Chapter 27
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They all just stared at Doreen, clearly stunned.
“Birdie passed away while I was in her hospital room last night,” Doreen shared quietly. “Mack was with me and so was Dr. Shaw.”
“Well, at least you weren’t alone, child,” Nan muttered, as she got up and walked over to give Doreen a hug.
It was the hug that was almost her undoing, but Doreen forced herself to hold back the tears and nodded. “Yes, it was a lot easier having them there.”
“Did she say anything?” Richie asked.
“She shared a lot, though not necessarily about what’s gone on,” Doreen began. “She expressed regrets, … wishing she had been a better person. She acknowledged that she should have given her grandson some money and that her addiction was gambling and that she wasn’t always that good at it.”
“She had a serious problem?” Richie asked.
“They both did, she and Devon. She couldn’t stop,” Doreen shared, watching the faces around her, “and she was hundreds of thousands in the hole and apparently so was Devon. So, Mack is wondering now if that was the reason he was killed, as an example for other people who owe money to bookies. They could have made an example of Birdie also, but she had more going on in her life than gambling debts. She didn’t admit to this, but Birdie probably fixed things for her daughter, which would line up with what we already know from Solomon’s files. ”
“What do you mean by … fixed things?” Richie asked.
She looked over at him and shared, “Birdie’s daughter had a serious drinking problem, probably was a drug user as well, and had been in a car accident.”
“Right,” Nan said. “I remember something about that. Didn’t Cassandra end up getting a decent insurance payout or something for it?”
“Maybe, although she was driving drunk at the time of the accident, which likely nullified any insurance on her side, but there should have been a payout to the other party.” That earned some gasps, some shocked looks.
“Birdie managed to persuade the authorities,” Doreen added, with a heavy emphasis, “not to press charges. And since a young man died in the accident, his family has been tortured with the fact that Cassandra basically walked free and clear, while they lost their family member.”
“Oh goodness,” Richie muttered, staring at her. “Our little Birdie did that?”
“Yes, but little Birdie was no pushover. Just like she managed to get me onto Devon’s investigation, she has been pulling a lot of strings and dabbling in blackmail.
” They all just silently stared at her, and Doreen nodded.
“So, in other words, things are interesting and potentially difficult, and I’m not exactly sure where and what we’re doing next.
Mack is chasing down all sorts of leads. ”
“Oh, my goodness,” Maisie muttered, yet she looked positively enthralled.
Doreen gave her a knowing smile and said, “Not quite what you expected to hear this morning, was it?”
“No,” she admitted, “but, with you, it’s always possible for it to be absolutely anything.”
Doreen blinked at that and then nodded. “I guess it probably looks that way,” she replied, “and honestly, I’m a little on the tired side.
Birdie literally passed right in front of us last night, so it was fairly emotional.
” She sighed. “We’re moving on with the case, but I’m not sure what we will find out next. ”
“Did Birdie say who attacked her?” Richie asked.
“She didn’t see him, but the hospital confirmed she was drugged,” Doreen said, reminding herself to speak with Roger when she left Nan’s apartment.
“Of course not.”
“Since she was drugged, it stands to reason she may have been confused. She did have some idea of who it could have been, and that would be some of the people to whom she and her grandson owed money. Devon wasn’t the brightest of the bunch.
Birdie told us last night how she owed money to some guy she knew as Cisco.
” That again earned her some looks of shock.
“Birdie didn’t think it was a big deal because she often owed money, and then she would pay her way out of it eventually. So it was all good as far as Birdie knew. She also had the means to pay. However, her grandson was also in the hole in a big way, maybe with no means to pay it back.”
Shocked at that, they all sat back and looked around at each other, shaking their heads.
“So, that is where Mack is going, thinking that potentially both Devon and now Birdie were taken out by a loan shark—or the big boss to the local loan sharks.”
“Of course,” Richie agreed.
Doreen asked everyone, “Do any of you know someone named Cisco?”
Headshakes came from all around the room.
Richie added, “Goodness, you can’t even write this kind of fiction. I mean, … who would believe it?”
Doreen smiled at him and nodded. “Honestly, real life is always so much more complex than fiction,” she muttered.
Nan agreed. “It’s sad that all this happened the way it did. Yet, on the other hand, I’m grateful that we have some closure.”
“Yes, of course.” Richie gave Nan a nod. “It is pretty amazing that we really didn’t know Birdie at all.”
Doreen nodded.
At that, he turned and brought out a little basket he’d been hiding behind him. “Because you’re so tired,” he said, offering her a goodie.
She looked at it and smiled in appreciation. “Today I am very grateful to have it,” she murmured, peering inside, then crowed in delight to see the strudels. She immediately scooped up the closest one to her.
Richie chuckled. “You never even take the time to choose, do you?”
“Nope,” she said, “because they’re all treats, and each one is something I may not have tried before.”
He smirked now. “We are slowly getting you used to accepting our treats.”
“I absolutely adore them,” she murmured and thanked him for his generosity.
Nan shrugged and pointed out, “It’s not his generosity.”
“I know that,” Doreen stated, rolling her eyes, “but he is the one who thinks about bringing something every time.”
Nan looked at her in surprise and then nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you points for that, Richie.”
He just beamed.
Maisie pointed out, “So, there’s nothing for us to do right now, is there?”
“Not for us. Mack is doing everything at his end. There may not be any answers to get. I just don’t know yet,” Doreen replied. “A lot of things are in the works, but nothing is settled.”
“Of course, of course.”
And then Nan added, “Goodness, I wonder what’ll become of the money that Birdie had, since her grandson is dead.”
Doreen didn’t want to go there right now. “I’m not sure what’ll happen with everything,” she muttered. “For the moment we have to at least find out who owns the house because that in itself could be significant.”
“Right,” Nan agreed, with a smile. “And I don’t think she was ever really broke. She always seemed to just play at being broke.”
Doreen nodded. “I think she liked to spend money, but she liked to spend it on horse races and any other things she could gamble on,” she pointed out. “She also liked to live well.”
“I absolutely love a good bet myself,” Nan admitted, staring at her granddaughter. “But I’m certainly not the kind to bet with that kind of money, particularly not if I had another plan or use for it.”
Doreen agreed. “And that is always the challenge. According to her grandson’s ex-girlfriend, Birdie was the one who got Devon into gambling in the first place.
When he came to her and told her that he needed money, she didn’t ask him anything about it, not realizing the situation he was in.
She just told him to do what they’d always done, just gamble and make some more. But he didn’t get a chance to do that.”
“And did we ever get confirmation that Devon’s death was murder?” Maisie asked.
Doreen nodded. “Yes, per the coroner’s report and the fingerprints found on the drug paraphernalia dumped around his body,” she shared.
“Not Devon’s prints. Mack’s searching for a match.
Plus, Devon wasn’t known to take drugs because of living with his drug-addicted mother.
… So sad that drugs ended up killing him,” she added.
“Interesting,” Richie muttered.
As everybody morosely considered that, Maisie added, “We are losing a lot of our members.”
Doreen winced. “Not because of me, I hope.”
“No, of course not, child,” Nan replied immediately. “Maisie means residents here at Rosemoor, not members of our little team of Doreen’s Deputies. But that doesn’t change the fact that Maisie is right.”
Doreen added, “The turnover in senior living facilities is a fact of life, but also an opportunity to meet someone new.”
“Yeah, but the only way new people get in,” Maisie pointed out, “is if somebody else dies.”
“Or they move away,” Nan corrected, looking at her repressively. “Or they get to go home, where they do something else.”
“Home would be nice,” Maisie noted, suddenly sad.
Doreen, sensing the mine field forming in front of them, spoke up. “Well, you’re all very, very lucky to have each other. You have formed some great friendships here and those friendships will get you through the toughest days.”
Richie declared in a boisterous tone, “You got that right. … Even though some of our days are harder than others, we do need to be mindful that we have each other.” He looked at Doreen and asked, “What will you do now?”
She decided not to tell them about her need to question Roger.
“When I get home, I’ll try to get a little downtime, just consider all this, see if anything else pops up in terms of motives, problems, and whatnot.
Mack is chasing down a lot of the other suspects as they come up, but we don’t necessarily know everybody involved. ”
“No, of course not.”
“But we have the two guys we found and Mack arrested, who were robbing homes here in Kelowna.” At that, they all perked up. She frowned at them and asked, “Didn’t I tell you about that?”
“No,” Maisie cried out. “Come on, … details, details.”