Murder of a Sweet Old Lady srm-2

by Denise Swanson

By the conclusion, everyone had four or five things and little was left to be sold.

  Besides the table, Skye ended up with an old trunk, an incomplete set of pink crystal wineglasses, and the everyday dishes. No one mentioned Bingo, and she didn’t remind them.

  As they all got ready to leave, May cleared her throat. “I have one more announcement.”

  They all looked at her expectantly.

  “Chief Boyd found the body of Mrs. Jankowski yesterday in the abandoned well out back. With her, they found a pan of brownies, which they believe were poisoned. They were probably responsible for Mom and the housekeeper’s deaths.”

  The room was filled with voices asking questions.

  May shook her head. “That’s all I know.”

  The family broke into clots, hauling away their loot and whispering about May’s announcement.

  Skye walked out with her parents and Vince. They were the first to go, leaving the others still picking over the last little items.

  As Vince loaded Skye’s table into the Olds, he asked her, “Why didn’t you take one of the more valuable items when it was your turn?”

  “Like I said, this was Grandma’s favorite piece.” Skye paused.

  “There’s something more,” Vince prodded.

  Skye reddened. “Well, not that I believed her, but she used to say it was magical.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Early To Bed

  Skye sat on the closed toilet seat and watched her mother put on makeup at the counter. Saturday night and nothing to do. Even my parents have plans. My life sucks.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go tonight. Mom only died a few days ago and it feels sort of funny to be going out.”

  “The Grandma I knew wouldn’t want you to sit at home and cry. She’d be the first one to arrive at the party and the last to leave.”

  Tears ran down May’s cheek. “You’re probably right, but I sure do miss her. I find myself holding the phone and dialing her number before I remember she’s gone.”

  “Our after-school visits meant a lot to me.” Skye handed her mother a tissue. “More than I realized at the time. She was quite a ‘high-spirited’ young lady, as they used to say. I kind of got the feeling her family married her off to Grandpa to calm her down.”

  May blotted her eyes and blew her nose. “She never would talk about that with me. She wouldn’t even tell me how Dad proposed or about their first date.”

  “Grandma said that the marriage had been arranged after her original fiancé died.”

  “I never knew that.” May wiped away another tear. “Will you write all this down so you don’t forget?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I taped all our conversations.”

  “Good.” May took a deep breath and turned back to the mirror. After a few seconds, she held out two containers of eyeshadow. “Which do you think would look better with my dress?”

  “You’re wearing the taupe silk?” Skye studied the palettes. “Go with the shades of wine; I think the brown would wash you out.”

  Nodding, May began the delicate operation of applying the color to the crease of her eyelid. “You sure you don’t want to go to the wedding reception with us?”

  “Mom, I wasn’t invited, remember?” Skye studied her mother’s handiwork.

  “They probably forgot you were back in town.” May clicked the case shut and reached for her mascara. “You really don’t need an invitation. The announcement in the paper said all friends and relatives were welcome. It’s not like it’s a sit-down dinner.”

  “No, I barely remember these people. Who are they again?”

  “They’re your dad’s second cousins.” May carefully colored her lips. “What will you do while we’re gone? I don’t like the thought of you moping around here by yourself.”

  “I am not moping. Maybe I’ll take a ride, or visit Vince or Charlie. Simon’s got a wake tonight, but we’re going out tomorrow for brunch.”

  “How about Trixie? Now that she’s back in town you should try and get together with her sometime.” May stood back from the mirror and checked her face.

  “It’s a Saturday night, and she is married, so I don’t think this is the time.”

  “Married. Seems like everyone’s doing that lately.” May shot Skye a meaningful look before walking out of the bathroom.

  Thirty minutes after her parents left, Skye sat in the La-Z-Boy with Bingo ensconced on her lap. She was flipping through TV channels, but most programs were reruns of things she hadn’t wanted to watch the first time around. Six o’clock on a Saturday night offered poor television viewing.

  She reached for the phone, careful to leave the cat undisturbed. No answer at Vince’s.

  Next, she tried Charlie, who was just leaving for a poker game with his buddies.

  Skye frowned when she heard this. “But, Uncle Charlie, I thought you weren’t going to gamble anymore, after you almost lost everything last fall.”

  His usual booming voice sounded sheepish. “We play for toothpicks. No money is involved.”

  “Oh, well, I still don’t think it’s a good idea. It feeds your addiction.” Skye sat up straighter.

  Bingo opened one eye and glared.

  “Why don’t you come with me? It’s just Eldon, Homer, and a couple of other old guys. Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “I can’t see me playing poker with the mayor and the high school principal. Thanks anyway, Uncle Charlie. Have a good time.”

  She sat stroking Bingo for a moment, then got up and grabbed her purse. The cat gave a single sharp meow before settling into the warm spot on the chair Skye had vacated. Skye dumped the bag’s contents on the sofa and searched for the piece of paper with Trixie’s number on it.

  Her wallet, checkbook, sunglasses case, and cosmetic pouch were quickly examined, and thrown back in the tote’s gaping maw. Then she made a pile of things for the trash. This is pathetic. I’m cleaning out my purse for entertainment on a Saturday night.

  Finally, the only things remaining were two crumpled sheets of paper. She smoothed the smallest and found what she had been looking for. Skye scooped up the receiver and punched in Trixie’s number.

  On the sixth ring, Trixie answered, just as Skye was thinking of hanging up.

  Skye could hear other people’s voices. “Hi, this is Skye. Is this a bad time?”

  Trixie lowered her voice. “Depends on your frame of reference. We have my in-laws over for the weekend.”

  “Oh, well. I thought you’d probably be busy, but I decided to check just in case you were free. I was thinking we could get together.” Skye hoped the disappointment didn’t show in her words.

  “They’re leaving tomorrow. How about lunch on Monday? You are out of school now, right?”

  “Yes, thank goodness. Monday would be great. Want to go into Kankakee and do some shopping too?”

  “Sounds good to me. Shall I pick you up around ten?” Trixie asked.

  “Ten’s good, but let me pick you up. I’m not sure where I’ll be.” After Skye explained about the broken windows, they hung up.

  Skye gathered the pile of trash she had accumulated from her purse, and walked out to the waste can in the kitchen. As she tossed in everything, a crinkled paper fell to the floor. She picked it up and flattened it out.

  Written in crude printing, all in capital letters, was: “BITCH! KWIT STIKKIN YER NOSE IN OTHER PEEPLES BIZNESS.”

  Shaken, Skye sat at the counter and stared at the hateful message. In a few minutes she drew a shaky breath, stood, and got a Ziploc from the drawer. Edging the page into the plastic bag with a pencil eraser, she sealed the top, and put it in her purse. She knew she had probably already destroyed any fingerprints, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d bet money this was the work of Hap Doozier, or maybe Gus Yoder’s father.

  After Skye had dropped the note off with the dispatcher at the police department, she decided to cruise the downtown area of Scumble River. As a teenager she had spent many Friday and Saturday evenin
gs riding from one end of town to the other. The kids started at Mayor Clapp’s used car lot on the north end of Basin Street, and looped around the McDonald’s at the far south extreme. Some called it “shooting the loop”; others labeled it “buzzing the gut.”

  From the parade of cars crawling slowly by and the honking of horns, it appeared that this tradition had not changed.

  Skye rolled down the window and turned up the radio. Pam Tillis was singing about lost love and squandered dreams.

  When the song ended, the disc jockey’s voice oozed out of the speakers. “This is WCCQ, the Love and Desperation Hour. What can I play for you?”

  A low-pitched baritone answered. “ ‘I’m Having a Bad Day’ by The Charlie Stewart Band.”

  “You got a dedication for that?” the DJ asked.

  After a pause the caller answered, “It’s to SD.”

  “Who from?”

  Another pause. “Let’s just say I’m hoping she can figure that out.”

  Skye thought, SD could be me. That voice did sound sort of familiar. Nah.

  She was almost to the south turnaround when she abruptly decided to swing into McDonald’s rather than circle it. Skye parked the Buick, then flipped down the visor and used its mirror to straighten her hair. The open window had allowed her curls to be whipped into a beehive. While she was at it, she powdered her nose and added a light coat of lipstick.

  Her white shorts and navy striped polo had managed to ride up, exposing her upper thighs and midriff. She smoothed her clothes down as she exited the car. Her Keds squeaked on the cooling asphalt.

  The glare blinded her for a moment when she pushed open the door, but she made her way instinctively to the counter. The line wasn’t long and she was able to order her ice cream in a few minutes.

  The girl behind the counter handed her the clear plastic dish and said, “Here you go, Ms. Denison. You were awesome breaking up that fight last night.”

  Skye recognized her from the high school, but couldn’t remember her name. “Thanks. Did the kids know Gus was going to sneak in?”

  The girl’s face reddened, and she muttered as she turned to wait on another customer. “Some.”

  Oh, no, I broke another taboo. I asked one kid to rat on another. There goes my “awesome” reputation. Skye shook her head.

  Sweeping her eyes across the room, Skye headed for one in the back corner. She liked to observe without being watched herself. As she neared her favorite table, she noticed it was occupied and started to veer to the next one on the right.

  A voice stopped her. “Come sit with me.”

  When she hesitated, Chief Boyd added, “I’m having a bad day.”

  Skye slid into his booth and glanced across at him. He appeared haggard. The skin around his eyes was papery looking. “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged. “Better now.”

  Alarms were going off in Skye’s head. He was not dressed in his uniform and thus probably off duty. Why would a married man with no children be alone at Mc-Donald’s on a Saturday night?

  The silence grew awkward and she rushed to fill the gap with words. “Ah, gee, I was just at the police station. I found a threatening note in my purse so I dropped it off.”

  “What did it say?” Wally sat forward with a look of concern.

  She told him, and he shook his head. “Sure seems that someone is not too happy with you. First your tires, then your windows, and now this. What have you been doing to tick people off?”

  “My job.” Skye made a face. “It’s not uncommon for parents to blame others for their children’s failings.”

  “Yeah, some of those kids I get in at the police station, I just want to shake some sense into them. The first thing out of their mouths is: ‘It’s not my fault.’ ”

  “Oh, it’s never their fault. And what amazes me is eighty percent of the time the parents think that way too.”

  “Yes, and these are the same kids who say to their folks: ‘It’s my life,’ and ‘You’re not my boss.’ It doesn’t make sense. If they really believe that it’s their life and their parents aren’t their boss, then there is no one to blame but themselves.”

  “Too bad the parents would sue us if we said half of what we’re really thinking.” Skye snorted inelegantly, then realized what she had done and felt a blush start up her cheeks.

  Wally didn’t help. He just looked at her with a goofy smile.

  Skye glanced around. If anyone overheard their conversation, they would think she and Wally didn’t care about the kids they worked with. But in truth they were probably more concerned than the parents who let their children run wild. Like all people in high-stress professions, they needed to vent.

  When the silence lengthened, Skye once again searched for a topic of conversation. “So, what’s new with my grandmother’s case?”

  She saw disappointment flash in his eyes before he recovered his usual mild expression. “They’ve found that her housekeeper was murdered using the same poison.”

  “Just as we suspected. Now the question becomes, why was my grandmother left in her bed, but Mrs. Jankowski dumped in the well?”

  He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “My guess is that whoever did it thought your grandmother’s death would be written off to old age, and no one would bother to find some poor Polish woman with no relatives or friends.”

  “Or maybe they didn’t expect Mrs. Jankowski to die. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to get hold of the brownies.” Skye, too, leaned forward, lowering her voice. “My aunts were always fighting about what Mrs. J ate. They’d bring a plate of cookies for Grandma, who would eat one or two, and then Mrs. J would polish off the rest.”

  “If I remember correctly, the contents of both stomachs were similar.”

  “Did you find anything when you went through the house?”

  “Yes. Someone had been violently ill, but the mess had been cleaned up. This supports the physical evidence the doctor found the day she was murdered. He found signs that she had vomited, but had been cleaned up. We found dirty rags, one of your grandmother’s dresses, and a set of her underclothing. It was all stuffed down that well.”

  “That was what Simon was referring to the night of the murder when he said they had found irregularities.”

  A line formed between Wally’s brows. “This is the way I think it went down. The murderer brought over the poisoned brownies. Gave them to your grandma to eat, waited, and when she got sick, cleaned her up. This person changed her into her nightgown and put her to bed.”

  “Where was Mrs. J while this was going on?” Skye shredded a napkin.

  The chief twiddled the straw in his drink. “The murderer must have told her to relax, they would take care of your grandmother. And while she waited, Mrs. J ate a brownie.”

  “Did the killer clean her up too?”

  The chief shook his head. “Nope, just stuffed her down the well, along with her belongings, and the remaining brownies.”

  “So, the murderer went back inside, straightened up, and then disposed of the rest of the evidence.”

  Wally shrugged. “That’s how it looks.”

  “Any suspects besides my family?”

  “No, it’s pretty unlikely that it was an outsider.” He took a swallow of his Coke. “It’s also damn hard to find the killer when it’s a family member. Everyone sticks together, and no one will say anything about the other.”

  “Whoever did it had to be strong enough to get that well cover on and off. That eliminates the women.” Skye ate a spoonful of her melting ice cream.

  “Maybe not. We found signs that a chain and a car were used to move the well cover.”

  “And you said a wagon was used to move Mrs. J’s body so I guess that means anyone could have managed it physically.”

  They were silent as Skye ate her sundae and the chief finished his drink.

  Skye scraped the last drizzle of chocolate from the container and wiped her lips with her napkin. “Thanks for telling me all this.�
�

  Wally pushed the debris to one side of the table. “You know I trust you.”

  She felt her face get hot and half rose from the booth. “Well, I’d better get going.”

  “Could you stay a little while longer?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you hear the dedication on CCQ?”

  Skye nodded. “The song about having a bad day?”

  “Yes.” Wally looked down at his clenched hands. “I thought I saw you drive by and hoped you had your radio tuned to WCCQ. I really wanted to talk to you.”

  Skye sat back down. “Okay.”

  “Darleen’s left me.”

  “Oh.” Skye couldn’t think of anything to say. The pain in his eyes made her want to reach out and comfort him, but deep down she knew that wasn’t a good idea so she settled for saying, “I’m so sorry.”

  He buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t see it coming, but now that I look back I wonder how dumb I could be. She’s never been a happy person.”

  “No, from the little I know her, I’d say she has a lot of characteristics of someone who is chronically depressed.” Skye frowned. She probably should have tried harder to connect with Darleen and gotten her some help.

  As if reading her mind, Wally said, “I made her see a therapist and counselors, but she never cooperated with them.”

  “You really can’t help someone who isn’t ready.” Skye felt as if she were trying to walk on bubble wrap without popping any of the air pockets. “What happened that made her leave?”

  “Well, you know that she’s always wanted to have kids and we’ve never been able to?”

  Skye nodded, remembering Darleen’s desperation to have a baby. It had almost been Darleen’s downfall last autumn during a murder investigation.

  “She met a guy in her Bible study group whose wife died in childbirth. He already had two small children and now a newborn . . .”

  “So she’s in love?” Skye sighed. “The maternal instinct is a tough one to overcome.”

  “Yes.” Wally reached across the table and took Skye’s hands. “I feel so helpless.”

  Looking down at their intertwined hands, Skye searched for the right words. “I don’t know what to say. Did you just find out?”