Codella had taken no chances this time. She presented a search warrant to Constance Hodges. “I’ve come to examine Ms. Lielkaja’s office. There’s the outside chance I’ll find information in there that will help us with the case.”
Hodges stared at the warrant and nodded. “Shall I take you up?”
“You can, if you prefer,” said Codella, “but it’s not necessary. I remember the Nostalgia code. I’ll just be in her office. I won’t disrupt any activities.”
Hodges remained downstairs, and Codella was relieved not to have her company.
The first thing she noticed when she switched on the light in Lielkaja’s office was the empty Juice Generation cup sitting on the right side of her desk. Codella stared at it for several seconds, remembering the identical cup she and Muñoz had found in Lielkaja’s apartment. Then she got to the business at hand. The desk looked cluttered, as if Lielkaja had left her work with every intention of picking up exactly where she’d left off. An events calendar was open to the month of February, and a ballpoint pen lay next to the calendar. Lielkaja had scribbled notes on a pad next to it.
A cream colored sweater hung off the back of her desk chair. A computer sat at the far end of the desk. It was turned off. A coffee mug next to the computer served as a pen and pencil holder. The message on the mug read Make Someone Smile Today! There were other inspirational messages in the room, too. We Inspire, We Connect, We Are Caregivers was the affirmation on a poster taped to the wall behind the desk chair. A poster on the wall across from the door featured a quote from Maya Angelou: If you find it in your heart to care for someone else, you will have succeeded. Had Lielkaja personally believed in these inspirational words, or were they simply motivational tools for her staff?
Codella opened the left desk drawer. Lielkaja was apparently an Earl Grey tea drinker, and she had a plastic sandwich bag filled with dark Dove chocolates. Her right hand drawer held a stapler, three hole punch, paper clips, and tube of Origin’s lip gloss.
Codella powered on the computer. While she waited for it to boot up, she stepped into the corridor. From this vantage, she could see into the parlor, the dining room, and the kitchen. Breakfast had been served and was now being cleared from the tables. Several residents sat in the parlor in front of the large flat-screen television. Few, if any, eyes were focused on the screen, however. Some of the residents slept sitting up. Others pulled at their garments or stared at their hands as if their limbs didn’t really belong to them. They were like cars, Codella thought—luxury cars, to be sure—warehoused in long-term parking on the lowest level of an exclusive Rapid Park garage.
In the kitchen, a caregiver was wiping off the counter. At one table in the dining room, a professional-looking staff member held up cards in front of a smiling resident. “What color is this?” Codella heard the woman ask.
The resident squinted at the card for several seconds as she considered her answer. “Blue,” she finally said.
“Blue?” The staff member pointed. “Look again, Mrs. Knight. Are you sure that’s blue?”
“Yes,” the resident insisted. “Are you trying to trick me?”
Codella turned back to Lielkaja’s office and noticed a cork bulletin board on the wall between the office and the small staff room. Large typed letters at the top of the board spelled out Farewell to a Beautiful Neighbor, and below these words was a collage of photos mounted with green, white, red, and blue pushpins. There were glossy date-stamped photos as well as pixelated digital printouts from a color copier. Together, the photos were a hastily made tribute to Lucy Merchant’s eighteen months at Park Manor.
Codella moved closer. In one photo, Lucy stood in the parlor in front of a Christmas tree next to Brandon Johnson, who was dressed like one of Santa’s elves. In another, she sat at a dining room table in front of a birthday cake. Baiba Lielkaja was hugging her and smiling at the camera in another photograph. A big black caregiver danced with her in another. Thomas Merchant appeared in just one photo, sitting uncomfortably next to his wife at a Thanksgiving table filled with other dementia sufferers. Codella scanned the photos for Julia, but didn’t find her image.
Her eyes kept returning to one photo in particular, a glossy colored one with a date stamp that indicated it had been taken only weeks after Lucy Merchant had moved into the Nostalgia Neighborhood. There was something haunting about this photo. Lucy Merchant stood in her bedroom next to the window, arms folded, mouth closed, eyes staring into the camera. They were sentient eyes, Codella thought, eyes that seemed to say, I know why I am here. I know what is happening to me. But the detail that was even more compelling than those eyes was located on the windowsill of the bedroom. What Codella saw there made everything fall into place. She heard her own voice whispering, “Oh my fucking God. Why didn’t I see it?” But she already knew the answer. Her desire to see one thing had blinded her to what was actually in front of her. She’d violated her own rule of the game and allowed her personal history to impose a narrative on the present—the wrong narrative.
She removed the blue pushpin holding the photo in place, pocketed the photo, and rushed out of Park Manor. There was no need to search Baiba Lielkaja’s office now.