"How are you doing?" she asked a few bites later. "Any nightmares?"
"If so, I don't remember them." I shrugged. "It might be my imagination, but it seems like there's a cold spot where Mr. Humberger's body had been. That's probably silly of me."
"Not really. I brought you a couple of smudge sticks."
From her woven fabric purse, she withdrew two packs of twigs tied together and wrapped in wax paper. I'd never seen anything like them. One sniff told me they were a variety of sage.
"The Indians used these to chase away evil spirits. If you want, I'll do it with you. You sort of spread the smoke around and say prayers."
"That would be great. Even if it is just my imagination, I think I'd feel better."
"I know it's none of my concern, but what are you planning to do with this place?"
"I've been thinking seriously about opening my own business here."
Skye poured picante sauce over her sausage egg burrito and scanned our surroundings. "You know, there is a lot of cool stuff here. It just needs a little bit of tender loving care. A make-over."
"A trash to treasure business?" I asked. Skye had hit upon the same idea I'd shared with Kiki.
"Right." Skye nodded eagerly. "That would be perfect. This is the Treasure Coast, after all. Even today, a gold coin or two has been known to turn up in the surf."
"The Treasure Chest on the Treasure Coast where trash is turned into treasure," I said thoughtfully. "It might work. If there were any treasures here. When I look around, all I see is trash, trash, and more trash."
"That's why you need my help. You can't see the forest for the scrub pines. Who knows what treasures might be waiting to be discovered here? We just need to dig in and get started. I get you started by cleaning the john."
"I can't ask you to do that!"
"You didn't. I volunteered. I've noticed that a clean bathroom and a clean sink do wonders for my mental clarity."
For the next two hours, we worked on our separate tasks. She dragged everything out of the bathroom and gave it a thorough scrubbing, top to bottom. I used the bucket, an entire bottle of Mr. Clean, and a mop to clean the floors in my apartment. To my vast relief, we didn't talk much. I hate having to fill the silence with idle chatter. Skye must have felt the same, because mostly we spoke to discuss the matters at hand.
My phone rang right as we stopped for a water break. I expected it to be Tommy, since I'd text-messaged him and asked him to give me a jingle.
Instead, I heard an unfamiliar voice. "Ms. Delgatto? I'm at Martin Memorial Hospital. Your grandfather has just been admitted."
32
Once again, Skye proved herself to be calm in an emergency. "I'll drive you because I know where to park," she said. In short order, we whizzed down the back streets of Stuart and into a parking garage.
"Admitting is this way." Skye took me by an elbow.
"Mr. Potter is being examined," explained the prune-faced volunteer with a name tag announcing her name was "Thelma."
"Is my grandfather okay?"
"Young lady," said Thelma, "if he was perfectly all right, the policeman wouldn't have brought him here. If your grandfather was in dire straits, he'd be in the Emergency Room. Go take a seat. I’ll round up someone to escort you back to a treatment room."
What is with it with people around here and bad attitudes? I wanted to wring Thelma’s turkey wattle neck. Instead, I allowed Skye to drag me by the elbow to a chair in the waiting area.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that Detective Murray had hung around and made himself comfortable in the waiting area. Of course, comfortable is a relative term because he dwarfed the chair he was sitting in. In one hand he held a tattered issue of Sport Fishing Magazine. He sat in profile to us, and his posture shifted when he recognized Skye.
"Lou!" Skye's face brightened as she reached for him.
Lou dropped the magazine he’d been holding and grabbed her fingers in a grip that proved they were more than just friends. Much, much more. I thought about telling them to get a room. I didn’t because I owed both of them a debt of gratitude.
Lou tore his eyes from her and looked over at me. "Ms. Delgatto. Glad you're here."
"What happened?" I asked the detective.
"I was questioning your grandfather about his quarrel with Mr. Humberger when he started talking pure nonsense and took a swing at me."
The big cop twisted in his seat so I could get a look at his black eye. He sported a swelling, plum-colored shiner.
I was shocked.
"Poppy hit you? He did that?" I couldn't believe the damage that Poppy had done.
"For an old geezer, he's got one whale of a right hook. I did a face-plant. Good thing you'd cleaned the floor in the Gas E Bait."
For the first time since seeing my grandfather, I took a mental step back from the situation. Detective Murray had only been doing his job, and Poppy had overreacted. My grandfather had attacked a cop. This was not good. Not good at all.
"Why did Poppy take a swing at you?"
"Something I said, I guess. I have a hunch your grandfather isn't well. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd bet he has diabetes."
"What?"
"Diabetes," he repeated calmly. "My father had it. That explains a lot of Dick's behavior. He gets surly when he hasn't eaten. He's lost his sense of smell. On occasion, he becomes confused and starts rambling. He's irritable and combative. He's lost a lot of weight."
I sank onto a chair. Everything Detective Murray said made perfect sense. Skye bit her lip and said nothing. She'd obviously come to the same conclusion. That was why she had handed Poppy orange juice and crackers when we were at Pumpernickel's.
I had judged my grandfather to be exceptionally cantankerous when the truth was that he was ill. Very, very ill. How long had he been sick? Had my parents known? What would have happened if Detective Murray hadn’t noticed the warning signs? What if Poppy had been alone and gone into a coma? I buried my face in my hands and took a shuddering breath. Nothing here in Stuart was turning out as I’d expected. I’d always given myself credit for having good people sense, but I’d obviously misjudged both Cooper Rivers and my own grandfather. The earth tip-tilted under me as my entire universe underwent a dramatic shift.
Skye rested a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I shook it off.
This wasn’t the time to feel sorry for myself. I needed to square my shoulders and move on. For better or worse, I was now the head of my family.
33
~ Lou ~
It felt like he’d been sitting in the waiting area forever. His ice pack had all melted, and he’d promised a nurse to hang around while she got him a fresh one. Now he was glad he had because otherwise he would have missed seeing Skye.
Even with one eye swollen shut, Lou could see how good she looked in her torn jeans and tee shirt. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she walked behind a volunteer who led her and Cara Mia Delgatto to the room where Dick Potter was being examined. He was leaning over the arm of the chair, trying not to let them out of his sight when an aging volunteer had brought him a fresh ice pack.
"You're barmy over that gal," said Showalter.
"Barmy? What kind of word is that?" Lou was conscious of the dreamy smile on his face. "So what if it's nice to see her?"
“Nice?” Showalter snorted.
"Knock it off. Where do I go from here?" Lou wondered.
"You never really thought that Dick did it," his old partner said.
"I still had to interview him. Everyone at the Riverwalk that evening watched him and Hal Humberger arguing. We also have witnesses who saw them quarreling at Pumpernickel's just a short time earlier."
"Yup," said Showalter. "Dick has always had a temper. Everybody knows that. That eye of yours is going to be swollen shut by tomorrow."
"Killing a man is different from taking a pop at him," Lou said.
"Right," said Showalter, “but Dick Potter is definitely capable of murder.
He was in the service. Decorated for valor. He didn't get those medals sitting behind a desk filling out requisition forms. No, he was in the thick of it. Got blood on his hands."
Lou snorted in disagreement. "Killing in combat is different. We’re talking about taking out a hopeless idiot like Hal Humberger. Why would Dick do that? Hal was more of a problem to himself and his wife than anyone else. If Dick was going to kill Humberger, he would have gone after him right then and there in the municipal parking lot over by the Riverwalk. Dick wouldn’t have waited around with fingers crossed, hoping Humberger would enter an empty building. That doesn’t make sense. No way. If Dick killed Hal Humberger, he'd have done it in a fit of rage, not after he cooled off."
"Ah, but he wasn’t likely to cool off, was he? Dick was mad as all get-out because Humberger tricked his granddaughter," mused Showalter. "You have no choice but to keep putting pressure on both the grandfather and the granddaughter."
"That's true," said Lou, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "Witnesses have testified that Humberger was just as angry about the situation as Dick was. They say Humberger kept yelling that he was the injured party. According to him, Ms. Delgatto cheated him out of a business deal. The receptionist for Humberger Real Estate told me that Hal didn't even realize he'd been snookered at first. He waltzed in pleased as punch, because he thought he'd completed a deal that he and Philomena had been working on with Cooper Rivers for months. Philomena was horrified. Couldn't believe Hal hadn't bothered to check out the signature or the name on the check."
"Hal Humberger has always been sloppy," said Showalter. "That's why he had to close his construction business. He never did proper estimates, never double-checked his bills, never met his deadlines, and he had frequently had cost overruns."
Lou agreed. "When he came back with the contract signed by Ms. Delgatto, his wife went nuts. She had been after him to check his cell phone messages regularly, but of course, he didn't. If he had, he would have known that Jodi Wireka had been delayed coming back from an appointment. She’d been up in Vero talking with a wedding planner. There had been a four-car pileup on I-95 that forced her to take an alternate route from Vero Beach to Stuart. Consequently, she wasn't able to meet Hal Humberger at The Treasure Chest at the designated time. If Hal had known that, he would have realized that Ms. Delgatto was not who he thought she was."
Showalter sucked air through his teeth. "Let me see if I've got all this straight. Philomena's angry with Hal, Dick Potter is angry with Hal, and I'd say Ms. Jodi Wireka wasn't happy with Hal either. What about Cooper Rivers? Wasn't he furious that Hal Humberger messed up his business transaction?"
"I still have to take his statement." The cold surface of the ice pack made the bruise hurt more rather than less. A trickle of water ran down Lou’s arm. The pack was getting soggy. He’d had enough. Lou tossed the wet mess into a trash receptacle and decided to check on Cara Mia and Skye.
"How could Humberger have made such a big mistake?" asked Showalter as Lou climbed into an elevator.
"My guess is that he mistook one woman for the other. Ms. Wireka and Ms. Delgatto both have dark curly hair. They're about the same height. If Ms. Delgatto was wearing her baseball cap and sunglasses, like she was when I saw her at Pumpernickel's, it would have been hard to tell them apart."
"You know her? This Jodi Wireka?" asked Showalter.
"Yes. A little. I've seen her around town when she’s been hanging all over Cooper Rivers. Word on the street is that she started as his secretary and worked her way up."
"That's why Humberger didn't bother to check Ms. Delgatto's identification," said Showalter. "He assumed he knew who she was. He didn't look carefully at the check or at her signature for the same reason. Geez. I always thought Humberger was dumb, but I never figured him for a total moron."
"Dumber than a wet bag of kitty litter," said Lou. "It's possible that his carelessness is what got him killed."
34
"Ms. Delgatto, your grandfather is going to be fine once we get him stabilized," the nursing supervisor said, while pushing her glasses higher on her nose. She looked more like a librarian than a nurse, with that prim mouth and her gray hair in a tidy bun at the back of her neck. "This is a predictable outcome when the patient is a noncompliant diabetic."
"When will my grandfather be released?" I asked. Skye gave me a light squeeze of the arm that helped me feel reassured and then stepped aside. She managed to walk a fine line between being there for me and hanging back enough to give me a sense of privacy.
"I'm not sure. I should have more for you in a few minutes," the supervisor said, before turning abruptly and walking away down the hall.
A ding announced an elevator car. The doors rumbled open. Detective Murray lumbered over and stood by us. I knew he wasn't to blame, but part of me needed someone to be mad at. He was a nice big target. My heart twisted in my chest. "Are you going to press charges for assault and battery?"
"Look," he said, as he spread his big hands in a placating move, "I know you're probably not happy with me, but it was lucky that I brought him in for questioning. If I hadn't been talking with him at the time his blood sugar plummeted, he could have slipped into a coma and…"
“I realize all that. Thank you. Thanks a lot. I still need to know, are you going to press charges for assault and battery?"
"No. That's not how I roll. I'm not a jerk. Your grandfather is a decorated war veteran. He wasn't himself when he took a swing at me."
"Thanks," I said, with a pang of guilt for not sounding more grateful. Maybe Skye was right about Detective Murray. His job was to find out who murdered Hal Humberger. That was the only reason he was involved. He wasn’t trying to pin anything on me. He was only doing his job. I'd shown up at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Of course he had to take a hard line with me.
Why was my life suddenly so complicated? I had signed a contract to buy a building I hadn't seen in years. My grandfather was gravely ill. He and I both were suspects in a murder case. All this because I'd decided to take a road trip to Miami! Next time I planned to turn everything over to AAA. Obviously, I wasn’t very good at this.
"I said I won’t press charges and I won’t, but I will still need to question him. By the way, you aren't in the clear either. I have a few more questions to ask you."
He had a lot of nerve. "Thanks heaps. You can schedule your questions for the twelfth of never."
"There's a murderer out there, Ms. Delgatto. You snapped up a deal meant for someone else. Your grandfather was seen quarreling with a man who's now dead. If anything, you two should want this resolved. That reminds me," he turned toward Skye. "Ladies? I take it you both were at The Treasure Chest when the hospital called?"
"Right-o, Sherlock." I couldn't keep the sarcasm from my voice.
"Do you think that's smart to hang around that place? I don’t. Remember, there were no signs of forced entry into that building. Until I figure out who did this, you need to be extra careful. Don't walk around outside the building in the dark. Don't climb into a dark car without checking, especially one that’s parked near the building. Lock your doors immediately once you get inside your car."
I didn't say anything, but Skye piped up with, "We will, Lou."
"If I were you, Ms. Delgatto, I'd have the locks on the building changed. There is a murderer out there, somewhere, and when he comes back, he might be coming back for you."
35
My curiosity was getting the better of me. It was time for the direct approach. "What's with you and the detective?" I asked Skye, as she guided her car onto Ocean Boulevard, a main drag in downtown Stuart.
She blushed. "Nothing."
"Come on. You're more than friends. I can tell by how he looks at you."
"Does he?" Her voice took on the eagerness of a young girl.
My stomach growled, and I turned to my friend. "Where else is there to eat besides Pumpernickel's? Don't suggest that crummy diner over by Hobe Sound. Yuck."
<
br /> "Riverwalk Cafe," said Skye, with a dreamy smile. "They have the best hamburgers in the world. Great fish, too."
"I owe you a good lunch," I said. "If you'll take us there, I'll buy."
Skye was right. The Riverwalk were the best burgers I've ever had, bar none! We both ordered burgers. She asked for sweet potato fries, and I had a side salad. As we chowed down, we worked to keep our minds off the murder investigation. Our strategy was to brainstorm what to do with the piles of furniture and junk that littered every inch.
"First, we need to unstack everything and sort through it," I said, as I made notes on my legal pad.
"If I recall, there are two units upstairs, right? What are you planning to do with the second unit?"
"Rent it out," I said. "After I go through everything, I need to decide what stuff has value and what doesn't. That assumes, of course, that there are any items worth saving there, and whether I can recognize items of value."
"You want to call MJ Austin," Skye munched on a dill pickle. The garlic was released with every bite. "She'll be able to look at things and tell you what they should sell for. MJ used to work for Essie."
"I know. So I'd heard." I sort of ignored that suggestion. Until I had an idea what I was dealing with, why add to my expenses? "Third, I need to get things fixed that are broken. Get the locks changed, too."
"MJ has a huge Rolodex of craftsmen. She's the one who made all the calls for Essie."
I leaned back in my seat and took a drink from the big glass of mango iced tea that’s a specialty of the Riverwalk. "I loved visiting Essie's store when I was a kid, but I think a shop like that would have a limited market in today's economy. Most of her merchandise was high-end antiques. The store was dark and sort of gloomy. A few tourists might wander in, but not many, and not often. At least not that I noticed."
Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books! Page 76
