Lula paged through the Stitch file. “She should be home. She’s eighty-one years old and she’s in an assisted-living facility in Hamilton Township.”
“Omigod.”
“I could probably outrun her even in sneakers,” Lula said. “So, this should turn out better.”
This wasn’t going to turn out better. This was going to be a disaster. There was no way I could apprehend an eighty-one-year-old woman and look like a hero.
“She might even be happy to see us,” Lula said. “Maybe she just didn’t have money for an Uber to take her to court. And now here we are giving her a free ride.”
I was going to cling to that thought. It was a good thought.
I took Hamilton to Nottingham and followed the GPS directions to Sunnydale Senior Living. I parked in the visitor parking, and Lula and I entered the lobby of the four-story building. Bob stayed in the car with the window cracked.
“This is nice,” Lula said. “It’s real classy with the potted plants and conversation areas. And the reception desk looks like a hotel instead of an old people’s home.”
I checked in at the reception desk and asked for Gloria. I was told she was most likely in the dining room on the fourth floor.
“They got a dining room here,” Lula said, entering the elevator with me. “And the elevator is clean and doesn’t smell like a burrito and fries. I wouldn’t mind living here.”
We got off at the fourth floor and followed the people migrating to food. I had my file in hand with Gloria’s photo. Gray hair. Caucasian. Large-frame animal-print glasses. Used a walker.
“Here’s another advantage,” Lula said. “If I lived here, I could beat all these folks to the buffet.”
I spotted Gloria queued up at the double doors to the dining room. I eased my way through the residents and introduced myself.
“What happened to your eyes?” she asked.
“I tripped and fell,” I said.
She nodded. “I see that a lot. People are always face-planting here. You reach for your walker, and it rolls away and splat… you’re on the floor.”
“You missed your court date,” I said. “We’re here to help you get a new date.”
“I appreciate your offer of help, but it isn’t necessary,” Gloria said. “You get to be of an age where you don’t need to go through all that nonsense.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not true,” I said. “You need to go to the courthouse and get a new date scheduled. It will only take a few minutes.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m sure you went to a lot of trouble to drive over here. And I know this is your job. And I don’t want it to look like you aren’t doing your job, but I’m going to have to decline. I get these court requests all the time, and I simply don’t see the point in honoring them.”
“Yeah, but you stole a bunch of clothes,” Lula said.
“It wasn’t a bunch of clothes,” she said. “Lynette Bolger died, and I needed a new dress for her celebration-of-life event.”
“I guess I could understand that,” Lula said. “Except why didn’t you just buy a dress?”
“I used to buy everything,” Gloria said, “and then one day I found out that I could simply take what I wanted. It’s much better than buying. They run a little bus once a week to the mall and we get to shop around for an hour or two and then the bus brings us back here. It’s very pleasant.”
“That’s stealing,” Lula said.
“Not stealing,” Gloria said. “It’s shoplifting, and if you’re a senior or destitute, it falls into the RAM program. Redistribution of Available Merchandise. It supplements Social Security and Medicare. It’s an entitlement program.”
“I never heard of that program,” Lula said, “but I know a lot of people who participate. Most of them are in jail.”
The doors to the dining room opened and everyone surged forward.
“It’s been lovely chatting with you, but I have to go,” Gloria said. “If you aren’t at the front of the line there’s no more carrot cake left for dessert and Jack Hestler coughs on everything. You always want to be ahead of Jack.”
I stepped away from the lunch line and headed for the elevator.
“What are we going to do with Gloria?” Lula asked. “Are you going to come back after lunch and put her in cuffs?”
“No,” I said. “I’m going to leave and never come back. If Vinnie wants to apprehend her, that’s his problem.”
“Is that on account of RAM?”
“No. I’m walking away because she’s not going to cooperate, and I’ll look like I’m abusing the elderly and I’ll feel like a jerk if I put her in cuffs and drag her out of the building.”
“Yeah, it could be hard to get her out of here. Not to mention, these old folks stick together. They could turn into an angry mob. And what are we supposed to do if they try to run us over with their scooters? We’d probably get into trouble if we shoot at them.”
“No doubt.”
CHAPTER NINE
Bob was panting and drooling on the side window when we reached my Cherokee. I let him out, he lifted his leg, relieved himself on my left rear tire, and jumped back into the car.
“We should be thinking about lunch,” Lula said. “Bob looks hungry.”
“What do you think Bob would like for lunch?”
“He wants chicken salad from that bakery and deli on Nottingham. We passed it on our way in. They make excellent chicken salad, and they make fries with duck fat. Duck-fat fries are the next-best thing to an orgasm.”
My sex life had been skimpy lately with Morelli working overtime and flying off to Miami, so a runner-up to an orgasm had a lot of appeal.
Fifteen minutes later I parked in the lot next to the deli.
“I’ll wait out here with Bob,” I said to Lula. “Get chicken salad on a croissant for Bob and one for me, and make sure mine comes with extra fries.”
When Lula came back to the SUV she had chicken salad croissants for everyone plus a big bucket of fries, coleslaw, chips, drinks, and a white bakery box filled with pastries.
“I had a hard time making choices in there,” she said. “This is a five-star deli-bakery.”
We tailgated off the Cherokee, and Bob was done with his croissant before I finished unwrapping mine. I gave him a handful of fries on a napkin and told him he had to pace himself.
“He keeps eating like that and he’s going to get acid reflux,” Lula said. “He’s gotta learn to savor.”
Halfway through my croissant I looked down at Bob. The French fries were long gone and so was the napkin.
“Can’t blame him for eating the napkin,” Lula said. “It probably had soaked up duck fat. I might have eaten it too.”
I finished up with an apple tart and Lula grazed through the rest of the box on the way to the office.
“I’m going to leave you and Bob at the office,” I said. “I promised Mrs. Manley I’d take her cats to the vet for their checkup.”
“You’re a good person to offer to do that,” Lula said.