PART 2
I called 911 from the doorway of Unit 118.
“Three elderly people living in storage units at Lakeside Self Storage on Peach Street. One of them is barely conscious. I need ambulances. More than one.” The old man’s name was Augie Novotny. He was 91. A Korean War veteran. His hands were like ice. He kept trying to sit up and salute when he saw my Coast Guard jacket.
“Easy, sir,” I said. “Easy. Help is coming.”
Unit 119 held a woman named Fern. Eighty-three. She had dementia. She thought it was 1985 and kept asking for her husband.
Mr. Haines stood in the hallway with his hand over his mouth.
“I swear I didn’t know,” he kept saying. “She paid in cash. She told me it was furniture.”
Three ambulances came. Then four police cars.
My mother, Augie, and Fern were all taken to the hospital. Augie had pneumonia and severe dehydration. The doctor said he wouldn’t have survived another week.
The detectives went to the house on Cherry Street that night.
Tammy tried to tell them it was “a temporary living arrangement.” Buddy tried to say the old people “wanted to be there.”
Then the detectives found the laptop.
Tammy had been running an online ad for six months.
“Affordable Senior Living. Private rooms. Meals included. $1,400 a month.”
She’d found Augie and Fern through the ad. Their families were far away. Augie’s only son had died years ago. Fern’s daughter lived in Arizona and had paid the first three months by check, thinking her mother was in a cozy group home.
Tammy had signed up as the “representative payee” for Augie’s VA pension and Fern’s Social Security. She’d been taking every dollar.
And my mother’s.
That was how they paid for the red truck. And the big TV.
Tammy and Buddy were arrested that night. Elder abuse. Theft. Fraud. Unlawful restraint. The Social Security Administration and the VA opened their own investigations.
They both pleaded guilty in the spring. Tammy got six years. Buddy got eight.
My mother revoked every paper she’d signed. A judge confirmed the house was still hers. She moved back into her own bedroom in December.
I put in a transfer for a shore assignment in Erie. I see her every day now.
Fern’s daughter flew in from Arizona and took her home. She hugged me at the airport for a long time and couldn’t say anything.
Augie spent three weeks in the hospital. When he got out, the local VA found him a room at a veterans’ home with a window that looks out at the lake.
I visit him on Sundays, after church, with my mother.
This year, on Veterans Day, I pushed Augie’s wheelchair down State Street in the Erie parade.
He wore his old Army cap. His Purple Heart was pinned to his jacket.
Halfway through the parade, a little boy on the sidewalk saluted him.
Augie saluted back. His hand was shaking. He was crying.
He looked up at me and said, “Son, two months ago I thought I was going to die in a box.”
“Not on my watch, sir,” I said.
THE END.
