Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 02 - Rekindling Motives (4 page)

“Any time,” she said, looking up.

I opened the wardrobe and was surprised at how tightly packed it was.
I pulled out about six inches of old wooden hangers and their contents on the far left, and immediately sneezed a bunch of times. My arms were full, so I leaned over and rubbed my nose on my shoulder.
Gross.

I turned and threw the batch of clothes toward Gracie and reached into my pocket for a tissue.
A couple of good blows and I turned back to the wardrobe. The next group of clothes was much heavier, maybe winter clothes, I thought, so I put half of them back in the wardrobe. As I gathered the clothes the man’s suit closest to me felt stiff, and I held it back to look at it.

My scream was instinctive and, Gracie said later, very loud.
I had a good look at the head of the skeleton before it rolled onto the floor and I jumped back to topple through the open trap door.

CHAPTER THREE

I ONLY WENT TO THE HOSPITAL because Gracie insisted.
She had grabbed my shoulders so my head didn’t hit the floor very hard. It was my derrière that hurt, and I walked hunched over down the steps to the first floor.

I have to give Gracie credit.
She was very calm until we actually got to the hospital. Then, with me in the capable hands of a nurse, she began to cry in deep gulps. “I thought,” she said, “you were going to end up dead.”

I eased onto the gurney, with the nurse’s help.
“Somebody sure did,” I said.

This stopped her tears.
“Do you suppose…did you ever hear the story?” Gracie started groping in her purse for a tissue.

“If you can’t lie on your back, turn so you face me,” the nurse was saying.
“I need to take your blood pressure.”

“Aunt Madge told me something about your grandmother’s brother.”

“Are you Madge Richards’s niece?” the nurse asked. “You were in the paper again yesterday, weren’t you?”

“Ouch.
Yes.” I tried to get comfortable, but it was a losing battle.

“Our tenth high school reunion,” Gracie sniffed.
“Who would have thought we’d find a skeleton in the attic?”

“Skeleton?” the nurse looked up sharply from trying to fasten the blood pressure cup to my arm.
“Where?”

At this, I got the giggles.
All I could think of was a skeleton in the closet.

Gracie sat up straighter.
“It could have been murder, you know.”

“Whose murder?” the nurse asked, aghast.

Gracie hesitated. “Well, one of my grandmother’s brothers disappeared. This was a long time ago.”

“Aunt Madge said 1929,” I added.

“I’ll need to call the police,” the nurse said.

“Why?”
Gracie and I asked.

“It’s my responsibility,” she said, and left the room.

We looked at each other. “Does it really hurt?” Gracie asked.

“I’m sure it’s just bruised.”
Seeing her worried expression, I added, “I’m too well padded to do any real damage to my buns.”

She smiled weakly.
“Should I call your aunt?”

“No need,” Aunt Madge said, as she pulled the curtains aside and walked into the tiny examining room.
“Sonya at the front desk knows me from the Red Cross.”

“You know everyone,” I said, wishing that my activities were not so immediately known.
Sometimes it feels like I live in a bubble.

Aunt Madge extended her hand to Gracie and they introduced themselves.
“I knew your grandmother and mother, of course,” Aunt Madge said.

“Of course,” I said.

“Don’t be sullen, Jolie.
You aren’t hurt that badly,” she admonished.

“Maybe I broke my back,” I said, preferring sympathy to scolding.

She raised an eyebrow. “I suppose you should tell me what happened,” she said, pulling up a chair and then looking at her watch. Every afternoon, Aunt Madge makes homemade bread for her guests at the B&B, so I knew she would want to get back there within an hour.

We relayed the events at the Tillotson house, and I played down my fall from the attic.
“Really,” I said, “Gracie made such a good catch she’s thinking of trying out for the Mets.”

“Try the Yankees,” she said, and even Aunt Madge smiled.

WHEN I HIT THE FLOOR, the sharp pain seemed to go from my butt to my toes, and then settled in my tailbone. It turned out I had cracked my tailbone. Obviously this would be easier to recover from than a cracked skull, but I’m not sure it’s less painful. I had no idea that wiggling your toes could cause so much pain. And getting off the sofa in Aunt Madge’s great room was like getting spanked with a paddle.

I had slept on the sofa so as not to have to walk up the flight of steps to the room I share with Jazz.
Much as I love my cat, I was furious with her. The chipmunk was still in residence under the book case, and several times during the night Jazz had walked over and stuck her paw through the small oval opening at the bottom of the bookcase, which caused the chipmunk to chatter incessantly for almost a minute each time.

I relayed this
to Aunt Madge when she came out to start the coffee pot for her guests. “At least you know where the darn little thing is,” I said. I had gotten off the sofa and was making my way to the powder room that adjoined the great room. This was harder than usual, as I was at a forty-five degree angle, staring at the floor as I walked.

“I’ve been keeping it in there by putting little bits of nuts and water under the bookcase,” she said as she opened the can of coffee and began measuring it into the coffee maker.
“I don’t want it strolling into the dining room.”

I half straightened up, winced, and bent back over.
“You’re trying to domesticate it?”

“Don’t be a twit.
Next time I see Adam I’m going to ask him to move the bookcase. I’ll have the door open and the poor thing can run out.”

Because Scoobie has never corrected her use of his proper name, I recently asked him if he wanted me to use it.
“Do I look like an ‘Adam’?” he’d asked.
Case closed.

It was just as well that I could not straighten up enough to look in the bathroom mirror.
I knew my shoulder-length brown hair with its blonde highlights was hanging in clumps, and I had not taken off my eye make-up the night before. I likely would not be able to raise my arms enough to style my hair with the dryer, so I’d have to get used to looking like a drowned rat for a couple of days.

It was becoming apparent that I would have to break down and take another one of the pain pills the hospital doctor had given me.
Since it’s hard to think clearly on narcotics, I try to avoid them and had been taking only aspirin.
Bad idea.

As I made my way back to the couch I heard Aunt Madge emit what could only be called a giggle.
“What is it?” I asked.

She crossed the room and held back my covers so I could climb onto my makeshift bed.
“It won’t surprise you that the paper mentions you finding the body.”

I groaned as I lifted my legs onto the sofa.
“Skeleton. There’s a big difference.” I met her eyes and could tell she was suppressing a laugh. “What?”

“Your friend
George Winters did not make the skeleton the prime focus of the article.” She handed me the paper.

While appraising the home of the late Mrs. Audrey Tillotson Fisher, Ocean Alley resident Jolie Gentil discovered a skeleton hidden in an attic wardrobe packed with clothes.
There is speculation that it may be the remains of Richard Tillotson, Audrey Fisher’s brother, who was reported missing in 1929.

When asked if he suspected foul play, Ocean Alley Police Sgt. Morehouse said, “We will have to determine whether there was any reason for prior owners to have a skeleton such as those used in medical schools.
At this point we’ve no reason to think so.” When asked if he though it could be Richard Tillotson’s body, he merely said, “If so, and DNA tests might show this, it would certainly confirm that he did not leave his home in 1929 of his own accord.”

I looked up at Aunt Madge.
“Did not leave of his own accord?”

“It gets better,” she said.

Tillotson was said to have had an argument with his sister Audrey’s husband, Peter Fisher, on the couple’s wedding day, which was two days before he disappeared. Fisher believed that Tillotson may have deliberately stepped on the bride’s wedding gown – nearly causing her to trip – as Richard Tillotson escorted his sister into the ceremony. Several older residents in town said they heard that Richard left because he was ashamed of his behavior the day of his sister’s wedding.

An upset Gracie Fisher Allen, Audrey’s granddaughter, said that she was never sure whether this story was true or something people made up after the fact to account for her grandmother’s brother’s disappearance.
“I heard my great-grandmother didn’t want to think that Richard deserted the family.”

Allen explained that Gentil had offered to throw some of the attic’s many items down to Allen, who stood on the landing below.
“I certainly didn’t expect to find a skeleton, and I know Jolie was really surprised when the skull fell off at her feet. She lost her balance and fell through the trap door. I was just barely able to catch her head.”

A hospital staff member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Gentil had cracked her tailbone but did not stay overnight at the facility.
Instead, the hospital provided her with painkillers and a foam donut, to make sitting more comfortable.

“What happened to all those privacy forms I signed?” I yelled, then winced.

Aunt Madge nodded. “That was very inappropriate.” I could tell she was still trying not to smile. “Would you like one of those painkillers the article mentions?”

“No.”
I frowned at her and she raised an eyebrow. “No thank you. Well, maybe later.”

News accounts of Richard Tillotson’s 1929 disappearance contain a number of interviews with family members and friends, but provide little information.
Several people remembered seeing Richard late the night of his sister’s wedding. He was serenading the newlyweds under their hotel room window, with Fisher shouting from the window that Tillotson should go home. Tillotson ate dinner with his family the next night and said he was going back to the store after dinner. Staff of Bakery at the Shore, which Tillotson and Fisher operated together, said Tillotson was not in the store the next day, and they expected he was “hung over.” He was reported missing later that day, when he did not go to the train station to bid the newlyweds goodbye as they left for their honeymoon.

I looked at Aunt Madge.
“Somebody had to kill him.”

She shrugged.
“I suppose so. I can’t imagine they’ll find out now. That was so many years ago. Anyone with first-hand information is long since dead. Peter Fisher died more than 25 years ago.”

THIS WAS EXACTLY Sergeant Morehouse’s take on it.
“Listen, Jolie,” he said when I found him at the police station a day later, “Any potential suspect is dead, there aren’t any suspects, and there’s plenty of current crimes to solve.”

“You mean you’re just going to let it alone?”
I did my best to look reproachful, but this was difficult when I was still slouched as much as a senior citizen with an osteoporosis hump in her back.

He took on the parental tone he uses with me when I’m bugging him.
“We aren’t letting it alone. Before your friend Gracie went back to Connecticut she gave us a blood sample. We’ll compare DNA from the skeleton to hers. That may tell us if she’s related to the guy.”

“You know it was a man?”

“The medical examiner says it was a man, yes. And,” his voice rose a bit as he saw I was about to interrupt him again. “If the DNA test shows the two are related we can pretty well figure it’s Richard Tillotson. Unless you have reason to think,” he gave me a smug look, “there might have been other missing Tillotsons or Fishers.”

I hate it when he patronizes me.
He has said several times that he appreciated my help in solving Ruth Riordan’s murder. I believe him, but I know he thinks I can be a busybody. I’m not. I’m just persistent, and I can’t stand loose ends.

He held up his hands when he could tell I was about to ask another question.
“Enough already. I’ve got current stuff to work on.” He stood and gestured toward the door of his small office, then seemed to take pity on me as I stood up from my hunched-over position. “If Gracie says it’s all right, I’ll call you when we get the DNA test results.” He shook his finger at me in a scolding gesture. “And it’ll be a few weeks at least. It’s not a high priority so we aren’t paying for a quick-turnaround.”

I nodded and called thanks as I walked into the hallway.
The officer at the front counter buzzed me out of the office area into the small waiting room that leads to the street. My strategy with glass doors, which seem a lot heavier when your tailbone hurts, has become to wait by them and pretend to be looking for something in my purse. When someone whose tailbone isn’t killing them comes along I let them open the door for me. I had rummaged for probably 30 seconds when I heard a polite cough behind me and looked up.

“Can I help you with that, ma’am?”
I looked into the face of Lieutenant Tortino, and he had the nerve to laugh. “Sorry Jolie,” he said as he swung open the door and stepped out ahead of me, “the way you were standing I thought it was someone older.”

I thanked him nicely, since he knows Aunt Madge pretty well, but his comment did not improve my mood as I drove toward Java Jolt, the boar
dwalk coffee house I frequent.

As I entered the shop, which has a lightweight wood door I could open myself, my eyes met those of Joe Regan, the affable owner.
“Coffee’s on the house Jolie, since you were in the paper today.”

“Thanks, Joe, that’s really nice of you.”
I pretended not to get his sarcasm, and set my purse and canvas tote bag that contained my foam donut on a chair and went over to serve myself. Java Jolt is one of the only boardwalk businesses open in the winter months, and its cozy atmosphere and free Internet access make it a popular place. Luckily it was not too busy now.