Mayhem in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  “How’s Sofia?” I asked. I was beginning to feel that Sofia Muniz, like Ethel Hudson, was a figment of my imagination. I’d had only a brief glimpse of Sofia in her hospital bed, and even then, I hadn’t seen the woman’s face. For all I could attest to, Dolores had kidnapped her grandmother, tucked her in a safe place in her gated community, and was only pretending that Sofia was in confinement at the Mary Todd.

  Dolores had continued her pacing in the parlor, while I sat on an uncomfortable chair with a fake leather look and feel.

  “I honestly don’t know how my grandmother is. She comes in and out of reality. When she asks, I pretend that the cops outside the door are for her safety and security. Which I suppose they are, because whoever really did kill Carlos might come after her.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I wondered if that’s what the LPPD had in mind from the beginning. I found it interesting that even with a nephew on the force, I wasn’t inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt for decisions I didn’t agree with. It was quite possible, I realized, that that was what Skip had meant by Sofia’s “own good” in keeping a guard on her.

  “Did you see the bimbo Steve had with him last night?” Dolores asked. “Where does he shop for these women?”

  “I saw that he had quite a few children with him.”

  “I know. Can you believe it? He’s not even embarrassed to traipse around town like that, with his and hers kids.”

  “Are you saying that wasn’t his wife with him?”

  The next sound was something like “phtt.” She sat down, which was a relief since her nervous pacing made me jittery. “Trixie?” Dolores shivered, as if the image of Steve and his friend were accompanied by a chill wind that swept through the room. “That’s not really her name, but it might as well be. Her name is Ronnie, which is just as bad. She’s Steve’s new secretary. He gets itchy when his wife is out of town. Just like he gets itchy when he wants something for himself, like more money or a promotion.”

  All very interesting, but not why I was sitting in the Mary Todd’s most unattractive room instead of out shopping with my sweet granddaughter.

  “You had something to tell me, Dolores,” I said, hands in my lap, businesslike.

  I heard a sigh that came from her boot-encased toes. “You said the police wanted to know how I can afford this.” I did not correct her as to who was the curious party in those matters. Dolores swept her arm to encompass the room, which, ironically, looked like accommodations the poor immigrant Sofia could have afforded herself. “The truth is I had help. From someone who owed me. Someone who could never repay me for what he did to my family, no matter how much money he gave me.”

  She looked at me. I saw anger, defiance, sorrow.

  “Carlos Guzman,” I said.

  A slow nod. “He was a millionaire, Geraldine. He kept it hidden because he was a fugitive. He took on a new identity and worked as if he were just a poor gardener, but he had lots of money from years and years of exploiting people.”

  “Was Carlos the bad person Sofia wanted to get away from?”

  “Yes. I recognized Carlos more than three years ago when I was starting to look for a place for my grandmother. The good homes, like this, were so expensive, and the others . . . well, I couldn’t leave her in a place that wouldn’t be much better than Nolin Creek Pines.”

  “I’m guessing that Sofia knew as soon as she saw Carlos that you were blackmailing him.”

  “That’s not how I thought of it, but yes. She put two and two together and wanted no part of it. Carlos didn’t usually work at the Mary Todd. That was part of our agreement. He had something on his boss—he never stopped exploiting people—so he could pretty much choose his terms of employment. But he showed up here one day recently as a fill-in and Sofia saw him.”

  “So, they were right,” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  I hadn’t realized I’d spoken my thought out loud.

  Yet another unheeded remark from one of my crafters had proved to be true. I couldn’t remember who it was, but I knew one of the Mary Todd residents had remarked about seeing Sofia arguing with the gardener. I hoped I could get across to them how helpful they’d been with the investigation. We just hadn’t believed them soon enough.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was thinking of something else. Go on.”

  “That’s about it. Once Sofia knew how it was we could afford our new lifestyle, she argued with me every time I came. Blood money, she called it.”

  “Is Carlos responsible for your new home as well as Sofia’s suite?”

  Dolores had resumed pacing. “Mostly.”

  I wondered why no one had questioned Dolores’s upward mobility, but I supposed if she planned it right, it might have looked as though her successful career made it all possible.

  “And it was Carlos who paid off someone to get Sofia in on the Founders Program even though she wasn’t among the first fifty people to sign up?”

  Dolores stopped in her tracks. She looked at my lap as though she might see a crystal ball there. “Yes,” she said, with hesitation.

  “And that someone would be . . . ?” Pushing my luck.

  “I’d better not say.”

  “The financial manager, Nadine Hawkes?”

  “Really, Geraldine—”

  Don’t lose her now, I told myself. “I understand. I’m sure you know how all this looks now that Carlos has been murdered.”

  “I’m the last one to want him dead, Geraldine. He was an evil man, but I had no reason to kill him.” I didn’t remind her that Sofia had reason, even more than we thought. “Not only has my financial well dried up, but I’m scared to death that my name is in that notebook he supposedly kept.”

  “Will your grandmother be able to stay here now?” If she doesn’t get sent to prison, I added silently.

  Dolores sat down again. “Don’t think I haven’t gone back to the drawing board since I got the news. Ernestine has only one more year of college, and she’ll have to get a job, but all her friends have jobs so that’s not a problem. I’m in much better shape salary-wise now than I was three years ago, so we should be okay. The big things were the down payments for my home, and for Sofia.” She caught her breath. “You don’t think they can do anything about that, do you? Can the police make me give it all back? Who would I give it back to anyway? He has no family.”

  I noticed that “Can they send me to prison for blackmail?” never came up. I realized that in her mind, Dolores had done nothing wrong except go against her grandmother’s wishes. She’d simply tried to get what she felt was her due. Like damages awarded at a civil trial—this was the life she would have had if Carlos had not let her fiancé, the father of her child, die.

  “I have no idea about those things, Dolores, but you know you have to go to the police with this information.”

  She nodded and sighed audibly, a loud exhale. “I know. And I’m glad, believe it or not. It has been a very, very tense life for me, and now it will all be out in the open and there’ll be no more secrets.” She looked at her watch. “I have to get back to my grandmother now.”

  I stood and walked with her to the door.

  It occurred to me again how uncanny it was that so many of the residents’ ramblings had turned out to be correct. I might as well try one more.

  “By the way,” I said to Dolores, as we were about to part. “Have you ever met Ethel Hudson?”

  “Here at the Mary Todd?”

  “Yes. You’ve been coming almost three years and I thought you might have run into her.”

  “I don’t think so. But then, I don’t know all the residents. How long has she been here?”

  I was too embarrassed to say I had no idea, that she might just be an old man’s fantasy woman. “She was on the staff.” Dolores seemed surprised at this. “But now that I think of it, she may have left before Sofia arrived.”

  In the corridor, two staff members pushed identical medical wagons from the Mary Todd’s fully
stocked pharmacy (a bulleted item in their brochure). The wagons, plus the sight of a male patient struggling through a slow constitutional, hugging the walls as he moved, his IV drip trailing, reminded me of my husband’s last days.

  I hurried from the hospital wing—I wanted to run from it—and tried to fill my mind with other memories, of a stronger, more vital Ken Porter. Tonight would be a good time to take out my old photo albums and show Maddie pictures of her grandfather at Christmas parties past. Dressed as Santa when she was a toddler, climbing the ladder to put the star on top of the tree, giving me joke presents that made him laugh more than me.

  By the time I heard Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” in the elevator, I couldn’t tell if my tears were happy or sad.

  Chapter 19

  My fond hope was that when Dolores went to the police she would not blow my cover. I imagined her beginning with, “Geraldine Porter told me you had some questions about how I could afford my lifestyle.”

  I decided to take preemptive action. I called Skip and was routed to his voice mail.

  “Dolores Muniz will be coming in to talk to you soon, about her and her grandmother’s connection to Carlos Guzman. I hope you’ll be understanding.” I was about to sign off and thought I’d lighten the mood. “By the way, what does the expression mean on the license plate of the car you have following me? SWATCH? SNITCH?” I laughed. “See you soon.”

  I’d promised Maddie not more than an hour before we’d begin our fun time. It was now ten thirty. Plenty of time to pay a visit to Mr. Mooney and his Ethel Hudson.

  A call from Beverly on the way to the lobby made me smile. I’d been eager to hear how her evening with Nick had gone, but didn’t want to call too early, in case she was still having a good time with him.

  “He’s so nice, Gerry. A perfect gentleman.”

  “Too much a gentleman? Or . . .” A trailing thought.

  “I’m blushing. He walked me to my door, a kiss good night, and blah blah blah.”

  It was the blah blah blah that was most interesting, of course, and she quickly explained. “It’s very embarrassing at this age to know that everyone is wondering. Did they or didn’t they? So I’ll just tell you, he didn’t stay over.” A long breath.

  I perched on a settee in a hallway off the lobby. “I can’t help thinking how Skip has been pushing for Nick and me to get together, and all along Nick had his eye on you. You two could have been going steady by now.”

  “You’re funny. No, I don’t think so at all. I think it was just serendipitous last night.”

  “What’s next?”

  A beep. “A call from him. Talk to you later with more details.”

  “Not too many, please.”

  I found Mr. Mooney in the lobby. A lucky break for me since the woman at the reception desk seemed to be a veteran staffer, as opposed to the young Olara with whom I’d dealt yesterday. I hoped Olara and her fascinating cornrows hadn’t been fired because she tried to assist me in my search for Ethel Hudson.

  “I’m waiting for my great-granddaughter,” Mr. Mooney said. She’ll be here at twelve thirty to take me to my cousin’s place down in Santa Clara.” The highlight of his day, or month, I figured, and that’s why he was nearly two hours early.

  Mr. Mooney sat on a sofa, his walker nearby, his few strands of hair glistening, as if he’d applied glitter glue to keep them in place on his head. His long thin legs were stretched out under a coffee table that held a large box.

  “Is that your Kentucky schoolroom?” I asked him, pointing to a carton, which read DONOVAN MEDICAL SUPPLIES. I wondered if he’d gotten it during an unsolicited sojourn to the pharmacy.

  “Yup. My great-granddaughter is coming in from Winchester today.” Mr. Mooney wiped his forehead with a large hanky. The room was comfortably cool, but perhaps not to someone on a variety of medications as I knew he was. “Did I say thank you for helping me with the project?” he asked me.

  I’d actually done little for the talented Mr. Mooney, providing advice on varnish and glue while he did the difficult tasks of sanding and sculpting. “You certainly did thank me, and you showed me the photograph she sent you. Her name’s Jane, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “She’s going to love the little scene, especially when she sees her name carved in that desk. Does she know it’s there?”

  “Nope.”

  With the bias of a person who had spent her life on one coast or another, I was ready to proclaim Kentucky the land of yups and nopes.

  My cell phone rang as I was considering the idea of imposing on Maddie to wait till Jane arrived so I could witness the exchange. I took a seat in the grouping next to the one with Mr. Mooney’s sofa and clicked my phone on.

  “Something funny is going on with Ethel Hudson,” Linda said.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  I heard a beep that I recognized as call-waiting, but not for me.

  “I’d better take that,” Linda said. “I’m using my Home phone. I mean my work Home phone. You know what I mean.”

  I guessed she meant her Mary Todd Home work phone. Just when it was getting interesting. It was my day to be a victim of call-waiting.

  I walked back to Mr. Mooney and sat across from him. “I was thinking about what you said the other day. About Ethel Hudson?”

  “Yup.”

  “I heard she wasn’t feeling well and I’d like to visit. Do you know which room she’s in?”

  I saw a twinkle in Mr. Mooney’s eyes and a grin forming at the edges of his bluish lips. “Probably she’s with old Dominik Ostrowsky.” He slapped his knee as if he’d told the best joke of his life.

  Now what? Another person to track down, or another blip in Mr. Mooney’s brain?

  “Is Dominik Ostrowsky a friend of yours?” I asked, tripping over the last name.

  Mr. Mooney was still laughing, partly coughing, his eyes tearing up. “You might say we’re twins.”

  “You have a twin brother?” With a different last name at that. Even a different ethnic background. Hopeless.

  Mr. Mooney stopped laughing as quickly as he’d started. His countenance turned grim; his body stiffened. He pulled his legs in close so that the heels of his highly polished boots hit the bottom edge of the sofa.

  “Uh-oh. I shouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. The only reason I found out about them is that I got lost one day and ended up in Miss Hawkes’s office and I knocked something off the desk and there were all these checks . . .”

  I felt a shift in Mr. Mooney’s attention. I turned, expecting to find Ms. Hawkes, true to her name, hovering in the vicinity, but I saw just a quick shadow. We seemed to be alone in this part of the lobby.

  “Have you seen Ethel Hudson or Dominik Ostrowsky lately?”

  “Nope.”

  The old man’s reaction was strange, part annoyance at me, part concern. Part my imagination, I thought. If it weren’t for Linda’s teasing bit of information, I’d bet Ethel Hudson was Mr. Mooney’s own deceased wife and Dominik Ostrowsky a name out of the blue. I wondered if there were anything more to be gleaned from the deteriorating mind of Mr. Mooney.

  I tried a little soft-toned coaxing. “You told me how Ethel Hudson was such a special person. Well, I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone about her, Mr. Mooney. I’m just a little worried about her.”

  “Miss Hawkes said never mind about her. Miss Hawkes says she never receives visitors. And Dominik Ostrowsky was just my own little joke. I’m supposed to mind my own business, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  With that, Mr. Mooney worked his lower jaw so that it seemed to overlap his upper jaw and touch his long beak of a nose. He lowered his head and pretended (I’m fairly sure) to nod off.

  I called Linda and got her Home (Mary Todd) voice mail.

  Nothing left to do but collect my granddaughter and enjoy the afternoon.

  “I wish I had a cell phone,” Maddie said. “I would have called you to see where you w
ere.”

  “Were you bored?” A vigorous nod in response. “I know I’m a little late. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I haven’t been a very good grandmother, have I?”

  “There’s still time to make it up to me.”

  There was that adorable grin. I shuddered to think how she might use it later in life.

  We were quite successful at Lori Leigh’s Dress Shop.

  Lori Leigh helped Maddie pick out a scarf and a wallet for Mary Lou, and an antique-looking pocket watch (left over from the merchandise she’d stocked for the ball) for Richard. These were to supplement the gift she’d made for her parents. I’d seen the scrapbook she put together, a class project at her school. Evidently Maddie’s teacher was a craftsperson. The book was worthy of a production by Emma or Lizzie, with family photographs, drawings by the little artist herself, specially written captions, and puffy stickers to decorate the pages. I knew Mary Lou and Richard would cherish it long after the scarf, wallet, and watch had worn out.

  I put in a quick call to Skip, leaving a voice-mail message. I was very curious about whether Dolores had been to see him yet (“turned herself in” seemed too strong), but otherwise I gave my full attention to Christmas shopping. I was definitely on the mend.

  My cell phone rang often during our lunch at Bagels by Willie. My A+ GED student, Lourdes, brought our order during Beverly’s call. Her son, Kyle, wearing a trainee badge, put glasses of water at our places. Lourdes smiled at Maddie. “Very busy lady, your grandmother.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes and nodded.

  “You’re at Willie’s? I’m on my way,” Beverly said.

  “Great. Shall I order plain cream cheese on a cinnamon bagel for you?”

  “Light on the cream cheese. I need to lose a few pounds.”

  Of all my friends, Beverly was in the best shape, neither overweight like Linda, nor underweight like me. “Uh-oh. Did Nick tell you that?”