patient behavior or educational videos. Alice popped in the video, and after some flickering the screen filled with a grainy black-and-white ceiling shot of the unit’s security door from maybe ten feet back. For several seconds nothing moved, as if they were looking at a still. Then a figure appeared in the jerky time-lapsed motion of security cameras. Clara Devine.
She was alone and carrying a shopping bag. She looked about her, then, unbelievably, she went to the wall and with a finger she tapped the keypad and pushed her way through the door, which closed behind her. It happened so fast that René just said, “What?”
“Yeah, I know. She let herself out.”
René felt a flash of gooseflesh across her back. What she was seeing could not be—like witnessing a dog suddenly speaking English or seeing someone levitate. Dogs don’t talk, and Alzheimer’s patients don’t recover their short-term memory. The disease, like gravity, was a downward, persistent force.
“I don’t believe this.” René’s mind raced for a rational explanation: Clara had been misdiagnosed all along. She had faked her dementia. It was somebody else. None of the above.
“There’s more,” Alice said, her voice grim. She hit a few buttons and the tape switched to another venue. The main entrance outside. Again a shadowy figure, but with Clara’s face and body, and this time she was dressed in a rain poncho pulled over her head.
“We think she changed in the elevator and slipped by the front desk. It was raining out.”
On rare occasions, a patient managed to elope from a nursing home, usually because of understaffing. Two winters ago a man wandered outside and froze to death. As a result, Broadview had installed an elaborate security system. But no Alzheimer’s patient was capable of figuring out a pass code or remembering it even if she had heard it from one of the staffers. Nor were any of them capable of long-range planning of a disguise on a rainy night.
“My guess is she must have watched one of us use the keypad, and she memorized the combo.”
“Alice, she has middle-stage Alzheimer’s. She’s not capable of memorizing anything longer than a second, and you know that.”
Alice didn’t respond.
“Do the police know about this?”
“No. They never asked. Their job was to solve a murder. Broadview’s security is Broadview’s problem and not a police matter.”
“If they ask?”
“The system was down, the cameras weren’t working. Not my area.” Alice popped out the cassette and locked it in the drawer again. Then she got up and put her hand on the doorknob to leave.
Not my area.
“Alice, what the hell’s going on up here?”
“I think you’d better ask Dr. Carr. He’ll be in tomorrow.” And she hustled away.
10
MORNINGSIDE MANOR WAS A RED BRICK, three-story nursing home nestled among birches and evergreens and adjoining conservation land in Smithfield, just below the New Hampshire border. It was an adult long-term-care facility with a hundred and ten beds and was a cut above most of the homes and rehab centers that René regularly visited. It was Monday afternoon and she could not believe the number of cars in the parking lot including several limousines, all here for the groundbreaking of a new Alzheimer’s unit.
A large white tent had been pitched on the lawn, and waiters and waitresses were circulating through the crowd with champagne and fancy hors d’oeuvres. This was not the typical jug-wine-and-cheese-cube affair afforded by nursing home budgets.
René parked and made her way toward the tent, seeing no faces she recognized until she spotted Nick Mavros. He was standing with a small knot of people and waved her over.
“Now here’s a young woman for whom the expression ‘teacher’s pet’ was coined. Hello, beautiful,” he said, and gave her a hug and double-cheek air kisses, vestiges of a Peloponnesian birth some sixty years ago.
Nick had a strong face, thick bold features, and
She was alone and carrying a shopping bag. She looked about her, then, unbelievably, she went to the wall and with a finger she tapped the keypad and pushed her way through the door, which closed behind her. It happened so fast that René just said, “What?”
“Yeah, I know. She let herself out.”
René felt a flash of gooseflesh across her back. What she was seeing could not be—like witnessing a dog suddenly speaking English or seeing someone levitate. Dogs don’t talk, and Alzheimer’s patients don’t recover their short-term memory. The disease, like gravity, was a downward, persistent force.
“I don’t believe this.” René’s mind raced for a rational explanation: Clara had been misdiagnosed all along. She had faked her dementia. It was somebody else. None of the above.
“There’s more,” Alice said, her voice grim. She hit a few buttons and the tape switched to another venue. The main entrance outside. Again a shadowy figure, but with Clara’s face and body, and this time she was dressed in a rain poncho pulled over her head.
“We think she changed in the elevator and slipped by the front desk. It was raining out.”
On rare occasions, a patient managed to elope from a nursing home, usually because of understaffing. Two winters ago a man wandered outside and froze to death. As a result, Broadview had installed an elaborate security system. But no Alzheimer’s patient was capable of figuring out a pass code or remembering it even if she had heard it from one of the staffers. Nor were any of them capable of long-range planning of a disguise on a rainy night.
“My guess is she must have watched one of us use the keypad, and she memorized the combo.”
“Alice, she has middle-stage Alzheimer’s. She’s not capable of memorizing anything longer than a second, and you know that.”
Alice didn’t respond.
“Do the police know about this?”
“No. They never asked. Their job was to solve a murder. Broadview’s security is Broadview’s problem and not a police matter.”
“If they ask?”
“The system was down, the cameras weren’t working. Not my area.” Alice popped out the cassette and locked it in the drawer again. Then she got up and put her hand on the doorknob to leave.
Not my area.
“Alice, what the hell’s going on up here?”
“I think you’d better ask Dr. Carr. He’ll be in tomorrow.” And she hustled away.
10
MORNINGSIDE MANOR WAS A RED BRICK, three-story nursing home nestled among birches and evergreens and adjoining conservation land in Smithfield, just below the New Hampshire border. It was an adult long-term-care facility with a hundred and ten beds and was a cut above most of the homes and rehab centers that René regularly visited. It was Monday afternoon and she could not believe the number of cars in the parking lot including several limousines, all here for the groundbreaking of a new Alzheimer’s unit.
A large white tent had been pitched on the lawn, and waiters and waitresses were circulating through the crowd with champagne and fancy hors d’oeuvres. This was not the typical jug-wine-and-cheese-cube affair afforded by nursing home budgets.
René parked and made her way toward the tent, seeing no faces she recognized until she spotted Nick Mavros. He was standing with a small knot of people and waved her over.
“Now here’s a young woman for whom the expression ‘teacher’s pet’ was coined. Hello, beautiful,” he said, and gave her a hug and double-cheek air kisses, vestiges of a Peloponnesian birth some sixty years ago.
Nick had a strong face, thick bold features, and
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