“It wasn’t a Jaguar,” Arlette said. “But it was dark. I don’t know what color, and I’m not sure what make, but it wasn’t very sporty.”
Ida Mae raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t see a license plate number?”
“No, I didn’t. And it’s just as well. I’m not about to go through another DMV fiasco. Once is enough for me.”
Everyone rose, intent on their new assignments. Eden lingered a minute, pretending to adjust her wig in the mirror. She waited until Tansy and Arlette were in the hall, then she turned to Ida Mae.
“Ida Mae, did it upset you, the way I talked about Kevin?”
“Maybe a little.” Ida Mae smiled. “I’m sure he’s a good-looking boy, and I can’t blame you for being a little smitten with him. But I’m still holding out for you and Ren.”
Heat flooded Eden’s face. “Oh, I’m not smitten with Kevin, Ida Mae. He has a strange effect on me, but I don’t think it’s love.”
“Do you think Ren’s cute?” Ida Mae asked.
The question caught Eden so off guard she wasn’t sure how to answer. It was a little awkward discussing someone’s physical attractiveness with his aunt.
“Ren’s very cute,” Eden said at last. “In fact, when I first met him, that’s why I started making dumb jokes. And then, when he responded and teased me right back, I knew he was more than just a pretty face . . . he was someone I could really be friends with. That’s important to me.”
Ida Mae looked happy. “I think he’s pretty hot too.”
“Ida Mae!” Eden laughed. “I’ve never heard you say something like that.”
The older woman shrugged. “Some situations call for it, don’t they?”
Eden leaned in and gave Ida Mae a hug. “Yes, they do. And in Ren’s case, it definitely fits.”
Eden straightened her wig and grabbed her purse, then stepped out into the hallway. “See ya later,” she said as she closed the door. She leaned against it for a minute, thinking about Ren. If she had to pit Ren against Kevin, Ren would win hands-down in the looks department. But Ren was miles away, and Kevin was right here, making his intentions more obvious by the day. She either needed to reevaluate or tell Kevin to go away, and she wasn’t ready to make a decision quite yet. It would sure make it easier if she knew how Ren felt about her.
She reached out and tapped on the door, opening it at Ida Mae’s “Come in.”
“How does Ren feel about me?” As soon as Eden blurted the words, she felt like an idiot.
“I’ll ask him,” Ida Mae said, a knowing smile on her face. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I always write to him on Sunday. Don’t worry—I’ll work it in casually.”
Eden wasn’t sure what constituted Ida Mae’s definition of “casually.” She almost begged Ida Mae to forget the whole thing, but how would she know otherwise?
Arlette parked Ida Mae’s wheelchair in the hallway, then knocked on the door marked Housekeeping. Ida Mae drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair, wishing she were mobile enough to do more sleuthing on her own.
A kind-looking woman in a white uniform opened the door to Arlette’s knock. “How can I help you?” she asked pleasantly.
“My sister noticed something a little odd about her bed. I wondered if any of the other residents have complained about theirs.” Arlette’s usual dour expression was the perfect thing to carry off her inquiry. “Is it common for an expensive establishment such as this to have such . . . troublesome beds?” Obviously, she and Ida Mae hadn’t discussed a script before heading down the hall.
“I’m so sorry!” The woman turned a little, and Ida Mae caught sight of her name tag. Lee Ann. “We’ve never had complaints about our beds. In fact, they’re the most comfortable we’ve ever tested for our residents.” She cast sympathetic eyes on Ida Mae. “What seems to be the trouble with yours?”
“It’s nothing,” Ida Mae told her. “My sister overreacts.”
“You told me you thought there was something wrong with the box springs,” Arlette said. “I don’t consider that overreacting. I want you to be comfortable.”
“I’ll send someone over right away,” Lee Ann promised.
Ida Mae protested. “Really, you don’t have to.”
“I insist.” Lee Ann reached out and patted Ida Mae’s shoulder. “No trouble at all. I’ll have them check the bed while you’re at lunch. There’s no need for you to be bothered a moment longer.”
“Thank you,” Arlette said.
“I feel bad putting her through the extra work.” Ida Mae held on tight as they rounded the corner to the dining room.
“It was the only way to find out if there had been complaints,” Arlette said.
Ida Mae couldn’t think of another way either, so she guessed it couldn’t be helped.
Arlette pushed Ida Mae up to her table, then turned to go, but Andrea approached and caught her elbow. “You aren’t leaving, are you?”
“Well, it’s lunch time. I thought I’d go down the street to that little deli while my sister eats.”
“Nonsense!” Andrea grabbed a chair. “You can stay and eat with Ida Mae. Our menus have wiggle room for occasions like this.”
“Are you sure?” Arlette asked.
“I’m more than sure. You have a seat.”
Arlette sat down and tucked her purse beneath her chair. “Thank you very much.”
“Not a problem.”
George rolled up to the table just then, brought by Alex, one of the male nurses. “Hello, Ida Mae,” George greeted. “Have you got a guest?”
“Yes, this is my sister, Arlette.”
“So nice to meet you.” George held out his hand, pretending their previous meeting in Hattie’s room had never taken place. Ida Mae felt his acting might be a little over the top, but . . . oh, well.
“Eloise is having the rest of her meals in her room today,” Andrea told Alex as Hattie joined them.
“I’ll let the kitchen know,” Alex said, setting the brakes on George’s chair and then walking away.
“You all have a wonderful lunch,” Andrea said. “I’ll see you later.”
“Isn’t the staff here great?” George beamed. “They take such good care of us.”
Hattie reached out and touched Arlette’s hand. “After you left yesterday, Ida Mae told us what a super-hero you are.”
Arlette blushed, which made Ida Mae snicker. She’d seen Arlette blush maybe a total of three times in all the years they’d known each other. “I don’t know about that,” Arlette said.
“I think you’re all amazing,” George said. “Really amazing.”
The general rolled up to the table just then, scowling around the table. “What’s this? A guest? I’m out of uniform.”
“You look very nice, General,” Hattie told him.
“But still,” he said grumpily, “someone could have told me.”
Ida Mae didn’t know how to salve his feelings, but apparently it wasn’t necessary. As soon as his bowl of vegetable soup was placed in front of him, the general dug in with good appetite and didn’t say another word the rest of the meal.
“Ida Mae, have you heard about our Saturday movie night?” George asked after he finished his soup. “Tonight they’re showing Casablanca.”
“No, I didn’t hear about that,” Ida Mae said. Apparently, this place had more activities than a carnival.
“Well, tonight they’re playing Casablanca,” George said. She wondered why he was repeating himself, but at his next words, she was able to chalk it up to nerves. “I wonder if I might escort you.”
Ida Mae was completely flummoxed. Escort? Like a date? When was the last time she’d been asked out? She honestly could not remember.
“All right,” she said at last, realizing everyone at the table was waiting for her reply. “That would be fine.”
“I’ll stop by to pick you up at seven.” George reached up to straighten his hair. “Or rather, Alex will push me over and we’ll bring another nurse to push you. I don’t th
ink Alex will mind coming on a double date.”
For the rest of the meal, Ida Mae tried to think of Beverly-related questions to ask the others at the table, conscious that she had a job to do. But she couldn’t get her mind off the fact that she had a date, and with a man even older than she, as impossible as that was to imagine.
13
“Thank you for meeting me here,” Eden said, standing in the lobby at Wendy’s. “This is a far cry from the Olive Garden, but I’m on my way back to work and I’m afraid I’m in a hurry.” She glanced at her watch—she only had a short time to make it to the Golden Lotus.
“That’s all right,” Peggy said. “I understand Wendy’s makes a fine chicken sandwich.”
Eden smiled. “They do indeed.”
They placed their orders, then took their trays to a table.
“I needed to ask you a few more questions about your mother,” Eden said as they got their food unwrapped. “I’m particularly curious about anything else she might have said when she told you someone was out to get her.”
Peggy looked thoughtful as she chewed. “Well, Mother said she wrote it down. I don’t know what she wrote—she didn’t say. But she also mentioned something about a special hiding place. We went through all her things quite carefully when we got them home from Shady Aspens last week, and we didn’t find it, not even in the bottom of her jewelry tote, which is where she usually hid things.”
“No notes of any kind?” Eden asked.
“Not that I was able to find.”
“I wonder if I could take a look at her belongings. I might spot something you missed.”
“That would be a good idea,” Peggy said. “I haven’t been sleeping—the stress, you know—and it’s possible I overlooked something. And I could help you, if that’s okay.”
“Certainly. Where are the things you picked up from the care center?”
“In my garage. We haven’t had time to really sort through them. With the funeral and family gatherings and all that, it’s just been crazy at my house. But if you could come over, we could go through it together, just there in the garage.”
Eden pulled out her notebook. The next day was Sunday, the only day she wasn’t scampering from job to job like a Tasmanian devil, and she definitely needed a day of rest. On Monday, though, she didn’t have to go into the newspaper office until noon. “How’s Monday morning?”
“Perfect. And I’ll make breakfast—well, I won’t make it, but I’ll get donuts, if that’s all right.”
Eden had never turned down a free donut in her life. “Sounds great.” She jotted down Peggy’s address and then took a bite of her sandwich.
“I also remembered Mother speaking about a friend there in the center,” Peggy said. “She only mentioned her once, but it was recently. She said, ‘Jane agrees with me. She thinks they’re out to get me too.’”
“Do you know who Jane is?”
“No, I don’t.” Peggy suddenly teared up and reached for her napkin. “Do you suppose that if I’d taken it all seriously, Mother would still be alive?”
“Oh, Peggy, you shouldn’t think things like that.” Eden impulsively reached out to grasp the other woman’s chilly fingers. “Blaming yourself won’t bring your mother back.”
“I know.” She sniffed. “But I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Let’s concentrate on figuring out what happened,” Eden said. “We’re tossing around a lot of ideas, and soon we’ll get it resolved.” She mentally crossed her fingers while making the rash promise. “We’re not going to give up.”
“Thank you, Eden,” Peggy said. “I’m not sure why you’re helping me, but I’m so grateful.”
I’m not sure either, Eden thought while she downed her fries. And I’m probably really going to regret it.
Arlette closed her cell phone with a snap. “Eden says Beverly had a good friend named Jane. We need to hunt her down. Apparently, Jane knew why Beverly felt ‘they’ were out to get her.”
“I haven’t met anyone named Jane yet, but then, it’s only been two days,” Ida Mae said. “I’ll spend some time in the common area today and see if I can find her.”
“There’s one more thing I think we ought to do,” Arlette said, “but I can’t figure out a way to do it.”
“What’s that?”
“We need to get into Dr. Brent’s files on Beverly. We need to know just how sick she was before she died.”
Ida Mae had been leaning forward in her wheelchair. Now she sat back with a thump. “I hadn’t even thought of that. You’re right. We’ve got to see those files.”
“Do you think the daughter could request them?”
Ida Mae thought for a minute. “That’s probably going to be the best way. Can you call Eden back?”
Arlette opened her phone and punched some numbers. “She’ll ask Peggy to make the call,” she reported a moment later. “She’ll also have her ask for the records from Dr. Greene.”
“That should work,” Ida Mae said. “In the meantime, I’ve got to talk to Eloise, and I need to find Jane.” She motioned to the bed. “Did you notice what they did?”
“No, what?”
“They came in here and replaced everything on my bed, even the headboard.”
Arlette looked at the setup a little more closely. “They did, didn’t they? All that while we were at lunch?”
“You know, this place is something else,” Ida Mae said thoughtfully. “If I didn’t think it was a den of murderers, I could stay here quite happily for some time.”
Arlette grimaced. “You’ve been watching The Princess Bride again.”
“That one’s definitely a once-yearly film,” Ida Mae told her as they prepared to go back down the hall. “Any longer than that, and I have withdrawals.”
Eden collapsed on her couch, the smell of moo goo gai pan clinging to her shirt. Her shift hadn’t been a long one, but she was so glad it was over. The cat, relieved to be out of his cage, came over and sniffed her.
“Don’t you get any ideas,” Eden said. “You’ve nibbled on me enough in your lifetime.”
She pulled herself up and went to her computer, wondering if Kevin had received the file she’d e-mailed him. He couldn’t possibly have read the book and formed an opinion so quickly, but she knew she would compulsively check her mail until she heard back from him. She wanted his approval, yet at the same time she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Her feelings didn’t make sense at all.
There was no note from Kevin, but there was one from Peggy.
Requested my mother’s files, but because of the privacy laws, I have to sign a form, and then they have to process it through their main office. It will take about two weeks, from what they said. I wish we’d done a power of attorney, but I thought we had more time.
Eden shook her head. Two weeks? That was far too long.
She thought about that while she deleted her friend updates from GoodReads. There just didn’t seem to be a way to get the medical files any quicker. She read Peggy’s note again and saw a postscript she’d missed before—Peggy wouldn’t be able to get in to fill out the forms until Monday, so there was another delay.
Eden reached in her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “Grandma? What would you think about infiltrating the doctor’s office?”
14
“She wants us to do what?”
Arlette bit her lip. “She can’t get the medical information for about two weeks. She wants us to break into the doctor’s files ourselves.”
Ida Mae couldn’t believe it. “That’s illegal, you know.”
“Yeah, I do know,” Arlette said. “I don’t think we should do it.”
“Neither do I. I mean, wiretapping the Dunns’ house was illegal too, but we didn’t actually do that—Ren did. I don’t know how I feel about doing something this . . . blatant.”
“Are you forgetting that we did plant the camera at the Dunns’?” Arlette asked. “That was illegal, and you can’t foist that off o
n Ren.”
“I was choosing to forget that,” Ida Mae admitted. “Okay, we’ve broken the law. If we’re really being honest, we’ve broken it several times. But that doesn’t mean it’s right to do it all over again!”
“I know.” Arlette took a seat on the edge of Ida Mae’s bed. “We did our time, and we shouldn’t go down that road again. We’re reformed.”
“Let’s see if we can find Jane,” Ida Mae said. “I’ve got a hankering for chocolate milk, and they have some in the snack bar.”
Arlette pushed Ida Mae toward the common room, and they picked up a bottle of brown cow before settling down near the center of activity. Ida Mae wondered who would be the best person to ask about a woman named Jane, and her question was answered just a few minutes later when Eloise came into the room, wheeled by Andrea.
“Would you like to sit by Ida Mae?” Andrea asked, and Eloise nodded.
After situating the woman near Ida Mae and getting her a drink, Andrea went on to her next set of duties, leaving Ida Mae to ask whatever questions she wanted.
“I got a letter from Beverly a while back,” she began, wondering just how plausible that was as she spoke. “She mentioned she had a good friend here, a lady named Jane.”
“That would have been Jane Howell,” Eloise said.
“Jane Powell? The actress?” Ida Mae asked, confused.
“No, Howell. With an ‘H.’”
“Oh.” Ida Mae blushed. Miss Marple wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. “Where might I find Jane?”
“She doesn’t live here anymore. Her daughter finished adding on to her house and took her in about a week ago.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I was hoping to meet her. Beverly spoke very highly of her.”
“She doesn’t live far from here, just in Bountiful. But I don’t imagine you’ll be driving anytime soon.” Eloise nodded at Ida Mae’s casts.
It took fully five seconds for Ida Mae to realize Eloise had just cracked a joke. It was so unexpected that she almost didn’t react appropriately until she heard Arlette’s dry titter, and then she joined in.
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