Chapter 17 #2
“But I am a little worried that … it’s something like that,” she added calmly.
“It’s possible. The couple times that she wasn’t able to pay on time, she pretty much blackmailed me into giving her extra time, which in many cases I would have done anyway. But I never really got a chance to do it that way because of her … pushiness.”
Doreen nodded. “She always was quick on the trigger, right?”
“Yes. I don’t really understand how all this came about though. Of course now you’ll report me, so I’ll be in trouble.”
“I’m not going to report you,” she replied immediately.
He looked at her with gratitude, but then his gaze fell on Mack, and Roger frowned.
“Mack’s not going to report you either,” she said, with a wave of her hand.
Mack snorted. “You don’t get to make that decision.”
She turned and glared at him. “You know what a nightmare this place would turn into if you were to do that?” Then she nodded toward the door where Nan was on the other side.
“Oh, good God,” Mack muttered, as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“And honestly, just because Roger had to deal with Birdie and whatever threats she was making, that doesn’t make him a criminal.”
“No, it doesn’t. But, if you ask me, you never should allow blackmail into your world.” Mack turned to Roger.
“I know,” Roger admitted. He hesitated and then asked, “Is my blackmail in there?”
“I haven’t actually looked,” she said, “but I could tell there was a reason why she was here, and it wasn’t as above board as you normally would have made it.”
“No, I couldn’t. I didn’t have a choice,” he said.
“And is it bad?”
“I mean, it’s bad enough. It’s about my son, his schooling. She threatened to contact the dean of the university and get him kicked out.”
“Ah.”
“It was nothing. It was just a drinking prank,” he explained, “and some damage to a fountain downtown. Still, it would have been enough to get him expelled,” he admitted.
“Although my son has agreed to pay for the damage, which I’m having to help with, I don’t want it to ruin his future career, and she was adamant that everybody has to pay a price. ”
“Everybody has to pay a price?” Doreen repeated, frowning.
“Yes, that was her phrase. Everybody has to pay a price.”
She looked back at Mack, who was still staring at Roger. Doreen shrugged. “That silent communication, in case you didn’t know, Roger, means that Mack will talk it over with the captain, but chances are you’ll be fine.”
Roger looked relieved, but he turned back to Mack and added, “Honestly, she just wanted a room that was already empty. She wanted to be here, where she knew everybody was having so much fun, yet she was losing out.”
“And you don’t know all that she was up to, right?” Mack asked.
“No, I don’t know a thing,” he replied. “Honestly, a certain part of me, … as much as we need to keep track of what our inmates—” He winced sheepishly and corrected himself. “What our residents are doing, we also don’t necessarily want to be in their faces about everything either.”
“Of course not,” Mack noted. “Just look at who you’re dealing with.”
He nodded. “Exactly. I’m glad you understand. I had no idea that this group could be as rambunctious or as active as they are,” he admitted. “I don’t even want to get into all the details of just what that means.”
“Please don’t,” Doreen said, holding up her hands in protest. “Spare me the details, please.”
He laughed. “Good, because your grandmother is right in the thick of it.”
“She always is.” Doreen groaned.
“On the other hand,” Roger added, “when I’m her age, I want to enjoy life just as much as she does.”
“I think we all want that,” Mack agreed.
She looked at the rest of the room and asked, “What do you think, Mack? Do we need to still keep searching?”
He glanced around the room. “We didn’t check under the bed.”
“No, we didn’t.”
With the manager’s help, they lifted up the mattresses, after shooing away the animals, finding nothing. So, they stripped the bed to be sure. Then, deciding that they were more or less done, she stepped back and nodded. “Okay, I guess we’re done for the moment.”
Roger looked back at her and asked, “So, now what?”
She looked over at Mack. “Yeah, Mack, now what?”
He flashed an overly grateful smile, that she immediately recognized as a mocking exaggeration. “I’m so happy that you’re actually asking me for once.”
She rolled her eyes.
Chuckling, he replied, “I’ll be taking a look at this book back at the office.” Glancing around the room again, he frowned. “She doesn’t seem to have much in the way of personal items in here.”
Roger nodded. “No, but she was also a resident who came and went.”
“What does that mean?” Doreen asked in surprise.
“She had another home.”
“No wonder she couldn’t pay her bills.”
“That’s the thing. I mean, she couldn’t pay the Rosemoor bill timely each month, but I highly suspected that it was just an inconvenience for her to pay the bill that day. She wanted it for something else. And, as you have pointed out, maybe she was gambling or something.”
“Interesting, so where is this other home of hers?” Doreen asked Roger.
“She also stays at the house where her grandson lived.”
At that, Doreen frowned at him. “Did she?”
“Yes,” Roger confirmed. “She told me how it was her house, and he was only staying there, while he got his degree.”
“Very interesting,” she noted, turning to Mack. “Ownership of that property also needs to be checked out.”
“Yeah, it does,” he agreed, as he pulled out his little notebook and started adding it to his list.
“Do you think she lied about that?” Roger asked.
“I think she lied about a lot of things,” Doreen whispered to him.
“What we don’t know is why, how bad, or how far she went with these lies.
Nearly everybody has small lies in their world, the little white ones that don’t hurt anybody,” she said, “and, maybe in this case, it was just to save face. I don’t know.
But there would be no reason for her to lie about going to her own house, but it doesn’t appear that anybody here seemed to know about it, which is odd.
And why rent an apartment at Rosemoor when she could stay at her own home?
” Doreen frowned. “She wasn’t on a night-by-night basis, was she? ”
Roger shook his head. “No, not at all. Everybody here pays monthly.”
Mack nodded. “Ah, right, okay. So that’s a bit of a challenge too.”
Roger frowned. “I don’t understand why.”
“Because how does she explain her absences from here? No one else comes and goes, right?” Mack asked Roger.
Roger shook his head. “We have planned outings for them, but generally they stay here, with family coming to visit them.”
“Exactly,” Mack noted. “So, Birdie wouldn’t have had any reason to leave Rosemoor—unless she was staying overnight at her own home or was going somewhere with her friends, say gambling maybe,” Mack suggested.
Doreen smiled at Mack. “That would explain it. If she was addicted, and she needed some way to actually get to and from the casino, then maybe she had a partner who was also addicted to gambling, and the two of them had this arrangement. Maybe even Devon.”
“And you didn’t have any problem with her coming and going?” Mack asked Roger, who flushed and remained silent.
Doreen nodded. “That was the other part of this, wasn’t it? She gets to come and go whenever she wants, without signing in or signing out. And she doesn’t wear any medical-alert electronic bracelet in case of her falling and not being able to get up?”
“She has fallen in the past but constantly refuses to wear it. It’s not mandatory, so she always left it behind,” Roger explained.
She sighed. “And you realize what would have happened if Birdie was drugged when she wasn’t here?”
“Well, I’m not sure what I would have done in that case,” Roger muttered, looking around, frowning. “Still, it’s bad enough that she was poisoned here. I just hope that maybe we—Rosemoor and me—can get out of this pretty easily.”
“But the questions still remain. Who has Birdie been gambling with, or is her gambling partner part of her blackmail scheme or just another person she blackmailed?”
“And yet she’s not a criminal, is she?” Roger asked, looking at her. “I would never be allowed to have a criminal in here.”
Doreen stared at him in surprise. “Is that actually one of your rules?”
He nodded. “Yes, backgrounds are all checked.”
“Even though these people,” then she stopped and said, “I was going to say they are completely harmless.”
“But they aren’t necessarily harmless, are they?” Roger asked.
“No, and I have certainly seen more than my fair share of seniors who were not to be trusted,” she muttered.
“Exactly,” Roger agreed, “so it’s one of the things that I do have leeway in my judgment in order to change some of that as I need to.”
“Right,” she muttered, “and in this case you used that judgment leeway to let Birdie come and go without following Rosemoor protocols.”
“Yes,” he admitted, “though that is something I may still probably get fired for.”
She shrugged. “And again, I’m not sure it’s a firing offense. But hopefully we can get it all worked out before too long.” And, with that, she looked over at her animals and said, “Let’s go, guys.”
Mugs was already at the door, lying down in front of it, completely disinterested in anything going on, looking like he felt it was all well beneath him.
Meanwhile, Thaddeus had curled up in the windowsill and appeared to be snoozing.
She walked over, scooped him up, and put him on her shoulder.
He woke up, squawked, and then settled back in again.
She smiled at him. “It’s okay, buddy. We’ll get you home, and you can get your nap in.” She looked back at Roger. “Talk to you later.”