Death by Killer Mop Doll (An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery) (17 page)

Eighteen

The Daughters of the
October Revolution, none of whom had been alive during the actual October Revolution of 1917, had taken over my living room, dining room, and kitchen. Some of the women assembled picket signs; others pecked away on laptops; still others yakked on cell phones while stuffing envelopes.

Thirteen folded walkers cluttered the foyer. Like my mother-in-law, none of Lucille’s cohorts needed the aid of a walker. I knew that from my previous encounters with the Daughters of the October Revolution. They all managed to navigate fine on their own or with the use of canes.

“Look at that,” said Mama, waving her arm in the direction of the commie klatch. “They don’t need walkers. They just used them as sympathy props. Talk about manipulating the press!”

I realized that when we saw them blocking the intersection, but I hadn’t bothered to mention it to Mama at the time. She already had enough ammo in her verbal arsenal to fire at Lucille. I didn’t need to hand her more.

I stepped into the middle of the living room. “What’s going on here?” I asked.

A woman I recognized from previous encounters with the Daughters of the October Revolution glanced up from her computer. If Touchstone ever decided to do a remake of
The Golden Girls
, they could cast Harriet Kleinhample as Sophia. The woman was a dead ringer for Estelle Getty, right down to her diminutive stature and oversized attitude. She’d only have to act herself to clinch the role.

“We’re organizing our campaign,” she said. “You have any more 24-lb. bright white stock? Recycled, of course. We’re almost out. I only found half a ream downstairs.”

“You helped yourself to my office supplies?”

“For the cause. Lucille said you wouldn’t mind.”

I took a better look at the items scattered around the dining room table. All mine. My paper. My stapler. My glue gun. My markers.
Right down to my computer printer plugged into Harriet’s laptop and spewing forth page after page of full-color, high-quality printed flyers that were quickly drinking up my last color ink cartridge.

I pressed the cancel button on the printer, then the OFF switch.

“Hey! I was still printing.”

“Not anymore.” I pulled the plug, wrapped the cord around my hand and hoisted the printer into my arms. The thing weighed a ton. How in the world had gnome-sized Harriet Kleinhample dragged it into the dining room?

“Wait until Lucille hears about this!”

“Why wait? Where is the rabble-rouser?”

Harriet shouted at the top of her lungs, “Lucille!”

By this time all the other Daughters of the October Revolution had stopped their typing, stapling, yakking, and stuffing to glare at me with one collective Lucille-type glare. They must practice that look at their weekly meetings.

We waited, me hugging the printer to my chest, the Daughters continuing to shoot me with their
en masse
evil eye.

“Anyone see Lucille?” asked Harriet.

The eleven other women looked questioningly at each other, all shaking their heads.

“She’s probably in the bedroom, taking a nap,” suggested Mama, “while her minions do all the work. Want me to go wake her?”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “You’d enjoy yourself too much.” Not trusting Harriet, I placed the printer back on the dining room table but kept the cord as I headed toward the bedroom. Mama followed me.

We’d only gotten halfway across the living room when we heard the toilet flush. I stopped and waited for Lucille to reappear.

“Your daughter-in-law refuses to let us use the printer,” said Harriet, the moment Lucille rounded the hallway into the living room.

Lucille immediately got up into my face and started yelling at me at the top of her lungs, her face and neck turning a mottled maroon. “We have important work to do, and you’re not going to stop us.”

I kept my voice at a normal level, refusing to stoop to her tantrum level. “I’m not stopping you from doing your
important work
. I’m simply reclaiming my possessions. Take up a collection, and do your
important work
on your own dime. I can’t afford your nonsense.”

Purple quickly replaced the maroon of Lucille’s neck and face. “Nonsense? How dare you! Our work is far more important than yours!”

“My work keeps a roof over your head and food in your belly, Lucille. Don’t forget that. You’re welcome to leave at any time if you don’t like the living conditions here.” I grabbed the printer off the table and started for my bedroom.

“Give me that!” Lucille grabbed for the printer and tried to tug it out of my arms. “You have no right! Lives are at stake here, and all you care about is yourself. You’re selfish, Anastasia. You always have been. My son never should have married you. You were never good enough for Karl.”

“You stupid communist cow,” shouted Mama, tugging at Lucille’s
arm. “Let go. If it weren’t for the kindness of my daughter, you’d be living out of a cardboard box.”

“I’ve had about enough of you,” said Lucille. She lurched from Mama’s grasp and pushed her aside. Luckily, Mama landed on the sofa. Unluckily, Lucille advanced, her cane raised.

“Don’t you dare,” cried Mama.

My mother-in-law raised her arm higher.

“Lucille!” I screamed. “Stop!”

Lucille lowered the cane and turned to me. She stared as if she didn’t recognize me, her features sagging more than ever. “Rye showering?” she asked, sounding like a confused child. Then she collapsed in a heap on the carpet.

Suddenly I remembered a news segment I’d heard on the way to work recently. F.A.S.T.—face, arms, speech, time. “Call 911,” I told Mama as I kneeled down beside my mother-in-law and checked for a pulse. Before passing out, Lucille had exhibited two of the three signs of a stroke. Time was now of the essence.

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Mama.

“I think she’s had a stroke.”

“This is your fault,” said Harriet. The others nodded in agreement as they hovered over their Fearless Leader.

“It always is,” I muttered under my breath.

_____

I followed the ambulance in my car. With Harriet at the wheel (Lord knew how she reached the pedals!), the Daughters of the October Revolution, all crammed into a rusted-out circa 1960s Volkswagen minibus, followed behind me.

Mama offered to stay home to prepare dinner for the boys. I wasn’t sure who’d fare better that night, me eating hospital cafeteria food or Alex and Nick eating Mama’s cooking. Such idle thoughts danced around in my head as I headed toward the hospital. I didn’t want to think about the more serious issue at hand—what I’d do if Lucille survived but became permanently incapacitated. The Scarlett O’Hara in me decided to deal with that crisis another day.

A contingent of hospital staff and an emergency room doctor met the ambulance. Within seconds they rushed Lucille off for tests. The Daughters of the October Revolution camped out in the waiting area while I chose a corner of the corridor, away from incriminating glares.

No matter their accusations, I knew I wasn’t to blame for Lucille’s stroke. Lucille had high blood pressure and a stroke-inducing personality. Most likely, she’d been on the verge of stroking out for years.

Besides, I’d tried to get along with her from the day I first met her, but my mother-in-law wasn’t interested in my friendship. She viewed me as the woman who’d stolen away her doting son. I’d tell her the truth about that son, but like everything else, she’d only accuse me of lying. Or worse yet, blame me for Saint Karl’s fall from grace.

Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t, I steered clear of Lucille as much as possible until the day I’d been forced to take her into my home for what was supposed to be a short recuperative period. Thanks to Karl’s lack of control with Lady Not-So-Lucky, short had morphed into forever.

At least I didn’t have to worry about her hospital bill. Thanks to her many years editing
The Worker’s Herald
, the weekly newspaper of the American Communist Party, Lucille received a meager pension but lifetime health benefits. I found that kind of ironic, given she didn’t believe in insurance. When her apartment, along with all her worldly possessions and her life savings, went up in flames, she was left with nothing. Not even the clothes on her back. The emergency room had cut those off her body in the aftermath of the jaywalking episode that had brought her to live with us. To this day I have no idea how she had managed to find 1970’s style polyester pantsuits to replace the ones lost in the fire.

I also didn’t understand how a woman who’d come so close to death after stepping out between parked cars on Queens Boulevard six months ago would continue to jaywalk. Stubborn was one thing; repeatedly placing herself in physical danger was something else. Maybe Fogarty was right when he said Lucille was crazy. Maybe I did need to have her evaluated, no matter how much she’d object.

Three hours after we’d first arrived, Dr. Pavlochek, the doctor who’d ordered Lucille’s initial tests, returned with the results. The Daughters of the October Revolution had posted a look-out at the entrance to the waiting area. As soon as the doctor approached me, the look-out signaled to the others. Dr. Pavlochek and I were quickly surrounded by a dozen yammering and demanding biddies, each peppering the doctor with non-stop questions.

He frowned at them, his bushy salt and pepper eyebrows joining together above the bridge of his nose. “Ladies, I’m afraid privacy laws forbid me from speaking to anyone not listed on the patient’s medical disclosure form.”

“Lucille wouldn’t mind,” said one of them. “She wanted us listed.” The rest nodded in agreement.

“As a matter of fact,” said Harriet, “Lucille trusts us more than she trusts
that one
.” Harriet indicated me with a tilt of her head and a sneer.

The doctor consulted his clipboard for a few seconds. I knew he wouldn’t find any names listed on Lucille’s HIPAA privacy form other than mine and Karl’s. I’d insisted on that much when Lucille first came to live with us after her hit and run accident. If we were going to be responsible for her recovery, we had to have access to her medical information. Lucille balked at first, but Karl saw the sense of my argument. Besides, neither of us had relished doing battle with any of the other Daughters of the October Revolution, the names previously listed by Lucille.

Eventually, Dr. Pavlochek gave up on his clipboard perusal and said to me, “Let’s continue this discussion in my office.” He turned to the commie gaggle and added, “The rest of you will have to wait here.”

Like their Fearless Leader, the Daughters of the October Revolution didn’t take kindly to authoritarian figures. No one told them what to do. Not traffic cops. Not doctors. The only authority they held in esteem was their own. Ignoring the doctor’s orders, they followed after us. Dr. Pavlochek thwarted them when he ushered me into a small, windowless office and closed the door on their collective faces.

“Your mother-in-law has some very loyal friends,” he said, taking a seat at a desk and indicating I should sit in the chair pulled up alongside the desk.

“Loyal,” I repeated. “That’s one word for it.” Others came to mind, but I refrained from uttering them. Instead, I changed the subject. “So what happened to Lucille? Did she have a stroke? As I told the EMT at the scene, right before she lost consciousness, she appeared confused and slurred her words.”

“A very minor stroke. It’s a good thing you were there and recognized the signs. Because she received immediate attention, she should recover without any problems. However, the MRI showed something more problematic.”

“More than a stroke?”

“Mrs. Pollack, your mother-in-law has a brain tumor.”

Nineteen

Not only did Lucille
have a brain tumor, but according to Dr. Pavlochek, she’d probably had it for some time. “We won’t know for sure until we operate, but my initial assessment is that it’s benign. Of course, we can’t operate until she’s stable.”

“Could this brain tumor be responsible for irrational behavior?”

“Due to its location, definitely. Has your mother-in-law exhibited unusual behavior lately?”

I gave him a quick run-down of Lucille’s “normal” personality and the changes I’d noticed over the last few months, including her new campaign on behalf of jaywalkers’ rights.

“Lucille has always been defined by her causes,” I said. “She lives to protest, but protesting the rights of jaywalkers to jaywalk? That’s a bit much even for someone as doggedly stubborn as she is. Not to mention totally irrational.”

“As people age, certain traits become more pronounced,” said Dr. Pavlochek. “A stubborn person might become even more stubborn, for example, but it’s quite possible you’ll see some improvement in her demeanor after the surgery. Certainly what you’ve described aren’t the actions of a person with a full grasp of reality and could be the result of the tumor.”

One could only hope.

Lucille was in the ICU, which had limited visiting hours of only twenty minutes at a time and only for immediate family. As the Daughters of the October Revolution argued with the charge nurse, I slipped into my mother-in-law’s room.

She was hooked up to a myriad of monitoring devices and looked anything but her feisty crusader self. Aside from a lack of cuts and bruises, she appeared much the way she had after the hit and run—very old and extremely frail.

I picked up the hand not connected to the IV and whispered her name. “Lucille?”

No response. Either she was sleeping or chose to ignore me.
Not seeing much point in sticking around, I placed her hand
gently back on the bed and headed home.

_____

By the time I arrived home, Mama and the boys had finished dinner, as evidenced by the sink full of dirty dishes, some brown gooey stuff spilled over the stove, and one very sticky kitchen floor. I should have handed Mama twenty dollars and told her to order in pizzas, but it’s hard to blow a twenty at Papa John’s when a stack of unpaid bills clutters my desk.

I marched through the house, noting jaywalker rights junk
still strewn throughout my dining room and living room. Lucille’s tumor explained her devotion to such an irrational cause, but what about the rest of the Daughters of the October Revolution? Surely, they weren’t all suffering from tumor-induced delusions or dementia. Those women were like lemmings, following their Fearless Leader over any cliff, all for
the cause
, no matter how ludicrous the cause.

I found the boys and Mama camped out in the den, a Mets game on the TV, Ralph perched on Alex’s shoulder, and Catherine the Great curled up on the sofa between Mama and Nick.

“I hope you have plans to clean up the kitchen once the game is over,” I said in as evenly modulated a tone as possible, which given my mood, was pretty much a feat of Everest-climbing proportions.

“Sure, Mom,” said Nick.

“No,
problemo
,” said Alex. “What’s up with Grandmother Lucille?”

“Have you had dinner, dear?” asked Mama. “There’s leftover meatloaf in the fridge.”

That explained the brown gooey stuff—congealed gravy—and sticky floor. In the Periwinkle household of my childhood, Mama’s meatloaf was legendary, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Even the thought of Mama’s meatloaf still sent my tummy into nightmare mode. I was always amazed that Nick and Alex could stomach the stuff, but teenage boys often ate anything not nailed down.

“I grabbed a sandwich at the hospital,” I said, crossing my fingers
behind my back. I’d sneak into the kitchen after Mama went to bed and pour myself a bowl of Raisin Bran.

“Did the pinko have a stroke?” asked Mama.

I filled them in on the details. “Bottom line, she’ll be hospitalized for some period of time. Once she’s stabilized, they’ll operate on the tumor. At this point I’m not sure what will happen after she’s discharged from the hospital. Probably a rehab and convalescent center before she comes home.”

“What about Mephisto?” asked Nick.

“What about him?”

“Does he have to stay here while she’s gone?”

“Well, he certainly can’t stay in the hospital with her, and I don’t have the money to board him.”

“Which means you and I are stuck with caring for him, little bro,” said Alex.

“Think of it as a challenge,” I told them. “If you can learn to manage Mephisto, you can do anything. Remember, that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

“So those are our two choices?” asked Nick. “Death or Mephisto?”

“You got it. Now, did anyone bother to walk and feed the devil dog in question since you’ve been home?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Mama. “I won’t get near that beast.”

“I’ll do it,” said Alex. He hoisted himself up from where he lay sprawled on the floor and handed Ralph over to me. “Pause the game, Nick, and if I’m not back in ten minutes, call out the army.”

“
My lord, there’s an army gathered together in Smithfield
,” squawked Ralph. “
Henry the Sixth, Part Two
. Act Four, Scene Six.”

“Forget the army,” I told Alex. “Remember the pooper-scooper.” I turned to Nick. “While your brother walks the dog, you can start on the dishes.”

He began to protest, but I guess he saw something in my expression that told him I’d reached my limit. Without another word, he headed for the kitchen.

“Well, it will certainly be a lot more pleasant around here with that commie gone,” said Mama. “Almost like a vacation.”

“Maybe we need to cut Lucille some slack, Mama.”

“Why? She certainly doesn’t deserve any.”

“Maybe she does. The doctor said the tumor has probably been growing for some time and could be the reason behind her irrational behavior.”

“I don’t buy it. Do I need to remind you that your mother-in-law has been a selfish, belligerent thorn in your side for more than eighteen years? Surely that tumor hasn’t been growing nearly two decades.”

She had a point.

“Besides,” she continued. “I don’t remember Karl having many kind words for his mother when he was alive. You were the one who constantly tried to make peace with her, not him, no matter how much she claims he was such a doting son before you came along.”

Another good point. “Still, maybe she’ll be just a bit nicer and less belligerent once the tumor is removed. That’s not too much to hope for, is it?”

“Hope all you want, dear. Just don’t be disappointed when you wind up with exactly the same Lucille you had yesterday.”

_____

That night I had trouble falling asleep. Too many thoughts skipped around in my brain like the air-blown numbered balls of a lottery machine. Along with my usual worries about finances, I worried about Lucille.

What if something went wrong during her surgery and she wound up incapacitated? Did her lifetime health care contain yearly caps of any sort?

How would I cope if she wound up disabled but not disabled enough for the insurance to allow for nursing home care? As frail as she looked in her hospital bed, Lucille was still way too big for me to manage moving her in and out of a wheelchair or bed. Would the insurance cover in-home health care? How much and for how long?

I tried to stop dwelling on the what-ifs of Lucille’s situation, but when I blocked them from my mind, up popped Lou’s unsolved murder and the questions still unanswered about who killed him and why.

A CORPSE TELLS NO TALES
.

The discarded note I found at Lou’s apartment held the key to his killer’s identity. I was certain of it. If I could figure out what the note meant, I should be able to figure out who killed him. Except the police probably thought the same thing, yet they still hadn’t made an arrest.

Lou had been dead three and a half weeks. Somewhere I remembered hearing that if a murder isn’t solved within the first forty-eight hours, it usually remains unsolved. But someone had also tried to kill Vince. A killer was on the loose, and no one knew if he had any more of us in his sights.

A CORPSE TELLS NO TALES
.

Lou knew something the killer wanted kept quiet. Was it in connection with the show or somehow tied to Vince’s child pornography charges? Or maybe neither.

What was Monica involved in that had the police so interested? Maybe Lou discovered something she wanted kept quiet at any cost. Although I couldn’t see Monica plunging a knitting needle into Lou’s heart. She might break a nail. However, Monica did strike me as someone who would pay for a killer’s services.

The fact remained, something illegal was going on at that brownstone. Why else would the police have it under surveillance? Monica was somehow connected to whatever that something was. Was she desperate enough to resort to murder to keep her secret?

Questions, questions, and more questions but no answers. Even though I’d solved the puzzle of Lou’s finances, maybe I still needed to search his office.

_____

The next morning I rose early, showered, and dressed in a pair of old jeans, black T-shirt, and running shoes while Mama and the boys slept. As soon as I heard Mama shuffle into the hall bathroom and close the door, I stealth-walked into her room and lifted Lou’s keys from her purse. I’d ground Nick or Alex for life if either of them ever pulled a stunt like that on me, but if I told Mama I needed the keys, she’d have insisted on tagging along. The last thing I needed this morning was Mama as my sidekick.

I left a note on the kitchen table, explaining I was off running some errands—only a teeny white lie—and hopped into my Hyundai.

Unless something huge is going on in the city, Sunday mornings are usually the one day of the week you can zip in without hitting any traffic. And that’s exactly what I did, arriving in less than thirty minutes and even finding on-street parking. I considered both good omens.

“Working today?” asked Hector when I pushed through the front door and flashed my ID at the security desk.

“You, too, I see.”

“Not by choice. The weekend day guard caught a bug, and I drew the short straw. How about you?”

I’d come prepared. Pointing to the large canvas bag dangling from my shoulder, I said, “Still playing catch-up. Seems our killer has chosen my crafts projects as his calling card. They keep getting impounded as evidence.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Hmm … I wondered what else Hector had heard. Maybe he could shed some light on why Phillips and Marlowe hadn’t made an arrest yet. “I guess the cops found nothing suspicious on the security tapes, huh?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Why’s that?”

“I pulled the tape for them but never saw what was on it. Just handed it over as instructed.”

“What about when Sheri—Ms. Rabbstein—came down to check the tapes after the vandalism?”

“Huh? What vandalism?”

I’d forgotten Trimedia refused to file a police report, but I would have thought Lou had at least notified building security. Apparently not, although I found it hard to believe word hadn’t trickled down through the union grapevine. Since I’d already spilled some of the beans, I dumped the rest.

“When was this?” Hector asked after I filled him in on the trashing of the studio set.

“We discovered the vandalism the day before Mr. Beaumont was killed. It must have occurred the previous Friday night after everyone left the studio, or sometime during that weekend.”

Hector scratched his head. “Don’t remember Ms. Rabbstein ever coming down to look at any security tapes,” he said. “Not that
day or any other day. Could’ve been while I was on my lunch break, though. One of the other security guards probably handled it.”

“I guess so.” I paused for a moment, then added, “Any chance I could have a look? Maybe she missed something. I’d really like to nail the bugger responsible for making me do all this extra work.”

Hector shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Don’t see why not. Give me a minute to pull them up.” He fiddled with some equipment behind the desk. “Now that’s damned odd,” he said.

I darted around the counter to look at the screen. “Find something?”

“Static. Must be a bug in the system.”

“You’re saying there’s nothing at all on the recording? Which day?”

“I started with that Friday. I’m fast-forwarding through the entire day. Doesn’t look like we got anything.”

“What about Saturday and Sunday?”

Hector tapped a few keys on his console, and I watched as he zoomed through two days of static.

“Try Monday, the day we discovered the vandalism.”

More tapping. “Damn.”

More static.

“Definitely a bug in the system.” He picked up the phone. “I’d better notify the service company.”

Disappointed, I headed for the elevators. Maybe I’d have better luck upstairs. Then a thought occurred to me. I turned back to the desk. “Hector, just out of curiosity, check the tapes for the Thursday before the vandalism and the day after the murder.”

He hung up the phone mid-dial and pressed a few more keys on his console. I stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. “Worked Thursday,” he said. He pounded a few more keys. “And the following Wednesday.”

“And it’s definitely working now,” I said, pointing to the real-time screen.

“It was working those other days, too. I would’ve noticed if a screen went down.”

“I don’t think the system has a bug,” I said. “I think it was deliberately hacked. Probably by the killer.”

“Must’ve been after the cops took a look. They didn’t question me about any problems.”

I didn’t believe that for a minute. I was certain the reason the cops hadn’t yet made an arrest was because they, too, had seen nothing but static when they viewed the security tape, and for whatever reason, they were keeping that information to themselves.