Chapter 9
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Richie went through his phone and soon found it. “Here it is.” He gave it to Doreen.
She quickly added it to her Contacts list, while ignoring the look on Nan’s face.
“I don’t quite understand what her problem is,” Nan said, all of them watching as Thaddeus hopped to the floor and walked closer to Mugs. “At the end of the day, there is only family.”
“For some people,” Doreen noted, “family doesn’t have any more meaning than the one who she gave birth to.”
“Oh, I hadn’t really considered that, but not even for her grandson?” Nan frowned.
“If she never had a relationship with him, it’s quite possible,” Doreen noted. “And, of course, it’s easy for us to judge.”
“Very easy,” Maisie agreed immediately. “I’m judging just fine.”
Doreen sighed. “And maybe that’s exactly what we shouldn’t be doing. Birdie is suffering the loss of a grandchild.”
“Maybe not,” Maisie conceded, “but it’s pretty hard not to judge her. Where would you be, Doreen, if your grandmother hadn’t stepped up and helped you?”
“That’s a good question, and I think about it a lot.” Doreen looked over at her grandmother and smiled. “I’m blessed that I have her and not Birdie for a family member.”
“No kidding,” Richie muttered. “I get it, I suppose, but it seems like a pretty hard line to take with one’s own blood.”
“But what we don’t know,” Doreen pointed out, “is what he actually needed money for and his reasons for asking Birdie for it. Maybe it was for drugs, and maybe he mentioned something that set her off and made her suspicious.”
“If it were for drugs, I’m not sure I would have given him money either,” Richie admitted, with a careful look around the room.
“No, of course not,” Doreen replied, as everyone stared at each other, subtly nodding.
“That is something to consider, isn’t it?” Richie asked.
“It is, only I’m not sure …”
“Oh, you can’t stop there, child.” Nan glared at her. “You’re not sure about what?”
“I’m not sure that Birdie was being fully honest.”
Nan stared at her granddaughter, and a small smile played around the corners of her mouth. “I’m really glad you said that because I’m not sure she was either.”
“What did I miss?” Maisie asked. “I thought she was doing a bang-up job in telling us everything.”
“It sounded like a bang-up job,” Doreen clarified, with a nod, “but maybe too much of a bang-up job. I mean, her answers were a little too pat.”
The gang just stared at her in confusion, and she shrugged.
“She couldn’t have done the deed herself.
At least, I sure can’t see her trying to inject her grandson with a drug in order to do whatever she would be motivated to do it for,” she explained, with a smirk.
“So, even if Birdie is withholding any information, I’m not sure how helpful it would be. ”
“I would suspect it’s because she’s afraid of judgment,” Maisie suggested.
Doreen replied, smiling at her, “Which seems very logical to me.”
At that, Maisie perked up. “See? I’m not such a dumb bunny after all,” she declared to Richie.
He snorted. “You’re just looking for brownie points.”
“I’ll take any points I can get,” Maisie stated. “You guys are hard to stay on top of.”
Doreen laughed. “The good thing is, we’re not all trying to stay on top of the same thing,” she clarified. “We are literally just looking for whatever we can do to help solve this.”
Doreen continued. “Birdie’s grandson is dead, and, regardless of how we feel about whether she should have helped him or not, we do need to acknowledge that the young man deserved more than where he’s at right now.
Devon seems to be a kid who stayed out of trouble for a long time.
Especially after Mr. Hanson and Derrick, the stepbrother, were added to his family.
We don’t know if Devon did this to himself.
If he did? Well, I’m so sorry for him because that’s a terrible mental state to be in.
Yes, it’s easy for us to judge and to say that he didn’t need to be in that situation or that it’s all Birdie’s fault, but we don’t know that it had anything to do with his asking her for money, especially if he had a house.
Although that doesn’t mean it was paid for.
For all we know, he was asking for enough money to run away and maybe go to a different university or maybe he’d gotten … ” Doreen winced.
“Finish the thought, child.”
“Maybe he got his girlfriend pregnant or something. We just don’t know what he needed the money for, and, until we can get to the bottom of it, we have to hold back on the judgment.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Maisie replied. “I personally like judging people.”
Doreen stared at her and then groaned. “It’s really not considered a good thing to do, you know?”
“Maybe not,” Maisie conceded, “but life is plenty boring at our age. So, if we can’t judge people, what are we supposed to do with our days?”
Doreen gave her a nonplussed look. “Maybe you could find a hobby to focus on that doesn’t involve being mean to people.”
“Oh, I would never be mean,” Maisie declared, raising her hands. “I would never be mean.”
“But, if you’re judging people, isn’t that being mean?” Doreen asked.
“No, of course not,” Maisie declared. “They don’t know, so it’s not being mean at all.”
As adamant as Maisie was, there was no talking her out of that point of view. So, Doreen didn’t have the energy to try. She turned to Nan. “Okay, I’ll head home. I have some research to get into and some phone calls to make,” she shared.
The animals heard home, that magical word, and all stood up and looked at her.
Doreen shared, “I do have to update the captain too at some point.”
“I’m not sure this is a good case for you,” Maisie said suddenly.
Doreen frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it just occurred to me how much Birdie wasn’t really able to help.”
“No, but we didn’t really expect her to, did we?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought she would have known more.”
“You mean, like she could have just told us little bits and pieces, and we would have all the answers and would be good to go?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Maisie admitted, with a sheepish expression.
“It never seems to work that way though,” Doreen noted.
“Of course not,” Nan added. “I mean, if it were that easy, the police could have solved it right away.”
“And the fact is, they will solve this fairly quickly, even without me,” Doreen stated. “So I at least need to be on top of whatever is going on here. If I have something to share or to tell them or Birdie, then I’m the one to do it. Otherwise it won’t be good for my reputation either.”
At that, Richie snickered. “Now that’s a funny one. You’re worried about making sure you get the information first.”
“Not so much about getting the information first,” she clarified, “but I definitely want to contribute something. Otherwise I won’t get called in again, will I?”
“No, you sure won’t,” Richie agreed, with a nod. “So, you need to dig around and find something.”
“Well, I’ll go home and phone the university, plus the penitentiary and talk to these two men and see if Birdie’s telling the truth for one thing.
Then also to find out what they know about Devon, because apparently this was a blended family at one time.
Thus, we have two potential witnesses to a puzzle here, even if just for background info.
I’ll be interested to see whether they’re even concerned or care about the fact that Devon’s dead or they’re actually jubilant, thinking that maybe they’ll get some money someday when they finally get out of prison. ”
“Money is supposedly the root of all evil,” Nan stated, “but I see it as definitely a major contributor.”
Doreen nodded. “It makes you question a lot of things in life when you see how people treat each other, doesn’t it?”
“It’s so sad,” Nan noted. “I mean, he was such a young man.”
“And we also have to be mindful that he could have done this to himself, accidentally or intentionally. I don’t want to belabor that point, but we must keep all options in mind.”
“Yes, we do,” Richie concurred. “It’s a sad day when that happens, but we also know that an awful lot of young men commit suicide in this day and age. We don’t like it, yet it will take an awful lot of money to change the system we have so they can get the help they need,” he added.
“But it still would be a sad state.”
“It would, indeed,” he murmured.
Doreen got up, her animals in tow. “Come on, guys. Time to go.”
With them leading the way, she headed out into the hallway instead of going out via the patio. She continued to the front door. She went fairly slowly, watching for any sign of Birdie. While there wasn’t any sign of her, several people were watching Doreen’s exit with great interest.
She hadn’t realized to what degree the residents at Rosemoor were involved in these cases. As soon as she left, she knew they would be all over Nan and Richie to see just what, if anything, they knew. And sadly, in this case, it didn’t seem like anybody knew anything.
She kept looking around as she walked to the front door. She had that weird feeling in the back of her neck, enough that she stopped at the door and deliberately turned to see who was watching her. While the hallway was empty, even Mugs stood here for a long moment.
“Right,” she whispered to him. “Somebody was watching us, but why? Not only why, but who?”
With no answers in front of her, she headed out and walked home.