Partners In Crime (30 page)

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hubbert," she said
apologetically.

"You're absolutely positive?" he asked
her.

"Yes. I checked crazy Miss Turnbull's
obituary file. It's in there, too. Here, you take it." She handed
T.S. another file. She punched the elevator buttons angrily. "I saw
the letters on top. I know what they said. You don't have to
pretend. Why would that poor woman even start something like that
unless there was some basis in fact? It takes two to tango." The
elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. She began to pace
across the small square of carpet. "That's just like a bunch of men
to blame the woman," she declared bitterly. T.S. coughed discreetly
and Sheila finally noticed the presence of several stupefied
employees standing against the back elevator wall and watching with
great interest. Her mouth closed and she stood quietly by T.S. He
could almost feel Sheila's anger. It was palpable in the air and he
wondered at its intensity.

"No, Theodore," Auntie Lil protested over
the phone. "That can't be. There must be a mistake about her death.
It fits too well."

"It can be," he corrected her. "And it is.
She died all alone at a mental hospital without a dime or a friend
in the world. I'm looking at the obituary now."

"I want to see it for myself," she demanded.
"Bring the files with you to dinner."

"All right. But I've had enough of this
sleuthing. I made an ass of myself today."

"No one ever died from looking like an ass,"
Auntie Lil reminded him.

"That's scant comfort."

"I still believe we're right."

He sighed. "See you tonight."

"Good. In the meantime, I'm going to the
mental hospital."

"It hasn't been that exasperating."

"Don't be absurd, Theodore. I'm going out to
where Patricia Kelly died. I want to hear it for myself. We'll swap
notes at dinner."

"You don't trust anyone, do you?" he told
her.

"Not quite. I still trust you."

T.S. hung up and rubbed his temples. Was
that a compliment? Oh, what he wouldn't give to see Lieutenant
Abromowitz properly humbled. Maybe even humiliated. He amused
himself by imagining scenarios in which Abromowitz was properly
punished for his insufferable cockiness. In one particularly vivid
daydream, Abromowitz was being forced to march around the employee
cafeteria in his undershorts.

A ringing phone in the distance permeated
his satisfying fantasy. Sheila's line shrilled persistently before
jumping to his own phone. He waited for the receptionist to answer
it and when no relief came, reluctantly picked it up himself. No
doubt one of the blue rinse set looking for juicy details. Or Miss
Turnbull reporting a new death.

"Personnel," he said crisply. "Sheila
O'Reilly's line. T.S. Hubbert speaking."

"T.S.?" a male voice asked. "Is that you?
It's Brian O'Reilly. Sheila's husband."

"Hello, Brian. I'm afraid Sheila must be
away from her desk."

"That's okay. Just tell her I'm back in
town. I'll see her at home tonight."

"Back in town? I thought you were working on
the murder case."

"What murder case?" Brian O'Reilly was
clearly confused.

"The Sterling murders," T.S. said.

"Sterling murders? Hey, what have I missed?
What's been going on? I've been upstate, fishing Lake Ontario for a
week with some buddies. Who got killed?"

T.S. stared at the phone. "I thought you
participated in the investigation of Boswell's boat," T.S. finally
said.

"John Boswell's boat? The partner with all
that white, snowy hair? He was killed? Holy shit." There was a
whistle on the other end.

"You've been gone a week?" T.S. asked
him.

"Sure. Caught a twenty-nine-pounder. But
looks like I missed the really big one. Tell Sheila to bring home
all details."

"I will." T.S. hung up the phone and stared
at the wall. How had Sheila gotten the details on Boswell's death?
His coffee soured in his stomach and he reached for the phone.
Perhaps Auntie Lil could reassure him.

She had already left her apartment. T.S.
listened to the dull ring of her phone fifteen times before he
placed the receiver back in the cradle and stared at the clock on
the wall.

Let it be anyone else but Sheila, he
thought. Anyone else at all.

It had been months since her last attempt at
driving and Auntie Lil was the first person to admit that her
motoring skills were rusty. The second was the driver of the Dodge
van that she forced onto the sidewalk when turning right against a
red light after forgetting that the maneuver was illegal in New
York City. He shook an angry fist after her as she glided slowly
past, careful to keep her speed down. She forgot what the official
limit was within the city, but figured twenty miles an hour was
safe enough. The other drivers on the road were less law-abiding.
They zoomed angrily by, the more polite honking maniacally. The
less polite were much more imaginative. Auntie Lil saw hand
gestures she had never seen before in her life, not even during a
recent tour of the Balkan countries and Turkey.

Only one other motorist seemed content to
follow her good example. She peered into the rearview mirror.
Naturally, he was not at first glance an impatient American. She
could not see his face well, but he appeared to be an older Asian
man in a blue Buick. He was quite willing to follow carefully
behind her, despite the angry shouts of other more careless and
obviously reckless drivers. She approached another intersection and
felt instinctively that the traffic light was getting ready to turn
yellow at any moment. She would not risk an accident, given the
importance of her mission. Unfortunately, her hunch proved
incorrect and an angry line of drivers honked impatiently behind
her. Well, let them wait. She was sure it would turn yellow
eventually and after about ten seconds or so, it did. She waited
patiently for the yellow to turn to red. No sense taking any
chances. If she had an accident, Theodore would never let her
forget it. He had been after her for years to get rid of her car
but she wasn't about to let go. Lose your car and lose your
independence, she believed. Besides, she didn't see him giving up
his car. All that nonsense about her being a terrible driver was
just jealousy on his part. She knew for a fact that he had once
received a speeding ticket and had tried to hide it from her. If
she hadn't accidentally found it in an unmarked file in a drawer in
his personal desk one day—while he was out fetching her a certain
kind of Danish she craved—she might never have known about it at
all. Of course, it would have been indiscreet to have mentioned her
discovery, not to mention embarrassing to explain her methodology,
so she kept the information to herself. Even if it had been fifteen
years ago, it was still proof positive that she was the better
driver.

Besides, without a car, she would not be on
her way to Creedmoor, the mental hospital where Patricia Kelly had
lived out the last few years of her life. She was certain that the
woman would lead them to an important clue and she debated just
what that clue might be. Lost in her thoughts, she crawled slowly
toward the hospital, no longer aware of the blue Buick behind her.
It inched forward as determinedly as her own car, turning right
when she turned right and dropping back at times, as if the driver
had thought better of being too obvious.

The parking lot at the hospital was nearly
full and by the time she'd discovered and claimed a space for
herself, the Buick had elected to pull up by the curbed entrance
instead of searching for parking itself. The driver watched as
Auntie Lil climbed out of her Plymouth and headed for the main
entrance. He slouched back against the seat and slid halfway
beneath the wheel, keeping a watchful eye on her progress.

It was just as Auntie Lil imagined it. No
cleaner, but no dirtier either. Patients moved about the carelessly
kept grounds sluggishly, in slow motion, peering about at the grass
and shrubs as if seeing them for the very first time. Several
huddled on concrete benches with relatives. Everyone looked sullen
and angry, as if the rate of progress toward normalcy was never
fast enough for anyone concerned.

She found what looked like a reception desk
but it was several more minutes before she could find a person.
After assuring the pouting girl that she was here solely to speak
to some of the staff who had known her dear niece during her last
days on this earth, Auntie Lil was unceremoniously allowed to
wander among the winding sidewalks, searching for the proper brick
building.

No doctors could be seen and nurses were few
and far between on both the grounds and the floors of the buildings
she peeked in. Even nursing aides were scarce. The facility was
obviously having difficulty with either paying for or finding a
proper staff or both. She was so intent on her thoughts that she
crashed into a hulking man and careened off his barrel chest to
bump into a building doorway. He continued on without a word and
she wisely let him go. He hardly seemed aware of his own existence,
much less her brief presence in his world.

It was Auntie Lil's opinion that there was
no such thing as an insane person. Rather, the mentally ill were
too sane. They could not keep up the everyday delusions that
so-called normal people used to sustain their desire for life. The
mentally troubled saw life too clearly, in all of its naked and
unsatisfying truth, and reacted, appropriately enough, with
overwhelming despair.

"Can I help you?" The question was asked by
a plump black woman. She sat in a chair by the building entrance,
sunning herself and flipping through a magazine devoted to the
lives of the famous. "I don't recognize you. Are you new? Don't you
look pretty today?" Her accent was low and melodious, tinged with
Caribbean. She spoke to Auntie Lil as you would address a
child.

Auntie Lil stared at her for a moment,
digesting this question. When she fathomed its meaning, she
hastened to answer. "Good heavens, no." She managed a laugh. "I'm
not a patient, I'm afraid." Why in the earth did she feel the need
to apologize? "I'm here to speak to some of the people who took
care of my niece before she died. Her name was Patricia Kelly. Have
I got the right building?"

The plump black woman stared at her
impassively. "Patricia was here, all right. She died last month.
What do you want to know? You planning to sue or something?"

"Heavens, no." Auntie Lil placed a hand to
her throat as if the very idea shocked her. "I just want to know
what her last years were like."

"That's good. Because she died in her sleep.
Not restrained or anything, you understand. Just asleep. She
shuffled off this mortal coil without any help from me or anyone
else." The woman stared at Auntie Lil placidly.

My goodness. A nursing aide who quoted
Shakespeare. Auntie Lil felt immediately better about the future of
mankind.

"You're from the islands?" she asked the
woman. "Haiti, perhaps?"

"That's right." For the first time an
emotion crept into the woman's voice. Unfortunately, it was
suspicion. "How did you know that?"

Auntie Lil flashed her broadest smile. "I
had a seamstress from Haiti who worked for me once and who had an
accent just as beautiful as yours. She was quite good at her job,
you know. Quite good. As I suspect you must be as well."

The woman nodded. She was either
unimpressed, immune to flattery or had been nipping at the
patients' medication. "What was it about Patricia you wanted to
know?"

Auntie Lil looked around her. "Is there a
private place where we could talk? A bench somewhere perhaps?"

"Can't. I'm on duty. Someone in there might
need me." The woman gestured with her thumb toward the building
door. Auntie Lil did not point out that, if she were so concerned
about patient care, she could probably keep a better eye on them if
she were inside the building and actually with them.

"This building's got what we call
ambulatories living in it," the woman explained, as if she could
read Auntie Lil's thoughts. "Most are out and about for a walk this
time of day. Had one wander over to the grocery store across the
boulevard last night," she offered. "Manager called up about 9:00
P.M. Knew she had to be from here. I had been wondering where she'd
gotten to. But she was fine. It was just that she'd tried to steal
a twenty-pound frozen turkey and got caught. Can't imagine why.
She'd tied it around her middle and put a sweater around her, like
a big old baby was in there. When they caught her, she started
screaming and going into labor pains before she'd let that sucker
drop. Wanted to hold it when she was through. Why the manager
thought that was so unusual for New York is beyond me."

  “
Is there a chair I
could pull up?'' Auntie Lil asked faintly. Best to ignore the
woman's line of narration. It could open the floodgates to all
sorts of stories.

"Help yourself." She pointed inside and
Auntie Lil crept quietly through the doors. The building smelled of
ammonia. She shivered and dragged a plastic chair outside, placing
it on the sidewalk next to the aide's.

"What's your name?" she asked the woman. As
usual, she checked the chair carefully for unidentified wet stains
before sitting.

"Evelyn." The woman sighed and folded up the
magazine, tucking it beneath her chair. "Patricia was your niece,
huh?" She shook her head slowly and eyed Auntie Lil. "Sure had a
lot of relatives who never bothered to come see her when she was
alive but rushed right over after she died."

"I've been living abroad, I'm afraid," she
lied. "I've been unable to get by until now. I feel a bit guilty
about it, you know. That's why it's so important for me to know how
her last days were spent."