Chapter 10 (Mah Jong Murder Sneak Preview Continues!)

They're all dead.  All four of them.  Not a big deal.  All Alzheimer's victims.  Not unusual given the age range.  Herb the first by ten years.  Only 76.  Mary Frances shook her head, riding her palsy into an exaggerated shrug. He was not supposed to die that way.  Four of them dead.  All dead.  No big deal.  Alzheimer's Disease.  It happens.  Maybe it's happening to me.  She remembered the unopened bottle of Arecept in Lizzie's medicine cabinet.  Maybe it was just a new bottle.  Maybe she forgot to take it.  God, I hope it wasn't her last bottle, Mary thought, as she fumbled in her purse to grab the pilfered medication.

"Here, read this to me," she said as she took a one-page product information sheet out of her purse.

"I'm driving, mom," Don said.

"Then pull over."

"Aricept.  Helping people be more like themselves longer.  Now you're fighting back!  Living with Alzheimer's is heard.  But you've taken an important first step.  With Aricept you're fighting back against Alzheimer's."


"Interesting that it's written on a third-grade level," Don said.

"Keep on reading, Donald."

"How do I know Aricept is working?  Aricept works differently in different people.  Studies have shown that things like memory, thinking and behavior may improve, get better in small ways or stay the same, get worse over time, continue to get worse as expected.  If symptoms stay the same or get worse over time..."


"Enough already.  This is morbid."

"C'mon, finish it," Mary frances said.

"Okay.  if symptoms stay the same or get worse over time, but slower than expected it can still mean Aricept is working."


"What did I just read, mom?" Dan asked.  Testing her.  Always testing.

"Stop it.  You know I know what you read."

"Okay, mom.  Why did you steal Lizzie's Aricept.  And why are you taking Aricept?  You don't have to answer.  It's those drug companies and the freaking HMOs and the god damned doctors.  Why not make all you old farts think you have Alzheimer's?"

"Are you finished?" Mary Frances asked.

"No I'm not.  It's bullshit."

Early Evening That Day
Dynasty Buffet Restaurant
Sky Lake Mall
Unincorporated Dade County, Florida


Don and Mary Frances pulled into a handicapped parking space close to Dynasty's front door.  Seconds later Penelope and Hannah showed up in Hannah's new car, a silver colored, racing style Japanese or Korean sedan whose sleek lines were offset by an array of tacky bumper stickers:  "Honk if You Brake for Shi Tzus", "God Loves Tzus," "Broward County Animal Rescue Mission,"  "Kerry/Edwards 2004."

"How do you like my new car," Hannah said when she'd caught up to her limping mother and wary brother.

"Bidigumablfragumstigas."

"WOULD YOU TALK CLEARLY, MOTHER.  NO ONE UNDERSTANDS YOU WHEN YOU MUMBLE," Hannah said.

"She said, it would be a nice looking car if it weren't for all the F'ing bumper stickers," Don said.

Meantime, Penelope was busy working in Hannah's trunk, taking packages out of a Whole Foods grocery bag, transferring them into her giant straw purse, a duplicate of the Shi Tzu-decorated bag Hannah had given their mother.

"Steve, please help me with these groceries."

"My name's Donald.  Steve is your son.  You know, the big guy who lives in Ireland," Donald said.

By the time Don and Penelope had finished putting Penelope's organic fruit and vegetables into zip lock bags and containers, Don had worked up a lather of sweat, courtesy of South Florida's sweltering humidity.  Hannah was already inside the restaurant, attacking the buffet, while Mary Frances sipped a cold lemonade comprised of a glass of iced water, five lemon wedges and two packets of Spelda.

"Go get mom some soup and I'll get the rest of her food," Penelope said.
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Donnie returned to the table with a big bowl of soup filled with three different broths (sweet and sour; egg drop and won ton), a few dollops of coconut shrimp, several plump fried won tons and an abundance of green chives that spilled from the floating shrimp onto the sides of the soup bowl."

"I'm never coming back here again," Penelope said after decrying the restaurant's ever-dwindling supply of long-legged crabs.  She'd made similar threats many times before, and no one paid attention to her pronouncement.

After more than an hour watching mom pick at her food, leaving behind far more offerings than she'd consumed, a departure from her normal behavior, Don dropped Mary Frances off at her condo and drove towards I-95 and the office he'd abandoned during the past two weeks while on vacation.  Don's job ws a simple one.; maintain the "editorial" content of on eof the world's most popular retail computer and electronics web sites.  Writing ads about the PCs, plasma televisions, printers and electronic gizmos came easily to him on most days, a bit more challenging during his times of decreased creativity and rarely gave him much reason for anxiety.

Otherwise he worked hand-in-hand with the vice president of creative to give the site some vitality and verve.  Enjoying the freedom of almost no supervision, the direction Don took with his work depending almost entirely on his own interests from day to day.  His boss described maintaining a huge web site as similar to shoveling coal into a freight engine.  The work never ceased, but it was up to Don to allow himself to take his hands off the site and walk away from the still-moving freight train, even if the engine didn't seem to have enough coal.  the pay and benefits weren't bad after six years of toil, and the position's stability made his job as senior editor of WolverineDirect.com and CompAmerica one he'd planned to keep until retirement.