by Libby Klein
“THE LADY FROM SOCIAL SERVICES. HAS SHE BEEN BY?”
“No. No one’s been by. ’Cept my daughter Judy comes by once a month to bring me some frozen dinners and crossword puzzles.”
“Someone has been complaining about Aunt Ginny. Now the state wants her to move to an assisted living facility.”
“Bull hockey! Ginny’s one tough broad and if anyone can take care of themselves it’s her. I wouldn’t take on that grizzly bear for nothing.” He laughed at his own joke. “Of course, the person you should ask is Nell.”
“Why is that?”
“I seem to recall her saying that she had some trouble with Social Services a while back. She had to go to court over it.”
My heart was beating a little faster with this new information. I stood to go. “Thank you, Mr. Winston, I’ll give Nell a visit.”
“She’s not home right now. Today is the day she babysits those two young’uns next door to Ginny.”
That would be the home of Clarissa Dorsey, who just moved up to next on my list. I gave Mr. Winston a hug. “Thank you for the visit.”
“Come back anytime you want to bring baked goods. I haven’t had homemade goodies since Vera died eighteen years ago.”
I promised him I’d come back as soon as I could and managed to refrain from saying “as long as I’m not in jail.” I gave one more look to Mr. Whiskers, shuddered, and shut the door.
I walked across the street to the Dorseys’ lemon-and-lime sherbet, Italian Gothic–style home. Clarissa answered the door with Ian in her arms and Colin wrapped around her leg.
“Clarissa, hi. I’m Ginny’s niece, Poppy.”
Clarissa put out her hand to shake mine. “It’s nice to meet you. Your aunt has told me so much about you. She misses you terribly.”
Leave it to Aunt Ginny to lay a guilt trap through unsuspecting strangers. “I brought you some muffins.”
Ian and Colin took off with the muffin basket before Clarissa could get ahold of the handle. “I’m sorry about that. Those two are a handful. They just love Mrs. Frankowski. My mom lives in Colorado, so they hardly ever see her. Your aunt has become a stand-in grandmother to them.”
“I know Aunt Ginny loves spending time with them. In fact, the reason I’m here is to help Aunt Ginny.”
“I hope nothing’s wrong.” Somewhere inside the house came a crash. “Colin! That had better not be my Tiffany lamp!”
Then came a muffled, “It was Ian.”
Clarissa turned back to me. “I’m so sorry. What’s going on with Mrs. Frankowski?”
“Well, it seems someone has been telling a Social Services worker that Aunt Ginny can’t take care of herself anymore. I was looking for Nell to see if she knows anything that could help us. I was told she is usually here today.”
“Mo-om!” came a call from somewhere in the house.
Clarissa yelled over her shoulder, “What?”
“Ian’s in the peanut butter!”
“Ian, get out of that peanut butter right now! Nell babysits the boys while I go shopping and run errands, but she is leaving today for a two-monthlong trip down the Amazon. We switched our days this week because of her travel plans.”
A boomerang smothered in peanut butter came hurtling out of the front door and missed my head by inches.
Clarissa turned and yelled through the open door, “Colin! What have I said about playing with that thing in the house?”
“You said not to.”
“Then why did it just come flying out the front door?!”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry, I have to get in there before they destroy something else. I’ve never heard anything negative said about Mrs. Frankowski by anyone. As far as we’re concerned, she’s a saint. If she needs anything we’ll be there for her.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that.”
“I think Nell was going over to Mr. Murillo’s this morning to drop off her keys. He’s going to take in her mail and water her plants while she’s gone. We volunteered to do it, but she insisted she didn’t want to trouble us.”
There was a loud thud from inside the house, followed by, “Mo-om!”
“I’m sure she appreciated the offer.” She was probably terrified to let Baby Kong and Godzilla Jr. in her house while she was gone. “If you think of anything that could help Aunt Ginny, please let me know.”
“I will.” She gave me a warm smile and went in to deal with whatever carnage Colin and Ian had created.
I was getting desperate. Mr. Murillo said that I had just missed Nell, but she was on her way to Mrs. Colazzo’s. He also said that Aunt Ginny was the first neighbor to welcome him and his wife to the neighborhood when they moved in years ago and if there was anything she needed to let him know and they would be there.
Then Mrs. Collazo said that Nell had come by earlier to drop off the last of her garden tomatoes, and that she was heading over to the Sheinbergs’ house with her cockatiel, Max. Then she offered to give me the phone number of her nephew, Dino. In case Aunt Ginny needed someone whacked or I was free for dinner Sunday afternoon.
The case against Aunt Ginny was looking more and more strange. None of the neighbors had spoken with anyone from Social Services. In fact, they all thought so highly about Aunt Ginny that none of them had noticed any unusual behavior. So where was Ms. Carson getting her information? I had to talk to Nell, if only I could catch up with her before she flew off to the jungle.
I rushed over to Mr. and Mrs. Sheinberg’s house. Mrs. Sheinberg was a tiny woman with steel gray hair and sharp black eyes like a bird. She was brown as a walnut and had a perpetual hump in her back from years of working hunched over a counter filling rugelach in her family’s Jewish bakery in Philly.
We sat in her black-and-white kitchen at a little white Formica table, drinking glasses of iced tea.
“Nell should be along in a little while. You made these muffins yourself? They look good.”
“Mrs. Sheinberg, I couldn’t help but notice you and Mr. Winston out front the other day.”
“Yeah, Harry’s a good guy. His wife, Vera, and I used to play pinochle together before she passed, God rest her soul.” She tapped her mouth with the side of two fingers. “Toi toi.”
“I saw you and Mr. Winston pointing at the house. I was wondering if you saw anything wrong with it.”
“Wrong? No, nothing was wrong. We were trying to figure out what those men were looking at the other day. But then you came out to get your pretty flowers and we didn’t want you to think we were yentas. So, you got a boyfriend? Is that who the flowers were from?”
“No, just a friend. What men are you talking about?”
“You know, the men who were out a couple weeks ago. They were taking the pictures.”
“When was this?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.” Then she leaned back in her chair and called into the other room, “Sol!”
“What!”
“When were the men out looking at Ginny’s house?”
“Last Tuesday, I think. Or Monday.”
She leaned back into the table and rolled her eyes. “He don’t know. I think it was Monday morning. They pulled up in two cars like they were meeting there. They were wearing them fancy suits.” She leaned back in her chair again. “Sol!”
“What!”
“Weren’t they wearing fancy suits?”
“No! I think one of them was wearing a sport coat.”
“Bah!” She leaned back in and made a grimace. “He don’t know. They took a bunch of pictures on their doohickeys.”
A little white-haired man with a fifteen-strand comb-over and a bulbous red nose came in. “I do too know. It was a Monday. They were talking about the house and pointing around like they were discussing it.”
“Yeah. That’s right. Then they left. They didn’t look like tourists so Harry and I were trying to figure out what they were looking at, but everything just looked normal to us.”
The S
heinbergs’ phone rang. It was an old-fashioned tabletop model with a rotary dial that tk-tk-tk-tk’d when you turned it. Mr. Sheinberg picked it up.
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay then.”
Mrs. Sheinberg gave him a shrug. “What?”
“Nell’s running late. She’s taking the bird to Clara’s. I gotta schlep it over here later.”
Mrs. Sheinberg patted my hand. “I’m sorry, bubala, it looks like you waited for nothing. Maybe you can catch her at Clara’s.”
Seriously?
I said my good-byes and promised to come back soon. Clara Pritchard’s house was my last chance to catch Nell before she flew off to the toucans and pink river dolphins and I had to face my date with Tim.
Please, dear God, let me catch her. I’ll never ask for another favor again. Okay, that’s not true, but still . . .
Mrs. Pritchard lived in the blue, Dutch-style Victorian right next door to us. It was like a big blue barn turned sideways. Her yard was always neat as a pin.
She was short and round, with pink cheeks and white hair. I guessed she was somewhere in her late seventies. She would be the perfect Mrs. Claus.
I handed her the muffin basket.
“Oh, honey, you’re a peach. But you just missed Nell. She caught a cab from here to take her to Newark Airport.”
I deflated like a Macy’s balloon at the end of the parade. More accurately, like someone who was probably going to the iron country club for a long time.
No one else had been able to shed any light on why Aunt Ginny was being targeted by DYFS. Nell was the one person who might have information to help us fight back and now she was gone. Mrs. Pritchard had to be my last interview of the day because my time was up. I hoped she could give me something useful.
“You want some limeade? I just made a pitcher.”
“I would love some.”
“Why don’t we sit out here on the porch since it’s such a lovely day?”
It was actually a bit chilly, but Mrs. Pritchard took a lot of pride in her rosebushes and was forever trying to force people into seeing them.
She came back with two glasses of limeade and sat on a yellow metal glider. “Mr. Lincoln won first place at the garden show this year.” She pointed to a beautiful red rosebush.
“Wow, congratulations. He’s beautiful.”
I took a sip of my limeade and my eyes crossed. It was so tart you needed a shot of Novocain to drink it.
Mrs. Pritchard took a sip of her limeade and smiled broadly. “I see Virginia has done some work on her yard lately. It looks good.”
“Thank you. We’re also doing some repairs and remodeling so the place will be good as new before you know it.”
Mrs. Pritchard looked next door at Aunt Ginny’s. “Virginia has a lovely home. It must be nice to have something stay in the family for so many generations.”
“We’re very blessed. I just wanted you to know about the repairs so you wouldn’t worry about Aunt Ginny. She’s doing really well.”
She turned to me with surprise. “Why in the world would I worry about Virginia? She isn’t sick, is she?”
“Well, no. She’s very healthy. I just know some of the neighbors have been concerned lately.” I took a very small sip of my limeade and braced myself for the shock.
“Honey, no one is concerned about Virginia Frankowski. She can take care of herself. We’re all worried about you.”
I gasped, and sucked in a whole mouthful. I started choking and Mrs. Pritchard got up to get me a napkin.
I quickly tossed the rest of my limeade on Mr. Lincoln before she came back.
Mrs. Pritchard returned and handed me a paper towel folded in half, then looked down at my glass. “My goodness, you drank that fast. Let me get you some more.”
“No! Thank you. I am . . . so full. It was . . . really delicious.”
She sat back down. “It’s a secret family recipe, you know.”
“That is one you need to keep a secret, for sure.”
She sat up a little straighter. “Oh, I agree.”
“What I really want to hear about is why the neighbors are worried about me.”
“We all know what happened at the high school the other night. None of us believe you to be capable of murder. We’ve known you since you were a child. We’re worried that you won’t be able to prove it.”
“So when you were all standing out front watching the police search the yard?”
“We were making sure they didn’t plant any evidence. Did they ever find the condo viarta majory?”
“The what?”
“The condo viarta majory.”
“What in the world is that?”
“I was hoping you would know. Before you arrived we overheard the cop with the K-9 say that’s what they were looking for outside.”
“I’ve never heard of it, but I’ll ask a couple of my friends.” Like my friend Google.
“Do they have any other suspects?”
“I don’t know if they do, but I have a few.”
“I saw you had a visit from Joel Miller the other day. Is he a suspect?”
“Well, I don’t think I should . . .”
“He’s been bad news since day one.”
“Bad news how?”
She looked away and shook her head sadly. “He got Dianne Hoag’s grandson hooked on that mara-wanna.”
Now, Meatballfist Hoag was the biggest pothead at Cape May High back in my day. So the chances were pretty strong that if there was a drug problem, he was the regional manager of Weeds-R-Us. But I couldn’t tell that to sweet Mrs. Pritchard.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“We were all sorry to see a nice girl like Kristen marry a boy like that.”
I nodded along.
“But then that Barbara Pomeroy, if anyone knew how to screw up a wedding it was her.”
“I just found out that she almost married Billy Sommers.”
She tsk-tsked. “He was such a good boy, too. Smart as a whip. He got a scholarship to go to that fancy technical school in Georgia, you know.”
“A football scholarship?”
“No, goodness me. He won some big science fair award.”
I was dumbfounded. “No, I did not know that.”
She took another sip of her limeade and rocked in the glider. “Oh, yeah, his grandma was so proud. He has his own tech company now. He’s some kind of corporate high muckety-muck. It’s a shame he couldn’t give a job to Meatballfist Hoag.”
That made me laugh—hard.
“Just think, that Barbara could have married him instead of letting him get away.”
“Mrs. Pritchard, have you spoken with Rosalind Carson from the Department of Social Services about Aunt Ginny?”
She thought for a moment. “No. I haven’t spoken to anyone from DYFS. Why?”
“They said the neighbors are complaining about her.”
“No one on this street has ever said an unkind word about Virginia Frankowski. I would know.”
I stood to go. “Thank you so much for the visit, but I’m afraid I have to get going.”
“Come back anytime. I’ll bring over some of my limeade for Virginia later.”
“Oh, she will just love that. Thank you.”
I waved good-bye and as I walked home I tried to google “condo viarta majory.” Google didn’t have any idea what I was talking about, so I asked Siri. Siri tried to make me a restaurant reservation at the Lobster House. I would have to ask Dr. Melinda.
I texted Sawyer to find out what entry caused Billy to win the science fair. If it was chemistry-related we might have just zeroed in on our killer.
Chapter 29
Aunt Ginny was in the library when I got in. She had a feather duster in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. She was swishing the feathers at the middle row of books, and Figaro was batting wildly to try to catch them. “The doctor called while you were out.”
“Thank you. Why are you smoking?”
“Don’t I always smoke?”
“Not since I was a kid.”
She looked at the cigarette between her fingers like it was a loaded gun. “I found it and I thought I must have started again.”
“Not that I know of.”
Aunt Ginny smashed the cigarette into a cork coaster on the end table. “Oh, thank God. That was disgusting.”
Figaro jumped at the feather duster and knocked over a marble bust of Edgar Allan Poe the size of a wine bottle. The statue hit the marble fireplace mantel and Mr. Poe’s nose broke off like a disgraced pharaoh. Aunt Ginny swatted Figaro with the feathers. “What did I tell you about that?”
Figaro froze in position, his eyes wide and dilated from the game. Then he flopped over and fell off the end table.
“Serves you right.” Aunt Ginny picked him up and set him back on the table, where he proceeded to take a bath.
“Oh, before I forget, Mrs. Pritchard is bringing you some homemade limeade later.”
Aunt Ginny scrunched up her nose and stuck her tongue out. “Blecch. We can use it to peel the paint off the front porch.”
I returned Dr. Melinda’s call and her receptionist put her through. “Great timing, I’m in between. How are you feeling?”
“Detoxing is hitting me hard. I’ve had a headache for two days. I can’t believe the sugar withdrawals are this bad.”
“Sugar hits the brain just like cocaine. I know it can be hard but hang in there. It passes in a couple of days. I got your test results back and, just as I suspected, they were positive for Hashimoto’s.”
“So I’m a ninja?”
“It’s an autoimmune disease of the thyroid that is causing a lot of your symptoms like the fatigue. I’ll send over some information and we’ll set a follow-up to check your levels again in a few weeks. You just need to be sure to keep avoiding gluten, soy, and dairy.”
“Ugh.”
“I know. And stress management is more important now than ever. Would you say your stress levels are improving?”
“Umm . . .”
“What happened?”
“Well, the cops searched my house last night.”
“Oh, no. What were they looking for?”
“Chemicals. Mostly in the form of cleaning supplies. Which, by the way, you may be getting a call to ask you about my recent decision to go green.”