Honey and Leonard

ONE-3

“You’re a detective, huh?” Leonard asked as the two men shook hands. “I’m glad to meet you, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got some questions for you. Starting with why the heck did you haul me out of Honey’s house on a stretcher? And what’s this about me being poisoned? I don’t feel poisoned. Look at me. I’ve been ready to get out of here since they drugged me up and brought me in. Now they say I’ve got to stay all night. What’s going on?”

“Funny you should ask that question,” Perkins said. “I can’t talk about the investigation but I do need to know if you are able to understand your situation.”

“He wants to know if you’re competent, mentally,” Honey interrupted.

“You sound like my niece, Gretchen,” Leonard said to Perkins. “She wants the court to declare me incompetent so I can’t revoke the Power of Attorney I gave her.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Okay,” Leonard began with a deep sigh. “My wife died two years ago, and I had a real rough go of it. She was all I had, so when she was gone I didn’t know what to do. I lost it for a while. I guess it’s what you call grieving.

“Gretchen is my niece, the only family I have left. She took over my finances after my wife died. I gave her what’s called a Power of Attorney. That means she can run my life any way she wants until I revoke that power. A Power of Attorney is something you can always revoke. That’s what her lawyer told us, anyway. Now that I want to revoke the Power, Gretchen and her lawyer are trying to get me declared mentally incompetent. They’ve petitioned the court to get a guardianship over me.”

“And you can’t sign anything or revoke anything if you’re not competent,” Perkins concluded.

“Absolutely,” Leonard said. “And that includes writing a will, which I have never done. Stupid of me, I know. I just never got around to it. Besides, I always thought my wife would live longer than me. Then she got the cancer and left me alone.

“My wife and I only had one child. Her name was Emma. She drowned back in 1942. She was only seven years old. Gretchen was at the pond when it happened. It wasn’t Gretchen’s fault, but I know she always blamed herself. She became like the daughter I lost after her mother and father died. Gretchen’s father was the only family I had left. When he died, Gretchen was all I had and I was all she had.”

“So how can she say you’re incompetent?” Perkins asked.

Leonard looked at Honey before answering. Honey nodded and he continued cautiously. “I do have a problem with my memory and the doctors at the nursing home are saying it’s Alzheimer’s. I don’t know if they’re right, but I do know I’ve been getting better since Honey and I got together.”

“What’s Gretchen doing with your money?” the detective asked, continuing his inquiry into Leonard’s competency.

“I’ve got a feeling she’s hiring lawyers and surveyors to help her sell off parts of the farm. I’ve heard some rumblings about a new housing addition coming in. Every time I ask Gretchen about it she won’t give me a straight answer. In fact, it seemed for a while there that nobody wanted me to know what was going on.”

“And then you found me,” Honey said.

“That’s right, pumpkin.”

“What about your brother? Once he died, didn’t his share of the family farm go to Gretchen?” Detective Perkins asked.

“Over the years, after our parents were gone, I gradually bought out my brother’s share. He and his wife were terrible with money and he was a pretty bad drinker,” Leonard said. “In the end, he didn’t own any part of the farm. I know Gretchen was never happy about any of that.”

“Well then,” Perkins began, “you sound pretty darned competent to me. But let’s start with the obvious. What is your date of birth?”

“That’s easy. August 12, 1916.”

“And that makes you how old?”

“75?”

“Leonard,” Honey tried to help.

“No helping please,” Perkins said.

“Okay,” Leonard said, “I might be a little older than 75. I’ll tell you, it’s 1992 now and I was born in 1916 so that would make me how old?”

“You want to borrow my pen and paper?”

Leonard took the paper and was able to determine he was 76, not 75. “That’s an honest mistake,” Leonard said. “The years go by so fast anymore I can’t keep track of them.”

“At least you know what year it is now. Can you tell me today’s date?”

Leonard looked helplessly at Honey, who shook her head to show she couldn’t help. Then he looked back at Perkins and said, “I’m afraid you’ve got me on that one. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s sometime in September.”

Honey said, “That’s right.”

“No helping,” Perkins warned. “What day in September?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. And before you ask, I don’t know what day of the week it is either. That doesn’t make me incompetent. It just means I’m not working, so keeping track of the days isn’t so important. I don’t get weekends off like you. Fact is, I never got weekends off. Farming keeps you busy seven days a week. Why don’t you ask me something important like who’s the president?”

“Okay.”

“It’s George Bush. But he won’t be president for long. There’s an election coming up, and I think this kid from I forget where, some southern state, is going to win.”

“What’s his name?”

“I think his name is Clinton, but don’t hold me to that.”

The questions went on until Perkins got a pretty good idea that Leonard was not only competent, but also quite clever at hiding his memory problems. Anything he couldn’t remember he wrote off as unimportant.

Leonard repeated his birth date three times over the course of the interview. The sooner he got to a competency hearing, the better off he would be. Repeating oneself is the first of many bad signs to come.

Honey was certain that Leonard’s memory problems were caused by grief over his wife’s death and the stress caused by Gretchen’s legal maneuverings. She was also convinced that the more time Leonard spent being in love with her, the better off he would be. Honey was in denial. She decided not to tell the detective about the time Leonard fell asleep watching television at her house and awakened to shout at her, “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

A nurse came in to say dinner was on the way and to ask if anybody else wanted a meal. Right behind her was a chunky woman in a business suit who announced in a Spanish accent, “I am Maria Gomez from Adult Protective. Are you Leonard Atkins?”

Before Leonard could answer, Ms. Gomez looked at Honey and said, “And you must be Honey Waldrop.”

“What’s this about?” Perkins asked.

“Who are you?” Ms. Gomez glared at Perkins.

“I am Detective David Perkins of the Wabash County Sheriff’s Department. I’m in charge here.”

“Not any more,” Ms. Gomez snarled. “Read this.”

Perkins took the document and reviewed it.

“It’s an emergency restraining order issued by Judge Jonathan Fee of the Wabash Circuit Court,” Ms. Gomez explained, “the court in charge of Gretchen Atkins’ petition to establish guardianship over Leonard Atkins. This order clearly states that Honey Waldrop shall have no contact with Leonard Atkins, either directly or indirectly, pending the outcome of the criminal investigation regarding the poisoning of Leonard Atkins.”

“What does this mean?” Honey asked.

“It means you must leave this hospital room immediately,” Ms. Gomez said. “If you choose to not comply, you will be charged with invasion of privacy, a Class D Felony, punishable by up to three years in jail.”

“You can’t do this,” Leonard said, struggling to get out of bed. “I know my rights. Tell her, detective. She can’t just march in here and tell me I can’t be with my woman.”

Perkins looked at Honey, who was beginning to lose her color, and said, “I’m afraid she can, Mr. Atkins. This court order is basically a no-contact order. Judge Fee has signed it. Honey, I’m afraid you and I are going to have to leave.”

Honey fainted on the spot. She hit the bed first, which broke her fall, then slid to the floor before anyone could catch her. Besides a few bruises that would show up later, she was not injured. Fifteen minutes later, she awoke on a gurney in the nurses’ station down the hall from Leonard’s room.

“Where am I?” she asked while trying to bring the ceiling into focus. Detective Perkins’ concerned face came into her view.

“You’re in the hospital. You fainted in Leonard’s room. Don’t try to sit up. You’ve got a tube in your arm. It’s an I.V. The doctor thinks you might be dehydrated.”

“I never got a chance to drink my tea,” Honey said, struggling to sit up. “Where’s my Leonard?” She flopped her head back down on the pillow, “Oh, yes, it all comes back to me now. They kicked me out of his room because they think I poisoned him. What am I going to do Davey? What can I do?”

“For now you need to rest and try not to worry.”

“Who was that woman who came in with the court order?”

“That was Maria Gomez, one of the toughest women you’ll ever meet. She works for adult protective and she’s seen enough abuse of the elderly to put her on the warpath forever.”

“Didn’t you tell her I would never hurt my Leonard?”

“I don’t think she much cares what I think,” Perkins said. “Don’t worry, the investigation will prove you’re innocent.”

“I thought I was innocent until proven guilty.”