“And you leapt right in and volunteered to do it. I know you, Susan. That sounds just like you.”
“Yes, I did. And, of course, it turned out to be a huge task. She gave me a list of three hundred households and said it was terribly important that I speak personally to at least one adult in each house. It took forever and, of course, I couldn’t do it in my spare time-when the kids were napping, for instance-because no one was home then. I had to call during dinnertime or right after dinner and the people I called were irritated by me interrupting their family time and sounded like it. It was awful.”
“And?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t describe someone as ruthless because they manipulated you into making a few hundred phone calls,” Kathleen said.
“Well, no. But, you see, Blaine didn’t care about getting elected as much as she cared about her business. She used her elected office to become better known in the state. I wasn’t helping create good government in Hancock. I was helping her become a real estate mogul. I should have refused to help.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“It sounds stupid-it’s not like I don’t have any will of my own, for goodness sake-but Blaine was so good at manipulating me. And I don’t think she set out to do it. She’s just so focused on herself and her goals and she can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t be just the same. You know, she’s a bit like Nadine, although with ambition. Nadine could spend hours talking about herself as though her life, opinions, you name it, were of compelling interest to anyone she happened to be talking to. Blaine is the same way. She just happens to be more goal oriented.”
“And you ended up being taken advantage of.”
“Like an idiot.”
“Like a very nice person,” Kathleen corrected her.
“Like an idiot,” Susan repeated slowly. “I really thought I’d gotten a little backbone until right now. I can’t believe Nadine used me the same way her mother-in-law did years ago and that I didn’t even realize it. Damn.”
“Look, you can either spend years and thousands of dollars on therapy or just figure it’s in the past and forget about it. Besides, when you realized what Blaine was doing, you began to avoid her, right?” Kathleen asked, smiling.
Susan smiled back. “You know me-anything to get out of a confrontation. She moved to a bigger house on the other side of town.
“So what else did the paper say?” Susan added.
“Not too much else. The space was taken up by photographs of Nadine’s home. There wasn’t an obituary.”
“There will be tonight. Donald brought it over early this morning for me to look at.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Not really. Mostly an exaggerated telling of a pretty ordinary life.”
“That could be said about a lot of obituaries.”
“True.”
“You know, there’s really no reason-other than the unsolved murders on Perry Island -why Shannon should be considered a suspect in Nadine’s murder,” Kathleen said.
“Until some reporter or cop discovers the connection,” Susan said.
Kathleen frowned. “You’re probably right.”
“So all we have to do is investigate Nadine’s murder as well as three-or four-murders that took place on Perry Island over a year ago, while helping with the babies, not getting enough sleep, and doing all the extra things that houseguests demand.”
“You’re a modern woman. You can do it-with my help,” Kathleen said encouragingly. “So what do we do first?”
“I think I’ll go back to Perry Island and see if I can find out anything more.”
“Great. What do you want me to do?”
Susan looked up from the remains of her meal. “Isn’t it time you and Jerry thought about buying a bigger house?”
THIRTEEN
THERE WAS A BIT OF SPRING WARMTH IN THE SUNLIGHT AND Susan got out of her car and stood by the rail as the ferry chugged across the Sound to Perry Island. The water was the steely gray of winter, but willows on both the mainland and the island were showing the sharp yellow of new growth and the salty air felt fresh against her face.
“Are you perhaps on your way to P.I.C.C.?”
Susan hadn’t heard anyone approach over the roar of the boat’s diesel engine and she turned to discover an elderly couple standing at the rail nearby. “I… yes, I am. My mother is getting old…” She brushed her hair off her forehead and didn’t finish her explanation. Her mother, in fact, was probably younger than these people.
“It’s a very nice place,” he said to her.
The woman Susan assumed to be his wife reached out and placed one hand on Susan’s arm. “It is, you know. We looked at most of the nursing homes in this part of Connecticut before deciding on P.I.C.C. for Frank’s mother.”
Susan hoped she didn’t look as surprised by this statement as she felt. “Your mother?” she asked, and was immediately embarrassed by her rudeness.
But the gentleman only chuckled. “We live a long time in my family. My father passed a few months ago just six days short of his hundred and third birthday. Mother will be a hundred and one in June.”
“How wonderful!” Susan said sincerely. “I… could I ask you a few questions about P.I.C.C.?”
“Ask away. Stupid not to check out the place as thoroughly as possible,” he replied.
“Yes, dear, ask us anything,” his wife urged.
“I’ve only been there once, but it looks like a very nice place.”
“It is and the staff is quite caring and remarkably competent. You have to be very careful about that. Some of these places will hire just anybody. P.I.C.C. is still family owned, you know.”
“But I heard… that is, there were stories in the newspapers near us. I live in Hancock. Well, I heard that some of the residents were… died under suspicious circumstances a few years ago.”
“Oh, dear,” the woman said, her pleasant expression changing into a frown. “That was so sad. Three of the residents did die.”
“Three of the residents were murdered,” her husband interrupted. “Gotta call a spade a spade when it’s something as serious as murder. The police never found the culprit although some of us had our own ideas.”
“I understood that it could have been someone on the staff,” Susan said, getting right to what interested her.
“The staff members have the most access to the residents, of course. But I believe-and I think others who know the facility as well as my wife and I do would agree-that there are any number of people who could have killed those poor unfortunates.”
“Really?” Susan didn’t know if this was good news or bad news. On the one hand, it meant that Shannon was on a very long list of suspects rather than a short one. On the other hand, it probably made discovering the identity of the killer much less likely.
“Oh yes. You see, like all good nursing homes, P.I.C.C. encourages family members and friends to visit the residents as often as possible.”
“And they just let you walk right in. There isn’t a lot of standing around in the lobby waiting for them to get the resident ready for your visit,” his wife added.
“You mean things are up to snuff all the time,” Susan said.
The older woman nodded so vigorously that locks of gray hair slipped from her neat bun. “That’s one of the things you want to look for when you’re considering placement for a relative. Some of these places-well, they don’t stand up to their promises on close inspection.”
“But in reference to the murders”-her husband returned them to their initial subject-“visits are allowed at any time, day and night. I believe that almost anyone could have gotten into P.I.C.C. claiming to be a friend of a resident and then killed those people.”
“So allowing unlimited visitations might not be a good idea,” Susan mused.