by Lyndsey Cole
“I promised myself I wouldn’t start any gossiping while we were here working, but,” Martha peeked out the door into the dining room, “since you’ve started it, I’ll fill you in on what Sylvia told me. Gloria has her own issues to worry about.”
Annie raised her eyebrows and waited for Martha to continue.
“Everyone thinks she’s addicted to prescription pain pills.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Well, Sylvia heard it from Forrest under strict confidentiality. He likes to have something on everyone, in case he needs to put a little pressure on to get what he wants.”
“Forrest sounds like a manipulative, scheming guy. I thought he was harmless, but now I’m not so sure. What else do you know?” Annie asked.
Martha’s phone beeped at six-fifty with a text message. “It’s from Sylvia. She’s probably wondering where I am. I told her I’d meet her in her apartment when we finished up here.” Martha tapped her screen. Her mouth fell open.
Annie peered over her shoulder. “What is it? Your face is as white as the Easter bunny’s fur.”
Martha handed her phone to Annie. She read the message, Come to Dawn’s office…sounded like a gunshot.
Annie rushed through the door into the dining area. She stopped so suddenly, Martha smacked right into her back. Annie turned around and caught Martha before she crumpled on the floor.
“Where’s Dawn’s office? You have to lead the way, Martha.”
Martha grabbed Annie’s arm and pulled her down the hall to the end, then turned left. The front entryway was well-lit in front of them with a big glass window and a door to the right.
Martha pointed. “That’s Dawn’s office. It’s dark. What should we do?”
Mia caught up to Martha and Annie. “What’s going on?”
“Shhh!”
They huddled against the wall. Martha told Mia what Sylvia texted. Annie put her hand on the office door.
Mia pulled her back. “What are you doing? What if someone is still in there with a gun?”
Martha handed her phone to Annie. “Send Sylvia another message.”
Where are you? Annie typed.
In the supply closet, came back immediately.
In Dawn’s office? We are in the hall. Is it safe to come in?
I don’t know. I heard a door slam and now it’s quiet. Help me. I’m scared. In Dawn’s office.
Annie gave the phone back to Martha. “Call Deputy Christy Crank and tell her there’s been a gunshot here. I’m going inside to find Sylvia.”
She turned the doorknob.
She pulled the door open, inch by inch.
A heavy silence filled the dark office.
4
“There’s a light switch on the right, just inside the door,” Martha whispered to Annie.
Annie’s arm slinked around the door frame into the office and her fingers slid up and down, feeling for a switch.
With one small movement, a bright white glow filled the room and sliced a path out into the hallway.
All was silent except for the slight buzzing of the overhead bulbs.
A whiff of potatoes drifted to her nose.
She eased her head far enough to her left so her eyes could peer inside. A big desk faced her. A gaping wide open safe drew her attention. What had Forrest said to her? Something about Dawn keeping a lot of cash in her safe. Well, the safe she was looking at held a stack of folders but she couldn’t see any cash.
Her eyes moved from the safe to the floor.
She flung her head back to the safety of the hall and covered her mouth. Both Mia and Martha stared at her with wide questioning eyes.
Annie let herself take another look. One bunny foot, smeared with dried scalloped potatoes, poked out from behind the desk. Was that foot connected to anything?
The rest of the office looked to be in order. She heard a small sob come from behind a door.
“Sylvia?” Annie, forgetting her fear, rushed to the door and yanked it open.
Martha’s friend was crouching in the corner, under a shelf crowded with reams of paper. She let out a sigh when her eyes met Annie’s. “What happened?”
Annie held out her hand to help Sylvia stand. She had to hobble forward before she had room to straighten.
“Are you okay?” Annie asked.
Sylvia nodded. “I heard someone coming in so I hid in here.”
“But why?”
Sylvia’s face burned red with embarrassment. “I needed to talk to Dawn about my, um, financial situation.”
Before Sylvia could finish her explanation, Martha interrupted. “Annie, come take a look over here.”
The image of the bunny foot returned to her brain as she moved closer to where Martha stood, staring at something behind the desk.
The four women gawked.
Martha broke the silence. “Looks like the Easter bunny met a hunter.”
A squeak escaped from Sylvia before she slumped to the floor.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and all of the women’s heads turned in unison.
“Having a little tea party, ladies?” Detective Christy Crank asked as she entered the room.
Annie moved to one side to make room for the detective. “No, that’s not exactly how I would describe the problem here.”
“The Easter bunny? Anyone know who’s inside the costume?”
“Forrest. He was at the Easter dinner tonight, for photos with the guests,” Annie explained.
“And the rest of you? Delivering Easter eggs or something like that?”
“Sort of.” Annie knew she shouldn’t give a smart answer, but sometimes Christy Crank brought the worst out in her. And after the way her day was ending, it wouldn’t take much to let her tongue get the better of her.
Christy was on her phone, ignoring Annie for the moment, as she called for more police, emergency, and crime scene personnel. The Golden Living retirement home would be crawling with people searching every inch of the premises and Annie had a sinking feeling that she wouldn’t be heading back to the comfort of her bed for much longer than she would like.
“Okay,” Christy said as she turned back toward Annie. “Fill me in.”
“I don’t know what happened. Sylvia,” Annie pointed to Martha’s friend who was beginning to recover on one of the office chairs. “She heard what she thought was a gunshot so we came to help her.” Annie decided to let Sylvia give Christy the details of why she was in the closet in the first place. There was no doubt in Annie’s mind that it would leave Sylvia in a position reeking with guilt.
“Listen, Annie, you have a habit of ending up nearby whenever there’s a body in Catfish Cove, so either tell me everything you know now or you’ll be sitting on that hard chair until your butt screams for a pillow.” Christy crossed her arms, jiggled her right leg up and down, cocked her head, and waited for two seconds. “Well?”
“All I know is that Forrest,” she pointed to the body, “told me he needed to go to Dawn’s office to get paid for his Easter bunny job tonight.”
Christy scribbled in her notebook. “Dawn?”
“Dawn Cross, the manager of this place.”
“Where’s Dawn?”
Annie shrugged. “No one else was in here when I turned the light on. I wrapped up the leftover Easter cake for her when dinner was over in the dining room and she said she was going to her office, then heading home to eat the cake.”
“Why are you three,” Christy included Mia and Martha, “still here if the dinner is over?”
“Cleaning up.”
Christy scribbled more notes. She tapped her pen against her jaw. “Is this the sequence of events? An Easter dinner, the Easter bunny went to the office to get paid, someone heard a gunshot, you came, and the Easter bunny was already dead on the floor.”
“In a nutshell, that’s all I know.”
“What’s her story?” Christy pointed to Sylvia.
“Sylvia lives here. She’s the one who heard the gunshot.”
/>
Before Christy could interrogate Sylvia, the crime scene crew arrived. Christy ushered Annie, Mia, Martha, and Sylvia into the hallway, and with a smile on her face, she told them to sit tight.
“Ma’am? Can we wait in my apartment?” Sylvia asked in a meek voice.
Oh great. Annie knew that one label Christy Crank hated more than being called ‘Cranky’ was when someone called her ‘Ma’am.’
“Excuse me?” Christy slowly pivoted on one foot and glared at Sylvia. Annie couldn’t help but feel extreme sympathy for the elderly woman at that moment.
“My apartment is down that hallway.” Sylvia pointed. “Can we wait there? With the door open?”
Annie gave Sylvia credit for being able to face down Christy’s glare without cracking like an Easter egg rolling off the counter.
“Show me.”
Sylvia led the way to her door, opened it, and waited for Christy to make her decision. “Okay. But don’t set one foot out of here. Understand?”
Everyone nodded.
Sylvia entered, turned a lamp on, and offered seats to the others. “It isn’t much. I only have this small sitting-dining area and my tiny kitchen, my bedroom, and bathroom, but it will be better than sitting on that cold, hard floor.” She stood, wringing her hands, waiting for the other women to respond.
Martha was the first to find her voice. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to pee. I didn’t dare ask Christy for a bathroom break.”
Annie and Mia sat side by side on Sylvia’s dark red loveseat, which left a recliner and a wooden rocking chair for Sylvia and Martha.
Sylvia sat in the rocking chair. “I’m sorry I got you in this mess. I was so scared, I didn’t know what else to do.” She rocked back and forth.
Annie leaned forward. “About that. Why were you in the closet to begin with?”
“Oh dear. I don’t know where to begin.” She rocked faster.
Martha returned and plopped into the recliner. “Spill it Sylvia. I can’t believe you got yourself into that mess without me by your side.”
“Oh, Martha. You know how I told you I might be moving?”
“Yes, but you never told me why. I thought you loved your little apartment here and having all the other folks around to hang out with.”
Sylvia nodded. “I do love it here. That’s the problem. I’ve got some money problems and I went to talk to Dawn to see if there was any kind of subsidy available or if she could give me extra time to pay my monthly fees.”
“I bet that went over like a rotten Easter egg. From what you’ve told me about Dawn, she squeezes every nickel to death. Twice.”
“When I first talked to her, it didn’t go well, so I went back but I never actually saw her. When I went into the office, the safe was open. All I could see was a stack of folders. When I was in there this morning, she hadn’t closed it properly and I saw a lot of cash inside. Do you think someone robbed her safe?”
“And killed Forrest?” Annie asked.
“Forrest wasn’t in there yet. No one was in the office, but I heard footsteps slapping down the hallway toward the office and I panicked. That’s when I hid in the closet.”
The four women jumped when a bang, bang, bang sounded on Sylvia’s open door.
Sylvia’s hand flew to her chest, then dropped back into her lap. “It’s only Marvin,” she said to the others. “Detective Crank didn’t say I couldn’t have a visitor, did she?”
Martha patted Sylvia’s hand. “Don’t be such a worrywart. Come on in, Marvin.”
Annie rubbed her forehead. Would she be in this mess if Leona hadn’t decided to take a few days off? Would she be in this mess if she had just left instead of worrying about getting paid?
But she did feel some sympathy for Sylvia, who was the one in the biggest mess of all of them.
Sylvia fidgeted in her rocking chair, clasping and unclasping her hands. Her eyes darted around her small apartment. Did she understand how Detective Christy Crank would put the pieces together at the crime scene, with Sylvia front and center? Sylvia was in the closet when Forrest was murdered, she knew about the money in the safe, and she was about to be kicked out of her apartment.
Oh boy. Sylvia needed a lot of help, but she didn’t even know it yet.
Marvin looked at each face staring at him before he settled his eyes on Sylvia. “I saw you go into the office minutes before Forrest entered. Now he’s dead.” And just as silently as he’d arrived, Marvin disappeared.
“Sylvia?” Annie looked at the tiny woman. “Do you own a gun?”
“Oh dear. I should have reported that it was stolen last week, but I never did tell anyone. Do you think that’s a problem?”
It wasn’t so much a problem, but more like the icing on the hot cross buns as far as Detective Crank would be concerned.
“Don’t worry,” Annie said, hating those two words even more than when they had been directed at her that morning.
5
Detective Christy Crank walked into Sylvia’s apartment liked she owned the place. She picked up a magazine on the small table next to the recliner. “A travel guide. Someone has a trip planned?” She raised her eyes and stared at Sylvia.
A pink blush crept into Sylvia’s cheeks. “I like to dream about visiting different places.”
Christy flipped through her notebook. “Okay. Sylvia May, right?” Her hard eyes landed on Sylvia.
Sylvia blinked and nodded. She rocked her chair faster.
“You won’t be taking any trips anytime soon. Come with me. I have a few questions for you.”
Martha jumped up and put her arm around Sylvia’s frail shoulders. “You’ll be fine. Just answer Detective Crank’s questions.” She walked with Sylvia to the door, offering comfort for her friend of decades.
Detective Crank took Sylvia’s arm. “You three stay here,” she said in her no-nonsense voice.
As soon as the detective and Sylvia were out of earshot, all three women started talking at once. Annie held up her hand. “Martha, you first. You’ve known Sylvia forever. Is there any chance she shot Forrest?”
Martha frowned. “I can’t believe you feel like you have to ask that question, Annie. Of course not. I don’t believe she could hurt anything.”
“She was in the office. She admits to owning a gun. She was desperate for money that just happens to be missing.” Annie ticked the items off on her fingers.
“So now you’re saying she stole the money and killed Forrest?”
Annie stood and paced across the small room. “I’m not saying that at all. I’m stating facts, and that’s exactly what Christy will focus on: means, opportunity, and motive. Sylvia was in the room, she was desperate for money, and she owns a gun. I would describe her position to be precarious at best.”
“If we’re talking hypotheticals, why did she kill Forrest?” Martha asked.
“He saw her take the money?”
“Where did she hide it? Or the gun, for that matter, that she said went missing last week, let me remind you.”
“Good question. If she never left the office, it would have to be in there someplace still.” Annie looked out the window of the apartment. “Marvin might know more. He has that reputation of snooping around. He saw Sylvia, maybe he saw someone else.”
“Maybe Marvin followed Forrest and killed him,” Mia suggested.
“Okay, let’s consider Marvin. Why would he kill Forrest?” Annie asked.
“Marvin said Forrest stole money from him so he wanted revenge,” Martha said with a satisfied look on her face. She obviously was happy to have the conversation on anyone but her friend, Sylvia.
“Would he have used Sylvia’s gun?” Mia wondered.
“First of all, we don’t know if her gun is the murder weapon, but let’s assume it is. Marvin could have stolen it when he was doing his sneaking around. Sylvia seems like she’s an open book. Maybe she told Marvin about her gun. Maybe she even showed it to him so he would know where she kept it,” Annie said.
“Why on earth did she have a gun, anyway?”
Martha shrugged. “If it’s the same gun her mother passed down to her, I guess she kept it for sentimental reasons. I don’t even know if it still works. But I do know that Sylvia was an expert shot in her youth.”
Before they could speculate any further about Sylvia, Marvin, or come up with other possible suspects, Detective Crank returned with Sylvia walking slowly behind her. Her face was drained of color and she had the look of someone who didn’t know if she was coming or going.
Detective Crank, on the other hand, was almost cheerful.
“Annie? You next.” Detective Crank wiggled her finger, turned around, and walked out of Sylvia’s apartment without waiting to see if Annie followed or not.
Of course, she did follow. Her mind raced with the memory of the crime scene she walked into when she found Sylvia in the closet, trying to see every detail that could help get her out of trouble.
Christy opened a door next to the office where Forrest’s body had been found. It was set up almost identically, with a desk, a couple of extra chairs, a lush spider plant decorating the corner of the desk, and a window overlooking the side parking lot. There was a door in the wall that was shared with the other office. She wondered if it was a closet.
“Have a seat.” Christy gestured to one of the office chairs and she sat behind the desk. She steepled her fingers under her chin and stared at Annie. “Your friend told me some interesting things.”
Annie scooched forward on her chair and sat up straight instead of slouching against the back. “First of all, I only met Sylvia tonight at the Easter dinner. I really don’t know her.”
“Tell me about the Easter dinner.” Christy sat back, picked up a pen and doodled on a pad in front of her. “Did you serve ham?”
Annie scrunched her brows together. “Yes, but how is that relevant?”
“It could be. What else did you serve?”
“Appetizers before dinner. Ham with pineapple, scalloped potatoes, green beans, and rolls for dinner. Cake and ice cream for dessert. With chocolate sprinkles.”
