Partners In Crime (31 page)

Evelyn stared intently at Auntie Lil. "What
side of the family are you on?" she asked abruptly. "The rich
one?"

"What do you mean?" Auntie Lil demanded,
alert for information.

"Rich old man came out last Friday asking
questions about Patricia, too. Said he was her uncle, wanted to see
if she needed any money. He looked rich, all right. Custom suit.
Fancy shoes. Acted rich, too, if you know what I mean."

Auntie Lil nodded in agreement. "That would
perhaps have been Cousin John or, perhaps, dear Cousin Stanley?"
she asked.

The woman shrugged. "Wouldn't know his name.
For someone so concerned about his niece, he seemed pretty calm
about hearing she had died. Satisfied in fact, if you were to ask
me. Hmmph ..." She crossed her arms and stretched her sturdy legs
out into the sun. "Damn fool Walter told him everything he could.
Had the notion the guy would give him money or something for taking
such good care of her. Of course, Walter's the same idiot who
spends half of his paycheck on lottery tickets. That man didn't
fool me. He could have waved his wallet under my nose and it
wouldn't have done him a bit of good. I know damn well there's no
such thing as a rich and generous man. You don't get rich by being
generous. Not in this world, anyway."

"Walter?" Auntie Lil asked sweetly.

"That's the other day aide," Evelyn
explained. "He's at lunch. Probably for the next three hours,
knowing Walter. But he didn't know Patricia as well as I did. I
took care of her on and off for ten years, you know. Came over with
her from another building just about the same time. She used to be
worse, was parked in one of the locked wards. Got better, they kept
saying. Better than what, I wanted to know. But I wasn't about to
spill my guts to Mr. High and Mighty, so I let Walter do the
talking. I could tell he wasn't going to part with a dime, no
matter how fast Walter shuffled. No sir. Your Mr. Cousin was not
the type to be either generous or grateful."

"He had white hair. Like snow? A fine
figure?" Auntie Lil asked.

Evelyn shrugged. "Maybe. Who knows? All of
you white people look alike to me. I just take care of you folks. I
don't bother to remember you."

Auntie Lil let the comment pass. "Did my
niece die peacefully?" she asked.

"I'll say. As many drugs as she was taking.
Couldn't get more peaceful and still be breathing. Thought at first
she'd taken her own life." The woman's voice softened. "Wouldn't
have blamed her if she had. Poor thing didn't have much left."

"You thought it was suicide at first?"
Auntie Lil's brain raced as she spoke, connecting and discarding
theories.

"Sure. On account of a lot of pills and such
had been stolen from the medication room a couple of days before.
So they did one of those autopsy operations. She had plenty of
drugs in her blood, mind you. But none that weren't supposed to be
there." She snorted in contempt and lapsed into silence.

"Was she lonely while she lived here?"
Auntie Lil asked. "Did she have visitors?"

"Everyone is lonely who lives here," Evelyn
replied. "Everyone who works here is lonely, too. This is a lonely
place."

"So no one ever visited her?"

"No, I didn't say that. She did have one
friend. Came to see her maybe once a month, but Patricia would
refuse to see her most of the time. But she did see her just a day
or so before she died. Didn't seem to make much difference to
Patricia whether this friend came or not, sad to say. Never saw her
smile. Not even one time."

"What did this friend look like?"

Evelyn stared at Auntie Lil suspiciously.
"Why would you ask me that? Same thing the rich man asked me. I'll
tell you the same answer. I don't remember. Like I told you, all of
you white people look pretty much the same to me."

"Now, I don't really believe you mean that,"
Auntie Lil said gently. "And I won't insult you by trying to bribe
you. You're angry because she was neglected by her family and
friends and you're a caring person. So I'm going to tell you the
truth."

The woman looked back up at Auntie Lil, her
calm eyes lighting with a curious gleam that hovered between
interest and respect. "Well, I believe it is about time someone
told the truth. Cousin Whoever certainly didn't."

"I think that something terrible happened to
Patricia many years before and that it is coming back around again
to hurt people."

"What goes around comes around," the aide
pointed out.

"It does indeed. But innocent people may be
getting hurt. Even killed. Can't you tell me what this friend
looked like?"

Evelyn shrugged. "Just a regular lady.
Dressed nice. Wore a scarf around her head and big sunglasses. Even
on cloudy days. Couldn't even tell you her age. Ashamed to be seen
here, I expect."

Auntie Lil sighed. "Did anyone else ever
visit her?"

Evelyn thought carefully. "A priest now and
then. An old nun, could barely walk, would come by every couple of
months. These are the forgotten people, you know. Relatives put
them here to forget.'' She sighed deeply, her tough facade finally
punctured by a breath of sympathy. Auntie Lil thought she wasn't so
bad after all.

"Yes. They are forgotten. But I don't plan
to forget." Auntie Lil sat quietly with her hands in her lap,
staring at a nearby hedge. It needed trimming badly.

"It's a funny thing about people," Evelyn
finally murmured. "You think you know them, but you never really
do."

"What do you mean?"

"Here is this woman, Patricia. She lives and
nobody cares. Then she dies and the whole world comes snooping
around. And then there's the flowers."

"Flowers?"

"She got flowers every week for years. Never
a card, never a note. Just flowers. Who would be sending flowers to
a dried up old woman, confused in the head, trying her hardest to
die?" Evelyn shook her head.

"Flowers every week?" Auntie Lil
inquired.

"Every week. Nice ones, too. Smelled so
good. Smelled expensive." The aide breathed deeply of the air.
"Good for her, I say. Good for her for having a secret."

"How badly ill was she?" Auntie Lil
asked.

Evelyn shrugged. "Worse than some. Not so
bad as others. But unpredictable. One minute she'd be climbing all
over the men patients and even poor Walter. The next she'd be lying
on her bed staring at the ceiling for days. Refusing to eat or
talk."

"What drugs were stolen? You said drugs were
missing just before she died."

Evelyn shrugged. "When drugs get stolen
around here, you don't ask questions. Best not to know. People
start thinking you've got ideas of your own. Drugs are drugs and
I've never met one I like. Probably just some patient or another
aide looking to make some money." She sighed again. "Always someone
willing to pay for drugs."

Auntie Lil thought this over. "Isn't there
anything else you could tell me?" she asked the woman.

Evelyn looked her right in the eye, her
placid exterior restored. "Whatever happened in that lady's life,
it didn't happen here. People come here to avoid life. They don't
come here to live it."

Auntie Lil rose and smiled her thanks.
"Thank you. You've been most helpful. You didn't have to help me at
all and I know it."

"No, I didn't have to help you," Evelyn
agreed. "Time to get going. I better start rounding everyone up.
There's a lady comes in once a week and tries to get them to make
clay pots. You should see the ashtrays we got in there." She jerked
her head toward the building and rolled her eyes. "I asked her why
she couldn't come up with something but clay pots once in a while.
Why can't they paint for a change? She just tells me that it's good
for them to get their hands into the clay and squeeze hard." Evelyn
stopped and shook her head in disbelief. "I told her not to tell
the patients that. Don't be talking about getting their hands
around anything and squeezing, I said. Wouldn't want to give them
any ideas." She opened the door and disappeared inside, a cloud of
her jasmine scent and building disinfectant lingering behind.

"Why would Sheila kill them?" Auntie Lil
asked, spearing a shrimp and popping it briskly into her mouth. Her
appetite was obviously better than his own. He had been unable to
touch a thing on his plate until he blurted out his suspicions
about Sheila.

"I didn't say she did. I just think it's
curious she knew so much about Boswell's death. And lied about
Brian being on the case."

"Well, I doubt she would dig her own grave
by giving you such details if she was the murderer," Auntie Lil
pointed out. "Give her a chance to explain."

"No, I guess not." He clung to that hope. "I
couldn't find her this afternoon."

"Let's see Patricia Kelly's other files,"
Auntie Lil commanded. She pushed her nearly empty plate aside,
having polished off a full order of scampi, new potatoes and
asparagus in less than five minutes, much to the amusement of a
gentleman dining alone at the table next to theirs. She had even
quickly filled T.S. in about her hospital trip at the same time,
doing a credible Haitian accent with a mouthful of shrimp. Both had
agreed that John Boswell was the mysterious Cousin Whoever. But
neither could come up with an identity for Patricia Kelly's female
friend.

"All I've got is her old personnel file. You
saw most of that. And the old medical files Sheila was able to dig
up," T.S. admitted.

"What's this?" Auntie Lil held up a
newspaper clipping.

"It's the Kelly woman's obituary. Courtesy
of the Bride of Death."

Auntie Lil looked at him curiously.

"We have a crazy retiree named Miss
Turnbull. She sends Sheila all the obituaries of retirees who die.
Keeps a regular death count of Sterling & Sterling kick-offs.
She never married, so we call her the Bride of Death. It's from an
old Shadow episode..."

"I know where it's from," Auntie Lil said
crisply, scanning the clipping. "And it seems a bit beneath you,
Theodore. She must be a very busy woman lately."

T.S. stared at his liver and onions, having
been conned into ordering it yet again. "Why don't you ever order
this yourself if you like it so much?" he demanded.

She stared at his plate with distaste. "Who
says I like liver and onions? I think it's disgusting."

She returned to her clipping with great
concentration. "This is very curious, Theodore."

"What's curious? She died. She made the
papers."

"A woman that obscure would never make the
papers in this area. You said she died penniless, without a friend
in the world. But this is a paid obituary."

"So?" He chewed a liver chunk
dispiritedly.

"Well, who paid for it? You said she died
all alone. No family."

T.S. considered the question. "A friend?" he
suggested. "The mysterious female friend? Or the nun or the
priest?"

"Perhaps. Who else? Not much opportunity to
make friends in the mental hospital, I should think. At least not
the kind who compose tributes and have the wherewithal to have them
published in the paper. And what a curious memorial poem."

"Why? What's it say?" He knew he should have
reviewed it prior to handing it over to Auntie Lil. She was no
doubt about to solve the entire mystery, having snatched it from
under his nose.

"It's not really a death poem," she said,
moving her lips silently as she read and re-read the lines. "And
yet, it seems very familiar."

"Listen to this—" Auntie Lil held the
yellowed clipping up to eye level and began carefully to enunciate
the words, drawing more interested glances from the gentleman
dining nearby:

"Patricia Kelly—1938 to 1991. Nothing Old,
Nothing New. Nothing Borrowed, Nothing Blue. Perhaps in death, you
can regain the dignity they took from you. "

She finished with a flourish and stared at
T.S. He gulped down his liver and thought it over carefully. "It's
a curious epitaph," he finally acknowledged.

"Curious?'' She sniffed.  “I think
bizarre might be a better word. Does it sound familiar to you?" she
demanded.

He thought it over. "A little. That part
about nothing old and nothing new. Isn't that an old folk
saying?"

"I think so," her voice trailed off. "But
there's something wrong... Something. That's it, Theodore!" The
waiter screeched to a halt by their table, but Auntie Lil waved him
away and bent toward T.S. in great excitement. "That's it. It's
something, not nothing!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's 'something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue.' It's a wedding saying. What
the bride wears at her wedding."

"Yes?" he asked, mystified.

"And if you don't have a wedding, you wear
nothing, right?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"If the man won't marry you, you wear
nothing old and nothing new. Don't you see?"

"No, I don't see." He thought perhaps the
last Bloody Mary had pushed her over the edge. He had warned her to
take it easy.

"Stop being patronizing," she snapped at
him. "She's supposed to have died alone, but this announcement was
paid for by someone. There is a distinct reference to no wedding.
To having been robbed of her dignity." She stared at T.S.
expectantly and he looked nervously around. "What was the worst
thing that could happen to a nice Irish Catholic girl thirty years
ago?" she finally demanded.

"Getting pregnant," he said immediately and
automatically.

"Exactly. Getting pregnant and not getting
married." She stood up and pushed her chair firmly back into place.
"Get the bill, Theodore. This is it."

"It is?" He gestured to the waiter, who was
watching Auntie Lil nervously.

"Yes, it is. Patricia Kelly may be dead, but
I'll bet anything she has an illegitimate daughter who is very much
alive. Alive and angry. And we have to find her. Think of the
wilted boutonnieres found at each murder scene. When does a man
wear a boutonniere? At a wedding, of course. This changes
everything. How old would you say the daughter would be by
now?"