There Was an Old Woman

Chapter Sixty


A week later, Mina was getting used to living in the trailer that the city let her park in her driveway. She was sitting in its dining nook, savoring a final sip of tea and scratching Ivory behind the ears. Every day she was walking farther and feeling stronger.

It would be months before she could move back into the house. Fire had gutted her downstairs bedroom; smoke and water had had their way with the rest of the house. The marble mantel had survived, and of course the entire interior of the upstairs bedroom could be brought back from across the street once the house was scrubbed clean and painted. She was lucky: the house next door was a total loss, boarded up and waiting to be demolished.

So far, Frank Cutler had been charged with fraud, arson, kidnapping, and murder. Mina wanted him charged with hit-and-run, too. She was sure he’d been at the wheel of the black pickup truck, probably borrowed from Finn, that had tried to back over her. When she replayed that moment in her mind, she thought she could see his beady little eyes taking aim in his side mirror.

Newspapers detailed the exploits of Frank and his firm, Soundview Management; how they preyed on the elderly, getting them to deed their homes in return for a lifetime income and then speeding their demise. Mina still couldn’t believe that Frank and Finn were cousins, and she didn’t want to believe that Finn had had any part in the scheme.

Dora turned out to be Celeste Hall, the woman who’d taken Mina and Brian on their tour of Pelham Manor. Silver haired under a brunette wig, she was being held, too, though Mina wasn’t sure on what charges.

Brian insisted that he’d known nothing about what the rest of them were up to. According to him, “Dora” told him that Mina had had a stroke after she returned from the hospital, and that it would be an act of mercy (Dora’s words, according to him) to move her into Frank’s house, where she could get round-the-clock care and wouldn’t even realize she’d left home.

Brian admitted that the papers Dora had tried to get Mina to sign would have deeded the house to Soundview Management. But setting her house on fire and removing her smoke alarm batteries—he’d had nothing at all to do with that, or so he said. Mina was pretty sure he was responsible for putting her purse in the refrigerator, hiding her teapot whistle, and maybe even burning her chicken.

When Mina was feeling generous, she could convince herself that Brian believed he’d had her best interests at heart. And if it hadn’t been for those poor cats, she might have been able to get past the betrayal. But standing by as the house burned with those poor creatures trapped inside? That was a bridge too far. Not that it was entirely his fault. He’d inherited all of Mina’s father’s ruthless avarice and sadly none of his common sense.

Since the fire, Mina had thought long and hard about her father. She came to the conclusion that for too long she’d basked in his name and swept his transgressions under the rug. It was time for her to make what restitution she could. But how? All she had to show for her father’s thievery was the house. She’d spoken to a lawyer and changed her will so that the property went to benefit efforts to preserve Soundview Lagoons. On top of that, she was determined to air the truth about her father and his sins.

So, when Evie was helping her move into the trailer and asked her again about her father’s dealings with Finn’s great-grandfather, Mina gave her a straight answer. “I was very little at the time,” she’d said, “but I do remember there was this man—a very angry man—who walked back and forth in front of our house with a sign. Yelling whenever he caught sight of my father. That was Finn’s great-grandfather. My father told us he was crazy. And by the end, I imagine he was.”

“Your father did swindle him out of his land, didn’t he?”

“He did. My father was a visionary and a brilliant businessman. He was also a narcissist, a rogue, and a scoundrel. He could convince himself that whatever he wanted was right and fair, and that he’d earned it. Anyone who stood in his way was a fool. Sadly, Finn’s great-grandfather owned what my father coveted. Snakapins Point.”

Mina carried her teacup all of two steps to the sink. She looked out the trailer window at the boarded-up windows of the house next door. It was a myth that the Jamesons were ever coming back from Florida, a myth kept alive so that Mrs. Yetner and her other neighbors wouldn’t start asking questions.

Evie seemed far more distressed than Mina at the damage to Mina’s house and her possessions. The girl was crouched outside at that very moment, combing through the remnants of Mina’s smoke-damaged kitchen, separating what was salvageable from the trash that had been dumped in the house to make the interior look for all the world like something out of a horror movie. The “vintage” kitchen utensils and appliances were all going to the Historical Society. A truck had already come and hauled off Mina’s old stove.

As for Mina, she was looking forward to a brand-new kitchen. Secretly she hoped Evie would move into the sad house next door. But Mina hadn’t dared say so, afraid Evie would take it as a plea for help. In no way did Mina want to become a burden to anyone but herself.

The one piece of furniture Mina had kept was her mother’s mahogany coffee table. Its top was warped and the drawer stuck, but she preferred it to the ticky-tacky table that had come with the trailer. The spiral notebook she’d kept in its drawer survived unscathed, too, though Mina had lost her taste for listing the dead. On fresh pages she’d started writing down information about places to call about hiring a real health aide and calculating just how much help she could afford.

Sitting on that table now was an engraved invitation to the gala opening of Five-Boroughs Historical Society’s Seared in Memory. Her story, her picture, her souvenir would be featured. Cocktail attire, it said at the bottom. Mina was having a black beaded dress of Annabelle’s altered for the occasion. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a cocktail, but she was planning to have a whiskey sour—after she’d been introduced and said a few words, of course. She hoped it would come with a maraschino cherry, or maybe two.

The phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She let the call go to the answering machine that Evie had set up for her.

“Hello?” A man’s voice came through the speaker on the machine. “I’m calling about the car?”

It was the eighth person who’d called in response to the ad Evie had posted for Mina on something called Craigslist. Mina picked up the phone. “Hello? Hello?”

“Hello?”

“You’re interested in the car?”

“1975 Ford Mustang, V8 engine? Ad says fifty-six thousand miles on it. Not a hundred or two hundred fifty-six thou?”

Pffff. That was what they all asked.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, why are you selling it?”

“Because it’s time.” Brian might have been self-serving, but she did need to face facts. It was time to stop driving.

“Any problems with the car?”

“No problems. It runs fine. Not much rust. But you know, old is old. A certain amount of wear and tear is inevitable.”

That brought a chuckle. “What are you asking?”

The current high bid, $2,550, was from Chet in Westchester. That was more than she’d ever imagined getting, and more than she’d paid for it brand-new.

“High bid so far is three thou,” she said. Thou. Mina liked the sound of the slang she’d heard every caller use.

He whistled. “That’s a lot. I’d take very good care of it.”

“I don’t care one way or another how you take care of it. It’s not a house pet.” As if on cue, Ivory rubbed up against her, demanding attention. “I’m selling to the highest bidder.”

“But three thou?”

Mina smiled to herself. “You go over to the Sunoco station and sit in it for sixty seconds. The interior’s leather. Steering wheel, too. You think you can find another one like it, go right ahead. Then you can call me and if it’s still available—”

“Wait, wait . . .”

Soon, Mina had herself a new high bidder.