“Meaning…?”

“Meaning that the doc was ordered by the mayor to examine the body hisownself. Doc doesn’t do that unless it’s a murder scene. Some old lady croaks in her apartment or a hotel room or at a nursing home, he sends one of his flunkies to look over the body and make the call to whatever funeral home is gonna be handling it.” He shook his head. “Not this time, no sir—this time the doc is ordered to do it personally. Mayor called him at home around five this morning, made the man get out of bed and go to it pronto. Doc was awfully tight-lipped about everything when he called me about the paperwork. Can’t say I’m too happy about being kept out of the loop.”

I remembered the call; it had come into the office just as I arrived for work. Dobbs had seemed confused as he looked at the forms left on his desk by the coroner—his end of the conversation consisted of, “Yes sir”, and “But why—?”, and “We’ll get on it right now.” It seemed like an awfully short exchange, considering what we were being sent out to do.

“So,” I said, “you’re supposed to be given more information than this?”

Dobbs nodded. “Yeah, but like I said, supposed to don’t always cut it. My guess is that one of the neighbors found her, told the building manager, and the manager called the police, cha-cha-cha—though why in hell the mayor got involved in this is beyond me. We can always ask whatever poor doofus the department left on the scene.”

“There’s gonna be a cop there?”

He nodded. “There’s always a cop there until we show up. Once foul play has been ruled out—and that’s already been done—what you’re left with is a body that’s just laying there stinking up the place and making everyone else nervous as hell. The law doesn’t require that an officer remain with the body until it’s picked up, but it ain’t exactly like Cedar Hill is Miami. They can spare an officer to corpse-sit for an hour or so.”

“I’ll bet that puts them in a cheery frame of mind.”

“Well, we’re gonna be finding out here in a minute or three.”

He drove the wagon into the Maples’ underground parking garage, expertly backing up so that the rear doors faced the freight elevator. We got out, unloaded and unfolded the collapsible gurney, grabbed the clipboard, Latex gloves for each of us, some scissors in case there was carpet work to be done, a couple of filter masks, and then, finally, the body bag.

Dobbs pressed the button, stood waiting for a moment, then shook his head and said, “Shit, I forgot, come on.” He started walking toward one of the parking garage doors that led into the lobby. “We have to get the elevator key from whoever’s manning the front desk.”

A set of glass doors opened into a warmly-lighted hallway with gold carpeting. On the walls hung bulletin boards with announcements and fliers tacked on them—Bingo Night, a pot-luck dinner at a local church, a lecture on living wills to be given at the library next week—as well as tastefully-framed prints of bowls of fruit, glamorous cityscapes, and myriad pastoral scenes. The furniture was clean and over-stuffed, the sofa pillows fluffy, the doilies and afghans perfectly folded and arranged, the whole setting designed to make you feel Right At Home. Smells of soup, cornbread, and meatloaf wafted from the cafeteria (The Maples Dining Room, as it was called by the sign), and the murmuring of the voices coming from the dining area suggested that it was filled with people who’d known each other for decades and could easily fall into the kind of familiar, friendly conversation that, between lifelong friends, becomes a kind of art unto itself.

Despite my increasing anxiety over what Fred and I were about to do, I slowed down, chancing a glance into the dining room, then stopped in my tracks entirely when I saw how everyone was dressed; the women wore either dresses or attractive suit outfits, while all the men were in slacks, jackets, and ties. I looked around, trying to see if there were anything posted about a dress code, and then just as quickly realized there wouldn’t be. This dining room was filled with people who remembered what it was like to treat mealtime as an event, every day. You dressed for meals not only out of respect for yourself, but for those with whom you would share the meal. Looking at the diners at that moment, I found myself wondering when, how, and why we’d come to view what was meant to be a sociable event of the day as just another excuse to grab some chow. Me, I frequently ate alone while wearing only my underwear, and the last time I’d had a dinner date, I’d worn khakis and a polo shirt, while my date arrived resplendent in her jeans, sandals, and OSU sweatshirt. Maybe we think it’s too old-fashioned or outright corny to dress like this for meals every day, but I’d’ve bet a week’s salary that every person in there had spent a lot of time deciding what to wear, then just as much time getting ready, and were probably enjoying their meal more than we of the jeans-and-T-shirted pizza nights could or would ever understand.

Somebody has to come up with these commonplace profundities. Might as well be me.

I smiled at an old woman who looked up and saw me looming in the doorway, then double-timed it to catch up with Dobbs, who was speaking to the receptionist at the front desk.

“…moved in about seven months ago,” the woman was saying, “and in all that time I don’t remember her ever having a single visitor.”

Dobbs gave his head a slow, sad shake. “That’s terrible,” he said, sounding like he meant it.

“One of the things we try to do here at The Maples is make sure that none of our residents feel isolated—it’s a terrible thing to be getting on in years and feel alone and lonely. We encourage everyone to interact with their neighbors—you know, sort of keep an eye on each other’s well-being so that no one feels ignored or forgotten…but Miss Driscoll never really allowed herself to become part of The Maples’ community. Oh, she’d be pleasant enough at meals and come to the weekly residents’ meetings, but aside from those times, she rarely left her room.”

Fred put on his stroke-face again, considering this. “And she never had any visitors?”

The woman behind the desk shook her head. “Not unless you count delivery people. And the thing is, she has—had—one of our bigger apartments. People who can afford anything on 7 or above are, well…comfortable, you know? They’ve been careful with their money. And—oh, God, this is going to sound so mean—our older residents who have a little money, they tend to get visitors. You know—family and friends who want to be left a little something in the will. Not to imply that they don’t love their grandma or grandpa or great aunt or whoever, but…oh, my; I’m really putting my foot in it here, aren’t I?”

“Not particularly,” said Dobbs.

The woman shook her head. “But not Miss Driscoll. Never a visitor, just the deliveries. I’ll bet she had two, three packages a week delivered to her. And some of those packages were fairly sizeable. On days when she had deliveries, she never came down for meals, just called the desk and said she wasn’t feeling well and could she have her meals sent to her room. We do that here, send meals to a resident’s room if they’re not feeling good enough to come down.”

“So she’d sometimes miss, what—three meals a week?”

“More, if it was a big delivery day.”

I couldn’t help but wonder why Dobbs was asking all these questions, unless it had something to do with what he’d told me about treating the dead with respect; maybe asking questions gave him some sense of what kind of person they had been while alive, and helped him decide how best to treat their remains. And maybe he was just a good, old-fashioned, first-class nib-shit. The woman behind the desk gave the freight elevator key to Dobbs. “Your gurney doesn’t squeak, does it?” “No, ma’am, it certainly does not.”