Dying Wishes (7 page)

“Hi, Kate.
How are you
doing, Mrs.
Harkness
?” He tugged Margo’s hair, which
for him was an almost unbelievable public display of affection, and dropped
into a chair beside her. “What looks good today, ladies?”

It
was a straight line Margo couldn’t resist. “From where I sit,
darlin
’, you’re the most appetizing thing I’ve seen
lately.” She loved to make her reserved husband blush, but after two years of
marriage, it was getting harder to do.

“Damn
straight,” was his serene response now.
“Turkey and avocado
sandwiches on multigrain all around?”
We agreed enthusiastically, and he
went inside to place our order. In five minutes he was back, laden with
sandwiches and iced teas, and we got right down to the reason for our late
lunch meeting.

With
Margo nodding her encouragement from time to time, I recapped the recent events
at Vista View and Ginny Preston’s nagging suspicions. John had been enormously
helpful during a couple of previous investigations in which I’d been
involuntarily involved, and he had become a good friend, as well. I trusted him
completely.

“So
that’s the situation. It’s complete speculation at this point, of course, but
Ginny is one level-headed lady. It’s not like her to get the wind up for no
reason. I trust her instincts, but what do you think we should do? Is there
anything we
can
do?”

I
grabbed a bite of my sandwich while John mulled over what I’d told him. It
didn’t take him long.

“Do
about what, a Vista View employee taking on a few residents as private massage
clients? If that’s against the facility’s regulations, I guess Ginny can warn
the kid or maybe even fire him, but her suspicions about his soliciting them
for sex are just that, suspicions. No formal complaints have been filed by
residents or staff. What happens between Garcia and his clients takes place
behind closed doors in private residences between consenting adults. We don’t
know that any money changes hands, and if it does, we don’t know what for. It’s
nobody’s business.”

I
sighed. “That’s what I said when Ginny told me about all this. I just had to be
sure. Somehow she’s connected both untimely deaths to the fact that the two
women were Tommy’s clients. At least, I think that’s a fact. We don’t even know
that for certain.”

John
drained his iced tea and gathered up a few scraps. He looked around,
then
shook his head. “That dog has me well trained. I always
leave him a bite at the end of a meal. Where is Rhett, by the way?”

“In
his lovely pen back at the office,
renewin
’ his acquaintance
with the squirrels,” Margo answered, “or more likely
gettin
’
half of
Strutter’s
lunch fed to him.”

John
grinned his understanding. “You’re probably right about that.” He turned to me.
“Anyway, from what you’ve told me there is absolutely no reason to believe that
either woman’s death was from other than natural causes, and
there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing by Garcia or anyone else. I don’t suppose
I’ve said anything that will ease your friend’s mind, Kate, but have I answered
your questions?”

I
smiled at him warmly. “You surely have, and I can’t tell you how much I
appreciate your taking the time to talk this through with me. I know how busy
you are.”

He
wadded up his sandwich wrappings and got to his feet. “No problem at all. See
you later, Honey.”

Margo
blew him a kiss, and I blinked as he tossed his trash into a curbside
receptacle and beeped open his car.

“Honey?
 
Right out loud in public? My, my, you are
bringing him out of his shell.”

Margo
stretched herself like a tawny cat and gleamed with self-satisfaction. “He just
needed a little positive reinforcement
trainin
’,
that’s all. Let’s go see if
Strutter
has any new
listings for us.”

We
took our time on the return walk. When we got back into the office, we weren’t
surprised to discover
Strutter
sitting on the back
steps of the Law Barn, cooing at Rhett Butler while feeding him the last of a
roast beef sandwich. She startled guiltily when we opened the back door and
hastily crumpled up a napkin in her lap. The big dog panted happily at the
sight of Margo, as he always did. A shred of roast beef clung to his muzzle.
Margo shook her finger at the two miscreants.

“I
can see that
leavin
’ you two alone together at
lunchtime was a mistake.”

“It
was just a crumb,”
Strutter
protested unconvincingly.
“How could I enjoy my sandwich with those big, brown eyes following every
bite?”

“Margo
should have put money on this. She had you totally pegged,” I told her.

Margo
snorted.
“As if there were ever a moment’s doubt.
Come
on, you big mooch, let’s go find your toys.” She led Rhett back to his
enclosure, and I plopped down on the top step next to
Strutter
,
leaving the back door open a crack so we could hear the phone if it rang. We
both tipped our faces up to the sun. From the sound of the leaves falling all
around us, there wouldn’t be many more afternoons like this one.

“Why
do we bother with a land line at all?”
Strutter
wondered aloud. “We all have cell phones. Anyone can reach us whenever they
want to.”

“You
just answered your own question. We have an office line and voicemail so that
just once in a while we can turn the damned cell phones off.”

Margo
rejoined us. “Anything new while we were out?”

“Not
new business, no,”
Strutter
answered somewhat
evasively. She opened her eyes and looked at me. I knew that look well. It
meant she was weighing my ability to hear what she was about to say without
going ballistic. I cringed.

“Out
with it,” I urged her.

“First
of all, I wasn’t snooping.”

I
looked at Margo, who turned her palms up and shrugged.
 
“Okay, so what did you find while you weren’t
snooping?”

“It
was the paperwork on the Johansson sale. Emma said the good faith estimate was
expected from the mortgage company this morning, but I didn’t see it anywhere,
and the buyer was getting antsy.
 
So I
ran upstairs to see if she had just forgotten to bring it down before she went
to lunch. Sure enough, there was the package on the corner of her desk, so I
grabbed it. And then I saw them, piled up right out in the open next to her
blotter.”

It
wasn’t like
Strutter
to be so defensive. “I know you
weren’t snooping, okay? What did you see piled up right out in the open?”

She
wrinkled her nose apologetically. “A bunch of books on single motherhood, how
to go about artificial insemination, what the legal ramifications are,
surrogates, agencies, you know, everything.”

“Oh,
good lord,” said Margo. “She’s got the fever. Armando was right.”

I
frowned at both of them. “Yes, Armando apparently was right, and if I hear
either of you say those words in his presence, I’ll deny it to my grave.”

Margo
still looked stunned. “It would be risky enough if she knew the father and at
least had some financial support from him for the child, but without even that
…” her voice trailed off.

“Raising
a child is plenty tough with an involved, loving partner. Doing it by
yourself
is …”
Strutter
, too, ran
out of words. We sat in silence, contemplating the enormity of Emma’s
intentions.

“What
are you going to do?”
Strutter
asked me at length.

The
sound of our office phone ringing saved me from having to say, “Damned if I
know,” but that’s what I was thinking.

~

Once
the phone started ringing it didn’t stop, and the rest of the afternoon passed
in a blur of activity. I put in an extra hour on the paperwork, knowing I would
be at Vista View for most of the following day. I heard Emma run up the stairs
to her office in mid-afternoon. Sometime after five o’clock she ran back
downstairs and stuck her head into our office. Margo and
Strutter
had both left for the day. Seeing me on the phone, Emma tapped her watch, blew
me a kiss and vanished. Her tote bag was full of books. I guessed she had an
evening of reading planned.

At
half past six I switched on our voicemail system and tidied the stacks of
documents on my desk. First law and now real estate, I mused, two of the most
paper-clogged professions left on earth. Where are all those paper-free offices
the computer salesmen promised us years ago? There’s more paper today than
there was twenty years ago, primarily because computers enable us to produce
more of it quickly and easily. Now we have all our emails to print out, too.

I
wandered around the quiet building in the early twilight, my head filled with
the people and events of the past few years. I remembered how Margo,
Strutter
and I had met at a Hartford law firm,
then
struck out on our own to open a realty office. It had
been a constant struggle, and we had certainly had our share of good times and
bad, but here we still
were,
the best of friends and
hanging onto our little business for dear life. All three of us were married
now—all for the second time, oddly enough, and very happily. I paused at the
receptionist’s desk in the lobby and smiled, remembering Jenny, who had worked
days for us in order to put
herself
through
UConn
Law School nights. She was a terrific young woman,
and I hoped things were going well for her as a first-year associate at a firm
in New Haven.

The
door to the small office next to the copy room stood open. I paused on the
threshold and pictured the mortgage broker who had occupied it briefly. She was
a native Californian trying to experience different parts of the country, but
one New England winter had been sufficient for her to pack up and return to the
San Fernando Valley. “I can do what I do anywhere,” she told us as she cleaned out
her desk. “It’s, like, the most portable occupation ever.
Have
cell phone, will travel,” and
she was gone.

Now
Joey and Emma were all grown up and apparently both on the verge of parenthood.
I was about to become a grandmother, maybe twice. Well, what did I expect at
the age of nearly fifty?
Time and tide and all that.
I
shook myself out of my reverie, locked up and headed for home and Armando.
Tomorrow would be another day.

My
contemplative mood held as I drove slowly down the darkened street and remembered
Prudence Crane, Abby Stoddard,
Deenie
Hewitt. I
tooted and waved at Ephraim Marsh, who was just locking up the corner drugstore
for the night. Friends, clients and colleagues tumbled through my mind like
characters in a play in which Margo,
Strutter
and I
played the parts of reluctant amateur sleuths—very reluctant, I smiled to
myself, remembering
Strutter’s
first encounter with
the
Henstock
sisters.

My
smile faded as I looked ahead to my follow-up conversation with
Ada
on Thursday about the neurologist’s findings. What
would
Lavinia’s
diagnosis be? I considered,
then
skittered away from, various worst case scenarios.
Thursday would be soon enough to deal with all that, I told myself as I sat
through the interminable traffic light at the Silas Deane Highway. In the
meantime there was my Vista View stint to get through tomorrow, when I would
report to Ginny Preston what John
Harkness
had said.
I knew she would be frustrated at having her hands tied, but I was frankly
relieved that I wouldn’t be dragged into yet another of the investigations that
had cluttered my life for the last several years. Things were quite complicated
enough at the moment, which brought me back to Emma and her sudden interest in
motherhood. Whatever else tomorrow might bring, I promised myself it would
include a nice, long heart-to-heart with my daughter during which I would
persuade her to abandon the single motherhood whim.

Or not.

Six

After
the stretch of glorious autumn weather we had been enjoying, Wednesday’s damp
gloom came as an unwelcome surprise. Dark clouds spit rain on everyone
intermittently as we scuttled about our business under our umbrellas, at least
those of us who could find them. As usual, mine was wherever I was not, in the
car when I was in the office and in the office when I was headed for Vista
View. My waterproof parka with a pull-up rain hood had been my smartest
wardrobe investment ever, I reflected as I hurried toward Building One from the
parking lot.

As
if to discourage further smugness on my part, a gust of wind snatched the hood
from my head, leaving my hair exposed to the rain while I wrestled with my
briefcase and the heavy door. As I muttered unattractive epithets, Bert
Rosenthal appeared at my side like a benign elf and held his sturdy umbrella over
me until I had safely negotiated the door, then followed me in. “Not Sir
Galahad, but the next best thing, eh, Gorgeous?” He dug his spectacles out of
his pocket and polished them with a handkerchief before popping them on.