Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery)

by S. Dionne Moore

  I slipped out from under the covers and shoved myself to a sitting position. Cotton brain symptoms of the previous evening didn’t seem as bad, but when I stood to my feet I immediately felt off somehow, like laying on a hotel mattress after years of sleeping on one that fit your body to perfection.

  The clock read 8:24 a.m. Time to boogey. With great effort I dragged myself toward the bathroom, avoiding the mirror. No sense making myself feel worse. The steamy water did help revive me somewhat, and my mouth didn’t feel nearly as gummy after I brushed.

  I looked into the refrigerator and decided on a repeat breakfast of the previous day. Eggs, hashbrowns, perhaps an omelet. Cheese omelet, maybe a little onion. Green pepper was out since I didn’t have any. Oh, to have a full refrigerator once again. I missed my kitchen more than ever. Missed my house.

  I shoved away those thoughts and began prepping. Hardy poked his nostrils around the corner before I ever saw his body. That boy enters the kitchen nose first every time I cook, and I love him for that.

  “You get on in here and sit yourself down. Is Momma up? She’s gonna miss the cafeteria if she doesn’t hurry.”

  Hardy cast a glance toward Matilda’s room. “Guessin’ she’s sound asleep.”

  “I’ll hardboil an egg for her.” After I put the water on to boil for the egg, I slid Hardy’s plate to him and parked myself across the table with my own breakfast, I dove in to discover what Hardy had found out in my absence last night.

  “You find out when Sue Mie’s on duty here?”

  His head bobbed as he chewed. “Today.”

  Before I could form my next question, he slung one of his own at me. “You think it’s safe to have Momma stay here?”

  I sliced a chunk of omelet with my fork and gave some thought to my answer. Polly’s death had Hardy good and scared, for sure. “Best thing to do is ask her. If she’s uneasy, we’ll move her out of here, plain and simple.”

  Hardy froze, eyes wide and staring.

  “What’s wrong with you, you swallow your good tooth or somethin’?”

  His surprised expression molded into a smirk. “Nope. Just remembered about last night.”

  I stabbed a bite of hashbrown and eyed the bananas on the counter, considering a bowl of cereal. The water was sending up steam, so I dunked in an egg, covered the pot and removed it from the heat. “You meanin’ when you came in here and pestered me to go to bed?”

  “Nope.”

  He paused long enough to get me looking over at him and smirked again. Um-hm, this boy was up to no good. “You better spit out whatever’s swirling in that head of yours.”

  “Momma and I learned something interesting last night.” Another bite of eggs. A big bite. He chewed real slow.

  “Stop messing with me, boy. You’re having way too much fun.”

  His eyes twinkled and he swallowed. “Darren is a wealth of information. On our way to the common area to play games, I asked him about Bridgeton Towers’s history. He mentioned playing games with Mitzi until she got disoriented—”

  “I knew that already.”

  He wagged his finger at me. “But I bet you didn’t know that Sue Mie’s uncle was once a resident. He fell. She claimed it was a fall that could have been avoided if Bridgeton Towers had paid better attention to maintenance. Seems a hallway railing came loose, and he collapsed to the floor unconscious. Never woke up. Said it was a heart attack.”

  A knock on Matilda’s door got Hardy to his feet. Sweet little Sue Mie stood there.

  “I check in with Mrs. Matilda Barnhart.”

  Hardy knocked on his momma’s door, waited, then opened it a crack.

  His head swung my direction. “She’s not here.”

  I shrugged. “She can be an early bird when she wants to. Probably already shuffled down to get breakfast.”

  Sue Mie’s head bobbed. “I check there.”

  I wanted to ask Sue Mie about her supposed mistake giving Matilda a sugar snack, but decided to let it slide. Maybe the stress of moving had added to Matilda’s problems. I’d heard stress could do that to a diabetic. No use coming down on Sue Mie now, I was sure her superiors already had.

  I aimed some different questions her way. “I heard your uncle was a resident here. Is he still here? I’d love to ask him what he thinks of the place.” I remembered those daggers her eyes. She’d thrown them at Otis Payne in the office after Polly Dent’s body had been discovered. “Would love to know what you think on the matter.”

  Sue Mie’s eyes flashed, then she stared down at the little plastic cup with Matilda’s pills inside. She shuffled the pills in the cup. “My uncle dead. He fall.”

  “Here?”

  She nodded.

  “There was an investigation, wasn’t there?”

  “He got fine.”

  It took me a minute to unknot that phrase. “You mean he got fined?”

  She finally raised her eyes to stare into mine. I could see the swell of darkness and grief curling in on itself. Sue Mie had a right to be angry. Without knowing the whole story, I guessed I’d be kind of ticked if the hallway railing came loose and knocked my momma unconscious.

  “My family not rich. Lawyers expensive and money short.”

  “You work here when your uncle die?” My speech was starting to sound like Sue’s. Amazing how easily one could pick up on the nuances of an accent.

  “No. Mr. Payne hire me.”

  This messed with my mind a bit. Why would Mr. Payne hire her, unless he didn’t know. . . “So you’re telling me he hired you, but he doesn’t know that it’s your uncle who died?”

  “I not tell.” She looked at her feet. “I not want to.”

  I already knew there was no love lost between her and Mr. Payne. Could Gertrude be right? Was Sue Mie setting up Mr. Payne,trying to destroy him and the reputation of Bridgeton Towers? Now why in the world did it aggravate me to know Gertrude had the inside track?

  “You know, Sue, if it gets out that you are related to the last patient that fell here and died as a result, it could look to the police like you might have a motive.” That was a stretch on my part since the police ruled Polly’s fall an accident.

  Her expression showed disbelief. “I not hurt Polly.”

  “But you wouldn’t mind hurting Bridgeton Towers, would you? You blame Otis Payne for your uncle’s accident?”

  Sue turned back to her cart, fumbling with the some paperwork. With both hands on her cart, she pushed forward, toward the next door. She fumbled around a bit, then wrote something on her clipboard. I let her go. But watching her reaction to our conversation reinforced one idea. Nurses, doctors, CNA’s, whoever, were all human, and when in the grip of powerful emotion, anything could happen. Even a mistake that cost a life.

  Hardy and me found Matilda down in the cafeteria, grinning from ear to ear as she chatted with a captive audience. Even Darren laughed at Matilda’s story, probably something about Hardy’s youthful antics. She’d warned me several times before our first baby that Hardy had been a handful. Most of our babies had enough of me in them to tame that streak she’d warned me of. Thankfully.

  We settled ourselves out in the common area. I figured he’d go straight to the piano, instead he plopped down on the sofa beside me and stretched his arm around my shoulders, or as far around as he could manage.

  “You feelin’ okay?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s got you quiet? You’re never quiet.”

  “Am too. You’re always so busy flapping your gums you don’t hear my quiet.”

  “Missin’ home?”

  “Naw,” I said.

  “Your babies?”

  I shook my head and tried to refocus on the elements of Polly’s fall that seemed suspicious. “I can’t shake the feeling there’s more to Polly’s fall.”

  He guffawed. “Shoulda figured you’d have your mind wrapped around a puzzle.”

  “Something’s not right. Too many people didn’t like her.”

  “Expe
ct there are a few who don’t care for you too much, that doesn’t mean they want you dead.”

  I huffed. “I should have come right out and asked Sue Mie if she’d called the police.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t think of it.”

  If there’s one thing I know it’s Hardy’s ways. He was trying to let me down easy. Trying to get me to see that I should let the whole incident slide.

  Hardy gave me a side hug. “You need to get back and finish your degree. Now that Momma’s settled, it’s time.”

  I turned my head to look at him. “I want that.”

  He stretched hard and patted my knee. “You still thinking on the restaurant?”

  Your Goose Is Cooked, he meant. That’s the name of the restaurant, not commentary on my cooking skills.

  When my former employer Marion Peters was murdered months ago, it came out that one of the newer members of Maple Gap, our home town, had been father to Marion’s child years before. Mark Hamm had since taken their daughter Valorie and moved to Denver. I’d almost gone to work for Mark right after I found Marion’s body, but he made his decision to take Valorie away, leaving the restaurant with a FOR SALE sign in the window.

  It tempted me mightily. One thing I loved more than a good mystery was cooking a storm. Course, I liked eating, too.

  But buying a restaurant was a lot of money. . .time. . .dedication. Funny thing is, I think Hardy really wanted to do it.

  “You thinking about it too?” I finally asked him.

  He grinned at me. “I sure could go for some of LaTisha Barnhart’s fried chicken ‘bout now. Why don’t we go out to eat tonight?”

  “Sure, babe.” I stroked his arm and leaned into his warm embrace.

  The buzz of Hardy’s cell phone startled us apart. New-fangled thing. We still weren’t used to having it around. Our babies were so worried about us traveling without one, using the “everyone’s got one” argument, that the phone and service plan became our thirty-ninth Anniversary present.

  Hardy twisted himself around to dig out the phone from his back pocket. “Yeah?”

  A huge smile split his face in two. I could feel my own smile growing.

  “Hold on and you can tell her yourself.” He held the phone out to me.

  It turned out to be Cora, daughter-in-law of my oldest boy, Tyrone. Cora had given us a grand-child about nine months ago. Our first. Now we had three others baking. Cora with her second, our other daughter-in-law Fredlynn with her first, and our daughter Shayna with her first. All within a month of one another. Don’t know if Old Lou’d hold up to burning up all those miles visiting grandbabies.

  “Momma, Arianna is walking!”

  My heart swelled with pride. “That’s my little gal. Do tell.”

  “She finally let go today and walked two steps before she went down.”

  “Bet Daddy’s bustin’ his buttons.”

  “You know him. Starting to think he loves her more than he loves me,” Cora bemoaned.

  “Nonsense. It’s them hormones talking. You call him at work and tell him to line up a babysitter and Pappy and I will pay for it. Every woman needs to get out.”

  “Oh, Momma, you don’t have to do that.”

  She wasn’t fooling me none though. I heard the wetness in her voice. Cora’s tender heart and patient ways meant she’d probably pushed herself to the breaking point taking care of Arianna. “I do, too. You’re a good momma, baby, and if you don’t do it, I’ll call up that boy of mine and give him the message.”

  She laughed and sniffed a little bit.

  “Now we don’t need any mama drama.” How I wished that Hardy and I could go over there and babysit. We’d visit for sure as soon as Matilda got settled.

  “I’ll call him now,” Cora said.

  “And make it somewhere nice. You need to get yourself fancied up, make you feel like a woman.”

  “You’re so good to me.”

  “We take care of each other,” I responded. “Just wish it could be me watching that little pumpkin. She sleeping?”

  Cora rounded Arianna up and I spoke fool-talk to her for a few minutes while she babbled back. Hardy got in on the act, too, buzzing his lips and making silly faces, as if Arianna could see him. Some of the residents who’d trickled into the common area sure got a kick out of watching him.

  We beamed at each other after hanging up. “Little Diva is a chip off the old block,” Hardy said, puffing up.

  “Guess Grandma’s genes are dominant after all.”

  He deflated.

  Momma’s entrance shut us both down when she declared she was headed upstairs for a nap. “And I don’t want you all flapping around in there. You knows I can’t sleep with noise.”

  Who’s she kidding? Matilda sleeps so deep you’d think rigor mortis had set in.

  She trundled herself to the elevator. Hardy patted my leg and went straight at the piano. Since I had some time on my hands, I decided it was time to ogle the library at Bridgeton Towers. I could use a good mystery.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I heartily support libraries. The idea of an unlimited supply of books on any subject; what a way to catch a mind on fire for learning. Bridgeton Towers might need some things, but they had a first rate library. Large print books everywhere. Non-fiction books took up an entire wall. Biographies interested me. Sometimes. Depended on the person doing the biographing.

  Sitting cross-legged in front of that shelf wasDarren. He seemed deep into the book spread on his lap, not even noticing me when I came up beside him. Guess the boy got into things pretty deep when he set his mind to something. Nothing wrong with that. I liked a person leeched to a task. I did wonder why Darren chose to sit on the floor instead of cozying up in one of the nice chairs in the reading area. I let him be and moved over to eyeball the selection of mysteries, pleased to find one right-off by my favorite author. Even though I’d read it before, it had been years, what with school and all, so I figured I was due for a re-read.

  A couple of residents that I’d not had the chance to meet moved into the library. One sat across from me, a rather hunched black man of at least eighty, who turned his teeth on high beam as he greeted me, sat, and spread his newspaper open.

  The little old lady used a cane and shuffled toward the romance section. I returned to my story until I heard the impatient ding of a bell. Little lady stood at the vacant check-out counter, her gaze on Darren’s back. So Darren must be the librarian. True enough, he unfolded himself from the floor, carefully marked his place, and helped the woman checkout her books. As soon as she left, he returned to his spot, giving me a wave and smile before resuming his reading. Must be a good story.

  An older gentleman sitting near me seemed engrossed in a scrapbook looking thing spread out on his lap. I strained my eyeballs trying to figure out what he was looking at. Old newspaper articles and such is what it looked like to me.

  In the next second, he sprang to his feet, clutching the scrapbook something hard. Near scared me to death. He had such a shocked expression on his face. I leaned toward him.

  “You having a heart attack or something?”

  His eyes circled the room. Whatever emotion ruled, his trancelike state gave me the willies.

  I lunged upward and took hold of his arm, but he blinked. When he met my gaze, I sent him a smile meant to reassure. He blinked and blinked again, staring down at my hand on his arm as if contact of another human could not be his reality.

  “Darren!” I grated out toward that boy, trying to rouse him from his reading stupor.

  “Darren! Get yourself over here quick-like.”

  I was grateful when Darren sprang to his feet like a Jack-in-the-box.

  “Coming,” he acknowledged my plea for help, two long steps putting him at my side.

  The gentleman didn’t move an inch, seeming unaffected by the sounds of our voices.

  “Is this man’s zoning normal?”

  Darren moved in front of the man and ta
pped his cheek with his hand. “Mr. Wilkins? Mr. Wilkins.”

  “He always acts like this?” I asked Darren.

  Darren took the man’s elbow on the other side and together we nudged Mr. Wilkins. He managed to put one foot in front of the other without any problem. We made it to the check-out counter and I realized Darren’s intentions. The phone squatted on the counter. Darren swooped it up, requesting a nurse in the library.

  The nurse came in red hair first. Ane Hooligan her name tag read, and with that fire on her head I imagined she must have the personality to match.

  “Mr. Wilkins,” she cooed. “You come with me, honey, and we’ll get you to your room and have the doctor look at you.”

  And again, I asked, “He always do this?”

  She squinted over her glasses at our patient. “First that I know of. Did something scare him?”

  I rehearsed the story of him bouncing to his feet, wondering if he’d read something strange in the scrapbook he was clutching so tightly. Ane just listened, her head nodding in rhythm to my words.

  “Thank you for calling me.” She pried the book from his fingers and stuck it under her arm, capturing his arm with her free hand and talking to him in a loud voice that captured and held his attention. “You follow me now, okay? We’ll take good care of you, Manny.”

  Darren followed the departing figure of Manny Wilkins with deep sadness in his eyes.

  “You know Mr. Wilkins, Darren?”

  He shrugged and stared over my left shoulder. “I know everyone, Mrs. Barnhart.”

  “I told you none of that Barnhart stuff, it’s LaTisha or don’t talk to me.”

  A smile twitched on his lips. “Okay, LaTisha.”

  “Good boy.” I directed my finger at the book he’d abandoned on the floor. “What are you reading that’s got you in such a grip?”

  This boy practically dove for the book, trotting back to me as he shuffled pages. “It’s a history of crime from the nineteen hundreds to present. It’s a two book series. The other is from eighteen hundred to the nineteen hundreds.”