All My Money Says Is Bye-Bye

By Ruth Judy

Death is a frequent and often welcome visitor to the elderly in nursing homes. But not death by a killer's choice. Not death to enhance another person's income. A syringe is the weapon of choice for the killer working at Golden Harvest, home of Sue Markel's mother. Sue, a widow reacting to her 60th birthday and with a mother lost to dementia, is smitten with her unfulfilled dream of being a detective, but equally smitten with a too healthy dose of caution. Enter Corrine, a feisty resident recovering from a devastating stroke. With Kyle, a young man of 18, who embraces danger and drama, they struggle to stop the killer before he kills yet again. But boredom is pushing him to expand his repertoire of killing techniques. More deaths force Sue to confront her fears and Corrine to test the limits of life in a nursing home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruth Judy
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301482580

Book preview

Prologue

Don't leave. Wait. What's happening?

Halfway to the car, he glanced back at her. The light from the setting sun lit up the gold highlights in her hair. She was much more attractive than when they'd first met. Always happens. I show interest; she fixes herself up.

Flicking his cigarette onto the sidewalk, he ground the discarded butt with his shoe before moving back toward her. Eagerly she slipped into his arms, relief in her eyes.

Is this what you want, Goldy? Laughing, he pulled her tight, his arm around her waist. With his other hand, he grabbed her jaw, holding it tight, his fingers digging into the soft tissue and the bone underneath. Leaning over, he kissed her hard. She tried to cry out, but she could hardly breathe. He threw back his head, laughing again, and pushed her away.

Bastard, she screamed.

Yanking her to him, he grabbed the front of her new dress, ripping it open. His eyes slowly moved down before he turned and headed toward the car.

Why the violence? Not his style. His style was just to fade away.

Kill her?

His hand already on the car door, he jerked at the thought.

He'd only killed old people before and they were easy. Hardly counted. It was surely better for their money to be spent on him than wasted month after long month on their nursing home care. Their money said bye to them and hello to him through their gullible daughter or granddaughter who'd earlier succumbed to his charms. A daughter like Goldy.

Kill her? You want to, so come on, do it. It was almost irresistible.

Would it be worth the risk? It hadn't occurred to him before, but he swayed as he contemplated the pleasure.

He looked back at her. Anger and fear fought for control of her face as she stood there transfixed. As he continued looking at her, not moving, fear won.

She knew.

Getting out a new cigarette, he lit it. The warm glow of the sun caught the beauty of the changing leaves. Autumn in all its glory: dazzling hues of orange, red, green, and brown. But here, too, death and destruction were coming.

He tossed the lit cigarette at her.

Her knowing is enough—for now.

This time he did leave, not even waving goodbye as he drove away in the gift Goldy had given him.

He never saw her again. And Goldy knew enough, now, to be grateful.

Sue

The day started out a cliché. A stranger burst through the door, interrupting what had been the private eye's boring day. Hatless, his wet gray raincoat testified to the continuing rain. Tall, dark-haired, his face was pockmarked from long ago acne.

Where is he? Where's Max? He shouted.

He's not here. He....

Damn it, he interrupted. He glanced back at the door he'd just entered before focusing his attention on me. He shook his head slightly. Glancing at the door again, he took a small package out of his coat pocket. Dropping it on my desk, he said, Give this to him. Soon as he comes in.

I scooped up the package, smoothly sliding it into a drawer of my desk. I looked up. The man was already gone.

Max: my boss's code name. This is it, I thought.

I hurried to the window and pulled up the Venetian blinds. I watched as the man left our building and started across the street. As he stepped off the curb, a black SUV spun around the corner. It headed straight for him; he didn't have a chance. There was a horrific thud when the car struck him. He literally bounced on the hood before landing on the sidewalk. His head, oddly twisted to the right, left no doubt that he was dead. Then just before the driver pulled away, he looked over at the building. And up. Our eyes met. My world turned upside down as I saw him jerk his head to his right. Paralyzed, I waited.

But the paralysis was on my end only. A companion sprang from the car and hurried across the street. I watched as he pulled open the door to my building and disappeared from sight. To my amazement, I felt like one of those fictional private eyes, ready to confront the approaching danger, oblivious to fear. I slid my hand into my boot, removing the hidden knife. Slipping behind the door, I waited.

The doorbell rang.

When did a killer stop to ring the doorbell?

It rang again ... and again ....

Jolting awake, I realized it was the phone. A neighbor calling to chat. I'd slept late. A little regretfully I was back to my old self, feeling rather trivial as my dream faded away. After catching up with my neighbor, I sat down on the couch trying to recapture my sense of fearlessness in the dream. It was a sensation foreign to me and one I longed for.

Instead, a painful memory elbowed its way into my consciousness.

I was driving down Elm Street, slowing down to make a right turn at the light up ahead. On the sidewalk to my right several people were walking, some quickly to their destination, a few sauntering as they gazed in store windows. Suddenly, this kid materialized from a doorway. I saw him knock an elderly woman off-balance as he grabbed her purse and started running down the street. I was livid. I had to help. I pressed my foot on the accelerator and sped after him. I saw him turn right. I was determined not to lose him and pressed harder on the accelerator.

HONK!!!

Huh?

My head swiveled around. People in the Honda to my left were glaring at me. A glance in the rear view mirror showed a guy yelling. At me. Confused, I looked over at the sidewalk. A young girl was helping the woman get up. She was crying.

Shaking, I took my foot off the brake, where it had been firmly planted, and eased the car forward. Only in my imagination had I been chasing the punk kid. The rest of me had my foot solidly on the brake.

I hardly slept that night. I'd considered my life okay. Not great since Bruce died, but okay. I had a part-time job and dinner out once a week with a friend. But clearly I'd put the brakes on, stalled my life, and not even recognized it.

It was out of this experience that I pushed myself back into living. Impulsively I pursued my surely crazy dream of being a detective. I now worked half-time for Martin Hutton, a local private investigator. Secretarial work, true, but it was a step. So far, only in my dreams (whether awake or asleep) was I detective material. I was scared of being a detective with its edge of danger but even more scared of feeling that I'd already given up on my life.

After shaking off the aftermath of my dream about Max, mysterious packages, and sudden death, I spent the rest of the morning paying bills, cleaning the house, and a bit of backyard weeding. After rewarding myself for these endeavors with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple, a hold over love from my active days as a mother, it was time to go to work.

Martin, a PI (Private Investigator) now for about twenty years, was well respected here in South Bend and tolerated by the police. That meant, I thought, that he respected the boundaries between police work and detective work. Married, he had a son at Indiana University, a few hours south in Bloomington, and a daughter in one of the local high schools. About 5'10" and a tad chubby, he was younger than I, around 50. He had two other employees: his receptionist/office manager, Sally, and a guy, Wayne, who free lanced for Martin out in the field. Sally had been with Martin most of the twenty years. I couldn't see anything that intimidated her, although she wisely skirted Martin's moods when a case was unraveling. We seldom saw Wayne. He was himself a licensed PI and had originally had his own firm. Now in his 60s and with a wife ill with breast cancer, he was semi-retired. He mainly did surveillance and other investigative stuff for Martin.

It was only a fifteen-minute drive from home to the office in downtown South Bend. The office was empty when I arrived; both Sally and Martin were at lunch. I surveyed the room I'd been working in for four months now. It housed three desks. Sally's, situated by the front door. Mine, by the far wall, next to the door to our tiny kitchen. The third desk, used occasionally by Wayne when he needed a place to sit, was tucked into a corner behind the front door. Sally had the usual four-drawer filing cabinet next to her desk. I had only a two-drawer one. Maybe one day I'd graduate to a four-drawer.

Martin had a private office, his door near Sally's desk. More often than not his door was open. But, with three filing cabinets filled with current and prior client cases, that door was double locked at night.

There was nothing fancy about our office. Sally and I both had plants on our desks, adding life and color. A few Muir prints hung on the walls, showing, I guess, that we cared about the environment as well as our clients' problems.

Walking over to my desk, I found Martin's notes there waiting for me. My job: enter them into the computer. I sighed. Scary or not, I almost hoped a fierce stranger would come barreling in with a secret package. I sat down at my desk and turned on the computer. As I often did when entering his reports, I was soon fantasizing about the right case for me. But these imagined scenarios were always inadequate: the what, the how, and even the why (why did I have such an interest in being a PI?) remained elusive. And underlying all was the most important question: how far was I willing to stick out my neck? Unlike heroines in the detective mysteries, or my dreams, not far. While enjoying their tenacity and courage, I also considered them foolish and opinionated, and very lucky. But most of all, I couldn't identify with their brashness and courage. I needed the story line to go more smoothly. No shooting a killer while hiding in a metal trash bin as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone had done in A is for Alibi, no finding one gruesome discovery after another as Anna Pigeon frequently did in Nevada Barr's mysteries, not even the mixing of danger and hilarity that Janet Evanovich did so well with Stephanie Plum. What kind of mystery could I get myself embroiled in and be assured of coming out of intact? (An assurance already missing in day-to-day life, admittedly.) I didn't yet have an answer. Only time would disclose it, hopefully before I ended up in a nursing home.

Corrine

The shoes swished softly as she walked down the hallway. I recognized her footsteps. I knew most of the nurses' steps by now, now that I'd lived through three weeks of immobilization, three weeks of hell after being felled by this stroke. Old. Paralyzed. Bedridden. What could be worse?

The steps paused outside my door before she briskly entered, bringing with them the crinkly sound of her starched uniform. As I'd known, the steps belonged to Nurse Mabel. She carried with her that antiseptic aroma that made a normal person's stomach turn. But as she bent close to me, I caught a hint of delicate perfume, gardenias. It relaxed me as it always did, giving me hope.

Then she spoiled it. As she always did.

Ah, Mama, she said, leaning over me. The familiar rush of annoyance swept my paralyzed body. How I wished I could tell her what I thought of her sappy words. She called all the women here Mama, as if our age and infirmities invited familiarity. Corrine, my name is Corrine! Miss Whyte would be an even more respectful way for her to address me. And what I was used to.

I wonder if you're awake. I could sense her eyes searching my face, even though my own eyes were shut. Whispering to herself she added, Best for her if she's not.

She patted my shoulder before turning and checking the woman in the bed next to mine. This patient, Emily Justin, had been here at the nursing home since before I'd arrived. Needless to say, we'd not gotten to know each other. But my eyes and ears and brain worked, even if my muscles didn't. I knew that she had money and not much else. When not sorry and frightened for myself, I felt sorry for her. Her family didn't care for her, although they pretended to when others were in the room. But they weren't even aware of me, and I heard the greed in their words when they thought they were alone. Much to their chagrin, I was sure, she was improving, and just yesterday had been up and walking for the first time in months. Silently I cheered her on, partly to annoy the relatives, and mostly to feel better about myself, to show I was still capable of charitable feelings.

I heard Mabel speak softly to Emily. There was a slight movement and quiet, soothing words I couldn't make out. Then Mabel left to complete her rounds.

Even though relieved she was gone, I wanted to drag her back in here and scream my fears. Would I ever be able to move and speak again? Sometimes I felt so claustrophobic in my body I could hardly breathe. But breathe I continued to do, my lungs unscathed by the stroke.

The Stroke. My long-time friend Alicia had stopped by for a visit. We were sitting in my living room, reminiscing about our recent return trip to France. What a different trip from earlier ones when we'd combined sight-seeing with an eye to the professional woman's world in which we worked. Now, both retired, with The Da Vinci Code still fresh in our memory, we saw the sights of the city through different eyes, spending our day tracking the book's adventures in Paris. Just for fun. Why not? Who would have thought I'd have visited a church only because a fictional albino had murdered a fictional nun there?

I had poured us both a second cup of coffee. But when I tried to drink mine, my hand just lay there. I tried again. Nothing. Hmmm. Slow down, Corrine, it's okay.

Corrine, do you remember that restaurant near Notre Dame? How annoyed the waiter was with our selection.

Hymmphsicokbeb. Huh, that didn't sound like typical French.

Corrine, what's the matter?

Tkalh!

Oh, my god, oh, my god! Her words bounced around the room. I could barely understand them. She came over and knelt beside me.

Smile at me, Corrine. I tried to smile but my mouth was all funny.

Lift your arms, Corrine. Come on, try. My left arm went up above my head; my right only a few inches off my lap.

Oh, my god! I think you're having a stroke.

Did she know where my phone was? How could I tell her? But she headed straight for her purse. What was she doing? This was not the time to powder her nose or take a Xanax.

A moment later, her cell phone in hand, she was dialing 911. And my world shifted to a single bed in a nursing home.

Now, in the silence of that nursing home, I heard the phone ring at the nurses' station. I tensed as I listened to it. Would somebody please answer the damn thing! The quiet at night was different from quiet during the day, and the unanswered ringing of the phone sucked at my fears. Finally it stopped. Thank god.

Five minutes later it started again. Damn it. But this time it was promptly answered, the words low and indistinct.

I lay there a long time. My roommate was still. She had the gift of going to sleep.

Slowly this gift was given to me, my fears subsided, and I lived and walked and talked again in my dreams.

Sue

Mirror, mirror, on the wall. My bathroom mirror wasn't proclaiming beauty found or lost, but rather my genetic inheritance. My deceased parents and grandparents had taken up residence in my almost 60s face, binding me to the past and proclaiming my future. Having just awakened, I particularly resembled those ancestors in the glum black and white photos.

My elderly father had often fallen asleep while I was visiting him. With his mouth hanging open, he'd appeared unpleasantly dead long before he was. It no longer defied imagination to picture myself the same way.

Trying to accept the inevitable, I dressed, ate breakfast, and headed into work. Thus far, all I'd learned was the monotony of detective work. Not just my work of entering Martin's detailed notes into the computer. The monotony of his having thoroughly checked each of those details was all too evident. There was only the occasional flash of intuition, his hunch overriding the facts and sending him in a new direction. Those were exhilarating times and I longed to be part of them. He'd yet to draw his gun in any notes I'd read. To my surprise, I was disappointed. Why? There would not be, could not be, a gun in anyone's hand when I was finally out doing my detecting.

When not typing, I did filing and the infrequent research project that usually just sent me to the library. Martin knew of my detective aspirations and assured me of future involvement, when the case was right. While waiting, the tension between adventure and safety hounded me.

I worked that day until closing, my body stiff from the long day. My hours were sporadic. Days like today, I put in eight hours. Most days it was four. We were all putting in extra hours as Martin was closing up a big divorce case that would soon be going to trial. Because of the prominent people involved, the media were already giving the upcoming trial extensive coverage. Martin both welcomed the extra attention (it could bring business his way), and disliked it (any mistake on his part could lose that business).

Our dress code was casual. Ever a lover of comfort, I appreciated this. Martin kept a jacket and tie in his office, for days when he appeared in court, or when he had a client. Sally and I needed to be more formal then, as well, and we each kept a dress, stockings, and low-heeled shoes in the closet in case we forgot to come properly attired. Otherwise, we were all in jeans or similar garb.

What are you doing tonight, Sally? I asked. Divorced, Sally never wanted for companionship. I couldn't imagine myself playing the field as she did. In her mid-40s, and about 5'3, she had a figure that would make younger women envious. I knew she exercised, but it was more than that. She had a physical vibrancy that made both women and men relish her company. She had taken to divorce easily, enjoying the company of several men. Today her hair had a reddish hue to it I'd not noticed before. (Probably hasn't been there before," my jealous self whispered.)

Sally laughed. A friend has set me up with a guy she says is just perfect for me! And we both know that can be taken several ways. Putting on her jacket, she gave me her full attention. Are you going to go see your mother? When I nodded, her eyes softened. Hope it goes okay. We waved goodbye and I headed for my car. I enjoyed the light-hearted camaraderie between us, and with Martin and Wayne when they were around, but we all headed home to our separate lives when the workday ended.

I drove home noting with relief the early signs of spring: deep piles of dirty snow succumbing to the rise in temperature, and even a few daffodils popping up. We'd not had much snow this winter, but the cold, windy days had kept most of us inside. Being inside emphasized my loneliness. These hints of spring proclaimed that I'd made it through another winter without Bruce. We'd been married 35 years before he had died of cancer. And he'd died in the spring. But instead of it being a time of added sorrow, it brought a deeper connection with him. When he knew he'd be dying in the near future, he urged me to think of spring as a time of release and renewal, of laughter and treasured times together. And that had helped.

In honor of Bruce I ate a supper of salad and nachos; a simple meal laden with memories of him. How often we'd eaten this supper, piling the chips high on a plate, sprinkling them with cheddar cheese, black beans, jalapenos, cilantro and whatever else appealed to us.

After washing up, and before I could talk myself out of it, I headed over to Golden Harvest Retirement Center to see my mother. Her semi-private room on the third floor, with its skilled nursing care, had been her home now for several months. As dreadful as it was that she no longer knew me, it was not as horrific as when she had been going downhill both mentally and physically. She'd struggled with the pain of osteoporosis. And even harder for her, she'd known she was losing her faculties and was terribly frightened. How inadequate I'd been, as I wrestled with her fears and mine.

Arriving at her door I paused there a moment, reflecting as I often did on the woman she had been. A career woman, unusual when she was growing up, she'd taught English literature at a local university. She embraced motherhood when my sister and I arrived, but always kept a hand in her own interests, supporting and being supported by her women friends, and reaching out to help others in the community. She'd had a warm, generous heart. Plump, she'd always been well dressed, her hair permed, her eyes bright. Rarely had I seen her in clothes other than a dress and stockings. Now she was garbed in a sweat suit, her hair recently washed but lank.

Tonight was a pretty good night for her. She was aware I was sitting there and she answered several of my questions, most of them about the past. The past to me, the present to her, I could tell. As I often did, I slipped into the conversation that I was her daughter. To my delight, I sensed a more alert response to this pronouncement than usual. Her eyes searched my face. I didn't move, not wanting to derail her mental circuitry. She studied me for a long time and my heart lifted.

Pulling back a little, she said, Then, a long pause as she struggled with her thoughts, how old am ... I???

Startled, I realized this middle-aged woman (me) sitting in front of her was a puzzle. How could she, surely a young woman herself, have a daughter with a face as old as mine?

This absurdity was quite funny and I started laughing. She laughed too, though I was sure she didn't know why. She just knew it was a time to be happy. I leaned over and gave her a kiss. I was still chuckling about this when I said goodbye a little later.

On my way out I stopped and visited with one of the nurses. Glenda was one of the chatty ones, asking me about my job and listening to my ambition to be a private eye. I took pleasure in visiting with the nursing staff and also hoped that my interest in them would add to the quality of Mother's care.

Just as I was thinking it was time to leave, a doctor arrived. It was unusual to see one here at