Darren twisted the cap on the water bottle he’d picked up on our way into the cafeteria. He hadn’t said much on our trip down to the cafeteria. My heart broke for him. Nothing worse than being alone in a crowd, and the cafeteria was sure crowded.
Matilda sat at her usual table. She greeted Darren with enthusiasm before returning her attention to the meatloaf. Gertrude and Thomas rounded out the table. Gertrude didn’t seem to notice or care about Darren’s presence, merely sending him a rather hostile look before she resumed talking Thomas’s ear off. Thomas snuck in a huge smile and a polite hello before continuing his charade of listening to Gertrude.
“Let’s get up there and put on the feed bag,” I said to Darren, eyeballing the buffet and working my hand into my pocket for some money.
“I’m not hungry,” Darren mumbled.
Maybe our talk of Mitzi had upset him, but I doubted it. My thinking said it was the presence of Gertrude, and her meanness that had my boy in a case of nerves.
“You need to eat. You’re as scrawny as a toothless man eating chicken necks.” I yanked on a chair and pointed at the seat. “Sit. I’ll get you something.” As I traveled the path to the buffet, Sue Mie pushed in a little woman in a wheelchair, a man in a walker behind her. I sent her a nod.
“It’s almost quitting time for you.”
She pushed the woman up to a table and motioned a cafeteria attendant over, probably to get their food. Sue helped the man in the walker into a chair, then scooted the man’s walker back a little and pushed his chair in. “I not be here for you, Mr. Gerber.” Sue directed his line of vision to the smiling attendant headed their way. “Miss Nancy will help. I see you tomorrow.”
Ah. She was keeping up the charade of Asian CNA. When she turned and our gazes connected, I knew the time had come for me to eat humble pie. “Sure could use me a nice hot mocha. Got any place around here that serves them?”
Whatever she was thinking, she hid it well. Too well for my liking, but I had no choice.
“Coffee house down street. They close 6 p.m.”
When in fact they closed at 9 p.m. Translation: Meet me there at 6 p.m.
“Sounds good. I’ll try it.”
I left her and went over to the buffet, helping myself, glad to be finished with the hard part of the humbling. I spooned up a pile of potatoes and a nice chunk of meatloaf, drowning it all in gravy. Canned, if I didn’t miss my guess. I knew fake food when I saw it.
When I turned, two plates in hand, my eyes swept the room for Sue Mie. She’d already left, but then it was already past five o’clock.
I set Darren’s plate in front of him. He lifted his eyes to me without lifting his head. “Thank you.”
He picked up his fork and rolled a green bean around in some gravy before nibbling at it. I admired the fact that he managed the fork quiet well despite his tight hands.
Gertrude came up for air long enough from her monologue with Thomas to stab her meat loaf laden fork at Darren. “Why don’t you tell us what you think about Polly’s fall, Darren? Everyone knows how much you didn’t like her.”
Darren about choked on a piece of food. His eyes rolled to me. Pleading. Though I wasn’t sure what he was pleading for.
“Can’t imagine Darren not liking anyone,” Matilda offered. “He’s a good boy.”
Gertie wiped her mouth. “We need to keep an open mind, right, LaTisha? Isn’t that what you’re trying to do, make sure the whole incident was, indeed, an accident. Why even the most innocent could be guilty.”
We should be talking about you then. But I realized it wasn’t doing me any good to be thinking those words. “You got something to say about Polly? Being how you’re so hard after Thomas, I’m guessing Polly put a curdle on your plans.”
Thomas had the good grace to look only slightly bemused by my straight-talk.
Gertrude huffed. “I would never have hurt Polly. She was my friend.”
“You sure look mighty comfortable with her being cold.”
Gertrude’s eyes slipped over Darren, then quick-back to Thomas. She patted her beau’s leg. “Thomas tried to placate the old dear by giving Polly the attention she so craved.”
Another strained smile from Thomas. This man looked like he needed some Metamucil sprinkled on his beans.
“Seems to me Polly isn’t the only one craving attention,” Matilda jibed.
Gertrude’s lips tightened. “Thomas and I plan on marrying.”
Those words stunned us all into silence. Matilda was the first to recover. She laid her napkin on her plate. “His idea or yours?”
Gertrude’s lips tightened even more and her glance at Thomas practically screamed at him to say something. He sat placidly, the only sign of discomfort the sudden way he pushed his plate away. “We need to talk, Gertrude.”
He stood, ramrod straight, and made straight for the exit. Gertrude rolled upward and scrambled after him as fast as a locomotive could navigate an obstacle course of tables and chairs. Not that I have room to talk.
Darren sat stock still. “You made her real mad. She won’t forget that.” He was looking at Matilda, but I figured his words were for both of us.
“You think I’m caring about making her mad?” Matilda got to her feet with ease and braced herself against her cane, her gaze resting on Darren. “You don’t let others tread you down, boy. You hear me?”
“I’m much better at defending others,” he replied.
Something clicked in my mind. Mitzi. “Gertrude give Mitzi a hard time?”
“Sometimes. Mitzi loved her though. Loves her, I mean. I think it’s me Gertrude doesn’t care for. Not now anyway.” He wouldn’t quite meet my eyes.
“Time for you to be talking to me, Darren.”
He let out his breath in a whoosh, his eyes cruising around us to make sure no one was nearby. “I saw Polly in Thomas’s room the day she died. Saw your mother-in-law go into Thomas’s room by mistake. Polly was real shocked when she saw Matilda, but she had a key to Thomas’s apartment, so I wasn’t too surprised to see her in there.”
Not much that I didn’t know. By the looks of him, there was something else he needed to get off his chest. I waited as patiently as a three year old. If he wasn’t going to talk, I’d shake it out of him.
He took a long drink. “Polly told a couple of the residents about getting a threatening note. Everything made sense then. You see, I’d gone up to visit Mitzi one day and saw Gertrude sliding something under Polly’s door.”
Gertrude!
So the little love triangle was hairier than idle gossip.
I watched Darren hard for a minute, my mind clicking along. If this man knew love, he knew how to see it in others. “Thomas is a strange one.”
“He’s a good guy. He helps me keep an eye on Mitzi.”
That at least explained why he had a key to Mitzi’s apartment. “Do you think Thomas loves Gertie?”
Darren’s dark eyes latched onto mine. “No. I think he loved Polly.”
Chapter Thirty
When I headed forThe Nuthouse, I decided to take my cell phone with me in case Lela called. She would be arriving in Maple Gap anytime, and I wanted to hear how her visit with Sara went. I also needed to update her on our break-in, to put her mind at ease, even though Sara was the more important problem right now.
I turned my cell on and slipped it into my pocket. It did some beeping, which I ignored, until it buzzed real hard as I made my way out the front doors of Bridgeton Towers. The vibration of the phone in the pocket of my skirt sent every bit of cellulite on my right thigh into a frenzy. I dug it out, reading the Caller ID before answering.
“Lela, girl, you back in Maple Gap?”
“Sure am, Momma. Got in later than I wanted. There’s a message here from Chief Conrad saying something about the lab guy needs to know what he’s looking for on the T-shirt. He forgot to ask. That make sense to you?”
It did. I was afraid of that. No way was Lab Guy going to know what to look for if I di
dn’t narrow the field for him. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all.
“You get to see Sara yet?”
Silence. “Yeah. She’s so pale.”
I heard the tightness in her voice. Even my own started to tightening. “Her momma and I had us a good talk. You’ll cook for them for me, won’t you babe?”
“Sure thing. How’s Grandma?”
We talked during my walk to The Nuthouse, with me reminding Lela that her stay at our house was temporary and she needed to get her resumes out there, as well as an update on last nights break-in. I assured her the thing was related to a case I was on, which alarmed her even more. I did my best to help her see that Matilda wasn’t in immediate danger and poked at the fact that her visit home was going to be short. Right?
I’d already done Empty Nest Syndrome once, no way was I going to start taking chicks back into the nest when life slammed them. I’d worked hard to get used to having a hollow house, and the only thing I was after now was grandbabies. I made sure to remind Lela of that, too, before we hung up.
My phone jingled again. Once. I checked it and found a voicemail. From Chief Conrad. It was the same message Lela had just given me, so I deleted it as I stepped inside The Nuthouse, the cool air and coffee scent swirling around me.
Sue Mie sat in the same booth we’d talked in on our last visit, and bless her, she had another one of those marvelous mocha’s waiting for me.
She even pulled the table toward her before I began the task of wedging myself into the slot. “Least you could have done is got us a decent table. Not everyone’s so skinny they can turn sideways and disappear.”
Sue Mie slurped her cup of iced stuff and smiled. “I’m glad you came.”
I managed to crack a smile myself. “You going to share with me or not?”
“I was hired by Thomas Philcher.”
Whatever I expected, it wasn’t that.
“Specifically to look into the background of Polly Dent.”
“Did she suspect you were looking into her past?”
Sue Mie shook her head. “I don’t think so. Most of detective work is keeping your ears open and your mouth shut.”
How true.
I was glad to pull out the facts I already knew and wave them around a bit. “She’s the ex-wife of Thomas’s partner in his bank robbing days.”
“True. Manny Wilkins was the one to help me with that fact.”
Me too, but I wasn’t saying it out loud. “Does Thomas know about her?”
“He does now, and it’s one of the reasons I asked you here.”
My brain was smoking. Darren’s voice telling me just a few moments ago that he thought Thomas really loved Polly. . . If he found out she was the ex-wife of his partner after he had told her about the money, taking her into his confidence, he’d be livid. I would. “When did Thomas find out Polly’s ex was Thomas’s partner?”
“The day before Polly died in the gym accident.”
I picked up my mocha and took a big gulp. “That’s not looking too good for him.” I was thinking motive.
It niggled at me to tell her about Gertrude’s play in the whole thing. Still, nothing explained how Polly got into the gym that evening. I just couldn’t see Thomas or Gertrude letting her in. “You got any ideas on how Polly got herself into that gym? I was thinking maybe she had a key made for herself.”
“It would be hard for a resident to get a key, take it to have it copied, and get it back without the person missing it. You’re talking a good span of time.” Sue spread her hands. “Maybe someone left it unlocked for her?”
“Doubt it. She came into the cafeteria and made a scene to Otis. He left with her. I looked into that. Hilda Broumhild said he came right back.”
“I discovered that Polly did have quite the reputation as an exercise enthusiast. She made frequent use of the gym. Maybe she and Otis had a quiet agreement on the side, and he let her go in without supervision.”
“Still doesn’t make sense. He’d be downright foolish risking his job like that.”
Sue drained her cup dry. I gulped on my mocha a bit, thoughts swirling around enough to make me dizzy.
One thing stood out above all else. I still needed to have a look at those maintenance records for the treadmills. If I couldn’t find Otis to help me get those records, surely his secretary would know where they were kept. Or Chester. Gave me indigestion just thinking asking him for anything, but checking out that treadmill might give me a clue as to what to have the lab guy look for on the handlebars.
“I got a sample of the powder on the handles of the treadmill Polly fell off of and sent it to someone to analyze.”
Sue’s eyes went huge. “You don’t think something was in the cornstarch stuff they use?”
“It was my husband’s idea that it could be something besides baby powder.” I saw no good reason to let her know Mitzi had been spouting poems to me. She probably wouldn’t believe Mitzi could have seen something anyhow. “Found powder stuff all over the floor and even in. . .”
A lightbulb popped in my head.
Sue Mie’s lips were moving, as if she hadn’t heard me at all. “The treadmills had been switched. Mitzi’s rhyme seemed to say that.”
And here I thought I was the only one Mitzi spouted those poems to. It gave me a nice boost of courage though to think Sue Mie thought Mitzi’s poems might be meaning something.
She kept on talking. “I’m guessing that Mitzi saw the person dragging the treadmill through that back hallway onto the elevator. It would make sense. He or she wouldn’t be seen that way.”
Hallway? “You saying that door by that service elevator is a hallway?”
“Sure, it runs from Otis Payne’s office and behind the gym. It even has a bathroom, which I think is Mr. Payne’s private domain, although I’m sure his secretary uses it as well.”
“You ever check out that hallway after Polly’s fall?”
Sue’s eyes flashed a question. “I really hadn’t thought of that. I just saw it as a way for someone covering a crime to get the treadmill out of there without having to use the front entrance to the gym.”
“You have a key to it?”
“No, but I’m sure Mr. Payne or his secretary or a cleaning person would.”
I had to look in on that hallway real soon.
Sue Mie tapped her chin. “When I saw that treadmill in the storage room, I was sure Mitzi was right.”
“Chester let you in there?”
“He was one of the reasons I felt like Mitzi’s poem really meant something. Chester told me I had to sign out anything I took from the storage room. Mr. Payne’s orders.”
“Hmph.”
Sue nodded. “I’d never heard of that rule before, and I’ve been into the storage area plenty of times.”
Maybe she was onto something, but I’d better get out what had gone through my head a minute ago before Sue’s talking made me forget. “That powder stuff we was just talking about. It was in the trashcan the day Otis let me in to the gym to examine Polly.”
She wasn’t following me. I could just tell by the look on her face.”
“Meaning someone dumped the powder in the trash,” I added.
“Maybe they do that every night.”
I didn’t want to admit defeat here, but Sue Mie was pulling me down.
“What if we’re wrong about all this?” she asked.
“Then, honey, we’re gonna be rolling the crust, putting in the filling, and eating humble pie.”
We decided Sue Mie was going to look into Polly’s health records and find out what prescriptions she’d been on, if any. The maintenance records were mine to investigate. We were set to compare notes the following evening at The Nuthouse.
Hardy and I rounded up our group of singers and had quite a choir going on in the main common area for a good while. We sang song after song, with seven sopranos, three altos, and a couple of men who did decent tenors, and two basses who knew their stuff. At one point, even the nigh
ttime staff got in on the action. Chester came by, a scowl on his face, dragging a trash bag.
“Singing’s good for the soul.” I beamed good nature and love. “Join us.”
“I’m doing my job. Got trash to take out for tomorrow’s pick up,” he said, his expression clearly relaying the message to the other two cleaning ladies who’d joined us minutes before that they were being lazy.
“You leave these ladies alone. They were hard at work and will be again afterwhile. Might as well enjoy themselves a few minutes.”
Chester glared hard at me. I lasered him right back.
He rustled his bag and punched the elevator button, his back to me as he waited.
Singing was good for those who had a soul. Chester left me wondering. Lord forgive me.
Hardy sent me a tired look that let me know the bed was calling him, so I wrapped up our night with Battle Hymn of the Republic. Might as well stir some patriotism.
Sally and Mary were among the half-dozen of us left at that point. I thought we’d lose them completely the last song as they fussed over a small man in a wheelchair. The redheaded nurse who’d helped Manny Wilkins in the library the other day stood close to the man’s side. On occasion the man would grimace, but wave off the nurse when she tried to help. Sally and Mary both tried to help him too, but he shook his head hard.
He seemed to settle down after awhile, and Mary, following Sally’s example, got back into the song until the last note died away and Hardy stood up. We all broke out and applauded one another. A low moan turned heads in the direction of the man in the wheelchair. Mary leaned over him as he desperately pressed a button connected to the arm of his wheelchair.
I made tracks toward them. Nurse Ane leaned over the man. “George? You still in pain?”
Sally leaned toward me. “Mr. Hendricks has terminal cancer.”
My heart fell to my feet, my thoughts turning to our little Sara.
The nurse spoke with Mr. Hendricks for a while, then put in her own call before she wheeled Mr. Hendricks in the direction of the nursing unit.
Sally comforted a teary Mary as they headed toward the elevators. So much sorrow.
Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) Page 16