There Was an Old Woman

by Hallie Ephron

  All she got for that were a few tut-tuts. Mina caught a whiff of ginger and tangerine as Dora bent over and tucked her firmly into bed and plumped pillows behind her. The familiar smell conjured an image of plastic forsythia. Now she remembered—the woman who’d showed her around Pelham Manor had been wearing that scent. But her name hadn’t been Dora, and she wasn’t a brunette, Mina thought when Dora returned with a bed tray. Tomato soup. Mina could tell by the smell.

  “Mustn’t forget to take your pill,” Dora said. She handed Mina a pill and a glass. “Careful. The glass is full.”

  Mina could feel the pill between her fingers. “What’s this?” she asked. Did Dora think she wouldn’t notice that the pill was twice the size of the ones she’d been taking for years?

  “The doctor prescribed a new compound, Lipitor and Fosamax. To keep your bones strong.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me about the change?”

  “Don’t you remember? You saw him this morning.”

  This morning? Mina thought it still was this morning.

  “Poor dear. You don’t remember, do you? No wonder. You’re exhausted. You slept all day yesterday, too.”

  Thoroughly rattled, Mina put the pill in her mouth and choked it down with a swallow of water. She was afraid to ask, but she did. “What day is it?”

  “Why, it’s Friday, of course.”

  But how could that be? Could she have lost two entire days?

  Chapter Fifty-five

  By the next morning, Evie could barely hold up her head. Tense and jittery, unable to sleep, she’d spent most of the night up and cleaning the house. Sergeant Corday showed up, as promised, at eight. The younger of the two cops who’d come to investigate the earlier break-in, he had another officer with him this time. A slender African American woman with straight black hair framing her wide-set eyes, she introduced herself as Detective Leslie Johnson. Evie poured them both coffee and sat across the kitchen table from them. The kitchen was still the only room in the house that was back to normal.

  “So these are what you found outside in the trash?” Johnson asked, indicating the pill bottles that Evie had left on the table. “Why don’t you start at the beginning. Tell us about your mother’s illness.”

  The beginning. What was the beginning? Evie took a breath. “My mother is an alcoholic. Has been for years, so we weren’t surprised when she was rushed to the hospital last Friday.”

  “We?” Corday asked.

  “My sister, Ginger, and I. We’ve been through this so many times before. My mother falls. Or she collapses. Or she acts like a crazy person. She dries out, goes in for treatment. Says she’ll stop drinking but she never does. But this time it was different. Turns out that on top of excessive drinking, she’d taken an overdose of acetaminophen. I thought it was accidental, because it wouldn’t have taken much with her liver already so compromised. Then I found these.” She pointed to the NaturaPharm containers.

  “Vitamins?” Corday said.

  “Only they’re not. Both containers have the same pills. Acetaminophen. When you asked me if something more was missing after the break-in, I’d only checked for valuables. But someone took these bottles and more like them from the bathroom and threw them in the trash.”

  “How many more?” Detective Johnson asked.

  “There was a whole row of them in her medicine cabinet.” Evie tried to visualize it. “Six or seven.”

  Detective Johnson picked up a paper napkin and used it to turn over one of the containers. “No price sticker, but there’s a bar code. We may be able to find out what store they came from.” She unscrewed the top and shook a tablet into her palm. “So you’re saying someone was trying to kill her.”

  “She was doing a fine job of that all by herself. I think someone was trying to speed up the process. And sabotage her car. And make it look like she’s one of those crazy cat ladies. I’ve thrown out dozens of empty cans of cat food. My mother doesn’t even like cats, and she’s certainly never owned one.” Evie went on, telling them about the money her mother was getting, and that she suspected someone had gotten her to sign away her house.

  “Did you find this agreement that you think she signed?” Johnson asked.

  Evie admitted she hadn’t. “But Mrs. Yetner—she lives next door—her nephew has been trying to get her to sign away her house, too. I have that agreement.” Then she remembered she’d given the life estate deed to Finn. “I mean, I know where it is. I gave it to someone to look into.”

  “But you have the cash?” Corday asked. “There might be prints.”

  “I’m sorry, no. I deposited it all in the bank yesterday. That much cash made me very nervous, especially after the break-in.”

  “What about the envelopes that the money came in?” Johnson asked.

  Evie sank lower in her chair. “I threw them away as I was leaving the bank. There was nothing written on them. Just twenty brand-new one-hundred-dollar bills in each one.”

  “Seems like it would have to be someone she knew and trusted,” Johnson said. “Any idea who?”

  “My mother’s burned through most of her friends. But the man across the street, Frank Cutler, he’s been spending time with her. He tried to visit her in the hospital, only she’d already been moved to intensive care.” Johnson and Corday exchanged a look, and Evie felt her face flush. “Sounds crazy, I know.”

  “These”—Johnson pointed a long, manicured nail at the vitamin containers—“are not figments of your imagination.”

  “You said you found these in the garbage bag outside?” Corday asked. “I’ll go see if there’s more out there.” He pushed himself up from the table and went out, closing the front door quietly behind him.

  “Why don’t you show me the medicine cabinet these were in,” Johnson said. Evie led her to the bathroom and pointed out the empty bottom shelf. Johnson looked around, speculatively. “We’re investigating another case. Another house—”

  “The one that was bulldozed a few days ago?”

  “It’s been bulldozed?”

  “We’re probably not talking about the same house.” Evie took Johnson back to the kitchen. She took out the map that she’d printed at work and unfolded it on the table. “There,” she said, pointing to the lot where the little house with bright red trim had once stood. “That house is gone.”

  “That’s not the one we’re investigating.”

  Evie pointed a few doors up. “The house on this lot has been leveled, too.”

  “That’s the one,” Johnson said. “An older woman lived there. A widow. Alone. She had emphysema.” She looked up at Evie, as if she was deciding whether to say more. “But that’s not what killed her.”

  “Don’t tell me. Acetaminophen overdose,” Evie said as she started to put away the map.

  “I can’t say,” Johnson said, “but it’s urgent that we talk to your mother.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t. No one can. She’s in a coma at Bronx Metropolitan Hospital.”

  Johnson frowned. “Can I see that map again?” Evie pushed it across the table at her.

  “Why are those other properties flagged?” Johnson asked.

  “They’re all owned by the same company. Soundview Management.” Evie watched as Johnson traced her long finger from one flagged property to the next. Most of them were on the water, including the lot next to Mrs. Yetner on the side opposite Evie’s mother’s house. Frank Cutler’s house was flagged, too. He was young and healthy enough that a life estate deed at least made some financial sense.

  “You mind if I take a picture of this map?” Johnson asked. Evie shook her head and Johnson snapped two quick shots with her cell phone.

  Corday came back in. He had more vitamin containers, each sealed in its own baggie. He and Johnson exchanged a look.

  “Thank you,” Johnson said to Evie, offering her a card. “We’ll be in touch. What’s the best way to reach you?”

  Evie gave them her cell-phone number.

  She felt dazed as
she let them out. Her mother really had been poisoned, and whoever had done it was trying to cover his tracks. She watched from the kitchen window as Detective Johnson and Officer Corday stood in front of the house, their heads bent, talking. The pair split up. Johnson walked up to Mrs. Yetner’s door, Corday to Frank Cutler’s.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  A sharp, sweet smell drew Mina into the present. That, and a woman’s voice. “Wilhelmina?”

  Mina opened her eyes, feeling as if she were fighting her way up out of a dark chasm.

  “Good morning.” Now she recognized the voice. It was Dora, bending over her and helping her to sit, plumping pillows behind her. “So how do you like your new master suite?”

  Mina struggled to see into the blur around her. She reached her hand up and hit a sloping ceiling. Felt behind her—an iron headboard. She was in the upstairs bedroom. How on earth had they finished the renovations so quickly? She didn’t even smell paint or wood, just a whiff of plaster dust and citrus. Intense citrus. Mina recognized that as Dora’s scent.

  Mina groped on the bed covers for Ivory, recognizing the feel of the soft quilts she and Annabelle had pieced together years ago. She’d made one for her own bed, but this felt like Annabelle’s. Annabelle’s stitches were uniform and tiny. Her mother had called Mina’s stitches “slapdash” and had made her pick them out and do them over and over again until they passed muster. Passed muster. That had been one of her father’s expressions. She used to think it was “passed mustard.”

  Where was her cat? “Ivory?” She could barely get the word out.

  “Ivory is fine. She’s downstairs. I’ll bring her up for a visit in a little bit.”

  “What day is it?”

  “Monday,” Dora said.

  Monday? Mina bit her lip. Typically she woke up three or four times in the night; now she was sleeping so soundly that she was losing days at a time. Mina wanted her calendar. Needed her calendar, so she could keep track. Needed her glasses so she could read what she’d written on it, and read the newspaper, and stay anchored by the sights and smells and sounds of the present. Speaking of sounds—

  “What is that hum?” Mina asked.

  “Climate control. It’s in the ceiling. Wonderful, isn’t it? Keeps the room perfectly comfortable.”

  What was wonderful was fresh air. But before Mina could point that out, Dora pulled back the covers and helped her out of bed. Mina needed Dora’s support to stand, but after that she managed on her own. The new bathroom did indeed turn out to be nice, and best of all it smelled clean. It had a walk-in shower with a chair, grab bars in the shower and by the toilet, all in a sea of pale-green tile.

  When Mina was back in bed, Dora brought her a tray. Chicken noodle soup, sliced cheese and crackers, and applesauce. Food for sick people.

  “Don’t forget to take your pill,” Dora said.

  Mina couldn’t actually see the pill Dora handed her, but just holding it in her hand made her gag. She set it on the tray and slid it under the edge of the plate. Ate a cracker with a slice of cheese. A spoonful of applesauce.

  “Your friend from next door came by with something for you to sign,” Dora said. Mina heard Dora rustle some papers.

  “Why couldn’t she come up and ask me herself?”

  “You were sleeping.”

  “I can’t sign something if I can’t even see where to sign.”

  “I’ll show you where.”

  Mina put another cheese cracker in her mouth and chewed slowly. Washed it down with a sip of apple juice. “I’m not signing anything until I can see what I’m signing.”

  As if on cue, there was a knocking downstairs, and Dora said, “That’s probably her now. What shall I tell her?”

  “Send her up to talk to me.” Mina would gladly sign whatever it was if she could just be sure that it was a document Evie wanted her to sign and not one of Brian’s harebrained schemes.

  The knock came again. Dora wasn’t making a move to leave.

  “Answer the door and bring her up here. Please.”

  “Of course,” Dora said. But it was just the kind of of course that Mina had learned not to trust. “Tell you what, you take your pill. Then I’ll get the door and bring her up.”

  Mina put the pill in her mouth and took a sip of apple juice. The pill tasted bitter on her tongue.

  Dora sat on the end of the bed. “Need another sip to get it down?”

  Mina took another drink and choked down the pill. That seemed to get Dora out of the room at last.

  With Dora gone, Mina sat forward, listening. The hum from the air conditioner made it hard to hear. She set aside her tray and pushed back the covers. Then inched her way to the edge of the bed, held on to the windowsill—its sawtooth cutouts reassuringly familiar—and stood. She felt around for her cane, but it wasn’t there. Nor was the walker. She knew the door to the stairway was only a few feet past the end of the bed. Surely she could make it that far on her own.

  Steadying herself against the sloping ceiling, Mina shuffled forward to the foot of the bed. She held on to the iron bedstead for a moment before continuing on. She was out of breath and her legs were shaking by the time she got to the door. She pulled it open and clung to the jamb.

  “I’m sorry.” That was Dora. Something garbled, then “ . . . not here.”

  A low voice answered.

  “ . . . out at the moment.” Dora again. “ . . . have no idea. Of course I’ll relay the message.”

  “I’m up here!” Mina’s voice quavered. She edged toward the top step. What was it the physical therapist had told her about stairs? Up with the good leg, down with the bad. But just as she was groping for the banister railing, she heard the front door close and felt a little puff of air come up the stairs, like the wind shifting in a subway tunnel.

  Mina slumped against the door frame. She heard Dora’s footsteps downstairs, and a wave of dizziness came over her. She turned to make her way back to bed and ran smack into the sloping ceiling. A moment later she found herself sitting on the floor, dazed and disoriented.

  She needed a few minutes on the floor to catch her breath before she could crawl over to the bed, but luckily she managed to pull herself up and into it. She was under the covers, trying to stay awake, when Dora finally returned.

  “Why didn’t you”—Mina’s tongue felt thick—“bring her up?”

  “It wasn’t her,” Dora said.

  “Whowuzit?” Mina’s words slurred together. She felt suddenly warm. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck.

  “Who?” Dora said, as if Mina might forget what she had asked.

  Mina gathered her strength. “Who was at the door?” she demanded, carefully squeezing out each word.

  “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Dora said breezily. “Did you want me to bring them up?”

  Jehovah’s Witnesses? Why would Dora promise to pass along their “message”? Wasn’t that what she’d said? Or—Mina tried to remember.

  “What’s the matter?” Dora said.

  Mina closed her eyes. She felt a light touch on her wrist. Dora was feeling her pulse. Mina knew it was racing, but Dora didn’t say anything, simply lifted the tray from the bed with a slight rattle. A few moments later, the door shut and Mina was alone.

  Mina’s eyelids felt like they were being pushed closed. She needed to stay awake. She rubbed her temple and found a tender, swollen lump. When had she bumped her head? Her tailbone ached, too. But the hip wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been. She needed to work her muscles. She flexed and unflexed her ankle—one, two, three—in one of the lying-down exercises she’d learned after hip replacement.

  But her attention wandered and she lost count. As soon as she had her strength back, she promised herself, she’d do more. She’d sooner drop dead of a heart attack than wither away. That was her final thought before the room faded to black around her.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Evie had caught up on sleep and managed to slip back into what already felt like
a routine—morning at work in Manhattan, a late lunch with Ginger in the hospital café, and afternoon at her mother’s bedside. Now, once again, she was on the bus back to Higgs Point.

  Just like the all too familiar landmarks that flew by, one day was blurring into the next. Her mother hung in limbo, her hands growing clawed and so cold that no amount of holding warmed them. Evie had pictured her mother’s death. She and Ginger had certainly had plenty of rehearsals. But she never dreamed it would be this soon or happen this fast.

  It seemed much longer than a week since Evie had slept in her own apartment, since she’d spent time with her friends, since she’d had a life. She was sick to death of chicken potpies. As she walked from the bus back to the house, she found herself looking forward to dinner at Finn’s. He’d texted her that afternoon. Dinner tonight? Basement tour? See you at 8. The basement alone, packed with material from an old amusement park, would have gotten her there.

  The weather had turned unseasonably warm, up over eighty degrees, and a stiff breeze gusted off the water. The black plastic garbage bags she’d finally dragged out to the street were gone. Even the soiled mattress had been collected.

  She paused outside for a moment, taking in Mrs. Yetner’s house. The Mercedes was still parked out front. Maybe Brian had decided to move in. The pile of building debris between Mrs. Yetner’s and her neighbor’s on the other side—the house that Evie now knew belonged to Soundview Management—had grown. Bundles of newspaper had been added to the lumber and construction materials.

  The wind kicked up, and pieces of newspaper blew into the grass. Sheets stuck to the side of Mrs. Yetner’s house and more blew toward the water. Evie ran after them. She snatched up a few. More that she couldn’t reach blew into the marsh.

  Returning to Mrs. Yetner’s, Evie stuck the loose papers under a piece of wood with lath still nailed to it. She was still carrying around Mrs. Yetner’s invitation to the gala, but she didn’t have the energy to try talking her way past Brian again. So she just slid the invitation through Mrs. Yetner’s mail slot and went home. She rested for a while, then took a shower.