Chapter 15 Leads to Nowhere? #2
Jasper didn’t look the least chagrined. “You know I hate this shit.”
Tucker sighed. “We all do. Dorothy is going to get a raise when she’s back.” He patted Jasper on the shoulder. “Only two more weeks.”
“Eternity,” Jasper whimpered.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” Tucker had come around the battered reception desk.
George held out his badge. “We’re Detectives George Donovan and Andrew Hayes. I believe Officer Kaustrowitz talked to you yesterday about seeing us?”
“Ah, yes, I remember.” Tucker gave the two badges only a cursory glance.
It told George that the man had probably never been in conflict with the law.
“Please follow me.” The mechanic led them left of the reception area into a small hall with two doors on the right.
He opened the first and let them step through before he shut it.
After he had freed the two guest chairs in front of his overladen desk of the stacks of papers that had been stored there, he gestured for them to sit down.
George used the time it took Monahan to do all this to examine the man closely.
He looked like somebody who had worked hard all his life and took great pleasure in his capabilities.
His short dark hair was interspersed with some silver strands, though not as many as George would have expected from a man in his early fifties.
His face showed some lines, which were partly hidden under a black smear on his right temple.
A blue overall covered his wiry, slim body.
Tucker sat down behind his desk, leaning back in his chair.
“I’m sorry about the rude welcome.” He gestured vaguely toward the reception area.
“Dorothy, our receptionist, had to have surgery. I couldn’t find a replacement, and now me and the guys take turns doing the paperwork. It’s not going great.”
“Only two more weeks, you said.” George tried to sound encouraging.
“Two weeks are an eternity.” Tucker sighed as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Or at least the weight of the paperwork of his business. “You wanted to talk about Suzie?”
So, they were back to business. George glanced at Andi, who was sitting next to him, leaving the interaction to his partner as almost always. “Yes. First, we want to express our condolences. It must have been a shock.”
Tucker shrugged. “It wasn’t pretty. I can tell you that.”
“You were the one who found her?”
“Nah, my neighbors did. They called me, and I saw her body before they brought her to the morgue. Blasted ants.”
“Did you know you had fire ants in the garden?” The garden behind the Monahans’ house wasn’t big. George imagined they could have been aware of a problem such as potentially dangerous arthropods in their greenery.
“No. And I had just mowed the lawn two days before. You would think they would have attacked me.”
Again, George glanced at Andi. His partner gave an almost imperceptible nod. This fit with what they already knew. Suzie Monahan had been specifically targeted.
“Yes, strange indeed. I can assure you we’re looking into this.”
“I don’t see what good it does.” Tucker made a vague gesture with his hand. “She’s dead.”
“Excuse me if this is insensitive, and I know everybody grieves differently, but you don’t seem to be overly…
heartbroken.” This statement was a bit of a gamble.
George trusted his instincts, which told him Tucker wasn’t missing Suzie too much.
If he had misjudged, this could very well mean the end of their talk.
“I’m not. Suzie and I—” Tucker carded his hands through his hair, flattening it with the residue grease on his hands.
“We married young, thought it was true love. Well, it was only lust as it turned out, but by the time we realized this, we had already built too much together and neither of us ever met somebody else. Divorces are expensive, while living together with a person you don’t actively hate isn’t too bad, so we stayed.
Paid the mortgage for the house, lived our lives, didn’t bother each other. It was fine.”
George believed him. He could totally see how two equally pragmatic people could come to such an arrangement. “I understand. Suzie worked at Paradise Home for the Elderly. Is that correct?”
“Yes, though she’d been let go in March.” Tucker’s left eyelid twitched. There was more to this.
“Was there a reason?”
For a moment, Tucker seemed to consider not saying anything at all. Then his shoulders slumped. “I don’t like speaking ill of the dead.”
“The way I see it, as long as it is the truth, it’s not speaking ill, just stating facts.”
Tucker chuckled a bit sadly. “Nicely put. You know what kleptomania is?”
“The urge to steal? I have to admit that’s the extent of what I know.”
“There’s a bit more to it, but yes, that’s the gist of it.
” Tucker shook his head. “It’s a rare diagnosis, and mostly women have it.
Suzie was one of them. She was in therapy and had a good handle on it, but I guess being around so many easy marks all day had switched something inside her head.
She stole from the residents of the nursing home.
Nothing valuable, mind you, but of course they couldn’t keep her on.
The management knew about her diagnosis and decided not to charge her.
They also kept it out of her dismissal.”
“That was…nice of them.” George didn’t know how he felt about this. He could understand compassion for somebody with a condition outside of the person’s control, but to him, the responsibility for the—in large part helpless—elderly people in the facility should have outweighed said compassion.
“Suzie was great at her job. The old folks liked her a lot. In the end, she just couldn’t withstand temptation.”
“I see.” George looked at Andi, who didn’t seem inclined to make any contributions to the discussion. “Had Suzie, by any chance, ever mentioned a woman named Isabelle Hopper?”
“Not that I know of. Was she a colleague at work? Suzie was close with some of the gals there, I think.”
“No. She drove the bus on the line that stops at Paradise Home. She never said anything about her?”
Tucker shook his head. “No, definitely not. Why? Should I know her?”
“No. We were just wondering because her name popped up when we investigated Suzie. Thank you, Mr. Monahan. You’ve been a great help.”
Tucker rose from his chair. “You’re welcome. I can’t see how any of my answers was of much help, but I’ll take it.” He smiled a bit crookedly. “If there was foul play involved in Suzie’s death, I want her to get justice.”
“We will see to it.” George took Tucker’s outstretched hand. Then, Andi did the same, and they left the garage, waving at a still grumpy-looking Jasper and wishing him good luck for the remainder of Dorothy’s absence.
Once they were back in the car, Andi typed the address of Paradise Home for the Elderly into the navigation system.
It took them almost forty minutes to get around downtown Spartanburg to the west side, where the nursing home was located in a residential area full of grand old houses, some of which were in dire need of renovations, while others had already been returned to their full glory.
The nursing home was actually three of these old houses combined through modern extensions, giving the whole complex a chunky appearance.
The gardens were lovely, and in full bloom, the heavy fragrance of jasmine hanging in the air.
George found a parking spot under an old Angel Oak, and they went to the entrance.
The receptionist, Daphne, a perky young woman who had Trainee printed under her name on her nametag, informed them that visits with the residents had to be approved either by the next of kin or, if there were none, by the director herself.
She did agree to ask the director, Shelby Delaine, if she had time to see them.
As it turned out, Shelby was in a meeting, and instead of making two separate appointments, George and Andi decided to first talk to Rosalie Byrnes about meeting her mother before setting a date with Ms. Delaine.
“Would it be okay if we took a look at the gardens? They’re lovely.” George smiled broadly at Daphne, doing his best to charm her into giving them permission. She hesitated for a moment then nodded.
“I guess that’s okay. Please leave the residents alone though. Some of them are excitable and can get confused when seeing strangers.”
“We will be careful, I promise.”
George turned left at the door leading to the gardens as Daphne indicated. Andi followed him on silent feet.