Sleuthing at Sweet Springs (The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries Book 4)

by Maggie Pill

  Wincing as if I’d pointed out some fault in his character he replied, “Got up at six to drive Mindy to work.”

  “Wow.” I tried to sound impressed, though Dale and I are usually up by five. Farmer time, Dale calls it.

  “We’re sharing her car right now ’cause I finally have the money to fix up my truck.” His toothy grin appeared. “I got a job.”

  “That’s great.” Dale had risen to get our visitor a cup of coffee, and as he set the mug down, he punched Gabe gently on the shoulder. I took the perfectly-fried bacon out, laid it on paper towels to drain, and cracked half a dozen eggs into the pan. Scrawny as an alley cat, Gabe will eat anytime someone offers food. My theory is that kids and animals that grow up hungry seize every chance at a meal. It’s instinct.

  Though he practically glowed with pride at our approval, Gabe tried to be modest. “The owner at Baxter’s Moving and Storage don’t mind that I spent time in jail. I start as cleaner and extra staff, but he said if I get training I can maybe get to be their maintenance man when the one they got now retires next year.”

  “Sounds like a great opportunity.”

  Gabe cleared his throat as if preparing to give a speech. “I don’t want you ladies to think I’m leaving you in the lurch. If you need help on a case, just give me a call. I’ll find the time.”

  I tried to appear grateful. Dale rose and busied himself by refilling his coffee mug, but I saw the smile he hid in the process. Though Gabe saw himself as an integral part of our agency, we needed him about as much as the country needed more people running for President in 2016.

  Once we’d eaten, Dale and Gabe went out to Dale’s workshop, talking cars as they went. I cleaned the kitchen until my phone chimed. The text was a request that I come out to the Meadows if it was convenient. I don’t go every time they have a problem with Harriet, but when they contact me, I know they’ve already tried everything they can think of to calm her down. With only a tiny sigh, I got my coat, purse, and car keys, leaving a note for Dale that said simply, Harriet again.

  My mother-in-law insisted someone had broken into her room during the night and robbed her. “I had two peanut butter cups right here in this drawer, and now they’re gone,” she complained as soon as I walked into the room. “I don’t mind sharing, but—” Her voice rose to a bellow.—“I will not tolerate thieves!” She’d already threatened to move out (She couldn’t walk), call the police (We’d taken away her phone months ago), and holler until someone paid attention (That she could do).

  Since I never went to the Meadows without a selection of her favorite candy bars in my purse, all it took was a little acting on my part. I opened the top drawer of her night stand, then the second, and finally the third. As I bent over, I dropped candy into the bottom drawer, said, “Found them,” and stepped back so she could see.

  “What are they doing in there?” Harriet scowled at the bright wrappers in the open drawer as the aide standing in the doorway shot me a thumbs up. She muffled a giggle, but I didn’t dare show even the shadow of a smile.

  “Maybe someone moved them when they put your clean undies away.”

  “That’s stupid! I always keep my candy in the top drawer.”

  “Well, at least you weren’t robbed,” I said soothingly. “That’s a relief, right?”

  “Too bad it takes a detective to find something in this place,” she said. “They said they looked everywhere, and you found them in seconds.” She raised her voice to the hallway. “Idiots!”

  As I left Harriet’s room, a spry woman with blue eyes and a cheerful grin waited in the hallway. “Good morning.” I greet each resident I pass, even if they show no sign of awareness. You never know.

  “Good morning to you,” she responded. “You’re Mrs. Burner, Harriet’s detective daughter-in-law?”

  I made a little curtsey. “Yes, we do investigations.”

  “She talks about you a lot. She’s very proud.” Now that surprised me, but the woman went on, “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  It’s hard to know who’s capable of holding a reasonable conversation and who’s not in a nursing home, but she seemed reasonably competent. Barb would open the office if I was a few minutes late. “Sure.”

  The rooms at the Meadows are pretty much identical, but the one the woman led me to was nearer the reception desk than Harriet’s room. I suspected the staff put my mother-in-law at the far end of the corridor for good reason.

  Clara occupied the hallway side of the room. “My roommate is in the common room, playing Bingo.” Looking around as if she’d made a social gaffe Clara said, “I don’t have a chair for a visitor. I haven’t been here long enough to have one.”

  There was hardly enough room for a chair anyway. Apparently her roommate Alma (whose name was on everything) had lots wrong with her, and all of it required machines for treatment.I smelled alcohol, albuterol, and a mix of other chemicals I couldn’t identify.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “We can sit here.” I took the foot of the bed, and she sat down at the head after moving the pillow out of the way. The bed was neatly made, and the few items on the nightstand were arranged in a way that suggested they were exactly where she wanted them. There wasn’t much, a comb and brush, a box of tissues, and a stuffed dog with a sign around its neck that said, welcome clara!

  “My name is Clara Knight.”

  Things clicked in my brain. “Oh. You met my sister Retta.”

  Clara smiled. “I don’t think she told me her name, but she was very sweet.”

  Everyone says that when they first meet Retta, and it’s true. You don’t see the strong side until later, when it’s too late.

  “I’m glad I was able to catch you.” With a mischievous smile she confessed, “When I heard Harriet shouting this morning, I figured they’d call you in, so I’ve been lying in wait.” Straightening the blankets between us she said, “If I’d known your sister was a detective, I’d have spoken to her about taking my case.”

  Retta wasn’t originally one of us. Barb and I founded the Smart Detective Agency together, and we’d hoped Retta would stay out of our business. We’d been dreaming, of course. Retta had jumped in with both feet. Oddly enough, in the last few months Barb, once vehemently opposed to Retta as a partner, had begun to actively include her. I was pleased the three of us were cooperating, though it was usually me Retta worked on when she wanted something changed. Barb is much more able to resist persuasion, being pretty much set in her ways.

  Clara was waiting politely, so I said, “Your case?”

  Her sigh said she wasn’t happy about having one. “I don’t belong in this place.”

  Here we go. I opened my mouth to say I had errands to run, but she put up a hand. “Please hear me out. I was living at home, minding my own business. I was—I am—completely capable of taking care of myself. One day in August, my niece Gail stopped by, which she hadn’t done for years, and asked if I’d be willing to sell my land and move into town.” Clara’s lips tightened at the memory. “She had all these arguments about how I’d be safer and have friends to play cards with. Her main push was how much money she could get for it. As if that would make me want to trade away everything my husband and I worked for.”

  Interested despite myself I asked, “This property’s been yours for a long time?”

  “My father left it to me, and George and I retired there when we turned sixty. We spent twenty years out there together. The last three years, I’ve been by myself.” Her expression revealed the pain that statement caused, but she didn’t dwell on it. “My garden is smaller since George died, but I still have one. I make dill pickles. I keep chickens. I fish a little, though I’m not the fisherman my husband was.” See here?” She showed me a scar on her thumb. “Fishhook. I had to drive myself all the way into Allport last summer to get it removed.”

  “That must have hurt.”

  “It’s worth it if you catch something nice for supper.” Leaning over, she touched my arm gently.
“I love my home, Mrs. Burner, and I never want to live anywhere else.”

  “Call me Faye. The woman I think of as Mrs. Burner is in the room down the hall.”

  That reminded me of my mother-in-law’s insistence she too could live on her own if we’d let her. No one wants to admit she’s no longer capable of maintaining a home. The niece must have noticed a change, or she wouldn’t have suggested moving her aunt and selling the property.

  Clara thought otherwise, and she came to the point of our conversation. “Gail manipulated me into this place. I didn’t see it coming, and now I have no recourse unless you help.”

  “Are you telling me your niece—” I hesitated to use the dreaded phrase put you in a home “—brought you here because she wants your property?”

  “I think she wants the commission.” Clara bit her lip before going on. “Every time I try to tell a staff member I shouldn’t be here, they pat me on the arm and change the subject.”

  Having just come from yet another incident where Harriet claimed theft when we all knew she’d eaten her peanut butter cups in the night and forgotten it, arguments flooded my mind. People aren’t just assigned to nursing homes. There has to be cause. Elderly people sometimes become paranoid. If the niece wanted Clara to sell her property and move into Allport, it was likely she was concerned for the old lady’s safety. Even if she saw a fat commission for herself in the property deal, that didn’t mean Clara had been placed at the Meadows without cause.

  Clara was watching me closely, as if trying to read my thoughts. “Can you look into it for me?”

  “Mrs. Knight, I’m not sure what we’d be able to do.”

  She leaned forward, and I caught a whiff of talcum powder. “Find out what’s happening. Has Gail applied for guardianship? Is my home up for sale? Has anyone been looking into the title? Has it already been sold? It’s only been a week or so, and I have no idea how quickly these things can go. Everyone does a ‘There, there, Clara’ when I try to tell them what’s happening.” She swallowed. “If I’m declared incompetent—”

  Fearing she might be working up to hysterics I said, “You shouldn’t worry like this.”

  Her face took on a hopeless expression, but she tried again. “I have some emergency cash in my purse. I can give you a retainer.” Her blue eyes fixed firmly on me. “It won’t take more than a few hours of your time. Will you do it? Please?”

  “I don’t want to take your money.”

  Suddenly the blue eyes snapped, and the sweet expression hardened to steel. “Young woman. I’m not a charity case, and I’m not stupid. I have a PhD in microbiology, and until we retired up here, I was a member of the science department at Michigan State University.” After a pause she said, “Full professor.”

  “Oh.”

  Her eyes softened again. “I’m not telling you this to brag. I just want you to know I’m not some crazy old woman.” She put her hands in her lap. “I can afford your services, and I need to know if Gail is working against me.” Tears choked her voice as she said the last words.

  “All right,” I said. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.” I glanced out into the hallway, assuring privacy for the moment. “Tell me what you recall about coming here.”

  “I got sick,” Clara replied. “I don’t remember much about it, to be honest. Gail had been coming out to visit every weekend. She’d hang around for an hour or so, arguing I should sell and move into town. Last week when she came, I wasn’t making sense. She asked me things like who is the President and what month is it, and I couldn’t answer correctly.” Clara paused. “At least that’s what she told the doctor.”

  “You think she lied?”

  Clara shrugged delicately. “There was something wrong, I admit that. I felt disoriented and confused. I saw things that weren’t there, even smelled things that weren’t.” She sounded irritated with herself. “Anyway, Gail loaded me into her car and took me to my doctor’s office. By the time he saw me, I guess I was pretty bad off. Next thing I knew, I was stuck in here.” She tried to be calm, but her anger showed. “They’re good to me. I don’t want you to think I’m complaining about the facility, but I should be at home. I’ve got things to do before winter comes.”

  “What things?”

  “Well, about this time each year I hook up the heat lamps for my girls,” she replied. “Chickens can stand a lot of cold, but just like people, they’d rather be warm than not. Then there’s a man who brings me firewood. He dumps it in the yard and I stack it myself, in a rack close to the house where I can get at it no matter how much snow we get.”

  “You stack your own firewood?” Clara weighed ninety-eight pounds, if that.

  She smiled. “It takes longer than it used to, but yes. I work for an hour or so at a time until it’s all where I want it.” Her smile faded. “If I don’t move that wood before it snows, it’ll be a mess to get at it all winter.”

  Despite my doubts, ideas were forming. “Any more things you need to get done?”

  Clara chuckled. “A dozen at least. It’s work running a place all by myself, but I like it. Keeps me young.”

  That was true. If not for an ankle-bracelet that would sound a warning to the staff if she tried to leave the facility, Clara looked perfectly competent and years younger than her age, which had to be mid-eighties. Promising to return with a decision as to whether we’d take her case, I headed for the exit.

  Twenty feet down the hall, I was reconsidering my promise. Had I listened with my heart instead of my head? I tried to imagine how Barb would have reacted to Clara’s story. With hard questions, no doubt. “How did your niece manage to convince your doctor you need full-time care, Mrs. Knight?” or “Why didn’t you demand a second opinion?” There had to be ways to prove yourself competent, even if a relative claimed otherwise.

  Brandy, a CNA I knew well, was at the front desk, filling in a chart. “Hey,” I said, “can you tell me why Clara Knight is here?”

  It was clearly a violation of HIPAA’s privacy regulations, but the girls at the Meadows knew me enough to understand I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have good reason. After looking around to be sure no one else was listening, Brandy slid the file into its metal sleeve with a snap and said, “She was quite the wacko when we first got her. Thought there were lizards crawling over everything. On the bed, on the walls, everywhere.”

  “She seems fine now.”

  She shrugged. “Twice since she came she’s had hallucinations and talked gibberish for a day. The rest of the time, she’s as sane as me—if that’s sane. Of course she insists she’s going home soon, but—” Brandy tapped her pen on the chart. “—wanting to go home isn’t exactly rare around here.”

  I left the building, glad there wasn’t a monitor on my ankle to stop me. It wouldn’t be a big job for the agency to look into whether Clara’s niece was up to something, and in addition, there were a few things I could do for Clara myself.

  Chapter Eight

  Retta

  Faye called me about Clara Knight’s case before she told Barbara anything. That was a first, since she and Barbara Ann are usually the Wonder Twins and I’m just Gleek. Clearly, Faye was looking for support. We all have to agree before we take a case on, and she was afraid Barbara would dismiss a nursing home resident’s insistence that her family was plotting against her. Since I’d met Clara, Faye thought I’d be less likely to reject her story out of hand.

  “I met the niece,” I reminded Faye. “She didn’t exactly come across as a criminal mastermind.”

  “When money’s involved, some families aren’t warm and fuzzy.”

  “I did sense Gail isn’t emotionally connected to her aunt.”

  “Then we should look into what she might be up to.”

  I promised to get to the office by eleven so we could present our argument to Barbara together. It was nine-thirty, so I had plenty of time to do a little online shopping before then. Making another cup of coffee in my Keurig, I settled into a soft chair and
sipped pumpkin spice as I shopped.

  The next time I looked at the clock it was ten forty-eight. Now, some people can change and be out the door in fifteen minutes, but that’s not me. I mean, my nails were a mess and my hair needed attention from the curling iron. Anyway, it was eleven thirty-ish when I pulled up in front of their house, just a few blocks from Lake Huron. I made a little grimace in the mirror, knowing Barbara Ann would be all grumpy. The woman’s never been late for anything in her life.

  There was no way I was going to hurry to soothe her feathers, so I sauntered up the walk like I had all the time in the world. I paused to admire Faye’s mums, bursting with autumn colors. Some Bourbon roses she was trying to nurture were benefitting from the mild fall weather, filling the air with delicate scent from their round, pink blooms.

  The house was attractive, though I’m not a fan of older homes. Painted white with some dignified burgundy gingerbread on the corners, it had a wide front porch that led to a front door with narrow stained-glass side-lights. The door led to the offices, where Faye usually manned the desk in the foyer while Barbara sat in the room behind, prim and unapproachable.

  Both my sisters were in Barbara’s Ice Palace. While I don’t like to criticize someone else’s taste, the cream-and-pale-blue room doesn’t have a single scrap of fabric to soften it or a splash of brightness to dress it up. For once I got no flak for my lateness, because they were deep in conversation with a nice-looking man.

  “Hi,” I said, stopping in the doorway. “Sorry to be tardy.”

  Barb introduced me as Faye pulled up the extra chair. “Retta, meet Rick Chou from Grand Rapids. He’s interested in hiring us to do some work.”

  Mr. Chou stood and turned to shake my hand, and I reassessed my first impression. Not just attractive, he was gorgeous: dark hair with a little gray at the temples. A jaw square enough to cut corners with. And inky-black eyes you could fall right into and swim around in.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs.—”