Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery)

by S. Dionne Moore

  Momma chose a table in the far corner. Not a bad choice, really, since I could see the entire room at a glance, but my goal was to talk to Mrs. Payne. I got Hardy’s attention as he settled Matilda into her chair and pointed my eyes in the direction I was headed. Hardy nodded at me.

  I greeted a few of the residents who’d sung with Hardy and I this afternoon, my eyes and ears cued for anything remotely resembling a clue, verbal or otherwise. The next table over, I stopped to chat with the two ladies who’d made the comment about Gertrude hoarding Thomas’s affection and attention and settled down to some serious sleuthing. I started off by greeting the one I knew was Sally.

  “Sure had a good time singing with you gals this afternoon.”

  The black haired lady held out a frail hand to me. “Mary here, and Sally and I love to sing. Are we going to do it again?”

  I lightly squeezed her delicate fingers, “You come on up and knock on Matilda’s room, 207. Hardy and I will be here a few more days before heading back, but we’ll return often to visit with his momma. I’ll try and schedule a sing-a-long when I know we’ll be here to visit. That sound good?”

  Sally piped up. “Love to sing. Used to have quite the voice, but age has made me scratchy.”

  “It was the smoking, Sally,” Mary pointed out.

  Sally squinted at her friend. “Best thing I did was give up those things.”

  I glanced around the room. “I don’t see Gertrude anywhere.”

  “Oh,” Mary did a little groan her throat. “She’s probably gone up to sit with Thomas. He doesn’t need a baby-sitter, but you’d think he did the way she flutters around him.”

  So maybe the relationship was more one-sided than Gertrude wanted it to be.

  I opened my mouth in an O. “You mean they’re not a couple?” These girls had the edge on things for sure.

  “Oh my, no. Thomas loved Polly. . .” Mary stopped and exchanged a sad look with Sally.

  Sally nodded, picking up where Mary’d left off. “Gertrude’s after his money. Thomas was a bank robber in his younger days. It’s rumored he has a million stashed away somewhere in his room. Gertie was born poor.”

  This was getting good. “He robbed them all by himself?”

  Mary did a little gasp. “Oh no. He had help.”

  “How do you ladies know about this?”

  “Manny Wilkins. He used to be a cop. Said he recognized Thomas from a picture in a newspaper.”

  Newspaper! Did that account for Manny’s weird reaction the other day? Had he read about Thomas in that scrapbook he was looking over? No. It couldn’t be. I’d heard the rumor circulating previous to that.

  Mitzi’s warning not to let “him” get away with it rang in my head. Did it mean I could disregard any female as the person who caused Polly’s fall? Or was Polly’s fall just a front for Mitzi wanting me to look into something else?

  “Why haven’t you gals just come right out and asked him?”

  Mary and Sally exchanged a perplexed look. Mary’s face split into a grin. “Guess it’s more fun to speculate than to know the truth.”

  Sally’s eyes drifted to something over my shoulder. “Well, lookie what the cat dragged in.”

  I craned my neck around to get a gander. Wonder of wonders, Gertrude Herrman drifted our direction dragging Thomas in her wake, his hand pulled through the crook of her arm. Thomas looked. . .resigned, was the only word that came to my mind. Like a man made to go shopping in lieu of enjoying the Superbowl.

  “LaTisha,” Gertrude huffed. “How nice to see you again.” She bobbed a nod of greeting at Sally and Mary then returned her attention to me. “Do you know where Mitzi is? She gets testy if I don’t sit with her at these occasions.”

  “I haven’t seen Mitzi at all today. Is she sick?”

  Gertrude frowned over at Thomas. “We’ll have to check on her.”

  Thomas’s expression seemed genuinely pained. “Of course.”

  I wanted real bad to ask Thomas if he’d been a bank robber, and usually I would have, but something made me hold my tongue. See? Miracles do happen. Imagine my surprise though when Thomas tugged his hand from Gertrude’s grip and turned to me.

  “Mrs. Barnhart.” He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Might I have a word with you?”

  Gertrude’s eyebrows shot into her hairline, and when Thomas helped me to my feet and she realized we were leaving the room, she made a move as if to follow us. Thomas put a hand along her arm. “I’m sure these ladies need some lively conversation, Gertie. Why don’t you wait for me here?”

  I trailed him through the room which had filled quite a bit since our arrival. I waited as Thomas greeted the females who stopped him and the men who seemed intent on getting him to join their table. Not a doubt in my mind that Thomas Philcher was a mighty popular figure in Bridgeton Towers. Either his charm won everyone over, or everyone tangled up in the rumor hoped kindness might land them in his will.

  We were almost to the doors when a trilling voice stopped us both in our tracks.

  “Thomas Philcher, you scoundrel, why don’t you eat with Otis and I?”

  Mrs. Payne slipped up from behind us and lay a hand along Thomas’s sleeve. This was the most animated I’d seen her since her imitation of a leech on Otis’s arm earlier. Thomas smoothed his ice-blue tie and caught Mrs. Payne’s hand in his, presenting her with a shallow bow to finish off his greeting. This boy knew his way with women, that’s for sure.

  “I’m afraid I have another engagement right now. Perhaps later in the evening we can talk, Louise.”

  Thomas kept trucking, and I watched to see what Louise Payne’s reaction would be to the brush-off, albeit a polite one. For a nano-second anger turned her mouth into a hard line, and her eyes to pinpoints of hard light, but she recovered quickly. Without even a greeting to me, she returned to her still-empty table, slipping her skinny-self into her seat and slamming back the contents of her tumbler of water. Or at least I thought it was water.

  I fully expected Thomas to be waiting outside the doors, but he’d already scooted around the corner.

  “Let’s bypass the elevators and take the stairs,” he whispered as I drew closer.

  Um-hm. My meter went to full alert. If this boy thought he could take me down, he had another thing coming. I’d have to be careful not to let him corner me on the stairs or he might get it in his head to give me a push.

  I made good and sure to follow him up all fourteen steps to a landing—where I promptly rejoiced for life and breath—before finishing the remaining fourteen steps. With every step I wondered why Thomas couldn’t just ask me what he wanted to ask me downstairs. Must be important. Or he was going to try something stupid. But I couldn’t let my head get full of crazy notions or I’d scoot out of here real quick and might miss something important.

  Thomas opened the door leading to the second floor stairway. I stood right where I landed, trying my best to suck air into my starved lungs. “I’m not going another step without knowing what you’re wanting with me.” I even managed to get all those words out without gasping between each syllable, but if I had to move another muscle I might send him for an oxygen tank.

  “I’m sorry, I forget not everyone is used to steps.”

  “Honey, let’s be brief with this subject. It’s not the steps, it’s the going up and down them that’s the problem. I’ve got a set of steps at home; I go down in the morning, up at night, and that’s my exercise program. You feeling me?”

  Thomas cracked a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now I figure we can talk right here as long as you keep your voice down a notch. You know the rumor’s going around that you robbed yourself a bank when you were younger.”

  “That’s part of what I need to discuss with you.”

  “Did you or didn’t you rob a bank?”

  He drew in a great breath of air. “I’m afraid the rumor is true. My partner and I robbed three banks in two days. I spent twenty-five years in prison for the deed.�
�

  “Thank you for settling that for me. The women here are clucking about it like it’s the most romantic thing they’ve heard of. Guess they wouldn’t think that way if it’d been their money you’d stolen.”

  Thomas grimaced. “Yes, you’re right about that. But what I want to talk to you about. . .well, do you mind if I check on Mitzi? She is ill, and they’re planning on moving her to first floor nursing care next week.”

  “What’s that mean for her?”

  “It’s more strict. For those who can’t take care of themselves. I’d like to check on her before I forget, then we can discuss what we need to. Why don’t you wait for me here?”

  “Wouldn’t mind seeing her myself.”

  Thomas’s eyes clouded. “She’s been agitated lately, Mrs. Barnhart. I really don’t want to get her anymore riled than she has been.”

  I got the message and settled my bulk on the step as best I could, content to wait, but when the door opened below me on the first floor, and the voices drifted to me in hushed whispers, peace turned into a quivering ball of excitement in my stomach.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I’m not staying here another minute,” the first voice came clearly to me. Mrs. Payne.

  “Keep your voice down, Louise.” Otis.

  “I will not!”

  The lady was out of control. I almost didn’t make out Otis’s next words.

  “Were you able to talk to Thomas?”

  “He was leaving with that fat, black woman. What are we going to do? What if he tells her about the money?”

  Fat? If I didn’t have a good strong mind about me, I’d have barreled down those steps and taught her a thing or two about sassy mouths. I quashed those thoughts and strained my ears some more.

  “It’s not a secret anymore, Louise. Manny confirmed Thomas was the bank robber, but he hasn’t kept quiet about it.”

  A pause, then: “Then I want a share of the other money, and if you don’t get that money for me, Otis, you can kiss me goodbye. I won’t be poor another day. Now, I’ve got an appointment.”

  “I can guess with whom.” Otis’s voice had lost its wheedling tone. Now his voice cut like a hot blade through butter.

  Louise blew out a gusty sigh. “Guess all you want. I’m leaving.”

  The creak of the stairwell door opening. “Louise.” A rustle of material and I could imagine Otis snagging her arm before she left the stairwell. “Don’t do this to us.”

  What was this? Otis begging the leech to stay? I guessed the person she was so hot to meet must not be a good buddy, which would be a huge reason for Otis to suddenly be interested in his wife. Even pleading with her to stay when he looked so put out with her earlier?

  Or maybe she knew something about old Otis that would ruin him if they split and got into a messy divorce. Was the money she demanded really hush money? Sounded like she had him over a real barrel.

  Otis must have slipped out behind Louise because I didn’t hear another word from below. When Thomas reappeared twenty minutes later, I was primed, questions at the ready.

  “Mitzi is sick. Real sick,” were Thomas’s first words. He didn’t look too well himself.

  “Doesn’t the doctor show up when the residents are sick?”

  Thomas cleared his throat. “He’s already seen her.”

  Now I can tell you there was more to that response than Thomas was saying. “It’s time to drop the charm, Thomas. What’s going on that you’re so reluctant to spill?”

  Thomas held the door for me. “Care to talk in my apartment?”

  I wasn’t so reluctant to move now, so we slipped down the empty hallway toward his room, quiet the whole way. I figured it’d be better to nail his hide to the wall in the privacy of his room rather than the hallway.

  When I stepped into Thomas’s apartment, the first thing I noticed was the woodsy, slighty minty undertone of the air. Very pleasant. And Thomas’s choice in furniture sure crushed my sons’ choices when they were single. Gold toned chenille with a subtle print of turquoise, burgundy and deeper golds shouted comfort and class. Dark wood tables of classic lines and a deep armchair with thickly padded arms completed the feel.

  “You got yourself a lovely place, Thomas.”

  “Thank you. Could I get you something to drink?”

  “Why don’t we get down to business?”

  He gave me a huge smile. “That’s what I liked about you from the first. You get straight to the point. I tend to beat around the proverbial bush.” He indicated I should have a seat.

  I sank down into those cushions, hoping for an eject button somewhere, because when it came time for me to get up I’d need all the help I could get. Don’t they make nice, firm sofas anymore?

  Thomas didn’t sit, but went over to an ornate hall table we’d passed in the short hallway near the front door. He dug around in the drawer.

  “So you robbed banks in your day. Somehow I don’t think your momma was too proud of that.”

  Thomas came up for air from digging in the drawer and favored me with a nod. In his hand he clutched a couple of sheets of paper. “My mother and father both died in my youth. My father from working in the mines for so many years, my mother from heartbreak. I was wild. I knew I was wild, and I didn’t care.”

  “You were close to your father.”

  His Adams apple bobbed, his lips compressed as he struggled with emotion. “Very. You’re very perceptive.”

  “I enjoy people, and raising seven children didn’t hurt none. What have you got there?”

  Thomas closed the distance between us and held out the paper, a scribbled note signed by Polly. “After news of her fall, I found this on my hall table.”

  A puzzle piece snapped into place. Matilda had said she had seen Polly in Thomas’s room prior to her death. At the time I’d feared Matilda’s sugar level might have caused her to dream such a thing, but the hall table could easily have been seen from the hallway with the door open. Only one question came to mind. “She had a key to your room?”

  “And I had one to hers.” He waved a hand toward the note. “As you can see for yourself, she feared for her life. You asked earlier about the doctor. Dr. Kwan is a man with a past, I’m afraid. He has had many lawsuits leveled against him for mixing medications that caused problems with his patients. I suspect it is one of the reasons he works here and not at a hospital.”

  I read the note over again.

  THOMAS, WE NEED TO TALK. YOUR PAST IS KNOWN AND THERE ARE CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO ARE DESPERATE FOR YOUR MONEY. TRUST NO ONE. LOVE, POLLY.

  “You’re telling me this because. . .?”

  “I read the article about how you helped catch a criminal in Maple Gap. I dug around a bit and found some newspaper articles on the death of Marion Peters. That was enough for me to know that I wanted you to look into this matter for me.” He closed his eyes and held out the second sheet of paper. “There is something else, too. Before the locks on Polly’s rooms were changed, right after I heard of her fall, I went to her room and found this. Apparently she’d received a threat from someone telling her to back off.”

  The paper’s spidery creases meant it had been balled up and smoothed out.

  STOP PUSHING SO HARD OR I MIGHT JUST PUSH BACK. NO ONE WOULD MISS YOU.

  I can tell you my heart raced with excitement. This proved what I needed it to prove—a motive. Someone had a reason to off Polly. “You brought me up here to ask me to look into things?” I gave him a hard stare. “Who’s to believe you didn’t have something to do with Polly? Did she know of your bank robber days?”

  Thomas stared down at his hands. “She did. I told her. I thought she might be the one I’d waited for all my life.”

  “You thought? Something make you think maybe you’d been wrong in that assumption?”

  Another long pause and I felt the vibes of rebellion, or hurt, that caused someone to be reluctant to admit their judgment of someone had blinded them.

  He sighed. “She became ve
ry close with Mr. Payne.”

  Bingo! Though the idea of Otis Payne and Polly Dent cuddling up to each other. . .? Nah. “Tell me about it.”

  “You’ll remember the first day you arrived here. At the elevators. Gertrude mentioned Polly and Otis rounding out our little group. I’m afraid it was intended to be a dig at Polly, but it is well known that Polly and Gertrude held no love for each other.”

  “Truer words were never spoken. I picked up on that cat fight right off.”

  Thomas folded himself in to the armchair and cradled his forehead in his hand. “It was true. Polly and Otis spent a lot of time together. I think it’s how she got into the gym that afternoon after hours.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Our relationship wasn’t. . .well. . .” He ducked his face into the cradle of his hand again.

  “I’m getting you, honey. And I doubt Polly’s relationship with Otis was that way.”

  His eyes burned into mine. “That’s the reason I asked you to look into things. Polly never talked much about Mr. Payne, but the two did treat each other with more familiarity than Otis treated the other residents.”

  I smacked my lips together, powerful thirsty all of asudden. “Think I could get a drink?”

  Thomas snapped to his feet. “Most certainly. What would you like?”

  “Water is fine.”

  While Thomas fiddled away in the kitchen, I absorbed what I’d heard and studied the note to Polly real hard. Who’d do such a thing? With great care I lifted the note from the table, wondering if Thomas’s fingerprints had obliterated all the others. I could drop this off to Chief Conrad when I got to Maple Gap, but unless one of the residents had a record, like Thomas, their fingerprints wouldn’t be on file.

  The print, too, might help. Whoever prepared the note snipped whole words instead of letters. But that kind of search could be time consuming and, if the person had been smart enough to get rid of the magazine or newspaper, it could be impossible.

  I kept coming back to Thomas’s money and the doctor mixing up medications. But Thomas’s confession also made things more difficult. What if his confession was elaborate bait on a hook meant to force me to reveal what I knew? A tangled web.