“Do they think this substance is what caused him to collapse?” asked Opal.
“They don’t know,” said Essie, “but they’re investigating. Now what does that suggest to you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Marjorie, “but it seems to me they’re going to need a lot more information before they can pin it on Violet—if that’s where you’re going. I mean as far as I can tell, Violet hasn’t had any personal contact with Bob recently until after he had collapsed.”
“I know,” said Essie. “I haven’t figured out all the angles yet, but I’m working on them.”
“Good luck with that, Detective Cobb,” said Opal, shaking her head.
And indeed, Detective Essie Cobb was working on the angles.
“Fay,” she called out to the little woman snoring quietly in her wheelchair. Fay nodded her head and squinted her eyes open. “Fay, can you get on that computer this afternoon and look up information on poisons? Particularly poisons that might cause a coma. Find out how it might be administered. Find out about where someone could get it—how dangerous it is. You know, Fay. I know you know, Fay. I know you know what we need. So go get it, girl!”
Fay smiled at Essie, yawned, and then fell back to sleep.
“She doesn’t understand,” noted Marjorie.
“Yes, she does,” said Essie. “She just has her own way of responding.”
The women had finished their salads and all were feeling rather cheerful as the dining hall was beaming with light from a lovely April day, and an entire band of songbirds were chirping outside the dining hall window. They all elected to indulge in the proffered apricot mousse cake. Santos delivered the scrumptious desserts with a wink to the members of what Essie knew was his favorite table. The women made short work of the four little slices of condensed calories.
Chapter Twenty-five
“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”
—Oscar Wilde
The four friends were passing through the main lobby after their pleasant, leisurely lunch. Opal, Marjorie, and Essie were just saying good-bye to Fay who wheeled herself off to the computer in the family room. How nice it is, thought Essie, to have a researcher. Fay certainly knows how to mine that Internet business.
At that moment, Sue Barber, wearing a light jacket and carrying a purse over her shoulder, came barreling through the lobby from the main entrance.
“Oh, there you are!” she called out to Essie and her friends. “We were almost ready to leave without you.”
“What?” said Essie. Opal and Marjorie looked at each other curiously.
“Don’t you ladies remember?” Sue asked, shaking her finger at the three women. She zipped over to the front counter and grabbed a clipboard. “Remember, you girls signed up for the field trip to the Reardon botanical gardens today!” She waved the sign-up sheet with their signatures under their noses.
“Oh, Sue,” said Marjorie sheepishly. “I’m not really dressed for a field trip.”
“Me either,” claimed Opal.
“Nonsense,” responded Sue. “You both are dressed just fine. The weather is perfect. Come along now. You’ve made us delay long enough. Let’s go. The driver is waiting.”
“You mean right now? This instant?” cried Essie. “The bus is here?”
“Right out there,” she said, motioning to the front door. “Can’t you see it?” She waved her arms at the big yellow school bus sitting under the overhang on the front drive.
“I’m not at all ready,” continued Essie. “I’d have to go clean up and use the bathroom.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Sue firmly. “You can do that when you get to the gardens. They’re just a short drive away. Now hurry! The whole group has been sitting on the bus waiting for the three of you!”
Essie looked at Opal and then at Marjorie as if to say “do you have any other excuses?”
“But, I . . . — I . . . —” stammered Essie.
“Let’s go!” Sue ordered. With that, she herded the women and their walkers out the main entrance as if they were a head of cattle. The bus driver quickly hopped down from his seat and helped Sue load the walkers into the luggage bins on the side of the bus. Then the driver and Sue urged the women up the two steps and into the bus. This was a much greater task than loading the walkers. Essie moaned with each step, threatening to faint from exertion. Opal and Marjorie complained almost as much. When all three women were finally on the bus and seated at the very back (the only seats left), all the residents gave a loud round of applause. Then the driver started up the spunky little vehicle, released the emergency brake with a start that sent Marjorie flying down the center aisle, and with a jerk, the field trip to the botanical gardens was on its way.
“Thanks a lot, Essie,” grumbled Opal to her pal on her left. “How did you ever get us into this? A bus trip is the last thing I wanted to do today.”
“You?” sneered Essie. “I have to pee so badly I’ll probably send a stream of urine all the way to the front of this stupid bus in the next second.”
“At least the two of you are able to stay seated!” cursed Marjorie. “Every time the damn thing stops, I fall on the floor!”
“Where did that annoying Sue Barber go anyway?” asked Essie. “I don’t see her.”
“She’s sitting up near the driver,” said Marjorie.
“She’s probably got a crush on him,” observed Opal. “That’s probably why she schedules so many field trips.”
“Are we there yet? I really have to pee,” squeaked Essie, crossing her thin legs and squeezing her eyes shut.
“Complain! Complain! Is that all you two can do?” said Marjorie. “The other residents seem to be enjoying themselves.”
“They have better bladder control,” countered Essie, grimacing.
“Hang on, Essie,” said Opal encouragingly. “Oh, look! We’re pulling into the gardens!”
And sure enough, the driver made a sharp left turn (causing Marjorie to slide precipitously into Opal) into the Reardon Botanical Gardens. The entrance was a spectacle of begonias, petunias, and roses winding upward around the twenty-foot spikes of a tall, wrought iron fence. As the bus came to a sudden and bladder-squeezing stop, Sue Barber stood where she had been seated at the front of the bus.
“Now, residents,” she announced, “enjoy your visit to the Reardon Botanical Gardens. It’s now 1:30 p.m. Please be back on the bus by 3 o’clock which is when we will depart for Happy Haven.” She bounded off the bus and assisted the driver in unlocking the luggage compartment. They removed walkers and then began helping the residents down the short flight of steps.
“We would be at the very back,” said Essie as the three women waited at the end of the line to exit the bus. She looked out the bus window and saw that Sue and the driver were totally occupied with helping each resident depart.
“Is that where Sue was sitting?” Essie asked Opal, as she pointed to the front seat opposite the driver.
“I believe so,” answered Opal. “Why do you care?”
“I’m just curious about something,” replied Essie, scooting onto the seat she had just mentioned. Sue Barber had left her purse on her seat—obviously so it wouldn’t get in her way while she helped the residents debus. Essie picked up Sue’s carryall satchel and unobtrusively lifted the top flap. Peeking in the interior, she stuck in her hand and shuffled the items around, trying to see what lay inside.
“Essie!” cried Marjorie, “What are you doing?”
“That’s not your purse!” said Opal.
“Quiet!” whispered Essie. “I’m just checking to see if she has any tissue.”
“I have tissue, Essie,” said Marjorie. “In my walker. You can have some when we get down.”
“Never mind,” said Essie. “My goodness, look at this.” She carefully brought out a small plastic bag containing what appeared to be a folded up dollar bill.
“What’s that?” asked Mar
jorie.
“What does it look like?” retorted Essie.
“Like something that doesn’t belong to you, Essie,” snorted Opal, as she grabbed the little bag and shoved it back into the purse. “For heaven’s sake, what are you doing?”
“Just investigating,” said Essie. “Oh, look, everybody is all almost out of the bus. Let’s go.”
As Essie hit the ground, she said, “Where’s the restroom?”
The driver, who’d obviously brought seniors to the botanical gardens before, pointed out a big, square, grey building at the top of a small incline a few yards off to the left—just inside the entrance to the gardens.
“Great!” she replied. “Don’t anyone get in my way!” With that, she pushed her walker at breakneck speed as fast as her little feet and her well-tied sneakers would carry her. Opal and Marjorie smiled politely at the driver and especially politely at Sue Barber whose purse Essie had just burgled. Then they too started for the public restroom building.
“She’s a character,” said the bus driver to Sue Barber.
“That’s putting it mildly,” agreed Sue.
Chapter Twenty-six
“So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls; why don’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?
—Harriet Beecher Stowe
Essie shoved open the rickety old metal door of the women’s side of the public restroom building with the front of her walker. The door rubbed and scraped over the linoleum floor and finally slammed against the tile wall. The noise reverberated with a loud echo but Essie ignored it and everything else as she hurriedly rushed her walker down the line of five enclosed toilets to the compartment at the far end, labeled “handicapped.” She quickly drove her walker through the door of the special toilet stall. Then, grabbing an old wadded up tissue from her pocket, she gingerly shoved the rusted lock on the toilet door—or attempted to shove the rusted lock into its holder.
“Stupid lock!” she yelled at the fixture as the door to the restroom opened.
“Essie!” called out a voice she recognized as Marjorie’s.
“Guard this door, Marjorie!” shouted Essie. “I can’t get the lock to work!”
“Okay, but hurry up!” said Marjorie. “I have to go too!”
“Me too!” added Opal, right behind her.
“Lord’s gourds!” mumbled Essie, ignoring the door and positioning her walker in front of the toilet. As she looked down at the toilet, she gasped. A film of muck covered the seat and rust encrusted the handle. “Wonderful,” she commented.
“What?” called out Marjorie. “Are you hurrying? Opal and I both have to go and we can’t get our walkers into any of these other stalls.”
“Just stay where you are and guard my door!”
Essie looked for the toilet paper dispenser so she could clean the toilet, but unfortunately there was no roll of paper in the dispenser and no spare roll to be found anywhere in the stall.
“Marjorie, go into another stall and get me some toilet paper,” demanded Essie.
“Are you done already?” asked Marjorie scooting into the neighboring stall. “I can’t get in this stall, Essie. Wait, I’ll walk in but I’ll have to hold onto the walls.”
“Here, Marjorie,” suggested Opal, “let me do it. I’m taller.” She grabbed the handles of Marjorie’s walker and leaned sideways into the stall where a roll of paper was balanced somewhat precariously on top of the dispenser.
“Did you get it?” called Essie. She hobbled from one foot to another trying to contain the urge to urinate.
“Just a minute!” responded Opal. “Yes, I’ve got it! Now, what should I do with it?”
“Just roll it under the door.”
“Really? Okay, Essie, if you say so!” said Opal, as she bent low and gave the cylinder of paper a gentle shove under the handicapped stall.
“Opal, are you a bowler?” asked Marjorie in admiration. “That was smooth!”
“I was on a company league once,” replied a smiling Opal.
Meanwhile, Essie, inside the roomy handicapped stall, had grabbed the roll of paper and peeled it open and was using large handfuls to wipe the seat dry.
“This paper is hard as sandpaper,” she complained. “I don’t like the thought of rubbing it on my tush.”
“Quit complaining, Essie,” yelled Opal, “and hurry up!”
When the toilet seat was appropriately dry, Essie pulled down her trousers and lowered herself in place.
“This seat is too low!” she yelled.
“It’s higher than the floor, Goldilocks!” responded Marjorie, “Just hurry up!”
The two women outside the stall heard a sudden flow of liquid and a relieved “ah” emanate from inside.
“Ouch!” called Essie.
“What’s wrong?” yelled Opal.
“This paper is ripping my skin!”
“Hurry up, Essie!” said Marjorie, doing a little dance in front of her walker.
At long last, the sound of flushing noted the end of their vigil. Essie pulled back the stall door and rolled her walker out. Marjorie immediately started to push her walker into the stall.
“I need to go more!” said Opal.
“I got here first!” argued Marjorie, zipping in front of Opal and slamming the door in her face. Essie rolled over to the row of sinks across from the toilets.
“Wonderful!” she cried. “No toilet paper! Now no paper towels!”
“Do they have a hand blower?” asked Marjorie, now efficiently at work inside the stall.
“I don’t see one,” said Essie. “How am I going to wash my hands?”
“Hurry up, Marjorie!” called Opal with urgency, still standing guard in front of the handicapped stall.
Essie poked at a soap dispenser only partially filled with a liquid the color of flamingos.
“Eeek,” she grimaced. “Look at this creepy looking soap.” She tentatively pushed the dispenser knob and a glob of the material squirted into her palm. “Yuck, it’s disgusting.”
“It’s soap!” said Opal, behind her. “How disgusting can it be?”
“I’m done!” announced Marjorie, opening the stall door with a satisfied look. Opal rushed past her friend and into the stall.
“You stay there, Marjorie,” ordered Opal. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Opal,” said Marjorie, “there’s no one else in here. So what if the door’s unlocked? Essie and I aren’t going to break in while you’re using the bathroom.”
“I just want the same protection that the two of you had,” said Opal with a whine.
Marjorie wheeled over to the sinks and reached out to wash her hands. Essie was still rubbing her hands together with the pink goop.
“Look at this stuff, Marjorie,” she said as she nudged her sprightly friend.
Marjorie glanced at the soap on Essie’s hands and turned on the faucet.
Yikes!” she screamed. “It’s all cold water!”
“You have to let it warm up before you just go and stick your hands under the flow,” suggested Essie.
“I don’t have to do that in my bathroom,” said Marjorie.
“This isn’t your bathroom, Marjorie!” said Essie. The sound of another flush announced the completion of Opal’s bathroom visit and soon the tallest member of the group had joined the two shorter women at the sinks. As all three ladies stood in line behind their walkers staring into the mirrors and washing their hands, Essie couldn’t help thinking how much the three of them looked like some bizarre elderly vocal group—maybe “The Walkers”!
“Finally,” said Marjorie, looking at her friends in the mirrors.
“We are rather cute, aren’t we?” noted Essie as she smiled into the mirror.
“Speak for yourself,” scowled Opal. “Cute is not an appropriate adjective for women our age.”
“I can’t help it,” continued Essie, “when my bladder is empty I feel like I can conquer the world!”
“Essie,” said Marjorie, shak
ing her finger at her friend’s image in the mirror, “let’s don’t conquer the world—let’s just figure out what happened to Bob. Remember! That’s our project.”
“Project!” scoffed Opal. “You make it sound like we’re a bunch of Girl Scouts, Marjorie.”
The women continued to stand before the mirrors, leaning on their walkers, and talking--even though they all had finished washing their hands quite thoroughly.
“Essie,” said Marjorie, “just what was all that in the bus? When you opened Sue Barber’s purse?”
“I was looking for clues,” Essie said cryptically.
“And you found some sort of plastic bag with some money in it,” added Opal. “What kind of clue is that? It shows that Sue is very protective of her money?”
“Or she’s very frugal and likes to keep her money stashed away for special purchases,” suggested Marjorie.
“Or,” noted Essie, “she’s saving the dollar bill that she offered to Bob Weiderley as a Bingo prize the night he collapsed.”
“Why would she do that?” asked Marjorie.
“Indeed,” answered Essie. “Why?”
“There could be all sorts of reasons, Essie,” suggested Opal. “I mean, maybe she sets aside a certain number of dollar bills to use on Bingo night and keeps them in a plastic bag in her purse. You know, so she doesn’t mix up her own money with the Bingo money.”
“That’s probably it,” agreed Marjorie.
“Or,” suggested Essie, “she needs to prevent anyone from getting a hold of that dollar bill that she gave to Bob right before he collapsed.”
“Why?” asked Marjorie.
“Because she poisoned it!” said Essie.
“What?” cried Opal. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“Sue Barber didn’t poison Bob!” added Marjorie.
“How do we know she didn’t?” asked Essie, leaning back from the mirrors and speaking now to her friends face-to-face.
“Why?” asked Opal.
“Yes, Essie,” agreed Marjorie, “Why would Sue do such a thing? She has no reason to hurt Bob.”
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