“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
Once the elevator doors opened, he guided Nikki around a corner and knocked softly on a half-opened door before stepping inside a large, overheated apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows and a broad view of the river and Hutchinson Island.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Blanche Crawford asked as she rolled out of the bedroom in her wheelchair and came to a stop near an oversize recliner piled high with boxes and bags. “You’re …?” she asked, then a look of consternation crossed her thin features. “I know, I know, don’t tell me. Oh, oh, I know. Charlene’s daughter?” She seemed to have forgotten they’d met less than an hour before.
“Yes. Nikki.”
“Not the artist …”
“I’m a reporter.”
“Ah,” Blanche said, as if she understood, but the clarity Nikki had witnessed on the walkway at the other home had faded.
“I wanted to talk to you about Mavis.”
“She’s not here now … oh, goodness. I think …” She looked suddenly confused, clutching for her son’s hand. “Norton, I think something’s happened to her.”
“Hey, Mom. I’m Oliver. Remember?” her son corrected her. “Dad’s gone. He has been for a while now.”
“Oh.” She blinked, focusing hard, her hand falling back to her lap to grip the Bible with its worn leather cover again. “That’s right.” Her smile, once strong, trembled on her lips.
“And Mavis …” Oliver placed a steadying hand on his mother’s shoulder. “She’s gone, too. Remember, I told you.”
“Oh … yes. Someone killed her?” She was uncertain. “And where am I?”
“This is your new home. Sherry’s making your bed up now and putting your things away. You remember her, don’t you? And Wilda will be back next week. She’ll be staying with you during the day.”
“Wilda?” Blanche looked from one end of the room to the other. “Where is she?”
“Home resting. She had a little surgery, remember? Nothing serious, just a mole removed, but she took the week off. She’ll be here tomorrow.”
“No!” Blanche shook her head violently.
Oliver said, “But she takes care of you.”
“She does not! She’s cheap and lazy,” Blanche declared.
“Mavis chose her.”
Blanche glared up from her wheelchair. “No Wilda! I tried to tell Mavis, but she didn’t believe me. Because she wouldn’t pay for decent help. Even though she saw how that lazy woman didn’t bother keeping the place up! Wouldn’t wash a dish. Wouldn’t dust a table. Wouldn’t mop a floor. Just sat on the patio with her phone, playing games and texting and whatever it is they do now. Sat there and chain-smoked. Didn’t care a lick about the house nor the filth. Just look at it!”
“Look at what, Mom?” Oliver asked, bewildered.
“The house!”
“We’re in your new apartment now. Remember?”
Blanche turned her head from side to side.
“You’ve moved now. So Wilda will come here and—”
“No, no, no!” Blanche actually moved her foot from the pedal it had been resting on and stomped on the carpet. “No Wilda. You tell Mavis, I will not have her,” Blanche insisted stubbornly, rubbing the frayed edges of her small Bible in agitation.
“Mom.” Oliver was obviously trying to hang on to his patience. “Mavis is gone. I told you.”
“Well, where the hell is she?”
“I told you. She passed.” When Blanche’s upturned face registered no emotion, he added, “She passed away.”