3 Revenge of the Crafty Corpse

by Lois Winston

  “I’ll bet that came as a shock.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year. I was absolutely horrified when I found out.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The only thing I could do. After all, she was my grandmother. I had to save her.”

  “Save her?”

  “Her soul. She had to see the error of her ways and repent for her sins if there was any hope for her.”

  “Did you call the vice squad?”

  Shirley shook her head. “Lyndella bragged that the police commissioner was one of her best clients. Along with the mayor and several other big city officials.”

  “I know.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “She was in business for decades. Along with her craft journals I discovered an accounts ledger. Her clients were referred to by numbers and first names in the ledger, but she’d often embed the full name of someone within the directions for a craft. Her clientele went way beyond mere city officials.”

  “I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me,” said Shirley. “Not with all the political sex scandals of the last few years. Congressmen. Senators. Governors. It’s disgusting.”

  “So what did you do?” I asked, steering the conversation back to Lyndella.

  “I called an investigative reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

  “Why an Atlanta paper?”

  “I couldn’t trust that a Savannah paper wouldn’t bury the story. Or refuse even to investigate. Anyway, after the exposé the reporter wrote, the cops had no choice but to shut Lyndella down for good.”

  “And after that she chose to move to Sunnyside? I’m surprised she even spoke to you at that point.”

  “She didn’t know at first that I was responsible for outing her. Besides, she had little choice. The D.A. froze her bank accounts and seized her assets. She was left with next to nothing.”

  “But she didn’t go to jail.” I knew this for a fact from Lyndella’s journals. She cut a deal. In exchange for no jail time, she wouldn’t name names. Given that many of her former clients now held positions at the state and federal levels—including one U.S. senator, four current and nine former congressmen, one current and one former cabinet member, and quite a few federal judges, not to mention one Supreme Court justice—the D.A. was pressured into making the offer.

  “Lyndella was free but broke,” I said, “so you offered her a place to live at Sunnyside.”

  “Where she proceeded to make everyone’s life miserable for the next twenty years and probably would continue to do so for years to come had she not been murdered. I don’t think that woman was ever sick a day in her life.”

  “Her way of getting back at you?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t kill her.”

  I believed her. Everything Shirley had said corresponded to the timeline of events I had pieced together from Lyndella’s numerous journals and her accounts ledger. Shirley had dropped her defenses and bared her soul. I doubted the confession came easily.

  In addition, I felt sorry for her. Although she hadn’t said so, I imagine Shirley had hoped for a loving relationship with the grandmother she unexpectedly discovered two decades ago. Lyndella certainly hadn’t lived up to anyone’s idea of a grandmother.

  And I thought my kids had it bad with Lucille. Lyndella Wegner made Lucille Pollack look like Cinderella’s fairy godmother.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Not now,” yelled Shirley, her voice filled with annoyance.

  The door opened and one of the nurse’s aides poked her head in. “Sorry to interrupt but you’re going to want to hear this, Ms. Hallstead.”

  Shirley morphed into her no-nonsense business persona. “What is it?”

  “Mabel Shapiro has died.”

  “How?”

  “Apparently, in her sleep, sometime last night.”

  Shirley opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a large magnifying glass. Then she accompanied the aide to Mabel’s room. I followed.

  Since Mabel lived in a single, no roommate could supply any details of the previous night. Mabel reposed peacefully on her side under a quilt, her head facing away from us. Shirley rounded the bed and felt for a pulse.

  “I already did that,” said the aide. “Tried to wake her, too. She’s definitely dead.”

  Shirley rolled Mabel over onto her back. “Bring that floor lamp closer,” she told the aide, “and turn it on.”

  Mabel’s face flooded with bright blue-white light. Shirley raised one of Mabel’s eyelids, leaned over her, and stared into the magnifying glass.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Petechial hemorrhaging.” Under her breath she added, “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She turned to the aide. “Call nine-one-one. We have another murder victim.”

  “How do you know?” I asked after the aide ran out of the room.

  “The tiny red splotches on her eyes. They indicate Mabel was probably suffocated.” She handed me the magnifying glass. “See for yourself.”

  I bent over Mabel and squinted through the glass. At first I didn’t see anything, but with careful searching I finally noticed them. “They’re barely the size of pin pricks.”

  “Which is why the nurse on duty last Saturday missed them on Lyndella.”

  “I thought Lyndella was strangled.”

  “She was, but petechiae can occur from strangulation as well.”

  “Is it normal to check deceased residents for telltale signs of foul play?”

  “At this point do I need to remind you that mercy killings are not uncommon in assisted living facilities?”

  “Or that someone on the staff usually turns out to be the killer,” I added.

  Shirley ignored my pointed comment. “I’ve taken seminars on signs to look for when a resident dies suddenly, especially residents in seemingly good health.”

  “So you think there’s a serial killer running loose at Sunnyside?”

  Shirley sighed. “It’s beginning to look that way.” She collapsed into one of Mabel’s chairs and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook as her tears flowed. “How could this happen to me?” she choked out between huge sobs. “First Lyndella. Now Mabel. What did I do to deserve this? Why me? Why?”

  Why her? Mabel Shapiro lay suffocated to death mere inches away from us, and all Shirley could do was feel sorry for herself ? What about feeling sorry for poor Mabel? I shoved my hands deep into the side pockets of my skirt to keep from smacking Shirley. Not that I would have smacked her, but if anyone deserved a good smack at this moment, Shirley Hallstead was the prime candidate.

  My sympathies belonged to Mabel. That feisty, bejeweled dynamo hadn’t lived long enough to enjoy her new status as Queen of the Sunnyside Crafters, and that was a damn shame. Mabel had possessed serious spunk, and I liked that about her. Although she’d grown bossy—or bossier—since Lyndella’s death, the other residents and the staff also seemed to like her well enough.

  Who would want to kill her? One of the crafters she didn’t tell about the gallery show? That hardly seemed motive for murder, especially if those residents didn’t need the extra income, as Mabel had assured me.

  Was her death related in some way to Lyndella’s death? Or was the killer non-discriminatory, simply taking advantage of opportunity, the identity of his victims not mattering because one dead old person was as good as another?

  When the police arrived, they’d round up the staff and residents to start interviews. Under the circumstances, chances were slim that I’d be able to conduct any of my own interviews for my magazine article. I decided to leave for work before the police arrived, or I’d be forced to hang around for hours.

  Feeling no obligation to hand-hold, I slipped out of Mabel’s room while Shirley continu
ed to wallow in her self-pity party.

  sixteen

  When I arrived at work, I filled Cloris in on what I’d discovered about Shirley’s relationship to Lyndella, and both deaths.

  “Sounds awfully coincidental,” she said. “Are you sure Sunnyside’s director didn’t kill them both?”

  “I’m not sure of anything, but I saw a different side of Shirley Hallstead today. At first I found her controlling, arrogant, and dictatorial, a woman who’d stop at nothing to get her way. You should have seen the way she destroyed Lyndella’s crafts because she’d wanted them thrown away, and I told the aide to bring them to me instead. Shirley could have just tossed them in the Dumpster when she learned they were in the arts and crafts room. Instead, she spent hours creating a pile of paper, wood, and fabric confetti.”

  “Maybe she’s obsessive-compulsive. Or passive-aggressive.”

  “Probably both, but I think her behavior covers up a very sad and lonely woman who has little in life besides her job. She’s defined by it; she’d be nothing without Sunnyside. You should have seen the way she twisted Mabel’s death into her own personal crisis. For that reason, my gut tells me she didn’t kill anyone. She’d have far too much to lose.”

  “Maybe your gut is just telling you you’re hungry. You’ll find raspberry apricot blondies in the break room, assuming the vultures left any. I’m off to a photo shoot.”

  I ducked into the break room and found one lone blondie sitting on a platter from the test kitchen. I grabbed it before anyone else came goody sniffing, poured myself a cup of coffee, and headed for my cubicle.

  After checking my email and printing out a list of the crafts Clara had chosen, I phoned Kara. Maybe she had something more to offer about Lyndella and Mabel that might point me in the direction of their killer.

  Kara answered on the second ring. “I was wondering when you’d get around to calling,” she said.

  “You didn’t warn me I was walking into a geriatric soap opera, complete with a killer on the loose.”

  “A killer? What do you mean? Who’s dead?”

  “Haven’t you heard from anyone at Sunnyside?”

  “Not a word. What’s going on?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “From now until junior decides it’s time to make his grand entrance. I’m on mandatory bed rest. Dish, girl!”

  I quickly caught Kara up on everything that had happened at Sunnyside since she left last Friday.

  “Unbelievable,” she said. “And now Shirley thinks Mabel was murdered, too?”

  “Mabel’s death should at least cause the police to look elsewhere for their killer. As far as I know, my mother-in-law had no interaction with Mabel. Not that I believe she killed Lyndella.”

  “I agree with you about Reggie. That kid wouldn’t have the strength to strangle or suffocate anyone, let alone the disposition. Shirley, on the other hand? I wouldn’t put anything past her, but why now?”

  “Exactly. Reading through Lyndella’s journals, I came across no evidence that anything had changed in her relationship with Shirley. The two of them carried on a mutual animosity for twenty years. Lyndella wrote nothing about any recent escalation from either of them.”

  “I saw nothing different over the last few weeks. Shirley made a point of keeping her distance from Lyndella as much as possible. Then again, so did most of the staff and residents. Lyndella was Shirley’s grandmother? I can’t get over that.” Kara chuckled.

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want both Lyndella and Mabel dead?”

  “Lyndella, yes. Mabel? Definitely not. People liked that feisty little broad, especially for the way she refused to take shit from Lyndella.” Kara paused. “Really, I can’t think of anyone. Sorry. But I’m sure the police will find whomever killed both of them.”

  “Hopefully, before he strikes again.”

  “Or she,” added Kara.

  Funny how I kept thinking of the killer in terms of a he when every suspect on either the police radar or mine was female. Why did I have difficulty thinking of women as killers when two of them had nearly killed me only weeks ago? Maybe because it seemed so wrong that the part of the population that brings new life into the world could be capable of taking away life. Something about that seemed so wrong.

  When I thought about male suspects, though, I drew a blank. Unless the killer was a staff member performing random mercy killings, no man stuck out as a possibility. Yet, if the murders were mercy killings, wouldn’t the killer strike critically ill residents where he’d more likely be able to get away with his crimes?

  Both Lyndella and Mabel were in excellent health for women their age. Lyndella’s death was ruled a homicide as soon as the medical examiner looked at her body. According to Shirley, the same would happen when he examined Mabel’s body.

  Surely, a staff member on a killing spree would employ less detectable methods of murder. The nurses, nurses aides, and doctors all had access to a host of barbiturates and other medications that could be administered by syringe to an IV line or directly into the person’s body without drawing suspicion to themselves.

  If I ruled out staff members, that left male residents of Sunnyside, quite a narrow pool of candidates. The women residents outnumbered the men by at least four or five to one. None of the men ever did more than grumble about Lyndella, and I don’t remember hearing a single unkind word said about Mabel from any of them.

  Who did that leave? As far as I knew, no one. Was it possible we were dealing with two separate killers?

  I decided I needed to devote additional time to studying Lyndella’s more recent journals. If we were dealing with one Sunnyside killer on the loose, it now seemed unlikely that the killer was someone from Lyndella’s past.

  I’d written off Shirley as Lyndella’s killer. A killer with a longstanding grudge against Lyndella from her past seemed unlikely. Besides, such a person would have no reason to target Mabel. From everything I’d pieced together, Lyndella and Mabel first met when Lyndella moved to Sunnyside twenty years ago.

  I had only one other theory involving someone from Lyndella’s Savannah days. With a clientele list that had included many past and present politicians, what if the killer was a former client currently contemplating a run for national office? Someone like that would be intent on ridding himself of any unsavory connections to his past.

  Perhaps he’d already dealt with all his previous dalliances, systematically working his way up to the former madam of The Savannah Club for Discerning Gentlemen. A little Googling around the Internet might turn up whether there had recently been a rash of ex-call girl murders in Savannah.

  But would a man with such high aspirations hire out his dirty work, setting himself up for future blackmail, or would he carry out the murders himself ?

  And where did Mabel fit into such a scenario?

  _____

  “Is it possible Mabel Shapiro was just the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?” asked Zack. I needed a sounding board, and to my great fortune (the only type of fortune I was ever bound to experience the remainder of my days on earth), he’d returned from D.C. Or whichever nameless locale he’d really flown to in order to do whatever bidding he really does for the guys in the dark suits.

  I played nice, though, and didn’t ask. He wouldn’t have told me the truth, anyway. Meanwhile, wherever he’d been and whatever he’d been doing, he must have received partial payment in cow and maize. Zack had arrived back in Westfield bearing a cooler of T-bones and freshly picked sweet corn, which he was currently grilling to perfection on my back patio. The aroma definitely made up for standing outside over a hot grill in yet another scorcher in our endless summer heat wave. Although Mama and the boys played it smarter by waiting inside the slightly cooler air-conditioned house.

  “If so, why would he wait three nights after killing Lyndella to kill
Mabel? If she saw something, he ran the risk of her talking to the police in the interim.”

  “What if at first he didn’t know she saw or heard something?”

  I mulled that over. “He still wouldn’t have known whether or not she had spoken to the police.”

  “True. Unless she told him. These are ready to flip.” He reached his hand out for the jar of garlic powder I held.

  I unscrewed the lid and handed him the jar. “That would have been pretty stupid of her, and Mabel never struck me as stupid.”

  “It also eliminates anyone in the public eye,” added Zack as he first sprinkled the garlic, then flipped the steaks. “I think people at Sunnyside would have noticed a political wannabe roaming the halls.”

  “Definitely. Besides, by definition those guys aren’t capable of milling around senior citizens without glad-handing everyone in sight.”

  Zack turned to face me. “Which means it’s more likely that the politico hired himself some muscle, and there’s a professional killer on the loose at Sunnyside.”

  “If it is a politico. I want to comb through Lyndella’s journals again tonight. Maybe I’ve overlooked something.”

  Zack’s serious face grew more serious. “Maybe it’s time to give that detective a call.”

  “Tomorrow. I need more credible evidence. Otherwise, Detective Spader will dismiss me as nothing more than a conspiracy theory crackpot.”

  Zack raised his eyebrows at that. He already thought I was a conspiracy theory crackpot where he was concerned. I guess he figured what’s one more crackpot theory when you already wear the crackpot title.

  Once the steaks and corn were cooked, the five of us gathered around the kitchen table to devour Zack’s bounty. I’d managed one heavenly bite of T-bone when Mama said all too casually, “Oh, I forgot to mention, dear. Ira called before you and the boys arrived home.”

  I had hoped after Alex and Nick’s disastrous Parents Day trip with Ira to his kids’ camp that we might not hear from Karl’s half-brother again. Apparently, the day in the Catskills didn’t bother Ira as much as it bothered his kids and mine. “What did he want?”