“Not hard boiled, but I’m not over easy, either.” She thought for a minute, her brain going a million miles an hour. “Where’s a phone booth?”
“Next corner, on the left.”
She made a completely illegal left-hand turn and pulled up in front of the phone.
“Do you always drive like that?” Kevin asked.
“No, not all the time. You’ve ridden with me.”
“Yeah, and I’ve seen a lot more than I wanted to, like my life flashing before my eyes.”
She hopped out of the car and grabbed the phone book. She doubted the number she wanted would be listed, but she had to try. She opened the book to the B’s.
Brent, Nancy. Halfway down the column. Eden jotted down the number and climbed back into the car. “Got your cell? I left mine at the office.”
Kevin pulled out his phone and handed it to her.
“Here goes nothin’,” she said, punching in the number.
Voice mail picked up after three rings. It was a standard message, no “I’m on vacation” or “I’ll call you back in a week.”
“No answer,” Eden said, handing the phone back. She started the car, feeling glum, but then a bolt of inspiration—or stupidity—hit her. She jumped back out of the car, leaving it running, and flipped the book open to the page she’d found earlier. Sure enough, there was an address.
“Come on,” she said to Kevin, who eyed her curiously. “We’re going to pay a visit.”
There was nothing unusual about the front of Dr. Brent’s house when they pulled up to it. It was a large home with well-maintained grounds, nothing over the top as far as price went, but not a cheap little shack, either. Eden looked around before pulling her car into the driveway. “I don’t see any cars,” she said. “I wonder if she’s not here, or if there’s a garage out back or something.”
“So, what’s your plan?” Kevin asked. “Are you going to just march up to the front door and knock?”
“Of course not,” Eden said, unhooking her seat belt. “There’s a doorbell.”
She rang it once, listening for any indication of movement within. Nothing—no barking dog, no vibration of feet walking across the floor. The house was eerily quiet.
She walked along the length of the wraparound porch, peering in through windows, noting the nice furniture through gaps in the curtains.
“Something’s not right here,” she said, coming to the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” Kevin asked.
She motioned toward the counter. “She left out some sandwich makings.” He peeked inside. “And?”
“Okay, look how immaculate the rest of the kitchen is. Why would a woman who keeps her kitchen this clean go off and leave cheese and mayonnaise on the counter?”
“I’m still not sure what you’re saying to me.”
“I’m saying she’s not here, and she wasn’t expecting not to be here.”
Eden finished her circuit of the house, then glanced up and down the street. The house was far enough away from the neighbors that she didn’t know if anyone would have noticed Dr. Brent’s doings, but she figured it was worth a try.
“Let’s go in the back and see if there’s a car parked there,” she said. “Then I think we should talk to the neighbors.”
They walked up the driveway, not seeing any sign of a vehicle. But a sound caught Eden’s attention—the pitiful mewing of a cat. She followed it to an outbuilding in the corner of the garden plot.
The door seemed to be jammed shut, and she couldn’t budge it. “Help me out with this, will ya?”
Kevin grasped the handle and pulled. The door swung open.
“Show-off,” she said.
“Well, you said you wanted it open, right? So, I opened it.”
Eden stepped back as a tiny kitten tumbled out the doorway. She bent down to scoop it up. “This poor thing is practically starved to death,” she said, holding it close. “I can feel all its ribs.”
“Um, Eden . . .” Kevin stuck his head inside the shed. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s the matter?” As she joined Kevin in the entryway, she gasped. In the corner stood an old chest freezer, and a woman’s arm dangled over the side, held in place by the lid. She was definitely dead, and most likely, Dr. Nancy Brent.
“We’ve got to call the police,” Eden said. “Can I use your phone again?”
Kevin shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’d better make this an anonymous tip.”
“Why?”
“If you report it, your name might leak back to the care center, and the director will put two and two together. She’ll know you weren’t just writing a story, but that you were investigating, and she might turn you in or something.”
“Turn me in for asking some questions? Is it illegal?”
“Okay, I don’t know if it’s illegal, but I think if word of this got back to Shady Aspens, it would spell trouble.”
Eden could see his point. She wanted to keep her name out of this as much as possible. Plus, she had an idea forming in the back of her mind and she didn’t want anything to interfere with her plans until she had them all sorted out.
They put the kitten back inside and closed the door, then went in search of a payphone. They found one about a mile away, and Eden dialed the number with trembling fingers, the reality of what she’d just seen finally sinking in.
“I need to report something,” she said, wondering just exactly what she was going to say. “I think someone is dead.”
She recited the address and refused to give her name or the exact circumstances of how she discovered this alleged death. The dispatcher kept asking her name, and she finally told him to call her “Betsy.”
“Do you need an ambulance?” the dispatcher asked.
“I’m pretty sure this person is dead,” Eden said.
“How do you know?”
“Um . . . she’s in a freezer and her arm is hanging out.”
“I see. We’ll have someone there right away.”
“Now what do we do?” Eden asked Kevin after she hung up the phone.
“Let’s drive back to the house and make sure the police really come and weren’t just placating you,” he said. “We can park a little ways down the street and watch from there.”
“Okay,” she said, and they wove their way back through the streets.
It was only a few minutes until the first blue and white car drove up, but it felt much longer to Eden. She imagined she could hear the kitten crying and wondered if there hadn’t been a way to take it with them. She knew it wouldn’t have been a good idea, but still, the poor thing had been terrified and hungry. Was that kitten witness to a murder?
An ambulance pulled up seconds later. “I guess they didn’t believe me about that whole ‘dead’ thing,” Eden said.
“Well, they have to make sure,” Kevin replied.
After the police car turned down the drive to the rear of the house, Eden and Kevin went back to the office, knowing they’d done all they could. Kevin went out to his car to listen to his police scanner, making sure they found the body and the kitten.
“They called in the coroner,” he said in a hushed voice to Eden several minutes later. “And they reported the kitten as well.”
“Good.” She felt a huge weight lifted from her shoulders. Even if the little thing ended up in the animal shelter, at least it wouldn’t be hungry. Eden shook her head. She didn’t even know if the kitten was a boy or a girl.
6
“Ida Mae! What on earth has gotten into you?”
Those were some pretty harsh words of greeting, even coming from Arlette, who was not known as the queen of the soft touch. But Ida Mae guessed she deserved the scolding. After all, she had tried to take a shower by herself, dangling her cast over the edge of the tub, and she had slipped. Not only had she smacked her cast against the side of the tub, but she’d landed on her wrist, which was now swollen and throbbing. Thank goodness she’d had the f
oresight to take the telephone into the bathroom with her, but she wasn’t crazy about the fact that Arlette would have to help her get out of the tub.
“We leave you alone for one morning, after making you swear you’ll behave yourself, and this is the trouble you get into? I don’t know what we’re going to do with you.” Arlette toweled her off in a businesslike fashion, then helped her into a terry-cloth robe. “How are we going to get you to the car this time? You can’t crawl, not with that wrist.”
“I think we’ll need the paramedics,” Ida Mae said, flinching at the idea. Well, it could be worse—at least she was dressed now, sort of.
Arlette placed the call, then shook her head, her lips pressed together. “I’m going to move in,” she said at last. “Ren’s room will be perfectly comfortable for me, I’ll keep the cat in his carrier in your laundry room, and I can go home once every couple of days and water my plants.”
“I wouldn’t dream of putting you out,” Ida Mae said, but Arlette remained firm.
“It’s obvious to me you need someone here all the time, and I’m in the best position to help,” she said. “Tansy’s got to take care of Earl. Not that he’s totally helpless, but he acts that way. And the other sisters can come in and spell me off. Trust me, Ida Mae, it’s for the best. You said you’d wait to bathe until I came back. You’re not to be trusted. And with those brittle bones of yours—”
“Your bones are just as brittle as mine,” Ida Mae retorted.
“The condition of my bones is not in question,” Arlette said. “Your bones are the only ones getting snapped like twigs around here. You need supervision, Ida Mae. I’m moving in.”
Ida Mae knew in her heart that Arlette was right. But between the pain and the deep humiliation she felt, she didn’t know if she could really trust her feelings at that moment.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, “after they get some morphine in me.”
“Tell me about your family,” Kevin said, lounging against the cubicle wall.
Eden looked up from her computer. “Do you never work? Why are you always over here bugging me?”
“I’m just fast. My articles are done, they’re on their way to print, and I’m curious.”
“About?” She took out a hyphen in the phrase “beloved wife, mother, and saxophone player” and then turned her attention back to Kevin.
“Your family. You. Where you grew up. All that good stuff.”
She gave him the Reader’s Digest condensed version. “My parents are divorced, I grew up all over, and my grandma practically raised me. I’m one of the lucky ones, though—I have friends who haven’t spoken to their parents in years. I’m on a first name basis with both of mine. When we talk, that is.”
“I guess I’m one of the unlucky,” Kevin said. “I was raised by a single mom who got pregnant while she was in college, and she never told me anything about my father.”
“I’m sorry,” Eden said, grabbing her water bottle. “I didn’t mean to sound judgmental or anything.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kevin said, flashing her a grin. “How were you to know about my sad, fatherless condition?”
“Yeah, you could have given me a hint or something,” she retorted, going along with his banter. “Like a T-shirt that said, ‘I have no father, so don’t be an idiot and ask me about him.’”
“No, that’s the shirt I wear to my therapist’s office,” Kevin replied. “When I’m working, I prefer to move under the radar.”
“Very sneaky,” Eden said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do here.”
“Before I go, what’s your next idea for our plan to infiltrate the nursing home?”
Eden feigned shock. “We’re not going to infiltrate a nursing home. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I don’t know—maybe the way you said, ‘We need to infiltrate that nursing home’ as we drove away yesterday.”
“Oh, that.” She placed her hands on her ergonomic keyboard and started typing again. “You’ll just have to see.”
“Ida Mae, is this how you’ve always stacked your kitchen towels?” Arlette stood in the bedroom doorway, holding up a pile of the offending objects.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not going to interfere, but I’ve found that if I fold mine so the embroidery is on the inside, the threads last longer.”
“Okay.” Ida Mae had no idea what difference that could possibly make. She imagined the threads would last even longer if she never used the towels at all, but she figured making such a statement would only be a waste of time.
She watched as Arlette retreated down the hall, obviously intent on hunting down all the towels in the house and refolding them. Ida Mae sighed, trying to keep it light and delicate rather than the lung-stretching, lusty sigh she felt like heaving. Arlette had many good qualities, but tact was not one of them. Neither was tolerance for the differences in another’s housekeeping routines.
Ida Mae had always considered herself to be a diligent homemaker. She never had dryer lint or a stray spider web, yet Arlette seemed able to find dirt in places where dirt had never been before. Ida Mae appreciated the help, but she wished Arlette wouldn’t turn everything into a federal case.
“There are three casseroles in the fridge,” the woman in question announced a moment later. “I thought I would leave out a few servings of each, and freeze the rest.”
“Sounds good,” Ida Mae said, although she knew Arlette wasn’t looking for permission, but rather was stating her intentions. “What are they?”
“A chicken something, a beefy something, and another chicken something.”
“Sounds good,” Ida Mae repeated, leaning back against her pillows. She really didn’t care anymore. They could feed her a steady diet of cardboard—it all tasted the same anyway.
“I think you’re depressed,” Arlette said a moment later, coming in with a glass of juice. “You’re just sitting here.”
“You’re doing everything for me! There’s nothing left for me to do!” Ida Mae’s veneer of calm shattered and she found tears sliding down her cheeks. “I can’t even ruin any more afghans. My ruining arm is broken.”
“There, there.” Arlette soothed, patting Ida Mae on the head, which was not soothing. “We’ll find something for you to do.”
“I hope so,” Ida Mae said, mopping at her face with a tissue. “I’ve just never felt so unimportant in all my life.”
“Unimportant? Do you think all the ladies in the ward are coming over here with food and offers of help because you’re unimportant?”
Ida Mae didn’t have an answer for that. She only knew what she felt inside.
“They love you, Ida Mae. They wouldn’t be beating a path to your door if they didn’t.”
She nodded, wishing she didn’t feel so gray inside. She wondered if the pain medication they’d given her made her feel this way, or the shock to her system, or a combination of both. That was probably it.
“Now, I’m going to go dish you up a selection of casseroles and make a salad to go on the side. And then we’ll have brownies and ice cream for dessert. Tansy said she’d stop by around seven with a movie. Now, doesn’t that sound nice?”
Ida Mae remembered that Arlette had been a nursery leader in her former life, and shades of it were coming out now. “That’ll be fine,” she responded automatically. She’d try to show more gratitude. That would be the first item on her to-do list . . . tomorrow.
“Ma’am, I hear you’ve got some faulty wiring in the building, and I’m here to fix it.” The beady-eyed repairman studied Heather with . . . well, beady eyes.
“I don’t know anything about that.” The receptionist looked flustered.
“I’ve got the work order right here,” he said.
Just then a florist walked up to the desk. “I have a floral delivery.”
“Hold on a second, please.” Heather took the clipboard the repairman offered and looked it over. “Who authorized this?”
&nb
sp; “I really need to make this delivery,” the florist interjected.
“Just one second.” Heather handed the clipboard back to the repairman. “I don’t see the name of the person who authorized this repair.”
“Let’s see now . . .” He flipped some pages. “Here you go.”
“But this is a scrawl, not a real signature. I can’t tell what the name is.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the florist said, “but I’m on a tight schedule. I’ve got orchids in the truck, and they’ll wither in this heat.”
“Okay! What room?”
“Two fifteen.”
“Just take them up. The elevator’s that way.”
Eden stepped away from the desk, holding her flowers with pride. That had gone rather well, she thought. Now if Kevin the repairman could keep Heather busy for just a few more minutes . . .
Eden stepped into the elevator and pushed the button. She wanted to find Mrs. Partridge’s room as quickly as possible. Not that Eden thought she’d find anything significant, like a suicide note or a murderer’s note or anything like that, but she wanted to get the feel of the place—the lay of the land, as it were. She also wanted to find out how many vacant rooms this place had at present.
She walked out onto the third floor and peered both ways. No one was coming, so she continued on toward room 305, where Peggy said Mrs. Partridge had stayed. Predictably, the door was locked. Well, there were ways. Eden pulled out the lock-cheating card Kevin had finagled from one of his “sources” and slid it into the slot above the handle, listening for the telltale click. When she heard it, she let out a sigh of relief.
With another glance around, she let herself into the room and closed the door softly behind her. All traces of Mrs. Partridge’s belongings had been removed, and the room was as antiseptically clean as the rest of the place. The blue comforter on the bed was reminiscent of those found in hotels all across the nation, and the pillows were too plump to have been used recently. Eden opened the drawer next to the bed, half expecting to find a Gideon Bible in it, but there was nothing, not even a tiny speck of lint in the corner.
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