Turning his attention to the gym proper, Hadcho stared at the mass of bodies pumping iron. Sweating. Building muscle. Getting strong. Being all manly and macho.
He struggled, keeping his face a blank, trying not to show Detweiler how bad he felt for his friend. In his brief contact with Kiki’s mother, he’d come to believe that growing up an orphan might be preferable to living under the same roof as a woman like that. For Detweiler to even suggest moving into the house in U City underscored the man’s desperation.
But a man had to do what a man had to do.
"Wow," said Hadcho. "That bites."
Chapter 16
Saturday morning…
On the way to Time in a Bottle
I could almost swear that my cell phone rang differently when Sheila called. Not because I’d assigned her a ring-tone. No. My mother-in-law had a way of bending the universe to her liking. Even immovable objects bowed to her demands.
Let me give you an example.
Robbie Holmes had been dead set against living in her Ladue home. He called it, "A pretentious, oversized barn."
They’d been back all of two days from their honeymoon when Sheila had us over for dinner. She looked radiant with a slight tan to her face. The extra color showed off the ivory chiffon tunic she had paired with a pair of cream silk pants. On her feet were caramel colored embroidered slippers. Every inch, a lady of leisure.
After a wonderful pot roast dinner, cooked by her fabulous maid, Linnea, Sheila broke out a bottle of champagne. "A toast to new beginnings," she said.
In deference to my pregnancy, I had a half a sip, followed by a big chaser of H2O.
"Yes, we’re going to start over," said Robbie, with a sparkle in his eyes. "We’re going to redecorate this place."
I choked on my water. Detweiler watched me carefully.
Was I still breathing? Yes, but I was also stunned.
As I helped my mother-in-law clear the table, I whispered. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"He was totally against living here!"
"Huh. He’s a man. He doesn’t know what he wants." She picked up a platter of steamed asparagus and headed for the kitchen.
"Well, he sure sounded to me like he did!"
"I amend what I said. Robbie knows exactly what he wants. He wants me to be happy. Because when I am happy, he is, too." She carefully transferred a large portion of pot roast into a Tupperware container for us to take home.
"But how? Come on. You have to share with me. These are skills I need to know."
"I did my dance of seven veils and when he was panting for me to remove that last wisp of chiffon—"
"Too much information!" I clapped my hands over my ears.
She pulled my hands free. "It’s really very simple. You give them everything they want. You make them deliriously happy. When they’re lying there with a huge grin on their faces, you start to cry."
"Cry?"
"Yes, cry," she whispered in my ear. "Loud and hard and as if your heart is breaking. You tell them that everything is perfect except…except…that you helped build this house. You raised your son, who is now deceased in it. You cradled your granddaughter and watched her take her first steps, and now you hoped to add more lovely memories. But instead, you will be saying goodbye to all those cherished memories. And it breaks your heart."
"But he had to have put up a fight."
"Not much of one. I said, ‘Is there any concession that I could make that might encourage you to rethink your decision?’ And note the use of that word, ‘concession.’ You see, I positioned myself as the reasonable party. Of course, I said all this with tears in my eyes. Really, I should have taken up acting."
"Sheila, don’t you feel guilty?"
She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me. "Not one bit. After we came home, I went through the Sunday paper and circled all the properties I wanted to tour. Every one of them would have cost more money than Robbie was willing to spend. His hands started trembling as he examined the ads for one money pit after another. Then on the Monday next, I had a mover come and give us an estimate. To move all my belongings would cost more than three months of the Robbie’s salary. So when confronted by bad choices, my ‘concession’ started to look very, very good to him."
I backed into a kitchen chair and shook my head. "You are devious."
"No," she said, raising a glass of champagne and toasting. "I am clever. Very, very clever. And if you want to be happily married, you will learn to be clever, too."
Chapter 17
This conversation flitted through my mind as I adjusted the phone under my ear. True to form, Sheila never began a call with, "Is this a good time?" or "I hate to bother you." Instead she launched into whatever was on her mind. Today she led off with, "You weren’t at The Old Social Hall when that woman was stabbed, were you?"
"What do you think?"
"I think that ‘trouble’ is your middle name."
"What a lovely sentiment. Good morning to you, too, Sheila. Have you been drinking?"
"One Bloody Mary. Why? Are you keeping count? Are you all right?"
"Sort of."
"Don’t tell me you were hurt! How’s the baby?" A bit of panic edged into her voice. When I first learned I was pregnant, I figured that Sheila wouldn’t care. After all, this wouldn’t be her biological grandbaby.
I was wrong. Dead wrong. She had made it abundantly clear that she was the grandmother to all my children. Even Erik. And I loved her for it.
I just didn’t always like her. Not all the time. Not when she was three sheets to the wind, and lately, she’d been drinking far too much, in my humble opinion.
"I’m fine and the baby’s fine. We’re all fine except for poor Laurel, the stabbing victim."
"Let me guess. One of your crafty customers got a bit frisky with her exactly knife."
"That’s an X-Acto knife, and no, that’s not what happened. This was a serious attack. Not your average papercuts."
She went quiet.
"Sheila? You still there?"
"Of course, I am. Tell me more because you don’t sound fine. Not completely."
"I’m shook up. You should have seen it. On second thought, be glad you didn’t. Laurel was a mess. There was blood everywhere, and because this was a fundraiser for a charity, I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Hey, let’s all go home! I’ve had enough for a night, how about you?’ I had to tough it out. Worse luck, there’s another crop tonight at the same place."
"Cancel it."
"I can’t," and I explained the financial penalties I’d incur from just such a cancellation.
"Is Detweiler planning to attend?"
"Yes, and Hadcho’s coming too. Unless they get a big break and nail down the assailant, they both insisted on showing up, and frankly, I’m happy to have them there."
"Serves you right," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"Haven’t you heard that old saying, ‘No good deed goes unpunished’? Here you are, worrying about other people and their problems when you should be sticking to your knitting."
"Hmmm." Not long ago, I decided to ignore anything she said that I didn’t like. "That reminds me. Do you know anybody who can teach needlepoint? I need a teacher for my store. Someone good. Really good. Someone classy, who is familiar with elegant pieces."
She cleared her throat. "I’m perfectly capable of teaching needlepoint. Why don’t you hire me?"
"Love to! I’ll have Margit Eichen call you and put you on the schedule," I said. "Got to go!"
With that, I hung up.
As I pulled into the parking lot at Time in a Bottle, I was smiling. I had just won a twenty dollar bet with Sheila’s new husband Robbie Holmes. "No way she’ll come teach at your store," he had said. "Although I’d pay you to have her do it. She needs to have a hobby. Some reason to get out of the house, other than going to the club and drinking. If she doesn’t quit bugging the decorator, he plans to quit. And if he does, I don’t
know what we’ll do with all this fabric and furniture that’s on order."
So now my mother-in-law would become my employee.
Gee, wasn’t life full of surprises?
Chapter 18
Even before I had officially purchased the store, I’d been given permission to make any changes I wanted. After conferring with my co-workers Margit and Clancy, I’d knocked down the wall that separated the main sales floor from the stock room. By expanding the sales floor I was able to add a room for needle arts. Officially, the room was dedicated to Dodie. Unofficially, we called it "the yarn room," but really, it was more than that. By using every available inch, we added yarn and fiber, needles, accessories, and canvases. A small table and four chairs invited our customers to sit down and knit or stitch for a while.
The shelves went from waist high to the ceiling. Cabinets under the shelves held more merchandise and supplies. There was also a flat-screen television and a DVD player. Whenever Erik came to work with me I would help him get comfy in his small stuffed chair, a gift from Bonnie Gossage who told me that her boys loved theirs. Then I would turn on the video of SpongeBob SquarePants so I could do my work.
Today, however, he was home with Brawny. So I quickly went through the procedure to open the store. Those chores done, I called the hospital to see if I could get an update on Laurel’s condition. After begging and pleading with the nurse in charge, I got nowhere. Drumming my fingers on the top of my worktable, I text-messaged Mert. "Any word on Laurel?"
Silence.
"Great," I said. "Just ducky. Thanks a heap, Mert. We were supposed to be best friends forever, but I guess forever is a short hop in your books, huh?"
Margit heard me griping and walked over to where I sat. She’d come in through the back door, but I hadn’t heard her entrance.
"No word?"
"Nope."
"I heard on the news that she’s stable," said Margit. "That’s good, right?"
"I guess."
"Are you all right? I know Clancy is. She came in the same time as I did. She’s working on the kits for tonight’s crop."
"I’m upset, but otherwise, okay. I figured that Laurel would be ready to talk by now. Or to write down a description of her attacker."
"But Detweiler will tell you what he learns. When he learns it."
"But he had to leave last night. It wasn’t his jurisdiction. Hadcho stayed because he was a first responder."
"Hadcho?"
"Yup. I could call him. Maybe I will." I didn’t tell her that the guys met every Saturday to work out together. Calling one meant alerting the other. Still, the fact that the media announced Laurel was in stable condition, well, that was reassuring. Sort of. I wondered what it really meant.
I decided that I would send Hadcho a text message, but first I wanted to write an email to all of our crop participants. My goal was to tell them on behalf of the Diabetes Research Foundation how much we’d appreciated their contribution, and on behalf of Time in a Bottle, how much we appreciated their patronage. Of course, I would also have to mention what happened to Laurel. I hesitated when I came to that. Then I sent my text-message to Hadcho, asking if he had an update on Laurel’s condition.
To my shock, the second that I hit "send," I heard a marimba riff. Behind me.
I turned to see Hadcho walking toward me. He must have strolled in through the back door.
"Great timing, huh?" he said, as he pulled over a stool and sat down. His hair was still damp, and instead of his usual natty coat and tie, he had on a navy nylon jogging suit. As if answering my unspoken question, he said, "Just came from the gym. Detweiler is fine."
"Laurel?" I asked.
"Not so much."
My heart plummeted. "But the radio said that she’s in satisfactory condition!"
"That’s true. However, we suspect that someone slipped her a heaping helping of Glutose. Her blood sugar was sky high. Glutose is a product that doesn't have any taste to speak of. Someone could have easily put it in her Diet Coke."
"Wait a minute," I said. "Stop. Are you telling me that Laurel is diabetic?"
"You didn’t know?"
"No, I had no idea!" But as I protested, I also began putting together bits and pieces. This crop had been Laurel's idea! She’d proposed it and asked if I could help. And there were other breadcrumbs sprinkled along the path. There was the fact that she never ate sweets. That she drank diet colas or water only. How she’d disappear into the bathroom after a long shift and always take her purse along. Suddenly, I realized she’d been monitoring her blood sugars.
"Right, well, she is. Diabetic, I mean," he said. "Every diabetic is a little different, but those can all be symptoms."
"So she went into the bathroom, and then what? I'm confused. Is she worse off because of the diabetes?"
"Not exactly. Sort of. Between the stress of the attack and her blood loss, she's in worse shape that she would have been. When her blood sugar went haywire, her body reacted. First to go is your vision. Then your mental acuity. The docs are thinking that Laurel must have headed into the bathroom because she realized her blood sugar was off."
My expression betrayed that I wasn’t following his logic. Call it "pregnancy brain," but I couldn’t figure out what he was telling me.
"So, why can't she name her assailant?"
"Because her blood sugar was so far off, she's lost her memory. The point is that she has no idea what happened to her in the john. None. She’s clueless. She doesn't even know who came in the john! I thought Murray would be able to nab the perp. A real slam-dunk, but he can’t. He's no closer now to making an arrest than when it happened," Hadcho said.
"Wow." I leaned back so that I could rest my lower back against my worktable. "If you can’t find the person who did this, and Laurel can’t tell you who it is, that means that he or she is still out there."
"Uh-huh. Since they don’t know that Laurel can’t help us, they’ll probably try to attack her again, to shut her up."
Chapter 19
I jumped up, left the back room, and grabbed Clancy, dragging her from the front of the store. "You need to hear this, too. Where’s Margit?"
"She had to leave. Her mother is still having problems. She raced out the door when they called."
While Hadcho repeated what he’d told me about Laurel having diabetes, Clancy listened carefully. Her face showed no emotion, but when Hadcho finished, she made a ladylike snorting noise. "I knew it. I knew she was hiding something, but I couldn’t figure out what. She’d get kind of spacy and go grab her purse. Why didn’t she tell us? That would have made life a lot easier on all of us."
I shook my head. "I guess because she’s a private person. Like you pointed out to me a long time ago, I really don’t know much about Laurel. Her background. Her friendships. Whether she dates or not. I know who she’s been to me, I know what I’ve seen of her, and that’s how I’ve formed my impression of her character. She’s a wonderful person."
"Beautiful inside and out," said Clancy.
"Well, let’s not hold hands and sing Kumbaya here. Because that won’t help me help her," snarled Hadcho.
"What can we do? How can we help?" I asked. "You’re not even on this case, are you?"
"No, but Murray and I are friends. If I bring him something, he’ll listen. You got her employment app? Any paperwork? Because of her throat, she can’t talk much right now, but she can respond. I need anything in your files that might help me paint a picture of who she is. What her life is like. Where the bodies are buried." Hadcho pulled out a Steno notebook from his hip pocket. "Contacts? Next of kin? References? Former employers?"
"I never looked," I explained. "Dodie hired her on Mert’s recommendation. I had no reason to rummage through old paperwork."
"Get it for me," said Hadcho. "Please."
He followed us to the file cabinet.
Fortunately, Margit is as obsessive about paperwork as Clancy is about organization and appearances. Shortly after she came to
work here, Margit went through all of our filing cabinets, dumped the outdated paperwork, and organized the files to a fine fare-thee-well. Using the key hidden behind the filing cabinet, I unlocked the drawers.
"Wow. As secure as Fort Knox," said Hadcho with a laugh. "Like a burglar wouldn’t have looked there first thing."
He was right. I made a mental note to find a better place to stash the key from now on. But for now, I was happy that I knew exactly where all our personnel paperwork was, and that I could put my hands on it.
Combing through the alphabet, I let my fingers march along until I found "Wilkins." I withdrew the manila folder and opened it. Inside were a W-2 form and another tax form, indicating that Laurel had no dependents and no withholding. Otherwise, nada. Not a single other sheet of paper.
Clancy had been watching. "What’s wrong?"
"There’s nothing here," I said, and I turned to show her the empty file folder.
"Let’s take it from the top," said Hadcho. "What do you know about her? What can you tell me, since you obviously don’t have the slightest paper trail?"
"I can tell you that I’m going to wring Margit’s skinny neck," I said. "She’s in charge of compliance with all regulatory agencies. We should have a standard employment app on each of us. Is there one there on you, Clancy? For all I know you’re an illegal alien!"
"Ha!" she said. "My secret is discovered. I’m actually a recent immigrant from Mars. As for paperwork, I don’t remember ever filling an employment app out. Did you?"
"No, not that I recall," I admitted.
"Good work," said Hadcho. "Impressive operation you’ve got here, Mrs. Lowenstein."
I turned to him and growled. "I am not in the mood for your wisecracks, Hadcho. Give me a break."
"Simmer down. How about if you concentrate on what you do know? Or think you know?"
For the next ten minutes, Clancy and I volunteered information. Laurel was dating a guy named Joseph Tinsley, the priest at St. James Episcopal Church.
"A priest?" asked Hadcho. "Maybe the Vatican sent a hit man."
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