Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) (27 page)

“You telling me you let her into the gym?”

He made a face. “Actually, no. Mr. Payne let her in so she could prepare for the evaluation. She had heart problems, you see
—
”

“The police know all this?”

“I did mention Polly’s evaluation to them, yes, but not the part about seeing Mr. Philcher. As I said, I couldn’t believe he might be the vindictive type.”

Uh-huh. “No one was supposed to be in that gym after hours unsupervised.”

“A mere miscommunication. Mr. Payne didn’t get my message to have an attendant there. The police understood the problem and recognized it.”

“Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to write itself,” I said.

“Yes, we regret the mistake and will cooperate fully with the Joint committee’s investigation of the matter, but what I wanted to ask is if Mr. Philcher had mentioned his argument with Mrs. Dent that evening.”

“Not to me.” But I’d be sure to ask Thomas about it. If still water truly did run deep, then Thomas’s temper might have gotten the better of him that night. If he’d been worried enough about Polly’s intentions to hire a private investigator to have her checked out. . .

Dr. Kwan uncrossed his legs and rasped his palms together. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Barnhart. I think I’ll need to report this after all.”

“I don’t trust him,” I huffed at Hardy as we continued up the stairs to the second floor. Well, as I continued up, he was already at the top. Whistling a tune. “If my legs weren’t shaking so
—
” Pant. Pant. “I’d bound up these steps too.”

Hardy struck a pose. “Goes to show you what fine shape I’m in.”

Two more steps.

“I’m gonna shape you
—
” Pause. Breathe. “Into a ball and bounce you
—
” Gasp. Breathe. “Down these steps if you don’t stop your
—
” In with the good air, out with the bad air
—
“foolishness.”

I planted both feet on the landing. “I don’t care. How long it takes. To wait for the elevator. Next time, I’ll wait.” It had been Hardy’s idea to skip the elevator when we’d seen the lunch crowd waiting to stampede onto it once it landed on the first floor.

His eyebrows about touched his hairline as he peered up at me. “Why don’t you trust, Dr. Kwan?”

It took me a minute to remember our original conversation when we’d started up the steps. Why didn’t I trust Dr. Kwan? Because he’d never condescended to give us much time before today. Because the residents didn’t have much nice to say about him. Because things didn’t feel right.

“You think he’s making up what he says about Thomas?” Hardy asked.

With my heart rate down to a slow trot, I rallied enough to get through the door Hardy held
,
and
then
down the hall. I’d never be so glad to see Matilda’s apartment, especially her recliner, up close and personal.

But Matilda was in it.

I detoured toward the sofa and took a load off, my mind split between my heart rate, my thirst,
and unpeeling the hot plastic bag from my chest. I made short work of the plastic bag, opening it up on my lap so Hardy could see the contents.

“What you two been up to?” She asked, looking over her reading glasses at us. I could see she was halfway through the crossword puzzle of the paper.

“We went exploring, Momma.” Hardy pointed at the bag I held.

I shook around the bag without touching the bottle, knowing I’d mar fingerprints if I did. Hardy adjusted the floor lamp so we could see better. I gasped as the label came into view. It was Mitzi Mullins’s old prescription bottle. The lid was off, and the capsules that had been broken open upstairs on her dresser must have been the same ones we were laying our eyes on right then.

Hardy and I eyeballed each other. “Whoever was in that bathroom must have forgot they’d left the old prescription bottle and went back to get it.”

“Too late though,” I said, feeling smug. “We saw it first.”

“You got yourself some clue or something?” This from Matilda.

“Looks an awful lot like someone is stealing prescription drugs,” I offered, setting aside the bag.

She set down her paper and pen. “You’ll get them,
LaTisha
. You and my boy.
You two eat yet?”

“No, ma’am,” Hardy answered her. “I’ll go down
to the cafeteria
with you. Some of the lunch crowd is already finished so we shouldn’t have to wait long.”

Matilda tugged off her reading glasses. “Never you mind. That nice man next door is taking me down.”

Hardy and I e
xchanged
a look before he asked,
“You mean Thomas?”

“Won’t Gertrude be mad?” I asked.

She placed her glasses on the side table and made to rise. Hardy gave her a hand up. “He’s not worried about her.” She smoothed her hair and straightened her purple blouse. “He is a charmer. And no, I haven’t lost my head over him, neither. I’m too old for that nonsense. At my age I can afford to flirt a bit and have some fun without anyone thinking I’m easy.”

Someone knocked on the door. Matilda glanced at the wall clock. “He’s right on time. Get that for me, Hardy. I need to go.” She slipped into the bathroom and shut the door as Hardy greeted Thomas.

Thomas.

He was right here.

And I was ready.

But his next action put time into real slow motion. Thomas showed me his grill-work, then reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a silver wrapped candy,
peeled off the foil,
and popped it into his mouth.

Hardy clapped him on the back, you know, like men do to each other. Makes me think their tonsils might fly out their mouths. Anyhow, Thomas headed my way. I got vertical and leaned in toward him as he greeted me.

“Good to see you again
—
”

That’s all he got out before I inhaled deeply right in his face. “You sure are minty fresh.”

He withdrew his hand but laughed out loud. “My favorite flavor has always been mint.”

“You take some where
ever you go?”

“Well, yes.” He got a strange look on his face.

“Can I have one?”

His movements were a little more deliberate as he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a candy. I caught Hardy’s eye where he hung over Thomas’s shoulder, eyes huge, like he was witnessing the cheese slipping off my cracker.

As soon as that little silver wrapper made contact with the palm of my hand, I knew. Dr. Kwan had been right. I untwisted the wrapper and popped the mint into my mouth, examining the wrapper as excitement built in my chest.

I speared Thomas hard with my eyes. “You know
—
” I held up the wrapper
—
“I found one of these by Polly’s treadmill after she fell. You have anything to say on that?” I figured I’d lead him to the confessional but wouldn’t force him inside. If he didn’t want to come clean, I’d push a little harder. But I think he saw something in my face.

We stood eyeball to eyeball for a full minute before Matilda’s return from the bathroom jarred us out of our stand-off.

“I’m ready now, Thomas,” Matilda said, still rubbing her hands together from putting on the lotion she always used after washing up.

Thomas backed down first, seeming to collapse into himself a bit. He stared at his hands as if he saw something we didn’t, and I readied myself for the confession of a killer.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“It’s not what you might think,” were the last words out of Thomas’s mouth before he buried his face in his hands and started sobbing.

“What’s going on?” Matilda asked.

Hardy went over to his momma and patted her back, whispering something into her ear and steering her into her recliner before returning to Thomas’s side. His other side. Hardy was placing himself between Thomas and the front door in case he made a run for it. My man’s mind is sharp as a razor, not that I thought his scrawny body could bring Thomas down, but he could certainly present an obstacle to slow progress until I could body-slam him.

Thomas’s rivers finally dried up
,
and he accepted a tissue I’d yanked from the box next to the sofa. He sighed down into the sofa and braced his hands on his knees, head down. “Polly was a good woman. I-I loved her so much. I trusted her. She wanted this apartment so we could be close.” His hand clenched around the tissue. “All those years I spent in jail and ached to be free, to start over and be a good citizen, seemed within reach when I came here. I met Polly and thought she was everything I’d wanted, spunky, fun, maybe a little eccentric
.
”
H
e shrugged
.
“
B
ut who isn’t at our age?”

 
“I’m guessing she didn’t tell you about her ex.”

“No.” Another clenching of the tissue. “And when I found out, it was like she’d shot me. Deceived me. All I could think was how I’d been tricked and played for a fool. She wanted my money
,
and it seemed to become clear that her association with Otis Payne was for reasons less than honorable.”

“You think they were looking for your stash?”

 
“Stash is too big a word.” Thomas gave a little chuckle. “It’s not much, you see, because I paid back everything I stole. But the small amount I had invested of my own money had grown to a nice sum
,
and I guess she thought there was more, and that as my partner’s ex she had a right to it.”

“You didn’t think so.”

Thomas raised his head. “It wasn’t about the money. I don’t care about the money, but I knew others who might have found out my identity might show an interest in me because they think I had money.”

“You didn’t want to be played for a fool.
,
” I said, straight out.

“The whole thing over the robberies was the foolish mistake of an immature mind. In that last note she left for me, it was as if the money meant so much to her. Not even she understood that it wasn’t the money I stole with her ex, it was my own.”

“But you were in the gym that day.”

He closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath of air. “She’d betrayed me. My trust. I was so angry.”

“You found out after we saw you get off the elevator that day we first met?”

“Sue Mie is a private investigator just starting out, I’d hired her to look into Polly’s background, just to make sure. . .” He massaged his forehead, and I understood how hard it must be for a wealthy person to trust in peoples’ displays of love for them.

He sucked in air. “Sue Mie had gotten the message to me right after Polly and I dined together that afternoon.”

“So you got all mad and went down to have it out with her?”

“I saw Otis open the gym door for her. Watched as she powdered up and got ready to walk, Otis and her whispering the entire time. I hated it. Hated them. They were talking about the money. Plotting how they would split it, but more than that I hated her deception. I watched Otis leave and would have gone in then to face her, but your husband was coming down the hall. He stopped and went into the gym.”

“
Polly
said just a few things to me
.
” Hardy nodded. “She was going back to Otis and demanding my momma be moved, but
. . .
” Hardy paused. “Right before I left it was like she zoned out on me. She kept swallowing real hard.”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” I asked.

“I figured she was just mad, or out of breath and wishing she had some water.”

Thomas picked up the story again. “When your husband left, I went in. . .I can still see her face when I told her what I knew. She didn’t care. Didn’t even answer me. She just jabbed at the button to slow the machine down and wiped at her face.”

Thomas ran a hand over his head and down his neck. “I’ve been over that scene so many times. Why did I pull the key? Why didn’t I
—
”

“You pulled the key out?”

“She wouldn’t answer me. Like she just didn’t care about me, about what we had. I knew then that I hated her and I pulled on the string of the emergency key where she had it clipped to her waist.”

“She fell.”

Thomas shook his head. “She stumbled and caught herself.”