Free Barry Friedman - The Old Folks At Home: Warehouse Them or Leave Them on the Ice Floe by Barry Friedman

on the door. When there was no answer, he cracked open the door and peeked in. “They’re napping,” he said. “Come back another time.” Easy for him to say.
    Back in my apartment, I tried to picture where the hidden door in Assisted Living led. It was at the end of a corridor in the Assisted Living facility, in an otherwise solid wall. I concluded that it led to somewhere outside the building.
    I walked around the outside of the Care Center and Assisted Living building trying to see where it might be. Two sides faced streets. Since there was no outside staircase or fire escape, I eliminated them. A third side faced the Independent Living building, but here again there was no sign of a staircase. The fourth side of the building abutted a three-story enclosed garage. This had to be it.
    I went into the garage entrance. The lower floor was used by trucks for delivery of food and other supplies. At the end of the garage, corresponding to the side abutting the Care Center , was a staircase; on the second floor landing, a steel door . Assisted Living was on the second floor of the Care Center building. Ah-hah! I clanked up the stairs and cautiously tried to open the door. Locked. No surprise. But I was quite sure this was the outside of the hidden door in the Assisted Living corridor. All I had to do was open it and I’d be in Assisted Living. No problem, right. Translation: There’s a problem.

Chapter Nineteen
     
     
    Back in my apartment, I tried to read but couldn’t keep my mind focused.
    Harriet was taking a walk leaving me alone to try and unscramble thoughts about that damn Assisted Living floor.
    If I was smart, I would just walk away, forget about the you- know- what. Even if by some sleight of hand I could pass through that door, that hidden door, what did I expect to find? Rooms full of old farts like myself except they couldn’t put on their own shoes. All I was operating on was a hunch that things there were not as they should be. Except for Chet, who I didn’t trust, the people in charge of the floor were not friendly towards me. That was no basis for conducting an investigation by an eighty-something guy whose only credentials as a detective was finding my wife’s glasses.
    The truth was, except for the Assisted Living personnel, I liked Restful Bowers. I liked the food, I liked the other residents I’d met, I liked my apartment. The service was that of a five-star hotel. Give it a rest, Henry. Fugetaboutit.
    But on the other hand…
    Just then the phone rang. The concierge was on the line.
    “Mr. Callins, your wife just fell. She’s down here…”
    I didn’t wait for the rest. I slammed down the phone and stood in front of the elevator door, tapping my foot until the door opened. I ran in almost knocking down a woman with a walker. At the concierge desk, I yelled, “Where is she?”
    The concierge pointed to the door leading to the outside. The Bowers nurse was bent over a form lying on the sidewalk in front of the entry door. Harriet. Stretched out, her forehead scraped and bleeding.
    I said, “What happened?”
    The nurse had been dabbing Harriet’s forehead with gauze. She said, “Mrs. Callins tripped over a curb. I’ve called 911.”
    Harriet turned her head toward me. “Oh, Henry. I‘m such a klutz.”
    She tried to sit up, but the nurse held her down. “She’s complaining of pain in her right hip.”
    “Is it broken?”
    “We’ll have to wait until they x-ray her in the ER.”  
    A red ambulance, its overhead light rack flashing, pulled into the driveway and screeched to a stop in front of us.
    An Emergency Medical Technician jumped out of the cab, and with the driver, dragged a backboard out of the ambulance. While one EMT took Harriet’s blood pressure, the other, holding a clipboard, asked the nurse what happened.
    The first EMT was feeling Harriet’s arms and chest asking if it hurt. She shook her head. “It’s only my right hip.”
    The EMT looked at her right leg and