by Ann Warner
Chapter Forty-One
Edna
My granddaughter, Amanda, called two days before Thanksgiving to say she and her dad were coming for the day. Normally, that would be wonderful news, but this year it added an unexpected complexity to my planning for the ransom pickup.
I’d decided to have the money delivered to the Kenwood Mall on Thanksgiving afternoon, after the big Christmas shopping rush kicked off. Eddie wanted to wait until Friday, and although there was merit to his suggestion, I thought Thanksgiving Day was the better bet.
Since he’s so tall, using Eddie to pick up the ransom is my thorniest problem. Not only will it be difficult for him to blend in, but I believe he’s a suspect in the other thefts that are being actively investigated. There’s one police officer, in particular, I’ve seen visit Brookside repeatedly.
Then I had a thought. Since I was doing this for Amanda, perhaps it was time for her to pitch in and help. But what story could I tell her that would make sense of something so peculiar as her picking up a backpack that didn’t belong to her and then escaping with it from the mall?
I went to bed puzzling it through and woke up with the perfect plan. I’d tell her a local radio station was sponsoring a scavenger hunt, and I’d worked out when and where they planned to hide the backpack that would win me the first prize. Not wanting her to be too nervous, I told her the prize was $1,000.
“It’s going to be placed at the mall this afternoon,” I told her. “And I don’t think I’m agile enough. You see, you have to get the backpack safely out of the mall with nobody spotting you, because other people will also work out where it is, and they may try to take it away from you.”
Her eyes began to shine. Clearly, she was hooked. And so after Thanksgiving dinner, which I’d arranged for us to eat in the dining room, we left Baxter to watch the football game in the library while Amanda and I drove to the mall.
Mall traffic is always terrible this time of year, but I directed her in a back way, and we found an ideal parking spot. I led her inside and showed her exactly where the bag was to be dropped off—in a planter under an overhang adjacent to the food court.
We were early, so I sent her off to shop while I called Josephine with the final instructions to drop off the ransom at five o’clock.
Amanda returned, shortly before five, carrying a large Nordstrom bag with handles. “I thought I could stick the backpack in here. That will hide it. And I have another idea. When the backpack arrives, why don’t you create a diversion while I pick it up? Maybe fake a heart attack or something.”
Both beautiful and bright. “I think that’s a brilliant idea.”
We grinned at each other.
The drop-off was late. At five twenty, there was still no sign of Josephine. But perhaps she was stuck in traffic. Amanda was restless, and so was I. I’d earlier picked out a family at a nearby table for the diversion Amanda suggested, but they’d now finished their food and left.
Another glance at the drop-off and then back at the tables. Good. A family had just sat down. A husband, wife, and little boy who had Down Syndrome and was eating a bowl of ice cream.
At five thirty, I saw the Brookside associate activities director walking past the drop-off. I thought that was an interesting coincidence until Amanda tapped my arm and pointed. The backpack was there. She squeezed my hand, then jumped up and hustled over to the backpack, carrying her Nordstrom bag.
I stood as well and approached the family I’d picked out, clutching my chest and gasping. They turned toward me, and I almost had a heart attack for real. The man, who’d been facing away, looked exactly like that police officer who’s been nosing around Brookside.
I had no choice but to go through with the plan. I slumped to the floor, pulling on the woman’s coat. From my position on the floor, I saw Amanda with her Nordstrom bag disappearing into the crowd that had turned to look in my direction when the woman yelled for help.
I struggled back to my feet. The man I suspected was a police officer assisted me with a strong grip on my arm.
“Are you all right? Ah, it’s Mrs. Prisant, isn’t it?” he said, removing the last vestiges of hope I was mistaken about who he was, although I did wonder how he knew who I was.
“I’m perfectly fine. I just slipped.”
“And perfectly timed it was.” He grinned at me.
That was when I saw Amanda being escorted toward us by a man who was using one hand to grip her by her arm and the other to hold the Nordstrom bag.
“I’m so sorry, Grandma,” she said.
But I was the one who was sorry.
Chapter Forty-Two
Mac
It was a good thing Dillingham had agreed to come to the mall and help me keep an eye on things, since he was the one who spotted the granddaughter while I was dealing with Edna Prisant’s fake heart attack. I had thought it wise to know what Edna looked like in case she picked up the ransom instead of Eddie, and recognizing her from the description Josephine and Lillian had given me was a snap.
My plan, once we knew the drop-off location, had been to pick a spot from which to take pictures of whoever picked up the backpack. Kate was the one who suggested she and Teddy could provide the perfect cover for me to hang around the food court. Since I didn’t intend to approach Eddie, I’d judged it safe for them to be there.
It didn’t take us long after Dillingham apprehended the granddaughter to determine she was an innocent bystander roped in by her grandmother’s bizarre, but believable, story about a scavenger hunt.
Neither of us considered Edna a flight risk, but sending her back to her apartment risked her disposing of evidence. Therefore, Dillingham escorted her and the granddaughter back to the station for questioning while I dropped my gang of helpers off at Brookside.
By the time I made it to the station, Dillingham had gotten a full confession from Edna. We then accompanied her to her apartment where we recovered the baseball card, necklace, and several other items she admitted to stealing. She also told us where to find the painting.
“It went well?” Josephine said when I got back to her place two hours later.
I nodded.
“What did she do with the painting?”
“It’s under your bed.”
Josephine blinked, then led the way to her bedroom to check. I slid the painting out for her, carried it into the other room, and re-hung it.
She stood looking at it. “I’m glad it’s safe,” she said. “Did she tell you why she did it?”
“She was trying to raise money for her granddaughter’s college fund.”
“I see. Are you charging her?”
“Well, she didn’t actually steal the painting, and since there was no money in the backpack Amanda picked up—”
“You have no evidence against her,” I said.
“Not exactly. While we can’t charge her with stealing the painting, you can press charges for her trying to extort a payment from you and for drugging you. And she’s also on the hook for the other thefts.”
“She confessed?”
“Yes. And she’s turned over a stash of items, including the necklace and baseball card.”
“What about the stamp?”
“She conned her son into selling it.”
“All to send her granddaughter to college.”
“So she says.”
“And what about Eddie?” Lillian said.
“Edna said he was the one who removed the painting. But it was at her suggestion, and she claims he didn’t even break in, since the door was open.”
“Does that mean you have less on Eddie than you have on her?”
“Looks that way.”
As we talked, Teddy curled up on the floor and fell asleep. I carried him into Josephine’s bedroom and laid him on the bed, and she got an afghan out of the closet and tucked him in.
Back in the living room, Kate’s pies were served. Then Josephine got out the Erdradour, glasses, and a deck of cards. I was off duty by the
n, so I poured Scotch in the glasses for those who wanted it while Josephine and Lillian took turns explaining the rules for naked poker to Kate, who was enthusiastic about playing.
Devi had been quiet all day, and several times when I glanced at her, I saw her examining Kate with a thoughtful look. It made my heart sore watching Devi, knowing what she was probably thinking.
“Mac, your turn to come back from the clouds and ante up,” Josephine said. She picked up her Scotch, and with a wink, poured it into my glass.
I shook my head to clear it, added two paper clips to the pot, and asked for three cards.
“There was no sign of Eddie anywhere near the pickup?” she asked, dealing me the cards.
“Not a whiff that we could see, but Edna admits she added pills to both the cream puffs, then she had Colter give them to you. Lillian’s had a much smaller dose, by the way.”
“Did seem like I slept real good that night,” Lillian said.
“Did Eddie know they contained drugs when he gave them to us?”
“She says he did.”
“Hmm,” Josephine said, looking at Devi. “Maybe that’s the leverage your lawyer needs to make Eddie drop his suit.”
I looked across the table and caught Devi’s eye. She blinked and glanced away. It occurred to me that, given the way Josephine was nudging me about Devi, she was very likely nudging Devi about me. With that whirling through my head, I wasn’t paying enough attention to my cards.
Kate, on the other hand, caught on quickly. She won a hand, and then Josephine and Lillian won the next two, but Devi and I were both playing poorly, and if I lost less than Devi, she would have to tell a story. But it seemed ungallant to do that to her. Besides, I wanted to hear Devi’s stories because she wanted to tell me, not because she’d been coerced by a card game.
Over the next few hands, I steadily reduced my stake.
“A person would almost think you like to lose, Mac,” Josephine said.
“Nobody likes to lose.” I accompanied the words with my best inscrutable smile. “I take it it’s about time for a story?”
“It is.”
I’d already been thinking about it once I decided to lose more clips than Devi.
“And no exploding dolls this time,” Josephine said. “You lost big. We want something juicy.”
“Okay. Juicy it is.” I stopped, took a sip of Scotch, and began. “This happened when I was on the Cincinnati police force. My partner and I got a call to investigate a missing girl. Trudy was five and had gone missing during the night.
“The mom looked too old to have a five-year-old, and that was our first clue this might not be what we thought it was. But in that neighborhood, many of the women called Mom were grandmothers, so we began to question her. She was distraught, barely coherent at times. We asked her to describe Trudy, and she said Trudy was black. That part we expected, but the next part, about Trudy having a white ruff, we didn’t expect. We asked to see a picture and, sure enough, Trudy was a cat.
“My partner was getting up to leave, but the woman pulled on my sleeve, saying she knew where Trudy was—trapped in a neighbor’s storage shed.
“I asked why she didn’t just ask the neighbor to open the shed, and she said she was afraid of him. I asked her to show me where the shed was.
“She led the way out her back door into an alley and pointed at a tin shed a short distance away. As I approached, the door flew open and a man came stumbling out. A black cat—with a white ruff—was perched on the man’s head, howling.
“The cat was stuck in the man’s Afro, and was it ever mad. I knew cats could be loud, but I’d never heard anything like that. It howled and hissed, and the man yelled and ran around in circles, trying to bat the cat off his head. If we’d recorded it, I bet it would have gone viral.
“Turns out both the cat and the man were higher than kites on the methamphetamine stash we found in the shed. Getting the two of them separated and sedated was one of the trickiest operations I’ve been involved with. I still have scars. Turns out it was one of the biggest drug busts of the year, so I got a commendation. I also got ragged unmercifully about being wounded in the line of duty by a cat.”
“Good one, Mac,” Josephine said, sitting back and grinning at me.
Even Devi smiled at the images I’d conjured. Since she’d been so solemn most of the day, I was glad to see it.
The perfect ending for the day would have been me driving Devi home . . . a realization that forced me to finally face the fact that chance encounters weren’t enough. I wanted more. And I didn’t even care whether or not she wanted kids.
Chapter Forty-Three
Josephine
Before I made a decision about pressing charges against Edna, I wanted to speak to her, and so two days after Thanksgiving, I knocked on her door.
The woman who answered the door was a different Edna from the one I’d known across the poker table. The bluster was missing, and she appeared to sag, as if part of her had previously been blown up but now the air had escaped.
When she saw me, she stood straighter. It didn’t help.
“Come to gloat, have you, Josephine?”
“May I come in?”
She shrugged. “Why not?” She moved away from the door, leaving me to step into her living room behind her.
“Why don’t we sit down?” I said.
She shrugged again and took a seat.
It hadn’t hit me before how few possessions Edna has. The last time I’d been in her apartment, I’d simply thought it less cluttered than Myrtle’s. But now I realized it was bare, despite being one of Brookside’s small units.
She sat across from me, obviously making an effort to sit straight, her hands clutched in her lap, perhaps to keep from fidgeting.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” I said.
It wasn’t the way I’d thought to begin. But seeing how distressed she was, I decided it was a better opening than the one I’d planned, an unadorned question about why she’d done it. I know Mac said it was for her granddaughter, but I had my doubts.
“Yes. Well, I brought it on myself. Would you like tea? Or I have sherry.”
“Perhaps we should stick with tea.”
“You’re probably right. It’s a very cheap sherry.”
I waited while she heated water and took tea bags out of one of the two cupboards in the tiny kitchen tucked into one corner of her living room. It occurred to me it couldn’t be easy storing food and preparing meals in such a small space.
She handed me a spoon and a mug with a tea bag of questionable pedigree floating in it. I removed the tea bag and placed it and the spoon on the saucer she’d set between us. Sipping hot water was preferable to trying to drink an inferior brew.
“You’ll be glad to see the last of me, I expect,” she said, stirring sugar into her own tea. “I’m leaving in a few days, you know. What I don’t know yet is whether I’ll be going to prison or moving in with my son.”
It wasn’t a surprise she was leaving. I’m sure once Mr. Souter learned she was stealing, he’d insisted on it.
“He can’t afford for me to stay here. My son. There’s no money, you see.”
I shook my head to bring my focus back to what she was saying.
“Do you mean you’d stay if you could?”
“This does feel like home now, but I doubt anyone will want me around after what I did. I returned everything, you know. And Baxter is arranging for Dot to receive the money he got for the stamp. She was quite pleased about it. Still . . .”
“Is that why you did it? So you could afford to stay here?” That made more sense than the tuition story.
“Of course not. I wanted to help my granddaughter, Amanda, go to a good college. But when Baxter said I had no money, and he couldn’t afford to send her, I . . .”
“You stole so you could add to her college fund?”
“I did think about killing myself first.”
She said it so matter-of-factly, it bo
th chilled me and convinced me she really had thought about killing herself.
“I discovered I couldn’t do it. And I know what I did instead sounds stupid now, but have you ever noticed how often families just have a person from one of those estate-sale places come in and clear everything out? Valuables get scooped up along with furniture and clothing, and I thought, well, it wouldn’t hurt anybody except maybe the estate liquidator if I took some things. I never expected anyone to miss what I took.”
“But how did you know about the stamp and Glenn Bascombe’s baseball card?” I figured she’d probably seen Gladys wearing the necklace.
“Herman showed me the stamp, and I knew Dot had no interest in his collection, so I figured she would never know it was gone. As for the card, I’m a baseball fan. So was Glenn. We watched the games together. When he showed me his card collection, it didn’t take a degree in rocket science to know that Willie Mays’s rookie card ought to be worth something.”
“Probably more than the painting.”
“But I thought, that is, Myrtle said it was worth millions.”
“The Hopper is worth millions. But the painting on my wall that evening wasn’t a Hopper.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was a trap, Edna. To catch you in the act.”
“You knew it was me?”
“We were almost positive.”
“But how?”
“Lill analyzed your handwriting. You’re intelligent and patient but you also have a wide streak of larceny.”
“Yes, I suppose I do. But didn’t you suspect Eddie?”
“Of course. But he’s just your ordinary, everyday petty thief who isn’t very bright. It was much too clever a plan for Eddie.”
“Not so clever, it turns out,” she said with a sigh. “There’s no proof Eddie was even involved since Amanda picked up the ransom.”
