Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

I’ve had my place for thirty-three years now, and the rent’s cheap. I got my own troubles without being with theirs every hour around the clock. You’re here, your work hours get flexible, you see what I’m saying? Molly don’t mind that, or so she says. I do. I got to get to my meetings regular and have some peace and quiet, too. And I need a phone, so’s I can call my sponsor when I have to. Like tonight.” He looked toward the phone on Harry’s desk. “We’re not supposed to use the phones here, unless it’s for them, the kids, an accident or something. Like we ain’t got no needs ourselves.”
    I patted his hand.
    “He told me to hold on, my sponsor.”
    I nodded.
    “Well, I told him, I’m trying, aren’t I? It’s why I’m calling, I said.” He nodded. I did, too.
    “Homer, you never told me about Harry’s wife. Marilyn. Did she come here, work with the kids, or help Harry out?”
    “Met her twice, is all. This was Harry’s work, not hers. The sister’s the same way, I can tell you. The one was here today? That Bailey Poole, her son, he was saying he’d be overlooking the finances. That’s what I heard him say, overlooking the finances. Never set foot in the place more’n once a year before now. But that sister woman, when they got here after the services, she was looking the place over, as if now that Mr. Dietrich is gone, it’s hers. Can you just imagine what that crew would do to this place if it were theirs? Turn it into a shopping mall, I guess.” He looked at his hands, gnarled with work, the fingers stained a yellowish brown. “Never worked a day in their lives, the pack of them. You can see it by their hands, even the boy. Good-for-nothings, I say. Dr. Eli, he was telling them they were jumping the gun. They had to wait and see.”
    He looked at me, his eyebrows raised.
    “Until they got to see the will,” I told him, “see what Harry spelled out for Harbor View. I guess everyone is expecting what they want, as if Harry were Santa Claus.”
    “I’m sure he did what’s right for them,” he said, pointing up.
    “You don’t think he would have been concerned about his relatives’ feelings? After all, Arlene was his wife’s sister, and he has no other family that I know of.”
    “Don’t matter,” Homer said. “This is what mattered to him. These people here, the twins and Jackson, Willy and Richard and the princess, Charlotte, David, and all of them, this was Harry’s family. This is where his heart was. You’ll see.”
    I nodded. “You okay now, Homer?”
    “I’m better. It’s good to have a friend.”
    I reached over and patted his hand, dry from cleaning products, rough from hard work.
    “I better finish my bed checks. You done in here?” he asked me, the suspicion coming back into his eyes.
    “Yeah, I was just looking for you,” I told him. “To tell you I couldn’t wait for our cup of tea. I want to get over to the hospital, see how Venus is doing.”
    Homer nodded. “You tell her I said—”
    Then he remembered.
    “I will, Homer. No point me sitting with her and keeping my thoughts to myself. I figure, maybe she hears me, so I talk a blue streak. It couldn’t hurt.”
    “You tell her Homer’s keeping her seat for her. She’ll know.”
    He got up and went to the door, holding it ajar for me. “Keep your eyes and ears open. Anything you hear, you let me know.”
    He nodded.
    Dashiell and I headed for the door, then turned back. “Homer, were you here when Harry got hit by the bicycle?“
    “I wasn’t. I went to the six o’clock meeting, got here about seven-thirty, couldn’t get in right off, because they were looking for clues out front. Never saw so many police in all my days.”
    “What about the night before? Did you hear anything then, anything unusual?”
    “Sorry, Rachel, I didn’t. I don’t know anything about Mr. Dietrich’s accident.”
    I walked back to where he was standing.
    “You might, Homer, but you might not know that what you saw or heard has any significance. So if something comes up, if you remember some little detail, no matter how unimportant it seems, you let me know, okay?”
    “Okay, Rachel. I knew I was right about you trying to help Venus.”
    “You bet I am. And now you are, too. We’re a team.”
    It was a fifteen-minute walk to St. Vincent’s, and I was hoping, at least for that short amount of time, I’d be able to let my mind go blank. There wasn’t much hope it would get jest in the normal