Two hours after returning home I pulled out my own notepad again. During my workout and a steamy bath, my mind had been churning over all the information Anne Carey and I had compiled. Now I sat at my desk and jotted down a few more questions and ideas. I wondered if the law firm had any record of Leonard Marsh’s birth and birthplace. They hadn’t mentioned if his birth certificate or passport was among the papers in the safety deposit box, but it was likely. They were not with the personal papers Miss Carey had. Nowhere had there been any photographs taken of Mr. Marsh as a child, or any references to his adolescent or childhood years. I promised myself a phone call to Mr. Harmon after the weekend.
Anne Carey had lost her train of thought when I asked about the Bible.
“Sally,” she gasped, “Sally! I should have thought! It wasn’t there, either! I should have noticed!”
I was tempted to ask if she kept anything stronger than tea in the house, she had been so flustered.
“You were the one who missed the appointment book,” I soothed. “It was only because of the other Bible in the bookcase that the idea came to me there must be another.”
“There certainly was. It had large print and gold binding.”
“Is it possible she left it somewhere? She could have left it in church, perhaps.”
Miss Carey knitted her brow for a moment in thought and then shook her head decisively. “Not likely. Someone would have turned it over by now. Her name was in it, I know. If she had left it on a chair or bench, someone would have found it. Besides,” she moved quickly in her excitement, almost knocking over the now empty tea cup, “it was Wednesday when she died. She would have noticed it missing long before that. Our ladies study group was meeting on Friday and she would have been using to do her lesson.”
Miss Carey would call the church secretary to be sure. She also insisted again she would be the one to try to track down Elaine Barclay. I didn’t argue. I had to work the following night, and we were running into the weekend. We agreed I would call her Sunday evening about six to share what she had discovered.
After we finished our discussion about the missing Bible, I looked at the rest of the photographs in the album. There were half a dozen pages of snapshots taken during their years together in New Jersey after Leonard retired, and two featured a young woman Anne thought was Elaine Barclay. They were not labeled. One of them was taken with her groom on their wedding day. The very last page featured Amelia during her life in Hanley. With the president of the garden club at her side she beamed at the camera, holding a blue ribbon for her chrysanthemums, which were spread in profusion in front of them both. She had won the award only weeks before she died. The ribbon was in the mementos’ box.
Miss Carey offered me a look into that box of letters and personal effects, and I eagerly accepted. She had looked at everything and earmarked a few of the letters and souvenirs that puzzled her. I perused them again and made a few guesses but had no concrete answers. Leonard Marsh had written gallant love letters as a suitor, but none as a husband, unless his wife had discarded them all. An opera program from Munich in 1950, and a delicate Christmas card in faded lace dated four years later, were just two treasures that spoke of special evenings, special days. We both noticed most of the treasures were from their earlier years together. Had their marriage been as happy later on? The fragility of temporal life, so fleeting a thing, was so real to me as I touched Mrs. Marsh’s memories that I could not try to express it to Miss Carey. No one else could ever know the life she had known. Not even Michael’s death moved me to such an awareness, perhaps because a part of him was still alive in our children and myself.
Before I put my notepad away for the night I added in large type: What did Leonard Marsh do for a living?
I also decided to have my hair cut at Betty’s.
My shift Friday night started out well. For several hours the labor hall was empty. I kept myself busy with much needed stocking and straightening up, and had time for a leisurely coffee break with Emma. Emma and I are two of the few holdovers on night shift. The rest of the veterans have gone on to days. Those of us choosing to be left behind have to bear with the new graduates and new hires, which can be a test of patience at times, as I found out again on the previous Monday. That nurse had begged for some shifts on the post partum floor, to give her time to recover from her stressful night. She expressed her appreciation for my help and I assured her she would do fine. We would inevitably work together again. She was learning.
Emma has been a nurse for over thirty years, most of them at Hanley Memorial. She prefers the nursery and usually gets it. Everyone likes to have Emma in the nursery. Her expertise makes us all feel more secure. Her companion tonight was a heavy black woman with a ready smile and infectious laugh. She was only four years into the nursing profession, although she was over forty. Our facility required at least a year of general nursing experience before transferring to a specialty area, and this lady had finally managed a transfer onto the peri-natal unit after paying her dues upstairs on the medical floor. She had a few weeks behind her, and felt secure to handle the handful of babies under her supervision while Emma spent half an hour with me in the lounge.
We had not worked together in awhile and played catch up, which meant a bit of gossip about our co-workers and the general workings of the maternity floor. Emma’s life was her profession and her grandchildren. She had been divorced for years. I could not imagine what she would do without either, nor could I imagine the maternity floor without Emma.
We chatted and chewed for over twenty minutes before she eyed me speculatively and said, “So, you haven’t said anything about your little excitement last week. You’re not usually so closed mouthed.”
I shrugged. “You’re the first person to really ask. A couple of people commented on it Sunday while we were running around and I just said I was doing okay, which I am.”
“So, this finding a body on the floor thing did not freak you out? This is part of the daily routine for you, finding dead people?”
“Emma! Of course not. It was awful, really. She and I were friendly neighbors and she was a lovely lady. At the time it was like a bad dream, surreal. Of course I’ve seen bodies before. I’ve been a nurse almost as long as you have.”
“The newspaper said she was shot in the head.” My companion shivered. “That’s why I was never interested in trauma nursing. That would have put me over the edge.”
“She wasn’t shot. She had been hit with a blunt object,” I replied tersely.
“That made the body easier to look at?”
What came to my mind were the graphic movies Emma liked to watch. She had no problem with that, or with describing it to anyone who would listen. Instead of saying so I told her how the body had been when Barry and I found it, using general terms. She was interested and listened without interrupting.
“Aren’t you nervous being alone at night? I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. In your shoes, I would be looking for somewhere else to live. No one’s going to forget an old lady was killed in that place.”
Emma spoke emphatically her lips pursed in disapproval at the nerve of someone getting knocked off and ruining the neighborhood.
I shook my head, “It hasn’t been like that. The police patrol religiously and I’ve spotted two new canines in our neighborhood since that Wednesday. But I don’t feel threatened anyway. Whoever did this is long gone.” I disagreed with her conclusion. Time heals memories.
“How do you know that?” Emma’s eyes widened behind her thick lenses.
“It’s hard to explain,” I was feeling defensive, “but from what I know about how she died, and that no one ransacked her house, it doesn’t make sense there’s a serial killer on the loose.”
“Huh!” My co-worker’s snort told me what she thought about my deductions. “They should have caught him by now. The longer it takes to catch the killer the less chance there is of solving the crime; you know that, don’t you? The cops are going to have to realize we don’t live in some little hick area anymore and get with the program.”
“Oh? What else do you think the police should be doing?” I asked innocently. I got up and poured myself another half cup of coffee.
“How would I know? That’s not my line. But everybody knows crime is going up around here. Law enforcement better get a handle on it.”
The hostility in her voice irritated me. I opened my mouth to defend Detective White and his cohorts, but the intercom interrupted me. A woman threatening pre-term labor was on her way in.
Murmuring a see you later to Emma, I thought snidely she had put too much red in her hair this time. I also thought we should limit our conversations to nursing and our families.
My new patient’s contractions were not serious and easily stopped with medication and coaxing her to drink a quart of water. After three hours she went home on bed rest. Two hours later I was able to leave on time for my own bed.
Emma’s attitude was still irritating me. It took awhile to push it to the back of my mind and go to sleep. When the alarm went off at one o’clock it came back to nag me. It seemed so unfair. Did other people in the community feel the same way? While brushing my teeth I made a mental note to ask Anne Carey if she had encountered any of the same attitudes. As I went to the refrigerator for orange juice, I decided to push the whole thing aside by getting on a completely different track. Curled up in my bathrobe, large juice in hand, I called my daughter.
Amazing. She was at home.
“Amazing. You’re at home,” I said when she answered on the second ring.
“Mom!” She actually sounded glad to hear from me. That was nice. Janelle has the maddening habit of sounding preoccupied, which makes me feel like I’ve always called at the wrong time.
“Thought it was time to check in with you, Hon, and see how things are going.”
“Things are fine, Mom. I was going to call you this weekend.”
Janelle always says that. You can wait three months to get in touch with her, but she’ll still insist she was on her way to the phone when you finally ring her up. It did not seem wise to point that out, so I went on to ask her how was Boston, how was her job, et cetera. My daughter had been out east for almost three years, with a job as computer consultant she assured me some people would die for. She was a huge success at what she did but Janelle would be. It was in her nature to be the best at whatever she accomplished.
She answered my questions as I expected she would. I sipped my drink and enjoyed hearing her voice, hearing her chatter.
“There is one thing different here,” her voice faltered.
“What?” I sat up straighter. This was going to be something major. For Janelle to admit there was a glitch in her well-ordered life was something of consequence.
“I’ve told you about Robert, haven’t I? I must have. We’ve been seeing each other for months.”
Warning signs went out all over me. The only Robert she had mentioned was one of her bosses. “This wouldn’t be the guy who you just casually meet for lunch now and then? The one who was in the middle of a divorce?”
“That was months ago,” she protested, “the divorce has been final for a long time.”
By my hasty mental calculations it was two months at the most. “So, am I reading right that you and Robert have been dating? This is the man who has two children, was married for ten years, and is about ten years older than you are?” It was hard, but I was certain my voice was even and controlled.
There was a long pregnant pause before Janelle continued. “Okay, yes, that’s him. You make it sound like he’s an adulterous cradle robber or something, Mom, for Pete's sake. You don’t even know him.” It must run in the family, I thought. She was using the same measured tone of control in her voice that I was.
“I can’t argue with that,” I admitted. “But his credentials leave something to be desired upon presentation to the girlfriend’s mother.”
My girl answered that by emphatically stating how great a catch this guy was, that women were throwing themselves at him.
“How terrible for him,” I replied unsympathetically. Another pause. At least she hadn’t hung up. It was time to change tracks. “Honey I’m sorry, really. You just threw me. There was something you were going to tell me, and obviously Robert is a big part of it, and we got sidetracked here. What were you going to say?”
“Just that I am seeing him, seriously,” her voice was cautious.
“For you to say that it must be.” If Janelle had ever really cared for anyone before, it had escaped me. Her dating had always been casual, and over the years I had seen several boys back off in disappointment when they realized she did not want to become involved. A few weeks before his death Michael had remarked, only partially in jest, we might have an old maid on our hands. I had taken exception to the term, and pointed out Janelle would never be on our hands, as independent as she was. Besides, at the time she was only twenty-three. Michael had laughed at my protests. She could come home in her middle age and take care of us, he added, ducking to escape the shoe I threw at him.
“He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met, Mom,” she continued, unable to quite keep the eagerness out of her voice. Why is it people in love can never come up with anything original, even Janelle. It was an echo of my own voice so many years before. Admittedly, the first time had not been when I met my spouse to be. I was positive at sixteen Donald Sorenson was the only one for me. My daughter, as I have said, had never before described a male to me using these words. Of course she was a late bloomer.
I turned my full attention to what she was saying. Someone in love, or who thinks they are, needs their mother to listen up. I heard how patient, kind, sensitive, and mature Robert was. I listened to an explanation of how their relationship had gone from friends to “more than that, now.” She did not get any more specific on that point. She moved on to how much they had in common, which included jogging and a love for Mexican food. That part sounded lame to me. Why, oh why, did my daughter’s first real love interest have to be someone who was on the second cycle?
Janelle was finishing, “So I know you’ll have some reservations about this, but I really want you to know. I couldn't keep anything this important from you.”
Lord, give me wisdom, I thought fervently. “We wouldn’t have much between us if we didn’t have honesty, would we?” I asked her softly.
“No,” she replied cautiously, “but I’m not sure I’m going to like where you’re trying to lead with that.”
“Maybe you won’t,” I allowed, “but I think you’re woman enough to take it. Can I have my say?”
There was an audible sigh into the receiver. “I can guess part of it, but go ahead.”
I plunged in. “You probably do have a good idea what I’m going to say and you should. But sometimes we need it verified from someone. Your Robert needs time to recover himself from what he’s just been through, or he should. That may include lunches with a sympathetic ear a la employee, casual friend, but I get red flags all over about a man who is getting serious about someone else already. Are you ready to take him baggage and all? What I hear you saying is, you are caring for this guy more than anyone else you ever dated. You have always given a hundred and fifty percent when you commit yourself. Are you ready for child support payments and giving up all your weekends for his children’s visits? I assume from what you say about him he wants to be involved in their lives, as he should be.” I desperately wanted to know what had broken Robert’s marriage up in the first place, but knew I would not get an unbiased response even if I asked. “That’s one of the major things that come to mind, honey. You’re a big girl, now. You’ll do what you want. But please don’t ignore warning signals. If this guy is the man you think he is, he’ll understand.”
There was another pause, but not uncomfortable. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“I could go on,” I admitted, “but what would be the sense? Those things needed to be said. The rest is up to you.” Then I added very impulsively, “You are such a lovely girl, Janelle. I’m glad you haven’t fallen for every smooth line and handsome face that comes along. You always dig deeper. Please be careful. Don’t do anything here you’ll regret.”
My daughter responded lovingly, reassuringly, and I had to be content with that. It was not until after we said goodbye that I realized she had been too immersed in her own affairs to ask me anything about mine. The timing was good for that.