And when she finally calmed down, Patsy was still laughing, but added, “No, they’re exactly the same here too. They’re just trying to wear us women down a whole lot faster because, you know, hey, there’s no more time for them, so they have to work a little bit harder. But most of the women here don’t have to be convinced too much,” she noted. And then she looked over at Doreen. “But I won’t bore you with the details, or you’ll turn fifty shades of pink as it is.”
Her reference to the fifty shades part had to be deliberate, and, sure enough, Doreen felt her own ears turning pink at the comment. “Do you remember who it might have been?”
“Well, obviously I haven’t forgotten,” she replied. “I just told you that he was younger.”
“And is he a resident or staff?”
“Quick comment,” she said approvingly. “You’re sharp. I like that. He used to be staff. And now he’s a resident. Or was? So, in your case, both of those apply.”
“Name?” Doreen asked, knowing this Patsy woman knew exactly who she was talking about and was just trying to decide whether she should help Doreen or not.
“What’s in it for me?” Patsy asked.
“And what is it you want?” Doreen asked. “Considering that you’re at this stage of life and pretty well don’t care what you have or don’t have,” she said equally bluntly.
At that, Patsy smiled. “Your grandmother took me off the betting charts. I was really miffed at that.”
“What did you do to deserve it?” she asked.
Patsy looked at her with a crafty glance. “I might have cheated.”
“Then I’m not surprised she took you off. I’ll mention it to her, but, if you’ll cheat, I don’t think she wants you in her orbit.”
Patsy nodded. “It was foolish. And I didn’t do it to win money I wasn’t due. I just wanted to test her.”
“And now?”
“Yeah, now I know who she is and what she’s like.” Patsy sighed. “But I didn’t think getting back in her good graces would be this hard.”
“Well, I’ll talk to her, but no guarantees. And of course you have to give me something seriously good in order to warrant that.” She wondered at why she had to negotiate the truth out of somebody like Patsy, but Doreen somehow understood that that implicitly was part of this game.
“His name is Xavier, Xavier Zelnick.”
“Interesting, and why do you think he could possibly be a suspect?”
“I have no idea,” she replied, looking over at her. “You didn’t ask me for any suspects. You just asked what the name of her boyfriend was.”
“Fine. Do you have any idea of anybody who would be a suspect?”
“No, sure don’t.” Patsy gave Doreen a fat grin. “But you’re still going to talk to your grandmother, aren’t you?”
“I will. A deal’s a deal.” And, with that, Doreen turned and walked out, leaving Patsy cackling behind her.
More than tired and fed-up, Doreen headed back to her grandmother’s place to see her sitting on the couch, resting gently and alone. Her eyes were closed, as Doreen came around to look at Nan but hesitated.
“I’m fine,” Nan said, without opening her eyes. “Stop fussing.”
“That’ll be the day.” Doreen sat down beside her grandmother on the couch.
“How did you make out with everybody?” Nan asked, looking over at Doreen curiously.
“Well, I had some interesting talks with some very interesting people.”
“Place is full of them,” she replied. “Just when you think you got them all figured out, somebody comes along and changes the dynamic, and people do things that you just didn’t think were even possible.” Nan shrugged. “I can’t tell you how many times I thought I knew somebody, until they did something so wildly out of character.”
“You mean, like Patsy?”
She snorted at that. “Did you talk to her?”
“I did.”
“And what’d she say?”
“That she would give me the name of Chrissy’s boyfriend, who I wanted to talk to, if I told you, … if I asked you to reconsider letting her in on your betting again. She knows she cheated, but it was more a test to see how you’d handle it.”
At that, Nan looked at Doreen, a twinkle in her eye. “Of course it was a test, but I was hoping for more out of her than that.”
Doreen sighed. “You guys are playing lots of games here.”
“Sure, nothing else for us to do, well, except for that,” she noted, with an eye roll.
“Well, Patsy was pretty clear about that being a pretty prevalent activity here too.” She studied her grandmother closely.
But Nan just gave her one of those beaming smiles. “Sure, people are bored. What can you expect them to do? No people here to moan and groan and to tell them how to behave themselves. They get to finally have a chance to kick up their heels and to do what they always wanted with whomever they wanted.” Nan shrugged. “You can’t blame them for that.”
“No, I wasn’t planning on blaming them for anything.” Doreen smiled. “Now what do you know about this Xavier guy?”
“Ah, Xavier,” Nan replied. “He’s a heartthrob. And once he and Chrissy broke up, I have to tell you that more than a few ladies, with happy sighs and hopeful looks, were heading in his direction.”
“Okay. When did they break up?”
“Pretty quickly before Chrissy died, now that I think about it.” She frowned.
“Oh?”
Nan nodded slowly. “She was pretty upset. She said he broke her heart.”
“Do you know why he broke up with her?”
“Somebody said something. … In this place it’s hard to know what anybody said.”
“But what did Chrissy say they said?” Even that was getting Doreen confused.
“She thought somebody had told Xavier that Chrissy was cheating on him. So she wasn’t being faithful.” Nan paused, then added, “He got pretty upset and broke up with her.”
“So he didn’t trust her?”
“I guess that would be the main thrust of it, yes, but the bottom line is, he broke up with her, and that devastated Chrissy.”
“So I got a question for you,” she stated. “What was Chrissy’s mental state in the days leading up to her death?” She wondered if anybody had even asked that question yet.
At that, her grandmother stared at her. “Oh.” And then she added, “Ooh. I didn’t think of that.”
“No, and maybe it’s something we do need to think about,” Doreen replied quietly.
At that, Nan sat back on her couch and went really quiet, as if going through what Chrissy’s last few days were like. “I …” And then she stopped. “You know? I just don’t know.” Then she shook her head and looked over at Doreen, and, for the first time, Doreen saw tears in Nan’s eyes. “I guess it’s possible that she was very depressed.”
“I’m not saying that it happened,” Doreen murmured. “I’m just wondering if her mental state was such that maybe she did something to herself. Would she have taken her life over this breakup with Xavier?”