Read Rita Lakin_Gladdy Gold_01 Online

Authors: Getting Old Is Murder

Rita Lakin_Gladdy Gold_01 (25 page)

BOOK: Rita Lakin_Gladdy Gold_01
13.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

"Now she had another problem to solve. How
to pin it on Denny. Happy-go-lucky Denny. Who would believe he'd kill
anyone? She had to make it look like Denny was having a breakdown. She
had to drive him crazy. How? She brought back his awful mother from the
grave to haunt him."

"Jesucristo,"
Conchetta says,
crossing herself. "The woman is a devil!"

"Maureen is back?" Sophie asks in amazement.

"I never did like that woman," Ida says.

"I went to see Denny yesterday and he told
me all about it."

"Wait a minute," Evvie interrupts. "You
went to jail without me?" Then she stops, chagrined. "Sorry."

"You can hear it on this tape. Denny, who
had been terrified of his mother when she was alive, actually believed
she had returned from the dead to frighten him again. Calling him up on
the phone every single night and tormenting him."

"Wait a minute," Bella asks. "She could
call from heaven?"

Ida snorts. "How do you know it wasn't from
hell?"

"Whatever," Bella says, "they're both
long-distance. Maybe it was only from the cemetery. That's local. Do
you think she used an eight-hundred number?"

"Will you silly twits stop it!" Evvie says.
"Maureen is dead. Harriet was making the calls!"

"Oh, so how was I supposed to know that?"
Bella says, feeling put upon.

I continue relentlessly. "Harriet called
Denny from different phone booths, either near the apartment when she
was home so she could sneak in and out quickly, or near the hospital
when she was on night shift. She didn't use her home phone because that
could be traced."

"The phone booths you sent us to today,"
Sophie says, finally getting it.

"And so, pretending to be Maureen, she told
Denny he had to kill Selma first, then the others. She really did a job
gaslighting him."

"I remember that movie," Evvie says, "with
Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. It was named after a light fixture."

"She actually got Denny to believe he did
the killings, even though he kept saying he didn't remember. She told
him he did it in a trance. Since Esther was going to be the last
murder, he had to be caught."

I stop to take a drink. My mouth is dry.
The girls are itching to ask questions, but I motion them to wait until
I'm finished.

"She had it timed perfectly. She
cold-bloodedly fed her mother dinner with poisoned poppy-seed rolls."

Sophie can't stand it. She has to
interrupt. "Esther told us she'd never eat food from a stranger!"

"Well, she didn't," says Bella.

"Better she lived with a stranger than that
daughter from hell," Ida adds.

"Then later she tells us she had to leave
early for the hospital, thus establishing her alibi. She calls Denny,
as Maureen, and tells him he must go to Esther's house immediately with
the other rolls she left in his kitchen. By that time the poison would
have taken effect, Denny would be at the scene of the crime, and we'd
be home from the movies in time to catch him."

"But we got home late from the movies--"
Evvie starts.

"And let's remember whose idea it was for
us to go to that movie," Ida says, arms crossed, brimming with outrage.
She mimics Harriet. 'You girls go out and relax. You'll be home just
when I'm going to work. We're covered. So have a good time.' That
farbissener
!"

"She needed us to be away from Esther's
apartment," Evvie says, feeling awful. "She knew us all too well. I
feel so ashamed."

"She conned everybody, Ev. But it turns out
this time Denny didn't obey his 'mother.' He stayed home for an hour
before he could bring himself to leave. And we were delayed that long
getting home. It didn't matter. Denny was caught red-handed leaving her
apartment anyway."

Barney pours us all another round of
sangria. Bella is fanning herself; the wine is getting to her.

He says, "I'll bet she was in some sweat
when the call didn't come in at the hospital at the time she expected,
with the sad news about her poor, dear, dead mother."

I continue. "She needed one more element
for this vile crime to work. She had to make sure the first deaths were
seen as murders and not heart attacks. She certainly couldn't be the
one to point that out, and that's where yours truly came in. The next
perfect sucker. I began to suspect on my own, but she had to make sure
I went down the trail she pointed out, and that explains why Harriet
Feder, who never seemed to be able to escape her mother, suddenly was
always available. Wherever we were, she turned up. I kept looking for
someone whose behavior had changed, and it took me a long time to
realize it was Harriet's."

Evvie says, "So that's why she was able to
show up in the clubhouse when we had our big meeting."

"And I bet she took her vacation just so
she could keep an eye on us." Ida sniffs with righteous indignation.

"That's how she found out everything we
knew," Evvie says.

"She really did have Esther spying on us
for her!" says Ida.

"She didn't make any mistakes, did she?"
Conchetta asks.

"But she did. She left a piece of the Meals
on Wheels package in Selma's apartment," says Evvie.

"No mistake," I say. "That was her way of
leading us away from heart attack to someone who came to Selma's
apartment to poison her. Someone delivering Meals on Wheels."

"Aha," says Sophie, now seeing it. "She
picked up the food, poisoned it, and then delivered it to poor Selma,
may she rest in peace."

"I get it," says Ida. "She also left the
cake crumbs in Francie's sink. But the cleaning lady cleaned up before
you figured that out."

"You can bet she arranged it so that poor
Denny would find the bodies, further freaking him out," I add. "Then
she points it out to us, the 'coincidence' of Denny having a master key
and finding the bodies."

Barney is puzzled. "But why so elaborate a
plan? Why not murder the women outright, rather than go to such lengths
to make it seem like heart attacks at first?"

Evvie is so excited, she's fairly jumping
out of her chair. "Wait a minute. She knew you wanted a body to
autopsy, a body that would prove it was murder, yet Harriet's the one
who got us to get Greta cremated."

"It was all about timing," I say. "That
would have the cops investigating too soon, and that might have gotten
in the way of killing her mother. And she couldn't wait until after her
mother had died to get us to think about the earlier murders. Suspicion
would immediately fall on her. She couldn't take that chance."

Barney is incredulous. "She makes Lizzie
Borden seem like an angel."

"Four hundred thousand is a lot of
incentive," I say. "Can you imagine her frustration? Year after year
knowing she was rich and not being able to get at the money."

We're all exhausted, especially me. We
drink our wine and nibble at our dessert, lost in our troubled thoughts.

"What put you on to her, Glad?" Barney
wants to know. "I mean I have to hand it to her, it was a perfect plan."

"It was almost perfect. My realizing that
Greta Kronk didn't write the last poem, and Denny arriving too late
with the rolls, got me thinking. I just could not believe, no how, that
Denny could kill anyone. Nor could Denny have written that poem or
managed the sophisticated ways she got the poison to each of them. If
she hadn't tried to set him up, I might never have figured it out."

"She outsmarted herself. We've got to call
Detective Langford," Evvie says, tugging at me. "Right now. Tell him
everything."

"Yeah," says Sophie, "put that
kurveh
in jail and let poor Denny out!"

"So why are you waiting?" asks Bella.

Barney says, "I think I know. Everything
we've heard tonight--it's all circumstantial."

"What's that mean?" Sophie asks.

"It means even if Langford agrees with us,
we can't prove a thing."

"But you said she made a mistake with the
poppy-seed rolls," says Evvie.

"Still not proof. It could be argued that
Denny made her eat the rolls earlier as well."

"So how is your story going to end?" Bella
asks worriedly.

"You aren't going to let her get away with
it?" Ida demands.

All eyes look to me for a solution. I've
already given this a lot of thought and I share it with all my helpers.

"If we want a happy ending, we're gonna
have to do the impossible. We're going to have to make Harriet Feder
confess."

My coconspirators look at me as if I'm
crazy.

"Why would she do a stupid thing like
that?" Evvie wants to know.

"I think I have an idea," I tell them.

48

Now What Do We Do?

D
etective Langford and I have
been talking for a very long while. He's actually told his switchboard
not to interrupt us, although a number of police personnel have looked
in the door to get a glimpse of me. Who knows what he's told them, but
it can't be too bad, because they're smiling.

He's read my summary of why I know Harriet is the
murderer. And listened to Denny's tape. He's questioned me on every
single point until I'm hoarse from talking. Finally he stops.

"Gladdy Gold, you are an amazing woman."

"So," I say impatiently, "does that mean you think I'm
right or not?"

"I'll tell you what makes me sure you're right. Something
you don't even know yet."

"What's that?" I smile. Justified at last.

"Something very odd came up in Esther's autopsy. There
were bruises all over her body that were unexplained. The medical
examiner wondered if they were self-inflicted, since all the contusions
were in places she could get to. Thanks to your very thorough analysis,
we know now that Harriet abused her mother."

I gasp, then shake my head and feel such overwhelming
sorrow for Esther. "Oh, God, that, too?"

"And for a long time. There were very old bruises as
well."

I jump up, agitated. Morrie looks at me, surprised.
"Sorry," I say, "you really threw me with that."

I walk around the room to calm myself. There's a wall of
black-and-white photos. Morrie at his cop graduation. Morrie posing
with a huge marlin that he caught. Morrie and his dad, Jack, and his
mom, Faye, circa 1970, arms around one another. Jack with dark curly
hair. Yes, I think, I do remember Faye.

"Gladdy, you still with me?"

I turn back to Morrie. "Esther joked to us about being
beaten, but of course, we didn't believe her. We thought it was her
pathetic attempt to get attention, but it was a cry for help, wasn't
it? And Harriet probably beat her even more every time she did that."

"Sad, but probably true."

"Why didn't Esther just give her the damn money?" I cry
out, frustrated.

"Probably because she knew Harriet would leave her, and
being alone seemed worse to her. We'll never know."

"So what do we do now?"

"You're right. It is circumstantial. We could bring her
in for questioning, and what we would get is a poor, grieving daughter,
highly insulted and how dare we say such things? She will deny, deny,
deny. This kind of woman won't crack because she knows we don't have
any proof."

"But what if we do a lineup--the man in Meals on Wheels
might identify her."

"But you said that the guy
thinks
he remembers
someone in a baseball cap. And he wasn't very sure at that."

"She could have been seen at one of the phone booths."

"We can try asking around, but I'll bet she was very
careful. Probably disguised herself there as well."

"What about at the lab? Maybe someone saw her boiling the
oleander--" I stop myself. Harriet was never careless. I'm dejected. "We
can't let her get away with it."

"Don't give up. Even though the evidence is purely
circumstantial, people have been convicted on it. We won't let her
walk."

"What can you do?"

"Start a full investigation. We'll follow through on
every single piece of information you've given us. Hopefully, we'll get
her in time."

"Can you stop the bank from giving her Esther's money?"

"Unfortunately, no. Had it been insurance money, it would
have been a different story."

"Unless Esther didn't leave it to her." I know I'm
kidding myself. "I'm sure she did."

"We'll find out."

"An investigation could take a long time and she might
still get away with it, couldn't she?"

"It's possible."

I shrug. "I may have an idea. I think I could get her to
confess."

He takes a long look at me. "And what miracle are you
thinking of performing, Gladdy Gold?"

"Think about it. We have a real advantage right now. She
has no idea we're on to her. She's happy. She's packing. She's shopping
for a new place to live. She's smug. She thinks she fooled us all.
Maybe we can catch her off guard."

"How?"

"I may know a way to trap her."

Morrie Langford leans back in his chair, puts his feet up
on the desk, and grins at me. "You solved the case and now you're gonna
trap the killer. I am very impressed. This I gotta hear."

So I told him.
BOOK: Rita Lakin_Gladdy Gold_01
13.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

In This Moment by Autumn Doughton
Witch for Hire by Conneely, N. E.
Seven Dials by Anne Perry
The Ex Factor: A Novel by Whitaker, Tu-Shonda
Up in a Blaze by Alice Brown
Trophy by Steffen Jacobsen
Murder on Sisters' Row by Victoria Thompson