Knot My Sister's Keeper

by Mary Marks

  Giselle looked at me sideways. “You can’t seriously expect me to mop and clean. I’ve always had staff to do the menial work. Besides”—she held up her soft hands—“it’ll ruin my manicure. I think I should pretend to be the boss. I am, after all, a real CEO.”

  “Too risky, G. What if Miss Leathy recognizes your voice?” I rummaged through the supplies in the back of the van until I found a stash of stiff blue rubber gloves and handed two to Giselle. “Leave your good jewelry in the car and put these on.” I passed another set of gloves to Jazz and, after removing my own diamond ring, shoved my hands into a pair. “If we all use these, we won’t leave fingerprints. Just in case.”

  “What about me?” Lucy indicated her bare hands.

  “Three pair was all I could find. Just don’t touch anything. Let Jazz open the doors for you.”

  Lucy hugged the clipboard to her chest, tilted her chin toward the entrance, and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” We all followed her to the front door of Thanks for The Memories Assisted Living, loaded with the tools of the trade.

  The same blowsy blonde receptionist we’d encountered on our first visit buzzed us through the front door. Lucy stepped closer to the desk. “We’re from Acme Housekeeping.”

  “Acme? Never heard of you.”

  Lucy stood taller. “Your corporate office hired us to do a trial cleaning today.”

  The blonde looked at her computer screen and frowned. “I don’t see you on the schedule. Miss Leathy never said anything to me about any trial cleaning. I can’t let you inside without her say-so, and she won’t be here for another hour. You’ll have to come back then.”

  Lucy frowned. “I understand you have a job to do, but so do we. And Corporate would not be pleased if you kept us waiting.”

  “No way! Miss Leathy would fire me on the spot.”

  Jazz stepped in front of Lucy and leaned toward the blonde. He spread a flirty smile across his face. “Believe me, I know how it can be. I used to work for someone like that.”

  The receptionist relaxed her posture, gave him the once-over and a coy smile.

  If she only knew.

  Jazz leaned even closer. “If you let us in, we’ll make sure they know about your helpfulness.”

  “That’s right, hon.” Lucy clicked the top of her pen. “It’s not your fault Miss Leathy failed to inform you we were coming. What is your name?” She prepared to write something on the yellow pad.

  “Stella Price.” The receptionist smiled again at Jazz and tucked a stray piece of yellow straw behind her ear. “And you can tell them I’ve never missed a day of work in ten years, not that anyone’s noticed.”

  Lucy wrote on the clipboard again. “I’ll do that. Now, if you don’t mind?” She inclined her head toward the inner door.

  Stella led us through, jangling a ring of keys in her hand. She stepped in front of Jazz, swung her hips straight to a closet marked MAINTENANCE, and unlocked the door. As she turned to go, she stopped and peered at my face. “You look familiar.” She read the name on my chest. “LaWanda? Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  Afraid she’d recognize my voice, I responded with what I hoped was a backwoods drawl. “Bless your heart. I have that kinda face. Folks is always askin’ me that. But I ain’t never met y’all.”

  Jazz stood behind the woman and rolled his eyes at me.

  Stella raised her eyebrows. “Really? I’m almost never wrong.” She shrugged. “Oh well, I might think of it later.”

  I smiled an apology and walked toward the maintenance closet, turning my face away.

  Her voice gathered an air of authority. “Our patients already ate breakfast and some went back to their rooms. Try not to disturb them.” She walked back to her desk.

  An old woman with a vague expression on her face shuffled by.

  Jazz lowered his voice and whispered in my ear, “That was slick, LaWanda.”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s ten after eight. We have fifty minutes to find Gomez and talk to her before Leathy arrives.”

  He pointed down the hallway. “If we don’t want to arouse suspicion, we should at least pretend we’re cleaning.” He filled our buckets halfway with water and added the lavender-scented cleaner he’d carried in from the van.”

  Giselle held her bucket and mop as if they were radioactive. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

  I showed her how to wet the mop and squeeze out the excess water with the wringer on the side of the bucket. “If you see anyone looking at you, just start swishing it around the floor.”

  “Ewww.” She made a face.

  I rolled my eyes. “Think of mopping as a weird form of cardio.”

  Doors with nameplates lined the hallway on both sides. “These are the patients’ rooms. Lucy and Jazz, you keep a lookout. Giselle and I will find Gomez. Come on.”

  Jazz removed yellow CAUTION WET FLOOR cones from the maintenance closet and blocked off the hallway. He began to mop while Lucy pulled out a metal tape measure and stretched it across the width of the corridor, recording measurements on a “report” we’d never submit.

  Giselle and I carried our cleaning supplies down the hallway. She read the names on the right, I read the ones on the left. Meredith Gomez’s room sat at the end on the left, immediately next to an emergency exit. I called to Lucy at the other end of the hallway and pointed to Gomez’s door. She nodded in understanding and gave me a thumbs-up.

  “This is it, G. Let’s hope all this was worth it and her mind is sharper in the morning.” I held my breath and knocked softly. Without waiting for an answer, I turned the knob and pushed the door open. “Cleaning service!”

  Retired Detective Meredith Gomez looked up. “Do I know you?” She sat in a blue upholstered chair next to a window facing Bob Hope Drive. Her pink polyester pants matched a short-sleeved T-shirt. A single braid of gray-streaked black hair hung over her shoulder and her hands rested quietly in her lap. Was it my imagination, or were her eyes a little brighter than the first time we saw her?

  My sister quickly closed the door and approached. “My name is Giselle. We met thirty-two years ago. You investigated the disappearance of Jacob Quinn Maguire.” She pointed to me. “This is my sister, Martha. We were hoping you could help us figure out what happened to our father.”

  Gomez frowned and narrowed her eyes, as if trying to retrieve a memory. “Quinn?”

  “You remember him?” Giselle asked.

  Gomez began to fidget with her fingers. “Where’s Quinn?”

  Yes! Gomez could remember something. Wasn’t that exactly what a detective would ask about a missing person?

  Then a chill ran up my spine. Those were also the exact words my mother spoke before she died. My poor mother had spent her whole life waiting for her lover to show up.

  I squatted in front of the chair and gazed into the woman’s eyes. I thought I detected a flicker of curiosity there. “That’s what we’d like to find out, Detective Gomez. Do you remember your boss, Captain Bela Farkas? He said you were certain someone in Quinn’s family was responsible for his death. Can you can tell us why?”

  Gomez screwed up her face and blinked rapidly.

  I grabbed the woman’s nervous hands and spoke softly. “I know it’s hard, but please try to recall why you insisted Quinn’s wife was his killer.”

  “Obstruction!” she spat out the word like a bad-tasting piece of meat.

  Now we were getting somewhere. The anger of Gomez’s response was proof she could still mentally connect with the long-ago investigation. Was she reliving what it felt like to be hot on the trail of a killer only to be thwarted by her superior officer?

  “Martha!” Giselle’s voice sliced through the air.

  Why was she disturbing me? Didn’t she hear how close Gomez was to telling us something? “Now’s not the time to interrupt, G.” I turned back to the woman in the chair. “What do you know about the Eagan family that Chief Nelson wanted to cover up? What do you think happened to Quinn? Who do
you think killed him?”

  “Look, dammit!” Giselle again.

  I turned around. “What, for heaven’s sake?” The color had drained from my sister’s face and her left hand, still enclosed in a blue rubber glove, flew to her neck. She raised her right hand and pointed to the wall.

  A small pencil drawing of a young and beautiful Meredith Gomez hung in a simple frame. I lifted it from the wall to get a closer look and my stomach plunged to my ankles. The signature in the lower right-hand corner read J. Q. Maguire. I turned the picture to the back and read out loud: “‘For the love of my life. Your Quinn.’”

  “I don’t believe it!” Giselle gasped and stated the obvious. “Another one.”

  Thoughts tumbled around my head like colorful pieces in a kaleidoscope, rearranging all the facts we’d uncovered into new patterns. “Not only another one, G. I think we’ve just found the other one.”

  I took photos of the picture with my cell phone and shoved it toward Gomez. “You not only knew Quinn, you were one of his women, weren’t you?”

  Her mouth snapped shut and she crossed her arms. I touched her shoulder, but she jerked away and refused eye contact.

  Suddenly the door to her room burst open. Stella stood with her hands on her hips. “I know where I’ve seen you before!”

  CHAPTER 30

  My heart pounded as Giselle and I moved closer to each other. Stella must’ve seen through our disguises.

  The receptionist closed one eye and pointed at me. “Corbin Bowl. Tarzana. We’re in the same league. I’m on the Rowdy Rollers team. Aren’t you one of the Ball Crushers?” She crossed her arms in triumph.

  I blew out a sigh of relief, because even though this woman had an eagle eye, she hadn’t yet discovered our true identities. I deepened my drawl. “Bless your little heart. Not a day goes by that someone don’t swear they know me. Like I said, I just have one of them common faces.” My voice sounded hollow in my ears as the needle on my BS meter edged to the right.

  Stella snapped her finger. “Fudge! I’m usually accurate at this. I never forget a face.” She turned the doorknob and looked back at Giselle over her shoulder and frowned. “You know, you look familiar, too.”

  Giselle raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Moi? Zat would be, ’ow you say, impossible, non? Maybe you see me in France. ’Ave you ever been to Paree?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head once. Only Giselle would think a beautiful French woman from Paree would immigrate to America and become a maid.

  Stella stuck a finger through her brittle yellow hair and scratched her scalp. “I’ll keep working on where I know you from. I never forget a face.”

  As soon as she left, I grabbed my sister’s hand. “We’d better hurry before she figures it out. Let’s see what else we can find.”

  “Like what?”

  “We’ll know it when we see it.”

  Giselle began searching through the dresser. “There’s nothing here but enough polyester to sabotage the fashion industry.”

  On the upper shelf of the closet I spotted a clear plastic container labeled PHOTOS stacked atop a piece of expensive-looking luggage. I couldn’t reach the pictures, so I grabbed the handle of the brown leather suitcase and slid it toward me, being careful to balance the plastic box on top. I set both pieces on Gomez’s bed.

  Giselle rushed over. “Open it.”

  The loose photos inside chronicled the lifetime of Meredith Gomez, including images of her son, Carlos, from the time he was an infant. Then my heart stopped.

  In one photo, holding the little boy’s hand, was my father.

  “Holy mother of God,” said my Catholic sister. “Carlos Gomez, TV weatherman, is Quinn Junior?”

  “Our long-lost brother.” I snapped a picture of the photo with my cell phone.

  “If Carlos is our brother”—Giselle snarled and pointed to the confused woman sitting in the blue chair—“that means she was the one who threatened Daddy with blackmail and demanded more money.”

  I replaced the photos in the shoe box and my gaze fell to the leather suitcase underneath. Embossed in gold were the initials JQM. Sometimes, only a Yiddish word could adequately express someone’s shock and dismay. “Gottenyu!” I blurted out. Dear God.

  Giselle peeked over my shoulder and quickly sipped in a breath. “This is Daddy’s suitcase.”

  I attempted to snap open the heavy metal clasp, but it was locked.

  “Let me try.” Giselle removed one of the hairpins holding her wig, stuck it inside the keyhole, and wiggled it around. But the lock stayed shut.

  I knelt in front of Gomez’s chair again and softly held her hands. “Meredith, where is the key to your suitcase? We need to open it.”

  She pulled her hands out of mine and covered her face. “Go away.”

  I looked at my sister and sighed. “We’ll just have to find it ourselves.”

  For the next five minutes, Giselle and I examined every little box and container in the room. We even opened the bottles and jars in the bathroom cabinet. But if Meredith Gomez still had the key to the suitcase, she wasn’t about to give up its location—assuming she could even remember where it was.

  Giselle threw her hands in the air. “Why don’t we just take the darn thing and open it at home?”

  “First of all, that’s theft. Second, this suitcase is evidence. If we remove it, how can we prove it came from this room? I’m afraid we’ve gone as far as we can on our own. Time to call Detective Gabe Farkas and tell him we may have found the luggage Quinn carried on the last day of his life.”

  Her face froze with a new understanding. “That means . . .”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We most likely found our father’s killer.”

  After I photographed the suitcase, my taller sister helped me replace it and the box of Gomez’s photos on the top shelf of the closet. Then we gathered the cleaning supplies and left the woman sitting alone in her blue chair, humming to herself and gazing out the window at the cars passing by on Bob Hope Drive. We hurried down the hall and met Jazz and Lucy still standing guard near the maintenance closet. Jazz emptied our buckets in the sink, replaced the CAUTION WET FLOOR cones, and closed the closet door.

  Lucy pressed the button next to the reception room door and waited for Stella to buzz open the lock so we could leave. When nothing happened for thirty seconds, she pressed the button again. “What’s keeping her?” She looked through the little glass window on the door. “I can’t believe this! Ray’s going to be sooo mad.”

  I stretched on my tiptoes and saw Stella talking to two uniformed police and two men in suits. She pointed them toward the door and buzzed it open. I looked at Giselle. “We’re busted.”

  I had just enough time to pull my cell phone out of my pocket and send a quick text before staring into the stern faces of a Burbank detective, two police officers, and Could it be? Noah Kaplan. At first, he didn’t recognize me with the wig. Then his eyes widened in slow recognition and shock. He must’ve realized he was about to arrest his future mother-in-law. Again.

  Kaplan grabbed my arm in a gentle but firm grip, pulled me aside, and whispered, “What are you doing here?” He read the name on my uniform. “LaWanda?”

  “Please, Noah. I can explain everything.”

  “Do it fast!” he hissed, barely moving his lips.

  “It’s complicated.”

  He glanced nervously at the other detective. “Simplify.”

  “The quick answer is, Giselle and I just found our father’s killer.”

  He regarded me for a split second. Then he said, “I hope you know you’re in deep trouble. The receptionist finally reached her boss. The boss told her she’d been conned and ordered her to call the police.”

  I pulled my head back. “By the way, what are you doing here? This isn’t even LAPD’s jurisdiction.”

  He jerked his head toward the other detective. “I happened to be having coffee with my friend Mike when he got this call.”

  “What a
re the odds?” I said.

  The Burbank detective, Mike, announced in a loud voice, “You’re all under arrest for trespassing and attempted robbery. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

  Giselle snapped off her blue gloves. “Why would I want to steal anything from a bunch of senile old people? Go ahead and search me.”

  “That’s right.” Jazz stepped toward one of the officers and raised his arms. “Go ahead and search me, too. The only thing I’ve done is mop their floor for free. Besides, you can’t arrest me. Who will take care of my little girl? She’s been waiting all alone in the van this whole time.”

  The detective gaped. “You left your kid in the car? I’m adding felony child endangerment to those charges.” He spun Jazz around and cuffed his hands behind his back. Then he barked at one of the uniforms, “Go get that poor kid. NOW!”

  “But . . .” Jazz sputtered.

  The detective growled. “I’d exercise my right to keep silent if I were you.”

  Kaplan walked me back to join the others and squeezed my arm in a secret signal. “This may not be what it looks like, Mike. LaWanda here thinks they made a mistake and got the wrong address.”

  Bubbles of warmth tingled in my chest, and I regarded my future son-in-law with a new respect. Not only had he just lied for me, he’d manufactured a brilliant way out of our predicament. From now on, even if he reverted to acting like a weasel, he would be my weasel. I quickly queried my cell phone for nursing homes in the area. Almost instantly five of them popped up on my screen. I chose the nearest one. “Isn’t this Providence Nursing Home on Buena Vista Street?”

  “You must’ve taken the wrong off-ramp,” the remaining cop declared. “The Buena Vista exit is a mile east of here.”

  “Dang!” Lucy threw up her hands. “That’s the last time I use GPS.”

  A short time later the first cop walked back into the room. “There’s no kid in the car. Just a little white dog in a blue costume.” He made tiny circles with his finger in the air next to his temple.