Tuesday, April 5
10:30 a.m.
For the second day in a row, Elise made the thirty-minute trek out to Paleville, New Jersey. But this time she drove past the diner and the police department, turning down a small side street bordered by massive dogwood trees waiting for spring to bring their blooms.
She was both excited and apprehensive about her meeting with Genevieve Daltry. If there was anyone who knew what young Hannah had gone through following her ordeal in the bank, it would be her mother. The insights the woman could provide would be invaluable in writing her article. But sitting down with the loved one of a victim was always hard. Their grief was new, raw. And Elise’s sensitive nature usually left her crying as well.
Slowing at the first stop sign, she looked ahead and to the right, the soft yellow corner of the Paleville Gardens Assisted Living Apartments peeking out from behind a row of still bare maple trees just as the receptionist had described. It was a beautiful setting with walking trails and small ponds, park benches and picnic pavilions scattered across the well-manicured grounds of the facility. The kind of place that the elderly deserved to live in after a lifetime of hard work.
She maneuvered her car into a parking spot and grabbed her backpack purse with her notebook and pen inside. The list of questions she’d compiled for Hannah’s mother was very different from the one she’d made yesterday for Detective Brunetti.
Several residents were sitting on a bench beside the front door enjoying the unseasonably warm day as Elise approached.
“Good morning, it sure is a beautiful day, isn’t it?” She stopped and admired the small basket one woman was weaving. “Wow, you do great work.”
The cotton-topped woman of about eighty grinned from the praise. “Thank you. I’ve been making baskets since I was knee-high. My grandmother Rosetti taught me.”
“Well, you were a good student.” Elise hoisted her backpack purse a bit higher on her arm. “Can you tell me where to find Genevieve Daltry? Is there a place I need to check in at before I can visit?”
A frail man with a gray cap and a loose-fitting sweater nodded. “Genevieve is in apartment 2B. Are you here to spend a little time with her?”
Elise nodded. “I am.”
She strained to hear the man as he continued, his words soft yet well spoken. “Good. Genevieve has been through so much this week. She misses her Hannah terribly. If you bring that ray of sunshine you have on your face, that should help a little.” The man lifted his wrinkled hand from his lap and grasped Elise’s. “A warm smile can make a world of difference at times.”
Good advice no matter what the circumstance. Thanking them for their time, Elise walked over to the large glass doors, stepped inside as they swished open.
A short, stout woman looked up from behind a desk just inside the entranceway. “May I help you?”
“Yes, please. I’m here to see Genevieve Daltry in apartment 2B.”
The woman tilted her head downward and peered at Elise over the top rim of her glasses. “Is Mrs. Daltry expecting you?”
“She is. My name is Elise Jenkins.”
“Just one moment.” Dorothy—according to the tag on her shirt—flipped through a thin stack of notes, stopping when she came to one with a pink border. “Why, yes, here we go. This says that you are welcome to go straight down to her apartment.”
Elise extended her hand in Dorothy’s direction. “Thank you.”
The woman lowered her voice, looking to both sides before speaking. “Mrs. Daltry could use a little company. It’s been hard for her this week. We’ve all spoken with her, expressed our sympathies upon the death of her daughter, but it’s hard to know what to say sometimes. And we’re all grieving in our own ways. Hannah was a delight. Everyone here loved her.”
There was nothing to do but nod. If she said anything more, she might get teary-eyed herself. It had been that way her whole life. She’d cry over a dead cat in the road. Wipe her eyes at the end of the Miss America pageant. It didn’t matter what it was, but she felt people’s hurt and joy deep inside. Having known the victim herself just brought that emotion up a notch.
“She was, indeed, special.” Elise started to step away from the counter, then stopped. “How do I find her apartment?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just get to talking sometimes.” Dorothy came from behind the counter and pointed down a hallway to her left. “Go to the end and turn right. Mrs. Daltry’s apartment will be the second from the end off that second hallway.”
She thanked the woman then made her way in the direction of apartment 2B. Each door along the route was decorated a bit differently. Some had a wreath, some a welcome sign, others a door hanger . . . all giving a quick glimpse of the personality that lived inside.
When she reached Genevieve Daltry’s closed door, she inhaled slowly and waited a few moments before knocking. She wanted to be a positive force in the elderly woman’s day, not one that brought more pain.
Realizing she was as ready as she’d ever be, she raised her fist and knocked softly. Once, twice.
The door slowly opened and a woman roughly two inches shorter than Elise appeared. Her soft gray hair was neatly styled in a bob, her warm hazel eyes glistened with moisture. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Daltry, I’m Elise Jenkins, we spoke yesterday?” She shifted from foot to foot, hoping the woman would remember their telephone conversation.
“Jenkins. Jenkins.” A look of understanding filtered across her face, followed by a slight smile. “Of course, yes. Please come in.”
Genevieve stepped to the side and motioned Elise into her tiny but tastefully decorated apartment. “I’m sorry for the mess.”
Elise grasped the woman’s hand and held it gently. “Please, everything is fine. I’m here to see you.”
“I miss my Hannah so much.” Genevieve’s voice broke as the woman worked to regain her composure. “She was one of a kind.”
Following Hannah’s mother over to the sitting room, Elise perched on the edge of a floral wing chair. “As I explained to you on the phone yesterday, I only met your daughter once—on the first day of my creative writing class. But she was wonderful. So enthusiastic. So encouraging. I am sad that I won’t get to know her better.”
The woman disappeared into a room off the living room and returned with two books. One appeared to be an album, the other something homemade and tied together with red ribbons. She sat on the corner of the sofa closest to Elise. “Let me help you do just that.”
Page by page they looked through the photo album, a gift from Hannah the previous Mother’s Day. Each page was laid out in a theme that corresponded with the pictures, three to four for each year of their life together.
There was Hannah as an infant in the hospital, Hannah learning to walk on the beach for the very first time. Birthday parties and holidays followed, the first day of kindergarten on a page of its own.
“Hannah was such a good student from the very beginning. Always eager to learn. Eager to grow.” Genevieve ran a thin wrinkly finger across a picture of a smiling Hannah of about six or seven. “She loved life. Was always so happy, so trusting, so centered. And then it changed.”
“Changed?” Elise bent over the page they’d stopped on, smiling at the little girl making angels in the snow.
“Yes. Being separated from me that day terrified her. She was never quite the same after that.”
Elise snapped her head up, realizing that Genevieve was referring to the robbery.
“Sure, she was still happy and giving. But something had changed. There was a sadness that would creep up unexpectedly. Sometimes she’d talk to me, share her fears. But sometimes she’d disappear into her room and escape into the pages of a book.” The woman slipped her arms into a sweater and pulled it close to her body.
She waited to see if Hannah’s mother would continue, unsure of whether she should question her now or give her more time to feel comfortable.
“As time went by, Hannah stopped talking about it altogether. She focused her attention on her writing and her schooling. I thought she’d put it behind her, moved on. But if she wrote about it for your class as you told me on the phone, then I was sadly mistaken.” Genevieve pulled her gaze off the album and met Elise’s, the lines around her eyes deepening with grief. “Did you bring the essay with you?”
Patting her purse, Elise nodded. “I did. Would you like to see it?”
The woman’s lips trembled as they stretched outward in a tentative smile. “Oh, yes, please. Very much.”
Elise pulled her purse onto her lap and extracted the folded sheet of paper. “I’ve read this so many times over the past week I feel as if I have it memorized. Your daughter had an amazing gift as a writer.”
Genevieve took the paper from Elise’s hand and slowly unfolded it, her hands shaking with each movement. It was heartbreaking to watch, yet Elise couldn’t help but sense there was a feeling of anticipation and excitement emanating from the woman.
She looked down at her hands intertwined in her lap, anxious to give the woman a few moments alone with her daughter’s words. Words she was reading for the very first time.
After several long minutes, the woman cleared her throat and handed the sheet of paper back to Elise. “This is the first time I feel as if I’ve been inside her head since that morning. She’d told me in quiet moments during the days and months that followed that she’d been scared. But reading this actually put me in her heart. Thank you.”
Elise put her hand against Genevieve’s. “No. Please. You keep it. I can get a copy from one of my fellow classmates. I’d like you to have this.”
Hannah’s mother covered her mouth with her hand as a few tears quietly slipped down her cheeks. After a long, silent pause, she spoke, her words slightly garbled and shaky. “Thank you. I will treasure it. Always.”
Desperate to help the woman, Elise focused on the homemade book tied together by red ribbons. “What’s that? It looks special.”
Genevieve closed her eyes briefly, wiped at the tears with the back of her small, bony hand. When she opened them again, she nodded. “It is.”
Shifting the photo album to the empty sofa cushion beside her, Genevieve replaced it with the homemade book of colorful pages. “When Hannah was about ten or eleven, she started writing. Storybooks, essays, poems, short stories, you name it, she wrote it.
“Looking back now, I think it was about that same point that she stopped talking about her experience. Perhaps her writing provided a needed escape . . . a way to forget. I certainly hope so.”
Elise reached for the woman’s hand again. “I bet it did. My writing does that for me as well. It’s helped me through some tough patches in my life. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. But always welcome.”
The woman nodded, her eyes a little less sad when she smiled at Elise and placed her free hand on top of both of theirs. “I’m glad you came today. It’s helped more than you can know.”
She could feel her eyes stinging, a lump in her throat forming. “I’m so glad.”
They sat that way for a few moments, each content to be in each other’s presence. Elise, because she was helping. Genevieve, she suspected, because it was a chance to talk about her beloved daughter.
Finally, the woman inhaled deeply and straightened her shoulders. “Now, what can I do for you?”
Elise fiddled with the hem of her skirt, then let it drop back to her legs as she reached for her notepad and pen. “Why did the police keep Hannah’s presence in the bank quiet? Surely the third suspect would have known she couldn’t identify him, right?”
“True. His face was covered. The likelihood of her identifying him was next to nothing.” Genevieve leaned back slowly, rested her back against the sofa, her words soft and faraway as she seemed to slip back thirty-five years. “But the police felt the man could simply get spooked, react irrationally. Though my feeling was always that he’d put as much distance between himself and Paleville as possible.”
A question popped into her head as the woman spoke, one that had no real significance yet suddenly seemed so important. Blatant curiosity, no doubt. “Mrs. Daltry? Hannah differentiated between the three men in her writing. Do you know which man got away?”
Elise watched as the woman tipped her head back and closed her eyes, her slim mouth nibbled inward on one side. When she reopened them, she looked down at her daughter’s words. “I’m sad to say, she never talked about that day in this much detail with me. I knew there were three. I always knew she thought one of them had been scared. But I didn’t know she’d tagged them by impressions.
“But now that I see her words, I’m fairly certain it was the one she calls”—Genevieve ran her finger down the page, stopping at the fifth paragraph—“Blue Squiggle Man.”
“Why?” Elise asked quickly.
“Because the other two—the ones who were shot and killed—were still lying on the sidewalk when the rest of us were removed from the building. The two men were covered by sheets, but their feet must have been showing because Hannah whispered something about the Work Boot Guys. I just never understood what she meant until just now.”
She leaned forward, anxious to hear as much detail as possible. “Do you remember what she said?”
Genevieve nodded. “I do. It came rushing back when you asked your question. I had my arm around her shoulders and a police officer was on her other side . . . trying to shield her from seeing too much. I remember her feet slowing down and seeing her look over her shoulder as we passed the sheets. She said, ‘Work Boot Guys weren’t as fast this time.’”
It may have been highly inappropriate, but she laughed softly at Hannah’s words. Not out of disrespect, but simply because they fit perfectly with the little girl in the story. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Daltry, I’m not laughing at the situation. It just seems so fitting.”
The elderly woman nodded, a slight smile tugging at her lips as well. “It is, isn’t it? Hannah was always the underdog’s champion. And I suppose, in some way, she saw Blue Squiggle Man as being the underdog in that threesome.”
They laughed together for a few moments, the cloud of sadness that had hovered in the room suddenly lifting. When Genevieve finally spoke again, her voice was still sad but tinged with pride.
“Hannah was a wonderful little girl and an amazing woman. I feel blessed to have been the one God chose to be her mother.”