Finally, the CSI guys got there—three of them—and after they went through my mother’s room, they asked me to go in and see if anything was missing. There was—nearly all of Mother’s everyday jewelry that she kept on top of her dresser was gone, as was all the cash in her purse. The man hadn’t taken her credit cards or wallet, nor had he rifled the jewelry box in her bottom drawer.
A man who introduced himself as Lieutenant Hutchins sat down with me. I guessed him between my own age and fifty, so I figured he knew his stuff. He was stocky, but I also guessed that most of it was muscle. It was funny, but he reminded me of my dad a little. He had that same sunny gruffness, a confident bearing that told me I was in good hands. Or maybe it was just because he was kind of cute.
“What this looks like,” he said, “is a B&E. The perp…” (I swear, he really said the perp, just like on TV) “…probably used that peg you found to get in—no telling how many times he tried it before it worked—and then went looking for unlocked room doors until he found one. Probably some guy with a habit looking for cash or jewelry to sell.”
“But he was…bending over my mother when I came in,” I said.
“Well, could be he was just looking for more jewelry, something to grab, from around her neck maybe.”
“I don’t buy that.”
He looked at me flatly, like I was some sort of bug. “You don’t, eh?”
“No, Lieutenant, I don’t. There was just this sense of…of menace about him, like he was getting ready to…do something awful.”
“Miss Crowe, I’m sure that if I’d found a criminal bending over my own sleeping mother I might feel the same way, but—“
“You bet you would, especially if two other ladies had died in their sleep here in just the past week!” As soon as I’d blurted it out, I knew I shouldn’t have, but really, that superior Father Knows Best tone always drives me up the wall.
It shut him up for a minute anyway. Then he took a deep breath through his nose. “Are you suggesting the cause of the women’s deaths wasn’t natural?”
“Wellll…” I hemmed, then hawed. “I don’t really know.”
“We haven’t received any other reports from here.”
“Well, they might have been natural deaths—that’s what everyone thinks.”
“Everyone but you?”
“I don’t know, but in light of what happened here tonight, doesn’t it make you wonder?”
“Miss Crowe, if you think there was something suspicious about these deaths, do you want to make a complaint?”
“Well, I, um…” He had me there. Did I want to be put in the position of suggesting that the Gates Home had somehow been responsible for two wrongful deaths? An investigation could be devastating for the home and everybody who worked for it. And it was a good facility. I know—I had investigated enough of them on my own. Besides, I had no real evidence that either Rachel or Enid had been the victims of anything other than their own tired hearts. I sighed in surrender. “Not really…I guess.”
“Look, Miss Crowe,” and the lieutenant’s voice became softer, “I understand that this was a terrible thing for both you and your mother to experience, but I really wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Your mother wasn’t targeted specifically. She just happened to have her door open, and this guy was looking for open doors. We know how he got in, so the facility knows how to guard against a similar invasion in the future, it’s that simple.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. I’m sorry I’m such a worrywart, but when it comes to mothers…”
“Hey, I know about mothers,” he said, finally cracking a smile. “My mom’s over in Pineview Retirement Village, and I stop by to see her every day…” His look got faraway and almost desperate, and I was sure that if propriety hadn’t stopped him, he’d have added, Every freakin’ day…
It’s funny about men. I’m sure they love their mothers too, but there’s something about the relationship between a mother and a daughter that goes beyond a mother-son bond. Sure, there are exceptions, but I’ve never begrudged any of the time I’ve spent with Mother, even on her most I-don’t-want-to-talk-now days. And right now, I just wanted to be with her, to have her know I was there, to sit by her until she fell asleep again.
Lieutenant Hutchins sensed that, since he said, “You probably want to be with her now, right?” I nodded. “Go ahead. But first give me your contact info in case we have to get in touch with you.” When I told him my address, he said, “That’s near the bookstore, isn’t it?”
“Nostalgia store,” I corrected, still happy for the recognition, “but we sell books too. Better Days. I own it—live above it.”
“Looks like a cool place. I’ve always meant to check it out.”
“Well, I hope you will. Take advantage of our policeman’s discount.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Yes, but it’s not a bad idea. I hope I’ll see you there—really.”
“You will.” He smiled more broadly then. It was a nice smile and made him even cuter. When my ever-present casting comparisons clicked in, I made him for Spencer Tracy circa Adam’s Rib. No spring chicken, but a lot of good years left. “Here’s my card,” he said, handing it to me. “Give me a call if you think of anything else you might have forgotten, or, well, whatever. I, uh…I guess you’d better go see your mother.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Dave.”
“Okay. Dave. And I’m Livy.” And I’m also not wearing a wedding ring, just like you. I held my hand out for him to shake, and he held it just a tiny bit longer than necessary. “Any relation to Will?”
“Huh?”
“Will Hutchins. Sugarfoot.”
“Don’t know him.” He cocked his head at me.
“It was a TV show, a western. ‘Easy lopin’ cattle ropin’ Sugarfoot?’”
“Never met him, but I’ll ask my mom when I see her.” We both chuckled, and I had a feeling I’d see him again.
I needn’t have worried about Mother. When I got back to the room where the night staff had put her, she was sleeping, her little snore bubbling wetly like a toy motorboat. I didn’t want to wake her up, but I was afraid that she’d be confused when she finally did, so I made myself as comfortable as I could in the less than easy chair near the bed and closed my eyes.
In vain. I couldn’t sleep. Even though I’d locked the door from the inside, I kept opening my eyes and watching it, expecting it to drift open with a creak as a hand with long fingernails slipped through it. Booga booga. When there was a little knock on the door fifteen minutes later, I jumped so high I nearly bumped my head on the ceiling.
When I lowered the drawbridge, I saw it was Doris Landover, who’d been called by security and had come right over. She gave a thin smile and a little wave with her pudgy fingers, and I joined her in the hall.
I filled her in on as much as I knew, and she was relieved to hear that my mother seemed unfazed by the night’s adventure. “I am so sorry, Livy,” she said. “I’ve told the staff a hundred times to always make sure the door locks behind them when they leave, especially at night, but they’re anxious to get home…I’m already checking who the last person was who punched out and then I’m going to punch them out.”
I almost cautioned her not to go overboard, but then I reconsidered. Whoever had let that door close on Mister Creepy’s peg had jeopardized not only my mother’s life but the lives of everyone in the home. What if he’d been an arsonist instead of a junkie burglar, if that’s what he’d really been? Or a terrorist, though I wasn’t ready to go there. I really couldn’t imagine an Al Qaeda cell in Buchanan. At any rate, let the last one out that door tonight get a tongue lashing. It might do him or her good.
That particular mystery wasn’t long in solving. One of the nurses came in, handed Doris a computer print-out, and left without a word. Doris looked at it and then looked even more annoyed. “Genevieve,” she said.
“Genevieve Tucker?”
She nodded. “Left early t
onight because she felt sick. Probably anxious to get home, and didn’t make sure the door locked.”
“Oh God…”
“What?”
“Well, she’s always been so nice to Mother. I hate to see her…you know.”
“She’s got to be reprimanded, Livy, nice or no.”
Then an officer came in and told me that the police were done in Mother’s room, and that she could go back there if she wanted to. Doris gave me the option of getting her a new room if the old one had negative vibes for me or Mother. It did for me, but I had no doubt that Mother would be indifferent about it, and all her things were already there. I gently woke her, and hand in hand we made our way back to what I now thought of as the Chamber of Terrors.
Her experience disturbed Mother not a whit, and she reentered her room gratefully, muttering something about not being able to sleep with that awful pillow in that other room, her snores to the contrary. We got her to lock the door behind us, and I thanked Doris for her concern and headed home.
It was about three in the morning when I finally crawled in, and Fudge barely looked up from the foot of my bed when I let myself collapse thereon. As exhausted as I was, I couldn’t fall asleep right away. I kept thinking about the burglar, trying to remember more about him.
I ran down the litany—thin, long brown hair, medium height…for a man.
Tall, for a woman.
And my imagination started going crazy again. In the dark, in my nutty mind’s eye, people started morphing. I thought about someone else whose name I had just heard, someone else who was tall and thin and had long brown hair, and before I knew it the burglar had morphed into none other than Genevieve Tucker.
It seemed wild, and I don’t want to say that the idea made me sit straight up in bed (has anyone ever really done that?), but I did fluff up my pillow, gaze into the darkness and consider it. I ticked off the bits of evidence:
Genevieve and the attacker had been about the same size, with the same hair and body type.
Genevieve had been the last one out the door before the attacker got in.
Genevieve had always expressed an interest in my mother…
And that, I realized immediately, was the crux of it. For all the reasons I claimed to like Genevieve, deep down she made me feel guilty. She was at my mother’s side when I was not; she visited her not out of duty but because she liked to. So, because of my subconscious resentment of her altruistic acts, I’d let my imagination turn her into this midnight fiend.
It made no sense. The peg wouldn’t have been necessary, if Genevieve was already inside. And why would she have changed her clothes to go back in and steal my mother’s jewelry or do worse?
Whoa, back up… She was already inside, and once outside there was no way back through that door—it was used as an exit only. So if she needed to go to her car, change into her burglar disguise and move the car around the block, she’d have needed the peg to keep the door unlocked while she did so.
Sure…if she’d have taken anything, she’d have been the first one to be suspected, since she was the last one to leave through that wing. And that was why she disguised herself as a burglar and came back in. And maybe she took the jewelry first as a ruse to cover what she really intended…
And then she hopped in her rocket ship and flew off to the planet Twylo, where she traded the jewelry to Laura Petrie for a closet full of walnuts.
Nuts indeed. It seemed that whatever I could come up with that was the most illogical thing, that’s what I’d come up with.
I got up, got a drink of water, resituated Fudge from my pillow back to the foot of the bed, and tried to go to sleep. I did, eventually, after fighting in my head over and over again with Mr. Creepy, slowing down my memories and trying to determine if, when Mr. Creepy brushed past me, he had boobs, which would have made him Miss Creepy.
When I finally slept, I slept like a lump.
I cannot describe the sensations of being so close to her, of feeling her terror. It was like the last time, and the time before. Seeing her so often, and then seeing her like this, so weak and helpless. Though I could not bring to a conclusion what had begun, what I saw was enough for one night. Sometimes coming close is enough. And there will be other nights.
And they will come soon. I will deliver them…
Chapter 11
The alarm jolted the hell out of me when it went off at 8:30. I was still tired, but I had a business to run, and Ted would be here in a half hour. I’d need at least that much time to let me look as though I hadn’t been up nearly all night.
I showered and slathered on a new coat of paint, and by the time I was done I thought I looked presentable except for the bags under the eyes. After a quick breakfast I headed downstairs to the store and beat Ted in by a whole thirty seconds. I had my feet up on my desk and was sipping coffee and reading the morning paper when he walked in. Hah, I thought. Fooled him again.
The burglary at the Gates Home had occurred too late to make the morning rag, so I filled Ted in. He was fittingly shocked and concerned for my welfare, but I assured him I was fine—just a little sleepy.
“My God, it’s no wonder,” he said. “Why don’t you go sleep a little more? I can take care of things here. Really.” The more I thought about it the more sense it made, and I thanked him and headed back upstairs. An hour more sack time would do me good.
The problem was that I couldn’t sleep. My fertile brain had been sown with the seeds of suspicion for Genevieve Tucker, and now that I was awake, all I could think of was the possibility that it had been a woman rather than a man I had confronted the previous night.
Short of actually accusing Genevieve, I felt that the recalled observation was something I should at least share with the police, and one policeman in particular. I dug from my jeans pocket the card Dave Hutchins had given me, called the police station’s number, and punched in his extension when prompted. He answered right away with a business-like “Hutchins.”
I tried to be business-like as well, and said in a mock-serious tone, “Crowe,” but added quickly and more lightly, “Livy Crowe, from last night?”
“Sure, Livy, how are you?” He remembered, I thought, and my heart fluttered like a woman twenty years younger. What a sucker I was.
I told him that I had remembered something else about “the perp” that I felt I ought to mention, and he replied that he was just on his way out the door to a meeting, and was going to be tied up in the afternoon, “but I could meet you for a quick lunch,” he added.
“Where?” I know I should have at least hesitated, but when you’re my age there’s no point in beating around the bush. Besides, I was going to offer evidence, nothing more.
“Well, uh…” He seemed a bit taken aback by my immediate agreement, but recovered quickly. “How about Mardi’s? Only a block or two from you. 11:45?”
I agreed and hung up, then went downstairs to the store. About 11:15 I snuck upstairs and changed clothes, touched up my makeup, brushed my teeth and hair and put on a dollop of perfume. When I was finished, I went back down and told Ted, staying far enough away from him that he wouldn’t smell the perfume, that I had to go to see the police about last night, which was true enough, and that I’d be back by one.
Mardi’s is a trendy little café near the center of town that serves tasty organic lunches, and Dave’s suggestion of it surprised me. Not that I expected him to meet me at Dunkin’ Donuts, but I didn’t expect cops to frequent organic joints. What else, I wondered, might Lieutenant Sugarfoot surprise me with?
For one thing, he was there on the sidewalk in the cold, waiting for me, which was unexpected. I thought that police officers would dash in, saying, Sorry, had a ten-fourteen come up at the last minute. Not Dave—he gave me a wave when I was still half a block away, and I felt flattered that he had recognized me under my wool hat, sunglasses, scarf, and poofy down coat that covered me neck to ankles. Probably a good man on a tail…and for seeing through disguises.
He seemed happy to see me, and ushered me through the door and to a spacious booth near the back, where he hung up my heavy coat. “You eaten here before?” he asked, and I told him I had, once or twice. “Pretty good food,” he said. “So good you forget it’s healthy.”
“I never thought of policemen as the types to worry about that.”
“Oh,” he said, and the word held a lot of baggage. “You’ve bought into the whole macho cop thing? A subculture of crazy guys who take risks because they never know when death will tug at their sleeves?”
I was taken aback. “Well, no, I didn’t mean that, I, uh…”
He laughed. “It’s okay—just having some fun with you. Believe me, there are a lot worse stereotypes than the ones people have of cops.” He picked up the menu. “Actually, I’ve been watching what I eat for a long time now. Healthy diet and exercise, it makes a big difference.”
“I eat right,” I said, “but I don’t work out as much as I should.”
“You’d never know it. You look great.” His attitude quickly changed. “I don’t mean…”
“I take it as a compliment, from officer to witness,” I said. “Actually, I do haul around a lot of heavy boxes. Makes up for it when I can’t get to Curves.”
“So, what’ll you have? I love their chicken cashew salad…”
We ordered. I went for the salad too, and organic coffee, which tasted a lot better than the swill Ted makes in the store pot (free to customers) but not as good as the Costco beans I grind in my kitchen. When Dave asked me what it was that I recalled about the perp, I told him that I thought it could have been a woman as easily as a man.
He raised his eyebrows. “What made you think of that? Something specific?”
Murder Old and New Page 10
