“Some police detective. He called my office to ask me more questions about the boy today, too, but I didn’t have time to speak to him. Don’t know why the police are hounding me about it. You go and do something for someone, and suddenly you’re the one with all the answers,” he muttered. “Like I can hand them all over, neatly tied with a ribbon on a silver platter. Everyone wants their work made easier.”
“I decided I will go with you,” I said.
“Good. We’ll leave in ten,” he said.
I nodded and hurried up to my room. I never thought of my mother as a conceited person or even a little too much concerned about her looks, but one thing that impressed me about her was that she wouldn’t leave the house without looking her best, no matter where she went, even if it was just to the super
market.
“Looking messy in public says a lot about how you live your life, Clara Sue,” she told me. Myra either agreed or wanted to be sure she always pleased my mother, even now. She always made sure I didn’t leave the house with my hair disheveled, or wearing something torn or missing a button, or certainly wearing anything with a stain on it.
I chose a prettier blouse than the one I was wearing, changed my shoes to a newer pair, and then brushed my hair, pinning it back with hair clips. I couldn’t throw off my sense of guilt for caring about my looks so soon after Willie’s funeral, but it wasn’t that easy to push aside what I knew had pleased my mother.
Grandpa certainly looked pleased when he saw me. He smiled, put his hand on my shoulder, and then held my hand as we walked out to his car. Jimmy Wilson and two of the grounds workers paused to look our way. They were replacing bulbs in the driveway and landscape lights. Jimmy smiled and waved, obviously happy to see me out and about. I waved back and got into Grandpa’s sedan, immediately feeling funny about it.
There hadn’t been all that many times in my life when I had gone somewhere with Grandpa and not had Willie along, too. Sometimes Grandpa took me to a friend’s home, but even if we went shopping for something I needed, Willie would be with us, because he knew that Grandpa would find something to buy for him, too. I usually sat in the front, and Willie sat in the rear. He would talk from the moment we drove out of the estate to wherever we were going. Grandpa called him “Motor Mouth” and said he could get more words to the mile than anyone he knew. He also said he would have been a good passenger for him to take along when he used to drive trucks long distances. “I wouldn’t ever fall asleep with Willie in the truck,” he’d say. That didn’t discourage Willie. If anything, it got him to say more.
Perhaps it was the quiet. Maybe Grandpa was thinking about Willie talking a blue streak, too, but we rode for quite a while before either of us spoke.
“The poisoned boy really hasn’t spoken yet, Grandpa?” I began.
“He doesn’t even cry. He doesn’t call for his mother. First they thought he might be deaf, because he wouldn’t even turn toward the person speaking to him, but they know he’s not. My guess is he doesn’t trust anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Someone he should have trusted disappointed him. That’s one theory Dr. Patrick expressed. She hasn’t had any luck getting him to talk to her, either.”
“Who is she?”
“The psychiatrist I asked to look in on him,” he said.
I didn’t know anyone who went to a psychiatrist, much less a young person. It seemed so strange. Weren’t his physical injuries more important? “Uncle Bobby said he can’t move his legs.”
Grandpa nodded. “Dr. Friedman, the neurologist, told me it’s like the boy’s neurological systems have shut down. He said he has seen similar cases. The arsenic did some damage to his nerves and affected his muscles. It could take a long time for him to recuperate. Some patients don’t. He’s stopping in tonight and will tell me more about it.”
“What’s that all mean? He’ll die, too?”
“No, not now. He could have, almost did. They said another hour or so might have made all the difference. He’ll be in a wheelchair for a while . . . maybe forever.”
“Oh. Then he’ll have to go to a special place, right?” I said quickly. Even though I had agreed to go to see him and even to speak to him—mainly because of the things Myra had told me—I was still hoping he would be out of our lives soon and forever.
“We’ll see,” Grandpa said.
When we arrived at the hospital, the police detective who had been looking for Grandpa earlier greeted us in the lobby. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Bronson. Grandpa wasn’t happy he was there and didn’t hide it. He approached us the moment we entered.
“I told you everything I knew on the phone,” Grandpa snapped before the man could even say hello. He had shown us his identification. “I don’t know why you’re coming to me to ask these questions. I never saw him before,” Grandpa said. Before the detective could ask anything else, he added, his voice sharp, “And neither has my granddaughter. I don’t know anything more about him than you do.”
“So you don’t know anything about the man who brought him here, either?” Lieutenant Bronson asked, as if Grandpa hadn’t said a word yet. Either he couldn’t see how annoyed my grandfather was or he didn’t care. “You did hire a private detective, I understand.”
Grandpa looked surprised that the police detective knew, and then he shook his head. “He didn’t find out anything, and I didn’t learn anything about the man on my own, either. We weren’t exactly watching and listening to other patients’ problems at the time we brought my grandson here, you know.”
Grandpa Arnold wasn’t usually this irritable when it came to police or anyone else who didn’t have anything to do with his business. He was a very easygoing, gentle man, despite his size. If anyone accused him of being that way, he usually blamed it on my grandma, who he claimed softened him up. I was puzzled about why he was so antagonistic with the police. Did he blame them somehow for what had happened to Willie?
“I know. I’m sorry about your loss. Terrible thing,” Lieutenant Bronson said. “I just thought that with the interest you were showing and the money you were spending, you might know a little more by now that would help us get to the bottom of this.”
“There is no bottom for something this bad,” Grandpa said. “All we know right now is what we were told by the nurses in the emergency room and what the doctors are telling me. I’d have no reason to hold back. I’d like to see whoever did this punished, too.”
Lieutenant Bronson nodded, glanced at me, and stood there staring for a few dead moments, moments when he looked like he couldn’t squeeze a thought out of his brain or a word off his tongue. It was as if he had gone off somewhere for a few seconds and left his body behind.