“Listen to this,” said Gran, “‘Justine Scott died at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. She had been a resident at Happy Home for the Elderly for the past twenty-five years.’” She shook her head in a clear expression of disgust. “I used to know Justine. And if they think ninety-seven is a ‘ripe old age’ they’re very much mistaken. That woman had more energy than a spark plug. Whenever they organized a Friday night get-together at the community center she could dance everyone’s socks off!”
“Was she a good friend of yours, this Justine?” I asked.
But Gran was looking sad now, and judging from the faraway look on her face was thinking of her friend Justine, and all the adventures they’d lived through together.
“It’s always sad when someone dies, isn’t it, Max?” said Dooley. “Especially a good friend like Justine.”
“She wasn’t a friend,” said Gran, coming out of her reverie to set the record straight. “But she was far too young to die is the point I’m trying to make here. And it’s all the fault of this so-called Happy Home for the Elderly!” This time she was actually balling up the newspaper anddepositing it next to her lounge chair. She had been taking in some sun, and for the occasion was dressed in a purple bathing suit with sequined silver letters emblazoned across her chest that spelled out, ‘World’s Greatest Gran.’ “I told her not to go, but she wouldn’t listen, would she?”
“You told her not to go to this place?” asked Dooley.
“Of course! I told her retirement homes are deathtraps. But off she went, and now she’s dead.” She shook her head in dismay at the terrible fate that had befallen her not-friend.
Dooley gasped in shock and horror.“Do you mean… they killed her?!”
“Of course they did,” said Gran. “And I can tell you right now that you’ll never see me going to one of these places. I’d rather jump off that there roof!”
Dooley glanced up at that there roof and gasped again.“Gran, you shouldn’t say such things!”
“I know, and it’s all because of that horrible Happy Home,” she grumbled.
I had closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, I saw that Dooley was staring at me intently.
“What?” I said, once more getting the impression that he desired speech with me.
“Max, we have to do something! This Happy Home has killed Gran’s friend Justine Scott! We have to start an investigation! Find the killer! Get justice for Justine!”
“They didn’t actually kill her,” I said.
“But Gran just said they did!”
“I know that’s what she said, but she didn’t mean it literally,” I said, yawning a bit and wondering if I shouldn’t go and lie in the shade of those rose bushes at the bottom of the garden, where it’s always so nice and cool.
“I don’t understand,” said Dooley, and looked more puzzled than ever. That’s what you get when humans start giving you these mixed messages. It’s tough on a literal-minded cat like Dooley.
“What she means is that when you go into a retirement home, chances are that you will never get out of it alive,” I said, then realized this didn’t sound exactly right.
“See! They kill people over there!”
“Not really,” I said, starting to tire a little of this conversation. “Look, a retirement home is a place where people go who are incapable of living alone, so as a rule these people are not quite as young as they used to be. In other words: they’re pretty old. And since as a rule people don’t get any younger as they age, it’s only to be expected that at some point they’ll pass on to that great big retirement home in the sky.”
Dooley glanced up at the sky, fully expecting to see this fabled home.
“Heaven is what I mean,” I said, just to make my meaning perfectly clear. “They go to heaven. Just like this Justine Scott.”
“But… so they don’t actually kill them?”
“No, they don’t. Well, most of them anyway.” From time to time you hear about nurses murdering residents, but I like to think this is an exception, not standard practice.
And as Dooley pondered this, I closed my eyes once more, grateful for this interlude. The peace and quiet didn’t last long, though. Gran might have grabbed her phone and was now texting furiously, presumably updating her friend Scarlett on her decision never to become a resident of Happy Home, but Dooley had once again marshaled his thoughts and was ready to give me the benefit of his latest brainwave.
“Do you think there are also retirement homes for cats, Max?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Though it’s possible that as our humans get older and move into a retirement home themselves, they decide to take us along with them.”
“Oh,” said Dooley. “So when Odelia is old, we’ll go and live at one of these places with her?”
“Odelia isn’t quite old enough to go to a retirement home yet. And in fact many people don’t go to a retirement home at all. They stay with their families, like Gran.”