I Know An Old Lady
Dec. 28th, 2008 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencer"Ladies," says Harland. "Ladies, ladies."
Laura, watching him over her coffee cup, thinks he probably didn't sleep any better than she did. He picked up a spoon before he spoke, as if to tap it on a water glass, and then put it back down, maybe thinking the gesture too wedding-reception for an occasion like this. Gradually, the women fall silent, listening, perhaps seeing the shadows on his face.
"Something very terrible has happened," he says. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but Mrs Curbinand passed away in the night."
Shocked murmurs, topped by LeeAnn's explosive "Shit!"
"There are," Harland says, and runs down again. Even his waistcoat, brilliant in the morning sunshine pouring through the windows, can't help him now. "There are questions about the, about the manner of her decease," he goes on. "I'm sure you all join with me in hoping that these questions will be speedily resolved so that we can apply to the Sisterhood for another sufferer to visit us."
"You mean someone killed her?" LeeAnn again, over a rising tide of questions, complaints, conversation.
Harland looks even more wretched, and Laura has a flash of his head disappearing, turtle-like, into the collar of his shirt and the shelter of the waistcoat. "There is that possibility. It looks as though--" A definite stop this time. "The police will be here after breakfast to take statements. I ask you all to co-operate fully with them. The quicker this matter is dealt with, the sooner we can all get back to normal." He holds up his hands. "No, I'm sorry, that's all I can tell you. I've been strictly instric--instructed not to reveal any more information at this time. You will all be asked where you were last night. Please be completely honest in your answers, and I'm sure it will be found that this was nothing more than a terrible accident."
No you're not, thinks Laura.
"Well I was servin down at Hooters, honey, where else?" LeeAnn yells, and a few of the hardier women join in with similar unlikely claims. Harland looks shocked, but masters himself with an effort.
"Now that's just the sort of remark that's going to get us all into trouble, LeeAnn, I'm surprised at you," he says. "It's important that we all remember how important it is--I mean, that we all be polite and helpful to the police. They have a job to do, remember, and they don't enjoy it any more than we do."
"My Jimmy enjoyed it," says a skinny woman somewhere behind Laura. Carol, Laura remembers. "Oh yeah, he enjoyed his work a whole hell of a lot."
"Okay." Having made her point, LeeAnn now becomes den mother as usual. "Okay, ladies, you heard the man. We gonna be nice and polite and tell the cops where we were, okay? No messin around. They don't like that shit."
"How--" It's Susan, plump and improbably red-haired and shy, her hand up like a little girl at school. "How--how did she die, Mister Harland?"
"I can't tell you that, Susan, I'm sorry." Harland is reassembling his persona, tuning it in with the buttons on his waistcoat like a bad TV signal. "Now I want you all to finish your breakfasts and then go into the day room and wait to be called. Detective--" He pulls a piece of yellow paper from his pocket. "Detective Rivera will be using my office for the rest of the day to interview you all. Try not to talk too much about this among yourselves till all the interviews are over, so that--" So that it doesn't sound like you all got your stories straight beforehand, thinks Laura. "So that your impressions don't get confused," he finishes. "I'm sure you're all as confused and, and worried and upset as I am, but as I said, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you ladies can get back to doing what you normally do and the sooner we can get another sufferer to come and help you all." He finds a ghostly echo of his usual smile, and tries it on. "Thank you for your attention. Enjoy your meal."
He looks around the room once, tries the smile again, abandons it and goes.
"'Enjoy your meal,'" LeeAnn mimics. "Yeah, like we gonna enjoy our meal with a dead body hangin over our heads." Susan can't help glancing up at the ceiling fan, in case Mrs Curbinand were suspended from it, twirling gently and gruesomely above the table. "I don't know bout you, ladies," LeeAnn goes on, "but I can't eat another thing." She sits back in her chair, folding her arms.
"Well, it ain't gonna spoil my meal," says Carol. "So she's dead. So what? We're all gonna be dead soon enough. Might as well be now. I never believed in all that suffering stuff anyway."
LeeAnn's eyes widen. "Didn't see you hangin back yesterday afternoon, honey."
Carol opens her mouth to snap back, then shuts it firmly and manages a twisted smile. "Hey, just cause I don't believe it don't mean it ain't worth a try, honey. I could be wrong."
"Mis--Mister Harland said not to talk about it," Susan offers timidly.
"Yeah, right, like that's gonna work," Carol sneers. "What else we got to talk about? Her coming here was the first thing that's happened since I got here. This place is just a graveyard in waiting."
"Really!" Laura's been waiting for Isabella to cut loose. "Some people have no conception of decency or consideration. Some of us are trying to come to terms with this terrible, tragic event." Maria, beside her, nods vigorously.
"You come to terms with it your way, lady," Carol begins.
"Hold it right there!" LeeAnn roars. "Time out, you two. You heard what the man said, what Susan so kindly repeated for us. Carol, Izzy, you just chill, okay? We gonna finish eatin and go to the day room like he said, or I gonna start bustin some heads here."
Carol and Isabella quiet down, and the rest of the women turn their attention back to their food. LeeAnn looks triumphantly around, and then, possibly forgetting what she said before, picks up her fork again and starts in on her eggs.
If anyone here were capable of busting some heads it would be LeeAnn. She could make two of Laura, and that's muscle on those arms, not flab. Her husband was some kind of teacher at the local college, and the way LeeAnn tells it, she spent more time working out in the gym than some of the students. Laura sometimes wonders about him, but that's one subject LeeAnn never talks about. Though she would have had to talk about him to Mrs Curbinand.
Laura lays her fork down, wipes her lips with her napkin and gets up to follow the other women to the day room. She's going to have to know. She's going to have to find out about all of them, what they were going to tell Mrs Curbinand. The police will ask their questions, but they won't get anywhere. By the time they get here, everyone will have been quietly asleep in their beds from lights out right the way through to sunrise, and no-one will say different. But one of them will be lying, and Laura needs to find out who.
"Oh, Laura." It's Harland, still not quite tuned in. "I wonder if I could ask a favour."
"What can I do for you, Mister Harland?" says Laura.
"Mrs Curbinand--her husband's flying in to identify the body and, and he wants to know what happened. I wonder if." Laura waits. It's a little like petit mal, this sudden loss of momentum, but he's definitely still there, just maybe needing a nudge. "I wonder if I could ask you to be present when I see him. I could really--that is I would be grateful for your support. I don't, I'm not very good at--"
"I'll be happy to, Mister Harland," says Laura.
"Only you were there as well, you know as much as I do--oh." Harland catches up. "Thank you, Laura, I appreciate it. He'll be here tomorrow around midday. I'll come and get you. Thank you. I, uh--thank you."
"No problem," Laura says, and Harland turns and totters away. Laura heads for the day room. There's a book there she thinks she might have a look at.
Laura, watching him over her coffee cup, thinks he probably didn't sleep any better than she did. He picked up a spoon before he spoke, as if to tap it on a water glass, and then put it back down, maybe thinking the gesture too wedding-reception for an occasion like this. Gradually, the women fall silent, listening, perhaps seeing the shadows on his face.
"Something very terrible has happened," he says. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but Mrs Curbinand passed away in the night."
Shocked murmurs, topped by LeeAnn's explosive "Shit!"
"There are," Harland says, and runs down again. Even his waistcoat, brilliant in the morning sunshine pouring through the windows, can't help him now. "There are questions about the, about the manner of her decease," he goes on. "I'm sure you all join with me in hoping that these questions will be speedily resolved so that we can apply to the Sisterhood for another sufferer to visit us."
"You mean someone killed her?" LeeAnn again, over a rising tide of questions, complaints, conversation.
Harland looks even more wretched, and Laura has a flash of his head disappearing, turtle-like, into the collar of his shirt and the shelter of the waistcoat. "There is that possibility. It looks as though--" A definite stop this time. "The police will be here after breakfast to take statements. I ask you all to co-operate fully with them. The quicker this matter is dealt with, the sooner we can all get back to normal." He holds up his hands. "No, I'm sorry, that's all I can tell you. I've been strictly instric--instructed not to reveal any more information at this time. You will all be asked where you were last night. Please be completely honest in your answers, and I'm sure it will be found that this was nothing more than a terrible accident."
No you're not, thinks Laura.
"Well I was servin down at Hooters, honey, where else?" LeeAnn yells, and a few of the hardier women join in with similar unlikely claims. Harland looks shocked, but masters himself with an effort.
"Now that's just the sort of remark that's going to get us all into trouble, LeeAnn, I'm surprised at you," he says. "It's important that we all remember how important it is--I mean, that we all be polite and helpful to the police. They have a job to do, remember, and they don't enjoy it any more than we do."
"My Jimmy enjoyed it," says a skinny woman somewhere behind Laura. Carol, Laura remembers. "Oh yeah, he enjoyed his work a whole hell of a lot."
"Okay." Having made her point, LeeAnn now becomes den mother as usual. "Okay, ladies, you heard the man. We gonna be nice and polite and tell the cops where we were, okay? No messin around. They don't like that shit."
"How--" It's Susan, plump and improbably red-haired and shy, her hand up like a little girl at school. "How--how did she die, Mister Harland?"
"I can't tell you that, Susan, I'm sorry." Harland is reassembling his persona, tuning it in with the buttons on his waistcoat like a bad TV signal. "Now I want you all to finish your breakfasts and then go into the day room and wait to be called. Detective--" He pulls a piece of yellow paper from his pocket. "Detective Rivera will be using my office for the rest of the day to interview you all. Try not to talk too much about this among yourselves till all the interviews are over, so that--" So that it doesn't sound like you all got your stories straight beforehand, thinks Laura. "So that your impressions don't get confused," he finishes. "I'm sure you're all as confused and, and worried and upset as I am, but as I said, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you ladies can get back to doing what you normally do and the sooner we can get another sufferer to come and help you all." He finds a ghostly echo of his usual smile, and tries it on. "Thank you for your attention. Enjoy your meal."
He looks around the room once, tries the smile again, abandons it and goes.
"'Enjoy your meal,'" LeeAnn mimics. "Yeah, like we gonna enjoy our meal with a dead body hangin over our heads." Susan can't help glancing up at the ceiling fan, in case Mrs Curbinand were suspended from it, twirling gently and gruesomely above the table. "I don't know bout you, ladies," LeeAnn goes on, "but I can't eat another thing." She sits back in her chair, folding her arms.
"Well, it ain't gonna spoil my meal," says Carol. "So she's dead. So what? We're all gonna be dead soon enough. Might as well be now. I never believed in all that suffering stuff anyway."
LeeAnn's eyes widen. "Didn't see you hangin back yesterday afternoon, honey."
Carol opens her mouth to snap back, then shuts it firmly and manages a twisted smile. "Hey, just cause I don't believe it don't mean it ain't worth a try, honey. I could be wrong."
"Mis--Mister Harland said not to talk about it," Susan offers timidly.
"Yeah, right, like that's gonna work," Carol sneers. "What else we got to talk about? Her coming here was the first thing that's happened since I got here. This place is just a graveyard in waiting."
"Really!" Laura's been waiting for Isabella to cut loose. "Some people have no conception of decency or consideration. Some of us are trying to come to terms with this terrible, tragic event." Maria, beside her, nods vigorously.
"You come to terms with it your way, lady," Carol begins.
"Hold it right there!" LeeAnn roars. "Time out, you two. You heard what the man said, what Susan so kindly repeated for us. Carol, Izzy, you just chill, okay? We gonna finish eatin and go to the day room like he said, or I gonna start bustin some heads here."
Carol and Isabella quiet down, and the rest of the women turn their attention back to their food. LeeAnn looks triumphantly around, and then, possibly forgetting what she said before, picks up her fork again and starts in on her eggs.
If anyone here were capable of busting some heads it would be LeeAnn. She could make two of Laura, and that's muscle on those arms, not flab. Her husband was some kind of teacher at the local college, and the way LeeAnn tells it, she spent more time working out in the gym than some of the students. Laura sometimes wonders about him, but that's one subject LeeAnn never talks about. Though she would have had to talk about him to Mrs Curbinand.
Laura lays her fork down, wipes her lips with her napkin and gets up to follow the other women to the day room. She's going to have to know. She's going to have to find out about all of them, what they were going to tell Mrs Curbinand. The police will ask their questions, but they won't get anywhere. By the time they get here, everyone will have been quietly asleep in their beds from lights out right the way through to sunrise, and no-one will say different. But one of them will be lying, and Laura needs to find out who.
"Oh, Laura." It's Harland, still not quite tuned in. "I wonder if I could ask a favour."
"What can I do for you, Mister Harland?" says Laura.
"Mrs Curbinand--her husband's flying in to identify the body and, and he wants to know what happened. I wonder if." Laura waits. It's a little like petit mal, this sudden loss of momentum, but he's definitely still there, just maybe needing a nudge. "I wonder if I could ask you to be present when I see him. I could really--that is I would be grateful for your support. I don't, I'm not very good at--"
"I'll be happy to, Mister Harland," says Laura.
"Only you were there as well, you know as much as I do--oh." Harland catches up. "Thank you, Laura, I appreciate it. He'll be here tomorrow around midday. I'll come and get you. Thank you. I, uh--thank you."
"No problem," Laura says, and Harland turns and totters away. Laura heads for the day room. There's a book there she thinks she might have a look at.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 06:48 pm (UTC)I love your descriptions of Harland, and I find thee whole idea of these "sufferers" fascinating.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 11:35 pm (UTC)