Last Supper

Book 8: Locust Point Mystery

by Libby Howard

Genres: Ghost; Mystery

Synopsis

Who knew bingo could be deadly?

When abrasive trophy-wife Stacy Mellomaker winds up dead on the floor of a bingo fundraiser few of the townsfolk are shedding tears. The doctors believe she died from an accidental overdose of painkillers, but Stacy’s ghost, as well as her sister, insist it was foul play.

Kay is hired to investigate, but it’s hard to determine whodunit when the whole town is chock-full of people who all have motive for murder.

Release date: February 22, 2019

Publisher: Debra Dunbar LLC

Print pages: 208

Sample

“Bingo!”

There was a chorus of groans at the cheerful word—groans from everyone except the blonde woman across the aisle from me. She’d won nearly a dozen baskets tonight as well as the first fifty-fifty, which had ended up being almost seventy dollars. Although, in all fairness, the woman had probably spent three hundred dollars on the many bingo cards she had strategically placed around her. Her strategy was clearly paying off—if her goal was to go home with a truckload of basket winnings, that is.

“That woman is a piece of work,” Daisy hissed, glaring over at the blonde.

“Who is she?” I asked, following her gaze and wondering what beyond the woman’s bingo luck had annoyed my friend.

“Stacy Mellomaker.” Daisy rolled her eyes. “Self-absorbed, shallow, entitled, trophy wife.”

I blinked in surprise. Admittedly, Stacy Mellomaker appeared to be a walking stereotype of what Daisy had said with her designer leggings, cleavage-enhancing top, glossy blonde locks, and eyelash extensions, but my friend wasn’t normally the sort of person to judge someone by their appearance.

I wasn’t, either, until this Stacy woman started winning all the baskets at bingo. The thought made me feel immediately guilty. Luck and an annoying smug smile didn’t make someone a horrible person.

“I’m sure she’s not that bad,” I protested.

“Heck, she’s not,” Olive chimed in. “She nearly got Chip’s Cupcakery shut down over that gluten thing a couple months ago.”

“She has Celiac disease?” I grimaced, thinking how difficult that must be and what the heck the woman planned to do with the giant basket of cookies she’d just won.

“No, she’s on some diet and claimed the gluten-free muffins weren’t really gluten free and caused her to bloat. Chip swore up and down there wasn’t even a hint of cross contamination, but the damage was done. He almost went under because of that.”

“Then there was that screaming fit last week,” Kat added.

“The one at Lester’s Auto Repair? Or the one at the library? Or the one at the coffee shop?” Daisy asked.

“The one at Sephora over the lipsticks,” Kat replied. They all nodded, making me feel like I’d been completely out of the loop gossip-wise.

“Who was she arguing with at the library?” I asked, sneaking a glance at the woman.

“Last week? The new assistant, Molly,” Kat replied. “The week before she was yelling at Mrs. Greenway over the selection of children’s book at reading time.”

“That poor daughter of hers.” Olive shook her head.

“Sheyanne,” Daisy commented. “With an ‘S’ instead of a ‘C’ and an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’, because naming your daughter after a city in Wyoming isn’t weird enough unless you switch up the letters a bit.”

I blinked in astonishment. This, coming from a woman whose mother had named her after a flower?

“People wonder if she’s even Gus Mellomaker’s daughter,” Kat snipped with unusual cattiness. “Rumor says Stacy’s been sleeping with one of the trainers at the gym, and that he’s not the first she’s screwed around with. Plus, her husband is ancient. The guy’s got to be ninety if he’s a day. I can’t imagine how he could possibly have fathered a child at his age.”

Suzette shuddered. “Ugh, I don’t want to imagine that.”

As horrible as Stacy Mellomaker sounded, I really didn’t want to speculate about the nature of her relationship with her husband. I preferred to think that people truly loved one another, fifty or sixty-odd years of age difference aside. Either way, the matter of how their daughter had been conceived was none of my business.

Was the guy really ninety, though? Maybe Kat was exaggerating by thirty years or so.

We settled in for another round of bingo, me taking quick surreptitious looks at Stacy from the corner of my eyes. She really was a beautiful woman with an amazing figure and meticulous grooming. Far more meticulous than I’d ever want to spend my time on. Seemed like a lot of work, all that makeup, hair, eyelash extensions, perfectly flat stomach, and firm thighs.

I’ll admit there was a tinge of envy in my thoughts and probably the same envy in my friends’ cattiness. But I was close to twice this woman’s age and had no desire to put that much effort into my appearance each and every day. Did she look that good while sweating at the gym? Did she even sweat at the gym? Was she doing all that for her husband? In my experience, women that generally put that much effort into their appearance were doing it for everyone but their husbands. Perhaps those rumors of a lover were well founded.

Or maybe she just liked makeup. Sheesh, who was feeling catty now? I watched the woman carefully place her bingo dots then reach into a designer bag with elegant hands, looking around before she pulled out a flask and took a quick, stealthy swig.

The VFW sometimes sold beer and wine, but the bingo fundraisers were strictly iced tea and lemonade. Bringing in booze in a flask with sparkly bling and engraving on the side? It seemed the sort of classless arrogant action that confirmed my friends’ opinions. And it also made me wonder who Stacy Mellomaker really was behind the perfect makeup and firm thighs. Alcoholic? Although those I knew in the past who’d had a drinking problem tried very hard to hide their addiction. I couldn’t imagine one of them swigging from a flask in a bingo game—at least not without hiding in a bathroom stall or out in their car to do it.

“Bingo!” Stacy raised her hand again, and everyone glared at her.

“Food’s ready,” Olive announced as one of the assistants began calling out Stacy Mellomaker’s winning numbers to verify them. It was pretty much a formality at this point. The woman hadn’t gotten an erroneous bingo all night. “Shall we eat, ladies?”

“Let’s mug her in the parking lot,” Daisy suggested, eyeing the baskets that were filling up Stacy’s table. “Or just snatch one as she is loading them in her car. There’s no way she’ll miss one basket among the three hundred she’s won tonight.”

“A dozen, not three hundred,” I corrected. “Go eat. You’re getting grumpy. Or hangry as Henry calls it.”

“I missed out on that Cookie Delight basket. Might as well give bingo a rest and drown my sorrows in pot pie,” Daisy grumbled, getting to her feet.

We’d made bingo night at the VFW a monthly event, a sort-of girls’ night out. Suzette, Kat, Olive, Daisy, and I would shell out for the raffle tickets and the bingo cards, sometimes heading out afterward for a quick beer. Tonight was a bit different from the typical bingo night. The money was to benefit the volunteer fire department, and in addition to bingo and raffles, the VFW was serving dinner. It was the usual fare—turkey salad sandwiches, sliced ham, baked macaroni and cheese, and chicken pot pie.

The first time I’d ordered pot pie, I’d imagined it would be an actual pie with a top and bottom crust, filled with chicken, gravy, potatoes, and vegetables, but here in Locust Point, pot pie meant something different. I’d been told it was from the German immigrants who’d originally settled in this area. The dish was pretty much chicken and dumplings without the biscuit dumplings on top. Basically, it was chicken broth, tons of shredded chicken, potatoes, and thick dough squares boiled in the broth like chewy noodles. The potato starch thickened the dish up. It was good—hearty and filling, and perfect for a brisk November evening when none of us seemed to be winning at bingo.

Daisy, Kat, and I took a break from the game and went to get food, vowing to bring back bowls for Olive and Suzette who were determined to play on.

“Maybe I’ll bring Stacy a bowl of pot pie and accidently dump it across half her bingo cards,” Daisy groused.

I looked over at the woman and saw her take a surreptitious drink from the flask before dropping it into her bag and heading on an intercept with us to the food line.

“Crap. Here she comes,” Kat hissed. “Hold back. I don’t want to have to wait in line standing next to her.”

I had no such reservations and was hungry, so I waved my friends off and continued on, reaching the line just before Stacy Mellomaker.

“Hi,” I greeted her. “You’re having amazing luck tonight.”

She pivoted, her gaze roaming over me before she turned back around. It was as if she’d made an evaluation of my worth and found me lacking.

“That cookie basket is amazing. I think I gained ten pounds just looking at it. Yum,” I continued. I’d been a journalist and was now working for an investigation and bail bonds firm. I was nothing if not persistent in the face of rejection.

“I’m keto,” she informed me.

I had no idea what being keto meant, but I remembered what Olive had said about Chip’s Cupcakery and figured it must have something to do with not consuming gluten. “Well, your daughter will love those cookies, then.”

“Baked goods aren’t good for children.”

I nearly gasped in horror at her comment. True, nobody should consume excessive amounts of sugary baked goods, but the occasional cookie or muffin was part of what made life wonderful.

“I’ll probably just throw it away,” she added.

“Well, make sure you throw it away into the back seat of the silver sedan in the parking lot,” I joked. “I’ll properly dispose of the contents in a safe and effective manner.”

We fell into an awkward silence as we edged forward a bit at a time. Well, I felt it was awkward. Stacy probably didn’t care.

“Do you play bingo often?” I asked, choosing this line of small talk over the other options of weather and plans for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

“No.”

I persisted despite the frosty tone of the word. “So, you’re just here for the pot pie? Or to support the volunteer fire department fundraiser?”

She smirked. “Oh, I love the firemen. I’m here for something else though, tying up some loose ends on something. Winning all these baskets from a bunch of toothless trailer trash is just a bonus.”

I winced. Most of the women in the room were either professionals with white-collar careers or homemakers, and as far as I could tell we all had more than adequate dental care. My friends were right—this woman truly was horrible.

Which was why I didn’t mention that the dough squares in the pot pie were full of gluten as she took a big bowl. Serves her right if she bloated up like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon tonight.

I made my way back to the table, carrying both a bowl of pot pie for myself and another one for Olive. Looking back, I saw that Kat and Daisy were finally getting their own, and that Daisy had picked up an extra bowl for Suzette.

“You’re right,” I told Olive as I handed her the food. “Stacy Mellomaker is not a very nice person.”

Olive took the bowl and nodded. “She call us all hillbillies or something? Snob.”

“Close enough. She was critical of our oral hygiene.” I sat down and glanced over to see the other woman digging into her pot pie. How she managed to eat and keep track of her slew of bingo cards was beyond me.

“I’ve got no idea why she’s even here,” Olive complained. “Bingo doesn’t seem highfalutin enough for someone like her.”

Why was she here? She’d said it wasn’t for the bingo or the baskets, and it wasn’t over any incredible desire to support fundraising for the volunteer fire department. She was sitting alone, so it’s not as if a friend had pressured her into coming. Why was she here?

Kat and Daisy sat down, arranging their space just as a new bingo game began. I lost myself in the joy of warm, filling pot pie, and the excitement of the dots filling up my bingo cards. I was so close to winning this time. “Come on, B8,” I muttered to myself.

“Bingo!”

I cringed and turned to see Stacy waving her hand in the air once more.

“Seriously?” Daisy snapped. “I wanted that Terrific Teas basket. Darn it all.”

“Eat your dinner,” Kat told Daisy. “Try to ignore her and just have fun.”

“I’ve never seen you so upset over losing at bingo,” I commented. “Yes, it’s annoying that she had something like thirty cards over there and is cleaning up, and she’s clearly a jerk, but is there a more personal reason you’re giving Stacy Mellomaker the stink eye?”

“I just don’t like her. I’ve never liked her.” Daisy scooted her chair so her back was to the other woman. “She’s shallow, spiteful, and a cheat.”

“How do you cheat at bingo?” I wondered. The machine that selected the numbers seemed pretty tamper-proof. All the cards had equal odds of having a winning combination, although I was pretty sure some of the diehard bingo fans would argue with me on that point. The assistant was reading off the winning combination and verifying them with the woman calling them out. I couldn’t imagine how Stacy could possibly be cheating at this game.

“She cheats at other stuff,” Daisy grudgingly admitted. “But if she could cheat at bingo, I’m pretty sure she would.”

“I’ll share the Shower Power basket I won,” Suzette told Daisy. “There’s some nice soaps in there. I know it’s not cookies, but you could have the loofa.”

“Thanks.” Daisy let out a big sigh and stirred her pot pie. “It’s not really the bingo game. I just can’t stand that woman.”

“Well, you’re not the only one,” Olive told her. “It’s not like Matt can ban her from the event though. It’s a fundraiser, and she has spent a lot of money on all those cards—far more than she’s won tonight. Hopefully she won’t make a habit of this and will go back to doing whatever it is she normally does on Tuesday nights.”

I decided to ignore the woman, focusing instead on my food. Thankfully the next four baskets did not go to Stacy Mellomaker. Daisy finally won a gardening basket and passed it over to me.

“Here. I know you’ve been coveting this all night. All I ask is that you let me have some basil this summer.”

I snatched it up, thrilled with the contents—an assortment of heirloom seeds, a nice spade and three sets of gloves, some bulbs. It was too late to put those bulbs in. I’d need to plant them in the spring and hope for a few late flowers.

“Oh, you’re absolutely getting basil and some of these yellow tomatoes if I can get them to grow,” I told her. I’d never been all that good at growing tomatoes from seed, but I was willing to give these a try. Maybe I could find it in the budget this year to get myself a little cold frame to acclimate my seedlings this spring. I wish I could put a little greenhouse out back, but that was way out of my budget.

Hmm. How much would a cold frame cost? Perhaps it could be a Christmas present to myself. It would be the first time I’d gotten a Christmas present in ten years.

Eli had been incredible about gifts. He’d put so much thought into picking out the perfect item. Sometimes it was a kitchen gadget that was exactly what I’d been wanting, or a dress I’d been eyeing, but more often than not it was tickets to a show or a weekend skiing upstate, or a cabin getaway in the woods. Eli liked gifting experiences, but after his accident, those experiences had changed to things like a thousand-piece puzzle worked together, or an audio books series that we could listen to each night.

I missed all that.  Puzzles and audio books, too.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stacy Mellomaker get to her feet. At first, I thought she was returning her dishes to the kitchen, then I realized how absurd that thought was. She was probably headed to the bathroom, although I’d expected she’d try to hold it until the end of this round, especially with a much-coveted Bath Bomb basket up for grabs. She’d already won the Teddy Bear Basket the previous round. I was sure her daughter would like that, although a woman who didn’t allow her child to eat cookies probably didn’t let her have stuffed animals, either.

A young woman in the back of the hall won the bath-supply basket. I concentrated on the next game, cheering when Suzette won the second fifty-fifty prize and happily pocketed her seventy dollars.

“I’ll take your bowl up,” Daisy told me as she stood. “Here, play my cards. I’m going to run to the bathroom.”

“Hurry back,” I replied, pulling Daisy’s cards over near me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage six cards in total. Hopefully she’d pee fast.

I was busy trying to scan for G58 when I heard a shout and the slam of the bathroom door bouncing against the wall.

“Call an ambulance!” Daisy shouted, poking her head out of the restroom.

The room erupted into chaos with several people presumably dialing nine-one-one on their phones, while the rest—me included— ran for the restroom to see what the problem was.  As I pushed my way through the crowd, I saw Stacy Mellomaker sprawled across the bathroom floor and Daisy on her knees next to the woman performing CPR.

I wasn’t a doctor, but I was scared for the woman. She’d seemed fine earlier, and I hadn’t seen her drinking enough to be passed out on the bathroom floor. Besides, Stacy Mellomaker didn’t seem like the sort of person who would allow herself to be in a situation where she’d be drunk or high or sick in front of others. No, something catastrophic had happened. A burst appendix.  A heart attack. She’d choked on a mint.

Oh, no. The pot pie. What if the gluten thing hadn’t been some diet she’d been on but a legitimate health concern? And I hadn’t warned her about the dough squares.

Matt appeared, moving people out of the way and motioning everyone back to their chairs and clearing a path for the ambulance people when they arrived. I stood aside but remained, unable to keep from watching as Daisy counted chest compressions and the first responders swarmed the tiny bathroom.

The room was alarmingly silent as the EMTs took over for Daisy. I watched as they shoved needles into the unconscious woman, slapped a mask on her face, and pulled out the defibrillator. One of the EMTs walked up to Daisy and me, asking questions about Stacy’s medical history, any medications she might be on, and what she’d eaten.

Daisy ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Pot pie, coffee.” She motioned to the tables behind us in the hall. “I think she had iced tea with dinner, but I’m not sure. I don’t think she had any food allergies.”

“We don’t know her well enough to say if she was on any medication or not. Actually, I don’t know her at all,” I said.

“Can one of you get her purse?” the guy asked. “We’ll track down her doctor and medical records, but there might be something in her purse. We need to know right now if she’s on anything that might interact with what we’re giving her, or that might have caused her medical emergency.”

I nodded and took off, snatching Stacy’s purse from amid the dozen cellophane-wrapped baskets and taking it back. The man questioning Daisy dug through Stacy’s purse, pulling out whole lot of prescription bottles and a little pill case.

Wow. How did a thirty-some-year-old woman need that many pills?

“Nexium, Xanax, Oxycontin, Haloperidol, Depakote,” he called out as he took notes. Then the man opened the little pill case and shook his head. “Vitamins. Some herbals.”  Shoving it all back in the bag, he scooped it up. “Did she have anything else?”

I frowned for a second, feeling like there was something I was forgetting in the shock of all this. “Not that I remember.”

“We’ve got a heartbeat,” one of the EMTs announced. A few of the people out in the hall cheered at the words, then we all stood back as the paramedics put Stacy on the stretcher and rushed her out into the waiting ambulance.

The bingo participants and volunteer staff remained in the oddly silent bingo hall and stared at each other in shock. None of us knew what we should do now. Should someone try to reach Stacy’s husband? Did anyone know his number? Should we continue playing bingo? Who was going to get Stacy’s baskets and take them to her home? These were all the weird, inane questions that went through my brain in the face of such an unexpected emergency.

It reminded me of when I’d gotten the call about Eli’s accident, and the one thing I couldn’t get out of my mind was the thought that someone needed to cancel his surgical patient for the morning. It’s as if while in shock, the human mind tries to anchor itself with mundane logistical concerns.

“Should we continue?” Matt walked up to ask me. “I mean, I hate to be disrespectful when someone just had a medical emergency.”

“It’s a fundraiser,” I told him. “I think you should continue. Maybe ask if someone can take Stacy’s winnings home for her?”

“I’ll take them,” Kat said. “We’re not friends or anything, but I know her pretty well, and I know her sister. I know where Stacy lives. We’re both on the library fund committee and the church building funds committee together.”

I glanced over at Daisy. “You doing okay?”

She shook her head. “Stacy’s not… she’s not good, Kay. I think she was on the bathroom floor for a while, that she wasn’t breathing for at least five minutes. She wasn’t responding to CPR, and I know what those paramedics were thinking. Heck, I was thinking the same thing. I tried. I really tried. The woman’s thirty-five years old. She’s too young to be dead, to have a massive heart attack or a fatal medical emergency like this. It’s just…it’s just wrong, and terrifying, and I keep thinking about her little girl and her husband, and all the horrible things I was saying about her. And all those medicines…. Goodness, I feel so ashamed.”

I reached out and rubbed Daisy’s arm, never having seen my friend so distraught. “Let’s go. I’ll drive and you can stay at my house tonight. I’ll drop you back off to get your car in the morning after yoga.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ll be okay.”

“No, you will not be okay. You’re staying at my house tonight. No arguing,” I insisted.

“Oh, I know better than to argue with you.” She gave me a weak smile. “You’ll need to loan me some pajamas, though.”

“And a toothbrush. I’m always prepared for a friend sleepover. Now get your purse and let’s go.”

We said our goodbyes and headed to my car. Daisy was unusually silent as I drove, staring out the window at the dark landscape before us, only lit in the narrow beam of my headlights.

“She’s got a four-year-old daughter.” Daisy’s voice was soft, the words broken with emotion.

I wasn’t sure whether to tell Daisy that we should be optimistic, that Stacy might pull out of this and recover or not, so I just made a sympathetic noise and remained quiet.

“Four years old. Her husband is in his eighties. That little girl is going to face losing both her parents before she’s in first grade.”

“Isn’t there a sister? Are they close?” I asked.

Daisy nodded. “Brenda. She and Stacy fight like cats and dogs, but then Stacy fights with everyone. I think the only reason Brenda keeps in regular contact with her sister is because of Sheyanne.”

“If the worst happens, she’ll at least have her aunt.” It wouldn’t help with the grief, the fear a young child would feel at losing her mother so young, but at least there would be loving family to take her in and raise her if she ended up an orphan at a young age.

“Thirty-five is too young.” Daisy shook her head. “She’s too young for this.”

I peered over at my friend. “Did you recognize those medicines she was on? Was she terminally ill? Did she have a serious health condition she hid from everyone that might have caused her heart attack?”

At least I assumed it was a heart attack. The woman’s heart had definitely stopped, or Daisy wouldn’t have been doing CPR, but I knew next to nothing about medical issues beyond the challenges Eli had suffered after his accident and the things that had come up in dinnertime conversation when he’d been a practicing surgeon.

“Nexium is for acid reflux. Heck, I’ve got a prescription for that.”

“You have acid reflux?” I glanced at Daisy in surprise.

She nodded. “Normally it’s tied to obesity, eating large meals and lying down right afterward, stuff like that. I’ve got a hiatal hernia that causes mine.”

My best friend, and I had no idea she had a hiatal hernia. Or what a hiatal hernia was.

“It’s not serious.” She reassured me with a smile. “I just have to watch my stress levels. Oh, and not drink red wine or coffee, or eat tomatoes, or lemons, or spicy food, or chocolate—”

“You can’t have chocolate?” I gasped. “Daisy, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because then you wouldn’t make those amazing double chocolate muffins. And I’m not about to stop drinking my morning coffee. They’ll need to pry that out of my cold dead hands before I give that one up. As for wine, I try to stick with white. The pills help with the heartburn if I stray too far into the forbidden territory.”

I sat silent, thinking I should pick up some decaf and maybe make lemon muffins instead of the double chocolate. No wait, she couldn’t have lemon, either.

Daisy put her hand on my shoulder. “I swear, Kay, if you try to serve me decaf or refuse to make those double chocolate muffins, our friendship is over,” she teased.

“Okay, okay. Double chocolate muffins it is. I won’t hide them and give you oat bran for breakfast tomorrow.”

“You better not!” She laughed, then her smile fell. “The other pills…. Anxiety. Painkillers. Depakote is for seizures.”

“Oh, God. She was epileptic? Is that what happened? A seizure? But you were doing CPR on her.”

Daisy shook her head. “It’s also prescribed for the treatment of bipolar disorder. So is Haloperidol. That’s the drug that makes me think the Depakote isn’t for seizures, but for bipolar. And Xanax is prescribed for anxiety.”

I sighed, thinking of all the challenges people faced every day—challenges they kept private and away from the public eye. Daisy not telling me about her acid reflux was one thing, but psychiatric issues had such a stigma.  I completely understood why Stacy might not have wanted anyone to know about her illness and treatment.

“I said all those mean things about her,” Daisy went on. “I gossiped about her, and all the while she was struggling with mental health issues.”

I thought about our conversation over bingo, about Chip’s Cupcakery, the library, the gym, about Stacy’s comments as we’d stood in line for the pot pie.

“Daisy, mental illness doesn’t excuse someone from being a mean jerk,” I told her. “Stacy was a horrible person. I’m sorry she had a mental illness. I’m sorry she might not make it through this heart attack. I’m very sorry for her daughter, and her husband, and her sister. But mean is mean. We don’t have to tolerate someone who hurts us and others just because they have a mental illness.”

“I know. You’re right. It just makes me see her in a new light, you know? Everything had to be just so with Stacy. Exact. Perfect. She’d work two days straight on a project and never could accept that others might not be able to put in that level of time or effort. Her short temper. Her irritability.”

“It may explain her behavior, but it doesn’t excuse it,” I said. “If she was on those medicines, then she had regular doctor’s appointments and most likely therapy. But even if she was working to control her mental health issue, it doesn’t mean the people around her have to stand there and tolerate her abuse.”

“You’re right.” Daisy took a deep breath and stared out the window again.

After a few moments, I broke the silence. “What exactly happened between you and Stacy?” I asked softly. “It’s not like you to take such a strong dislike to someone. What happened?”

Daisy gossiped. She was my go-to whenever I wanted the lowdown on anybody in Locust Point, as well as half the people in Milford and the outlying towns in the county. She’d grown up here. She knew everyone. And even if she didn’t like someone, she generally got along with them just fine. Daisy was as sunny as her name, and although she was honest in her assessment of people, she tended to see the world through an optimistic lens. This was…this was odd and so unlike her.

She hesitated a moment, then turned to me. “I just started taking over the evening yoga classes at Fitness Forever for Francine while she’s on maternity leave. It’s just for the last month of her pregnancy and a couple months after she has the baby.”

“Wow. Do you get access to the gym when you’re an instructor?” I didn’t know Francine, but I had heard of Fitness Forever. It was a pricey women’s only health club with a pool, personal trainers, and many exercise classes. I’d looked up their website a few years ago, only to realize I couldn’t even afford the organic juices they sold, let alone a membership.

“Yes, and let me tell you, that place is incredible. I do laps in the pool after I teach the last yoga class. It’s heaven to have access to an Olympic-sized indoor pool. Heaven.”

I could only imagine. I shot my friend an envious look, then motioned for her to go on.

“Stacy is a member and practically lives there when she’s not off doing some committee work or taking Sheyanne to story time at the library. She’s usually there in the afternoons when I’m at work, but occasionally she comes to take an evening class or meet her personal trainer.”

I nodded, imagining what it would be like to have a life of leisure where money wasn’t an issue, and work consisted of high-profile volunteer opportunities, social networking, and keeping fit at the gym. It sounded ideal, but I loved my job and was happy that morning yoga with Daisy was my only fitness routine. The grass was definitely not greener. Although I wouldn’t refuse if someone offered me a membership to Fitness Forever.

“I came around the corner one night after swimming and saw Stacy bullying Molly. She had the girl trapped against the wall and was inches from her, jabbing her with a finger and obviously furious about something. The poor girl looked terrified, as if she was on the edge of crying.”

“Wait.” I frowned. “Isn’t Molly the girl from the library? Or are there two Mollys?”

“The same Molly,” Daisy told me. “She works at the library part time during the weekends and during the week at Fitness Forever picking up towels, cleaning off equipment, and fetching members juices and waters. That sort of thing. She’s a good kid. She and her brother were in my youth fitness group when they were in grade school, and she took a Self-defense for Women course I helped put together this past month. I’ve known her for years.”

“Did she go to Locust Point High School?” I asked, wondering if Madison knew her.

“She and her brother graduated from Milford this past spring. Her parents used to live in Washdale, but they moved into Milford when they were teens.”

“What in the world would cause Stacy to go off like that on an eighteen-year-old girl?” I asked, outraged and imagining what Daisy’s reaction had been.

“I didn’t wait to find out. I pushed my way between them and let Stacy have it. Told her she should be ashamed of herself, and that if she had an issue with Molly, she should take it up with management and not harass the poor girl. She started screaming at me to mind my own business, then called me some not-very-nice names. Molly took off, and Stacy and I ended up drawing a crowd, shouting at each other.”

“Good for you!” I was always proud at how Daisy stuck up for kids or those who were being taken advantage of. She was always so strong, confident, outspoken. I was too, but in a more subdued way. I would have intervened, but I wouldn’t have gotten into a shouting match. Or maybe I would have. The thought of Stacy bullying an eighteen-year-old employee made my blood boil. No wonder Daisy disliked the woman so.

“Well, I nearly got sacked because of it.” Daisy chuckled. “Stacy complained to management. The onlookers were shocked, although I think they were more shocked about Stacy’s language than my yelling back at her. In the end, the club needs me. I’m the only qualified yoga instructor that’s available to fill in for Francine. The members love my classes. And Stacy is generally disliked, to put it mildly. I got a slap on the wrist.”

“Stacy should have been thrown out of the club,” I protested.

Daisy shrugged. “Money talks. What can you do?”

So true. As I pulled into my driveway, I couldn’t help but wonder if Stacy Mellomaker’s heart attack was a bit of karma for all the nasty stuff she’d done in life.