by Laura Alden
“Are you all right, Bethie?” Maude Hoffman looked at me.
Thanks to Auntie May, I was now known throughout Sunny Rest Assisted Living as Bethie. No one, not even my younger brother in his very youngest days, had ever called me Bethie. “Fine, thanks.”
“Oh, dear, I’m not sure you’re telling the truth.” She turned to my son. “Oliver, does she look fine?”
“Um.” His face squinched up as he looked at me. “She has been moving kind of funny. Did you see how slow she sat down?”
“Yes, indeedy. I also noticed how tight she held on to those chair arms.” Maude reached forward and patted my knee. The slight thudding made me wince. “It was a beautiful night last night,” she said. “Did we go for a long walk?”
“Bike ride.” Oliver bounced a little on Maude’s bed. “A long, long one. Jenna and Mom and me all went.”
I wanted to correct his grammar, but I lacked the energy. Just getting through the day had taken a lot out of me. Three miles, for crying out loud. Three!
“What a nice thing for a family to do.” Maude smiled. “My sisters and I all had bicycles. In the summers we rode all over town. To the soda fountain, to the movies, to the train station to see who was coming in.”
I tapped Oliver and made scribbly writing motions with my hand. He stared at me blankly, then his eyes opened wide. He bent over his notebook and started taking notes.
Maude went on talking. “The girls were just starting to wear pants back then. Not to school, of course. Never to school. And if we’d worn pants to church surely God would have stricken us dead. But most parents let their girls play outside in jeans. So much easier for riding a bicycle than a dress.” She paused and looked at Oliver. “Where did you go on your long bike ride?”
“We went to the lake and back.”
“Blue Lake?” Maude asked.
Too late, I remembered where her great-niece had drowned. I steeled myself for another bout of tears and damp handkerchiefs.
Maude leaned forward in her wheelchair. “Did you find anything? See anything?”
“Did I . . . ?”
“You’re starting the investigation, aren’t you?” She sat back. “That’s why you biked all the way out there instead of driving, isn’t it? Keeping a low profile.” She clasped her hands and her lower lip trembled. “And now you hurt yourself trying to help me. When this is all over, I’ll find a way to repay you.”
Oliver stopped writing. He looked at me with a puzzled expression. “But, Mom, we didn’t—”
“Honey,” I said, “could you do me a favor? Do you think you can find Mrs. Judy? The activities director? Can you ask her if we can use the Sunny Rest copy machine at the end of today’s session? Thanks, sweetie.”
He scampered off. I turned back to Maude. Studied her, saw hope and expectation shining on her face. She’d believed me when I’d told her I’d try to help. I’d pushed her request to the back of my mind, vaguely hoping for a small bout of amnesia, and now I was being hoist on my own petard.
I reached for Oliver’s notebook and turned to a fresh page. Fetched a pen from my purse and uncapped it. Smiled. “What else can you tell me about Kelly?”
A light voice coughed. In the doorway stood Tracy, the nurse’s aide for Maude’s wing of Sunny Rest. “Maude, do you mind if I borrow Beth for a couple minutes?”
Maude held up two fingers. “That’s all you get.”
“You’re a peach.” Tracy blew her a kiss. “I’ll bring her back safe and sound, I promise.”
Maude tapped her watch. “One minute and fifty seconds,” she said with mock severity. “I’m not so old I can’t tell time.”
Out in the hallway, Tracy beckoned me over to a small alcove just big enough to hold a table and two chairs. A fresh jigsaw puzzle was spread out over the tabletop. My fingers itched to start putting edge pieces together, but I put my hands in my lap.
“The residents are just loving this story project,” Tracy said. “The ones who didn’t sign up are jealous of the ones who did. Lots of the residents have asked if we’re going to do this project again next year.”
This was something I hadn’t once considered. But since I rarely managed to think ahead more than twelve hours at a time, the fact that the idea hadn’t crossed my mind shouldn’t be a surprise. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see. I’ll talk to Judy and the PTA board and we’ll see.” Or not. Whatever.
“Sounds good.”
The words could have been delivered in an emphatic and decisive way. Instead, she let them out vaguely as she put two fingers on two puzzle pieces and slid them up and down. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on.
“Tracy, is there something you want to talk to me about?”
“Well . . .” She glanced over my shoulder, back toward Maude’s room. “It’s about Maude. There’s something you should know.”
I went very, very still. She’d been diagnosed with a degenerative muscle disease. She’d just this minute been diagnosed with a contagious disease and Oliver was at risk. She had cancer, had only three months left to live, and her nieces were moving her to Florida this weekend.
All this ran through my worried brain cells in a fraction of a second. If leaping to conclusions were a form of exercise, I’d be the fittest woman in Wisconsin. “She looks good for being eighty-something.” She’d told me that she’d broken her hip and it wasn’t healing quite right, hence the wheelchair and the assisted living.
“She is, mostly.” Tracy fiddled with the puzzle pieces. “Maybe I shouldn’t really say, but—” She slapped her hand to her waist. “Oh, drat. It’s my beeper.” She unclipped the black plastic rectangle, pushed some buttons, and stood. “Sorry, there’s a call I have to answer.” Her white plastic clogs padded down the carpeted hallway.
I watched her go. Don’t worry about Maude, I told myself. If there was a real problem, you’d know. Judy wouldn’t have Tracy give me the bad news, she’d tell me herself. Don’t worry.
It was good advice. Unfortunately, there was no way I was going to take it.
Chapter 9
Flossie tossed a black plastic garbage bag over the edge of the Dumpster. “Kelly Engel? Good heavens, that was a long time ago. Why on earth are you asking? You were still a child back then.”
I let the Dumpster’s lid slam shut. “We’re the same age.” Or would have been, if Kelly hadn’t died.
“Really?” Flossie studied the sky. Partly cloudy, the forecast had said. Which, to me, implies that it should also be partly sunny, but obviously partly cloudy meant something different to weather forecasters since the sky was coated with low, thick clouds. We watched the clouds slowly form, break up, and reform, until Flossie finally said, “Time is an odd thing.”
She paused, but since I couldn’t think of anything sensible to contribute, I stayed quiet.
Flossie dusted her hands against each other. “Kelly died just before I moved home from Chicago.” She shook her silvery curls. “Everyone wanted to forget what happened, you know. The lake was a safe place up until then. Rynwood was a safe place. Kelly drowned not long before the summer started. Hardly a kid swam in that lake until the heat came, in August.”
It was hard to imagine. The swimming beach at Blue Lake was a friendly space with an eagle-eyed lifeguard perched high on a chair that was painted white every spring. There was a swimming raft with a floppy diving board, buoys bobbing where the water started turning deep, and a pavilion for shelter when it rained. Picturing it empty throughout June and July was like picturing a deserted downtown two days before Christmas.
“Why the questions about Kelly?” Flossie asked. “I’m surprised you’ve even heard of her.”
I gave her a snapshot summary of the PTA senior story project. “And Oliver’s match is Maude Hoffman.”
Flossie nodded. Though she’d spent thirty-odd years in Chicago, she’d grown up in Rynwood. Local knowledge flowed through her blood and was impregnated into the marrow of her bones. “Maude
had a hard time with it, from what I heard. She was almost as much a mother to those girls as Barb was.”
“I’d say she’s still not over it. She’s convinced something happened that night that the police never discovered.”
“And she wants you to find out what? Hmm.” Flossie pursed her lips, creating an array of small vertical lines around her mouth. “Maude. Lovely lady, but there’s something you should—”
“Hey, boss?” A young man’s face peeked out of the grocery store’s rear entrance. “We got a problem up front. The scale won’t work and we got customers getting cranky about me not knowing diddly.”
“Be right there.” Flossie looked at me. “Give me a call, Beth. We need to talk.”
I watched her jog up the short run of steps, wishing that I could move with her grace, but even more, wondering what everybody thought I needed to know about Maude.
* * *
Ruthie, intrepid owner of the Green Tractor diner, shut the cash register with a light bang. “Kelly Engel? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in years.”
She got a faraway look on her face, then shook it off. “Here, come sit with me. We’ll have a nice cozy chat about Kelly and I’ll get Ian to bring you a cup of that tea you like so much. Ian? Can you get Beth here a carafe of hot water and a chai tea bag? Thanks, hon.”
I slid into the vacant booth she was patting. “Ruthie, you don’t need to fuss over me.”
“Yes, I do. I love to fuss, why do you think I opened this restaurant?”
Ian deposited tea and fixings in front of me, a mug of steaming coffee in front of Ruthie. We thanked him, and while I bobbed my tea bag, I watched Ruthie.
Ruthie’s age was in the vicinity of seventy. Not quite in Flossie’s range, but close enough to make me wonder where the stamina these women had came from. If it was genetic, I was out of luck. But maybe the city’s water supply was a secret source of energy for people over the age of sixty.
“So. Why Kelly Engel?” Ruthie asked. “And why now?”
Before I was halfway done with my explanation of the PTA’s story project, she was nodding, having made the mental leaps far faster than I could talk.
“Maude Hoffman. Is she partnered with . . . oh, Oliver?” A smile sent wrinkles shooting in new directions across her cheeks. “How nice for them both. I’m guessing Maudie wants you to find out what really happened that night. She’s a newspaper reader, front to back, and knows how you and Marina Neff have helped clean up this town. Quit denying it. You know it’s true. So. About Kelly.” She sipped her coffee, looking at me over the mug’s bright green ceramic rim. “What do you know already?”
“Just what Maude said. Blond, pretty, headed for college with plans to go to medical school. That she drowned in Blue Lake, right before her high school graduation. That people say she committed suicide.”
Ruthie sighed. “She didn’t tell you about Keith, did she?”
“Um . . .”
“Sounds like Maude.” She set her coffee mug down with a thump. “Keith Mathieson and Kelly had one of those storybook romances. When she was five and he was seven, he rescued her from being attacked by a dog. Happened at a neighborhood party.”
I listened, rapt.
“Kelly was off in a corner of the backyard, playing with someone’s German shepherd. Dog turned nasty for some reason. Knocked her to the ground and stood over her, growling, lip curled up, looking like he was about to take a big bite out of her. She started screaming like only little girls can. Keith was the closest. Ran over there fast as he could, grabbed one of those green plastic chairs, and pushed it at the dog until Kelly could get away.”
“He was only seven?” I breathed. “Amazing.”
“Yup.” Ruthie nodded. “Keith was the man of the hour. Got his picture in the paper and everything. After that, hardly a day went by without seeing those two together. Hero worship, at first, on Kelly’s part, but she grew out of that fast enough.”
“Not a good basis for a lasting relationship,” I murmured.
Ruthie waved at Ian with one hand while pointing at her coffee mug with the other. “Unless it’s the boy worshipping the girl. In my experience that works just fine.” She winked, laughing. “Anyway, those two grew up hand in hand. Went from the playground to junior high to high school without looking at anyone else. Everyone figured they’d get married someday. Kelly picked out her bridesmaids by the time she was thirteen.”
“But . . . ?”
Ian appeared with coffeepot in hand. “More hot water, Beth?” I shook my head and he went away.
Ruthie sniffed her mug. “The boy served me the bottom of the pot.” She took a sip and made a face. “Keith and Kelly. Remember Keith was two years older? They had it all planned out. Keith was enrolled in Wisconsin on the Milwaukee campus. Kelly could do her undergrad there, then she’d go to the Medical College of Wisconsin. All the plans they had.” She shook her head. “Makes you wonder, sometimes.”
Lots of things made me wonder. For instance, why was the number one button on a telephone on the upper left, but the number one button on a calculator on the lower left? And why did we always get one last snowfall the week after I put the snow shovels away?
“What was Keith studying?” I asked.
“Business.” She gave a short, barking laugh. “A business major. Hah! Give me those kids for six months and I’ll teach them more than they’ll learn in four years. Business. Please.”
“So what happened to their plans?” I asked.
“Her parents said Kelly came home from a date with Keith, crying, and wouldn’t talk about it. The next weekend she was dead.”
No wonder there was so much talk of suicide. “What a dreadful thing.”
“In a nutshell. Everybody in town blamed Keith for Kelly’s death. Her family had a heckuva time dealing with it. None of them would believe suicide. Kelly was a good Catholic, they said.”
“They must have suffered terribly.”
“Still are. At least her mother is. Her dad? Well, men can be hard to figure when grief comes around. Kelly’s sisters all moved away soon afterward, poor things. Home just wasn’t the same anymore, they said.”
No, how could it be? There’d always be a raw hole where there once was a living, breathing, laughing girl. And no matter how thick the scar, the pain would always, always be there.
“So I’m guessing Maude’s come over to Barb’s point of view?” Ruthie asked.
“She wanted me to find out what really went on that night,” I said slowly. “Barb is Kelly’s mother? What does she think?”
“That Kelly was murdered.”
* * *
I stood inside the door of the Rynwood Antique Mall, looking across the street at the police department. Rain dripped down onto the brick sidewalks, onto the heads of the people walking past, onto the green shrubberies lining the street, and onto the windshields of the passing cars.
Cindy Irving, who did most of the landscaping work for the downtown businesses, was the only person not hurrying to get inside. In a bright yellow rain slicker and rubber boots, she was also the only person dressed properly for the weather.
“Beth, do you want to borrow an umbrella?” Alan, co-owner of the mall, stood at the counter holding a black collapsible version. “I don’t think that rain’s going to quit for a while.”
“No, thanks.” I reached back, pulled up the hood of my light jacket, and renewed my hold on the bag of chocolate chip cookies that had been my excuse for leaving the store. “It would take me ages to remember to return it, and the guilt would ruin my sleep for weeks.”
Alan laughed, but it was an indulgent laugh at what he assumed was a joke. Clearly, he had no idea that I was serious.
With a deep breath for courage, I pushed open the door and splashed out into the rain. Wet, wet, wet. I tiptoed across the street, head down, trying to keep muddy splashes off my light beige pants. The rain poured down and by the time I made it to the police station, all I wanted was to be inside ou
t of the weather.
“Hi, can I help you?”
I shook off the rain onto the floor mat, tried to remember the new officer’s name, and couldn’t come up with even a bad guess. “Hi, I’m Beth Kennedy. I don’t think we’ve officially met.”
“Sean Zimmerman.” Standing, he held out his hand. “You own that bookstore.”
He was a few inches taller than my own five foot five, and had hair so short it was hard to determine its color. The square-ish shape to his face suited his solid body, and suited the uniform. He looked like a policeman should look.
“Did you grow up wanting to be in law enforcement?” I asked, shaking his firm—but not anywhere close to painful—grip.
“Every single Halloween I went as a cop,” he said, smiling.
How strange to always have known what you wanted to do. Maybe it was a guy thing; my physicist brother had been the same way. But, no. Marina always said she’d known she was destined to be a stay-at-home mom from the age of thirteen when she’d taken an occupational questionnaire and had no idea how to answer most of the questions.
“I mean, honestly,” she’d told me. “How was I supposed to answer a question like ‘What would you do if two superiors gave you different instructions?’” Rolling her eyes, she’d flicked her cheek with her index finger. “Do the work requested by the highest authority, do the work requested by the one I feel closest to, or ask for more time?” She’d made a buzzing noise. “I wrote in my own answer of ‘do nothing until those two get their act together’ and the next week the counselor called me into her office for a little chat.”
I smiled at Officer Zimmerman. “A framed set of your Halloween pictures would fit in nicely over there.” I indicated the wall of current officer photos.
“Yeah, as if I don’t look young enough already. Are you here to see Chief Eiseley?” the young man asked. “Because he’s not in right now.”
A fact of which I was well aware since I’d watched him walk down the street and into the Green Tractor. Whoever he was meeting there, he wouldn’t be back for at least half an hour, not if the last twenty years of Friday morning cinnamon rolls meant anything.