finished our rounds, and stopped by the nurses’ station. Bax had fans there, too, and the ladies usually brought a doggy biscuit or two for him. At this rate, he’d be a porker unless we started taking longer walks. “Mr. Thompson certainly likes dogs,” I said, ruffling Baxter’s fur as he chewed his treat.
Judy chuckled. “Did he tell you about Tilly?” I nodded. “She passed away thirty years ago, according to his son.” She shook her head. “That’s the thing with Alzheimer’s. These folks get unstuck in time.”
Unstuck in time. I thought again about the woman in the courtyard. “You know, Mrs. Butler didn’t get a chance to see Baxter tonight,” I said. “She was out in the courtyard with a visitor.”
“Oh, that must have been her great-grandson, Mr. Sorrensson,” Judy said. “It’s not your usual evening to visit, so you wouldn’t have met him. Comes every week, or nearly so. Pays all her bills, sees she’s taken care of right. Nice young man. Must run some kind of software company to be so young and have that kind of money.”
“I just didn’t want her to be disappointed for missing Baxter.”
“That’s the thing about our residents. She won’t know which day it is, and she won’t remember, so she won’t be disappointed.” Judy chuckled. “Although it’s funny. We remind her in the morning when her great-grandson is coming to visit, and she insists on getting her hair done and having one of the nurses help her do her makeup and put on her best dress.” She sighed. “Then again, most of our folks here are lucky to get any personal visitors, so I guess it is a big occasion when someone takes the time to come around.”
“They looked like they were having a good conversation,” I said, remembering what I had glimpsed. Baxter was working on his second biscuit, so he was in no hurry.
“I’m glad Mr. Sorrensson comes to see her,” Judy says. “Most of the time, Mrs. Butler won’t say much, and she’s very confused. But when he stops in, she lights up and chatters.” Judy shook her head. “Amazing what effect a visitor can have, isn’t it?”
Especially when that visitor was immortal. Does glamouring her make her remember the old times? I wondered. I could imagine the headline now: Vampires cure Alzheimer’s.
“Does Mr. Thompson like detective movies?” I asked. “I can bring some, if he does.”
Judy looked at me, puzzled. “Not that I know of, why?”
I laughed it off. “Oh, just something he said. It was very Maltese Falcon.”
She nodded. “Is he talking about the Judge again?” A cold chill went up my spine. “He does that. All day long, he’s a pretty happy fellow. But he gets edgy come nightfall – some of our folks here do – and that’s when the superstitions take hold.”
“Superstitions?”
Judy gave a shrug that said oddities came with the territory. “Old people with dementia can be a lot like kids, you know? They have their routines, their rituals, their lucky rabbit’s foot. Calms them down, helps them sleep. Some of our folks want a cup of hot milk before bedtime. Others want to have someone read aloud, or they want to tell us a story, like they’re the ones putting a child to bed. If we possibly can, we do what they want. We try to make them happy.”
“What about Mr. Thompson?”
“Oh, as quirks go, it’s nothing much. But housekeeping has fits. He keeps taking the salt shakers from the dining room, and we find them dumped out on the big circular rug under his bed.” She gave me a ‘what-can-you-do’ smile. “Go figure.”
I was rattled by what I learned about Mr. Thompson. That sweet old man was looking more and more like an addled adept, and I was ready to bet a cup of coffee and a dozen doughnuts that his salt circle meant that on some level, he knew something bad was heading our way.
We said good-bye and headed out to the car. Baxter’s low growl alerted me to trouble. I stopped at the place on the sidewalk just inside where I had felt the shimmer of invisible wards. The flat expanse of parking lot sprawled ahead of me, lit by tall security lights that bathed the lot in an amber glow. Except for one spot that was pitch black. Not just dark, lightless. There’s a difference. Shadows around the edges of a well-lit place aren’t opaque; usually, they’re a deep gray. This spot was completely dark, the kind