Swag Bags and Swindlers by Dorothy Howell Page B

office and draw his paycheck until he retires.”
    â€œThere was no push-back from the families?” I asked.
    â€œMore complaints, but nothing ever became of them—at least, not that I’ve heard,” Karen said. “Everybody was wary of Derrick.”
    That was great for the residents who had family members visiting regularly. But what about the others? The ones who were, essentially, left here to fend for themselves?
    â€œAnd let me tell you something else,” Karen said, leaning even closer. “Rosalind isn’t going to let Mr. Stewart get by with anything. She’ll—”
    Raised voices drew Karen’s attention. I turned and saw a very frail white-haired woman in a wheelchair being pushed by a younger woman. The elderly lady faced forward, a stoic expression on her face as the other woman railed on about something. I realized I’d seen the two of them before.
    â€œIda Verdell,” Karen whispered. “And that’s her daughter Sylvia.”
    Sylvia was probably midforties, tall with dark hair, dressed in jeans and a knit top that I was pretty darn sure she’d bought off the clearance rack at Holt’s.
    â€œSylvia visits her mother almost every day,” Karen whispered.
    Judging by Ida’s expression, I didn’t know if she was enjoying her daughter’s visit or enduring it.
    â€œReally? Almost every day?”
    â€œDon’t ask me why,” Karen said. “Sylvia isn’t happy about the visits, and she makes sure nobody else is happy either.”
    â€œShe’s a complainer?” I asked.
    â€œShe’s made a nuisance of herself with the whole staff,” Karen said.
    I wondered if that included Derrick.
    Karen must have somehow read my mind.
    â€œShe and Derrick,” Karen said. “There was bad blood between the two of them.”
    Bad enough for Sylvia to murder him? I wondered.
    â€œWhy? What happened?” I asked.
    Karen shook her head. “I never heard the details. But it was something huge. I heard Sylvia yelling—screaming, actually—at Derrick in his office one day.”
    â€œWhen?” I asked.
    â€œLast week sometime,” Karen said.
    The possibility that I’d come across yet another murder suspect zapped my brain. If Sylvia had been arguing with Derrick last week, perhaps Sylvia had stewed over it all weekend, growing angrier and angrier until she barged into Derrick’s office and murdered him.
    Of course, whatever they were arguing about could have been nothing significant. After working with customers and clients at Holt’s and L.A. Affairs, I’d learned that people could lose their minds over the smallest thing. For all I knew, Sylvia could have been complaining to Derrick about something as non-murder-worthy as the amount of garlic in the spaghetti sauce.
    â€œAnd poor Ida,” Karen said. “Sylvia’s always giving her a hard time about something.”
    We both watched as Sylvia swung the wheelchair round and headed back toward the residents’ wing, leaning over Ida’s shoulder, yammering on.
    Karen kept watching the two of them.
    â€œIt’s the saddest thing,” she said, shaking her head. “Ida had a good career going for herself. She was an actress. This was years ago, of course. She was beautiful. All the major studios wanted her. She could have been a huge star.”
    I caught one last look at Ida as Sylvia pushed her wheelchair around the corner.
    That tiny, frail woman had been a young, vibrant, sought-after actress, destined to become a huge star? It was hard to fit both of those images into my head.
    â€œToo bad she fell in love,” Karen said. “It ruined everything.”
    Ty flashed in my mind, along with the days I’d spent in breakup zombie land after we’d ended things.
    â€œWhat happened?” I asked.
    â€œHe was a musician and a songwriter making quite a name for himself in Hollywood,”