Old Promises
Page 10
Elsa-May rose to her feet. “Thank you, Alice.”
When Ettie stood as well, she said, “Would you happen to know what days Maria works at the hospital?”
“She seems to be there all the time. I know that because Mr. Marlborough often has to go there for blood transfusions and I always see her.”
They thanked Alice once more and asked her if she wouldn’t mind calling them a taxi.
Once Ettie and Elsa-May were in the taxi heading to the hospital, Elsa-May said, “Why did you tell her that about the stamps? She’ll be bitterly disappointed.”
“Let’s talk about that later. Right now, why are we going to the hospital?”
“Have you got anything wrong with you?” Elsa-May asked.
Ettie frowned. “Nee, of course not!”
“I’ve been a bit dizzy lately.”
“Have you? You haven’t mentioned it?”
Elsa-May grinned. “It wouldn’t hurt to get it checked out.”
“I don’t know why you didn’t tell me before now. It could be something serious like your blood pressure or something.”
“We’ll soon see,” Elsa-May said.
Once the taxi let them out in front of the hospital, they made their way to the emergency and outpatients area. The lady behind the reception desk had Elsa-May take a seat after handing her a bunch of forms to fill out.
“I’m quite worried about your episodes and I don’t know why you didn’t say anything sooner.”
Elsa-May kept her head down filling in the forms. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You worry me more knowing you didn’t get it checked.”
“Stop fussing, Ettie. This is why I didn’t say anything. Where would we find Maria,” Elsa-May whispered.
“Would she work on the wards?” Ettie looked around. “She probably wouldn’t work in this area of the hospital.”
“I don’t know, perhaps we’ll have to check on all the floors when it’s visiting hours.”
Ettie sighed.
“What’s wrong now?” Elsa-May looked at Ettie.
“I don’t think volunteers are going to hang around at visiting hours.”
All of a sudden, Ettie dug Elsa-May in the ribs.
“Ow! What was that for?” Elsa-May rubbed her side and the pen fell from her hand onto the floor.
“Your teddy bears. Ask to talk to one of the volunteers about the group of ladies who are making the teddy bears.”
“Brilliant idea, Ettie!”
“Really?” Ettie leaned down and picked up the pen and handed it to Elsa-May.
“Jah.” Elsa-May took the pen and placed it on the spare chair beside her. “And now I don’t need to get my dizzy spells checked.”
Ettie pulled Elsa-May back down when she was trying to get up. “You do have to get your dizzy spells checked.”
“Oh, wake up and smell the coffee, Ettie. I don’t have dizzy spells at all and never have.”
“You don’t?”
“Nee. Well, maybe if I’m sitting for awhile and stand up quickly.”
“You were just making it all up?”
“Don’t make me feel bad. It was a slight exaggeration so we could get into the hospital and close to Maria. Why couldn’t you have come up with the teddy bear idea in the taxi on the way over?”
Ettie shrugged. “Why didn’t you?”
Elsa-May stood and ripped up the forms and threw them in a nearby trash can. Then she made her way back to Ettie. “We need to go to the main reception area of the hospital and ask to speak to one of the volunteers.”
“Why don’t you ask for Maria by name?”
“Ettie you’re a—”
“Genius?”
Elsa-May lips downturned. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“It was another good idea though, wasn’t it?”
“Jah, it was.”
Chapter 20
When they found the hospital’s central reception, they spoke to the woman behind the desk and told her they needed to speak with Maria. When it didn’t look like they were getting anywhere, Elsa-May mentioned the teddy bears. Then they found out Maria was in charge of all the volunteers, so she would’ve been the right person to speak to anyway. The receptionist picked up the phone and spoke to Maria and then hung up the phone.
“If you go up to level three in the elevator, she'll be waiting in the office directly opposite."
Together they made their way up in the elevator.
“I can’t believe this has all been so easy,” Ettie said.
“We just have to somehow bring the conversation around to the Carters.”
When the elevator doors opened they headed to the office ahead of them and walked in through the open door. Maria got up from behind a desk and walked over with a big smile, her right arm extended to shake their hands. “Hello. You look familiar. Were you at Ian’s funeral?”
“That’s right. I'm Elsa-May, and this is my sister, Ettie. Ettie is Sparkle’s mother.”
Maria frowned. “I’m sorry?”
Ettie said, “Sparkle was a friend of Ian’s. She is a healer of sorts.”
“Ah, I imagine that is some new age thing. I’m sorry I don’t know anyone by the name Sparkle.”
“That’s right,” Ettie said.
“Have a seat.”
They all sat and Elsa-May proceeded to tell Maria about the ladies’ group and knitting the teddy bears.
“I can’t tell you what smiles come to the patients’ faces when they’re given a teddy bear. And I’m telling you, it’s not just the young. Everybody loves them. And if you can provide us with hand knitted ones that’ll make it even more special. We used to have the knitted teddy bears years ago, I’m sure we did. We’d be delighted to have them again.”
Elsa-May smiled and Ettie said, “It was Alice, the housekeeper, who told us you were here. We were wondering how to get the teddy bears into the hospitals.”
“I haven’t seen Alice for years until I saw her the other day. I wanted to ask her how she was, but it was neither the time nor the place, I’m afraid. Did she mention it to you? I’ve been upset about the fact that I didn’t talk to her. It was at the reading of Ian’s will. I know how easily she gets upset.”
“How so?” asked Elsa-May.
“She’s a sensitive soul. She’s the kind of person who gets easily offended. And the other day, I’m afraid a little family politics was involved. I didn’t want the other side to know that I was still on good terms with her. I suppose you know that Ian’s second wife wanted her fired?”
“We heard something about that.”
“It was silly really. All over her taking a few stamps.”
Elsa-May said, “Don’t you mean items of silverware?”
“Oh no, it was definitely stamps. Ian used to buy and sell stamps on the side and some of them were quite rare and valuable. He must’ve sold most of them because I happen to know there were only a few stamps given to Alice.”
“So, you don’t think they were very valuable?”
“I know there was one that I thought Ian would never sell. He must’ve, though.”
“Why do you say that?” Ettie asked.
“Because there were no stamps left in the will except the stamps given to the housekeeper.” Maria laughed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I never tell anyone anything about my private business.”
“We won’t let it go further,” Elsa-May said with a sincere smile.
Ettie didn’t say any more about the stamps and neither did Elsa-May.
“Forgive me for asking, but how do you and your son get along with Tiffany?” Elsa-May asked.
“Civil at times, most of the time we try to be. As civil I can be to someone who deliberately set out to trap my husband.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ettie said.
“Yes, it was rather traumatic at the time, but I’m over it now. It was years ago. Time heals all wounds they say and I’ve found that to be true.”
“Angelo has very different ideas from me. I don’t go in for all that kind of thing.”
“It’s too weird for us too,” Elsa-May said.
Maria nodded. “At least Ian listened to Angelo about things like that. Angelo would come up with all these weird ideas and Ian would follow him. Anyway, enough about me and my family. When shall we expect those teddies?”
“Can we take your phone number? Then I’ll speak to the ladies in the group and we’ll estimate when the first batch will be ready.”
“That will be wonderful.” She stood up and pulled two flyers out of her desk. “Have a cup of complimentary coffee before you leave the hospital. The cafeteria is on the first floor.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice of you,” Ettie said.
Elsa-May leaned forward and took hold of the flyers. “Thank you. We could each do with a cup of coffee right now.”
“Good. And here’s my card with the phone number. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you.”
* * *
As they headed to the cafeteria, Ettie whispered, “That went well. Better than I thought it would.”
“Jah, it did.”
“Then why are you looking so worried?”
“She said a cup of complimentary coffee, but she should’ve said, in my mind, a complimentary cup of coffee.”
Ettie scoffed. “You’re just impossible, Elsa-May. Either way we’re getting free coffee.”
Elsa-May chuckled. “I suppose you’re right. I wasn’t worried, I was just going over the options of the word placement, wondering which it should’ve been.”
Soon, they were sitting down with their cups of coffee, looking out onto the courtyard of the cafeteria.
“Let’s go over what we know so far,” Elsa-May said.
“I hope you’re not stepping on Michelle’s toes regarding the teddies. She was the one in charge of the teddy distribution, wasn’t she?”
“I don’t see that as a problem. I’ve saved her lot of work. I hope so. Anyway, so far, you might be right about the stamps. One of those could very well be valuable. Were you listening when she said that Ian had owned a valuable one?”
Ettie nodded. “What if Alice knew there was a valuable stamp left in his collection? The one that he’d never sell?”
“She didn’t say so.”
Ettie shook her head. “Nee, she didn’t say so.”
“If she knew about the stamp collection, she was doing a very good job covering it up when she spoke to us.”
“We both know Myra didn’t do it, so who are our suspect so far?” Ettie asked.
“Maria could have done it out of revenge, but she wasn’t the one who put the blame on Myra, right?”
“I don’t know. That seems to be true. We've been focusing on Tiffany as the accuser, figuring she’s the killer.”
Elsa-May took a sip of her coffee. "Jah, there’s Tiffany, who should inherit most of the money. She had the biggest motive.”
Ettie shook her head. “That doesn’t fit. She could’ve done it at any time in any other way so why wait until now to kill him? Then again, she did make up that story about Myra, It had to be Tiffany and she could’ve been involved in the murder with her stepson. And the stepson had access to Myra’s house.”
“One thing puzzles me though, Ettie.”
“And what’s that?”
“It’s about the stamps.”
“Jah, I’ve been worried about that as well. She told us she’d been accused of stealing silverware and not stamps. Maria had no reason to lie to us about that. The question is—”
“Why did Alice lie to us?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say before you interrupted.” Ettie stared into her coffee.
“Do you think we should pay Alice another visit and ask her whether it was silverware or stamps that she was accused of stealing, and ask her why she lied to us?”
Ettie pressed her lips together. “It seems a petty thing to ask.”
“I know, but I think it’s the only way we can get to the bottom of things. At the very least she might tell us some more information.”
“It’s worth a try. And we should leave soon so we get there before Mrs. Marlborough gets home.” Ettie stood and smoothed down her dress and then heard Elsa-May slurp her coffee loudly. She was glad that there was barely anyone else in the cafeteria to hear her sister’s display of poor table manners.
Chapter 21
When they arrived at the Marlborough home, they saw bags being piled into a taxi and then Alice came bustling out of the house. They had their taxi driver wait while they talked to Alice.
“Are you going somewhere, Alice?” Elsa-May asked.
Alice didn’t look pleased to see them, not at all.
“Alice, we haven’t said anything to anyone yet, but we know you killed Ian.” Ettie didn’t know that, but she took a wild guess and was glad that Elsa-May remained silent except for a quick little gasp.
Alice blew out a breath. “How did you figure it out?”
“It was the lie about the stamps and the silverware.”
Alice hung her head. “It’s true. I couldn’t wait any longer for my stamp. It was supposed to be for my retirement and Mr. Carter was taking too long to die. I wasn’t paid enough by Ian or his parents, so I never had enough to save for my retirement and, because I constantly worked in the home, I never met a man and I couldn’t get married. Ian and his family owed me that much.”
“You knew he was leaving you the stamp collection?” Elsa-May asked.
“Yes. He told me. He told me on the day that Tiffany made him terminate my employment. I was relieved to know I was going to have something in my old age. We both knew he didn’t have long to live. He surprised us all by living as long as he did. He’d already lived long enough back then.”
“Long enough?” Ettie asked.
“He had outlived the doctor’s expectations.”
“Where did you obtain the poison?” Elsa-May asked.
“More importantly, why did you put it in Myra’s house?”
“I didn’t put it in anybody’s house. When I told Angelo what I was planning on doing—”
“Angelo was in on this?”
“He didn’t kill his father, I killed Ian.”
“Who put it in Myra’s house?”
“Angelo did it. And he came up with the plan and got the poison.”
Elsa-May trembled. “Who put the poison on the crystals?”
“Angelo did it at a special laboratory, but it was my idea to kill Ian to get the stamp. I can’t work for too much longer. I’m an old woman. Now, at least I’ve got something. I worked for it.”
Ettie looked down at the floor. “I thought Angelo and Myra got along well.”
“I’m sorry, Ettie. I didn’t know you back then and didn’t know your daughter. Angelo said it was best to have the police suspect someone and he suggested a woman called Sparkle. He said there was some kind of meeting going on at her house and it would be a perfect time to plant the poison. I just went along with his suggestion. I didn’t want to get caught. Oh dear, I guess you’re going to tell the police and then I’ll go to jail.”
“Or worse,” Elsa-May said.
“I do have a second cousin in England.”
“You’re thinking of fleeing the country?” Ettie asked glancing at the waiting taxi and the driver who was now in the car.
“I think I have to. I don't know what prompted me to get a passport a few years ago, but I'm awfully glad I did. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Can you confess first, please, so my daughter doesn’t go to jail?”
“All right I will. I’ll send a full confession to the detective once I’m well and truly clear and out of the county. So, excuse me, but I’ve got some driving to do.” She got into the front passenger side of the taxi.
Ettie a
nd Elsa-May stood staring at the taxi, watching it get smaller and smaller as she disappeared into the distance.
“That’s the last we’ll see of her. I hope Detective Kelly believes us and I hope she does make the time to write that full confession.”
“Where do you think she’s going now?” Ettie asked.
“My guess is to the nearest airport. She has that postage stamp somewhere on her person and she won't be making any stops. Mark my words, she is headed to the nearest airport.”
“We have to tell Kelly.”
“Why? She could hang,” Elsa-May said.
“They don’t hang people these days.”
“You know what I mean. They still have the death penalty.”
Ettie touched her head, feeling a massive headache coming on. “We need to tell Kelly because of Myra.”
“It’s not our way to interfere in these things, Ettie.”
“Oh, now you don’t want to interfere? You interfere with everything all the time.”
“Okay, I’ll come with you. I suppose I shouldn't have said that.”
The two ladies had the taxi take them to the station. On the way, they told the driver they had an emergency and he allowed them to use his cell phone. Ettie called Detective Kelly’s cell phone. When he answered on the second ring, she told him everything that Alice had said. He thanked her and hung up quickly.
“He believed you?” Elsa-May asked.
“He didn’t say he didn’t.”
“That’s a good sign.”
Ettie had the taxi take them to the bottom of their street and then they walked slowly back to the house in silence. Ettie knew that Elsa-May was feeling slightly sorry for Alice. It was a fearful thing to be old and faced with the prospect of no money, nowhere to live, and an uncertain future. Alice killed a man who was already dying and killed out of fear of her future. Even though nothing could excuse taking someone’s life, Ettie could see how Alice had justified herself in doing so.
Chapter 22
The next day, Kelly knocked on Ettie and Elsa-May’s door. As Elsa-May pushed Snowy into one of the bedrooms, Ettie ushered Kelly into the living room. They were both eager to hear what he had to say.