Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Each side of the driveway had a tall snowbank, and there was a mountain of snow that had been plowed up next to the garage.
A woman in her early fifties with a long braid of gray hair flopping around was in front of the garage door using a snow shovel to scrape ice off the black top.
She wore a tall pair of UGGS and a coat that looked like it had once been a blanket. Patty Gauthier.
Telling her who I was and what I was doing there earned me an unhappy look.
“I don’t want to talk about Bobbie.”
“Okay, that’s not really going to help her case.”
“Who said I wanted to help her case?”
“Your original statement supported what Patty said. Did she tell you what to say?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“Um, you know it’s just a civil case. Nothing’s going to happen to you if you admit to telling a little white lie.”
I had no idea if that was true, but then I guess she did because she said, “Um. Bill Clinton was impeached for committing perjury in a civil case. So… I plead the fifth.”
“When did you and Bobbie stop being friends? You can answer that because it’s not part of your statement.”
She chewed on that for a moment, and said, “Last Spring. May, beginning of June. Yeah. It was June definitely.”
“What happened? I got the impression you were good friends.”
“She doesn’t have friends; she has people she uses.
” I checked her ears to see if smoke was coming out.
“She broke her arm. That’s what happened.
Stupidly, I told her she could stay with me while she got better.
I’ve got the room, or at least thought I did.
When it happened, she needed to stay as still as she possible, so I took her in.
Cooked for her, took care of her. After eight weeks she could do a lot more on her own, so I asked when she was going home.
Come to find out, without telling me, she’d had some guys move her out of her apartment and put her things in storage.
She was saving six hundred dollars a month living with me. ”
“So, you threw her out?”
“Not for another eight months. It was the holidays. I couldn’t throw her out at Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. And then it was the dead of winter. And then she broke her wrist.”
“How did she do that?”
“I’d given her the master bedroom, my bedroom.
It’s on the first floor and there’s an ensuite.
I moved to the apartment above the garage.
When I worked up the courage to tell her to get out, she tripped while walking across her—my bedroom.
Apparently, she fell into the door and broke it.
It took until June to get her out of here. She mooched off me for almost a year.”
I cringed a little at the way she’d used the word mooch.
I had the feeling she wanted me to. I waited.
Finally, she said, “After I threw her out, she went around telling people I’d treated her badly while she was recovering.
Both times. That I wouldn’t hang out with her and play cards, that I wouldn’t cook anything she liked, that I just left her lying there week after week which wasn’t fair at all.
I bought a new TV and DVD player for the bedroom, and I don’t even watch TV. ”
“Was she drunk at your birthday lunch?”
She gave me a look that said she knew exactly what I was doing. After a moment, she answered. “No. She was not drunk. And she was not overserved. And I didn’t say she was in my statement.”
“Were you and Zoey teasing her about slurring her words?”
“That wasn’t alcohol. You can’t be much of a private investigator if you haven’t figured out she was on drugs most of the time.”
Okay, that was harsh. “Um… well… I only got the case a few days ago.”
“Well, you didn’t hear that from me. I’m not officially saying anything against her. There’s no telling what she’ll do.”
“Do you know what she was taking?”
“Some kind of antianxiety medication. Atta-boy?”
“Ativan?” I supplied. This was a little uncomfortable. Was I slurring my words? Did people notice?
“Yeah. That’s it. When she was staying with me, I saw that she had a giant bottle of it.”
“Do you know where she got it?”
Well, it was a relevant question, don’t you think?
“From a doctor. It was prescription.”
“Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Um… Is there anything else you left out of your statement?”
The flood gates were open, she said, “It was a mosquito bite.”
“What?”
“On her shin. She picked at it until it bled. She went into the ladies’ room to wash it off. She put her foot into the sink. That’s why she fell.”
“Okay, wait? An old lady put her foot in the sink?”
“She was very flexible. And proud of it. All you have to do is say the word yoga and she’ll spend an hour telling you she’s practically a yogi.”
“What about her shoe? No one mentioned that she wasn’t wearing her shoe? I mean, she did take her shoe off, right?”
“It was August. She had on this kind of loose sandal. I think they’re called slides. Way too young for her but… It probably didn’t strike anyone as odd that her sandal came off. I mean, she was on the floor. Why wouldn’t it?”
“It would be really helpful if you could make a new statement.”
I was making an assumption, but it seemed logical that it would be. She was shaking her head even before I got the whole sentence out.
“Why not? She obviously treated you badly and it’s not fair that the winery might have to pay her.” I waited. She didn’t say anything, so I asked. “Are you afraid of her?”
“Well, she did kill a man.”
“Would you like to tell me about that?”
“No. I wouldn’t. It’s time for you to go.”
On the way home, I thought about what to do next.
Dorothy wouldn’t be at the house for another two hours.
I could slip upstairs and take a nap like I usually did in the afternoon.
But then, well, I was kind of excited. There was no way Bobbie’s fall was the fault of the winery.
It wasn’t about some fragile old lady they’d gotten drunk who then slipped on their wet bathroom floor.
It was about an addict who went into the ladies’ room and did something stupid.
She didn’t stand a chance. I’d just finished my first job, and I’d done really, really well.
I stopped at Cuppa Mud in Masons Bay. The little coffee shop had a cement floor painted gray, walls painted white, and a counter made of raw wood. There were a lot of plants.
In fact, more plants than people. There were only three people there. I got a latte and sat in a corner. I took out my cell phone and called Hamlet.
“Hello,” he whispered. There was a lot of ambient noise in the background.”
“Hey. Where are you?”
“I’m in a park. Do we need to talk now?”
“Real quickly then… Bobbie LaCross is a drug addict who went into the ladies’ room at Three Friends, stuck her foot in the sink to rinse off a mosquito bite, and lost her balance. The whole thing was her own fault.”
“Good job,” he said. I almost asked him to repeat that, but I’d heard it just fine. “Make some notes and email them to me. I’ll talk with the client tomorrow. And send me an invoice.”
I wanted to extend the conversation, hopefully he’d compliment me another three or four times, but, in a cloud of fake lavender fur, Opal sat down across from me.
Her hair was now cobalt blue with white smudges here and there.
She noticed me looking at them and said, “They’re supposed to be stars.
If you say one word, I’ll break your arm. ”
Interesting choice of words.
I needed to ask Ham how much he was paying me, but he said he had to go, which might have had something to do with his being in a park in the middle of winter, so I agreed and hung up.
“What are you doing here?”
“Pastiche is practically across the street. I saw you walk in, so I decided it was break time. I mean, it’s the dead of winter, I’m not even sure why we’re open. So? Was he there?”
“Was who where?”
“Denny. Was he at the meeting?”
“Why do you think I went to the meeting? Did someone tell you I was there?”
“I knew you’d be curious. That’s why I told you about the Thursday meeting. You went, didn’t you?”
I was so tempted to say no, but instead I said, “Your friend Richard was there. Boy, does he look bad.”
“We’re not friends.”
“You were friends.”
“Until he stole half the reward money.”
“He what?”
“You heard me. I had to put half the money up myself.”
“You told me you put in five hundred.”
“You’re not the only one who can lie.”
Whoa, I caught her in a lie and she called me out as a liar. That takes nerve. Mad respect, though. I mean, it made me hate her guts, but I was still impressed.
“Was Denny at the meeting?”
“No, he wasn’t. And why do you care so much—oh, crap. Your thing for Carl, you want to sabotage their relationship by telling him Denny doesn’t go to meetings.”
Opal immediately flushed, her red cheeks, blue hair and white smudges making her look very patriotic—though it would have been a better look in July.
“I have to go. Thanks, but no thanks for the info.”
When I got home there was still time for a short nap. I checked in the kitchen, gave Emerald a tickle in her high chair—she began to fuss. I let Riley back in and scolded my grandmother for trying to keep him outside. It was a warm day but still barely in the twenties.
“You act like I’m a monster. If you’re worried about your dog build him a doghouse.” Then she said to Dorothy, who was at the stove sterilizing bottles despite being told to use the dishwasher repeatedly, “He sleeps with the mangy thing.”
“Oh yeah, all my grandkids do. It’s the way they are.”
“I don’t know what we did wrong.”
Meanwhile, as the baby began to cry, I gave Riley fresh water and a big bowl of kibble. “I’m going to take a nap. If you let Riley out, let him back in.”
Then I went upstairs, scurrying away from Emerald’s screams, and took an Ativan.