Let's Bake a Deal, page 6
Rita finally let out a small chuckle. “It’s true, you were blind to all of that. We would have spent more money repairing that house than we ended up spending on our whole cute, little cabin.”
“Exactly,” Rhonda pointed out. “You see, I was thinking with my emotions but you remained...well, practical. And by doing so you saved us a lot of headaches and money. In time, we were able to find a lovely cabin that we both adore.”
“And within our financial limits,” Rita agreed proudly. It was satisfying to remember how it had all worked out. There were consolations to being the practical sister, after all.
Rhonda smiled. “Rita, we think differently at times, but our minds always complement each other, whether in the bakery or as cops...my mind running this way, your mind running that way. We always meet in the middle, or manage to get things done the best way we can. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you’re my better half and I'm your better half and if we didn't have each other, why, we wouldn't be complete.”
Rita looked into her sister’s caring eyes and smiled. “You do have a way of making a gal feel better.”
“Aw, shucks,” Rhonda said in a silly western drawl, “’twasn't nothin’. That's what twin sisters are for, pardner.”
Rita rolled her eyes. “Now that I would never do...not in public anyway.”
Rhonda laughed. “I would take a video of you if you tried and send it to Mom and Dad.”
“Dad would fall out of his recliner,” Rita laughed back. “I'm the daughter who checks the old tax returns just for the fun of it. Just like he taught me. He might lose it.”
“Yeah,” Rhonda said and made a pained face, “Dad doesn't really let himself relax very much, does he? Poor guy thinks watching documentaries on how ants built an ant hill is fun.”
“Last time we were there, he watched paint dry in the garage. Literally,” Rita said and let out a sympathetic laugh. “Poor Mom, every time she jokes with Dad he gives her one of his looks.”
“I know,” Rhonda moaned. “Remember when she put a fake spider under his newspaper at the breakfast table?”
“How can I forget,” Rita laughed. “Dad picked up his newspaper, picked up the spider, handed it to mom, and said in his most boring voice: “Your attempt to scare me is not amusing. This spider is clearly fake. Now, where is my coffee…” Rita suddenly stopped laughing. Her face went pale. “Oh my...am I that bad, Rhonda?”
Rhonda grimaced. “Well, when I try to pull a joke on you...you kinda turn into Dad. But not all the time...just when I...” Rhonda lowered her eyes. “You just don't like to have jokes played on you, that's all.”
“See? I told you. It’s because I don't have a sense of humor,” Rita nearly cried. “Down in the kitchen I handled Beth the way I would handle a dog on a leash...good enough for a cop…but I couldn't tell a joke if my life depended on it. Can’t take a joke, either. No wonder I'm not married.”
“Oh dear,” Rhonda whispered, realizing that she now had more than a murder case on her hands: she had an upset sister, which was far worse. They didn’t have time for this conversation, however. “Come on, sis, no time to solve that particular issue right now. We better go find Brad and Mae.” Rita nodded her head and glumly walked off with Rhonda.
As they headed down the corridor, hesitantly looking for the stairs, Rusty sat alone at his little table and uncovered the lunch tray. Was it lunch already? He couldn’t seem to remember anymore, but he was hungry. The sandwich was good but the soup tasted a bit...strange. Of course, after Rusty ate a few more bites he forgot all about the strange taste.
Chapter Four
Nurse Mae looked up when Rita and Rhonda entered her office. “Sheriff and I were getting worried,” she said.
Rita closed the door and focused on Mae, who sat behind a humble wooden desk with a simple white office phone, a clipboard from her nursing rounds, and a few folders and invoices. She noticed a drawing of some kind. “Is that the diagram?” she asked.
“To the best of my memory,” Mae nodded.
“Boy, do we need this,” said Rita, looking it over eagerly.
Rhonda stepped up to Brad, who was leaning against a wooden filing cabinet. Brad was filling his pipe from the small pouch he kept in his breast pocket, tapping cherry tobacco into the bowl. “We need you to go back into town,” she said in a cop voice.
Brad lowered his pipe in surprise. “I'm not leaving Rusty.”
“We need you to try and locate Ollie Rooney and Patty Olson,” Rita told Brad.
Nurse Mae stood up. “What for?” she asked.
“Follow-up questions,” Rita explained without elaborating. She scanned the office, pretending to be bored. The office walls were painted in a soft brown, with a worn hardwood floor and a popcorn ceiling. A few simple nature paintings hung about, but nothing grand. All in all, the office was bland and nothing like the cheerily decorated floors they had been wandering around in. “Mae, Rhonda, and I are confident that Beth and Noel bought our story. That's good. But we still have a lot of paths to investigate.”
“We need answers,” Rhonda jumped in. “I'm sure you can understand that,” she finished and carefully read Mae's eyes. “You look worried…is something wrong?”
“No...well, maybe,” Mae confessed. “Ollie and Patty...” She paused.
“What about them?” Brad asked. “You could save me a trip into town if you know where they are.”
“Ollie and Patty—” Mae lost her nerve again and fiddled with the clipboard in front of her.
Brad stuffed his pipe into his front pants pocket. “Mae, whatever it is, I can run their names through the system and find it out. Just tell us.”
“That's what worries me,” Mae blurted out. “You see, Ollie and Patty...oh, they worked for cheap for a reason, Brad,” she confessed in a miserable voice. “Ollie, as sweet and caring as he was...the man was a heavy drinker. He never took a sip on duty, of course, but in his spare time…” Mae shook her head. “You can figure it out.”
“I guess we can,” Rhonda nodded.
Mae picked up a pen and began fiddling with it. “Ollie had been arrested a few times for drinking and driving in the past. He sobered up long enough to attend culinary school and decided to become a medical chef. He went through the proper schooling, received the right training, and became certified, all the right steps, but…”
“But no one would hire him because of his record, right?” Rhonda asked.
Mae looked up. “Exactly,” she said with a sigh. She turned to adjust a white curtain near her desk, opening to an oval window that looked out upon the river sparkling in the autumn sunshine. “Chefs make good money...and medical chefs make a little bit more. Plus the healthcare industry offers security. Restaurants go out of business every day, but hospitals are always open. Ollie took the safe route, but there wasn't a hospital in the state that would touch him. For liability reasons, you see.”
Rita and Rhonda both looked at each other. Rita nodded her head. Rhonda nodded back. “Mae, how did Kathy Stein come to hire Ollie Rooney? Why did she make an exception for him?”
Mae watched the river dance through a stand of trees. “Let me explain something first. The retirement home never had a nutritionist in the old days,” she explained. “Joan Bateman was the cook here for years. Miss Katherine and Joan were the very best of friends.” Mae kept her eyes on the river. “After Miss Katherine died, Joan stayed on for a while longer...longer than I expected, to be honest. Joan was already in her seventies at the time but somehow kept up with her kitchen duties.”
“What happened to her?” Rita asked.
“The state came in and started changing all the rules after a resident, Remy Cunningham, had a medical scare. Mr. Cunningham’s blood pressure was through the roof and his blood sugar was awful.” Mae shook her head. “Mr. Cunningham’s doctor reported us to the state and soon after, this fancy, snotty woman comes barging in wearing one of those shiny business suits, asking nosy questions, ordering me around like I was trash.” Mae made a sour face. “I was required to hire a medical chef and a nutritionist that would adhere to each patient's nutritional needs or be shut down.”
“I guess that's...reasonable,” Rhonda said.
Mae sighed. “I suppose,” she agreed. “Joan was getting old...and a tad forgetful. Joan would never deliberately cook anything that would hurt a resident. But maybe she cut corners here and there. She put love into her cooking.” Mae finally turned around and looked at the others. “Joan couldn’t keep up with the state’s new rules. She simply packed her bags, hugged me goodbye, and took a bus to Alabama where her sister lives. I've never heard from her since.”
“How long after Joan left did Kathy Stein hire Ollie?” Rhonda began to ask.
“I do the hiring, actually,” Mae corrected Rhonda. “I hire the groundskeepers, the gardeners, and the inside help. Or I used to, anyway. That’s was why it was so strange for Kathy to send me Beth and Noel...”
Rhonda studied Mae. Something wasn't quite right. “Okay, but we’ll come back to that. First let's focus on Ollie,” she said. “How long was it before you hired Ollie?”
Mae frowned. “I needed a cook and a nutritionist immediately...but I couldn't pay the salaries the market demanded. Joan worked for cheap because she lived in the gardener’s old house at the back of the property, and...she also took her pay in cash, under the table.” Mae looked at Brad with shameful eyes. “Katherine always paid Joan cash...I couldn't change the rules. But I promise that Ollie and Patty's salaries were legal.”
Brad shrugged his shoulders. “Ain't none of my business how Joan was paid just as long as she wasn't a criminal. I ain’t going to call up the IRS on you, Mae. Besides, that’s long past, and Miss Katherine is long dead now.”
Mae gave Brad a look of gratitude. “Thank you,” she said. Brad shrugged his shoulders again.
“Okay, Mae,” Rhonda said, “how did you hire Ollie?”
“I put an ad in with the Georgia Department of Labor. Ollie, along with about thirty other people, replied. Each person wanted more money than we could pay...Ollie was the cheapest and willing to start right away. He was already suited up in his apron and washing his hands in the kitchen when his background check came in. I had to have background checks on all new employees...another rule from the snotty woman...” Mae sighed again. “I talked to him about his past and told him I could only offer him a cheaper salary for the week, as a sort of probationary period. I know it was probably wrong, but Ollie never did a single thing to break our faith in him and I continued to keep him on...but I still feel bad to this day. I kept him at that lower salary for the whole time and he never complained. I guess he knew he wouldn’t get anything else.” Mae looked at Brad. “According to the snotty woman who set down the new rules, I wasn't supposed to hire anyone with a criminal history. I could have been shut down for hiring Ollie.”
“Like I said, I ain’t interested in digging up old skeletons,” Brad told Mae in a voice that let her know her minor infractions were not what they were trying to unfold.
“Why was money a problem in the first place?” Rita asked Mae. “You said Kathy Stein donates any money left over from this home to a food charity. Why didn’t she just increase the salary budget so you could hire someone without a criminal history?”
Mae walked back to her desk, took a piece of peppermint candy out of a white candy dish, and opened it. “I know what I told you about the donations,” she said in an upset voice. “I told you what I did because I wanted to protect Kathy. It's my...duty to protect my boss, right? I need my job. I figured I could stop you from asking questions if I...told that little lie.” Mae looked at Rita and Rhonda. “You girls didn't believe me anyway. I saw your eyes.”
“No, we didn't,” Rita confessed.
“Sorry,” Rhonda added, “but your lie didn't hold water.”
“I was worried about that,” Mae said and put the piece of peppermint candy in her mouth. “As you can both see, there are no grounds workers here today, no staff, no gardeners...just me.” Mae walked back to the window. “When Miss Katherine was alive she was able to have a full-time staff...but as she grew closer and closer to death, Kathy took over the finances...” Mae gazed at the river again. “The money seemed to grow very thin.”
“We're all ears,” Rita assured Mae.
Mae worked on the piece of peppermint candy in her mouth as the leaves played in the cool wind outside. Oh, how she wanted to be at the pumpkin festival instead of trapped inside of a nightmare. “You saw how I was talking with Noel,” she told Rhonda. “Yes, you saw. I read your face.”
Rhonda glanced at Rita. Mae was smarter than she appeared. “Yes, I saw...and I began wondering a whole lot of things, too.”
“Perhaps you began to question my loyalties, when you saw that?” Mae asked.
“Yes.”
Mae shook her head. “I can't stand Noel and Beth,” she gritted out through her teeth. “I only pretend to tolerate Noel because I fear her.”
“Why?” Rita asked. She looked toward Brad and saw him pull his pipe back out. Brad wasn't interested in talking. All the man was interested in doing was listening—for the time being.
Mae hugged her arms. “The paperwork Kathy Stein sent me is legitimate, or so it appears. Kathy isn't interested in having the state pay us another visit. But somehow I feel the two women are frauds…sent here to...to...I just don't know! I can't bring myself to voice what's really screaming inside of my heart.”
“Please, talk to us, Mae,” Rhonda pleaded, “because—”
“You think I'm involved with Lynn Hogan's murder,” Mae told Rhonda with misery in her voice.
“Yes,” Rhonda confessed. “Please, Mae, prove me wrong, because I don't want to believe that a woman like yourself can be involved with the two ugly rats downstairs in the kitchen.”
Mae stood silent for a minute. When she spoke her voice came out shaky. “Kathy...it has to be Kathy,” she whispered miserably. “Mrs. Hogan wasn't loaded with diamonds, but her millions aren’t anything to sneeze at, either.” Mae slowly turned to face Rita and Rhonda. “Kathy controls the money,” she confessed. “And she sent me Beth and Noel. It has to be her, right? I just can’t fathom it…but like I said, Kathy controls all the business accounts and mails out employee checks and tells me how much money I can spend on expenses, which isn't much.”
“How are the grounds so well kept?” Rita asked. “I'm sure—”
“Volunteers,” Mae explained. “Local historical preservation society folks take care of the special flower gardens sometimes, but it’s mainly the high school kids that come here twice a month. All I know is there’s some kind of program that earns them credit for college. I'm not exactly sure how that works. Busloads of kids show up from different schools around the state and break their backs for free. They’re like an army with their rakes and shovels and leaf blowers and whatnot. How Kathy managed to finagle free labor is beyond me,” Mae sighed. “The kids also deep clean...the kind of stuff I simply can’t do…they vacuum, mop, wash the windows, help with the laundry. I'm grateful for them, but...I feel so guilty.”
Rita sat down in a wooden chair in front of Mae's desk. She decided to take a different tack. “Mae, let’s go back a second. What can you tell us about Patty Olson?” she asked. “We know about Ollie, but what about Patty Olson?”
Rhonda fiddled with an unwrapped piece of peppermint from the candy dish and waited for Mae to answer. She drew in a deep breath of cherry tobacco, looked at Brad, saw the man intently focused on Mae, and then focused back on the nurse.
“Patty was a close friend of Ollie's,” Mae explained. “Ollie and Patty applied for jobs at some hospital on the same day and met, years ago. Ollie, charming and funny as he was, started to date Patty but their romance fell apart a little. They were more close friends by the time they came here. I guess Ollie found out that Patty had been divorced four times...guess he wasn't interested in being number five. For her part, she wasn’t happy about his alcoholism.” Mae sighed. “Patty was a recovering alcoholic. She had stayed on the right side of the law, but she had been fired from three different locations for coming to work...sauced. Maybe I shouldn't have hired Patty, but like Ollie...she agreed to work cheap. They were sort of a package deal.” Mae looked at Brad. Brad shrugged his shoulders again. “Ollie and Patty were the best people,” she said with genuine conviction. “I wish you could have met them. Patty even tried to help Ollie quit drinking...and Ollie, in time, maybe he would have kicked the bottle, too. But now they're both gone and if you go chasing after them, stirring up what happened long ago...whatever life they might have now, if any, could go down the tubes quickly.”
“You said Ollie went to Maine and Patty went west?” Rita asked.
“Oh, that's what they claimed, but I know better,” Mae explained. “Ollie could barely deal with the cold winters here in Clovedale Falls, let alone the frigid northern winters he grew up with in Maine. And Patty's mother is over ninety-five years old and lives in one of the best nursing homes in Arizona. Patty's brother lives near there and visits his mother often, pays the bill for any extras she might need. He has made it clear on several occasions that he doesn't want his sister around.” Mae looked at Rita and Rhonda. “I think Ollie and Patty left the state of Georgia, but not headed for where they claimed. And I don’t think it was a coincidence, either. I think...they were scared off.”
“By your boss, Kathy?” Rhonda asked.
“You tell me what it looks like,” Mae answered. She turned back to the window. “Ollie and Patty leave, two dreadful women show up in their places...millionaire Lynn Hogan is found dead...what am I supposed to believe?” Mae shivered all over. “I made a promise to Miss Katherine to remain steadfast at my work here, take care of this home the way she would have liked it...take care of the residents...and watch over her daughter and her legacy. But I fear the time is coming when I might be forced to leave myself.”
