Polly Dent Loses Grip (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) (9 page)

“Did you?”

He didn’t answer. “Gertrude didn’t like her much.”

“What can you tell me about Mitzi Mullins. Has she been here a long time?”

His head bobbed and the lopsided smile slid back into place. And something else I couldn’t quite finger right then.

“She used to live down the hall from me. We’d get together and play cards. Since I’m so shaky, she made this thing for me to set my cards in.” He lowered his face, and I sensed some form of despair as his expression wilted. “But she moved to a different hallway since she’s been having a harder time concentrating.”

My heart smiled at his choice of words. What a kind way to say it. I knew, too, that he missed her company, and I wondered if anyone bothered to visit him to play cards anymore. I’d have to introduce him to Matilda. They’d be quite the pair.

“Did you know Polly Dent?”

His hand tremored and his face pulled into a frown. “Everyone knew her. She always talked real loud to me.”

“She talked loud to us, too, so don’t feel bad. Maybe she was hard of hearing. My mother-in-law sometimes ignores people, but her hearing is fine.”

His answer could have been a sigh it was such a soft, “Yeah.”

Silence reigned supreme as I watched him fold another T-shirt, sensing both awkwardness and something else. Something harder to define. “Why don’t you come by this evening and I’ll introduce you to my husband and mother-in-law. We can even play a few games down in the common area.”

He pulled another T-shirt from his pile, flexing his fingers as if to dispel pain. “Are you going to come see her?”

“You mean my mother-in-law?”

He nodded.

“She’s family. Families take care of each other.”

Another whispery sigh. “Good. It can get lonely here.”

“Do you have relatives to come see you?”

His hands stilled, his head wagging in the negative.

My heart ached for him. “Since my husband Hardy and me don’t live far away and we’re both retired, we’ll probably come at least twice a week, maybe more.”

Darren fisted one gnarled hand, staring at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Would you
—
would you come by and visit me?”

I couldn’t help it. The way he said it wrenched me so bad I had to do some loving on him. I opened my arms and gathered this man, little more than a stranger, into my arms, sharing the pain of his isolation if only for a short time. “We’d be glad to, honey.”

At first his response was what I’d expect, stiff and scared, but I held on until his arms crept around me in a sudden, fierce embrace, before I let him go.

“And you have a standing invitation to share the holiday meals with us at our house. We’ll come and take
M
omma and you home with us. How does that sound?”

His eyes, long-lashed and brown, lit with a ray of pure sunshine. “Really?”

“Yup. I make a mean turkey
,
and my pumpkin pie can’t be beat. If my kids come home, you’ll have to hustle to the table or you’ll be licking crumbs.”

“I’ve never had a real family.”

“Well, we’ll consider you the white sheep of ours.”

His eyes went wide until he realized I was teasing, then laughter bubbled up and sprinkled out in little giggles.

It always amazes me how a true friend can march into our lives so quickly, if we’re just willing to be friendly first. I flicked my hand to indicate the room. “Are you the laundryman?”

He patted ashirt flat with his stiff fingers and tugged another wrinkled one from the mass. Instead of waiting any longer, I stretched across the table and heaved the pile closer, then plucked up a piece out of the pile. It turned out to be a pair of shorts. My eyes darted to Darren’s. His face flushed scarlet.

“None of that, now. I raised five boys. Shorts happened every wash day. When they got old enough to do their own laundry and the piles got high in their room, I’d do it for them. But they sure paid a steep price.” I laughed outright at the memory. “I’d throw something red into their load. Never seen boy’s so eager to do their own laundry after that. Worked every time. Five times over.”
 
I quick folded the shorts I held and pulled another pair from the pile as Darren finished his shirt.

We worked in silence a bit before I finally remembered to ask, “What’s the elevator for?”

“Linens get taken up and down that way. Only the laundry lady and the nurses have a key.”

 
“How about this room? The residents come in here to do their laundry?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

Okay, so this didn’t seem to mean much to my investigation. Still, I’d tuck away the information. One never knew.

I chatted Darren up, asking about his parents
—
divorced and estranged from him. No brothers and sisters either, which explained why he didn’t have anyone come see him. I helped him finish the pile of clothes, reminded him about my invitation for later this evening, and left.

I jabbed at the button of the elevator one more time before recollecting that Darren’d said the nurses and maintenance people used a key to operate it. I wondered if anyone else used it. Placed as it was near the offices, it made sense the director and other employees might make use of it. At least sometimes.
 

I took the main elevator up to the second floor again and mentally calculated the service elevator’s position to be. . .right. . .about. . .here.

Problem was there was a room there that looked to be used for storage. The elevator must let off inside. Double, solid white doors and a huge lock shouted dead end in my head, followed by the rhyming words of a now familiar sing-song voice. . .

“Darkened hands, pulling, tugging. . .”

I turned, recognizing Mitzi. She stared at the white doors, continuing her latest rhyme.

“Into the secret room. Like snow in the palm of the hand, in the end it sealed her doom.”

 
“Mitzi, you startled me.” She didn’t have her walker. No wonder I didn’t hear her coming. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen the walker last night either.

Her gaze held mine for a second, then transferred to the locked doors again. She repeated her ditty, then tacked on the first one. “A dark shadow at the door. Polly Dent on the floor . . . ”

“You see someone go in here, Mitzi? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Frustration tightened my voice and made it louder than the gentle tone I wanted to use.

Her eyes slid back to me. My back tingled as I watched her gaze go from unfocused, to razor sharp. “Don’t let them get away with it, Mrs. Barnhart.”

If I spooked easy, I’d have turned tail and beat it in a hot second. But the window of her clarity could close any second and I needed to get a hand up before it slammed. “Who, Mitzi?”

“Ask Sue Mie about mouse.”

Not the mouse, just mouse. Before I could squeeze in another question, Mitzi scurried off with more speed than someone using a walker should be capable of.

Chapter Eleven

I spent the afternoon hours with a pencil and paper, continuing to dissect Mitzi’s poems and the possibilities they stirred in my brain. Within an hour I had several ideas and a very capable assistant.

“The solitaire thing reminds me of Bryton. Remember as a young’un when he hated playing with the other kids because they always won?” M
omma
pursed her lips and scratched her head. Nothing wrong with this woman’s mind. “He started playing solitaire all the time after that.”

Her memory brought it back to me. Bryton, my second son, is fiercely competitive. If he’s not numero uno, watch out.

Matilda stabbed her long brown finger at the pad of paper I’d written the poems on. “You ask me, whoever this one’s about is probably the culprit. Maybe he pushed her or tripped her or something.”

I jotted down everything she suggested, trying to keep up with the flow of her words.

She squinted, a sure sign she was thinking hard. “Mouse sounds like a nickname, and obviously a married person since, “there goes the spouse,” says that.”

I though on that good and hard. Spouse. Mouse. Just
the
two words stuck together to make the thing rhyme . . . ? Was Mitzi in her right mind enough to be that good with poetry? Had she really seen something going on? “Mitzi has dementia. How you suppose she can rhyme so clearly?”

M
omma
snapped her fingers, or tried to snap her fingers. Arthritis does that. “Easy enough. You said she was a professor. If poetry is her love, it’s probably what’s going to stick hardest in her mind as she gets older. Don’t you notice how we old folk go back in time as our bodies go forward?”

I nodded.

“Same kind of thing. She’s used to expressing herself that way, so it comes natural.”

“Any thoughts on the secret room?”

“You ever known me not to have an opinion?” A rhetorical question to be sure. M
omma
rubbed the polished head of her cane. I could hear her wheels whirring hard. No dead hampster on this wheel. She thumped her cane on the floor. “You need to get into that room. Something’s in there.”

Right. Just like that.

“This snow stuff is important too. Mitzi’s sayin’ it sealed her doom.”

“Something on her hands sealed her doom?”

Matilda raised her eyebrows at me. “Gloves? Might look like snow.”

I thought hard on that. “She wasn’t choked to death, and it says ‘in the palm of her hand
.
’”

“Still say you need to get in that room.”

I’d have to figure something out. I could charm my way in. Ha! No, that’s Hardy’s territory. I doubted Otis would take me on a tour of the storage room. Someone else should have access to it, a janitor maybe. I’d have to keep my eyes wide open.

I flicked a hand over the poems and my notes
.
“You think Polly’s fall wasn’t an accident?” Initially we’d thought it best to keep Polly’s fall from
M
omma, but I wanted her input. If she felt the least bit insecure about remaining at Bridgeton Towers, she’d let us know.

M
omma
M
atilda’s smile melted over me in a way that made me miss my mother, and extra glad I had my mother-in-law. Her cool hand covered mine. “If anything terrible is happening around here, you’ll find out, honey. I trust you.”

“I don’t think Hardy’s convinced.”

“What does that boy know? He fathered seven children but, honey, you mothered ‘em. And mothering is looking way beyond the outside of a body. The good mommas see inside the head and knows what makes her babies tick. They follow their intuition and act when they need to. There’s no better momma than you, LaTisha. None.”

“I have a great husband.” A lame attempt at modesty.

Matilda saw through me like I was plastic wrap. “Hardy’s my baby and he’s smart and talented, but it’s the day to day that made your babies into solid, productive adults. You got a right to be proud, and the modesty stuff doesn’t settle well on you.”

If I ever wanted a bouquet of roses from my mother-in-law, I sure was getting it, and it was humbling and beautiful. Her words made me feel strong and loved. I’d savor this feeling for days to come.

Speaking of feeling loved. . . “I met a young man today. Darren’s his name. Seems mighty lonely to me. Told him to meet us downstairs for some cards this evening. I’ll introduce you.”

Matilda pinned me with her eyes
.
“I’d love to meet the boy.”

Chapter Twelve

Matilda and me sat in companionable silence for a long time. She seemed far away and I didn’t want to disturb her none, so I glued my eyes to the paper of Mitzi’s poems. Shadows, hands, snow. . .it all whirled in my head something powerful. I heaved a sigh and decided I needed some noise. How I ached to cook, but talk would have to fill the spot since I was a long way from my kitchen.

“I met another one of your neighbors today,
M
omma.”

Matilda tipped her head at me. “You mean that fine-looking fellow. Thomas something-or-other?”

“You met him?”