Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [1]
QUALIFICATIONS:
1) Must be able to follow a strict medication schedule 2) Must be good at locating lost objects
3) Must listen without complaint
4) Must provide assistance with personal
hygiene
PAY RATE: Volunteer
“Didja ever notice old folks’ homes smell exactly like funeral homes?”
Kevin’s blistering look singed my eyelashes.
“Maybe you could’ve said that a little louder, Julie.”
“What?” I gestured to the chess-playing octogenarians in the glass-walled room beyond us. “It’s not like anyone heard me. Most of them are deaf anyway.”
He sighed.
“I’m just saying . . .”
“Enough. Stay back and let me handle this.”
I hid my smile as he tromped to the receptionist’s desk. Despite a friendship spanning two decades I found it easy to play him.
My triumph faded when I remembered why we
were undercover at Prairie Gardens Assisted Living Facility. My best pal and business partner did his 1
share of playing me, too.
Evidently my charm wasn’t as pervasive as I’d imagined since he’d taken this case even after I’d argued against it.
Two days ago we found Amery Grayson dithering in the hallway leading to the offices of Wells/Collins Investigations. The bitterly cold month of February drags along like a three-legged dog in the private eye business, which was why Kevin quickly ushered the lovely Ms. Grayson into the conference room before she bolted.
I’d always pooh-poohed the iconic PI yarn where a beautiful, mysterious moll sauntered in, reeking of sex and turmoil. At first glance Amery’s bloodshot eyes and trembling mouth evoked sympathy for whatever crisis marred her classic features. At second glance, Amery was all leg, all blonde, and all wet behind the ears. Young and troubled. A bad combo.
A combo that kicked Kevin’s protective instincts and his hormones into high gear, because the next thing I knew, I was fetching Kleenex, water, and smelling salts for Miz Amery while Kevin patted her hand and encouraged her to pour out her tale of woe. Amery tearfully confided she’d never done anything like hiring a PI—she didn’t know if we could help her, blah blah blah. Her spiel wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard a hundred times before. Somehow I managed to block out her simpering tone and focused on the issue: She feared someone was taking advantage 2
of her grandfather.
Vernon Sloane resided at Prairie Gardens, an assisted living/retirement facility. The biggest issue in his life, besides being afflicted with the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease, was the loss of his driver’s license after he’d wrecked his car. A combative Vernon kept trying to sneak out of Prairie Gardens at all hours of the day and night, and Amery had received four phone calls in the last four months after Gramps had been caught wandering around outside the facility looking for his beloved classic Buick.
Which led Amery to the first problem: her concerns about the management team running the facility and the apparent passing off of nursing and security issues to volunteers.
Prairie Gardens boasted a new “in-reach program,”
Prime Time Friends, where volunteers visited residents at least once a week. Amery wondered why volunteers from an in-reach program would take an elderly man out on supervised, unnsanctioned outings. Why they’d encourage him to cancel doctor’s appointments with the in-house physician and offer to drive Vernon to a specialist outside the facility.
The situation was getting progressively worse. The last time Amery visited her grandfather, he was more confused than usual, and he consistently called her by her dead mother’s name, Susan. Amery discovered another problem while looking for her grandfather’s missing medications. Crumpled up in his shaving kit 3
she’d found his quarterly bank statement. Vernon had withdrawn cash totaling more than thirty-five thousand dollars. When Amery asked her grandfather about the
missing money, he accused her—again referring to her as Susan—of stealing it from him.
Amery’s hands were tied when it came to Vernon Sloane’s financial affairs. Without guardianship she couldn’t do