my check-up?”

“No, Pops.” Johnny came over and kissed his grandfather on the top of his head. “It’s Saturday. I’m here for our visit. Look.” He held the balloon lower so Mr. Ecklund could see it up close.

He raised one hand and poked the balloon with his finger, setting it bobbing on its string. His creased face softened with amusement. “I like those Peanuts,” he said. “Remember you used to sit on my lap and I’d read you the funnies?”

“I sure do.” Johnny tied the balloon to the back of an empty chair, then stared down at Jess. “You should leave.”

Jess picked up her notebook and slid it into her purse. “I’m sorry this is difficult for you, but I need to talk with you. Your mother…”

“My mother,” he snarled through clenched teeth, “died in a car accident. I don’t know what kind of sick thrill you get digging into people’s lives, but I already told you that I never lived in Skoghall.”

“Skoghall. Skoghall. Skoghall,” Mr. Ecklund muttered to himself. He began drumming his fingers on the tabletop to his own erratic beat.

“Great.” Johnny gestured at his grandfather’s hands. “He does that when he’s upset. Are you happy now?” His voice rose nearly to a shout. “Get out of here before I call security.”

Jess stood up and put her purse over her shoulder. She glanced out the window at the geese, searching for the right words. They were slow to come and she was out of time. “Johnny, your mother…”

John Ecklund raised his fist over his head and swung. Jess cowered, stumbling over her chair as she backed away. His fist struck the table with a smack that reverberated through the large room. Mr. Ecklund scrambled away from the table, knocking his chair backwards and falling over it onto the floor. Johnny reached for his grandfather, a horrified look of shame across his face, but Marcy and two large men in matching black pants and Oak Hill polo shirts rushed into the room. The men had radios on their belts and the confident air of night club bouncers. They divided as they approached the table, positioning themselves in a stance of control beside Jess and Johnny. Marcy went straight to Mr. Ecklund with an efficiency of movement that impressed Jess. She bent forward and gripped him by the elbows. Mr. Ecklund reached out, his hands grasping claw-like at whatever they snagged, catching Marcy’s blouse, clapping her head, snagging her pants pocket, all before finding purchase on her shoulders. Marcy held him, keeping herself steady apart from slight weaving movements to avoid his fingers catching somewhere painful, like her eye or ear. Jess now understood why Marcy didn’t wear jewelry and kept her hair secured at the back of her head.