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I got back into the car and headed north again. I thought that it’d be helpful to find out a bit more about the Murphy finances. Actually, if the truth be told I was mostly curious, perhaps a little morbidly so as an eye witness to the decline of a socially prominent family. The original wealth of Santa Teresa was based on the orange groves that stretched along the coast. But most of those families had long since moved on, subdividing not only their great estates, but also the orange groves that were now residential. It was obvious that Henry Murphy disparaged the “new money” types who were now his neighbors, and his resentment would be amplified in this depressed real estate market. His disdain for Cutter City probably reflected his disdain for his brother-in-law Sam Todd – in fact he doubled down on Sam – not only was he from Cutter City, but he was new money. But Henry could feel smug that at least he was along the coast – that was still the address of old money.
My best source for real estate information was my high school classmate Mary, but I always hesitated to call her. Mary and I were good friends in high school until I beat her out for class president and then student council representative. Since then there was always an edge to our relationship and I felt that she was always trying to show that she was more successful than I was. Mary started in the real estate business at the same time as I did, and from very modest beginnings she had evolved into Santa Teresa’s top realtor for high end properties. But Dad had always told me that a good contact should never be casually dismissed and sometimes the job required you to grit your teeth and smile. She answered her phone just as I pulled back out onto the highway. “Hey, Mary, I’m looking for info on both the Coastal Estates development and also theSkyeIsland.”
“Wow, Liza is business that good for you? You know that I would be happy to be your realtor for any of those properties – good buyers are hard to find in this market, and you could probably get a great deal on either of those, particularly the Ocean Estates. Those prices have come down a few notches over the past 6 months.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Mary, but this is just background for a case involving the Murphy’s. Henry Murphy owns the Ocean Estates development and his brother-in-law Sam Todd owns the Skye Island development. I’m just interested in what they are worth.”
“Liza, you are involved with the Todd’s? That’s a very high end client for your line of business, isn’t it? I thought that you mostly followed people and took hidden pictures of them. Wait a minute, is this a divorce issue – do you think that they’ll have to sell?”
I wasn’t surprised at her question. Mary was always over the top aggressive, scanning the gossip pages for upcoming divorces, corporate transfers, and more recently bankruptcies. I had given her a few tips over the years based on my infidelity cases, and as a result she was willing to do a little research for me. “Sorry Mary, this isn’t a divorce, can’t say much more than that, but it sure seems like the Murphy’s are heavily invested in real estate now, and just wondering how this economy is treating them.”
“Yeah, well tell me about it. Four years ago, I could sell a million dollar property within 6 weeks. I would have multiple offers, people waiving the contractor clause. Real estate was a beautiful thing back then. Now, I actually have to bust my butt to get a single offer after 6 months. Ocean Estates and Skye Island are not my properties, but I will check around. Actually, I think that there is a realtor’s open house at Ocean Estates this morning and maybe I will take a look see. Skye Island is just vacant land, so it is a little difficult to get a read on. Great view up there, but who wants to drive up and down the canyon? Nobody really wants to build a house anymore and the cachet is still beach view property where you can get some very nice deals. I don’t think that I have gone up the canyon with any of my clients.”
“You certainly don’t need to go to the open house, but it would be great to get the history on the properties, see if the prices have come down, if any are short sales, that sort of thing.”
“No problem, I wouldn’t mind going over to Ocean Estates. Who knows, maybe some millionaire will walk in. You know the only active market going on right now is nice little apartments like yours, but of course that lower end stuff is not my niche anymore.”
“Thanks Mary, we really need to get together for lunch some time – it’s been ages. Let’s see how our schedules look for tomorrow. ” I don’t think that I ever talked with Mary without making plans for lunch – sometimes she offered, sometimes me, but we both knew that these plans were empty promises. We were either both legitimately busy, or did not want to let the other know that we had time on our hands for such a trivial thing as lunch.
I was just approaching the old army base that separated Santa Teresa from Cutter City along the coast. It was this buffer that had allowed two such disparate communities to develop. The large houses of Santa Teresa extended to this line, and then the dilapidated houses of Cutter City emerged at the other side of the army base. At least along the coast, there was no gradual decline in house values as you moved from one community to the next, no blending of the two cities and two cultures. It was easy for me to understand why Henry Murphy had never set foot in Cutter City in his entire life. His world stopped abruptly at the army base.
The government had closed the base about 10 years ago, prompting a political debate about what to do with this valuable piece of real estate – should it be annexed to Santa Teresa or Cutter City? Santa Teresa had proposed that the property be turned into a community golf course, with the officers’ quarters renovated into town houses and apartments. Cutter City had countered with a proposal for affordable housing, a large homeless shelter and a half way house for paroled prisoners. I thought that this was a brilliant strategy for Cutter City– a homeless shelter on ocean view property was not realistic, but Santa Teresians were so appalled at the prospect that they were willing to compromise. Some land was set aside for a golf course, although it had never been built, and the officer’s quarters were rehabbed. They were actually quite nice – I had even contemplated living here at one point, but Mary had talked me out of if, saying that there was no track record yet of resale value. The based also included more affordable housing that had attracted young families, but Santa Teresa managed to get them assigned to the Cutter City school system. And then instead of a half way house, both communities worked together to create an affordable retirement home – optimistically called Great Days Assisted Living. Santa Teresa had several other very swanky assisted living facilities, so that it was unlikely that the Santa Teresa elite were rubbing elbows with their social inferiors in the waning days of their lives.
As I was idling at the stoplight, I suddenly thought that old Mrs. Murphy – Chloe was her first name – might be housed here given the dilapidated state of her old family home. Sure, I was partly just curious, but I could honestly claim that I should talk with her to find out when she last saw Dessa. And certainly I needed to establish a time line when she disappeared. I quickly moved over to the left turn lane, and turned into the visitors parking. As I walked under the awning in front of the entrance, I noticed bricks etched with the names of contributors. Right in the middle were a cluster of bricks that were etched: “To Great Days from the Murphy Family” and then beneath there were bricks designating Henry Murphy, Chloe Murphy, and then her husband Raymond James Murphy. I looked around but did not see any bricks from Cymbaline or Sam Todd.
The foyer was nice enough with overhead skylights and photographs of ocean sunsets lining the walls. But there was no doubt that this was a nursing home. There was no carpeting to accommodate easy movement of wheelchairs and there was the slightest antiseptic and institutional odor. The smell immediately reminded me of the weekly visits my father and I made to my maternal grandmother during her 5 year stint in a nursing home. I used to hate those visits, but my father said that we were the only family she had, and it was important for the staff to know that my grandmother had a supportive family – she would get better care that way. So every single Sunday we would visit at 9 and stay long enough for my father to finish the Sunday crossword – usually about an hour and a half. My father would ask my grandmother for help, even though she was totally helpless herself.
As I approached the front desk, there was a loudspeaker announcement of music therapy in the Todd Activity Room. Well, I thought, Sam Todd did step up after all, and totally blew Henry out of the water. Sam Todd was a named room, while Henry was just a scuffed up brick in the driveway. All the little clues were adding up to a cavernous rift between the two branches of the Murphy family, with Dessa in the middle.
I needed to quickly decide on my approach here. Should I invent some of pretext, say that I was looking for a place for a relative, or should I say that I was here to visit Chloe and then totally wing it once I met her. I might be easy to finesse a face to face meeting since I knew that Chloe had some element of dementia. In fact, the best possible scenario would be if Chloe was not conversational but her caregiver was. That was probably Dad’s best piece of advice – the best sources of information are the unwitting fringes who have no agenda.
“I’m here to visit Chloe Murphy,” I said.
The young woman glanced up from her People magazine to look up the room number. Either Chloe wasn’t here, the receptionist was new and didn’t recognize the name, or Chloe got so few visitors that her room number was unfamiliar. I guessed the latter.
“Let’s see, it looks like she is in the memory ward, Room 152 on the right.” The woman leaned back in her chair and yawned, and I spotted a wad of apple green gum skittering across her tongue. I thought to myself – there is no way that Henry Murphy could handle this environment. He wouldn’t even be able to get beyond the front desk with someone yawning in his face. I peeked into Room 152 and saw a very pleasant woman sitting in an easy chair working on a crocheted afghan. There were two beds in the room, and on the bedside table next to the woman were a collection of pictures of a large family group including young grandchildren or great-grandchildren. I immediately realized that this could not be Chloe, and in fact, that Chloe must have a room mate. Almost inconceivable for the once prominent Murphy’s.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you know where Chloe Murphy is? I would like to pay her a visit.”
“Chloe, who is Chloe? Are you looking for that other woman? She is in the solarium.”
The solarium was filled with both men and women slumping in wheelchairs. No matter how reduced her circumstances, both financial and mental, I imagined that Chloe would retain the regal sense of dignity that had been her calling card in her prime. I scanned the room and spotted a well-dressed woman sitting erect in her wheel chair with her hands gently folded in her lap. Her hair was snow white and pulled back into an elegant bun. This must be her. As I approached I heard an attendant say, “Mrs. Murphy, would you like to go for a stroll in a few minutes? My target women responded to her name and turned and looked at the attendant with faded blue eyes, but said nothing.
I bent down in front of the wheelchair to introduce myself. “Hello Mrs. Murphy. My name is Liza Blue and I am a friend of your grand daughter Dessa, who talks about you so much. I was just driving by Great Days, so I thought that I would stop by to visit.” I thought I saw a flicker of recognition at the mention of Dessa’s name, but Chloe said nothing.
“Mrs. Murphy is not much of a conversationalist these days – she has really gone downhill in the past three weeks or so,” said the attendant. I’ve known her for the 6 months that she has been here, and she used to try so hard to be mentally active – went to speech therapy and memory class, and then all of a sudden she just stopped trying. I think that it was taking too much of her energy and it just wasn’t worth it any more. You are welcome to join us on our walk. In fact, you can help me by pushing her wheelchair. You see the residents in the upper tier of service are promised walks every day, and Mrs. Murphy and I used to have a great time. But recently, she has dropped out of that level of service so technically I am not supposed to be spending my time with her, but it just seems so sad, so I have figured out a way bring her along with another client. But it is hard to control two wheelchairs at once, so I would love to have you come with me.”
This was beyond my wildest dreams – the juiciest of an unwitting fringe. A woman without a filter, who would probably tell me anything and who probably had a fabulous insight into the dynamics of the Murphy family. I would push a wheelchair up a mountain for her. “I’d love to join you. I saw that there was a coffee shop on the way in – should I get us some? Do you think that Mrs. Murphy would like one also?”
“By the way, my name is Nancy, and I’d love a black coffee. Mrs. Murphy used to have a latte every afternoon, but now she wouldn’t even know what it was – maybe when we get back, you can get her one with a straw and she might drink it. I’ll get them organized – I’m taking Roger here as well, and I will meet by the door over there.”
By the time I returned with the coffee, Nancywas waiting for me outside with Roger and Chloe strapped into their wheelchairs. Roger was covered with a very elaborate hand-knit afghan, while Chloe was covered up in an old blanket. I handed Nancy the coffee and off we went.
“So how do you know Mrs. Murphy?” said Nancy. “She is really a most lovely woman.”
I thought the best approach was not to actually lie, but to steer the conversation is the most promising direction. “I have actually never met Mrs. Murphy, but I have heard so much about her from her family, and I was sorry to hear that she was not doing well. I used to visit my grandmother in a nursing home, and I tried to come every week, but it was very difficult when she retreated into her own world.”
“Yes, it is so common, and heartbreaking for us who work here. The family starts out so enthusiastic, taking their parents out for dinner, bringing in special treats, celebrating birthdays with balloons and cakes. And then the attention begins to dwindle, and when the memory is shot, the family really loses interest. But you know, Mrs. Murphy never really had many visitors. I think that she is in her nineties now, so most of her friends are gone. Her son Henry doesn’t come very often, I don’t think that I have ever seen her daughter here – even though the activity room is named after them. The grand daughter was the most regular visitor, she used to come every week, take her on walks, or even took for a drive in the car a couple of times.”
“I haven’t been in touch with Dessa myself recently,” I said. “Perhaps she is out of town.”
“Well, I saw Dessa a couple of weeks ago. She came here with a friend.”
I wanted to quickly follow up on this enticing nugget of information. “Oh, perhaps that was our mutual acquaintance Penny, the one with all the tattoos.” I thought how convenient that Penny was immediately recognizable by her tattoos.
“I didn’t catch her name, but I did see the tattoos. They certainly made an odd couple – Dessa looking so elegant, and this friend looking so scruffy. And then Dessa missed a couple of weeks. But she was here a couple of days ago. She sat with her grandmother for a long time and when she left I could tell that she had been crying. I felt sorry for her. Where are her mother and her uncle is what I’d like to know? It’s too much for a kid to take on the responsibility.”
I tried to contain the excitement in my voice. “I’m sorry, did you say that Dessa was here a couple of days ago? I have been trying to reach her, but she hasn’t responded to my messages, so I just assumed that she was out of town.”
“Yes I think that it was just a couple of days ago – actually, now I remember that it was Tuesday. I remember because that was the day that old Mr. Keith died. Yes, it was last Tuesday.”
I stopped and grabbed her arm. “That is fabulous, just fabulous to hear.” I knew by the puzzled look on Nancy’s face that I was a little over the top in my joy so I quickly added some context, “I don’t get in town often and am only here for a couple of days, so I will make sure I stop by her parent’s house to see her.”
We were now at the end of the walk and Nancy stopped to hoist up the slumping Roger. I wanted to explore Chloe’s diminished circumstances, but I wanted to tread carefully. Commiseration and empathy were always a good tactic. “You know, my father and I cared for my grandmother in a nursing home, and I think that on any given day that kind of responsibility and sadness can either bring out the best in someone or the worst, and you never know which. My father and I had big fights over whose turn it was to visit, and how we were going to celebrate holidays – for example, we never could go away for Christmas or Thanksgiving because then there would be nobody for Grandma. It was pretty bad, but then I realized that it was the most vulnerable person that gets caught in the middle, and that ultimately we will be judged by how we take care of the most vulnerable.”
With anyone else, I might have worried that I was being too forward, but Nancy just babbled on. “I wish we had more family members like you around here. I totally agree. My God, you wouldn’t believe the fights that I have seen. The Murphy’s are a classic example, and I think that both Mrs. Murphy and Dessa are the vulnerable ones. That son of hers is the worst. Mrs. Murphy used to have a suite of rooms, then she moved into a single room, which was nice enough, and it was about three weeks ago that she moved into the shared room. There was a screaming match over that one – you could hear him bellowing all the way down the hallway. That was the day that Dessa was here with that tattooed girl. I think that they were actually about to kick Mrs. Murphy out – don’t think that her son had paid the bills. I just heard him say something along the lines, ‘After all this family has done for this place, and this is the thanks she gets. You do know that her daughter is Cymbaline Todd.’ I never liked that son of hers, but then again Dessa’s mother has never shown up. I do a lot of extra things for Mrs. Murphy, and I don’t mind, but it’s not like I get any recognition from that family – not even a fruit basket of thanks at the holidays.”
We completed our circle in silence and reentered the solarium. I noticed that both Roger and Chloe’s heads had tipped over into an awkward nap. I suddenly felt immensely sorry for Chloe Murphy. I could understand why she gave up when she saw her carefully ordered world slip away from her. What was the point? “Well thank you for the walk Nancy. This is a beautiful facility and Mrs. Todd is lucky to have an advocate like you. I will certainly let Dessa know when I next see her. And by the way, if you do see Dessa, ask her to give me a call.” I didn’t want to give Nancy my business card, so I wrote out my number on a piece of paper with the cryptic message. “Give me a call. I’d love to help.”
I climbed back into the car and headed back into the northbound traffic. My sudden instinct to stop by the nursing home had paid off beyond my wildest dream. I had caught Henry Murphy in not a little lie, but a big lie. He had seen Dessa within the last three weeks, and he had met Penny. And then of course, Dessa was local and on the move – that was good news. And I was relieved that Goddard was not holding his sister captive. Maybe he wasn’t a pederast after all.
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