Devil in a Blue Pinafore

Earl Fowler

Chapter 1: The Place

It was the kind of place that’d make a man want to ask for a refund before he even stepped through the door. The kind of joint where the only thing moving faster than the shuffle of slippered feet was the relentless march of time.

Welcome to the Maple Grove Senior Activity Centre, where bingo cards had more wrinkles than the players, and the only thing tighter than the handrails were the knitters’ grip on their yarn.

I walked in, and it hit me like a double shot of rye — old age. The smell of soup stock and denture cream hung thick in the air, mingling with the faint whiff of mothballs and ambition long since packed away in the attic. I wasn’t sure whether I was here to crack a case or just to crack open a jar of prune juice.

A couple of ladies were bent over their knitting needles, a chorus of clacking that would’ve sounded ominous if you didn’t know it was just their arthritis trying to make itself heard.

I sidestepped a fast-moving walker — never trust a man with a cart that doesn’t squeak — and made my way past the shuffleboard table. The game was slow. Too slow. It wasn’t the kind of game where you could get in a good hustle. Hell, the only hustle you’d find here was a card game played under the dim light of an antique lamp and the shadow of the inevitable.

The place was alive with conversation, but not the kind you’d find in a speakeasy. This was the kind of chatter where the words “stool softeners” and “ACE inhibitors” had all the allure of a hot tip on a nag that hadn’t run in twenty years. Everyone was talking about the weather — again. Or their favourite kind of pudding. The details didn’t matter, but the comfort in the sameness did.

I took a seat at the snack table, knowing that if I stuck around long enough, I might just hear a confession about a game of rummy gone wrong in the ’60s or a juicy tale of who really set the fire alarm off last Thursday during craft hour. In the world of senior activity centres, the gossip’s as rich as the tapioca pudding — and just as sticky.

Yeah, this wasn’t a place for solving crimes. It was a place for waiting. Waiting for bingo, waiting for the next slow dance, waiting for that last cup of decaf coffee. But me? I was just waiting for something to happen that wasn’t about fibre. And in this joint, I’d be waiting a long time.

Chapter II: The Dame

She walked in like she owned the joint. Maybe she did. It wasn’t the kind of place that usually attracted the likes of her — a woman who could turn a man’s spine to jelly with a single glance, and not the good kind of jelly, either. More like the stuff you find at the bottom of a manhole cover, all green and twitchy.

Her name was McGill but she called herself Lil and nobody knew her as Nancy. The other women called her Carlotta but the men all sighed: Dolores. Just Dolores, like a soft jazz tune that you couldn’t tell if it was romantic or on the verge of going off-key. She had the kind of smile that could melt butter … and maybe a few ventricles along the way.

Trouble is, in this neighbourhood, the butter was margarine and the hearts hadn’t beaten in years. Still, there was a fire in her eyes, something behind those bifocals that told me I’d better keep my distance. But I wasn’t the kind to follow instructions, especially not the ones that came from a woman who smelled like lavender and lies.

I was sitting at the bingo table, waiting for my card to come up, when she slid into the chair next to me. It wasn’t a smooth move; it was more like she had to grab the back of the chair to steady herself, but she made it look deliberate, like she’d been doing it for years. Probably had.

“Is this seat taken?” she purred, the kind of question that wasn’t a question, just an excuse to get close enough to inhale my cologne. Only problem was, my cologne had a hint of danger, and she could tell.

“Let ’er rip,” I said, letting her take the seat. I didn’t mind playing it cool, but in this place, the coolest thing was the air conditioning, which was on the fritz and smelling like old newspapers. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Her laugh was low, like she was hiding a secret. Which, if I had to guess, she was. She looked over at the nurse’s station, like she was making sure no one was watching her, and then leaned in close. Too close. The kind of close that made you wonder if you should’ve flossed and flaked off some of the eczema before showing up.

“Oh, you know,” she said, brushing a strand of white hair behind her ear. “Just here for the — uh —crafts class.” I could see through the lie faster than a kid through a candy store window. The only crafts she was interested in were the kind that involved sharp objects and a quick getaway.

I gave her a half-smile, the kind you use when you know someone’s playing you, but you like the game too much to stop. “Crafts, huh? What are you making? A shiv?”

She blinked, but only once. “I’m more of a ... jewelry gal,” she said. “You know, making little things that make people feel special.”

Making off with them, more likely. Or maybe she was making a necklace with the bones of her ex-husbands. I didn’t buy it for a second. Dolores wasn’t interested in knitting; she was interested in knitting a web — one thread at a time. And right now, she was trying to pull me into it, even if my hearing aids weren’t on the same frequency.

The bingo caller began shouting numbers — 8, 14, 22 — and for a moment, it was easy to forget about the dame sitting next to me. But the thing about dames like Dolores is they’re like shadows: they follow you around, and just when you think you’re free, they sneak up behind you, whisper something sweet in your good ear, and remind you that danger’s always lurking.

Dolores was all honey and no bees, and I could see it on her pinafore. This wasn’t a bingo game for her — it was a hunt, and I was the prey. Too bad for her, I wasn’t the kind of guy who got caught. Not unless the Cheerios were really stacked against me — and they weren’t. Not yet.

She reached for the snack table, picking at a tray of overcooked tuna salad, but her fingers were still nimble, still dangerous. “Care for a bite?” she asked, offering me a tiny sandwich with a wink.

I wasn’t about to fall for it, but I took the sandwich anyway. You never know when a nibble might lead to the next big break. And if I was gonna be in her web, I’d at least enjoy the view.

Chapter 3: Under My Skin

1.

“I was born in the daylight ... but I was made for the shadows.”

She had the kind of rheumy bedroom look that made you believe she’d seen more doctors than a hypochondriac at a flu clinic. But she wasn’t here for the free Jell-O — Dolores was a woman who lived on the edge, even if that edge was just a half-step into the centre courtyard where the smokes were extinguished in apple juice cans.

2.

“She was trouble with a capital T, and that spelled trouble.”

Dolores was trouble, all right. Trouble in orthopaedic shoes. Her smile was a honey trap, and her wrinkles hid secrets I wasn’t sure I wanted to uncover. Possibly including sebum and other oily secretions. But curiosity’s a disease, and I was already infected.

3.

“She came in like a summer rain — cool, quiet, and full of surprises.”

The only surprise was that the nurse’s station didn’t explode when Dolores walked past. She was the kind of woman who made hearing aids seem like an accessory. The kind of woman who didn’t need a cane to stand tall, but sure liked to use it to tap out her rhythm of destruction.

4.

“I didn’t know if I should kiss her, or hand her a prescription for calcium.”

You look at Dolores and you don’t know if you want to take her out for a slow dance in the rec room or tell her to go straight to the shuffleboard court for a time-out. Either way, you’re not walking away unscathed. In this place, the only thing more dangerous than her looks was the expired cough syrup she carried in her purse.

5.

“She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Her eyes did the talking.”

Dolores had a look that could freeze a man’s heart — or melt it into a puddle of tapioca. When she stared at you through those cataract glasses, you felt like she was reading your soul. Or maybe she was just trying to figure out if you had any extra pudding cups stashed in your pocket.

6.

“I knew she was trouble, but I couldn’t say no to trouble in a walker.”

She’d catch your eye across the room, a lady in lavender, and the next thing you knew, you were tangled up in her web of fruitcake recipes and whispered rumours. If that walker wasn’t equipped with a time bomb, it sure felt like it was.

7.

“She was like a cigarette after a long day. Dangerous, but you couldn’t stop yourself from wanting one more drag.”

Every time Dolores flashed that wicked smile, it was like a puff of smoke you couldn’t get out of your lungs. You knew it was bad for you, but you’d light up again anyway. I wasn’t the only one who’d been burned.

8.

“In this joint, they don’t come much more dangerous than a woman with a coupon for 20% off at the gift shop.”

Dolores had all the right moves. She didn’t need a gun or a knife — her weapon of choice was a well-timed compliment and a well-placed hand on your walker. You’d think she was after your savings account, but what she was really after was your dignity ... and maybe your cheesecake. Dames lie about anything — just for practice.

9.

“You know how the story ends ... but she’ll make you like it anyway.”

Dolores? Oh, she was a story you couldn’t put down, no matter how many times you’d seen it play out. She’d reel you in with a wink, then steal your breath before you could ask for it back. In this place, a man didn’t stand a chance — least of all against a woman who knew the fine art of getting the last word in ... and the last slice of pie. When you slapped down that final scoop of ice cream, she took it and liked it.

10.

“Not a hunch. A fact. Some small, trivial fact. What was it? Could it be the answer? Something was bothering me terrifically. I tried some more puree. No. No. No ... no ... no ... no ... no. The answer wouldn’t come. How must our minds be made? So complicated that a detail gets lost in the maze of knowledge. Why? That damn ever-present WHY. There’s a why to everything. It was there, but how to bring it out? I tried thinking around the issue, I tried to think through it. I even tried to forget it, but the greater the effort, the more intense the failure.” Dolores took my hand and restored the peace that passeth all understanding with a simple gesture. I’d been looking at the bingo card upside down. A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.