Patchwork Peril (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery)

by Lois Winston

  “Rosalie?” I called her name as I made my way into the dining room. The last thing I wanted to do was give the woman a heart attack—assuming she hadn’t already had one. She didn’t answer.

  Rosalie lived in an expanded Cape Cod-style house with a living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom on the first floor, plus two additional bedrooms and another bathroom on the second floor. As I walked through the dining room into the living room, I yelled louder, “Rosalie? It’s Anastasia. Are you all right?”

  I poked my head into the downstairs bedroom she used as her quilting room, the other bedroom, and the bathroom. I then made my way upstairs. No Rosalie anywhere. Back in the living room, I grabbed the remote from her coffee table and switched off the Home Shopping Network.

  By now dread had settled into every corpuscle of my body. The only place left to look was the basement. I headed back into the kitchen and opened the door leading to the basement stairs. Rosalie lay sprawled and unmoving at the bottom of the steps.

  TWO

  I raced down the stairs, dropped to my knees, and felt for a pulse. My medical training didn’t extend much beyond taking temperatures, doling out Tylenol, and kissing booboos, but eventually my probing fingers found a weak pulse in Rosalie’s neck. At least she was alive. For now. But her gray pallor and the gash to her head, suggested she wouldn’t last long without medical intervention.

  Given the dishes in the sink, I suspected Rosalie had fallen last night right after dinner. An empty laundry basket lay upturned on the concrete floor a few feet from her body. She’d probably seen the storm approaching as she began to wash her dinner dishes, gone to the basement for the laundry basket, and fallen on her way back upstairs—either from tripping, fainting, or something far more serious.

  I whipped out my phone and called 9-1-1 again. Since I’d actually found Rosalie injured and in need of immediate medical attention, I was taken more seriously this time and was told an ambulance was on its way. One arrived in less than five minutes.

  While the two paramedics worked on her, one of them asked me to locate her purse. The hospital would need her ID, insurance, and Medicare cards. I found the purse hanging in her downstairs coat closet and handed it to one of the men after they’d loaded Rosalie into the ambulance. Then I raced home to grab my own purse to follow them to the hospital.

  Not an easy task, considering all the downed trees and power lines scattered throughout town. The more I inched my way around detours and through intersections without working traffic lights, the more I realized how much my neighbors and I had dodged a gale force bullet.

  Thousands of people throughout the area had no power. Many had crushed cars and damage to their homes from all the felled trees and broken limbs. The Nor’easter hadn’t lasted more than a few hours, and although not nearly the caliber of Superstorm Sandy, the destruction, at least in some areas, came in a close second.

  The normally fifteen minute drive to the hospital took me nearly an hour. Hopefully, the ambulance had made better time. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have bothered making the trip. Privacy laws would prevent the staff from divulging any details of Rosalie’s condition to me. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking clearly when I jumped in my car. However, since I was there, maybe someone would at least tell me if she’d survive.

  I gave my name to the woman behind the information desk in the emergency room. “An ambulance brought Mrs. Rosalie Schneider in a little while ago.”

  The admissions clerk glanced up from her computer screen and peered at me through an enormous pair of octagonal red-framed glasses that clashed against a head of over-processed orange frizz. Her ID badge gave her name as Willow Krause, a name completely at odds with the woman sitting behind the glass partition. Bordering on obese, Willow Krause was anything but a willow. “Are you a relative?” she asked.

  “No, I’m—”

  She stopped me mid-sentence to rattle off hospital policy.

  “Mrs. Schneider has a niece who should be notified,” I said. Someone needed to advocate for Rosalie. Not that I knew her wishes, but an unconscious woman certainly couldn’t make decisions regarding her own medical care.

  “Do you have contact information for her?”

  “No, she lives somewhere in the Midwest, I believe. I don’t even know her name.”

  “No local family?”

  “None that I know of.”

  The woman turned her attention to her keyboard and began typing. “I see we have Mrs. Schneider’s records from a previous admission last year. Her niece’s phone number is listed. We’ll contact her.” Then she dismissed me by summoning the next person queued up in the waiting room.

  I took the none-too-subtle hint. As I exited the hospital, I braced myself for the many detours awaiting me on my trip home.

  *

  I spent most of the remainder of the afternoon raking up storm debris, first on my property, then on Rosalie’s. Someone had to do it, and crowds of volunteers weren’t fighting each other for the honor of cleaning up Rosalie’s yard.

  After I finished, I showered and changed my clothes, then called the hospital, hoping for some information on Rosalie’s condition. The woman on the other end of the line wouldn’t tell me anything other than visiting hours ended at eight o’clock. I took that as a good sign and decided to forego more weekend chores in favor of paying Rosalie a visit.

  *

  The blinking and beeping equipment in Rosalie’s room indicated she was still in a coma and not merely sleeping. I had convinced myself otherwise, that allowing visitors meant she’d awakened. My heart sank as I stood beside her bed and stared down at her.

  She wore a cast on her right hand and wrist, another on her left foot, propped up on a pillow at the base of the bed. An IV tube snaked from a suspended drip bag into her left arm. Various wires ran from the machines and disappeared under the lightweight blanket draped over her frail body. Up until yesterday Rosalie could shave ten years off her age, and no one would question her. Today she looked every bit a mid-octogenarian and then some.

  The door swooshed open, and a nurse entered to change the nearly empty IV bag. “Will she come out of it?” I asked.

  She finished her task and turned to me. “The doctors are quite optimistic. You’re her niece?”

  “No, I’m the neighbor who discovered her.”

  The nurse frowned. “Oh. I really can’t discuss her condition with you.”

  “I understand. Is her niece on the way?”

  “We were told she’d arrive this afternoon.” The nurse then hurried out of the room.

  I pulled a chair up to Rosalie’s bed, clasped her good hand, and settled in for a nonstop, one-way conversation. Somewhere I’d read talking to comatose patients helped them regain consciousness. Or maybe that was an old wives tale. Either way, I figured it couldn’t hurt.

  Half an hour later, all talked out, I stood to leave. As I reached for the door handle, the door swung inward, and a corporate-looking woman with a Rubenesque figure entered the room. She wore a deep eggplant power suit over a celery green silk blouse and eggplant suede stilettos. Her shoulder-length ebony hair was tucked behind her ears, the better to show off diamond studs the equivalent of a year at Harvard. (Ever since Dead Louse of a Spouse gambled away our kids’ college funds, I tend to see material possessions in terms of tuition payments.)

  A thickly trowelled layer of makeup attempted—unsuccessfully—to disguise her age, which I pegged at somewhere north of fifty. Rosalie’s brown Coach purse, along with a Louis Vuitton black leather tote, hung from her right shoulder. She dragged a rolling suitcase with the iconic LV logo behind her.

  “You must be Rosalie’s niece,” I said, suddenly too aware of my bleach-stained jeans and faded Defy Gravity T-shirt.

  She nodded. “And you are?”

  “Anastasia Pollack. Rosalie’s neighbor.”

  “The one who found her?”

  “Yes.”

  She parked the suitcase and ex
tended her hand. “Jane Sherman. My aunt is fortunate she has someone like you looking out for her.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “We’ve never met.”

  “Oh?”

  “Family feud going back before I was born.”

  “Yet you flew halfway across the country for her?”

  She shrugged. “Obligation, I suppose. The two of us are all that’s left of the family. She’ll probably toss me out on my rear the moment she wakes up.”

  “Must have been some feud.”

  Jane rolled her eyes before glancing toward the bed. “To look at her now, lying there so frail and pathetic, you’d never suspect the vindictive nature of the woman.”

  “Vindictive? Not the Rosalie Schneider I know.” Although, she never had a kind word to say about either of her next-door neighbors, I found most of Rosalie’s complaints justified. One neighbor’s dogs barked constantly, and the other neighbor came and went at all hours of the night on a Hog that could be heard half a mile away.

  “Perhaps she’s mellowed with age. Anyway, there’s no point hanging around here while she’s still in a coma. I only stopped by for her keys so I can get into the house.”

  She spun on her heels and headed for the door but stopped and turned back before exiting. “Any chance I can hitch a ride to Westfield with you instead of calling a cab? It cost me a fortune to get here from the airport.”

  I couldn’t really say no, could I? Besides, Jane had unleashed my curiosity gene. What had happened all those years ago to cause such bad blood between Rosalie and other members of her family? And given all that bad blood, why would she list her niece as the emergency contact on her hospital forms? Not that I wanted any more obligations in my life since I was already saddled with the communist mother-in-law from Hell, but I was certainly closer to Rosalie than this niece she’d never met.

  However, Jane remained vague on details during the drive back to Westfield. I learned little other than she was single, worked in finance, and had a friend from college who’d moved to New Jersey a few years ago. “Basking Ridge,” she said. “Is that anywhere near here?”

  “About half an hour away.”

  “Excellent.”

  A few minutes later I pulled into Rosalie’s driveway. “If you need anything, my house is directly behind this one. Rosalie has my number next to her phone in the kitchen.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thanks for the lift.”

  “How long do you plan to stay?”

  “That all depends on Rosalie and whether or not she recovers.”

  “What about your job?”

  She patted her tote. “As long as I have my computer, I can work anywhere.”

  *

  Later that night I remembered Rosalie’s quilts. The queen-size Wedding Ring, along with a twin Star of Bethlehem and a full-sized Dutchman’s Puzzle still occupied a large section of my dining room table. I placed them in a heavy-duty plastic trash bag, slipped into my Wellies, and headed out the back door.

  Light from Rosalie’s kitchen cast a soft glow over her yard. As I approached the back door, I noticed two silhouettes through the white linen curtain covering the kitchen window. Jane’s college friend must be visiting. Not wanting to intrude on the reunion, I decided to head back home and deliver the quilts another day.

  THREE

  Not that I had anything against her, but Jane struck me as someone who wouldn’t spend time at the hospital, talking to a virtual stranger in a coma. For that reason I felt obligated to visit Rosalie as often as possible. After dinner Monday night, I drove back to the hospital. With all the roads now clear and power restored, I made the trip in the usual fifteen minutes.

  I found Rosalie propped up in bed. The gray pallor gone, she looked amazingly well for a woman who had tumbled down a flight of stairs, broken several bones, and fallen into a coma three days ago.

  “I’m so happy to see you awake,” I said.

  She offered me a weak smile. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “What was the last thing you remember?”

  “Realizing I needed to grab the quilts off the clothesline before the rain started.” She sighed. “I suppose they’re ruined.”

  “No, they’re sitting on my dining room table. Freshly laundered.”

  “Thank you so much.” Her brow wrinkled. “You’re…?”

  “Anastasia. Your neighbor.”

  “Of course, dear. I’m sorry. Everything is so fuzzy.

  “The doctors said Aunt Rosalie might experience some minor memory loss until her brain fully heals,” said Jane, stepping out of the attached bathroom. She carried a vase filled with gold and russet mums that she placed on the windowsill.

  “When will they release you?” I asked Rosalie.

  Jane answered for her. “Possibly tomorrow.”

  “And you’ll stay with her until she’s fully recovered?”

  “Of course.”

  “I can fend for myself,” said Rosalie. “Always have, always will.”

  “With a broken wrist and ankle?” asked Jane.

  “I’ll manage.”

  Jane sighed. “Aunt Rosalie, whatever happened between you and my mother has nothing to do with me. She and my father have been gone for years. Don’t you think it’s time you moved on and we got to know each other?”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have no other family.”

  “And this just occurred to you? After how many years? If you’re angling to inherit, you can forget it. With the exception of a few bequests, I’m leaving all my money to charity. And don’t think you’ll be able to contest the will. I was of totally sound mind when I signed it.”

  Jane waved her hand across her body. Today she wore a pair of navy wool crepe slacks paired with a muted gold silk oxford shirt and a classic Hermes scarf. The scarf alone cost more than my entire outfit. “Do I look like I need your money?” she asked.

  Rosalie turned to me. “She just suddenly appeared out the blue.”

  “The hospital called her,” I said. “You listed her as your next of kin.”

  “Only because I had to. It was either give them her name or lie and say I had no family. I don’t lie.” She narrowed her gaze at Jane. “Unlike some people.”

  Jane’s hand flew to her chest, and her lower lip quivered as she spoke. “I haven’t lied to you.”

  “I’m not talking about you.”

  I placed my hand on Jane’s arm. “Why don’t you get a cup of coffee?”

  She sniffed. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her while I’m gone. I only want what’s best for her.”

  After she left the room, I pulled a chair up to Rosalie’s bed. “Why the hostility?” I asked.

  “How would you feel if you caught your husband cheating on you with your sister?”

  About as well as I felt after learning my own husband cheated on me with Lady Luck, then left me penniless and saddled with his curmudgeon of a mother after he dropped dead in Las Vegas.

  But Rosalie didn’t know the details of my widowhood, and I meant to keep it that way from her and every other one of my neighbors. Gossip travels fast in a small town. “Is Jane a product of that affair?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t give the bastard a divorce. They never married. Or if they did, he was a bigamist on top of being a philanderer.”

  “Jane said her last name is Sherman. How did you even know about her?”

  “My father hired a private investigator to track down Freddie and Norma—my husband and sister—after they ran off. Freddie had worked for my father. He not only ran off with Norma, he absconded with the week’s payroll. The detective found them about a year later, living in Omaha under assumed names. Jane was already born by then. My father never told me.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I came across paperwork when I was settling his estate. He’d disowned Norma, but he set up a trust fund for Jane. That’s how I had her contact information fo
r the hospital.”

  I took her good hand in mine. “What your husband and sister did to you was terrible, Rosalie, but you can’t blame Jane.”

  “I know it’s not rational, but looking at her brings back all the hurt and betrayal. I never wanted to meet her. After more than half a century, the pain is as fresh as the day I walked in on them.” She cringed. “Going at it like a couple of rutting sheep.”

  I suspected Jane’s parents told their daughter a much different tale regarding her aunt. Jane had called Rosalie vindictive. Not that I didn’t believe Rosalie, but perhaps the truth lay somewhere in-between. “Maybe you should give Jane a chance. You can’t function on your own with casts on your arm and foot.”

  “I have friends.”

  “Most of whom are your age or older. Would any of them really be able to manage helping you bathe, dress, get to a doctor’s appointment?”

  Rosalie heaved a deep sigh and shook her head. “Doubtful.”

  “It’s either Jane or hiring a home health aide.”

  She made a face. “I don’t want strangers in my home.”

  “Jane isn’t a stranger; she’s family. Estranged family, but family all the same.” Which is what I constantly remind myself whenever the urge strikes to strangle my mother-in-law.

  “I’m a bitter, old woman who had her life stolen from her. I wanted children. Desperately. They took that from me.” She spit out a sardonic laugh. “Do you realize in addition to being my niece, since Freddie and I never divorced, Jane is also my stepdaughter? How ironic is that?”

  “It does sound like something out of a soap opera.”

  “I suppose I have no choice, do I?”

  Before I could answer, Jane entered the room. She carried a cardboard take-out tray containing three cups. “I thought you might like some, too,” she said, handing me one of the cups. Then she passed the remaining cup to Rosalie. “I brought you chamomile tea. It should help you sleep.”

  Rosalie scowled. “I’ve been asleep for three days.” When she caught my frown, she added, “But thank you. That was very considerate.”

  “And?” I prompted her.