Finally Monica was on her way to Windhaven Terrace. She turned off the highway and headed toward downtown Holland. Within a few minutes she was passing Hope College again and then finally pulling into the driveway of the nursing home.
An ambulance with its bay doors open was idling in front of the entrance to Windhaven Terrace. Monica said a quick prayer that they weren’t there for Mildred Visser.
She went through the front door and into the lobby. Two EMTs standing on either side of a gurney were waiting for the elevator.
The receptionist was on the telephone, and while Monica waited for her to finish her call, the elevator arrived with a loud ping and the EMTs wheeled the gurney aboard. Finally the woman hung up the telephone and turned to Monica, handing her a visitor’s badge.
Monica pinned it to her sweater and headed toward the elevator. She pushed the button and the doors opened immediately. She hoped that wasn’t going to be the end of her streak of good luck.
No one immediately answered Monica’s knock, but she heard noise inside and finally Mildred Visser came to the door. She wheeled her wheelchair backward slightly and held the door open for Monica.
“It’s lovely to see you again, dear. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name though. Please do forgive me.”
“No problem.” Monica smiled. “It’s Monica Albertson.”
“Monica. What a lovely name. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with that name before. Please, have a seat.” She gestured toward a small armchair covered in a slipcover in a pink print and with a ruffle around the bottom.
Monica had decided to pretend as if she hadn’t already asked Mildred Visser about the photograph. It was unlikely she would remember that evening anyway.
“I wanted to talk to you about this old photograph,” Monica said, taking it from her purse and handing it to Mildred.
Mildred adjusted her glasses and peered at the photo. A smile spread across her face.
“They were so young then. And so full of hope. That’s Marta Kuiper”—she pointed at the picture—“and Joyce Murphy. Neither Marta nor Joyce ever married. They were both flower girls in my wedding. Unfortunately, I lost my Jack more than twenty years ago.” She looked up at Monica. “It was his heart. It had never been very strong. It ran in his family. His father died of a heart attack when he was only forty years old.”
“So Marta and Joyce were good friends,” Monica said.
“Yes.” Mildred frowned. She rubbed her forehead. “I seem to remember something happened, something tragic.”
Oh, please, Monica thought, try to remember.
“It was something to do with Marta and Joyce. If only I could remember. I know it threatened their friendship for quite a while, although they did eventually reconcile.”
Monica waited, trying not to feel discouraged. She heard the squeak of wheels as medicine carts were wheeled down the hall and the hum from the elevator.
Finally, Mildred’s face brightened.
“I do remember now. I just needed to give myself a moment to think. It happened so long ago, you see, although sometimes I think I remember things from back then better than I do things from yesterday.” She laughed. “The other day I misplaced my teeth and couldn’t find them anywhere. The aide found them under my pillow. Can you imagine?”
Mildred’s hands moved restlessly on the arms of her wheelchair. Her expression darkened. “Joyce had a boyfriend. His name was Matt. Matthew Meyer. He was a good-looking boy with thick blond hair and bright blue eyes.” Mildred laughed. “Well, how else would you expect a Dutchman to look!”
Monica smiled.
“Joyce was quite besotted with Matt. I think he was her first real boyfriend. She must have been around seventeen or eighteen, and he was a bit older. Not too much, maybe only a year or two.
“Marta was obviously quite taken with Matt as well. She got all flustered when she was around him. Now granted, Marta didn’t have a lot of experience with boys, but this went beyond that. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He used to tease her about it and that made Joyce mad.”
“Do you think Marta was really trying to steal Joyce’s boyfriend?”
Mildred tilted her head to the side. “Perhaps not in any calculated sort of way. She was too naïve for that. I don’t think she could help herself. She was attracted to him and she didn’t know enough to hide it.”
“But something happened?”
“Yes.”
Mildred turned her head and stared out the window. Monica noticed she had a lovely profile. She must have been quite beautiful at one time in a very patrician sort of way.
“Matt had a boat.” Mildred smiled. “It was barely more than a rowboat with a motor but he was quite proud of it. He spent hours working on it and he took it out on the big lake every chance he got. He was a bit wild and liked a thrill so he tended to speed across the lake no matter how high the waves were.
“One day Matt was down by the harbor preparing to take his boat out and Marta showed up. I don’t know what her intentions were, whether she had a valid reason to go down there or she had decided to follow Matt. But the result was that Matt invited her to go out on the boat with him.”
Monica raised her eyebrows. “Do you think he was interested in Marta?”
“I don’t know. I think he was flattered by her admiration. And at times he encouraged it. At the same time, I think he felt a bit sorry for her. Her life wasn’t easy. Her parents were so terribly strict and her father clutched the purse strings to the point where they sometimes had to go without basic necessities. So it wasn’t all that surprising that Matt offered to take her for a ride. He was like that, terribly kind in spite of that wild streak he had.”
“Did Marta go with him?” Monica was engrossed in Mildred’s story and had barely noticed the passage of time. The sun had moved from the far corner of the window to the middle and its rays were now shining on the floor of Mildred’s room.
“No one really knows what happened but empty beer cans were found in the bottom of the boat and Marta had clearly been drinking when the rescue workers reached her.”
“Rescue workers?”
Mildred nodded. “Yes. There was a terrible accident. They crashed into a buoy in the channel. Matt was thrown from the boat and they assume he must have hit his head. He was a good swimmer but still he drowned. That often happens, doesn’t it?” She looked at Monica with a sad smile. “It was weeks before they found his body.”
“How horrible.”
“When the rescue workers took Marta aboard their boat they said that she was quite drunk. No one knows how many of those beers she drank, but it wouldn’t have taken very many to get her drunk since I doubt she’d ever touched alcohol before. Her parents didn’t approve of drinking and were quite strict about it.”
“Did Joyce blame Marta for the accident?”
“Of course. She wanted to know what Marta had been doing on that boat with Matt when she wasn’t there. She blamed Marta for distracting Matt when he was driving the boat. Although frankly, it’s hard to imagine Marta doing that. And Matt had always been very reckless, everyone knew that.”
“What did Marta say?”
Mildred plucked at a loose thread in the woven throw over her knees. “She insisted the outing had been perfectly innocent.”
“Did Joyce believe her?”
“I don’t think so. At least not at first.” Mildred’s eyes closed briefly then fluttered open again. “Poor Joyce never did marry. She mourned for Matt and what could never be for so long that everything passed her by.”
“But Joyce must have come around because they became friendly again later in life,” Monica said.
“I guess Joyce was finally willing to let bygones be bygones.”
• • •
But had she really? Monica wondered as she pulled out of the parking lot of Windhaven Terrace. Or had she nursed her anger all these years until it turned into murderous rage?
Monica thought about it as she drove home. She found it hard to picture Joyce in the role of coldblooded killer. It was much easier to imagine John doing the deed. He had a financial incentive to get rid of Marta. What incentive did Joyce have? Surely by now her bitterness over losing her boyfriend must have faded.
She remembered a conversation she’d had with Joyce. Joyce had told her that Marta’s cousin Cheryl had been at the house the day Marta had died and Joyce had heard them arguing.
It was easier to imagine Cheryl killing Marta in a rage over having been tossed out of the house. She was living in her car and picking up food at the food pantry. Life with Marta, no matter how stark, had to have been better than that.
And don’t forget Dana, a little voice whispered to Monica. She had a financial incentive as well, out of a job and in disgrace. Perhaps she had turned to murder to solve her problems?
Monica groaned. She felt no closer to the solution than she had been the day they’d found Marta’s dead body.
She decided to put all thoughts of Marta’s murder out of her mind as she drove home. She flicked on the radio and tried to follow an interesting program on NPR, but when she finally pulled into the driveway of her cottage, she realized she’d barely heard a word that had been said.
Greg was at the stove stirring something in a pot when Monica walked in. The kitchen was redolent with good smells and Monica sniffed appreciatively as she hung up her jacket and scarf.
“That smells delicious,” she said, peering over Greg’s shoulder.
“Arrabbiata sauce for some pasta,” Greg said. He kissed Monica on the cheek. “What do you prefer, penne or rigatoni?”
“I’ll leave that up to the cook. Is there anything I can do?”
“Set the table maybe?” Greg turned around. “Let me get my things off first, though.”
Papers, Greg’s laptop, and a calculator were spread out over the kitchen table.
“I’ve been going over the store accounts,” he said as he gathered things together.
“Is everything okay?” Monica paused with her hand on the cupboard door.
“Fine. Just routine bookkeeping.”
Monica opened the cupboard, took out bowls, silverware and napkins and carried them to the table.
Mittens wandered into the kitchen, stopped to stretch and then casually walked over to her dish and peered into it.
“I haven’t forgotten you,” Monica said and reached for the bag of cat food. She filled the dish and added some of Mittens’s favorite wet food on top.
“Did you have any luck with your source today?” Greg paused in his stirring.
Monica smiled inwardly at Greg’s use of the word source.
“Yes. I did learn something new. It turns out that—”
Monica’s cell phone rang, interrupting her.
“Hello?”
Monica was surprised to hear Dana’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Monica, I’m at Marta’s house. You won’t believe this but my memory is starting to come back.”