A Truth for a Truth (14 page)

Crime is an amazing motivator. The previously groggy me was showered, dressed, and out my door in ten minutes.

Flo lived with her husband about eight blocks from the Dorchesters’ house. Theirs was a salmon-colored brick bungalow, with neatly laid out flowerbeds showing signs of bulb activity. An old apple tree was center stage in the yard, which imparted a charming, country feel.

Flo greeted me at her front door in a green cotton housecoat that trailed to the floor. She was younger than Ellen, but still approaching retirement, her hair a mix of pale brown and gray, her green eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, and meant it.

She nodded and swallowed hard, as if tears were still close to the surface. “Coffee?”

I decided that would give her something to do while she pulled herself together. “Black,” I said, “and only if it’s no trouble.”

She bustled needlessly around her green and yellow kitchen, while I complimented her on the collection of bright folk art plates on the wall. By the time she sat down at the table with coffee and a plate of bakery doughnut holes, she seemed calmer.

“I know you’re wondering why I’m here,” I said, “so I’m going to get straight to the point.” I told her about meeting Ellen at Win’s funeral, and what I remembered about our conversation. Then I told her that the autopsy suggested Win had been poisoned with his own heart medication.

She sat silently a moment, taking that in. “The two events seem completely separate,” she said.

I took a doughnut hole. “They may be, but they may not, too. I’m just hoping you can tell me a little more about her. I remember so little. She mentioned Russell House. She said Win used to visit patients there frequently, even some who weren’t members of our church.”

“So I was told. I came on staff almost seventeen years ago, but I worked on the Alzheimer’s unit at first, so I never met him.”

“Ellen thought so highly of him,” I said, hoping for more.

“She did. She used to talk about the reverend a lot, about what a difference his presence had made for some of our residents. That’s why I called her when I saw the notice in the
Flow
that he’d be speaking at the church. I’d been trying to get her to visit . . .” Her bottom lip trembled, and she swallowed again.

I knew what she was thinking. “You can’t blame yourself.”

She gave a short nod and had a sip of coffee. I hoped she could sleep after I left.

“I think she mentioned another connection to Win,” I said, “although I can’t remember what exactly.”

“Her daughter. Zoey. Reverend Dorchester did some counseling with her.”

I remembered now, although in the seconds we had spoken, that was as much as Ellen had said. I wondered, knowing what I now knew about Win’s affair with Marie, if he had been involved with either woman, the mother or the daughter. Had counseling led to something more intimate with Zoey? Had he turned Ellen’s gratitude into an affair?

I wished those things weren’t even possibilities. They should never
be
possibilities. But his affair with Marie opened that door.

“Can you tell me more about Ellen and Zoey?” I asked. “So I can get to know her a little better?”

Flo was examining me. “I’ve heard about you, you know. You work with the police.”

I was sorry Roussos wasn’t around to hear that. “Not exactly. I’ve just gotten caught up in a couple of situations. And I guess I’m caught up in this one, too.”

She seemed to accept that. “Ellen was a wonderful woman, the kind you can always count on. Our staff adored her. She was never angry, never vengeful. She put the residents first, the nursing staff a close second, and everyone else, especially doctors and administrators, a distant third. The years when she was director were the best we had.”

“She seemed thoughtful and concerned when I met her.”

This encouraged Flo. “You ever ask yourself why some people come out of bad situations as mean as snakes and others just get nicer? She was one of those last kind. Her life was tough. She took care of her own parents, and after they died, she married late. Then right after Zoey was born, her husband left. She was never able to find him long enough for child support. She raised that little girl on her own, and did a great job of it, too, getting a nursing degree by working nights and taking classes during the day when Zoey was in school, but Zoey suffered anyway. She needed a man in her life. When she turned eighteen, she married the first one who asked her. He was a bartender at that awful bar in Weezeltown. You know the place?”

Don’t Go There
. I did know it. Unfortunately, I’d been there, despite the name.

After I nodded, she went on. “Ellen worried about her something awful.”

“Zoey made a bad choice? Or was she just too young?”

“Bad choice. He was an abuser. At first a slap or two, then eventually he got to beating her. Zoey wouldn’t press charges, and she always ended up back with him again. That’s when your Reverend Dorchester comes in. Ellen begged him to help, so he started doing counseling with Zoey. It took a while, but she finally asked for help getting away from her husband for good. The reverend found a safe house, out of town somewhere, I think. Zoey got her life together and never came back.”

“Good for her.” I meant it.

“The husband was furious, even threatened Ellen to try and find Zoey, but she divorced him and that was that. She’s made a good life for herself, too. Remarried, with two children, and now she’s a nurse herself.”

“You’re in touch with her?”

“Oh, yes, she’s going to fly in and make the arrangements to have Ellen’s body transported back to Florida for burial. She doesn’t want to come back, of course, but she thinks her ex-husband’s been gone for some time. She’ll slip in and out and be fine.”

“Do you happen to know the ex’s name?”

“Craig. Craig Brown. I heard it enough, that’s for sure. He used to pop up when Ellen least expected him. She’d find him going through her mailbox, looking for a letter from Zoey. The police kept after him, and eventually he just disappeared.”

“Did a judge issue a restraining order, by any chance?”

“I don’t think it went that far.”

“Did you mention Craig? To the police, I mean?”

“Uh-huh, I told them, but they weren’t very interested. Zoey’s been gone almost sixteen years. If that man wanted revenge, they said he’d have come after Ellen a long time ago. She lived in Emerald Springs for years afterwards.”

“Both Win and Ellen helped Zoey escape,” I pointed out.

Flo sipped her coffee in thought, but me, I continued to think out loud.

“Win would have been easy to find anytime. He was a public figure. And poisoning him? Right at the end of his party? Then lying in wait until Ellen left the house and running her down with his car?”

Said out loud it did seem improbable, although I didn’t think the connection between Win and Ellen could be dismissed. I resolved to mention it to Roussos, but only if I got some helpful information. He’d warned me not to bring any half-baked theories his way. This one was still rising on the windowsill.

“The police think Ellen’s death was probably an accident,” Flo said. “She veered into the road and didn’t hear the car approaching. Then, after the driver hit her, he sped off, afraid he’d be arrested. They said they’ll notify all the body shops, in case whoever it was brings a car in for repair work, but they aren’t optimistic.”

I got to my feet and took my cup to the sink. Hildy would have been proud of me, although
she
would have cleaned the house and baked a casserole before she departed. “I’m going to let you get some sleep. But may I leave my number? In case anything else occurs to you?”

Flo stood, too. “I want them to find whoever did this. If you’re the one who makes that happen, I’ll be glad to help. Please call again if you need to.”

I jotted my number on a sheet of paper by her phone, then I thanked her for her hospitality.

Outside in my van I wrestled with what to do next. I didn’t know if anything I’d just learned was helpful. I was trying to tie together two separate events, and maybe I was reaching. The link between Ellen and Win was ancient history. For now I decided to concentrate on something more recent.

I called Hildy at home but I didn’t get an answer. On a whim I called the church, and sure enough, according to Norma Beet, that’s where she was. I headed home, parked, and walked over to the parish house and Ed’s office.

Norma was at her desk, but she got up to greet me when I came in. She looked so different, that for a moment, I didn’t recognize her.

“Wow,” I said, and meant it. “You look great!”

“Do you think so?” Norma patted her new hair, which was new in every way. She had lightened the color to a flattering golden brown, and the slightly shorter cut was layered and flattering, too. She had also ditched her outdated black frames for a less obtrusive gold with chic oval lenses. The improvement was enormous.

“My gosh! Did you have a makeover?” I asked. “I love what you’ve done.”

“Hildy’s responsible. She’s been nagging me to change my hair color and glasses. She told me what I should do.”

I couldn’t believe Hildy had wrought such a miracle. Then I couldn’t believe I had never tried.

Here was Norma, looking wonderful, and feeling just as wonderful about herself. And even though I had believed there was a more attractive woman under the dowdy church secretary, I hadn’t made any overt attempts to help find her. Hildy’d had no such compunctions.

“Well, good for Hildy,” I said, and meant it—for the most part. “Good for you.”

Hildy herself appeared at that point, following Ed out of his study. She looked tired, and I imagined she’d gotten very little sleep last night. But she still looked resolute.

“I’ll call the funeral director and tell him what we’ve decided,” Ed told her.

Ed looked like he needed a nap, but Hildy can do that to anyone. He smiled at me, said a few consoling words to her, then left her in my care.

“It’s all so sudden,” Hildy said. “We’ve decided I’d better call anyone who might want to be there tomorrow when Win’s buried. My girls can’t come back, and I do want people who knew and cared about Win at the service. And I want to keep it private. No onlookers.”

A moment passed before I realized what she meant. Onlookers. People who’d heard that Win had been murdered and wanted to be there purely as voyeurs.

I nodded. “No onlookers.”

“But friends.”

I was still nodding, wondering how to move from the burial into the subject of Win’s final party.

“So I told Ed I knew you’d help me make those phone calls,” Hildy finished. “It’s what we do.”

What we do.
I was afraid “we” meant women who happened to be married to ministers.

“Unless you don’t have time?” Hildy added.

I did have time, and I did have an agenda. I wanted to know more about the party, about who might have been able to sneak pills into the shrimp dip. I was guessing the actual transfer had happened in the kitchen, but I wanted a clear picture of events. Besides, I’d promised Hildy I’d stand beside her. I told myself calling people to let them know about the graveside service tomorrow was a small thing.

“We can do it over lunch,” I said.

“We’ll just go straight through the directory.”

My heart sank. We aren’t a large church, but that could go on until dinner.

“Just the people who knew Win,” Hildy added. “Not everybody.”

I was so relieved I didn’t even mind that Hildy and Norma chatted another fifteen minutes before I could pull Hildy away.

“Geoff Adler volunteered to do a reception at his lake house after the service,” Hildy told me, as we walked back to the parsonage. “The cemetery’s in that direction. Wasn’t that kind of him? He called last night to see how I was. He was always Win’s supporter.”

It was more than kind of Geoff Adler, because now, at least
something
was out of Hildy’s hands. She could let somebody else take charge and just be the grieving widow.

At home I settled her at my kitchen table with a phone and the church directory while I made lunch. I wanted to feed her well, since her own cupboard was bare. I hadn’t had time to call church members about casseroles, but I had a vegetable lasagna in my freezer that was going home with her today.

I steamed rice and thawed black bean chili to go with it, adding a salad on the side, and a hunk of my whole wheat sourdough. Hildy ate everything, a sign she was fighting back. She would need her strength.

Hildy made calls between bites. I served her, ate my portion, and cleaned up. Then I made several calls to give her voice a rest. By then we were halfway through her list, and I hoped we’d finish soon.

For some reason I’d been gifted with calling Fern and Samuel Booth. I hated to explain to Hildy that the Booths despise me, so I made the call. I was delighted when I got a message saying their phone was temporarily out of service.