I spent a restless night dreaming that I was in a small boat, on the sea, in the dark. I was alone. Not just spatially, but at the deepest level of my soul. Rudderless and adrift in my life with no control. Just before dawn I saw a young woman with her arms outstretched sinking beneath the water. Every time I reached for her, she slipped farther and farther away. I awoke drained, confused, and unrefreshed.
I forced myself to drink an entire pot of tea before I felt comfortable getting behind the wheel for the drive back into Edinburgh. I was more awake, but less than three minutes from home I already needed the facilities, so I turned into Balfour’s high street and pulled up in front of the building that housed the Bennett Logan Memorial Trust, sprinting past a surprised Trish.
“Hiya, boss. What’s up?” Trish’s voice echoed down the hall after me with annoying chirpiness.
“Be there in a minute,” I called. Lying awake last night, I’d decided that I needed to know more about Jenny Woodyard if I had any chance of understanding why she died. If anyone could find out more about her, it was Trish the social media queen.
“I need you to do me a favor,” I said, emerging from the loo. “See what you can find out about a young woman named Jenny Woodyard. At least, that’s her married name. She might’ve gone back to her maiden name after she left her husband. You’ll have to check. I want to know if she’s been active online recently, and especially look for signs that she’s been bullied or confronted. Anything out of the ordinary. Just let me know what you find.”
“Right. Anything else?”
“Keep up with the filing project I left you, and well, yes, see if you can find out anything about a place called Manorcare in Glasgow.”
“Will do. You comin’ by again later today?”
I hated to say no because I knew that meant Trish would be varnishing her nails and popping off to the pub for a long lunch. “Maybe,” I hedged. “I have to make a couple of stops in town today, but I plan to be back by late afternoon.”
“Right, well, I have some more wedding things to do so I may take off a bit early.”
Translation, don’t look for me after lunchtime.
At the university, I did my best to focus on my lessons, but honestly the minutia of chemical reactive rates in brewer’s yeast was drifting over my head. I cleared out as soon as the lecture was concluded and showed up at the Rest at lunchtime, anxious to see if anyone had more to say about Jenny and Duncan Ross. Sheila answered the door and showed me in to the kitchen. She introduced me to the two women sitting at the table before going back to serving up tea and plates of sandwiches. “Girls, this is Abi Logan. She’s a friend of Amanda’s.”
The reception was underwhelming. Neither woman so much as looked my way. “I was so sorry to hear about Jenny,” I offered the room in general and received a brief nodding of heads. “Have you heard anything more from the police?” I directed that question toward Sheila.
“They’re waiting for the results of some kind of blood test before they say.”
“I thought it was suicide,” the woman across the table from me said with a frown.
“The police haven’t confirmed that,” I pointed out. “I only met Jenny the one time, but I have to say she didn’t seem suicidal to me.” No response. “Either of you think she was suicidal?”
“Didn’t really know her that well,” the woman across from me said, claiming another sandwich from the platter in the middle of the table. “Name’s Peggy, by the way,” she said through a mouthful of egg salad.
I smiled encouragingly. Peggy was a bit plump, with broad shoulders and large hands that looked like they’d washed more than their share of dishes over the years.
“Jenny was a hard worker. A lot of what she did was doling out meds to her geriatric patients. She was very particular. Can’t see her screwing up her own meds, unless it was on purpose,” Peggy concluded sadly. “I thought this place was going to be safe from all the outside madness.”
“It is,” Sheila insisted. “The others will tell you. Right, Karen?” Sheila directed her question to the woman at the head of the table. So far she hadn’t even looked up from the food on her plate.
I studied her from beneath my lashes, not wanting to pressure her. She looked to be quite young, but whether she was shy or unfriendly was hard to tell. Her dark hair looked as if it had been rinsed in juice from Greer Templeton’s beets. The magenta-tinged tresses were thick and straight and fell just below her shoulders. She tucked one side behind her ear but left the other to hang across her face like a curtain. She reminded me of a sullen teenager.
“I’ve been here almost six months,” she said finally. She didn’t look up but methodically traced the grooves in the wooden table with her fingernail. “There’s never been any trouble like this.”
“Did you know Jenny well?” I asked again.
“Yea. She was a tough kid. Still had demons to face down, but the depression gets us all. She was healing and clawing her way back to a good place and she wasn’t takin’ shite from anyone.”
“That doesn’t sound suicidal,” I remarked.
“Tell the cops that,” Karen muttered.
“Was anyone making her life difficult lately? Had her husband been in touch?”
“She said he wasn’t around now,” Peggy volunteered.
Karen retreated behind her hair again as the sound of footsteps in the hall announced a newcomer. Cheryl paused in the doorway and I had the feeling she would’ve turned and bolted if she hadn’t already been seen. Instead she came in, grabbed a sandwich from the platter on the table, and sat down next to Karen.
Sheila joined us at the table. “Did any of you talk to Jenny when she got back from Ross duty?”
Karen looked up suddenly. As she raised her head, I caught sight of the fine white scar that ran down the length of her cheek. Something sharp and thin had left that mark. A knife, if I had to guess. She quickly rested her hand on her face, covering the mark, her elbow on the table, but she continued to look at me.
No one answered. “Did Jenny often babysit for Duncan Ross?” I pressed.
“He uses all the women here as his own private household help,” Peggy muttered.
I looked to Sheila and raised an eyebrow. I hoped if she got the ball rolling the others might chime in, especially if they saw that she was comfortable sharing with me.
“Nasty piece of work that one,” Sheila said, taking the hint. “Just the way he looks at you gives me the creeps, and that wife of his is a right mess. Gone most nights,”
“Avoiding him, I’d say,” Peggy interjected.
Sheila smiled faintly in acknowledgment. “She has a problem with the drink,” Sheila explained for my benefit, “and neither of them gives a damn about those kids. They’re left to run wild. I worked as a nanny for them for three weeks not long after I arrived here, but you couldn’t pay me enough to stop with those little monsters any longer.”
“Does Ross pay you for babysitting?” I asked the other three.
Peggy looked from Karen to Cheryl before nodding yes. She seemed reluctant to speak, almost as if she were seeking permission.
“You ask a lot of questions,” Cheryl observed.
“Amanda doesn’t trust the police to find out what happened to Jenny,” Sheila said point-blank. “Seems like they’ve already made up their minds. She does trust Abi, so if you have anything you think might help, out with it.”
I hoped Sheila’s honesty would help, not hurt. “Do the Rosses live nearby?” I asked, changing tack.
“Cross the other side of town,” Peggy said.
“If you’re babysitting, how do you get there?
“Bus.”
“And you take the bus home?” I prompted.
Peggy narrowed her eyes slightly and paused before responding. “Yes, if it’s not too late. Otherwise, Ross usually drives you back here.”
“So you’re alone with him in the car,” I said. The statement was greeted by a deafening silence.
“Is it a problem, being alone with him in the car?” I pressed.
Sheila looked back and forth between me and the other women.
Cheryl finally offered, “I was told to steer clear of him when I first came here.”
“Why?”
“He’s a handsy bugger who doesn’t take no for an answer,” she snapped.
“Is that true?” I asked Peggy, watching Karen’s face all the while.
“ ’E’s never touched me,” Peggy said. “I suppose I should be glad I’m not his type, but I don’t escape completely. He’s got a nasty mouth on him. Sees your weak spots and plays on ’em every time. Calls me Piggy.”
I looked at her with eyes wide. “And you still went.”
Peggy nodded. “Needed the money, didn’t I.”
“He’s creative in the ways he gets what he wants,” Karen said finally. “Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s threats. He’s been known to threaten to tell your man where you’re hiding if you don’t cooperate. He’s a predator.”
Karen looked like the youngest in the group, yet for some reason the women were taking their lead from her.
“Good God.” I looked straight at Karen. “And you never reported him?”
“Our word against his, isn’t it,” she insisted. “They barely believe us when we say we’ve been brutalized at home. Try tellin’ ’em you were assaulted by the likes of Duncan Ross. You’d be laughed out of the cop shop.”
“If he’s such a jerk, why keep going back?”
“He pays extra if you’re willin’ to play his games.” Karen scowled. “We sure as hell don’t need him, but we all need his money. That’s the hard truth of it.” Peggy and Cheryl nodded in agreement.
“Did he threaten Jenny? Maybe told her he’d tell her husband where she was?”
“No idea,” Karen said.
I leaned my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands. What a mess. Duncan Ross had been unassuming enough last night, but I’d known plenty of men like him. One thing around their peers, and something completely different on their own turf. Small men who crave power and assert what little they have whenever they can.
I looked back at Karen. “Were you with him often?”
Karen shrugged. “For a bit, until new girls came along. He likes fresh meat.”
I turned to Cheryl. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you manage to steer clear of him?”
“No,” she said sullenly. “Like Karen said, we all need the money. I’m not proud of what I did.”
“And what about Jenny? Did she play his game?” I asked, trying to catch Karen’s eye.
She studied the table in front of her for a long time. “She didn’t want to and she was ashamed. But she did.”
What a bastard. “Did any of you see Jenny when she came back last night?” I asked again.
Sheila shook her head no. “I was down dealing with a backed-up drain till ten thirty or so. The dishwasher flooded the floor again and I was mopping up and waiting for Sam to show up.”
“Sam?”
“Our handyman. He came and unhooked the machine to stem the tide. Said he’d be back today with a new part.”
“So no one spoke to Jenny?”
“I heard her come in round eleven,” Cheryl said. “She was dead on her feet.” Cheryl abruptly fell silent realizing what she’d said. After a long pause she continued. “Jenny was exhausted. She was upset about losing her phone, but she was so tired, she pretty much went straight to bed.”
“She didn’t say anything at all about what happened last night?”
“Just that she was tired and probably shouldn’t have had that last drink.”
“What kind of drink?”
“Don’t know. We all help ourselves from the bar at the Rosses’ place after the kids go to bed. Not much else to do and they keep the good stuff in.”
Had Ross offered Jenny a drink and slipped her something? It certainly wasn’t unheard of and it would explain why she was so tired when she came home.
“And you didn’t hear anything unusual after you left Jenny’s room?” I asked Cheryl.
Cheryl shook her head emphatically. “No, nothing. Nothing at all. I’m a heavy sleeper.”
Duncan Ross. He’d been quiet at the meeting last night. Preoccupied and a bit detached from the debate going on around him. Was he focused on something else, like the fate of his victim from the night before? Ross was not a pleasant individual. I’d nailed him as the lizard man. Reptilian. Unsettling, calculating, and frustrated. In fact, there was an almost palpable frustration about Ross, an unfulfilled desire to be in control, and I suspected that he struggled with the fact that there was always someone like Urquhart standing in his way.
Peggy rose from the table and moved in the direction of the hall. “I’ve got to get back to work, but it was nice to meet ya.” She waved over her shoulder as she disappeared along the passageway.
Karen rose as well. “Steer clear of Ross. He’s bad news. Then again, you’d probably be fine,” she said bitterly. “You’re not his type. Too independent, too strong. Not damaged goods like the rest of us.”
Cheryl followed Karen to the sink and they began rinsing their plates.
“Leave them in the sink,” Sheila said. “I’m still waiting for Sam to get here and fix the bloody machine.”
Karen and Cheryl departed, leaving Sheila and me alone in the kitchen.
“I’d love to get another chance to talk to Duncan Ross, and get his version of what happened last night,” I said, “but I can’t think of any good reason for just showing up on his doorstep.”
“I may have just the thing,” Sheila replied. “We had a message from Mrs. Ross the other day saying she had some used clothing to donate to the Rest. She does this every three or four months. Always ridiculous stuff that none of the girls here would ever use. Evening gowns, wild fashion items that were in six months ago and are dead to her now. Still, we can’t be rude. I told her someone from the Rest would come and collect the stuff later today. Amanda was going to drive over after Woolies closed, but you could go instead. Not sure he’ll be there, but he might.”
“Worth a try.”
“Thank you for taking this on,” Sheila said. “I was very fond of Jenny. She was such a dear, sweet girl, and poor Amanda is devastated. She feels she let Jenny down somehow. I try to keep her from stressing more than she has to, but she feels so responsible for these girls. Anything you can do to help us find answers, good or bad, would be much appreciated.”
“I don’t think we’ll know any more till the lab results come back and we see what was in her bloodstream,” I observed, staring into the bottom of my cup and swirling the dregs around. No answers in the tea leaves, but maybe a clue in whatever it was that Jenny drank that night. “Ever heard any of the other girls say they felt odd when they came back from Duncan Ross’s place? Anyone unable to remember what happened to them?”
Sheila shook her head. “Some came back in tears, others angry, but none of them suggested they’d been drugged, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It was just a thought.” I admit I was grasping at straws, but so far I didn’t have much else to go on.
Sheila excused herself and went to retrieve the paperwork on the lease arrangement between Urquhart and the shelter that Amanda had unearthed for me. As I sat waiting, Sheila’s three words slipped into my head: solicitous, sturdy, and insightful. She was the rock that supported the women at the Rest. If she didn’t have insight into what was going on in Jenny’s world, I wasn’t sure how I was going to find out. But I had to try. Jenny had fallen into the abyss. The question was: Did she slip or was she pushed?