by Lois Winston
I glanced over at the bookcases under the windows and found the craft books still there. The vandals must not have been aware of them, which exonerated all the residents who’d been in the classroom while I was sorting through the books and shelving them.
“Someone didn’t want Lyndella’s porn left lying around,” said Mabel.
Indeed. “Aside from setting her work on fire, this is exactly what many of you suggested doing with her possessions yesterday,” I reminded them.
“We didn’t do it,” said Sally.
“If we had, we wouldn’t have left the mess for you to clean up,” said Estelle. “We like you.”
“Thanks.” I think. However, no one seemed all that upset about the destruction except me. “Anyone know where the janitor hangs out?”
Mabel gave me directions, and I headed out in search of someone to clean up the mess. Janitorial duties didn’t fall under my job description.
When I turned a corner at the end of the hall, I nearly collided with an empty wheelchair pushed by a nurse. I recognized her as one of the staff who’d been eavesdropping outside Shirley’s office yesterday afternoon.
“Sorry,” she said. Then, when she realized who she’d nearly crashed into, she said, “You left too soon yesterday. You missed the finale.” She held out her hand. “I’m Carla, by the way. Carla Fitz-hugh.”
I shook her hand. “Anastasia Pollack. What do you mean I missed the finale?”
“After Reggie ran out, Shirley called that detective who’d questioned all of us on Saturday.”
“Detective Spader?”
“Right. She told him Reggie killed Lyndella.”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “I saw the way Reggie looked when she discovered Lyndella’s body. That poor kid was totally freaked. What proof does Shirley have?”
“None that I know of. Besides, Reggie isn’t capable of stomping a bug, much less strangling a human. No, Shirley wanted her pound of flesh. She knew the cops would pick up Reggie for questioning, maybe even lock her up for a few hours before they realized she had nothing to do with Lyndella’s murder.”
“That’s sick.”
“That’s Shirley for you. As vindictive a bitch as you’ll ever meet.”
“I’m beginning to see that.”
“How dare you disobey me? When I tell you to do something, you do it. I don’t give a damn what anyone else says.”
Everything began to make sense. Shirley fired Reggie because Reggie gave Lyndella’s craft projects to me instead of trashing them.
“This is all my fault,” I said. “I’m afraid I got Reggie fired.”
“How do you figure that?”
I told her about finding Reggie packing up Lyndella’s clothes and how I told her to bring me her crafts instead of tossing them in the Dumpster as Shirley had directed.
Carla patted my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up. Shirley was itching to fire Reggie. It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
I remembered Shirley’s earlier comments about Reggie. “That girl’s already on probation after the stunt she pulled last week. One more strike and she’s out of here.”
“Shirley mentioned something on Friday about a stunt Reggie pulled. Something to do with one of the other residents. Do you know anything about that?”
She thought for a moment. “Must have been last week when Reggie accompanied several of the residents into downtown Westfield. Some of the men took off to have a few beers at a local pub.”
“So? Why wouldn’t they be allowed to do whatever they want?”
“They can.”
“Then why did Reggie get in trouble?”
“Dirk tripped climbing back on the bus. Gave himself a shiner. Shirley blamed Reggie.”
“For what?”
“Letting Dirk get drunk.”
“Was he?”
“Hell, no. I checked him out when they arrived back at Sunnyside. I doubt Dirk had more than one beer. Two max. But that didn’t matter to Shirley. Like I said, she’s been looking for excuses to fire Reggie.”
“Makes you wonder why she hired her in the first place.”
“I don’t have to wonder; I know.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. Carla continued. “Reggie is the daughter of the girlfriend of one of Sunnyside’s board members. Shirley was ordered to hire her. The only way she’d be able to get rid of Reggie was to prove her incompetent. She’s been documenting all of Reggie’s supposed screw ups. I guess Shirley figured she finally had enough proof to fire Reggie without jeopardizing her own job.”
All I could think to say was, “Wow.”
“Watch your back, Mrs. Pollack.”
“Are you threatening me?”
She held up both her hands, palms outward. “Heavens, no. I’m warning you to tiptoe lightly around Shirley Hallstead, that’s all.”
“Thanks, but I think your warning might be too late.”
I headed off in search of the janitor. I’d had my suspicions before, but after hearing what Carla had to say, I’d bet what little money I had that Shirley was my vandal. I’d dared to countermand an order she gave, so she got even.
Hauling the cartons out to the Dumpster after I left yesterday or telling someone else to do it wouldn’t have been enough for Shirley. The mess in the arts and crafts room was meant to leave a message. Nobody messes with Shirley Hallstead and gets away with it. Apparently, not even members of the Board of Directors.
Should I confront her? Chances were, she’d deny knowing anything about the vandalism. I’d already had enough confrontations with her; I didn’t need another. The damage was done. She’d made her point loud and clear. I was better off ignoring what had happened. I decided not to mention anything to her. Let her stew in her own rage. I’d choose my battles. This was merely a temporary gig to raise some much-needed extra cash. I wouldn’t let it get to me.
And what about Reggie? Should I call Detective Spader? What would I tell him? That I knew Reggie wasn’t Lyndella’s killer? I had no proof. Just as I had no proof that Lucille didn’t kill Lyndella. Having a feeling or a hunch didn’t sit well with cops unless it was their feeling or their hunch. Reggie would have to hope that Detective Spader was a keen enough student of human nature to realize Shirley was manipulating him and his investigation for her own purposes. As much as I wanted to help Reggie, there really wasn’t anything I could do.
I found the janitor in his closet of an office and asked him to clean up the mess. When I returned to my classroom, all my students were busy with their projects, the mess on the floor having no further interest to them.
Although I offered, no one needed my help, advice, or suggestions. So I settled in at my desk, pulled out Lyndella’s accounts ledger, which I’d brought with me, and started reading again from the beginning. This time I didn’t skim. I read each line item, word for word, marking important milestones with a yellow highlighter.
“Whatcha reading?” asked Mabel after I had my nose buried through two classes.
“Just something I brought from home that I need to go over,” I told her. “Financials. Extremely dull reading.” I didn’t want anyone to know what I had, not after the trashing of Lyndella’s crafts and books.
Mabel didn’t press further. She turned her attention back to fastening sequins and studs onto a pair of jeans she was blinging up for her granddaughter.
At lunch I slipped the ledger into my tote and brought it with me while I walked Mephisto. I didn’t trust leaving it behind in the empty room while I was gone.
When I arrived at Lucille’s room, I saw that her new roommate had arrived. One look at Mrs. Edna Crowley told me my mother-in-law should find no fault with the woman. Given her full-body cast and wired jaw, she’d neither talk incessantly nor entertain gentleman callers throughout the night.
“Would you like to get so
me fresh air?” I asked Lucille as I snapped Mephisto’s leash onto his collar.
“Anything to get out of this place.” She then surprised me by hoisting herself out of her wheelchair and standing without so much as a teeter or a wobble. “Hand me that walker,” she said, nodding in the direction of the apparatus.
“You’re making excellent progress,” I said as we headed out of the room. I walked slowly to keep pace with her even though Mephisto strained at the leash. Devil Dog’s bladder demanded a quicker pace, but I hesitated to leave Lucille shuffling down the hall on her own. What if she became dizzy or her legs gave way suddenly?
“I have tremendous incentive,” she said, stepping up her pace. I gave Mephisto free rein and hustled to catch up with her.
The heat hit us full blast the moment the doors swooshed open, but Lucille didn’t seem to mind. She shuffled her polyester pantsuited self over to a bench under a dogwood to the side of the entrance and plopped down while Mephisto sniffed, then baptized the tree.
“I want you to take me home today,” said Lucille. “As you can see, I’m functioning quite well on my own.”
“I’ll speak with your therapist. If he gives his okay, I’ll bring you home.”
“I don’t care what he says. You can’t keep me here against my will.”
I sat down beside her. “All right, Lucille. I’ll take you home today but only if you can feed yourself, dress yourself, and go to the bathroom without help. Otherwise, you’re staying here whether you like it or not. There isn’t anyone home during the day to help you.”
She let forth with a loud harrumph. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I agreed.
We headed back inside, Lucille a bit less frisky, Mephisto and I both glad for the welcoming rush of air conditioning that hit us the moment we stepped into the lobby.
One of the aides met us at Lucille’s room. “Time for your water therapy, Mrs. Pollack.”
“I’m going home tomorrow,” said Lucille.
“That so?” The aide positioned the wheelchair behind Lucille and guided her into the seat.
“Tomorrow,” said my mother-in-law to me as she was wheeled away. “Don’t you forget, Anastasia.”
The remainder of my day went by much as the morning had with my students having little need of my assistance. I spent the bulk of my time pouring through Lyndella’s ledger. By the end of the day, I’d uncovered some very intriguing facts about her life. I couldn’t wait to get home to cross-reference the dates of various line items in the ledger with any personal notations she’d written in her craft journals around the corresponding times.
_____
When I arrived home, I found a note from the boys.
Spending “quality time” with Uncle Ira. Be home after dinner. Love ya, Mom! Alex and Nick.
Uncle Ira was sure making up for lost time. I suppose I couldn’t blame either him or my sons for wanting a relationship. I just hoped Ira had no ulterior motives. Although what those ulterior motives might be, eluded me. Part of me wanted to take him at face value and believe all he’d said. Another part of me, the part that had lived through his half-brother’s deceit, no longer believed that what you see is what you get.
Bottom line? I didn’t want my sons hurt by another Pollack male.
I swept aside my doubts, though, to concentrate on a more pressing matter—proving the innocence of a certain Pollack female. To that end, after giving Mephisto fresh water and releasing Ralph from his cage, I gathered up all of Lyndella’s journals and set up camp on the dining room table with the journals, the accounts ledger, a legal pad, a pen, and a stack of multi-colored sticky note flags.
Mephisto parked himself under an air-conditioner vent, and Ralph perched on top of the dining room breakfront. Within minutes Mephisto was snoring away. Ralph seemed intent on following my investigation.
Lyndella had assigned her clients numbers alongside their first names, probably because she never knew their last names. Or if she did, she protected her clients’ privacy. A vice raid that seized her ledger as evidence could unleash a mess of trouble for those clients, especially any who were public figures, had she included their last names.
The first line item in the ledger read: February 12, 1931—John #1—$2.00 tip—likes to suck my toes. Unless Lyndella’s birthday fell within the first few weeks of the year, she had only been fifteen when she entered the world’s oldest profession.
I found the earliest craft journal. No sheet protectors preserved these pages. Lyndella had glued lined writing paper and her samples to sheets of heavy black paper, the kind used in old photo albums. The pages were brittle, and the glue had partially discolored the lined paper and samples. Envelopes glued to the back of each black sheet held patterns.
The first page, dated two months prior to John #1, featured directions for a long white nightgown with cerulean blue forget-me-nots embroidered across the bodice. There was no photo, as I’d expect for that early date. Back then, any camera sophisticated enough to capture a close-up of the embroidery would have cost more than most people earned in a week.
Instead, Lyndella had illustrated the page with a detailed sketch of the finished garment and included a scrap of the batiste fabric with a couple of embroidered flowers as a sample.
The sketch showed a nightgown more virginal than risqué, with a high neck and long sleeves gathered at the wrists.
I pulled the full-size embroidery pattern from the envelope. Unlike the crafts that decorated her room at Sunnyside, nothing erotic hid among the embroidered flowers.
Much of the writing had faded over time. With great difficulty, I read every word of the directions, hoping to find more information. In the margin she’d written, “Something blue.”
Was the nightgown for her hope chest or an upcoming wedding? For herself or a gift for someone else?
The next page, dated three weeks later, contained information on a crocheted granny squares baby afghan in pale yellow, mint green, and white wool. Lyndella had included one sample square. I found nothing sexual about that project, either. A lone note at the bottom of the page read, “For the baby,” but gave no indication as to whose baby.
I marked both pages with red sticky note flags on which I wrote BC to indicate the crafts were made prior to the start of Lyndella’s career. Before I could flip to the next page, Mama arrived home.
“What’s all this?” she asked as she dropped half a dozen shopping bags onto the table and began nosing around the binders.
“I’m trying to find out who had a motive to kill Lucille’s roommate.”
Mama laughed. “You mean besides the pinko commie?”
“Lucille is many things, Mama, but I refuse to believe she’s a murderer.”
“Are you one hundred percent certain of that?”
“I can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything, but—”
“Butt out, Anastasia. Let the police handle things. This new hobby of yours is not very ladylike.”
“Hobby?” It’s not like I’d made a conscious decision to become an amateur sleuth. “Might I remind you that if I’d previously followed that advice and left things to the police, both you and I might now be dead?”
Mama shuddered. “Don’t remind me, but those were different circumstances. No one is out to kill either of us. Besides, you’re certainly not going to find your next husband by spending your spare time snooping around murder suspects at a nursing home.”
“My next husband? What makes you think I want a next husband?”
“Don’t be silly, dear. Of course you want a next husband. You’re far too young to live out the rest of your life like that spinster great-aunt of yours.” She glared at Ralph. “Maybe if Penelope Periwinkle had spent more time with eligible men and less time with that filthy bird of hers, she wouldn’t have died an old maid.”
Ralph squawked
. “You would be another Penelope. Coriolanus. Act One, Scene Three.”
“Traitor. Remember who supplies your sunflower seeds,” I told him.
I turned back to Mama. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve given birth to your two grandsons. So unless you’re under the deluded impression that a couple of immaculate conceptions occurred, I’m definitely not an old maid and can’t possibly become one. Besides, I thought you’d already picked out my next husband.”
“You need to keep your options open, dear. Just in case things don’t work out between you and Zack.”
I nodded in the direction of the shopping bags. “Speaking of future husbands, is that what your shopping spree is all about? New man, new wardrobe? You had a date last night, didn’t you? Who is he this time, Mama?”
“Mr. Lord and Mr. Taylor. You can’t expect me to pass up a 70 percent-off sale.” She scowled at my faded navy tank top and khaki cargo pants, both hovering this side of stretched out and threadbare. “As a matter of fact, you could use a bit of wardrobe updating. Tear yourself away from whatever it is you’re doing. The sale ends this evening.”
“When Mr. Lord and Mr. Taylor decide to have a 100 percent- off sale, let me know. Until that day, I’m not interested.”
Mama let loose a huge sigh as she gathered up her shopping bags. “Honestly, Anastasia, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”
“Buy me a winning Powerball ticket, and I promise I’ll shop till I drop,” I muttered to her departing back as she headed toward her bedroom. Then I turned my attention back to Lyndella’s journal.
Baby items filled the next several entries in the journal—knitted sweaters, booties, and caps, all decorated with duplicate stitched ducks and teddy bears; an assortment of bibs and burp cloths embroidered with nursery rhymes; and a yo-yo doll. With great difficulty, I strained to read every word of Lyndella’s tight, faded handwriting but again found no clue as to the baby’s identity.
Then I discovered a note written at the bottom of a page featuring the yo-yo doll. The ink on this page was not only faded but blurred, as though Lyndella had been caught in a sudden downpour as she wrote. Much of the page was indecipherable, but at the bottom I made out the following: What am I going to do now?
