The Babbling Brook Naked Poker Club - Book One (6 page)

“I’m sorry, Jeff. Unless you’re willing to
give me a full accounting that proves such austerity measures are
necessary, I’m not going to agree to a lesser amount.”

“I don’t need your agreement since
everything’s in my name.”

“That’s true. And I know what you’re doing
here is legal. But that doesn’t make it right.”

“I’m doing what Dad asked me to do. Taking
care of you.”

“English is such a funny language, is it
not?”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“Taking care of me. There’s more than one
way to interpret that.”

As he sat there, his face twitching in a
most unbecoming manner, I sighed inwardly. He’d been such a darling
little boy. So sweet and loving; the light of my life. Something
else I held against Thomas.

Why hadn’t I asked for a divorce?

In the beginning, I stayed because I’d
feared Thomas would take Jeff away from me. But it turned out he
took Jeff away anyway, by turning him against me. By the time I
realized that was happening, divorcing Thomas would have meant
revealing the existence of Aardvark Holdings, and I’d had no
intention of letting him take anything more from me. Instead, I
shaped a life separate from his, although we still shared a
house.

I stiffened my spine and faced Jeff and
Lynn. “You do what you have to do, Jeff. And now I’d like you to
leave.”

“What about lunch?”

“I think you and Lynn will have a much more
enjoyable lunch if I’m not there.” I stood.

Jeff did as well. “I was hoping we could
make a fresh start today.”

“A fresh start?”

“Yes. You and me, and Lynn, of course. I
know you’re angry at Dad for setting things up the way he did. But
all I’m trying to do is the best I can.”

“Do you really believe that? That asking me
to justify every penny I spend and to give up my allowance is the
best you can do for me?”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them,
the expression on his face was so bleak that for a moment, I
considered whether he might be telling the truth. Suppose, for
example, Thomas had invested heavily in technology stocks right
before the bubble burst, and left Jeff holding the bag, so to
speak.

I’ve invested very little in technology
myself, aside from early purchases of Intel and Microsoft that I’ve
since sold. One of my best performers is actually a stodgy old
Kansas City railroad stock that has appreciated several
thousand-fold over the years.

Before I realized what I was doing, I
reached out and touched Jeff’s arm. He jumped.

“Did your dad lose the money, Jeff?”

“Of course not,” he snapped.

With that, my tenuous feeling of sympathy,
along with the chance we would see eye to eye anytime soon, snapped
as well.

I walked over to the door. “Thank you for
coming. And just so you know, there’s no need for you to visit me.”
I opened the door.

“Damn it, Mom. You need to answer your phone
then.”

“Yes. Of course. I’ll be sure to do
that.”

There were no hugs this time. When I closed
the door on them, it took all my strength to make it back to a
chair before my legs gave out. I allowed myself that bit of
weakness, but I was determined not to cry.

My grief was not about the money, but about
the loss of trust. But, after all, that had been lost long ago. And
it was unlikely we’d ever regain it.

~ ~ ~

Sunday afternoon, Devi showed up. Since she usually has weekends
off, I was surprised to see her.

“I thought I could help you re-hang the
Hopper,” she said.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

“How was the visit with your son?”

“Not good.”

I motioned for her to sit at the table. I
heated water, chose a robust black tea, and carried the teapot to
the table.

Devi jumped up and got two cups out of the
cupboard, a clear sign she was beginning to feel at ease with me. I
was unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“He scolded me for spending so much on
furnishing this place, and he said he planned to cut my
allowance.”

“You’re not going to have to fire your tea
broker, are you?” Devi had a twinkle in her eye.

“Definitely not. Jeff did notice the
painting, by the way, so it’s a good thing we hid the Hopper.”

“You can’t hide it forever, you know.”

“What? I thought you said you wouldn’t
tell.”

“I won’t. But another staff member might
recognize it. And we do have art lovers among the residents.”

“That’s why I don’t have guests.”

“But you can’t keep the entire staff out
forever. Although, you do have everyone pretty well cowed. I’m the
only one who will volunteer to come speak to you.” Her eyes
continued to twinkle throughout this speech.

“What do you suggest?”

“Maybe hang it in your bedroom, out of
sight.”

“What’s the point of having it, if it has to
be out of sight?”

She sighed. “I guess you’re right. You want
it here?”

“Yes, please.” I knew I was being stubborn,
but I’ve gotten used to having the Hopper in the living room. It
just fits. And the Demeri is perfect for the bedroom.

While we re-hung the paintings, an idea of a
different kind, one that had been casually percolating, popped to
the top of my thoughts.

“You know, there’s something else you can do
for me, if you will. I need to buy a car. Maybe you can help me
pick it out? That is, if you aren’t too busy?”

“Do you know what kind of car?”

“Not exactly. We could go to the auto mall
and just look around.”

“Now, you mean?”

When I nodded, she smiled and agreed to the
outing.

Josephine

The afternoon of car shopping with Devi was the most fun I’d had in
a while, and the most fun I’d ever had picking a new car. Thomas
always decided what I would drive, and his picks were all boring
sedans. Devi and I didn’t even look at sedans, instead we took
turns test-driving a mix of sporty offerings from Mazda, Subaru,
and Lexus.

“Which would you buy, if money were no
object,” I asked her.

She pursed her lips. “Hmm. I do love how the
Lexus looks and handles, but it isn’t very practical, is it, with
that tiny backseat? And winter’s coming. I’d probably buy the
Subaru.”

“What color?”

“I like the neon green, don’t you? But I’d
probably buy the blue.”

“Let’s not get too practical. It’s only a
car, after all. Neon green, it is.”

We returned to the Subaru dealer, and I
filled out the paperwork. The car had to be located and delivered,
and that could take anywhere from a week to a month. The computers
were down, so the salesman couldn’t check availability. But a week
or a month made little difference to me since I still had a long
list of things to do before I could think about moving to a place
of my own choosing.

The car purchase completed, I proposed an
early dinner. I let Devi choose, and her choice was a Mediterranean
restaurant. As we ate, we had no difficulty coming up with things
to talk about, and by the time we shared a baklava for dessert, she
was calling me Josephine, and the forty years between us felt like
no time at all.

~ ~ ~

“So,” Myrtle said when I finished reporting that Devi couldn’t help
us with our Eddie problem. “If Devi won’t speak to him, do you
think we should talk to Eddie ourselves?”

Although we had the cards and paper clips
out, we’d left them sitting while we discussed our investigation of
what I was calling the Eddie Diddle.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Didn’t Devi have
any
suggestions?”
Myrtle said.

“To get more solid evidence.”

“Which we’ll try to get Thursday,” Lill
said.

None of us was happy with that, but we had
no other options.

~ ~ ~

On Thursday, we added four more people to the list of Eddie’s
customers. This group presented a new wrinkle. In addition to one
being shorted on her change, two of them had been charged for gift
cards they’d neither ordered nor received—one for ten dollars, the
second for fifteen.

And obviously, Eddie had failed to notice
the romance of the century going on between Myrtle and Bertie,
because Bertie’s receipt included a twenty-five-dollar gift
card.

“But if we report Eddie, he’ll probably be
fired,” Myrtle said when we met to discuss our findings. “And that
would be too bad. After all, he’s so nice to us. And it is pleasant
having someone so good-looking at our beck and call, don’t you
think? I’m sure if we tell him what we know, he’ll stop cheating
people, and that’ll take care of it.”

In my opinion, Myrtle was acting like she
was back in junior high. “I think confronting him is a dreadful
idea. I say let the police sort it out.” I knew the specific
details of what we could prove since Edna and I had spent the
afternoon getting affidavits from Bertie and the other customers
who’d been charged for gift cards or given too little change. But I
didn’t think fifty dollars in purloined gift cards and a few bucks
of pocketed change was going to move the police to do anything
useful. Still . . .

“I agree with Josephine,” Lill said. “I
don’t think we should confront him on our own.” She paused, her
expression changing.

“What is it?” I said.

“It’s just, well, I heard an interesting
rumor. You know Glenn Bascombe, the man who died last week?”

“What does it have to do with Eddie?” Myrtle
said.

“Well, let me finish.” Lill’s tone was as
snippy as I’m sometimes accused of sounding.

It’s clear she’s spending too much time in
my company.

“Glenn had a baseball card collection, you
see. After he died, his son came to clean out his apartment, and he
discovered Glenn’s most valuable card was missing.”

“So? How valuable can a baseball card be,”
Myrtle asked.

“It’s Willie Mays’s rookie card,” Lill said.
“Worth at least a couple of thousand but, if it’s in good
condition, it could be a lot more.”

Edna gasped and sat back, blinking. “If
that’s the case, why on earth didn’t his son make sure it was in a
safe place?”

“It was Glenn’s to do with as he
wished.”

“But he was going senile. His son should
have made sure it didn’t get lost.”

I could well imagine what Edna would say
about my painting.

“Maybe it isn’t lost,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Myrtle said.

“Maybe it was stolen.”

Edna scoffed, but Lill beamed at me as if I
were a student who’d just mastered a difficult concept. “That’s
certainly what the son suspects. But I doubt he’s going to be able
to prove it since there’s no evidence Glenn had the card here at
Brookside. Or that’s what Mr. Souter is claiming.”

“How do you know all this?” I said.

“I went to the funeral and I heard the
family talking about it. And there’s something else. After Gladys
Turpin was moved to the memory unit, her daughter claimed a gold
necklace had disappeared. Said her dad gave it to her mom for their
fiftieth anniversary, and it was worth several thousand
dollars.”

We sat in silence for a moment, looking at
each other.

“Maybe Gladys lost the necklace, or she put
it some where and the daughter just can’t find it,” Edna said.

Lill tapped her lip with her finger. “I
suppose that’s possible.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“It would be so easy to steal things in a
place like this. And if the thief takes small items that the owner
might not miss right away, well . . .”

“And you think Eddie’s responsible?”

“We already know he’s a thief.”

“But if he’s taking valuables worth
thousands, why nickel and dime his grocery customers?” Myrtle
said.

“Because he can?” Lill offered.

“Do you think either loss has been reported
to the police?” Edna said.

Lill shook her head. “Mr. Souter’s working
hard to keep it hush-hush. If it got out there’s a thief, it would
certainly put a crimp in resident recruitment.”

“But there must be insurance to reimburse
the families for the necklace and card,” I said.

“Since the card, at least, wasn’t declared
on the property inventory when Glenn moved in, Brookside doesn’t
have to pay a thing.”

“Property inventory?”

“Why, yes,” Myrtle said. “Don’t you
remember, Josephine? It was that tedious form we had to fill out,
listing anything worth more than $250.”

“I’d forgotten that.” Actually, I hadn’t
forgotten. I’d never seen the form. Jeff must have filled it out
for me along with the other paperwork.

“You know what this means,” I said. “Anyone
with access to the forms could easily see what valuables were
listed by each resident and plan accordingly. Although that doesn’t
explain how someone learned about Glenn’s baseball card if it
wasn’t listed. Maybe stealing it was simply luck.”

“We can’t pin those losses on Eddie,” Myrtle
said.

“But it does give us additional information
to share with the police.”

“If you go to the police, Josephine, I will
not be among his accusers,” Myrtle said. “And neither will Bertie.”
She sat back with a humph, folded her arms— a neat trick, by the
way— and gave me a satisfied look.

And it was perfectly clear. Myrtle and
Bertie had been plotting. “What is it you, and Bertie, want to do,
Myrtle?” I asked in my sweetest voice.

Lill kicked me under the table. I winced and
rubbed my shin with my opposite foot as I glared at her. She looked
serenely back.

“As I’ve already suggested,” Myrtle said,
“we should talk to Eddie. Tell him we know what he’s been doing and
let him know we’ll be watching him very carefully from now on.”

“Admit it, Josephine, that’s not a bad
idea,” Edna said. Not a surprise. Edna usually sides with
Myrtle.