Dying Wishes (10 page)

Ada
looked
thoughtful. “It’s been fifteen years or so as near as I can remember. Dr.
Petersen started out as Dr. Melrose’s associate, and when Dr. Melrose died, he
just sort of inherited us along with most of Dr. Melrose’s other patients. Now
Dr. Petersen is talking about retiring. We just seem to keep outlasting our
medical advisors,” she joked. “Fortunately, there are two or three younger
physicians coming along in the practice, and their new offices on the Silas
Deane Highway are so convenient for us.
More tea?”

“As
delicious as everything has been, I’m afraid we have to be on our way,”
Strutter
declined regretfully after glancing at her watch,
and I murmured my agreement.

Ada
promised
to be in touch about a tour of Vista View very soon, and with hugs all around,
we took our leave. “Interesting about Dr. Petersen, don’t you think?” I
commented as we stood by our cars in the driveway. “It makes me wonder if maybe
he was Angela
Roncaro’s
and Margaret Butler’s doctor,
too, for some reason.”

“If
he was, then both women would have shared a physician, lived in the same
complex, possibly at his suggestion, and died unexpectedly there. That’s a lot
of coincidences.” We looked at each other. “I wonder what else they had in
common?
”
Strutter
wondered aloud.

I
could think of one thing.
 
“Tommy Garcia,
if the Vista View scuttlebutt is accurate. Any other connections between them
will take some investigation.”

“Oh,
lordy
,”
Strutter
moaned,
raising her eyes to heaven as if for divine assistance. “Here we go again.

Eight

Strutter’s
reluctance to delve once again into the circumstances surrounding a mysterious
death mirrored my own. We had already been called upon too many times to do
that, perhaps due to the nature of our business. Both buyers and sellers were
always in the midst of personal upheaval by the time they got to our door. The
sale of residential property is prompted by life’s biggest events: births,
marriages, relocations, deaths. Emotions invariably run high, and the
inspections and certifications that are required to satisfy buyers and mortgagors
frequently unearth unpleasant surprises.

Despite
my affection for Ginny Preston, I had glossed over her misgivings about the
deaths of Angela
Roncaro
and Margaret Butler as
quickly as I could. Still, they niggled at the back of my mind, as unanswered
questions will do. Why else had I reacted so strongly to learning of the
Henstocks
’ physician’s connection to Vista View?

“Because
on some level we’ll feel responsible for those old
darlin’s
if they move into Vista View, so we have to make sure we’re not
sendin
’ them into the lions’ den. Now where did I put that
folder?”

Margo’s
cell phone signal wavered as she went farther into the interior of her house in
search of some errant paperwork. It was eight o’clock in the morning, not her
best time of day.

“Here
you are
,
you little devil, right on the kitchen
counter. Now, where were we?” I appreciated her use of the word we and told her
so, which seemed to amuse her. “All for one and one for all, just like the
Three Musketeers, right? But now there are a lot more than the three of us who
get sucked into these little inquiries we keep
stumblin
’
into. What with my John and Armando and Emma and Joey and heaven knows who
else, we’re more like the Keystone Kops, but we usually get the job done. Come
on, Rhett, it’s time to go to work!”

“Speaking
of John, he’s not going to be pleased about our nosing around in this. I can
almost feel him standing behind you and frowning at the phone,” I told her. Lt.
John
Harkness
wearing a disapproving expression could
be very intimidating.

“Goodness,
he’s long gone, Sugar. Eight o’clock is the middle of the day for John. Anyway,
I don’t see any need to worry him about this just yet, do you? If we turn
somethin
’ up, that will be soon enough. So what’s first?”

“
Strutter
thinks we should find out what the dead women may
have had in common besides Vista View and Dr. Petersen, and I think that makes
good sense. Ginny can probably help with that, since she has their files and
knows them somewhat. I’d like to talk with Janet
MacRae
and Bitsy Grant, too, but I’m not sure how I can manage to do that.”

“Hmm,
let me give that some thought. I know Bitsy slightly from the campaign.” I
could hear the wheels turning in Margo’s fertile brain. “See you back at the
office later.
Gotta
go.”

By
nine o’clock I was pulling into a parking space at Vista View. I’d been
spending so much time there that the residents were beginning to recognize me.
As I did my usual balancing act with my purse and briefcase at the door, the four
tennis players I had spotted on my first day were just exiting the building.
One of the husbands held the door while the women stood back to let me pass.

“You’re
Margo
Harkness’s
partner at Mack Realty, aren’t you?”
said the taller woman. “I remember seeing you at one of the fundraisers. Margo
isn’t sick, is she? I haven’t seen her around lately.”

I
gave each woman my business card and assured them that Margo was fine. The men
continued to the parking lot. One of them looked back impatiently. “Come on,
girls, get a move on. We’ll miss our court time.”

Bitsy
made a face at him. “Mister impatient,
rush
, rush,
rush. Anyway, tell Margo that Bitsy Grant says hi, okay?” Janet smiled a little
uncertainly but said nothing, and the women hurried out to join their husbands.

“Will
do,” I promised. “Have a great game.”
 
I
lugged my briefcase to the sales desk. So that was Bitsy, and the smaller,
quiet one was Janet
MacRae
. At least I would be able
to tell them apart in future, although I didn’t have their husbands sorted out
yet.

During
lunch with Ginny I planned to resurrect the topic of Margaret Butler’s
unexpected demise. As it turned out, she beat me to it. Just before noon she
stopped by my desk, carrying a tray loaded with Cobb salads and fragrant cups
of tea. “Mind if we picnic in my office today? There’s something I need to
discuss with you.” Her formal tone and distracted air gave me pause. Was Mack
Realty being terminated? I supposed having another vacant rental unit looked
bad to senior administration, but they could hardly hold us to blame for a
resident’s death. I followed Ginny meekly, feeling much like a student summoned
by the principal. When we arrived at her office, she added to my growing
uneasiness by shutting the door firmly behind us. Instead of sitting behind her
desk, however, she put the tray on a side table and drew two visitors’ chairs
up to it. I took that as a good sign.

“What’s
up?” I asked as I added artificial sweetener to my tea.

She
regarded me thoughtfully, ignoring her own lunch. If possible, she looked even
more fatigued than she had the last time we had met.

“Is
it about having another unexpected vacancy, because I’ve had several prospects
look at it this week, and I feel confident …
”

She
stopped my prattling with a wave of her hand. “No, no, this has nothing to do with
our occupancy rate. It’s about Margaret Butler, Kate. Those Midwestern cousins
I told you about? Well, I had a call from them yesterday afternoon, Faye and
Art Henderson from Olathe, Kansas, the only relatives Margaret listed on her
intake form. They called to tell me they had received a strange package on
Wednesday. It took a few days to reach them because it was certified and
insured, and someone had to sign for it. Faye missed the postman and had to
collect it in person at the Post Office, and that took a couple of days more.”
Ginny paused and swallowed hard, as if her mouth had gone dry.

I
handed the cooling tea to her. “Have a sip. Breathe. Now what was in the
package that has you so upset? For starters, who was it from?”

“It
was from Margaret,” she blurted, “mailed last Thursday morning at the Rocky
Hill Post Office. It was full of jewelry, Kate, and I’m not talking about the
costume stuff. Diamond earrings, an emerald dinner ring, strings of pearls,
gold chains, brooches and one special cameo.”

I
whistled softly. “It sounds as if everything in that package was pretty
special.
Why the cameo in particular?”

“It
was the profile of Margaret’s mother. Faye said Margaret never left the house
without it on a gold chain around her neck. She had worn it since she received
it from her dad the night of her high school graduation.” She bolstered herself
with another sip of tea.

“Was
there a letter or something that explained why Margaret was sending all the
jewelry to them?”

“Just
a short note saying something about it being high time someone enjoyed her
pretty things instead of their languishing in their cases in her bureau drawer.
She wanted her nieces to have them. Faye and Art have two daughters.”

I
thought about that for a minute. “I’ve heard that a lot of people just get to
an age where they start divesting themselves of things they don’t use anymore.”
I didn’t sound convincing even to myself.

“That’s
just it,” Ginny protested. She clattered her teacup into its saucer on the
table. “Margaret did use those things. She wore them all the time. With her
financial savvy, she bought most of them as investments, sure, but she didn’t
lock them away. She enjoyed her jewels. I must have seen those diamond studs in
her ears a hundred times, and even Faye knows she was never without that cameo
of her mother.”

“That
one does seem odd,” I admitted. “Why would she part with such a beloved
keepsake, do you think?”

“Because
she knew she would never wear it again,” Ginny choked, tears brimming in her
eyes. “I don’t know how or why, but Margaret knew she was going to die last
weekend or at least in the very near future. The
Hendersons
think so, too. That’s why they got on a plane to Connecticut this morning
instead of coming out next week for the reading of the will as they had planned
to do. They’ll be in my office at two-thirty, Kate. What am I going to tell
them?” She was almost wailing.

This
new information wasn’t going to lead us anywhere good. I knew it in my bones,
and so did Ginny. She had known something wasn’t right from the start, but I
had persuaded her to sweep her misgivings under the carpet. Okay, I’d had a
little help from my friends, but still. The arrival of the
Hendersons
destroyed all hope of this matter just going away. I took both of Ginny’s cold
hands in my own.

“Why,
you’re going to tell them the truth just as you know it. You have nothing to
hide here. You’ll tell them who she had dinner with last Thursday evening, when
she left her friends, when she was found, the doctor’s determination of death
by natural causes, presumably heart failure. They must already know about her
advance directive for immediate cremation, and her household goods were packed
and shipped according to their own instructions to you on the phone.”

“And
when they want to talk to the other people here who knew Margaret, now that
they’ve received this mysterious package?”

“Then
you’ll give them Dr. Petersen’s name and her lawyer’s
name,
if you know it, maybe even tell
them how to contact the Grants and the
MacRaes
. I don’t see why not.”

“In
the
MacRaes
’ case, that would be redundant.” Ginny
jumped to her feet and paced to the window, her arms crossed defensively over
her chest. “Gerald
MacRae
was Margaret’s attorney.
He’s only semi-retired. It was he who drew up her legal documents, and he was
the one who called them about their being in Margaret’s will. It’s all in
there.”

She
waved a hand at the wall of filing cabinets, then sighed and returned to her
chair. Neither of us had touched our food, and I had a feeling we weren’t going
to. I took the plunge.

“Let’s
just say it out loud. It looks as if Margaret may have committed suicide.
Perhaps she was ill or desolated by a failed love affair or had embezzled money
from her clients. I don’t know, and neither do you, but then, she didn’t want
anyone to know. Everything seemed to be planned ahead of time in her usual
efficient manner, the final social appearance, the time lag before she would be
missed, the advance directive for immediate cremation. The one wild card was
sending that jewelry to her nieces, but she probably figured everything would
be over and done with by the time they got the package.”

“It
was over but not done with, not by a long shot,” Ginny observed bitterly.

“What
do you mean? If Margaret did do away with herself, it would be impossible to
prove now that her remains have been cremated, and frankly, what would be the
point? Suicide isn’t a crime.” I was genuinely at a loss.