Dying Wishes

by Judith K Ivie

  “We’re so glad that it wasn’t more serious,” she managed. “We were all very worried about you.”

  “That was so kind, wasn’t it, Ada?”

  Her sister seemed to have a little difficulty speaking, too. She cleared her throat with a sip of tea. “It was indeed. I can’t tell you what a comfort it is to know we have wonderful friends like you. Fortunately, this episode wasn’t the catastrophe it might have been, but Dr. Petersen was very clear that we need to make a plan for the future. I know you can’t tell from looking at us, but we aren’t getting any younger, you know.”

  The two ladies laughed merrily. Strutter and I looked at each other.

  “Is there some way we can help you with that?” I asked.

  “Why, yes, dear, there is. We have our attorney drawing up living wills and something called proxies and powers of attorney and all of that legal paperwork that seems to be required these days, so that’s all right. But this incident has demonstrated that it simply isn’t wise for us to continue living in this two-story house. Next time it might not be one of those tiny strokes,” she explained. “It might be a thumping big one, and I might be the one having it. How could Lavinia cope with the house and Henry and me and all the rest of it on her own?”

  Rather than taking offense at these sisterly aspersions on her abilities, Lavinia merely sipped her tea and nodded in placid agreement. “We’ve shared a home our whole lives, you see,” was all she said.

  “How can we help?” Strutter and I asked on top of each other, and Ada smiled warmly at us.

  “I believe it’s time we took a tour of that Vista View complex for ourselves. Assisted living, is that the right term?”

  “It is, and I’d be glad to show you around personally any time you’d like. I’m there between nine and three on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for the rest of this month. Just let me know when you’d like to come, and we’ll do it.”

  “Just one thing worries me,” Lavinia interrupted diffidently. “It’s Henry. I know the important thing is that Ada and I can stay together, but I’ve become so fond of our dog. What would happen to him?”

  “Why, you’d keep him right with you,” Strutter assured her. “Residents are allowed one small pet per unit. Of course, you might need to get some help to get his barking under control.” She looked at me doubtfully as Henry could be heard yapping in the back yard.

  “That’s already on my list,” said Ada. “The animal behaviorist comes tomorrow for an evaluation.”

  “You see?” Lavinia said admiringly. “Ada is right on top of everything. What would I do without her?”

  I sincerely hoped she would never have to find out.

  “It sounds as if this may be the answer we’ve been seeking,” said Ada. “I’m so grateful to Dr. Petersen for suggesting it.

  “Dr. Petersen suggested that you look into a unit at Vista View? Does he have patients there?” I wanted to know.

  “Quite a few, I believe. He’s been the on-call physician there for years, after all.”

  For some reason this bit of information startled me. I had known there was an on-call physician—several of them, in fact—but I had never known their names. The fact that the Henstocks’ doctor was among them gave me pause, but I wasn’t sure why. The back of my neck prickled atavistically, never a good sign.

  “Has he been your doctor for long?” I asked. I was careful to keep my voice casual, but Strutter didn’t miss the change in me. I could almost feel her snap to attention.

  “Oh, years and years, isn’t that right, Sister? Ever since old Doctor Melrose passed on,” Lavinia chirped, absorbed in capturing angel food cake crumbs with the tines of her fork. It would never do to use her fingers.

  Ada looked thoughtful. “It’s been fifteen years or so as near as I can remember. Dr. Petersen started out as Dr. Melrose’s associate, and when Dr. Melrose died, he just sort of inherited us along with most of Dr. Melrose’s other patients. Now Dr. Petersen is talking about retiring. We just seem to keep outlasting our medical advisors,” she joked. “Fortunately, there are two or three younger physicians coming along in the practice, and their new offices on the Silas Deane Highway are so convenient for us. More tea?”

  “As delicious as everything has been, I’m afraid we have to be on our way,” Strutter declined regretfully after glancing at her watch, and I murmured my agreement.

  Ada promised to be in touch about a tour of Vista View very soon, and with hugs all around, we took our leave. “Interesting about Dr. Petersen, don’t you think?” I commented as we stood by our cars in the driveway. “It makes me wonder if maybe he was Angela Roncaro’s and Margaret Butler’s doctor, too, for some reason.”

  “If he was, then both women would have shared a physician, lived in the same complex, possibly at his suggestion, and died unexpectedly there. That’s a lot of coincidences.” We looked at each other. “I wonder what else they had in common?” Strutter wondered aloud.

  I could think of one thing. “Tommy Garcia, if the Vista View scuttlebutt is accurate. Any other connections between them will take some investigation.”

  “Oh, lordy,” Strutter moaned, raising her eyes to heaven as if for divine assistance. “Here we go again.

  Eight

  Strutter’s reluctance to delve once again into the circumstances surrounding a mysterious death mirrored my own. We had already been called upon too many times to do that, perhaps due to the nature of our business. Both buyers and sellers were always in the midst of personal upheaval by the time they got to our door. The sale of residential property is prompted by life’s biggest events: births, marriages, relocations, deaths. Emotions invariably run high, and the inspections and certifications that are required to satisfy buyers and mortgagors frequently unearth unpleasant surprises.

  Despite my affection for Ginny Preston, I had glossed over her misgivings about the deaths of Angela Roncaro and Margaret Butler as quickly as I could. Still, they niggled at the back of my mind, as unanswered questions will do. Why else had I reacted so strongly to learning of the Henstocks’ physician’s connection to Vista View?

  “Because on some level we’ll feel responsible for those old darlin’s if they move into Vista View, so we have to make sure we’re not sendin’ them into the lions’ den. Now where did I put that folder?”

  Margo’s cell phone signal wavered as she went farther into the interior of her house in search of some errant paperwork. It was eight o’clock in the morning, not her best time of day.

  “Here you are, you little devil, right on the kitchen counter. Now, where were we?” I appreciated her use of the word we and told her so, which seemed to amuse her. “All for one and one for all, just like the Three Musketeers, right? But now there are a lot more than the three of us who get sucked into these little inquiries we keep stumblin’ into. What with my John and Armando and Emma and Joey and heaven knows who else, we’re more like the Keystone Kops, but we usually get the job done. Come on, Rhett, it’s time to go to work!”

  “Speaking of John, he’s not going to be pleased about our nosing around in this. I can almost feel him standing behind you and frowning at the phone,” I told her. Lt. John Harkness wearing a disapproving expression could be very intimidating.

  “Goodness, he’s long gone, Sugar. Eight o’clock is the middle of the day for John. Anyway, I don’t see any need to worry him about this just yet, do you? If we turn somethin’ up, that will be soon enough. So what’s first?”

  “Strutter thinks we should find out what the dead women may have had in common besides Vista View and Dr. Petersen, and I think that makes good sense. Ginny can probably help with that, since she has their files and knows them somewhat. I’d like to talk with Janet MacRae and Bitsy Grant, too, but I’m not sure how I can manage to do that.”

  “Hmm, let me give that some thought. I know Bitsy slightly from the campaign.” I could hear the wheels turning in Margo’s fertile brain. “See you back at the office later. Gotta go.”

&nbs
p; By nine o’clock I was pulling into a parking space at Vista View. I’d been spending so much time there that the residents were beginning to recognize me. As I did my usual balancing act with my purse and briefcase at the door, the four tennis players I had spotted on my first day were just exiting the building. One of the husbands held the door while the women stood back to let me pass.

  “You’re Margo Harkness’s partner at Mack Realty, aren’t you?” said the taller woman. “I remember seeing you at one of the fundraisers. Margo isn’t sick, is she? I haven’t seen her around lately.”

  I gave each woman my business card and assured them that Margo was fine. The men continued to the parking lot. One of them looked back impatiently. “Come on, girls, get a move on. We’ll miss our court time.”

  Bitsy made a face at him. “Mister impatient, rush, rush, rush. Anyway, tell Margo that Bitsy Grant says hi, okay?” Janet smiled a little uncertainly but said nothing, and the women hurried out to join their husbands.

  “Will do,” I promised. “Have a great game.” I lugged my briefcase to the sales desk. So that was Bitsy, and the smaller, quiet one was Janet MacRae. At least I would be able to tell them apart in future, although I didn’t have their husbands sorted out yet.

  During lunch with Ginny I planned to resurrect the topic of Margaret Butler’s unexpected demise. As it turned out, she beat me to it. Just before noon she stopped by my desk, carrying a tray loaded with Cobb salads and fragrant cups of tea. “Mind if we picnic in my office today? There’s something I need to discuss with you.” Her formal tone and distracted air gave me pause. Was Mack Realty being terminated? I supposed having another vacant rental unit looked bad to senior administration, but they could hardly hold us to blame for a resident’s death. I followed Ginny meekly, feeling much like a student summoned by the principal. When we arrived at her office, she added to my growing uneasiness by shutting the door firmly behind us. Instead of sitting behind her desk, however, she put the tray on a side table and drew two visitors’ chairs up to it. I took that as a good sign.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I added artificial sweetener to my tea.

  She regarded me thoughtfully, ignoring her own lunch. If possible, she looked even more fatigued than she had the last time we had met.

  “Is it about having another unexpected vacancy, because I’ve had several prospects look at it this week, and I feel confident …”

  She stopped my prattling with a wave of her hand. “No, no, this has nothing to do with our occupancy rate. It’s about Margaret Butler, Kate. Those Midwestern cousins I told you about? Well, I had a call from them yesterday afternoon, Faye and Art Henderson from Olathe, Kansas, the only relatives Margaret listed on her intake form. They called to tell me they had received a strange package on Wednesday. It took a few days to reach them because it was certified and insured, and someone had to sign for it. Faye missed the postman and had to collect it in person at the Post Office, and that took a couple of days more.” Ginny paused and swallowed hard, as if her mouth had gone dry.

  I handed the cooling tea to her. “Have a sip. Breathe. Now what was in the package that has you so upset? For starters, who was it from?”

  “It was from Margaret,” she blurted, “mailed last Thursday morning at the Rocky Hill Post Office. It was full of jewelry, Kate, and I’m not talking about the costume stuff. Diamond earrings, an emerald dinner ring, strings of pearls, gold chains, brooches and one special cameo.”

  I whistled softly. “It sounds as if everything in that package was pretty special. Why the cameo in particular?”

  “It was the profile of Margaret’s mother. Faye said Margaret never left the house without it on a gold chain around her neck. She had worn it since she received it from her dad the night of her high school graduation.” She bolstered herself with another sip of tea.

  “Was there a letter or something that explained why Margaret was sending all the jewelry to them?”

  “Just a short note saying something about it being high time someone enjoyed her pretty things instead of their languishing in their cases in her bureau drawer. She wanted her nieces to have them. Faye and Art have two daughters.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “I’ve heard that a lot of people just get to an age where they start divesting themselves of things they don’t use anymore.” I didn’t sound convincing even to myself.

  “That’s just it,” Ginny protested. She clattered her teacup into its saucer on the table. “Margaret did use those things. She wore them all the time. With her financial savvy, she bought most of them as investments, sure, but she didn’t lock them away. She enjoyed her jewels. I must have seen those diamond studs in her ears a hundred times, and even Faye knows she was never without that cameo of her mother.”

  “That one does seem odd,” I admitted. “Why would she part with such a beloved keepsake, do you think?”

  “Because she knew she would never wear it again,” Ginny choked, tears brimming in her eyes. “I don’t know how or why, but Margaret knew she was going to die last weekend or at least in the very near future. The Hendersons think so, too. That’s why they got on a plane to Connecticut this morning instead of coming out next week for the reading of the will as they had planned to do. They’ll be in my office at two-thirty, Kate. What am I going to tell them?” She was almost wailing.

  This new information wasn’t going to lead us anywhere good. I knew it in my bones, and so did Ginny. She had known something wasn’t right from the start, but I had persuaded her to sweep her misgivings under the carpet. Okay, I’d had a little help from my friends, but still. The arrival of the Hendersons destroyed all hope of this matter just going away. I took both of Ginny’s cold hands in my own.

  “Why, you’re going to tell them the truth just as you know it. You have nothing to hide here. You’ll tell them who she had dinner with last Thursday evening, when she left her friends, when she was found, the doctor’s determination of death by natural causes, presumably heart failure. They must already know about her advance directive for immediate cremation, and her household goods were packed and shipped according to their own instructions to you on the phone.”

  “And when they want to talk to the other people here who knew Margaret, now that they’ve received this mysterious package?”

  “Then you’ll give them Dr. Petersen’s name and her lawyer’s name, if you know it, maybe even tell them how to contact the Grants and the MacRaes. I don’t see why not.”

  “In the MacRaes’ case, that would be redundant.” Ginny jumped to her feet and paced to the window, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. “Gerald MacRae was Margaret’s attorney. He’s only semi-retired. It was he who drew up her legal documents, and he was the one who called them about their being in Margaret’s will. It’s all in there.”

  She waved a hand at the wall of filing cabinets, then sighed and returned to her chair. Neither of us had touched our food, and I had a feeling we weren’t going to. I took the plunge.

  “Let’s just say it out loud. It looks as if Margaret may have committed suicide. Perhaps she was ill or desolated by a failed love affair or had embezzled money from her clients. I don’t know, and neither do you, but then, she didn’t want anyone to know. Everything seemed to be planned ahead of time in her usual efficient manner, the final social appearance, the time lag before she would be missed, the advance directive for immediate cremation. The one wild card was sending that jewelry to her nieces, but she probably figured everything would be over and done with by the time they got the package.”

  “It was over but not done with, not by a long shot,” Ginny observed bitterly.

  “What do you mean? If Margaret did do away with herself, it would be impossible to prove now that her remains have been cremated, and frankly, what would be the point? Suicide isn’t a crime.” I was genuinely at a loss.

  Ginny quickly gave me a reality check. “Money, that’s the point, and Margaret had a lot of it. Maybe the terms of her will ch
ange somehow if it’s discovered that she took her own life. Maybe there’s a huge life insurance policy that won’t pay off in the event of suicide. You can just bet there’s something like that at work here.”

  I blinked. “If the Hendersons are her only living relatives, won’t they get everything anyway? Maybe not the life insurance if there’s a suicide clause, but …”

  Ginny interrupted. “I think Faye and Art are very nice people who just want some closure about their cousin’s unexpected death. That package has confused them and created a lot of doubts, that’s all. It’s not the Hendersons I’m worried about.”

  Now I was really at sea. “Who, then?”

  Ginny picked up her fork and put it down again. “Faye and Art are the emergency contacts listed in Margaret’s file. That doesn’t mean they and their daughters are her only living relatives. Who knows who else may be mentioned in her will?”

  “Gerald MacRae knows,” I answered, and she nodded. “There could be dozens of greedy relatives who come out of the woodwork now that the death notice has been published. Maybe they already have. And there’s a second possibility.”

  My head was beginning to throb. “What’s that?”

  “What if Margaret didn’t die of natural causes and didn’t commit suicide? What if she was killed by someone who wanted it to look like one of those things, and the package and the advance directive and all of that was just coincidental?”

  The incipient headache blossomed behind my eyes. “Kind of brings us full circle, doesn’t it?” I rubbed my temples and tried to think through the pain. “So Gerald MacRae was one of Margaret’s closest friends, but he was also her attorney, which would prevent his disclosing anything to the Hendersons except the contents of the will. When is that being read, by the way?”

  “I’m not sure. It was supposed to be next week, according to Faye, but I guess it will be moved up now.”

  I sat quietly for a while, reviewing the events of the past week and the few concrete facts we had about them. Margaret Butler had died. She was discovered two days later and pronounced dead from natural causes by her personal physician, who also happened to be the on-call physician at Vista View that night. According to her own advance directive, her remains were immediately cremated.