“We’ve been tracking down her movements for Monday. The checkout clerk remembered her. Tell me about your conversation with Martha.”
“Ah, yeah. Sure.” He ran his hand through his hair. “She found me at the grocery store bakery actually. I was picking up a cake for my mother’s birthday. Martha stopped to ask the baker to box up an assortment of specialty cookies, said hello when she saw me.
“She asked how I was doing, asked about June, how she was doing. That took a few minutes. Mom’s now in late-stage dementia, I moved her up here from Florida a year ago. She gave me a bad health scare this fall, but she’s rallied enough to be home with me for her birthday, and I’m praying we can get to Christmas. Your mother sent me a box of photos some months ago, John, pictures from back when June and Martha were in high school together—items I could put up on Mom’s ‘memory wall,’ I call it—and it was nice to be able to thank her for those in person.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” John said.
“What else did you two talk about?” Sharon asked.
“Let’s see . . . I kidded Martha a bit about only buying a couple of items, and she said she had really just stopped in for the cookies. She hosts a Tuesday Tea at Ten, but you probably know that. She laughed about the name, although you could tell she gets a lot of pleasure in having that event on her schedule. We talked about June’s birthday and how time was passing by so quickly. I had a cartful of groceries, but she stayed and chatted while they were bagged. I walked out with her, and she held the cake for me while I shifted groceries into the car. I took her cart back with mine. She was turning south on Wabash Avenue when I last saw her.”
“You remember it all pretty well,” John commented.
“I suppose. The lady who comes to watch my mother while I grocery-shop and run errands—Verna Buck—lives down the street. Verna and I talk about what era my mother has wandered into when she is awake and conversing. So a rational conversation with a lady my mother’s age was a pleasure.”
“Did you happen to invite my mother over to share a piece of birthday cake with June?” John asked.
“I did. It was the soft-touch ‘if you would like to come over’ kind of invite, and your mom apologized before I even finished that she had plans for the evening. I didn’t press her. Mom wouldn’t remember if Martha was here five minutes after the cake was eaten, and ladies from the church were planning to stop by, so I knew Mom would have a few guests. I was just happy to have bumped into Martha and to see how well she’s doing. We’d talked on the phone a couple times about the photos, but it’s not the same as saying hello in person. The way Mom’s dementia has taken over, I sometimes fear this is how everyone, including me, is going to end up.”
“Did Martha say what her plans were for the evening?” Sharon asked.
“No, I’m sorry. Sincerely. Now I wish I’d asked. I took it as a polite reason to decline and didn’t want to put her on the spot. I’ve always liked your mother, John, and I shouldn’t have sprung the invitation on her. Seeing a long-ago friend your own age in late-stage dementia . . . well, it takes some thinking, some mental preparation, before you just drop everything to say hi.”
They heard something from the other room. June must have awakened.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Holland. What did you say?” John stepped into the living room to better hear her.
“You’re talking about Martha?” she asked, her voice quivering. “I had such a nice lunch with Martha just yesterday.”
“You did?” John couldn’t help his astonished query.
Her eyes brightened, and she turned her head toward him. “Yes. Grilled ham salad sandwiches, petite blueberry muffins, and some banana pudding.”
“Mom, what year is it?” Eric asked.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Humor me. I need to get this check written properly.” Eric had pulled out his checkbook and pen, had it open, and was looking expectantly at his mother.
“’94, of course.”
“Thanks.” He slid the checkbook back and stepped over to her, leaned down and kissed the woman’s forehead. “Jeopardy comes on soon. I know you don’t like to miss the opening. It’s on channel four.” He found the remote in the folds of the afghan and handed it to her. Her attention diverted to the TV, and she began looking for the right button to push.
Eric stepped back into the hall. “I’m very sorry. She’s lost her sense of time—she was probably remembering an event from back in the good old days. I wish she did have lunch with your mother yesterday, John. Is there any way I can help with the search? My nightmare is my mom wandering out of the house and getting lost. I can only imagine what you’re going through right now. If I can help in any way, I’d like to do so.”
“The details of what you spoke to Mom about are useful.”
“Eric,” June called out, “we should invite Martha and Harold for dinner. Wouldn’t that be nice? We’ll have my pot roast, and she can bring her meringue pie.”
“That sounds nice, Mom.” He looked over at the two of them with a sad smile. “I’m sorry, John. For what it’s worth, her friendship with Martha, those days in high school and the years after—these are some of the strongest memories she has left.”
“Mom would be glad to know that. I’m sorry, Eric, that this is how it is for June now. Thanks for the time and the information.”
Eric walked with them to the front door. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t help more. I’m serious—please call me if there’s anything else I can do.”
“You were kind of quiet in there,” John mentioned as they settled into the car.
Sharon turned the key, backed down the driveway. “Eric reminds me of you, John. He’s close to his mom, careful of her. The photos in the living room, the memory wall he has put together of her and the family through the years. They likely reinforce the memories that do remain. He’s a loving son.”
John fastened his seat belt. “I remember Eric as being a good guy. His parents divorced, and Eric stepped in to be the man of the house. Even in high school he had a responsible streak related to his mother.”
Sharon pulled into traffic. “Okay, so what did we learn?”
“Mom had plans for Monday night. The open question now is, were those plans with Bobby Sail?”
“Maybe she had plans. It could have been a courteous way to decline an invitation she didn’t want to pursue. But for now, let’s assume it’s true.” Sharon tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “John, if your mother went out Monday night, she would have taken her purse with her, even if someone else was picking her up. Say she does go out, sees someone—maybe Bobby Sail—but she gets back home again. She puts her purse on the chair inside the door, though I doubt that’s where she would usually leave it. Maybe she thought of something, turned around and left the apartment with just her keys. We are where we were before, only it’s later in the evening, more like 9:00 p.m. than 6:00 p.m. on Monday night.”
“If she did go to meet Bobby, then he’s lying to us. That’s a critical fact to know.”
Sharon nodded. “It is. But I’m stuck on the fact her purse is in her apartment. She would have taken it with her if she was going out, even if Bobby was picking her up. Maybe he came inside with her when they got back?”
John thought about that. “It’s risky to be set on Bobby,” he finally replied, “when Mom might have had plans with anyone. Say one of his kids invites her out to coffee, wants to get to know her better. Something. Maybe Mom goes out for the evening, gets back home, they call her cell as she’s getting in the door. ‘I forgot to give you an envelope Dad asked me to drop off with you . . . ’ she grabs her keys, goes down to meet them in the parking lot. Then trouble happens. . . .” he didn’t want to finish that thought.
“That fits,” Sharon agreed. A long pause. “Or,” she said, “I’m going to chase a thought out on a limb, John. Let me play it out and just listen. Say Martha had plans Monday evening. She went out. She came back . . . or maybe she didn’t. Her
car came back, her purse. Maybe she did not. Someone else brought her car back, set her purse inside her apartment to direct attention away from what this really was. They need some time to get an alibi together, to clear away evidence, so they get her car back here and her purse in the apartment. They make sure it’s the retirement village and vicinity where we first focus the search.”
John turned to look at her. “We’ve been looking in the wrong place.”
“Maybe,” Sharon conceded after a long moment. “This is quite a limb I just walked out on.”
“If something happened at Bobby Sail’s,” John said slowly, “he would have every incentive to get cops looking elsewhere. Same goes if it were his kids. Wait till dark—most residents are in for the night—drive her car back, leave the purse inside her apartment, keep the keys. Walk out and slip away. It explains why there’s no one interviewed who remarked ‘I saw your mom Monday night.’ She simply wasn’t around to see.”
“It’s a theory, John. One with no supporting facts. Before we assume she didn’t make it back to the Village, before we create someone out of whole cloth who drives back her car, returns her purse, it would be nice to have even a sliver of evidence pointing in that direction.”
“It feels right, though. Something went wrong, someone’s desperately trying to cover up that Mom was with him. Or her. If not Bobby Sail, maybe someone from his family. Or it’s someone else she knows. She may well have had plans for Monday night and something went very badly wrong.” His voice trailed off.
Sharon was quiet for a while, then said, “I’m the one who’s come up with this theory, but we need a supporting fact. We are nowhere near having probable cause to search Bobby Sail’s home—or anyone else’s for that matter.”
“We go back to her bridge friends, what she was talking about during those four hours,” John suggested. “If she had plans for her evening, she surely mentioned them to someone besides Eric. If she went by the bank to see Bobby, there should be camera footage of her. Even if her plans consisted mostly of errands—grocery store, dry cleaning, a fancy cheese shop—we should be able to locate someone who saw her. We have to figure out where she went Monday night to have a chance of figuring out where to aim the search.”
“Let me shoot down my own theory. Bobby Sail probably knows enough about your mom to know where she parks, the number of her apartment. But if not him, a stranger wouldn’t manage to drive her car back and park it in the spot your mom normally uses.”
“Maybe it was the only open spot in front of Building One, because residents think of it as Martha’s parking spot.”
Sharon inclined her head. “Got me there. But that doesn’t give them the apartment number.” She tapped her fingers once more on the steering wheel. “But I bet it’s on her driver’s license. Okay,” she began, “so in this theory I created, your mother is out somewhere Monday evening, trouble happens, and someone drives your mother’s car back to the Village, places her purse in her apartment to misdirect our search.”
She held up one finger. “First, we have to figure out where your mother went Monday evening.” She added a second finger. “We have to come up with some evidence it was not your mother who drove her car back or put her purse in her own apartment. And third, we have to target our search at the location the trouble actually happened.”
John thought she had summed it up nicely. “Exactly. And in our favor, if this theory is correct, that evidence exists because it’s what actually happened. We just haven’t found it yet.”
Sharon chuckled. “You’re absolutely right.” She glanced over. “Will you agree that sometimes flights of fancy that head into the deep end are useful if only because they lighten the weight of the work?”
“You’re convincing, Sharon. But I actually like your theory.”
“Evidence. We need it before I stand in the conference room and suggest we work the idea with actual resources.”
Christmas shoppers were out in force, and traffic was tangled. They were not moving more than a car length or two with each signal change. John felt his frustration growing, an impatience with the world, and forced himself to take a couple of deep breaths. It really didn’t matter in the long run how much time it took—there were phones in both their pockets if something came up they needed to know about that minute.
He rested his head back and wondered when—or if—his life would be normal again. Mom would have enjoyed being out on a day like this, running her errands, probably doing some Christmas shopping.
“Where are the groceries?” he asked abruptly, sitting up straight just as abruptly.
Sharon turned to look at him.
“Mom bought a box of specialty cookies for the Tuesday Tea at Ten,” he reminded her. “Plus peaches. Apples. A handful of items like that. Where are the groceries, specifically the cookies?”
“They weren’t in the car,” Sharon remarked slowly. “They should be in the apartment.”
“I need to see her apartment again. I don’t think they were there. In fact, I’m very certain they were not there.”
“John . . .”
He offered a grim smile. “We’ve got our evidence. Mom didn’t carry her groceries up to the apartment. They aren’t in her car. Mom never came home Monday night. We now have a piece of evidence that confirms it.”
John searched his mother’s kitchen, looking for signs of the cookies, of the fruit she had bought. “If Mom had been fussing around the apartment Tuesday morning getting ready for her guests, those cookies would have been neatly displayed on a serving dish, most likely that glass one”—John pointed it out for Sharon—“as it’s one of Mom’s favorites. So, again, push this back to Monday night. Mom arrives home with groceries, the box of cookies. She puts them on the counter, maybe in a cupboard, which I’ve now checked thoroughly and they’re not here.”
“Maybe one of the ladies saw the box of cookies, knows they’ll go stale before the next tea gathering, and takes them to pass out to the searchers.”
John considered that and nodded. “That’s possible. The box could have been taken without the intent to cause us great confusion right now.”
“I’ll track down Heather Jome and the Village manager, Theresa Herth,” Sharon said. “If there’s an innocent explanation for the disappearing cookie box, they probably can ferret it out. I’ll approach the subject low-key—‘No harm, no foul, we just need to know.’”
“But stress it’s urgent that we get this answered quickly.”
She nodded and made the calls while he repeated the search, pulling open refrigerator drawers, pulling out the trash can, looking for the other groceries. No apples, peaches, no fruit of any kind. It wasn’t just cookies that were missing.
“This case is beginning to shift directions over a missing box of cookies and a few groceries,” Sharon said after clicking off her phone. “I accept that all kinds of twists happen in cases, but this is a first. Neither lady remembers seeing any cookies when Theresa came into the apartment to do the wellness check. Heather thinks she would have remembered if the box was here, because it’s normally on the counter next to the tray and the tea caddy. None of the tea items, in fact, had been set out for the Tuesday Tea the next morning.”
“Again it points to Monday evening,” John agreed. He felt a bitter emotion surge in like a wave. “We’ve been looking in the wrong place, Sharon. Mom is somewhere, but the one place she isn’t is the Village.” He thought about all the time they’d wasted checking apartments and searching the grounds, all the time they couldn’t get back, and felt literally sick. His hand came down hard on the counter as the frustration snapped his control. “She’s not here, was never here, and we’re just now realizing that fact.” He spun away and considered kicking the cabinet base.
“Then we’ll start looking in the right place now,” Sharon replied quietly. “Get angry very often?” she asked, sounding more fascinated by the display of temper than bothered.
He rubbed his sore hand and blew out a brea
th. “Mostly only at myself.”
“It’s warranted to a degree, but pull it in. Her groceries are missing,” Sharon said. “We should have realized this twelve hours ago, but we missed it. Now that we’ve spotted it, we’ll work it, John. We’ve got an anomaly that could point to something small or something big. It doesn’t mean for certain someone else drove her car back here. It means someone took those groceries and those cookies. She could have had her car broken into when she stopped at another store.”
“Yeah, maybe. Mom wouldn’t tolerate much from anyone. She could have seen someone breaking into her car and yelled at him, not thinking it through. A shoving match happens, she gets hurt, shoved into an alley, the car and purse are returned here to try to divert attention from what really happened.”
Sharon was shaking her head. “If it’s random violence, we likely will find her in the area between the grocery store and here. But no street thief is going to go to the trouble of bringing back her car or returning the purse and leaving cash in the wallet. If a person drove her car back, returned the purse, it’s someone who knows her, who is working hard to misdirect us.” She patted his sore hand. “Let’s go run this by the guys. Her groceries and cookies are not here. That’s a fact. I like facts. I want more of them.”
He found himself smiling back as she smiled at him, aware his temper had just been defused. “Yeah.” He sighed and pushed away from the counter. “Where were we before we took this walk out on a limb?”
“According to Eric, your mom had plans for Monday evening.”
“Right. Back to the core question. Where did Mom go Monday after the grocery store?”
“That’s the right question.”
Sharon assembled as many of her team in the conference room as she could round up. “The search is taking a turn,” she announced.
“Someone holler ‘hurray’ because I’m too hoarse,” Carter said, pulling out a chair at the table.
“Not that big a turn,” Sharon cautioned. “Guys, we’re missing groceries. Martha Graham bought a specialty box of cookies, some peaches and apples, at the grocery store late Monday afternoon. They aren’t in her apartment, and not in her car.”
Sins of the Past Page 5