South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [25]
Arbutus didn’t answer and they both must have left the room because Madeline didn’t hear any more conversation. She emptied the box of bone meal and went inside to see if Gladys had any more tucked away.
The house was quiet, the kitchen deserted. A stack of mail sat on the table. All bills. The groceries Gladys returned had come to $75.13, but Madeline was shocked to see that she owed the Bensons over five hundred. She slowly fingered through the rest. There were past due notices for everything. Fuel oil, electricity, the phone. In each envelope a pink slip was enclosed, threatening a shutoff. Even the gas station wanted fifty dollars, but the really impressive things were the bills from the hospital and rehab center where Arbutus had gone after her last fall, before Nathan took them to Chicago.
She owed over sixty thousand dollars. Medicare must not have paid for everything, and Madeline wondered why she wasn’t covered by Medicaid. Maybe because of whatever they’d referred to selling. Madeline saw that Gladys had been paying everyone a little—ten dollars here, twenty there. She looked again at the grocery bill. How it had gotten so high without them cutting Gladys off like they had Mary and Emil and Randi?
“What are you doing?” Gladys demanded, appearing from the parlor.
“I’m—nothing.” Gladys snatched the bills from Madeline’s hand and Madeline met her gaze Uneasily. “The bone meal’s gone. There wasn’t enough to finish.”
“Well, go get more, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist.”
“All right. Where do I go?”
Gladys’s expression was withering. “To the hardware, where else?” She was clearly furious. “Looking at a person’s mail. I should have known better than to leave it lying around.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Sorry doesn’t do any good. Just go get the fertilizer. I’ll get you the money.” Gladys stalked to her desk in the hall and took her wallet from her purse. She turned her back, but Madeline knew how carefully she must be counting money that really did not exist. She came back with a worn five-dollar bill and Madeline took it from her, not wanting to but knowing Gladys would insist.
“Take your car. There’s something I want you to pick Up for me while you’re down there. And I’m telling you right now, not one word to my sister. You can keep your busybody ways to yourself.”
Some kindness or patience that Emmy had drilled into her—and her own guilt—made Madeline keep her mouth shut.
Gladys held out a key—a skeleton key no less—on a narrow leather strap. “There’s something I want out of the hotel. This is for the back door. Pull in the alley and park there. You’re going to go into the kitchen. Go straight through to the front hall. I want the kicksled, it’s right next to the door, you can’t miss it. It’s awkward and it’s heavy, but I think you can handle it. You’ve got a big trunk on that car of yours, it ought to fit. And be careful, it’s an antique. Wrap some sheets around it, take them off the furniture.”
“Why—”
“Just please don’t ask me any questions.”
Madeline counted to five and then said, “Am I allowed to ask what hotel it is I’m going to?”
“Our hotel, of course. On the main street. The Hotel Leppinen.”
Madeline didn’t bother to stay annoyed at Gladys, not with the key to the building she’d admired so often in her hand. As soon as she got the bone meal at the hardware, she hurried back across the street. She’d already parked in the alley, as Gladys instructed, so now she made her way around the side of the hotel, past a dense thicket of lilacs and through a tiny orchard of gnarled apple trees, Up three steps to the back entry. She fitted the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
She stepped inside and drew in a wondering breath. Ten-foot ceilings, hardwood floors, walls wainscoted in dark paneling, massive counters of the same dark wood. The hanging cupboards were fronted with leaded glass and showed orderly stacks of thick white china cups and plates. Lightbulbs hung overhead from their cloth-covered wires, and Madeline saw they were operated by push buttons instead of flip switches. She pushed a button