T Is for Trespass

else would he take the bus back and forth across town?”
    “He had a license, but no vehicle. That’s why he was in the market for one.”
    “Sounds like he meant to hit the road.”
    “Might have.”
    “What about the tattoo on his hand? What was that about?”
    “He was an amateur ventriloquist.”
    “I don’t get the connection.”
    “He could throw his voice, like that Señor Wences guy on the old Ed Sullivan Show . He’d flatten his thumb along his index finger and make it move like a mouth. The red in the web between his index finger and his thumb were the lips and the two dots on the knuckle were the eyes. He made like she was a little pal of his named Tía—“Auntie” in Spanish—the two of them talking back and forth. I only saw him do it once, but it was funny. I found myself talking to her like she was real. I guess everybody’s got a talent of some kind, even if it’s an act you lifted from someone else.”
    “Had he been in prison?”
    “I asked him about that once. He admitted he served time, but he wouldn’t say what for.” He hesitated, easing a sly peek at his watch. “I don’t mean to cut you short, miss, but I got a program about to come on and if I don’t get down there, the other fellows on the floor will be all over the set.”
    “I think that about covers it. If you think of anything else, could you give me a call?” I found a business card in my bag and gave it to him.
    “Sure thing.”
    We shook hands. I slung my bag across one shoulder and moved to the door. He stepped ahead of me and opened it like a gent.
    He said, “I’ll just follow you down the hall since I’m headed that way.”
    We’d nearly reached the landing when he said, “If you want my opinion?”
    I turned and looked at him.
    “I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts, he didn’t leave town.”
    “Why?”
    “He had grandsons.”
    “I heard he wasn’t allowed to see them.”
    “Doesn’t mean he didn’t find a way.”

    As it turned out, the investigator for the Tri-Counties Agency for the Prevention of Elder Abuse was the very same Nancy Sullivan I’d spoken to on the phone, which I learned when she appeared in my office on Friday afternoon. She must have been in her twenties, but she looked a scant fifteen. Her hair was shoulder-length and straight. She had a plain, earnest air about her, leaning forward slightly in her chair, feet together, while she explained what she’d learned in the course of her investigation. The jacket and midcalf skirt she wore looked like they’d been ordered from a travel clothing catalog, a wrinkle-free fabric you could wear for hours on a plane and later wash in a hotel sink. She wore sensible low-heeled shoes and opaque stockings through which I could see evidence of spider veins. At her age? That was troubling. I tried to picture her in a conversation with Solana Rojas, who was so much older, smarter, and wiser in the ways of the world. Solana was cunning. Nancy Sullivan seemed sincere, which is to say clueless. No contest.
    After an exchange of pleasantries, she told me she was filling in for one of the investigators usually assigned to evaluate cases of suspected abuse. As she spoke, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. She went on to say she’d talked to her supervisor who’d asked her to do the preliminary interviews. Any follow-up queries deemed necessary would be referred back to one of the regular investigators.
    So far it sounded reasonable, and I was politely nodding away like a bobble-head doggie on an auto dashboard. Then, as though by extrasensory perception, I started hearing sentences she hadn’t actually said. I felt a small thrill of fear. I knew for a pluperfect fact she was going to drop a bomb.
    She took a manila folder from her briefcase and opened it on her lap, sorting through her papers. “Now my findings,” she said. “First of all, I want to tell you how much we value the call you made…”
    I found myself squinting. “This is bad news, isn’t it?”
    Startled, she laughed. “Oh, no. Far from it. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I talked to Mr. Vronsky at length. Our procedure is to make an unannounced visit so the caretaker won’t have an opportunity to set the scene, so to speak. Mr. Vronsky wasn’t ambulatory, but he was alert and forthcoming. He did seem emotionally fragile and in moments, he was disoriented, none of which was surprising in a man of his age. I asked him a number