Chapter 35
Woodcrest’s director agreed to talk with Red before she interviewed George.
“We always regret having to ask a resident to leave, but in George Owens’s case, we have no choice. We can’t jeopardize the safety and well-being of our other residents and staff. He’s bothering women at dinner and during social functions. Pawing them, trying to kiss them. The elevator incident was the last straw. I can’t even allow you to meet with him alone. I don’t want the liability. I’m going to have one of our male associates accompany you.”
Red called Sam as she slapped down the hall, still wearing her disposable salon flip-flops, toward the room where she counseled patients.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Are you still in your office?”
“Yeah.”
His terse response was freighted with tension.
“I spoke with the director. But they won’t budge on the issue of your dad leaving.”
There was a brief pause while Sam came to grips with that fact. “What am I going to do, Red?”
It was the first time Sam had ever called her something other than the casual throw-away “Doc.”
In spite of her anger, her heart went out to him. “There have to be other options. If we have to, we’ll go to Portland.”
From the elevator down the hall came George, accompanied by Judy and a man in scrubs.
“I’m at the consulting room now. Your dad’s on his way. I gotta go.”
There was no time for good-byes.
George and Dave, a male nurse, entered the consult room, followed by Red.
“Have fun with Randy Andy,” Judy said out of the corner of her mouth.
After helping George take his seat, Dave took the chair behind him, discreetly tucked into a short hallway by the door.
The first words George said were, “Are you here to get me out of this place?”
“We’ll talk about that in a minute. First, I need you to tell me what’s up with you and the female residents. I’m hearing there’s been some inappropriate behavior.”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You haven’t been saying things to the ladies here? Touching them?”
“I have a perfectly good wife and three kids back home. Luke, Cindy, and Sam.”
Red made some notes.
“We talked a little before about the reason why you’re here. Do you remember that, George?”
“My son told me we were going to McDonald’s. Strangest McDonald’s I ever seen. That was a long time ago. I’m ready to go home. Where’d he get to goddamn it?” Restless, he turned in his chair.
From his seat near the entrance, the nurse kept careful watch.
Red’s head spun. George couldn’t stay here, but neither could he go back to the saltbox. Sam didn’t want him there.
“Where’s my phone? I’m going to call him now. Tell him to come down here and bring his gun.”
“Settle down. We’re not through talking.”
“Do you know my son?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Crackerjack sniper. Three Bronze Stars for meritorious service in a combat zone. I raised him up.” Talking about his son, George glowed with pride. “But it was the Army that gave him his mental stamina. Tempered him in fire till he was hard as flint.”
In dementia, long-term, episodic memory often remained intact even while the hippocampus was damaged. There was an unmistakable ring of truth in the proliferation of details George gave.
“A sniper?”
Red fought to separate her emotions from her professionalism.
“Always was a helluva marksman.”
She recalled Sam’s habit of estimating distances down to the inch.
“Who do you think it was taught him to shoot?” He thumped his chest. “First gun I got him was an air gun. Next was a Winchester.”
The long rifle hanging above the fireplace in the saltbox.
“Started out shooting squirrels and rabbits, same way my daddy taught me. Then one morning I caught that dog of his with another one of his mother’s chickens in his mouth. Know what I did?”
She held her breath.
“Dug a hole under his bedroom window. Threw in the half-eaten bird. Then I marched right upstairs to the boy’s room and shoved that Winchester in his hands. Threw up the sash and told him to call his dog. Dog come runnin’ the minute he heard Sam’s whistle.
“‘Shoot him,’ I said. Couldn’t do it at first. Still had sleep in his eyes. ‘Shoot him or I will.’ I was doing him a favor.
He knew I wasn’t half the shot he was and it might not be as clean. He shot him then. Dog fell right into the hole I dug for it. You look for it, you can still see the cross.”
Behind George, the nurse’s eyes were saucers.
Red leaped from her chair, grabbed her bag, and flew past George and the nurse and out the door.
No wonder Sam hated that house. Her hand shook as she jammed her key into the ignition. Abandoned there by his mother, brother, and sister…left to fend for himself with a quintessential psychopath…a man who was shallow, uncaring, and selfish.
She had to find him, before he spun out. Before he destroyed her dream house.