Unfinished Business. C. A. Walters Walters
phone, and he would answer right away.
The abuse hotline that they had established was beginning to bear fruit, people who were generally afraid to talk to the police would call in and report abuse of their elderly relative in the various nursing homes and A.C.L.F.’s (Assisted Care Living Facilities) in around a one hundred mile radius.
Most cases only required speaking to the administration of the facility, and the problem would be solved. Sometimes, the police would have to be involved, and Robert was on a first name basis with some of the upper echelon of the Boston P.D. because of it.
Today was quiet on that front, the only news his search engine picked up on was the murder of the orderly the night before. Their computer had correlated the name of the orderly with a complaint that had once been filed against him, but there was nothing there the corporation would be interested in.
Robert downloaded the note about the Veteran’s initiative Dawn had come up with into his computer, and began fleshing out the idea a little. He had a few minutes before he had to go to the boardroom, or the “boring” room, as he like to call it.
Getting the V.F.W. involved, along with the Legion, the Eagles, and any other fraternal organizations he or his team could think of could really help get the ball rolling. Once he had his ideas straight, he copied them into his laptop, and left to go to the meeting.
Entering the room, he saw around half of the people he expected were already there, early birds like himself. The old military “Hurry up and wait” was still ingrained in him from his time in the Seals, and some of the people he worked with in the coalition apparently had adopted it, too.
Finally, they were all together, and the meeting began. Budgets, expenditures, blah, blah, blah. The new proposal for the veteran initiative was well received, and a group was assigned to pursue it.
The abuse hot line they had established was discussed, and it was agreed that it was doing some good, as many people who wouldn’t talk to the police were willing to call the anonymous tip line.
Fortunately, due to the nature of the hot line, the organization was eligible for some Federal matching funds for the project, and the telephone company had graciously donated some phone lines
After the meeting, Robert told his secretary he was stepping out for lunch, and would be available after 2:00 in the afternoon. He felt what he figured would be a whopper of a headache coming on, and since the most important work of the day was already done, he didn’t feel bad about leaving for a while.
Robert went home for lunch, then lay down to take a nap for a short while. When he woke up, he looked at the clock, and it said 1:45. He had to scramble to go back to the office for the rest of the day.
“Where the heck did the time go?” he wondered. He knew he had gone home at 10:00 in the morning, and felt like he had only slept a few minutes.
“I guess I’m just getting older” he thought as he drove back to work. It bothered him that he seemed to be losing time lately, not every day, but still, too much time was unaccounted for in his life.
When he arrived back at the office, Lucy informed him that the mayor had tried to reach him on his cell, but only got the voice mail. Robert checked his phone, and found it was turned off. He couldn’t remember doing that; he always left it on when he wasn’t home.
“Man, I’m getting forgetful lately. Maybe I need some vitamins or something” he thought. Again, it seemed that time was just slipping away from him. The stress was getting to be a load, though nothing he felt he couldn’t handle. Maybe just a good strong drink would help him ease the tension a little, like it did when he was a young buck in the service.
Chapter 4
This was the place the latest reports had come from. Nestled in the hills near the town of Lowell, Massachusetts, the little nursing home looked quaint and peaceful.
For the most part, the patients were content, this was a bit more upscale than most, and there were nice gardens to relax in, and the food was on a much better level than most.
Of course, there were the Alzheimer’s patients, lost inside their own minds, bodies still alive, but seemingly nobody home. Most people felt truly bad for them, but there was always the exception.
Russell Winston was a loner. Acne scars left his face looking like a bas relief of the lunar surface, and the under bite he was stuck with didn’t help any either. All but ignored by the opposite sex, Russell had turned to fantasies and masturbation as a teenager, and had not really progressed much beyond that in the intervening fifteen years or so.
At first, getting the job as an orderly on the night shift had been a bummer, but then again, he didn’t have a night life anyway. Somehow he had lucked out and gotten accepted into a Certified Nurse’s Aide program at the local community college, and with a little creative cheating, had managed (barely) to graduate. Since he had a clean police record (the police scared him so badly he didn’t even speed!), he had been able to land a job in this particular home. The pay wasn’t great, but they did have major medical, and that was a help, since he had also been “blessed” with minor but very irritating health problems, not the least of which was chronic psoriasis, which made the skin on his arms somewhat disgusting to look at.
After a couple of months in the home, he realized that some of the Alzheimer’s patients had no idea where they were, or what was going on. One night, old lady Nelson had wet herself (again), and he had to change her diaper. After he washed her, he decided to have a little fun. Since she was naked anyway, it was nothing to get a little lubricating jelly, and do his thing.
Since he got away with it, he started making a habit of “getting a little” every couple of nights, either with her, or whoever happened to be available. One time, he even buggered old man Jacobs. But Ms. Nelson was by far his favorite. She might moan a little, but other than that, she didn’t even acknowledge that he was in the room.
Unfortunately for him, one of the nurses had gotten suspicious, and called the anonymous hot line maintained by that wonderful organization that put together such nice parties for the old folks.
The Hunter had received word that something awful was occurring there, because he was tied in to the organization’s computer network.
He decided to do a little surveillance, so he would have firsthand knowledge of just what was going on there.
Hacking into their computer system was a snap, so he placed an order for a repairman to come do routine maintenance on the sprinkler system that week.
Arriving at the home, in a set of coveralls with the logo of a local fire equipment supply company, he charmed the receptionist with a little smooth talk.
She liked the way his brown eyes were set off by the darkness of his black hair. And at six foot two, with such wide shoulders and slender waist, he definitely fell into the category of “hunk”. After setting her mind at ease, he set to work checking the sprinklers.
Of course, he also fulfilled the real reason he was there, placing a few hidden cameras and microphones in strategic locations. This way he could monitor some of the patient’s rooms, and verify what he had been told.
Two nights later, the microphone in room 203 picked up the sound of a muffled woman’s voice, then a man saying “Just keep quiet, this will only take a minute. If you knew what was going on, you’d love what I’m doing. I know I’m a great lover!”
Turning to the video feed he had set up in the light fixture, he saw the lady who lived in that room; face down on the bed, with an orderly on top of her, his pants down around his ankles, thrusting into her like it was their honeymoon. The muffled voice was explained by the fact that he kept her face pushed into the pillow, not hard enough to suffocate her, but enough that she could not be heard. A bottle of lubricant was visible on the floor next to the bed, apparently dropped there by the orderly.
Looking into his database, he found that the woman listed in that room was 83 years old, and