Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery)

by S. Dionne Moore

  “That’s my mother,” Hardy confirmed.

  “She is listed as diabetic and should have received a diabetic meal.”

  “How can we be certain?”

  Hilda replaced her clipboard. “I don’t serve the meals . . . is it Mrs. Barnhart?”

  “Call me LaTisha, please.”

  Another flash of the grillwork. “We do our best to ensure the residents remain within their dietary guidelines.”

  “A mistake could happen.”

  Her smile wilted a bit. “There are many factors to consider. We often find that the residents buy food products they shouldn’t, or their family brings them candy and such even though it’s against policy. In spite of the fact that we have mid-afternoon and evening snacks, many of the residents either aren’t aware of, or not capable of sticking to the foods best suited for their body’s needs.”

  I’d definitely have to have another chat with Sue Mie. Maybe the snack she’d given me for Matilda wasn’t the right one. Mistakes must be common. Certainly human, but mistakes can cost lives, and I didn’t want to be forgetting that either. As I tried to think of a way to bring up Otis Payne and his alibi, Hardy piped up and solved my problem.

  “You heard about Polly Dent’s death? It happened about the time Mr. Payne was taking his dinner hour in here.”

  Hilda’s laugh sounded a bit too gay. Mental note made. “The girls and I were eating our dinner when Polly came in to get Mr. Payne. He’d just sat down. He told Polly she’d have to wait, but she insisted. He left for a while—”

  “How long?”

  Hilda’s gaze skittered off to the left. “Probably five minutes. Then he came back and finished up his meal.”

  Oh, really? Doesn’t sound like Otis, old boy, was completely honest with his so-called alibi. And he left with Polly . . . my brain was heating up. A miscommunication or something more?

  Hardy and I exchanged a look. The slick feel of victory was all mine. Maybe Mitzi had seen a thing or two. At worst, it meant nothing; at best, it meant foul play. Hardy’s expression was best interpreted as a maybe-I-was-wrong-after-all. If my girdle hadn’t been so tight, I might have done a victory shimmy.

  Hardy grabbed my hand on our way out. “Did I tell you you’re the smartest, cutest lady I know?”

  “I was beginning to wonder if you remembered.”

  “Never forgot it. Not once since the day we united in holy deadlock.”

  I hauled him into another hug, and we laughed ourselves silly. When we settled ourselves down, I sent him back upstairs to check on his momma and ventured off on my own to find a familiar face. I had me a whole list of people that I needed to talk to, and the first one I spotted would be my victim.

  I didn’t recognize anyone in the common area, and Mr. Payne’s office was empty. Dinnertime would be a good opportunity to talk to other residents. No doubt they’d all come out for that event. The area where I had encountered Mitzi showed no evidence of activity, except a deck of cards laid out as if someone had interrupted her game of solitaire, and a few board games.

  Life for him is solitaire.

  Obviously a man. Probably someone Mitzi had known for quite a while to make such a judgment. Otis? Thomas? Maybe one of the residents I had never met. What would it mean for someone’s life to be like the game solitaire? I rejected the most obvious reasoning. No way could it mean someone lonely. That explanation didn’t feel right.

  Not everyone plays fair. Life for him is solitaire.

  Translation: Life was all about him. His wants. His needs. And he didn’t play fair. That kind of selfishness could be found in every man I knew. Woman too. Unless they were full up with the Lord. He leaves no room for selfishness of any kind.

  I puffed out a frustrated breath and began to prowl around the building. Instead of heading back toward the common area from Otis’s office, I continued down the hallway past the exercise room, soon realizing the hallways wrapped around in a huge octagon.

  The hallway ended at double doors. A keypad indicated this must be the nursing section of Bridgeton Towers, where residents live who require higher levels of care. A few nurses were clearly visible, but I knew I wasn’t getting into that section no way, no how.

  I retraced my steps, noticing a hallway just before the exercise room and turned into it, surprised to find an elevator straight ahead, a large room off to my left and a door on the right, adjacent to the elevator.

  I stabbed at the button on the elevator a few times. It was locked. Probably a service elevator. The other door was locked too. It would have led somewhere behind the exercise room was my best guess.

  The other door opened into a large room, the scent of fabric softener and the hum of machines clued me in to what the room was used for. A home wouldn’t be a home if there wasn’t dirty laundry to be done.

  I heard a dryer door being open and the hum stopped. I pushed the door wider to get a better look inside. A middle-aged man stood in front of the dryer, pulling out clothes and tossing them on a nearby table. He left the door open a crack and started sorting his white clothes. I noticed his gnarled and bent hands as he struggled to fold a T-shirt.

  “Hello there,” I greeted.

  His head snapped up. “Hi,” he responded, returning his attention to the T-shirt.

  A tad shy perhaps. Perhaps embarrassed.

  I advanced a step and debated whether to offer my help. Despite his disability, he seemed fully capable of taking care of himself, and I didn’t want to offend that sense of self-reliance. I aimed for something basic. I beamed my brightest. “I’m touring around trying to figure out where everything is. My mother-in-law just moved in.”

  His lopsided grin came slow but was warm and welcoming. “I saw you moving her stuff in yesterday. I’m across the hall. Name’s Darren.”

  Ah. It clicked then. The door peeker.

  “You been here a long time, Darren?”

  His hand tremored, spilling the top T-shirt he was folding into a heap. He stared down at the jumble and blew out a breath. “It takes me a little longer to get things folded sometimes.” He picked up the shirt, shook it out and began again.

  “I had seven children. Folding became a specialty of mine, if you want some help.”

  “Been here seven years,” he offered.

  “Mr. Payne seems like a good director.”

  He finally got the T-shirt wrestled into form and started on another. I suspected his non-answer to my offer of help was his way of saying thanks, but I’m capable. His non-answer on Mr. Payne just made me plain curious. “I’ve met Gertrude Hermann, Thomas Philcher, and Mitzi Mullins. Polly Dent too.”

  He’d tackled another T-shirt by then and added it to his pile. “It’s really sad about Polly. Some people didn’t like her.”

  “Did you?”

  He didn’t answer. “Gertrude didn’t like her much.”

  “What can you tell me about Mitzi Mullins. Has she been here a long time?”

  His head bobbed and the lopsided smile slid back into place. And something else I couldn’t quite finger right then.

  “She used to live down the hall from me. We’d get together and play cards. Since I’m so shaky, she made this thing for me to set my cards in.” He lowered his face, and I sensed some form of despair as his expression wilted. “But she moved to a different hallway since she’s been having a harder time concentrating.”

  My heart smiled at his choice of words. What a kind way to say it. I knew, too, that he missed her company, and I wondered if anyone bothered to visit him to play cards anymore. I’d have to introduce him to Matilda. They’d be quite the pair.

  “Did you know Polly Dent?”

  His hand tremored and his face pulled into a frown. “Everyone knew her. She always talked real loud to me.”

  “She talked loud to us, too, so don’t feel bad. Maybe she was hard of hearing. My mother-in-law sometimes ignores people, but her hearing is fine.”

  His answer could have been a sigh it was such a soft,
“Yeah.”

  Silence reigned supreme as I watched him fold another T-shirt, sensing both awkwardness and something else. Something harder to define. “Why don’t you come by this evening and I’ll introduce you to my husband and mother-in-law. We can even play a few games down in the common area.”

  He pulled another T-shirt from his pile, flexing his fingers as if to dispel pain. “Are you going to come see her?”

  “You mean my mother-in-law?”

  He nodded.

  “She’s family. Families take care of each other.”

  Another whispery sigh. “Good. It can get lonely here.”

  “Do you have relatives to come see you?”

  His hands stilled, his head wagging in the negative.

  My heart ached for him. “Since my husband Hardy and me don’t live far away and we’re both retired, we’ll probably come at least twice a week, maybe more.”

  Darren fisted one gnarled hand, staring at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Would you—would you come by and visit me?”

  I couldn’t help it. The way he said it wrenched me so bad I had to do some loving on him. I opened my arms and gathered this man, little more than a stranger, into my arms, sharing the pain of his isolation if only for a short time. “We’d be glad to, honey.”

  At first his response was what I’d expect, stiff and scared, but I held on until his arms crept around me in a sudden, fierce embrace, before I let him go.

  “And you have a standing invitation to share the holiday meals with us at our house. We’ll come and take Momma and you home with us. How does that sound?”

  His eyes, long-lashed and brown, lit with a ray of pure sunshine. “Really?”

  “Yup. I make a mean turkey, and my pumpkin pie can’t be beat. If my kids come home, you’ll have to hustle to the table or you’ll be licking crumbs.”

  “I’ve never had a real family.”

  “Well, we’ll consider you the white sheep of ours.”

  His eyes went wide until he realized I was teasing, then laughter bubbled up and sprinkled out in little giggles.

  It always amazes me how a true friend can march into our lives so quickly, if we’re just willing to be friendly first. I flicked my hand to indicate the room. “Are you the laundryman?”

  He patted ashirt flat with his stiff fingers and tugged another wrinkled one from the mass. Instead of waiting any longer, I stretched across the table and heaved the pile closer, then plucked up a piece out of the pile. It turned out to be a pair of shorts. My eyes darted to Darren’s. His face flushed scarlet.

  “None of that, now. I raised five boys. Shorts happened every wash day. When they got old enough to do their own laundry and the piles got high in their room, I’d do it for them. But they sure paid a steep price.” I laughed outright at the memory. “I’d throw something red into their load. Never seen boy’s so eager to do their own laundry after that. Worked every time. Five times over.” I quick folded the shorts I held and pulled another pair from the pile as Darren finished his shirt.

  We worked in silence a bit before I finally remembered to ask, “What’s the elevator for?”

  “Linens get taken up and down that way. Only the laundry lady and the nurses have a key.”

  “How about this room? The residents come in here to do their laundry?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah.”

  Okay, so this didn’t seem to mean much to my investigation. Still, I’d tuck away the information. One never knew.

  I chatted Darren up, asking about his parents—divorced and estranged from him. No brothers and sisters either, which explained why he didn’t have anyone come see him. I helped him finish the pile of clothes, reminded him about my invitation for later this evening, and left.

  I jabbed at the button of the elevator one more time before recollecting that Darren’d said the nurses and maintenance people used a key to operate it. I wondered if anyone else used it. Placed as it was near the offices, it made sense the director and other employees might make use of it. At least sometimes.

  I took the main elevator up to the second floor again and mentally calculated the service elevator’s position to be. . .right. . .about. . .here.

  Problem was there was a room there that looked to be used for storage. The elevator must let off inside. Double, solid white doors and a huge lock shouted dead end in my head, followed by the rhyming words of a now familiar sing-song voice. . .

  “Darkened hands, pulling, tugging. . .”

  I turned, recognizing Mitzi. She stared at the white doors, continuing her latest rhyme.

  “Into the secret room. Like snow in the palm of the hand, in the end it sealed her doom.”

  “Mitzi, you startled me.” She didn’t have her walker. No wonder I didn’t hear her coming. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen the walker last night either.

  Her gaze held mine for a second, then transferred to the locked doors again. She repeated her ditty, then tacked on the first one. “A dark shadow at the door. Polly Dent on the floor . . . ”

  “You see someone go in here, Mitzi? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Frustration tightened my voice and made it louder than the gentle tone I wanted to use.

  Her eyes slid back to me. My back tingled as I watched her gaze go from unfocused, to razor sharp. “Don’t let them get away with it, Mrs. Barnhart.”

  If I spooked easy, I’d have turned tail and beat it in a hot second. But the window of her clarity could close any second and I needed to get a hand up before it slammed. “Who, Mitzi?”

  “Ask Sue Mie about mouse.”

  Not the mouse, just mouse. Before I could squeeze in another question, Mitzi scurried off with more speed than someone using a walker should be capable of.

  Chapter Eleven

  I spent the afternoon hours with a pencil and paper, continuing to dissect Mitzi’s poems and the possibilities they stirred in my brain. Within an hour I had several ideas and a very capable assistant.

  “The solitaire thing reminds me of Bryton. Remember as a young’un when he hated playing with the other kids because they always won?” Momma pursed her lips and scratched her head. Nothing wrong with this woman’s mind. “He started playing solitaire all the time after that.”

  Her memory brought it back to me. Bryton, my second son, is fiercely competitive. If he’s not numero uno, watch out.

  Matilda stabbed her long brown finger at the pad of paper I’d written the poems on. “You ask me, whoever this one’s about is probably the culprit. Maybe he pushed her or tripped her or something.”

  I jotted down everything she suggested, trying to keep up with the flow of her words.

  She squinted, a sure sign she was thinking hard. “Mouse sounds like a nickname, and obviously a married person since, “there goes the spouse,” says that.”

  I though on that good and hard. Spouse. Mouse. Just the two words stuck together to make the thing rhyme . . . ? Was Mitzi in her right mind enough to be that good with poetry? Had she really seen something going on? “Mitzi has dementia. How you suppose she can rhyme so clearly?”

  Momma snapped her fingers, or tried to snap her fingers. Arthritis does that. “Easy enough. You said she was a professor. If poetry is her love, it’s probably what’s going to stick hardest in her mind as she gets older. Don’t you notice how we old folk go back in time as our bodies go forward?”

  I nodded.

  “Same kind of thing. She’s used to expressing herself that way, so it comes natural.”

  “Any thoughts on the secret room?”

  “You ever known me not to have an opinion?” A rhetorical question to be sure. Momma rubbed the polished head of her cane. I could hear her wheels whirring hard. No dead hampster on this wheel. She thumped her cane on the floor. “You need to get into that room. Something’s in there.”

  Right. Just like that.

  “This snow stuff is important too. Mitzi’s sayin’ it sealed her doom.”

  “Something on her hand
s sealed her doom?”

  Matilda raised her eyebrows at me. “Gloves? Might look like snow.”

  I thought hard on that. “She wasn’t choked to death, and it says ‘in the palm of her hand.’”

  “Still say you need to get in that room.”

  I’d have to figure something out. I could charm my way in. Ha! No, that’s Hardy’s territory. I doubted Otis would take me on a tour of the storage room. Someone else should have access to it, a janitor maybe. I’d have to keep my eyes wide open.

  I flicked a hand over the poems and my notes. “You think Polly’s fall wasn’t an accident?” Initially we’d thought it best to keep Polly’s fall from Momma, but I wanted her input. If she felt the least bit insecure about remaining at Bridgeton Towers, she’d let us know.

  Momma Matilda’s smile melted over me in a way that made me miss my mother, and extra glad I had my mother-in-law. Her cool hand covered mine. “If anything terrible is happening around here, you’ll find out, honey. I trust you.”

  “I don’t think Hardy’s convinced.”

  “What does that boy know? He fathered seven children but, honey, you mothered ‘em. And mothering is looking way beyond the outside of a body. The good mommas see inside the head and knows what makes her babies tick. They follow their intuition and act when they need to. There’s no better momma than you, LaTisha. None.”

  “I have a great husband.” A lame attempt at modesty.

  Matilda saw through me like I was plastic wrap. “Hardy’s my baby and he’s smart and talented, but it’s the day to day that made your babies into solid, productive adults. You got a right to be proud, and the modesty stuff doesn’t settle well on you.”

  If I ever wanted a bouquet of roses from my mother-in-law, I sure was getting it, and it was humbling and beautiful. Her words made me feel strong and loved. I’d savor this feeling for days to come.