Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [108]
I blinked. “Who’s ‘they,’ Luella?”
“Please, let me go,” she whispered. “I’ve said too much. I-I need to clear my head. Let me go.”
“On one condition.” I searched her teary eyes. “Don’t do anything rash. Don’t talk to anyone. Especially not to Amery. She’s a very dangerous woman.” I pulled out a business card. “Think about your options. Anything you tell me is in confidence. I won’t say anything to anyone until I hear from you. But if I don’t hear from you within two days, Luella, I will track you down.” The second I moved she was out the door.
I stared out Reva’s small picture window, waiting for her to return.
Poor Vernon Sloane. No one saw him as a man, only dollar signs. I wasn’t lucky enough to have had grandparents, or aunts and uncles in my life. Even though I had little experience with old people, I realized I was prejudiced. Calling them geezers. Making fun of the way “white-heads” drove their big cars. Hating to be behind them in line because they were so 384
slow. Bitching about forking a portion of my earnings into Medicare and Social Security.
In other cultures the aged weren’t an embarrassment to be locked away. The elderly were looked to for guidance, lauded for their knowledge, and treated with respect as valuable members of society.
The casual disregard with which we treated our elderly in this country made me sick. And I was as goddamned guilty as everyone else in allowing it to happen.
“Julie? You okay?” Reva said behind me.
I jumped. I hadn’t heard stealthy girl come in.
“Yeah.”
“Was Luella able to help you?”
“Some. Not as much as I’d hoped.”
“Oh. Anything I can do?”
“Maybe.” I continued to gaze out the window because the question I had was wildly inappropriate and completely embarrassing. I didn’t know if I could look into Reva’s sharp turquoise eyes and ask it. “You told me you don’t have any family left. So what happens to your estate when you . . .?”
“Die?” She chuckled. “I had a hard time saying that word at your age, too. I couldn’t imagine it. And here I am. Eighty-eight years old.”
“You don’t look a day over seventy.”
“Bah, flatterer, but I’ll take it. Anyway, to answer your question, I’ve left the little money I have to the Campbell County Library System. I know how much 385
it’ll be appreciated. That’s probably why I’m low on the Prime Time Friends priority list.”
“What?”
“That’s the other function of the organization, if you hadn’t figured it out yet. They try to get residents here to bequeath all or part of their estate to the program.”
I let my forehead rest on the icy pane of glass. Why hadn’t I asked Reva for this information earlier?
Had I automatically discounted her conversation as the ramblings of a lonely old woman? Bitter about her lot in life and her friend dying?
“You mentioned something like that to me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, my friend Nettie signed over everything to Prime Time Friends a couple of months before she died. And before you ask, Miz PI, no, I don’t think her death was intentional so they could get their hands on the pittance she had. Her death was from neglect, plain and simple.”
“That makes me feel even worse for her, Reva.”
“Me, too.”
I turned around. “So it’s the norm for the Friends?
To see the residents as dollar signs?”
“That’s all we are to most people, Julie. Medicare, Medicaid, funeral planning, free scooters, adjustable beds, wheelchairs, and prescription medicine programs. That’s why I like Luella the best of all the volunteers. She never makes me feel like a number.”
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Yeah, but Luella sure had Vernon Sloane’s number. All five million of them. “Well, you’re number one in my book. I appreciate all your help.”
Reva snorted. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
The slanted jeweled green eyes on her retro cat clock shifted; the long tail twitched back and forth, announcing the top of the hour. I sighed. “I should go. I have a couple of things to finish up at the