Lye in Wait (30 page)

"Use it wisely," he said, and his face held reluctance when he
handed it over. I knew he would have insisted on going, but he had
two other cases he'd neglected all afternoon, and his shift was already over. I wondered if the department paid overtime, or if Barr
had to eat all the extra hours he worked.

Still, with high hopes I buzzed over to Caladia Acres, armed
with the photocopies and the pictures and mementos Ambrose
had declared unrelated to the murder investigation. Perhaps the
sight of them would shake Tootie out of her funk.

Ann, the nurse who seemed to be always on duty, flagged me
down as I carried in the carton.

"Here to see Tootie?"

I nodded. "How is she?"

She grimaced, and it was enough to convey Walter's mother
wasn't any better than when Meghan and I had seen her on Sunday. "Did Meghan come with you?" she asked.

"Not this time," I said.

"Well, can you tell her she's got the gig?"

"What gig?"

"She called and wanted to set up a time to offer massages to the
residents here"

"Oh. I didn't know."

"And next week we'll ask the board to approve the classes she
proposed for the nurses and attendants, to train how to give hand
and foot massages to those residents who request them."

"I'll tell her."

It was dark by the time I'd pulled into the parking lot, and Tootie hadn't turned on a light in her room. I didn't want to wake her.

"Tootie?" I called softly from the doorway.

A rustle, then a soft voice out of the darkness. "Yes?"

"It's Sophie Mae." I put the box on the floor and walked in, using
the light from the corridor to find the lamp I remembered from before, fumbling for the switch for a moment before turning it on.

She had plummeted downhill, far more than I'd gathered from
Ann. She looked out at me from dull sunken eyes, her unbraided
hair spilled across the pillow in a snarled mass. At only a few minutes after six in the evening, I didn't think she'd gone to bed early.
She'd never bothered to get up. Someone had turned the thermostat too high. The stuffy room smelled of dust... and I realized
with a start that I could smell Tootie herself.

"Good God," I said, and marched out to the reception desk.

"What's going on? She hasn't even had a bath lately."

Ann nodded. "I know. We've tried. She fights us. It's the only
time she shows any animation at all now. At some point the doctor
will prescribe tranquilizers just so we can clean her up."

I stared at her. "Drug her? To give her a bath? That's barbaric."

Ann looked apologetic. "So is the alternative."

Shaking my head, I went back to Tootie's room. Pausing in the
doorway, I studied her. Her eyes were open, but she was staring at
the ceiling.

"You have to stop this," I said.

Silence, then finally a little sigh.

"You have to stop this pity party of yours "

She blinked.

I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and followed my instinct. "Walter's death had nothing to do with whatever feud you
two had going on, and nothing to do with anything you ever said to
him. In fact, he must have taken some of what you said to heart, because after spending so long mentally crippled by losing his wife and
son, he put that aside and got on with living. He kicked the booze.
He fell in love with a woman named Deborah Silverman and asked
her to marry him. He helped hundreds of kids-maybe more-with
money he won from the lottery and donated. Even dead he's helping
people. He was a good man. And you know what else? He was pretty
darn strong after all. You had a lot to do with that. He was his mother's son. He didn't commit suicide, Tootie. Someone killed him. The
police are investigating it as a suspicious death as we speak."

She turned her head, and her eyes met mine. At least I had her
attention now, though her face remained expressionless.

"I have something to show you. Will you at least sit up in bed
long enough for that?"

Nothing. Then a light shift under the covers. A deep breath,
and she moved again. I went over and helped her sit up, then
plumped her pillows, and assisted as she settled back into a more
upright position.

She glared at me as I went and got the box. Good. Better anger
than nothing. I unloaded the framed photos, one by one, setting
them on the coverlet.

"These are from Walter's house, what I managed to get out before it burned down. This one is of you, isn't it?"

She glanced at the picture I held, of Tootie in her youth, standing in a shirtwaist dress in front of a house, and looked away.

Putting down that photo, I picked up another one. "What
about this one?" I'd selected the one of Walter as a little boy, giggling open-mouthed as a beagle puppy lapped at his chin. Hallmark would have snapped it up in a second.

Her eyes flickered to me, and her hand crept out from under
the covers. She took the picture from me, considering it for several
moments. Then she drew it to her chest.

"I'll keep this," she said.

"Tootie," I said, exasperated. "You can keep all of them."

She shook her head. "I don't want all of them. I only want this
one.

"Well, what about his stuff?" I took out the Bible and the
chicken bank. She shook her head.

"There are other pictures," I said.

"I only want this one."

I regarded her for a few moments, and her eyes sparked in rebellion. She'd shown the most animation when the Caladia Acres staff
had tried to make her do something she didn't want to do. There
was life in the old girl yet. Just had to find the right buttons to push.

"I'd like you to look at one more thing. Well, two, actually."

She turned her face to the wall. It was like dealing with a stubborn six-year-old.

I stood up, started putting the pictures back in the carton. "No?
Okay. Probably just as well. You wouldn't remember who the people
were anyway. It was a long time ago. And Mrs. Gray has told us most
of what we need to know. You know Mrs. Gray-Walter's landlady?
Oh, she said you'd know her as Mavis Smart. Anyway, she's told the
police enough, I suppose, though it's too bad we can't find out for
sure who's in these pictures, since it would probably help find Walter's killer. But I wouldn't want to bother you, Tootie..."

My words had spilled out as I got ready to leave, and I hadn't
tried to be tactful. Tact wasn't working with Tootie, and it couldn't
hurt to try and startle her out of her funk. But still, I was unprepared for her reaction.

She hissed.

I whirled in surprise. Tootie Hanover's eyes blazed at me. I controlled the urge to smile.

"So am Ito take it you do want to help?" I asked, feeling smug.

"Walter rented from Mavis Smart? Is that who I talked to on
the phone that day you went through his things?"

"Um, yeah. Why?"

She barely breathed the words: "That whore."

"Mrs. Gray?" I said, dumbfounded.

Tootie started to look at the wall again, then turned back to
me. "You think just because someone is old and gray they're sweet
and stupid."
"

I do not. You, for example, are neither sweet nor stupid."

We glared at each other for a while. Then she held out her
hand. "What do you want me to look at?"

"These," I said and pulled out the photocopies Ambrose had
given me.

She took the first one and held it at arm's length. "Hand me
those," she said, pointing to her dresser. I saw a pair of blackrimmed reading glasses and retrieved them for her. She perched
them on her nose and peered at the group of people on the page.

"This is my family, just before all the boys left home. And this
is my husband-" she glanced at me over her glasses, "-who had
been spending more time than he should have with Miss Mavis
Smart for almost two years by then. And the girl is that good-fornothing Cherry Dodds."

"You're sure that's Cherry Dodds?"

"Of course I'm sure. I remember the day her sister took this
picture. What can this have to do with Walter's death?"

My heart beat a little faster. "And this woman? Do you recognize her?"

Tootie studied the photocopy of Grace Thorson's license. Her
eyes narrowed and found mine. "She's back?"

"Who?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Cherry."

"Do you remember her real name?"

She pursed her lips. "Grace. Grace Dodds."

"Well," I said, taking the page back from Tootie. "I guess the
answer is yes, then. She's back"

THE SMELL OF PEANUT butter cookies hit me like a sledgehammer
when I opened the front door. Meghan was pulling a pan of them
out of the oven, while Erin sat at the table and flattened another
batch onto a cookie sheet with a fork dipped in sugar.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

Meghan straightened. "We decided Erin would be safer with us.
And she promised to be very, very careful." She gave her daughter a
look, to which Erin responded with an earnest nod.

"Well, I'm glad," I said.

"Why?" Erin asked.

"Because I like having you around."

She grinned. "You just want a cookie, huh?"

"You bet. Gimme."

She grabbed one off the pile on the plate beside her and handed
it to me. Fiifteen seconds later she had to give me another one.

"Don't spoil your dinner," Meghan said, but her voice was mild.
I looked at Erin, but she wasn't eating anything.

Oh.

"I won't," I said around the second cookie. "What're we having?"

"Pizza. It's on the way."

"Thank God. I don't feel up to cooking tonight. I've just been
over talking to Tootie."

"What'd she have to say?"

Since Meghan didn't give me any sign that she didn't want
Erin to hear, I told her how Tootie was doing, and about our conversation. When I'd left, Tootie had still been lying in bed, but at
least she seemed to inhabit her own body again. She hadn't had
any other pictures of Cherry, though. I'd also driven by Richard's
apartment on my way home, but the windows were dark, and I
didn't see his car or the white Camry he'd been driving with his
mother the day of Walter's memorial service.

"She didn't want Walter's things?" Meghan asked.

"Only that one picture."

She cocked her head at her daughter. "What's wrong, Bug?"

Erin looked thoughtful. "Nothing's wrong. I was just thinking.. .since Grandma Grace was married to Walter, that makes
Walter my grandpa, right?"

Meghan glanced at me and seemed to make a decision. "Yes.
And I bet he knew it, too, because he kind of acted like a grandpa,
didn't he?"

I piped up. "Do you want any of his stuff? The photos are kind
of cool. And there are a couple books, and a funny bank shaped
like a chicken."

Erin made a face. "Nah" Saw her mother's look. "I mean, no
thank you."

Ah, unsentimental youth.

But she wasn't finished. "So his mom would be my grandma,
too?"

"Your great-grandma," Meghan said. "She was the lady with the
white hair you met at the funeral. Do you like the idea of having a
great-grandma?"

Erin considered. "I only met her once. I'd want to know her
better before I decide whether I like the idea or not."

Meghan and I couldn't help smiling. "That makes sense,"
Meghan said. Given how Erin's last "new grandma" encounter had
turned out, I had to agree.

"I'm going to call Debby and see if she wants any of Walter's
things," I said

Meghan nodded. "Good idea."

After we ate pizza and Erin had gone up to do her homework,
I asked Meghan, "Do you really think Walter knew she was his
granddaughter?"

"You know, thinking back on how he was with her, I really do."

"You're from Seattle."

"Yeah"

"And Richard's from California."

She nodded.

"Then how the heck did you two end up in Cadyville, where
Richard was born? Unless he's known about Walter all along?"

Meghan stared off into space for a few moments. Then she
looked at me and shook her head. "I could be wrong, but I don't
think he knew. At least, not that Walter was his father. He would
have acted differently around him. Richard might have known
he'd been born here though. I don't know. It was his idea to move here. I didn't want to, thought living in a small town would be too
boring. But he talked me into it."

"Did he want to move to any small town, or just to Cadyville?"

"Just Cadyville. See, he went to the University of Washington,
at least he did for a year before he quit to sell office machinery, because his mother told him that was the one school she didn't want
him to attend"

"He rebelled."

"Uh huh. And he told me she used to talk about Cadyvilleshe hated it-so one day we came up here, and it turned out to be
this cool little town. He decided then and there this was where he
wanted to live."