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“I can’t run in these stupid sneakers,” she said. “I’m used to running in heels.”
I could see Hooter and Bob still running, half a block away. Hooter stopped, jumped on a Harley, revved it up, and peeled off into traffic. Bob watched Hooter for a moment, obviously decided the game was over, and sat down on the sidewalk. I whistled and Bob trotted back to me.
“I knew that was too easy,” I said to Lula when we reached my Cherokee.
“Next time we’ll creep up behind him and cuff him,” Lula said. “I’ve never known him to be violent. He’s just sneaky. I should have guessed he’d jump and run.”
“Gloria Stitch is next up.”
Lula paged through the Stitch file. “She should be home. She’s eighty-one years old and she’s in an assisted-living facility in Hamilton Township.”
“Omigod.”
“I could probably outrun her even in sneakers,” Lula said. “So, this should turn out better.”
This wasn’t going to turn out better. This was going to be a disaster. There was no way I could apprehend an eighty-one-year-old woman and look like a hero.
“She might even be happy to see us,” Lula said. “Maybe she just didn’t have money for an Uber to take her to court. And now here we are giving her a free ride.”
I was going to cling to that thought. It was a good thought.
I took Hamilton to Nottingham and followed the GPS directions to Sunnydale Senior Living. I parked in the visitor parking, and Lula and I entered the lobby of the four-story building. Bob stayed in the car with the window cracked.
“This is nice,” Lula said. “It’s real classy with the potted plants and conversation areas. And the reception desk looks like a hotel instead of an old people’s home.”
I checked in at the reception desk and asked for Gloria. I was told she was most likely in the dining room on the fourth floor.
“They got a dining room here,” Lula said, entering the elevatorwith me. “And the elevator is clean and doesn’t smell like a burrito and fries. I wouldn’t mind living here.”
We got off at the fourth floor and followed the people migrating to food. I had my file in hand with Gloria’s photo. Gray hair. Caucasian. Large-frame animal-print glasses. Used a walker.
“Here’s another advantage,” Lula said. “If I lived here, I could beat all these folks to the buffet.”
I spotted Gloria queued up at the double doors to the dining room. I eased my way through the residents and introduced myself.
“What happened to your eyes?” she asked.
“I tripped and fell,” I said.
She nodded. “I see that a lot. People are always face-planting here. You reach for your walker, and it rolls away andsplat… you’re on the floor.”
“You missed your court date,” I said. “We’re here to help you get a new date.”
“I appreciate your offer of help, but it isn’t necessary,” Gloria said. “You get to be of an age where you don’t need to go through all that nonsense.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not true,” I said. “You need to go to the courthouse and get a new date scheduled. It will only take a few minutes.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m sure you went to a lot of trouble to drive over here. And I know this is your job. And I don’t want it to look like you aren’t doing your job, but I’m going to have to decline. I get these court requests all the time, and I simply don’t see the point in honoring them.”
“Yeah, but you stole a bunch of clothes,” Lula said.
“It wasn’t a bunch of clothes,” she said. “Lynette Bolger died, and I needed a new dress for her celebration-of-life event.”
“I guess I could understand that,” Lula said. “Except why didn’t you just buy a dress?”
“I used to buy everything,” Gloria said, “and then one day I found out that I could simply take what I wanted. It’s much better than buying. They run a little bus once a week to the mall and we get to shop around for an hour or two and then the bus brings us back here. It’s very pleasant.”
“That’s stealing,” Lula said.
