I seized the opportunity to squat down and grab that wrapper with as much speed as I could muster. The muscles in the back of my thighs screamed a protest. I’d certainly pay the price tomorrow.
I held the wrapper to my nose, the faint scent of peppermint. Looked like those old Tic Tac wrappers from a couple years ago. Might mean something. Might not. I let it fall from my fingertips, disappointed, and decided I’d had enough. Time to retreat.
Otis had abandoned his post at the window and moved down the hallway with a dark haired man with almond-shaped eyes. The way they had their heads bent together made me think they were in serious discussion. Probably over poor Polly.
Gertrude Hermann appeared. “Dr. Kwan. They’re trying to page you.” She glanced in my direction. I pulled the door to the gym shut real fast.
“We’re not allowed in there after hours,” she informed me.
“I know that,” I answered. She must not know about Polly. Unless, she was a good actress.
Dr. Kwan grabbed his pager, looked at it, then back at Gertrude. “What’s the problem?”
Gertrude enjoyed being the center of attention, that’s for sure. She looked at me as she both answered the question and gave me the news. “Your husband is worried about his momma. Thomas and I got back from our walk and I went over to introduce myself, and she was a little weird acting.”
Dr. Kwan and I hustled toward the elevators, Gertrude two steps behind, Otis returned to his office. As we neared the elevators, a gust of air hit us. Dr. Kwan and I turned to see the front doors open, two uniformed policemen entering.
Gertrude veered their direction. “Can I help you?” she boomed.
One of the ladies manning the front desk shot Gertrude a sour look and introduced herself to the police. Before I could overhear anymore, the elevator doors popped open, inviting Dr. Kwan and me inside. Though I chafed at the idea of Gertrude getting an earful before I could, if something was wrong with Momma, I needed to know, and Hardy would need me.
A peek at Dr. Kwan revealed his eyes hard on those police fellows. “You had a chance to examine Polly yet?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes, I have. It was a terrible accident, Mrs. Barnhart. Tragic.”
Chapter Six
Turns out Momma’s sugar was elevated. Dr. Kwan’s visit was brief. Hardy had taken up residence next to his mother, her feet in his lap, her head nestled on her pillow. I saw the concern in his cocoa eyes.
“Tell him to stop fussing, LaTisha. I’m fine.”
That’s like telling a hummingbird to stop fluttering. Hardy loved his momma hard, which is just as it should be.
“Why don’t you let him fuss, Momma. You’ll miss him soon enough.”
Her eyes latched onto Hardy and softened. “Suppose you’re right.”
“You feeling better now?” I asked.
“Wore out. Worn down. Nothing some sleep won’t cure.”
“If you’re hungry, I can fix something light. Grilled chicken? A small salad?” I knew a thing or two about how to cook for her since she’d lived with us as she recovered from her stroke.
Hardy perked up at the sound of food and smacked his lips. “Sounds good to me. You already went to the store?”
“No, brought a few things along. I’ll go in the morning.” It didn’t take any time to throw together the food for Hardy and me. He inhaled his and even got Matilda to eat a few bites.
I left them to try and find Sue Mie and talk to the cooks or a nurse. Someone. I couldn’t imagine that they’d feed a resident something not part of their diet and wanted to be good and sure of their methods before leaving Momma in their hands. All this was making me think Hardy and me should have been more careful about quality of the assisted living place. I admit, we chose the place more for its close location to Maple Gap than for any stellar reports of its care. And all this gave me an excuse to ask questions of the cafeteria lady Otis said could verify his alibi.
When I made it down to the main floor’s common area, a small knot of the elderly ringed Gertrude.
“ . . . I don’t know the facts yet, Lester,” she was saying. “The police are with Mr. Payne now. All he would tell me is that Polly is dead.”
“She was okay this afternoon,” one little lady said.
“Hopping mad about that new resident getting her apartment,” another answered.
“Well, girls,” Gertrude tried to placate, “all I can say is all that doesn’t matter now. She’s gone.”
Seems to me she should be shedding some salt right about now. On the other hand, with her and Polly spatting over Thomas, I guess they weren’t friends. But shouldn’t Gertrude at least have some remorse in her voice?
“It’s gotta be the food here. That alone could kill anyone.”
“It’s not so bad, Charlie. You’re just hard to please,” Gertrude said.
I slipped down the hallway a bit and poked my head into the cafeteria. Preparations for the evening meal would be in full swing, which meant the likelihood of talking to any kitchen worker was a big, fat zero.
Some sixth sense pulled me further down that hall and toward Otis’s office. The hallway door to Otis’s office was open, meaning I didn’t have to duel with Miss Pillsbury.
Instead, I heard a new voice coming from Otis’s domain. Female. Giggling laughter that conjured an image of blond roots. I expected to see a teenager, but the angle of the room prevented me from seeing more than two knees jutting into view. Very shapely knees. The voice fell to a whispery purr and because of the one-sided responses, I figured this little lady was on the phone.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. I’ve never seen anyone more capable than you.”
An instinct deep in my gut told me not to bolt into the room and announce my presence. So I listened. Shamelessly. A list of possible identities filtered through my head. She could be Otis’s wife, daughter, the daughter of a resident, the wife of the son of a resident, and on and on the possibilities rolled like credits on a screen.
The purr shifted to a staccato forte. “I told you I have to have time to decide. It’s not as easy as you might think. I’ll talk to you about it later, okay?”
She did an air kiss into the phone.
I chose that moment to make my grand entrance. The woman sat in one corner of the sofa, pursing her lipsticked mouth as she stared into the mirror of her compact. Blond hair with dark roots. Uh-huh. Lookswise she wasn’t too bad . . . for what I’d guess to be a forty year old woman.
She snapped her compact shut and slid it and her cell phone into her purse. Her eyes raked over me like a lion sizing up its prey. Remind me not to get on her bad side.
“Are you the maid?” she asked.
Um-um-um. She was already on my bad side. “My name is LaTisha Barnhart. My mother-in-law is a resident here.”
She had the grace to look ruffled by that announcement and tried to coo herself back into my good graces.
“You just look so strong and capable, I thought you must be one of the women who help lift the residents and clean up after them.”
“My momma’s been here less than twenty-four hours, and I’ve already been thinking we made a bad choice.”
She flinched, crossed her legs, and started sing-songing in a tone that dripped sunshine and flowers. “Bridgeton Towers is a friendly community. I’m sure the residents will welcome your mother.”
“It’s not the residents that are the problem.”
She flinched again and, glory be, was that a flush staining her cheeks? I enjoy helping people get in touch with their conscience, but it was time to go easy. I glanced at her left hand, saw the huge rock there, and decided to make a guess at who she was waiting for. “You here to see your husband? I believe he’s talking with the police.”
Her eyes went wide. “Otis is. . .I thought I saw a cruiser out front.” She twisted and plunged her hand into her purse. “I just talked to him a few minutes ago.”
More like an hour ago, but I wasn’t going to say that, may
be she’d called since then. “He’s having a bad day.”
She tugged out a tiny cell phone and pressed a button that beeped a reply. The keypad glowed blue. “Poor Oatsey. He hasn’t left any messages.”
Oatsey? Where could I go to throw-up? Who did she think she was kidding? “One of the residents died. Polly Dent was her name.”
“Oh.” She dropped her phone back into her handbag. “Happens all the time with these old people.”
So she knew about Polly? Or was that a blanket statement? Her crassness didn’t make me like her more. This woman needed to be shook so hard saliva would fly from her mouth. I appointed myself the one to do it. “I’m sure it does, but when murder is suspected, that puts a new slant on things.”
Her crimson lips rounded. “Murder!”
Just the reaction I was looking for. “They’re interviewing your husband right now. They’ll interview several people before it’s over with.”
She grasped the strap of her purse, knuckles white, face to match. “Otis would never do such a thing.”
More a question than a statement. How curious. “Some people are driven by things not easily seen with the human eye.”
A little gasp slipped through her lips, as if someone had just pricked her with a needle. She jerked to her feet, gathered her purse, and made a mad dash out the door and down the hall—toward the main entrance. You would figure a loving wife would rush to her husband’s side and vow his innocence. Maybe it was time to look into Otis’s alibi.
I stuck my head into the cafeteria on my way back down the hall. Even if I couldn’t talk to anyone now, I hoped to catch a member of staff or someone who could answer my question about how the food for diabetics was prepared.
Nothing.
I did notice a separate room off the dining area. One I hadn’t spotted before. But this time, the lights on inside and the presence of blue uniforms helped draw my attention real quick-like. The table in the center of this room was crowded with two police officers, Dr. Kwan, a woman dressed like a nurse, and Otis Payne.
Chapter Seven
About two hours later, at the request of an officer, I escorted my quaking husband down to the cafeteria for his grand inquisition.The smell of the roast beef from the evening meal still lingered. I tightened my arm around his shoulders. Poor sweet stuff. I knew how it felt to have the finger of accusation pointed in your direction. Come to think of it, Hardy’s the one that got that finger crooked my direction after I found Marion Peters. I almost stopped right there in the hallway and told him he had this coming for what he’d done to me when I found Marion performing the horizontal stiff. Hardy’s nervous shiver stilled my tongue before it could wag, so instead of givinga verbal assault, I pulled Hardy closer and rubbed the top of his grizzled hair. “Everything will be fine. You just go in there and tell the truth.”
The officers had moved out of the banquet room and now commandeered two tables in the empty dining area. Officer Harvey Rhinehald introduced himself and the officer at the next table over. Officer Dwight Eldridge sent Hardy and me a simple nod in the way of greeting. While Rhinehald’s rangy build and smooth skin didn’t inspire much in the way of presence, he had a nice voice. He gave Hardy a good-old-boy grin. “Just a few questions, Mr. Barnhart.”
Hardy didn’t look convinced. As he sat, I took up a position right in back of him and lay my hand on my man’s shoulder, offering my silent support, before putting some distance between us and giving them the privacy they required for questioning. Of course, I didn’t move far enough away I couldn’t hear when I strained real hard.
“Now, Mr. Barnhart, Mr. Payne. . .you’d seen Mrs. Dent at one point. . .I understand that Mrs. Dent had an issue with. . .Is that correct?”
Hardy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Your mother. . .here?”
Another nod.
I humped my chair away from the table a couple of feet and dragged another chair closer so I could prop my feet up a bit before pressing back hard against the chair and cocking my head toward the conversation again.
We hadn’t the chance to talk about it, but I wondered if Hardy was doing some heavy second guessing about the safety of having Momma at Bridgeton Towers, like I was. We’d have to discussit, and soon.
I caught most of the officer’s next question. “. . . to me how Mrs. Dent reacted to your mother moving in?”
“She was really uptight. Said it was her apartment. That Mr. Payne had promised it to her. I went down to ask Mr. Payne about that later on, and he assured me that Mrs. Dent was wrong, that her name wasn’t even on the list . . . ”
On and on the Q&A session went. Nothing new came out that I could latch onto. Hardy held up better than I thought he would. Innocence will do that.
I had more of a mind to pay attention to the table next to us when I saw Gertrude Hermann settling herself there. The officer gave her a warm smile and said something I couldn’t hear, which irritated me. Gertrude, on the other hand, came across loud and clear.
“I wanted to tell you that Polly Dent was my friend. We didn’t agree on everything, but she was a good soul.”
The officer consulted his notes.
“She doesn’t have any family,” Gertie continued. “Her and her ex-husband divorced years ago, he died this past summer.”
Someone banged on the doors to the cafeteria. “Gertie! Gertie, you in there?”
Officer Eldridge’s smile seemed a bit tight as he granted Gertrude permission to answer the door.
Another bang and Gertrude lurched to her feet. “Hold on, Mitzi, I’m coming.”
Mitzi didn’t seem to know quite what to do at the sight of so few people in the cafeteria, or the two uniforms present. Her eyes did appear more alert than during the solitaire game, but with dementia, who knew?
Gertrude sat back down, leaving Mitzi by the double doors to continue gawking at us.
Officers Rhinehald and Eldridge exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher. Rhinehald dismissed Mitzi’s presence and locked eyes with Hardy again. “Mr. Barnhart, do you have any reason to believe Mrs. Dent was not acting in a normal fashion?”
Hardy turned his hands palm up. “How would I know? I just met her this morning.”
Officer Rhinehald nodded and jotted something on the paper in front of him. “You’re free to go, Mr. Barnhart.”
Hardy bolted up out of that chair like he’d rubbed a splinter in his tail, belying the calmness I thought he had possessed during the questioning. Funny how after all this time together, he could still surprise me.
From the other table, Gertrude’s voice intruded on my thoughts. “Did you ask Mr. Payne about Sue Mie’s uncle?”
Drat it that I couldn’t hear the officer’s response. No matter how hard I strained, Eldridge’s voice didn’t register. Something else happened in that second. Gertrude slid a glance over at me. Not just any kind of glance, either. Believe me when I tell you I knew that look. I’d seen it umpteen times on the faces of my daughters as they savored some silly adolescent secret.
Hardy tugged on my hand. I gripped his hard and cut my eyes to him, hoping he’d tune in to the conversation and overhear something I couldn’t. Maybe it was time for me to get my hearing checked.
Mitzi’s walker clattered as she pointed herself in my direction, her feeble little body struggling behind the weight of the walker. What happened to the healthy, walkerless body she had earlier? I wondered if she’d spout off that crazy poetry again.
This time, though, she got so close to us I could smell garlic on her breath. She motioned us to lean in tight. “Not too nice. Little sugar, mostly spice. Since the death of mouse, a few months later and there goes her spouse.”
Chapter Eight
I lay awake most of the night, bothered by Mitzi’s latest poem. Was the woman simply entertaining herself with her little snippets of rhyme, or did they mean something? I had to make time and research dementia. What I needed was my house, my desk, my computer, the Internet. In that order. Hardy wanted to
see his mother settled in before we went back home, which worked for us since she had a second bedroom, but I was getting antsy.
I finally decided sleep was not going to happen, so I shoved myself upright, letting my legs dangle over the edge of the bed. Hardy didn’t stir. He slept like a dead man.
I checked on Momma, who also slept soundly, and went to her little kitchen area to rattle around for a cup. Minus my regular mocha mix, I’d have to settle for second best—warm milk. Problem. Momma didn’t have any milk in her refrigerator. Harsh reality settled on me in an instant. I was in an apartment with almost no food in the refrigerator, and only a handful of sugar-free snacks. How did people live like this?
Is this what I had to look forward to? I think I’d go crazy without a kitchen full of staples ready to be baked up at a moment’s notice. If I get a hankering for something, I make it. Simple. But not stuck in a place like this where everything was regimented. I closed my eyes, sadder than I’d been for a long time.
Looked like I’d be drinking water—cold or hot—at least I had that choice. I chose to sip warm water, satisfying my throat-aching thirst, jotting a list of the things I’d have to pick up at the store in the morning. Matilda loved her tea and would probably want a cup if she held true to the routine she’d developed while staying with Hardy and me during her recovery.
Those first few months, I’d cooled it with a splash of milk and watched as it spilled down her stroke-slackened mouth. Over time, she’d grown stronger, recovering some of her muscle control. It had been a terrible time for Hardy and me both. Mainly because it brought the whole I’m-getting-older thing into tight focus.
How would it feel to be a resident at an assisted living facility? To know the place you called home on earth was penultimate to your final destination?
I closed my eyes and leaned into the comfort of the recliner, pressing the warm mug to my lips. Waves of despair, brutal and sharp in their force, washed over me, not for myself, but for the Pollys and Matildas, the Gertrudes and Mitzis.
Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) Page 4