Mourning After Page 15

  When she hung up a second time, I thought I better interrupt her before she picked up the next call.

  “Hi, Vicki?”

  The woman looked up from her desk. She wore khakis and a navy-blue polo shirt. The Pleasant View logo was embroidered on the left breast. Her curly brown hair had been pulled up and held in place with a large clip.

  A strained smile appeared on her face. It was the picture of stress.

  “Sorry to bother you. I’m Maven Mackenzie, Mabel West’s granddaughter.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot Mabel said you were coming to stay for a bit.” Vicki grabbed another Post-It from her pile and scribbled a note on it.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not staying too long. I know the rules.”

  Vicki waved any concern away, ink pen in one hand. “That’s the least of my worries. How is Mabel doing?”

  “You’d never know she took a tumble.” It was more of a beating, but I couldn’t bring myself to use that word. “Harold’s been helping me out and spending his free time with her.”

  “Oh, she’s been sweet on him for years.” This time Vicki genuinely smiled.

  “So I’ve heard. He’s finally realized it too,” I said.

  “Well, isn’t that something. Well, that’s the first good news I’ve heard all week. So what can I do for you?”

  “I’m actually hoping I can help you. I’m trying to find out who broke into Gran’s and Hazel’s. We’re thinking it might have something to do with Roseanne’s death. I understand she was cleaning for you? I was hoping to find out what other houses she cleaned. Maybe someone has a clue and they don’t even realize it.”

  “Sheriff Evans?”

  “He’s out sick, and it doesn’t look like we have much time to waste.”

  “Tell me about it.” Vicki’s phone continued to blink and ring. “I’m going to have to hold a community-wide safety meeting. The residents are beyond worried. I need to do something.”

  “I agree.”

  Vicki thought for a minute and seemed to decide to tell me. “Okay, Roseanne cleaned in here.” Vicki motioned to the office and lobby area. “I had her start here. There’s a set of bathrooms and a fitness center too. I wanted to make sure she did a good job before sending her out.”

  “That was smart.”

  “Honestly, I was doing it as a favor for Hazel,” Vicki added. “She said her girl needed work and she wanted to know if I had anything for her. Normally Roseanne wasn’t the type of woman I’d hire.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Let me look at the cleaning schedule.” Vicki dug around on her desk until she unearthed a color-coded spreadsheet. It appeared each cleaner was assigned a rotating schedule. They would clean one set of houses on Monday, another on Tuesday, and so on. “How about I just make you a copy?” Vicki offered.

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  Back outside, I scanned the list. Jake was still on his phone. “No, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it. What’s his number?” Jake was standing off to the side. One hand was on his hip, the other held the phone to his ear. He looked up at the sky and mumbled. It sounded an awful lot like “It’s always something.”

  I waited for him over by the truck. It turned out Roseanne had cleaned her mom’s place, Gran’s and Greta’s, and for another lady named Lucy Carol, in addition to the clubhouse and facilities.

  “There’s only one lady on this list I don’t know.” I looked at the clock. It was just hitting five. “You want to stop by?”

  “Sure, just tell me where we’re headed.”

  Not surprisingly, Lucy’s house was just past Gran’s on the way to Hazel’s. That made sense, as I’m sure Vicki assigned houses based on location, grouping the ones closest together.

  When we drove by Gran’s, I saw that Harold’s car was out front. I decided I’d stop in there afterward and see how she was doing.

  When we pulled in front of Lucy’s house, an old lady with fluffy white hair was outside watering the rose garden.

  “Lucy?” I asked.

  She eyed Jake and me wearily.

  “I’m Maven, Mabel’s granddaughter. This is Jake, Hazel’s grandson.”

  Lucy yawned. “I’m sorry.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Where are my manners? I’m just so tired lately.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Want me to do that for you?” Jake offered to take the watering can from her hand.

  “That would be lovely, thank you.”

  Jake quickly got to work.

  “How’s your grandmother doing?”

  “Surprisingly well, thank you. You didn’t by chance see or hear anything that night, or last night, did you?”

  “No, can’t say that I did. I thought about it too. But, my hearing, it isn’t so good either.” Lucy pointed to her ear.

  “Roseanne was cleaning for you, right?”

  “Oh, just a time or two. I’m going to miss her!”

  “You are?” That was a shocker.

  “I sure am. Those vitamins she sold me. Woo-wee. I could go for hours. Youth in a pill, I told her.”

  “Um, vitamins?” My eyes were wide. I looked at Jake, but he was busy deadheading a few plants and pulling weeds as he went along.

  “They were the best I ever had. Pricy suckers, though.”

  I was mortified. Roseanne was selling drugs to Lucy, and she thought they were vitamins. Oh, sweet heavens.

  “What did those vitamins look like?”

  “They were just the cutest. Little pink pills stamped with roses, blue ones with the moon, things like that. They really looked like candy. Do you know where she got them?”

  “Can’t say that I do.” No, but I knew where she had kept them. In the bottom drawer of her dresser.

  “That should do it.” Jake joined us. He had a handful of weeds sticking out of the watering can.

  “Why thank you, young man. That’s such a big help. Who needs vitamins with a helping hand like yours.”

  “Vitamins?” Jake asked.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll explain.”

  “She was selling drugs to her?” Jake was incredulous.

  “Shhh, yes.” Jake and I were still walking back to his truck. “We don't have to tell your grandma about this, do we?" I spoke quietly.

  "I'm not going to if I don’t have to, but I will call Sheriff Evans and let him know."

  “Good, because this would just break her heart.”

  “Agree.”

  “Listen, I’m going to walk down to Gran’s house. I want to see how she’s feeling and hear where she and Harold ran off to this morning.”

  “Okay, I’ll go back to my grandma’s and do some more digging.”

  “Don’t forget to make that work call,” I added, remembering his phone call from outside Vicki’s office.

  “Shoot, that’s right.” Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “Guess I better do that now. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  “Okay, catch up with you in a bit.”

  I jogged across the street and walked the short distance to Gran’s. She and Harold were inside sitting on the couch, watching the evening news. A couple of TV trays with microwavable dinners sat in front of them.

  “I cooked,” Gran explained with a laugh.

  “Where’d you run off to today?” My voice was casual.

  “Hmm?” Gran replied. I swear Harold started sweating in his seat.

  “I drove by earlier and saw that you weren’t here.”

  “Oh, that, well. We just ran out.”

  I looked over at the dining room table where Gran’s purse was. Her player’s club card was still sticking out of the front pocket. “Uh-huh. You didn’t by chance run out to Mountain Crest Casino or anything?”

  Gran was speechless. Harold looked alarmed.

  “Your player’s club card is hanging out of your purse.”

  “Well fiddlesticks!” Gran said.

  “Just be careful, seriously. You need to rest.”

  “I fe
el fine.” Even as Gran said the words, she touched the bandage on her forehead.

  Harold got up and followed me through to the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, Maven. Your grandmother can be very persistent.”

  “Oh, I know she can, Harold. She’s going to keep you on your toes.” I patted him on the arm. “Seeing as you guys are already eating, I’m just going to get washed up and then figure out my own dinner.” With all the running around today, I needed a hot shower to help me relax and think.

  From inside the bathroom, I could hear Gran and Harold talk over the news.

  “No, you’re thinking of Ida May,” Gran insisted.

  “I am not. It was Samantha Rae.”

  “Ida May, I tell you.”

  I had no idea who Ida May or Samantha Rae were, but the two of them out there going back and forth like an old married couple was adorable. My grandpa would be happy to know Gran wasn’t alone. Especially right now.

  "Maven, we're going out for an ice cream cone. Do you want to come with us?" It was Gran.

  I stuck my head out from the bathroom. "No, that's okay. I've been running all over today. You two go."

  “How about we bring you back a little pint of something?” Harold offered from somewhere in the living room

  “Strawberry still your favorite?" Gran added. Leave it to her to remember something like that.

  "It is, thanks, guys. I should be here. I'm not going anywhere."

  "Okay, we’ll be back,” Gran said.

  "Don't wait up," Harold teased.

  “Hey, now!” Gran said, but she really wasn’t that upset.

  After they left, I sat on the bench in the shower until the water turned cold. Those were my absolute favorite types of showers—where you had nowhere to be and no one else waiting to use the bathroom.

  Gran and Harold were still gone when I got out, and I decided dinner was definitely my next order of business. I didn’t think a frozen entree was going to cut it, either. Would it be too weird to call and ask Jake what his dinner plans were? Yeah, it probably would, seeing he had plenty of work to do and we had spent the majority of the afternoon together. I could always call Tabitha, but I wasn’t sure I was up for it. She was high energy, and I was sort of feeling low key.

  Sigh.

  I needed to get more friends.

  Then my cell phone rang. It was Jake.

  "I got a hit."

  "You did?"

  "Off of Greta's name. It shows up on the death certificate of a Heinz Muller. She’s listed as the spouse. I wasn’t sure if it was her, but all the dates match up.”

  “She was married before?”

  “Yes, he was her first husband and get this: He was a World War II soldier.” I could hear Jake's fingers flying across the keyboard. “Let me check here. Okay, yeah, I found his picture right here in the war archives, and those medals we found line up perfectly. They had to have been his.” I was silent while Jake continued his online digging.

  “Hang on, I might have found something else. I just need to get the page to translate. Okay, you’re not going to believe this, but this Heinz? He’s Daniel’s father.”

  “Shut the front door!”

  “Yeah, and if you were a politician, you’d definitely want to keep this a secret.”

  “I have an idea. How about you print off what you’ve found, and I’ll call Sheriff Evans." Sick or not, he'd want to hear this. “I'll have him come here, and we can try to piece everything together.”

  “Okay, just give me a few and I’ll be down.”

  Sheriff Evans answered his phone coughing and hacking, but based on the information Jake had been able to pull together, he readily agreed to meet at Gran's house. Jake walked down with a file folder about fifteen minutes later, and we got to work laying everything out on the dining room table while we waited for the sheriff. One half was dedicated to Daniel's family history, and on the other, we had written out a timeline of the crimes, trying to point them all to Daniel. We figured Daniel had followed Roseanne to Hank’s the night she was murdered and perhaps he saw that as his opportunity. When I thought back to the night that I met Roseanne and the way she had rudely greeted Daniel, they were clearly on the outs. If he would had seen her go to Hank’s, that just would've added fuel to the fire. Not to mention the fact that it seemed like she was blackmailing him.

  We also assumed he was the one who had broken into Hazel's and trashed the room looking for his medals. The only thing we couldn't finger him for was attacking Gran. That still didn't make sense, but everything else started to click together.

  “What about the insulin? Do you think he could have stolen it from Gwen? They were both here Tuesday night. Does your mom usually carry hers with her?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she always has some on her. So, I guess that’s possible.” Jake looked thoughtful.

  I wrote insulin? on the timeline under Roseanne’s murder.

  “He for sure had the motive,” I added, wanting to keep his family history under wraps.

  “Right, so motive and opportunity.”

  “This is like playing a real-life game of Clue, isn’t it?” As I spoke, there was a knock on the front door. “That’s Sheriff Evans. Be right back.”

  But it wasn’t the sheriff.

  “Daniel ..." Alarm bells clanged inside my brain. If there ever was a moment to freak out, that moment would be now.

  "Sorry for stopping by. This will just take a minute." Daniel opened the door and let himself in. There was no way to hide everything laid out on the dining room table.

  "I just wanted to—Hey, is that a picture of my mother? And wait, this is my father, but what … why do you guys have all the stuff set up?" Daniel's eyes continued to scan the table and down the timeline. "You think I killed Roseanne?”

  “Ugh, we were just trying … you see, we were just doing some research,” I stammered.

  “Yeah, buddy, we do,” Jake said. Leave it to Jake to say things as a matter of fact.

  “My mother was right when she said that woman would ruin me,” Daniel said to himself.

  “You admit it?” I asked.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Daniel said, continuing to read the documents and growing angrier by the moment. “I gave her everything. All the tools to turn her life around, and she walked away from me. Turned back to that low-life loser ex-husband.” Daniel looked back at the documents, really reading them this time. “This can’t be right. Where did you find this information?”

  “The internet,” Jake replied.

  “No, no. I—I, no. I didn’t kill Roseanne. This is ridiculous.” Those might have been the words Daniel was saying, but man, he was getting hot. He looked at the front door, and I was sure he was going to make a run for it.

  Thank heavens Sheriff Evans chose that time to make his appearance.

  “Sheriff, Daniel was just telling us about Roseanne,” Jake said. And, thank heavens Jake could keep his cool. I was a nervous wreck.

  “I didn’t kill her. Although I have to admit, you paint a nice case here,” Daniel motioned to the table. “I didn’t even know about half of this.”

  "How about you come downtown with me and we can talk about it?” Sheriff Evans said.

  “Am I under arrest?” Daniel countered.

  “Do you want to do it that way? I just spoke to your mother's doctor. It looks like she was in a diabetic coma from her sugar going too high. Someone stole her insulin."

  “Greta’s diabetic?”

  “Sure is. She claimed someone stole her medicine from her home. Of course, that same person probably already had a key to the place, didn’t they?” Sheriff Evans looked to Daniel while he spoke.

  Looks like we found our means, I said to myself.

  “I want my lawyer. I’m not saying another word.”

  “Then Daniel Struble, you are under arrest for the murder of Roseanne Andrews. You have the right to remain silent.” Sheriff Evans read Daniel the rest of his rights and then
handcuffed him and led him out.

  Jake and I were silent until they left.

  “Is it too soon to give a high-five?” Jake asked.

  “Oh my goodness. I’m shaking. That was intense.”

  The backdoor opened just after that. It was Gran and Harold.

  “What did I miss?” Gran asked, ice cream cone in hand.

  “Oh Gran, where do we even start?”

  That night we didn’t have to worry about telling Hazel anything. When we walked down to her house, she was on the phone with Betty. "Oh my word, why thank you, Betty. I just don't know what to say. Never would've suspected him. This is just going to kill Greta. Oh yeah, how is she? Doing okay now? A diabetic coma? He stole her insulin? I’m just … I’m just shocked.” Hazel hung up the phone and looked at us. This time she couldn't stop the tears that stained her cheeks. "Daniel's been arrested for Roseanne’s murder."

  “Yeah, we know.”

  “Greta told the police someone stole her insulin, and her insurance wouldn’t refill it because it had been too recent."

  "I know. I saw her at the pharmacy. I thought it had something to do with cold medicine, but not refilling her insulin makes more sense."

  “Well, I guess that’s it then,” Hazel said.

  “You okay, Grandma?” Jake towered over Hazel. He bent low to give her a hug.

  “I’m going to be. I promise you that. Now why don’t we have a drink to celebrate justice and put this madness behind us. I don’t think I can handle much more!”

  Now that was something I could agree to. Just as long as it wasn’t gin.

  12

  It seemed as if life was finally calming down. Daniel was still maintaining his innocence, but we all figured it was only a matter of time before everything came tumbling out. Gran and Harold had stepped out for an afternoon matinee, and I was finally going to have that chance to catch up with Cary Grant. I had just slid the DVD into Gran’s player and turned to pull off the folded-up afghan on the side arm of the couch when a lady’s purse revealed itself.

  Oh no, I hope Gran realizes that she left her purse. She wasn't the type of lady to allow a man to pay for everything. It would vex her to no end to not have her wallet on her.