After tallying up the deposit slip, I slid the last of the rent checks into the bag marked with the bank’s name, zipped it closed and noted my hours on the spreadsheet before shutting the computer down. My boss, Leo Hansen, didn’t care what hours I worked, so long as I made sure things ran smoothly with the rental properties and he could enjoy his semi-retirement in relative peace. I liked to keep track.
I’d just locked up on my way out when a pink bullet of a minivan spewed gravel as it whizzed into the drive.
“Get in,” Jacy put down the window and yelled at me.
“I can’t. I have to drop off Leo’s deposit at the bank. What’s up?”
“I need to do the same for the shop, so we’ll take care of it on the way,” She circled her hand impatiently. “Get in.”
I could argue, but in the end, we both knew that if Jacy needed me to do something, I’d do it. I got in.
“On the way to where?” When she whipped the van back onto the main road, I grabbed for the dashboard. Jacy’s driving habits could be summed up with two words: good and fast. Mostly fast.
“Shady Manor.” The assisted living facility where her aunt currently lived.
“Aunt Rose. She’s not—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word dead.
“She’s fine.” Jacy shook her head. “As fine as she can be, anyway. She’s gone downhill a little these past few weeks, but my mother’s too wrapped up in Davina Benet to pay much attention. Plus, she and her sister are on the outs again, so when the call came in that Auntie wanted someone to come by, I got drafted.”
“I see.” The quintessential flower child, Jacy’s mother loved everyone, but her charitable nature didn’t quite extend to her only sister. They got along like orange juice and toothpaste. “One of these days, we need to pry that story out of Momma Wade.”
Since the bank had just closed for the day, Jacy used her night deposit key, dropped her zippered bag into the slot, and snapped her fingers at me until I handed her mine. This level of impatience wasn’t like her.
“What’s up with you?” I said. “You seem cranky.”
“Sorry.” She spun the wheel, pulled back onto the road. “It’s not you or anything. It’s just that with Wade spending the night with Brian’s folks, we thought we’d go out to dinner, maybe see a movie or something. I’d like to get back in time to take a shower and put on something that isn’t the underwear version of mom jeans.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I laughed. “You’d better watch out, or you’ll end up giving little Wade a brother or sister.”
Jacy turned her lips under and went quiet. Even looking at her from the side, I saw the way her eyes danced. “Wait, are you and Brian trying again?”
“The shop is doing really well, and Brian just got a promotion. It seems like the right time.”
I did the mental math. “Wade’s almost eight months old, so if you got pregnant right away, you could end up with two under the age of two. Isn’t that a lot?”
Shrugging again, she allowed, “Maybe. But we’re steady, you know? Brian’s a rock. He’s like the baby whisperer.”
“He is,” I agreed because Jacy spoke the simple truth.
“Besides,” she said, “it took us awhile to get pregnant the first time, and if that’s the case again, I’d rather not wait too long to get started.” She hit the open stretch of road on the outskirts of town, took the minivan up to a solid ten miles over the limit while I tried not to let her see how hard I was clutching the armrest. “And I really don’t mind checking in on Auntie. It’s just the timing.”
Whoever came up with the name Shady Manor got it wrong on both counts. Not a single tree grew near enough to cast a shadow over the nondescript, low structures that, to me, fell far short of anything that could convincingly be called a manor. Jacy passed the administrative building and stopped in front of the second-to-last of the six conjoined apartments. The setup reminded me a bit of the Bide-A-Way motel, only with larger units.
“Looks like Rose is still rocking the cat decor,” I noted with a wry smile. Each apartment featured a low ramp for accessibility and a concrete patio area that residents could decorate if they chose to do so. Planters decorated with pawprints marched along the rail on both sides. A cartoon-like cat’s wide-open mouth made a cute birdhouse hanging from the awning. Small ceramic kittens—some in bright colors, others painted to look real—nestled on the windowsills, hung from the edges of planters.
“Wait until you see the inside.” Jacy knocked on the door, listened for a response, then jiggled the knob.
“Come in.”
Cautiously, Jacy opened the door. “You shouldn’t just tell people to come in without checking to see who’s there,” she chided gently.
Rose stood frozen in the middle of her living room. “Not much choice. I’m having an episode.”
“It’s okay, Auntie. I know what to do.” Jacy picked her way through a scattering of spilled pills, began to hum a waltzing tune that was at odds with the sadness in her eyes. Clearly, this wasn’t her first experience with whatever was happening.
After a moment, Rose began to sway. Just a little, at first, then a little more. As her body relaxed, she took a step. And then another, breaking the stasis.
“Does that happen often?” I asked as the older woman made her way into the small kitchen for a glass of cool water. I took an involuntary step forward to go help, glanced toward Jacy, who shook her head, so I detoured and bent to pick up the spilled tablets from the floor.
“Count those pills before you put them back in the bottle. There should be enough to go until Wednesday when my new prescription comes in.”
I counted while Jacy searched and came up short. “Some of these look different. Are you sure they’re all the same?”
Rose shrugged. “They run out of the regular; they put in generic. Check under the table. One of them rolled.” Then she answered my question. “I mostly only get the freeze when I get all keyed up about something. Doesn’t usually last that long, but I would have remembered to turn on some music in another minute.”
How? She hadn’t been able to move.
Seeing the question on my face, Jacy filled in the blanks.
“We got auntie an Echo Dot for her birthday when we found out that music can help with Parkinson’s freeze or what they call an “on-off” episode. All she has to do is ask Alexa to play something.”
“When I remember,” Rose made a wry face. “Not that I’m not grateful, because sometimes, I do, and she reads books to me. Keeps the mind sharp even if my body’s going to pot on me.”
My memory supplied images of a firebrand of a woman who could water-ski barefoot and was always dressed in bright prints. Today, Rose wore yoga pants in basic gray—easy to pull on, I supposed—paired with a buttoned-down sweater in olive drab. A botched home dye job stained her scalp as well as her hair a darker shade of brown than she’d ever enjoyed in her youth.
Her cheerful smile in the face of adversity gave me all the feels, which must have shown on my face because she wagged a finger at me. “I’m not dead yet, missy, and I don’t need anyone crying over me until I am, so you just leave off with all the sniveling, and let me tell you what happened.”
I joined Jacy on the sofa while Rose took the reclining chair. She’d no more than settled in when a black-and-white rocket shot through the house. Claws digging into the upholstery, the cat scrambled up the back of the sofa, her tail whipping me in the side of the head as she passed. She hit the armrest, gathered herself, and made a spectacular leap across the empty span to land on the arm of Rose’s chair.
“Settle down, you hellcat,” Rose gazed at the cat with affection, offered the underside of her chin a bent-fingered caress, which elicited a full-throated purr. “Her name’s Cricket, and she only has two speeds: sleeping and racing around like a lunatic.”
Having settled herself on Rose’s lap, the pretty tuxedo cat cocked one ear up and presented Jacy and me with a disdainful stare.
“Little scamp has managed to sneak past me twice now. Took off through the field on the other side of the road and climbed up the same pine tree both times. But she’s good company even if she likes to knock the other cats off shelves.” By other cats, Rose meant the mind-boggling number of feline figurines ranging across shelves, tables, and even the floor. Framed posters of grumpy cats, cute kittens, and a one holding on until Friday fought for space on the walls. There was no denying the theme of the decor.
Jacy shifted forward, leaned her elbows on her knees, flicked her gaze toward the clock—cat-shaped, naturally—and attempted to hurry things along. “Are you sure you’re all right, Auntie?”
“I’m fine.” Rose shrugged off her niece’s concerns and launched into her story. “You know I go for my afternoon walk, rain or shine.”
Jacy nodded. During one of those walks, a minor fall had been the final impetus for convincing Rose to move from an isolated house at the edge of town into an assisted living facility where someone could keep a closer eye on her.
“Well, there’s this pretty little spot down by the water feature,” her tone implied air quotes. “Where I like to sit and throw out food for the ducks. We’ve had a small flock of wild geese hanging around this past week, but they’re not as nice as the ducks. One of them chased me around the pond. I had to sit down on a rock until I got myself back together.”
Beside me, Jacy held back a sigh, her body going tense with the effort of not urging Rose to get on with the story.
“And that’s when I heard someone planning a murder.”
