Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery)

by S. Dionne Moore

  Huh-uh.

  No way was I gonna shake after seeing what I just saw.

  Hardy got real close to me. “We was thinking about taking ourselves on a little walk. Our walk last night did some real good.”

  Otis Payne’s hand kind of faded down to his side, though something in those beady blue eyes seemed to go real cool, real fast. I’m guessing Chester had recognized Hardy’s voice from the night before and probably reported to Otis. But an innocent man shouldn’t have anything to worry about, right? Could be he was just miffed over us not shaking his head-scratching hand.

  “Our grounds are quite lovely this time of year.”

  Hardy’s head bobbed in agreement. “You got quite a nice little fence around your trash area.”

  I was sending out more signal strength than a cell phone tower at that moment, trying to get my boy to shut his mouth.

  “Heard Chester out there cussing a storm.”

  Otis got real still. Not that he was jumping around before, but something changed in his expression, and it wasn’t making him any prettier.

  I locked onto Hardy’s hand and squeezed hard. “We need to be on our way now. You have a good day, Mr. Payne.”

  I headed Hardy around the corner of the library, past Otis’s offices and the gym, and pulled up tight at the service elevator. “What you doing spouting off about Chester? He was mad for sure.”

  Hardy ran a finger in his ear. “Flush him out. Sometimes you hold on to things too much. Let him know you saw something and it’ll make him do something.”

  “He was looking like he was going to skin us alive is what he looked like.”

  “Why would he feel that way if he wasn’t worried?”

  Hardy truly had a point, as much as it pained me to admit it. After Otis’s assurance that the police didn’t have any concerns regarding Polly’s “accident,” news that I was still poking around, still questioning things, might stir him up a bit.

  Without another word, I stretched out my hand again. Hardy fished out the key and slapped it into my palm. “Knowing Otis is here, this might not be a wise thing to be doing right now.”

  I sent him a searing look. “You just said it was time to stir things up.”

  “It’s easy to say when I’m the one doing the stirring.”

  The key slid into the lock with a bit of pressure, telling me it was a new key. Sue Mie must have made a copy. I tried the knob of the door and it twisted real easy, revealing a long hallway with a door at the end, one on the left, and one on the right, closer to where we stood. Quick mental aerobics let me know the door on the right had to lead to the gym area.

  Hardy got to that door first, while I eased the one we’d just come through shut. No use having it slam and letting everyone know we’d arrived.

  Hardy did a little jig in front of the closed door. “Here they are! Here they are!”

  “Quiet down there. This hallway connects to Otis’s office and who knows what else. You want someone to catch you acting like a three-year-old?” But my maturity slipped hard too when I laid eyes on the papers tacked to the door. Maintenance records.

  I flipped to page two. The treadmills were listed by number.

  T61 had been crossed out completely.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I hugged Hardy good and tight. “This has got to mean something,” I whispered next to his ear. “Why else would they get rid of T61 right after Polly’s fall?”

  Hardy didn’t say a word but turned and headed down the hallway to the next door. I wanted to know how this door led into the gym. I knew there wasn’t another door visible. That’s when those fingerprints on the glass mirrors popped a flash of light into my head. The door slid open easily and, sure enough, the other side was one of the mirrored glass panels, and exactly the one I saw with fingerprints all over it. So this door was used often. Obviously the maintenance guy knew of its existence.

  Next thing I knew, Hardy was tapping me on the shoulder, eyes rolling around in his head like he’d done gone lunatic. “Someone’s in Otis’s office. They said your name.”

  I quick-closed the mirrored door and hustled up the hallway. Hardy glued his ear to one spot low on the door, me to another spot higher up.

  “. . .tell her what you saw. . .right. . .good-bye.”

  Hardy frowned.

  I straightened, disappointed I hadn’t heard more. I pantomimed to Hardy to keep listening while I checked out the only door left we hadn’t examined. He caught on the meaning of my motions and stuck his ear against Otis’s office door again.

  I got the other door open real easy and flicked on the light. A bathroom. It had to be the one Sue Mie had mentioned. It included a shower, toilet, seat in the salute position, obviously the work of a person of male persuasion, and a small, square shower with a plain dark green curtain.

  My first act of business was to right a wrong. I seizeda fistful of toilet paper and used it to grab the toilet seat and lower it. You treat a woman like a queen, then prepare her throne, that’s my motto, and the reason I trained my boys to put it down when they finished. Not that they listened all the time. Several nights I had a chilling surprise, but they heard about it the next day and got latrine duty for a week.

  I threw away my wad of paper instead of flushing it, not wanting to make any noise. I stuck my head into the shower and spied a bar of soap, a mirror, and razor. I was just closing the curtain when the door swung open behind me. I craned my neck that direction in time to see Hardy’s eyes about bugging out of his head. He spread his arms wide and came at me, catching me and sending us both into the shower, almost yanking the curtain from its hooks.

  “What you doing?!”

  He smashed his hand over my mouth. “Someone’s coming.”

  He turned and stepped on my toe, then rammed his bony elbow into my stomach. By the time I got knocked in the jaw with his head and another stab in the stomach, I was ready to wash him down the drain. But Hardy’s goal had been to turn around and pull the shower curtain shut. He eased it across the opening real slow.

  We waited. The handle to turn on the water sticking in my back, my dress twisted around, and our breathing steaming up the shower mirror.

  The door to the bathroom opened. I sucked in a breath. If whoever it is was intended to use the toilet, my idea about the toilet seat might have been a real bad move. Too late now.

  The seconds dragged. It ran through my mind that whoever it was better not be undressing to take a shower, because there was gonna be some serious company. Something creaked. Then I heard water in the sink. Something rattled. Another squeak. Shuffling. A dull thud.

  I can tell you I wanted that door to open fast and this person to be making their exit before I exploded. The handle of the shower dug real hard in my back. I shifted. Bad idea. Water dribbled from the shower head, onto my scalp and down my neck. Cold water. I swallowed a gasp and tried to shift back to my original position to turn off the water. It still dripped.

  At long last, the door opened, then closed.

  Hardy and me stayed stock still for a full minute before he peaked around the curtain. “They’re gone.”

  I pushed on him to hustle him out. As soon as I had extra elbow room, I twisted the lever to off and stepped out, glad for room and fresh air. Now to figure out what our visitor had been up to. The toilet seat remained down and we’d heard no flush. Over the sink, a medicine cabinet presented a possibility for creating a creaking noise. I opened it. It let out a nice low screech, the same as the one we’d heard. Inside were several bags of pills. Pink, blue, white. A container of empty capsules.

  Hardy came up beside me and pointed to the trashcan where a prescription bottle and several capsules lay.

  I motioned him to take the bag out of the trashcan. I’d gone and took the stuff from the cabinet, but was afraid it, as evidence, would mess up the Chain of Custody. That’d put a real hurting on the case. I’d take the trash and look at it real close for clues. Hardy tied a knot in the bag and held it
out to me, Adam’s apple bobbing hard. I patted his head and jabbed a finger at the door. It was time to make our escape.

  Before Hardy got the door opened for me, I stuffed the stash down the front of my dress, shaping it just so, to look like it was part of me. A cup size bigger, maybe, but part of me.

  Hardy lost his scared stiff look, flashed his tooth at me, and swung the door wide.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  We almost made it to the first floor elevators. Almost. Dr. Kwan came out of the cafeteria as Hardy and I were trucking along.

  “Mrs. Barnhart. I’d like to talk to you a moment.”

  Hardy slowed. I didn’t.

  “If you please. There is something I have not told you that I’d like you to look into for me regarding Polly Dent.”

  I stopped dead. He wanted to talk about Polly? Wanted me to look into something? Having heard too much negative about the man, I didn’t trust him, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. Real bad.

  I turned, trying to casually cross my arms over my chest, but managed only to scoot the bag out of alignment. Dr. Kwan’s gaze never wavered from my face, as if he saw lopsided women all the time. Not that I expected him to ask about something so personal.

  “I’d like to talk in private.” He gestured across the hall like I didn’t have any idea where Otis Payne’s office was by now. “We can use Mr. Payne’s office, or his secretary’s if he is too busy working.”

  “I didn’t think doctors worked on Saturday. Don’t they play golf or something?” This from Hardy.

  “I was called in.”

  Since Otis Payne’s secretary wasn’t in and her door was locked, Otis’s was open, something I hadn’t noticed earlier. Maybe I was getting crazy in the head. Otis wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  Dr. Kwan chose not to sit behind Otis’s desk and instead chose an armchair. Hardy slouched on the sofa and I stood. If I sat, the bag might crinkle a sound. And the plastic was molded to me, making me sweat.

  “Need to get myself upstairs real quick, got something cookin’.”

  Hardy tilted his head. “No you don’t.”

  “Yes. I. Do.” I emphasized so it’d get through Hardy’s thick head to keep his mouth shut. And something sure was cooking. Me. Getting upstairs and shucking this bag would make me real happy-like.

  “I won’t take long, Mrs. Barnhart. Something has been troubling me about the day Polly died. I didn’t mention it to the police because, well, I couldn’t imagine Mr. Philcher doing anything untoward, but now. . .” He crossed his legs and clasped his hands over his knee. “You see, I saw Mr. Philcher go into the gym that day. Mrs. Dent had an appointment with me to be evaluated, though she was early. I heard her and Mr. Philcher fighting over something—”

  “You telling me you let her into the gym?”

  He made a face. “Actually, no. Mr. Payne let her in so she could prepare for the evaluation. She had heart problems, you see—”

  “The police know all this?”

  “I did mention Polly’s evaluation to them, yes, but not the part about seeing Mr. Philcher. As I said, I couldn’t believe he might be the vindictive type.”

  Uh-huh. “No one was supposed to be in that gym after hours unsupervised.”

  “A mere miscommunication. Mr. Payne didn’t get my message to have an attendant there. The police understood the problem and recognized it.”

  “Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to write itself,” I said.

  “Yes, we regret the mistake and will cooperate fully with the Joint committee’s investigation of the matter, but what I wanted to ask is if Mr. Philcher had mentioned his argument with Mrs. Dent that evening.”

  “Not to me.” But I’d be sure to ask Thomas about it. If still water truly did run deep, then Thomas’s temper might have gotten the better of him that night. If he’d been worried enough about Polly’s intentions to hire a private investigator to have her checked out. . .

  Dr. Kwan uncrossed his legs and rasped his palms together. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Barnhart. I think I’ll need to report this after all.”

  “I don’t trust him,” I huffed at Hardy as we continued up the stairs to the second floor. Well, as I continued up, he was already at the top. Whistling a tune. “If my legs weren’t shaking so—” Pant. Pant. “I’d bound up these steps too.”

  Hardy struck a pose. “Goes to show you what fine shape I’m in.”

  Two more steps.

  “I’m gonna shape you—” Pause. Breathe. “Into a ball and bounce you—” Gasp. Breathe. “Down these steps if you don’t stop your—” In with the good air, out with the bad air—“foolishness.”

  I planted both feet on the landing. “I don’t care. How long it takes. To wait for the elevator. Next time, I’ll wait.” It had been Hardy’s idea to skip the elevator when we’d seen the lunch crowd waiting to stampede onto it once it landed on the first floor.

  His eyebrows about touched his hairline as he peered up at me. “Why don’t you trust, Dr. Kwan?”

  It took me a minute to remember our original conversation when we’d started up the steps. Why didn’t I trust Dr. Kwan? Because he’d never condescended to give us much time before today. Because the residents didn’t have much nice to say about him. Because things didn’t feel right.

  “You think he’s making up what he says about Thomas?” Hardy asked.

  With my heart rate down to a slow trot, I rallied enough to get through the door Hardy held, and then down the hall. I’d never be so glad to see Matilda’s apartment, especially her recliner, up close and personal.

  But Matilda was in it.

  I detoured toward the sofa and took a load off, my mind split between my heart rate, my thirst, and unpeeling the hot plastic bag from my chest. I made short work of the plastic bag, opening it up on my lap so Hardy could see the contents.

  “What you two been up to?” She asked, looking over her reading glasses at us. I could see she was halfway through the crossword puzzle of the paper.

  “We went exploring, Momma.” Hardy pointed at the bag I held.

  I shook around the bag without touching the bottle, knowing I’d mar fingerprints if I did. Hardy adjusted the floor lamp so we could see better. I gasped as the label came into view. It was Mitzi Mullins’s old prescription bottle. The lid was off, and the capsules that had been broken open upstairs on her dresser must have been the same ones we were laying our eyes on right then.

  Hardy and I eyeballed each other. “Whoever was in that bathroom must have forgot they’d left the old prescription bottle and went back to get it.”

  “Too late though,” I said, feeling smug. “We saw it first.”

  “You got yourself some clue or something?” This from Matilda.

  “Looks an awful lot like someone is stealing prescription drugs,” I offered, setting aside the bag.

  She set down her paper and pen. “You’ll get them, LaTisha. You and my boy. You two eat yet?”

  “No, ma’am,” Hardy answered her. “I’ll go down to the cafeteria with you. Some of the lunch crowd is already finished so we shouldn’t have to wait long.”

  Matilda tugged off her reading glasses. “Never you mind. That nice man next door is taking me down.”

  Hardy and I exchanged a look before he asked, “You mean Thomas?”

  “Won’t Gertrude be mad?” I asked.

  She placed her glasses on the side table and made to rise. Hardy gave her a hand up. “He’s not worried about her.” She smoothed her hair and straightened her purple blouse. “He is a charmer. And no, I haven’t lost my head over him, neither. I’m too old for that nonsense. At my age I can afford to flirt a bit and have some fun without anyone thinking I’m easy.”

  Someone knocked on the door. Matilda glanced at the wall clock. “He’s right on time. Get that for me, Hardy. I need to go.” She slipped into the bathroom and shut the door as Hardy greeted Thomas.

  Thomas.

  He was right here.

  And I was read
y.

  But his next action put time into real slow motion. Thomas showed me his grill-work, then reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a silver wrapped candy, peeled off the foil, and popped it into his mouth.

  Hardy clapped him on the back, you know, like men do to each other. Makes me think their tonsils might fly out their mouths. Anyhow, Thomas headed my way. I got vertical and leaned in toward him as he greeted me.

  “Good to see you again—”

  That’s all he got out before I inhaled deeply right in his face. “You sure are minty fresh.”

  He withdrew his hand but laughed out loud. “My favorite flavor has always been mint.”

  “You take some where ever you go?”

  “Well, yes.” He got a strange look on his face.

  “Can I have one?”

  His movements were a little more deliberate as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a candy. I caught Hardy’s eye where he hung over Thomas’s shoulder, eyes huge, like he was witnessing the cheese slipping off my cracker.

  As soon as that little silver wrapper made contact with the palm of my hand, I knew. Dr. Kwan had been right. I untwisted the wrapper and popped the mint into my mouth, examining the wrapper as excitement built in my chest.

  I speared Thomas hard with my eyes. “You know—” I held up the wrapper—“I found one of these by Polly’s treadmill after she fell. You have anything to say on that?” I figured I’d lead him to the confessional but wouldn’t force him inside. If he didn’t want to come clean, I’d push a little harder. But I think he saw something in my face.

  We stood eyeball to eyeball for a full minute before Matilda’s return from the bathroom jarred us out of our stand-off.

  “I’m ready now, Thomas,” Matilda said, still rubbing her hands together from putting on the lotion she always used after washing up.

  Thomas backed down first, seeming to collapse into himself a bit. He stared at his hands as if he saw something we didn’t, and I readied myself for the confession of a killer.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “It’s not what you might think,” were the last words out of Thomas’s mouth before he buried his face in his hands and started sobbing.