by Lois Winston
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Revenge of the Crafty Corpse © 2012 Lois Winston
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E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-2853-7
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DEDICATION
For Jack, Zoe, and Chase,
who have left permanent handprints on my heart
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To the usual suspects:
Terri Bischoff, Midnight Ink acquisitions editor, and the other members of the Midnight Ink team who all work so hard to make Anastasia look her best and give her such incredible support once she leaves the nest, including Connie Hill, Steven Pomije, Courtney Colton, Donna Burch, Lisa Novak, and any other staff member who has worked on the series.
To Carolyn and Ashley Grayson for not only having my back but for their continuing friendship.
To Denise Dumars for introducing Anastasia to Midnight Ink.
To my family: Rob, Chris, Scott, Jen, Megan, and the very special trio mentioned in the dedication.
To my fellow founding members of Liberty States Fiction Writers: Gail Freeman, Melinda Leigh, Caridad Pineiro, Kathye Quick, Michele Richter, Rayna Vause, and Anne Walradt for their amazing friendship, their constant support, and their ability to keep me sane.
In addition, for offering their expertise during the research phase of Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, special thanks to John-Michael (J. M.) Jones of the Gray Funeral Home in Westfield, NJ and Officer Tomasso Campisi of the Union County Police Department.
one
“If that damn woman doesn’t shut up, I’m going to strangle her!”
My mother-in-law had been settled into the Sunnyside of Westfield Assisted Living and Rehabilitation Center for all of ten minutes before she began carping about the accommodations. Uppermost on her list of complaints was her roommate, a woman we’d so far only heard, due to the mauve and burgundy floral print curtain separating their beds and a one-sided phone conversation detailing the latest episode of some cable soap opera—in a syrupy sweet Southern accent quite at odds with her blunt vocabulary. At least, I hoped she was summarizing a soap opera. I’d hate to think, given the X-rated play-by-play, that she was gossiping about actual people.
“Shh. Lower your voice, Lucille. They can hear you in Hoboken.”
“Don’t you shush me! And I don’t care if that prattling twit or anyone else hears me. This is unacceptable. I want a private room.” She tightened her hand into a fist and pounded it against the arm of her wheelchair, but given her weakened state, the punctuating gesture left negligible impact.
“Medicare won’t cover a private room,” I told her, forcing my voice to remain calm as I unpacked her suitcase.
Three weeks ago Lucille had suffered a minor stroke. Subsequent tests revealed a brain tumor, which may or may not have accounted for some of her more bizarre behavior over the last few months. With my mother-in-law, it was hard to tell.
Lucille had weathered the stroke and surgery remarkably well for an eighty year old. The tumor proved benign. After a brief hospital stay, she was now ready for some minor rehab to help her regain her strength and coordination. Hence, today’s resettlement.
“If my son were alive, he’d never let you dump me in this hell hole.”
She should only know that her son had tried to kill her to get his hands on her life’s savings—which he then proceeded to gamble away, leaving me to clean up the mess after he conveniently dropped dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas. Trusting wife that I was at the time, I thought Karl was at a sales meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Given his knack for pulling off such a duplicitous life, Karl should have been a CIA operative instead of an auto parts salesman. At least then our sons and I would be receiving a fat government pension. As it was, Dead Louse of a Spouse left me in stratospheric debt and at the mercy of both an army of bill collectors and Ricardo the loan shark. Not to mention his mother and Manifesto, her French bulldog, AKA Mephisto the Demon Dog to the rest of the family.
Ricardo now resides in a federal facility. However, barring some philanthropic leprechaun gifting me with his pot of gold, I’m stuck with the bill collectors, Lucille, and Mephisto. The bill collectors treat me better. And yet I continue to refuse to divulge to Lucille the truth about her precious Karl, no matter how much she goads me.
My name is Anastasia Pollack, and I’m a glutton for punishment. Welcome to my dysfunctional world. I hope the universe is taking note because as far as I’m concerned, I definitely qualify for sainthood at this point.
“Hell hole?” I glanced around Lucille’s half of the generous, well-appointed room, equipped with abundant creature comforts, including her own flat screen TV, a leather recliner with heat and massage, and Wi-Fi. “Hardly.”
“You’re not the one stuck here. If you possessed an ounce of consideration, you’d allow me to remain at home and drive me to rehab every day,” she said. “But I know the truth. This is all part of your grand scheme to get rid of me permanently.”
I wish. Sunnyside was more an exclusive country club than a hell hole, right down to its exclusive country club-like fees. I placed the last of her circa nineteen seventies polyester pantsuits in the dresser, slammed the drawer shut, and spun around to confront her.
“How exactly am I supposed to shuttle you back and forth to rehab and go to work? Are you suggesting I quit my job? Alex, Nick, you, and I can live out of my eight-year-old Hyundai and Dumpster dive for our meals just so Lucille Pollack, the diehard communist, doesn’t have to share a room with a talkative stranger for a month? Very politically correct of you, Comrade Lucille.”
“How dare you mock me!”
I needed to get out of there and back to work before I did some strangling of my own. And it wouldn’t be the faceless voice currently detailing her skepticism over the supposed sexploits
of one Mabel Shapiro, who, according to Lucille’s roommate, couldn’t satisfy a man twenty years ago, let alone now.
“I told you, Lucille, between Medicare and your supplemental insurance, you’re only covered for a month’s stay. After that, whether you’re ready to come home or not, you’re back living under my roof.”
“This is all your fault!” she continued.
“My fault? Just what about your situation is my fault? Did I force you to jaywalk across Queens Boulevard? Did I drive the SUV that mowed you down? Did I make you keep your life’s savings in shoeboxes under your bed instead of in a bank? Did I torch your apartment building, leaving you homeless and penniless? How is any of that my fault, Lucille? I’m the one who opened my home to you when you had nowhere else to go.”
“Charging me exorbitant rent! You’re no better than a slumlord.”
“You’re paying exactly what you paid each month on your apartment in Queens. Not a penny more. And for that you’re receiving a place to live and all you and your dog can eat. Besides, I only asked you for room and board after your son left me broke and up to my eyeballs in debt, but I suppose that’s my fault, too?”
She glared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact with me, her lips pinched into a straight line, her post-surgery shaved head making her look even more like Mephisto than usual.
Of course, she blamed me. She’s been blaming me for everything since the day Karl introduced us. Hell, she probably even blamed me for her stroke and the brain tumor. So much for hoping the removal of that tumor would improve her personality. “If you don’t like the arrangements, you’re free to make your own at any time.”
Which, unfortunately, she wouldn’t because Lucille had it far better at Casa Pollack than anywhere else she could afford. And she knew it.
“What are you gawking at?” she demanded.
I glanced over my shoulder and followed her laser glare to the middle of the room where I found myself staring at Laura Ashley. Or what Laura Ashley might have looked like had she lived into her nineties, complete with pink-tinged white pin curls, poorly applied makeup caked into the crevices of deep wrinkles, and looking like she’d been transplanted from Wales, UK to Westfield, NJ.
I hadn’t seen so many ruffles and such an over-abundance of Cluny lace since my cousin Susannah Sudberry’s English garden-themed wedding back in 1992. The most god-awful lace-edged, pouf-sleeved floral print bridesmaid’s dress ever created still resides in my attic. However, I might have to hand over that designation to Lucille’s roommate’s outfit. At least my bridesmaid’s gown didn’t have the addition of a coordinating yo-yo trimmed cardigan sweater.
At some point the soap opera play-by-play had ended. How long Lucille’s roomie had been eavesdropping on us was anyone’s guess, but before Lucille could hurl another barb, I crossed the room and held my hand out to the woman. “Mrs. Wegner? I’m Anastasia Pollack.” I knew her name from the nameplate tacked to the wall outside the room. Lucille’s name had already been added beneath that of Lyndella Wegner.
She took my hand in a surprisingly firm grip for such a petite and elderly woman. “Pleased to meet you, sugar. And call me Lyndella. Mrs. Wegner was my mother-in-law, bless her hard-hearted soul.”
Looks like I’d found another loser in the mother-in-law lottery. I nodded in Lucille’s direction, “And this is my mother-in-law Lucille Pollack, your roommate for the next month.”
Lyndella nodded toward Lucille. “Not too happy to be here, are you, sugar?”
A part of me (the nasty part I kept tamped down as much as possible) wanted to tell her that happy wasn’t in the commie curmudgeon’s lexicon, but she’d learn that for herself soon enough. Instead, I said, “I’m afraid Lucille has been through quite a bit the last several months.”
She directed another question to Lucille. “So what’s your story, sugar?”
I stifled a giggle. Lyndella Wegner’s strong accent seemed right at home juxtaposed against her Laura Ashley-meets-Blanche Dubois demeanor, but totally at odds with twenty-first century Westfield.
“Mind your own business,” muttered Lucille. “And I’m not your sugar.”
Lyndella ignored the rudeness. Or maybe she hadn’t heard Lucille. Modern hearing aids are so tiny, I couldn’t tell if Lyndella wore any underneath her pink pin curls. She glanced at her watch and said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our get-to-know-each-other chat until later, girls. It’s time for my needlework class, and I can’t be late. Those other women, bless their Yankee hearts, would be lost without my expert guidance.” Then she ducked behind the curtain divider.
Lyndella reappeared a moment later. In one hand she held a ball of pink crochet cotton. She cradled a length of finely crocheted extra wide pink lace and a crochet hook in her other hand.
“That’s exquisite work,” I said.
“Of course, it is, sugar.”
I held out my hand. “May I?” She placed the delicate lace across my fingers. I examined the stitching closer. “Did you also crochet the lace on your dress?”
She executed a flat-footed pirouette to show off her workmanship. “I make all my own clothes. Always have. And they’re of a far better quality than anything you’ll find in any department store.”
And how modest of her to say so. I had to admit, though, the dress fit her like couture, and her attention to detail rivaled anything strutting down New York’s Fashion Week catwalks.
Lyndella flipped up the hem of her skirt and held it out for me to inspect. “See here, sugar. French seams. I dare say, you won’t find any of those hanging on a rack at Macy’s or Lord & Taylor.”
“Probably not,” I agreed, although I failed to see the need to French seam poplin when pinking shears worked just as well and took much less time and effort. However, I kept that judgment to myself.
“I’ll tell you a little secret, sugar. Handwork keeps both the mind and body sharp.” She tapped her temple with an index finger. “Mark my words, you young people will regret your store- bought ways when you get older, but it will be too late. You’ll wind up doddering old fools, sipping Ensure and drooling into your mashed bananas.”
I certainly hoped not, but I had no desire to engage in a debate over my generation’s future with this woman.
“Believe it or not,” she continued, “I’m ninety-eight years young.”
“What’s not to believe?” asked Lucille.
Lyndella heard that comment loud and clear. She shot Lucille a glare of contempt. “For your information, I still have all my teeth and all my faculties. People tell me I don’t look or act a day over seventy. I credit that to my creative talents. Among other things.”
I couldn’t resist. “What other things?”
“Sex and whiskey, sugar. As much of both as I can get.”
I should have exercised better restraint.
How often did Lyndella hit the whiskey, and when had she last looked in the mirror? The roadmap of deep wrinkles lining her face made her look every one of her ninety-eight years, if not more.
As for the sex, were ninety-eight year olds even capable of having sex? Wouldn’t everything have shriveled up and dried out decades ago?
But what did I know? My own mother still claimed to have an active sex life at sixty-five, with no signs of stopping anytime soon. As for me, let’s just say it had been a while. A long while.
However, whether Lyndella Wegner was actually getting any action or merely thought she was getting some, who cared? Every woman should be that alive at her age. It certainly beat the alternative.
As I studied the delicate lacework, an article for a future magazine issue began to germinate in my brain. “Mrs. Wegner, I’m the crafts editor at American Woman magazine. I’d love to do a profile on you and perhaps some of the other women in your needlework class.”
“Well, bless your heart, sugar! You mean I’d have my name
and picture in a magazine?”
“Yes.”
“I’d be famous?”
“In a manner of speaking. Our circulation is upward of three hundred thousand.”
“Three hundred thousand?” She placed her hand on my arm. “Trust me, sugar, you don’t need anyone else. My work is far superior to that of anyone else around here and far more creative.”
“I thought I’d showcase a variety of crafts.”
“When it comes to handcrafts, you name it, and I’ve done it. Tell me, sugar, how many people do you know who can create museum-quality paintings using dryer lint?”
Dryer lint? “Not a single one.”
“Well, now you do. My re-creation of Michelangelo’s David in lint will blow away your little Yankee mind.” She winked, then added, “In more ways than one.”
I’ll bet it would. “May I see it?”
“Later, sugar. I have my class now.” Her face took on an almost wicked grin. “Wait till Mabel Shapiro hears this. Bless her frigid Yankee heart, that woman will positively shit in her Depends!”
Soap opera Mabel “can’t please a man” Shapiro?
From behind me I heard a loud harrumph.
“Must go,” said Lyndella, removing her crocheted lace from my hands. “We’ll talk later.”
“Insufferable!” said Lucille after the door closed behind Lyndella. “How do you expect me to live with that woman for a day, let alone a month?”
“You’ll just have to make the best of it. You’ve had plenty of practice living with someone you don’t like.”
“Thanks to you.”
An old argument. When Lucille first came to live with us, Nick was forced to double-up with Alex in order to give Lucille a room. Whenever my mother arrived for a visit, she and Lucille became reluctant roomies. Lucille and Mama got along as well as Mephisto and Mama’s corpulent Persian kitty Catherine the Great got along. In other words, they fought like cats and dogs.
I suppose that’s to be expected when a blazing Bolshevik is forced to shack up with a self-proclaimed descendant of Russian royalty. Given that Mama makes a habit of extended stays whenever she’s between husbands, Lord only knows how they’ve kept from murdering each other to this point, not to mention how I’ve managed to maintain my sanity.
