The Royall Send-Off, page 1
The Royall Send-Off
A Winnie Fassbinder Mystery
Kasey Michaels
Contents
Reviews for Kasey Michaels
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Titles by Kasey Michaels
About the Author
Reviews for Kasey Michaels
“Combining wacky characters and hilarious situations is what author Kasey Michaels does best. Don't miss out.”
—Romantic Times
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“Ms. Michaels keeps us chuckling and wishing we could make her books last longer ... such a talent!”
—Rendezvous
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“Kasey Michaels never fails to entertain! She has an amazing talent for creating realistic and memorable characters.”
—Literary Times
Copyright 2020 by Kathryn Seidick
Electronic Edition Copyright 2020: Kathryn A. Seidick
EBook published by Kathryn A. Seidick, 2020
Cover art by Tammy Seidick Design
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author.
Prologue
The hallway lights had dimmed more than an hour earlier, and all was quiet on the wing of Royall Gardens reserved for Physical Therapy in-patients. Everywhere except inside Room 2-F, where Patricia Gordon, who’d already spent two endless weeks there, rehabilitating from total hip replacement surgery, still couldn’t sleep.
She was too excited about finally blowing this pop stand in the morning, her head full of ideas for a new musical program made up of Broadway songs of the Fifties. Everybody loved her amateur productions, featuring her infallible soprano, of course.
Was Guys and Dolls a Fifties musical? She wasn’t sure, but she hoped so. She’d make a great Adelaide.
“I love you, a bushel and a peck,” she sang quietly. “A doodle oodle oodle ooh doo.”
Or was that oodle doodle doodle do-do?
No matter. She had the sheet music in her condo. Along with her new blonde wig. She’d definitely wear the wig to play Adelaide. She’d wow ‘em all. She always did.
That settled, Patty closed her eyes and willed herself to give in to the sleeping pill she’d asked for an hour earlier. After all, the sooner she slept, the sooner morning would come, and the sooner she’d be on her way back to her Royall Residences condo, located elsewhere within the sprawling 55-and-over Royall Crest compound.
She only vaguely took notice of the bed sheet being pulled down, her nightgown being hiked up, exposing her belly.
“W-what…?” The room was dark, but she could make out a female figure beside the bed, outlined thanks to a light in the hallway.
“Oh, you’re still awake. I’m sorry to have startled you. This is just a little insulin, Mrs. Gordon. Just a tiny needle in the abdomen.”
“But…I take insulin? No, I just take pills for that.”
“At home, yes. But not when you’re with us. All our diabetes patients are maintained on insulin. It’s protocol, and your level is a bit elevated tonight.”
“Oh. Well, I guess rules are rules.” Patty frowned. “It was the banana cream pie for dessert tonight, wasn’t it? I knew I shouldn’t, but it looked so good, and—”
“Yes, that had to be it. Naughty, naughty, Mrs. Gordon. Here we go, just a little pinch.”
Patty winked up at the silhouetted figure. “I enjoy being naughty, my dear, always have. You should try it—ouch! That stung.”
The shadowy figure of the nurse was already smoothing down Patty’s gown and pulling up the sheet. “There you are, all done.”
“Thank you, I suppose. I’m leaving tomorrow, you know.”
The nurse patted Patricia’s hand. “Yes, I know.”
1
Shulberger Funeral Home. Barbra Bender lingered outside the large Victorian building, looking up at the brass lettering above the door, reluctant to enter.
Barbra worked as Social and Entertainment Director at Royall Gardens, and thanks to the 55-and-over demographic, she attended her fair share of funerals. The just now slow-fading winter had proved to be one of the bad ones, with flu and other ailments giving Barbra’s mourning outfit a lot of use.
And now she was here again, this time for Patty. Who hadn’t even been sick.
“Oh, good, I’m not the last one. The only funeral I plan to be late to is my own. Old joke, not a good one, but for now, it’s all I got.”
Barbra turned in clearly delighted surprise. “Winnie? I didn’t think you’d be back for another week. I’ve been keeping tabs on your condo, just as you asked, but if I’d known you were coming home today I would have stocked the refrigerator for you.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss her friend on the cheek in welcome. “How did you hear about Patty?”
“Fred at the gate told me as I was driving in. I made a U-ee and headed straight over, knowing you’d be here. I know you and Patty were friends. Are you all right?”
“That’s…um…that’s so nice of you. Yes, I’m fine.” Barbra smiled weakly as she gave Winnie a quick up-and-down look.
The tall, slim Winnie was clad in her usual man-pleated slacks, lime green today, and a cotton flowered turtleneck tucked in at her belted waist, a long thin putty-colored sweater coat waving about at her knees. Her sandals were pink, as were the huge straw bag hanging over one shoulder and the wide-brimmed straw sun hat she carried in one hand. Her exposed toenails had been painted cherry red.
Just the sort of thing one wore for April in Florida.
Only this was eastern Pennsylvania, and it had snowed all over the blooming tulips at Royall Crest only three days earlier.
Not to mention the going to a funeral part.
“What?” Winnie said now with a grin that exposed fine white teeth in a tanned face that carried a good amount of actually flattering wrinkles, evidence of a life lived pretty much in the sun, whether here in Lehigh or her winter residence in Florida. She patted at her salt-and-pepper hair, tendrils currently escaping its top-of-her-head bun in the Spring breeze. “I’m here to pay my respects, aren’t I? Don’t you know it’s the thought that counts?”
“I suppose so,” Barbra said, looking down at her own plain black dress. “I guess we should go in now?”
Winnie led the way up the wide cement steps, and a funeral home employee quickly jumped forward to open the door for her. Which was no great surprise, as Winnie was the sort of self-possessed person usually described as having a presence.
Barbra scrambled through the open doorway, trying to keep up with her fast-moving friend.
The outside of Shulberger’s was overblown Queen Anne, but sort of attractive. The interior, sadly, was straight out of Funeral Homes Quarterly, decorated with velvet-flocked floral wallpaper, reproduction Victorian sofas and chairs, and an entire Ming dynasty of fake urns scattered here and there and everywhere. Even worse, the entire foyer smelled of lemon spray polish.
Patricia “Patty” Gordon was the only temporary resident of the Home this morning, so it was easy to follow another familiar funereal smell, that of gladiolas, coming from the first viewing room on the right. Ronald Royall, owner of Royall Crest, could always be counted on to send two enormous sprays of the blooms, always placed on stands on either side of the coffin, always with Rest In Peace sashes that could make a nearsighted person wonder if Patty had just won the Preakness.
Probably voted the worst funeral flowers ever, but Winnie had once explained to Barbra that the gladiola sprays were typical Ronald Royall—showy, plus they took up a lot of room and were a lot cheaper than roses. Barbra could only hope her friend wouldn’t remind her of that opinion now, because Winnie didn’t seem to care what she said or who heard her say it. She had, as was the description du jour, no filter.
Yet quiet, reserved Barbra liked no-filter, outspoken Winnie, really liked her. And, oddly enough, Winnie apparently liked her back. Maybe it was that opposites attract thing.
At the last Royall Crest resident funeral they’d attended together, she and Winnie had been doing the obligatory kneel to whisper a prayer in front of the casket bit, only to have Winnie grumble that there was no way she was going to lay dead in a box while people looked up her nose and said doesn’t she look natural. “Lipstick? Who calls that natural?”
Barbra had decided to take that last bit as a rhetorica
Ah, memories. They always came out for an airing at the worst times.
“There is a God,” Barbra breathed as they entered the viewing room, getting her first sight of the two inevitable sprays of gladiolas and a plain brass urn on a wooden table between them, sitting inside a ring of plastic lilies. There was simple, there was understated, but Patty’s remains might as well have been packed in a zip-bag for all the aesthetics of that urn.
Barbra had an opinion, but bit down on it.
Winnie had an opinion, and shared, thankfully in a whisper. “What do you think? Clearance sale?”
“It is rather plain,” Barbra replied quietly. Thankfully, all the other mourners were already seated in rows of chairs a good twenty feet away, and couldn’t have overheard. “There’s a rather nice crowd, don’t you think?”
She nudged her friend, who couldn’t look more out of place if she were carrying a bunch of helium Happy Birthday balloons. “See that woman standing over there by herself?” she whispered. “I think that must be Patty’s sister. Looks sort of like her, don’t you think? She’s Patty’s only living relative. They haven’t spoken in over fifty years. Isn’t that sad?”
Winnie shot her laser-blue gaze in that direction. If she’d had built-in antennae, they’d have pushed up through her bun and stood to attention. “That depends. Did Patty tell you why they hadn’t spoken?”
Barbra blushed as they approached the brass stand holding the guest book, as if Patty might be writing thank-you-for-coming notes later. “The sister didn’t approve of Patty divorcing her first husband.”
“What did that matter to her?”
“I guess it mattered a lot. After the divorce, Patty married her sister’s first husband.”
Winnie’s clear, bell-like laugh had every head turning in their direction. “So Tom was married to both sisters? That little devil. I only knew him for a year or two before he died, but he didn’t strike me as capable of doing more than say yes, Patty, no, Patty.”
“No, he was husband number three,” Barbra continued quietly as Winnie turned back to the first page and ran a fingertip down the list of names before signing her own beneath Barbra’s on page three. “First time for love, Patty told me. Second time for fun, and the third time for money. Mr. Gordon owned his own meat processing company.”
“Clearly I didn’t know Patty as well as I should have. Pity. I wonder what ticked off the sister the most. Patty stealing her husband, or Patty marrying money and living the good life at Royall Crest these past twenty-some years. I don’t suppose we could ask her?”
“No-we-shouldn’t-ask-her,” Barbra said quickly. “That would be mean.”
“You’re right,” Winnie conceded, and then turned away from the book to cross the room and offer her sympathies to a sad, faded version of the always vibrant Patty.
She took the woman’s hands in both of hers for a bracing squeeze. “Hello, dear. Winifred Fassbinder here. I’m so sorry for your loss. Excuse my dress, please, as I just got off the plane from Florida and simply had to rush straight here to say my final goodbye to Patty. You don’t know me, but I was one of her nearest and dearest friends at Royall Crest. Charter Members, the pair of us, when the place first opened its doors. Why, we were like sisters. Many a night after dinner we’d take our drinks outside to one of the verandas and share stories about our lives. That girl was a bundle of laughs, told the best stories. She mentioned you many times. Many, many times.”
The sister’s eyes narrowed. “What did she say? It isn’t true, you know, none of it. Godless woman. I pray for her every night, and have, for the past fifty years. I considered it my Christian duty. She drank, you said? Oh, the devils she embraced.” Then, suddenly, she relaxed her own grip on Winnie’s hands and smiled. “But past is past, and God is all-forgiving. Even for a dedicated sinner like Patricia.” She cast her gaze heavenward. “Hallelujah.”
Winnie’s sorrowful expression didn’t falter. “Back at you, sister.”
Barbra looked down at her plain black pumps, wishing them, and the rest of her, anywhere but here.
“Thank you. I am a charitable woman. A God-fearing woman. A forgiving woman, even if Patricia never showed a moment of remorse for her years of debauchery and meanness. I have taken it upon myself to forgive, and today I will sing her way into Heaven. And I say again, Hallelujah.”
“Yeah, got that the first time. You’ll be gratified to know Patty never had an unhappy day. And she sang a lot, too. Really. She was always the hit of our bi-weekly karaoke nights.”
“Uh…yes. It warms my heart to hear that. Raise a joyful noise, I always say. Perhaps the good Lord will forgive her. We can only hope.” Then her bean-brown eyes narrowed. “I’m her only living relative, you know. Once this sad day is behind us I’ll be settling her estate before driving back to Pittsburgh. I flew here when I got word, but I can drive Patricia’s car back. I like to be practical.”
Speaking before Winnie could say anything else, Barbra politely cleared her throat and introduced herself. “I’m Barbra Bender. I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve only worked at Royall Crest for two years, but I became quite fond of Patty during that time. And it’s true that Patty had a beautiful voice. She’ll be sadly missed. Winnie? There are a few other people waiting to offer their condolences. We really should move along.”
“But I might have more to say. About Patty, that is,” Winnie complained. “Good, good memories.”
Barbra couldn’t quite suppress a smile as she took hold of her friend’s elbow and gave it a squeeze. Yes, she truly loved Winnie. “I think you’ve said enough.”
2
“That was different,” Winnie said as they seated themselves in the last row of folding chairs just as the funeral director asked everyone to take their seats for the musical eulogy to be given by Mrs. Leticia Henley, sister of the deceased. “You’ll have to tell me some of the stories Patty told you. It appears I missed something in the woman all these years.”
“Shhh!”
“Who hissed that?” Winnie, sitting up very straight, asked the area in general.
Apparently there wasn’t a volunteer in the crowd of less than thirty mourners to answer Winnie’s question. Everyone kept their backs turned and their eyes front.
The funeral director spoke again, but not before looking to Winnie as if to ask if that was all right with her. She gave him a brief go-ahead wave as Barbra sank lower in her chair.
The funeral director nodded back, and cleared his throat in order to get everyone’s attention. “Following a short prayer, and a group singing of Amazing Grace, led by Mrs. Henley, mourners are invited to join her for a small repast in our lower level reception hall.”
“In other words, the basement.” Winnie shook her head. “I’m guessing the sister doesn’t want to spend a penny of Patty’s money unless it’s on herself. She’ll probably stuff the ashes in the back of her linen closet. That’s sad.”
“You know, I don’t remember that you really even liked Patty all that much,” Barbra said, and then winced.
Winnie continued to face front, her spine straight. “It’s not that I didn’t like her. We never went much beyond wave-hi-and-how-about-this-weather acquaintances, that’s true, because we had very little in common. She was nice enough, I suppose.”
“I know you better than that, Winnie. You’re upset that Patty’s gone but you don’t know how to say it. I’m right, aren’t I?”
