The Root of All Evil Read online

  She let her words sink in before she continued. He sat there motionless and speechless.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions that might make you uncomfortable, but if you can answer honestly, we might be able to help you.”

  Stan looked up at Grandma Dean, a grave look on his face. “You think he died…because of me?”

  “We aren’t sure,” Virginia said gently. “It’s just a theory right now.”

  Stan shook his head. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  Grandma didn’t waste any time with the questioning. “Did you owe anyone money?”

  Stan shook his head no.

  “Do you have any kids that might be upset with you and that might benefit from your will?”

  He shook his head again.

  “What about any jilted lovers?”

  The other Grannies flashed Grandma Dean a dirty look. “What?” she asked them. “We have to ask.”

  “Actually,” Stan said to the surprise of everyone. “I do have someone…”

  In the nearly two years they had known Stan, he had never once mentioned a woman in his life. They all knew he had been married but assumed his wife had died years ago. The Grannies leaned forward, anxious to hear his story.

  “I married a woman a few years ago. She was a bit younger than me. Everyone told me she just married me for my money. We were only together a short while until she up and moved out. We were never actually divorced, though.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Hattie exclaimed. “I’m living with a married man?” She looked down at me and winked and mouthed the words, “That’s so hot!”

  I rolled my eyes. We really needed to get Stan out of here. He was either going to suffocate from the heat or from Hattie being in heat.

  “Do you think maybe she hired someone to come after you? Knock you off so she gets your money?” Irene asked.

  “I don’t know.” Stan looked at each of us. “I don’t know anything anymore. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do that. But I haven’t seen her in a while. Eventually, I sold our house and moved in here. I was tired of being lonely. I don’t know what kind of person she turned into.”

  “Maybe she’s in need of money,” Virginia said. “Maybe she’s desperate.”

  “Money will make you do crazy things,” Greta added. “It’s the root of all evil, if you ask me.”

  We sat there quietly for a minute, thinking things over. Finally, Grandma stood up.

  “What’s her name?” Grandma asked. “We’ll go find her and find out if she’s behind this or not.”

  “Sydnie Bennet,” he replied gently, a small smile appearing on his face. It was obvious that he still cared for her.

  “We’ll find her and get to the bottom of this,” Grandma reassured him. “Do you have any idea where she might have moved to?”

  “I hired a PI to find her not long after she left. He said she was in Fairhope, AL. I don’t know if she’s still there or not.” Stan looked up at Grandma with pleading eyes. “Make sure nothing bad happens to her.”

  “I will,” Grandma said. “But if she’s guilty of this, you know she’ll have to deal with the consequences.

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I know.”

  Chapter 11

  With a name and a last known location, we were out the door and on our way back to Grandma’s apartment not far from Hattie’s. I was disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to talk to Greta about Les, but I knew it hadn’t been the right time. I didn’t want Grandma Dean to know what I was up to.

  We weren’t home twenty minutes when Grandma walked excitedly into my room. “I found her!” she exclaimed. “She’s still in Fairhope and I have an address. Do you want to come along on a road trip?”

  “You’re driving there?” I asked, surprised.

  “Well, of course! This should be fun. I think I’ll invite Greta and Virginia and leave Irene here to keep an eye on Stan and Hattie. She doesn’t really like to travel anyway.”

  “But why don’t you just call Stan’s wife? That would be so much faster…and easier.”

  “Nikki, you can’t always take the easy route in life! Where’s the fun in that? Besides, if she really is behind all of this, I think she’s more apt to talk to us if we’re standing at her front door then just hiding behind a receiver.”

  Grandma smiled and nudged me on the shoulder. “You live like you’re an old lady! You have plenty of years to just sit around. Come on this adventure with me!”

  A road trip did sound like fun. And I liked everyone Grandma was inviting. Not that I didn’t like Irene and Hattie, Virginia and Greta just seemed a little more down to earth. And nicer to me.

  “Alright,” I said with a sigh.

  Grandma Dean clapped her hands in front of her. “Great! I’ll call Greta and Virginia! We’ll leave in the morning! It’s a nearly ten-hour drive and I’m hoping to stop as little as possible.”

  Um, that definitely didn’t sound like fun.

  I found out that “stopping as little as possible” still meant stopping every two hours. Apparently, granny bladders were extremely tiny and it didn’t help that we had to stop at every Cracker Barrel along the way. But I had to admit, it really was fun.

  I had come to Florida just a few months ago and it was my first time out of Illinois. Since I flew, I didn’t get to see anything exciting. Of course, having sat in a car for hours upon hours from Peace Pointe, FL to Fairhope, I didn’t see too many exciting things either. But the view was beautiful and the stories the Grannies told were entertaining.

  About halfway there, our conversations turned to Stan and his mysterious wife.

  “I wonder why she left him,” Virginia said from the backseat next to me. “Stan is such a nice guy.”

  “Who knows,” Grandma Dean said, switching lanes. “You never know what goes on behind closed doors. He could be a completely different husband than he is a friend.”

  We sat there quietly for a moment and I assumed we were all thinking over Grandma’s words. I glanced over at Virginia, who was looking out her window. I wondered what had happened to her husband…and Greta’s too. They both had kids, so that meant there had to be a Mr. Virginia and Mr. Greta at some point.

  “What about your husband?” I asked Virginia quietly. “What happened to him?”

  Virginia looked at me in surprise. I was new to the group and I didn’t really know much about any of the Grannies. I also didn’t know what was okay to ask about and what wasn’t. The look she gave me made me think I had wandered into the “what not to ask” category, but then her face softened.

  “Frank and I were married for twenty years…and then he left me for his secretary.” Virginia laughed when she saw the look on my face. “It’s okay,” she said, patting my arm. “It ended up being for the best.”

  “How was it for the best?” I asked. I could still see hurt in her eyes, hiding behind her smile.

  “She went on to meet Raul!” Greta laughed. “Tell Nikki about him!”

  Virginia’s face flushed. “There isn’t much to say!”

  Greta snorted and Virginia laughed too. “We met on a mission trip to Haiti,” Virginia finally continued. “I was a nurse and went over there to help out for a few weeks. Raul was from Philadelphia. We hit it off right away.”

  “Did you date him?” I asked. Virginia was a beautiful woman in her seventies. I couldn’t imagine how stunning she must have been in her forties. But it was still hard for me to imagine any of the Grannies having a love life.

  “They ran away together!” Greta jumped in. “Can you imagine that! Our good little Virginia ran away with a man and traveled the world!”

  Virginia laughed. “We didn’t really travel the world. We went to a few countries together, just two nurses who had a heart for people.”

  “And for each other.” Greta leaned over her shoulder from the front seat and winked at her.

  “So, what happened to Raul?” I asked.

  Vir
ginia sighed. “After two years, the spark died out. We looked at each other one day and realized we were two lonely people in a foreign country trying to put some meaning into our meaningless little lives.” She shook her head, “The funny thing is, the day before, we were two exciting lovers on a course to change the world. It’s crazy how quickly things can change.”

  “Must have been something you ate,” Greta said, still facing us. “I heard foreign food will do that to you.”

  Virginia laughed. “Maybe it was.”

  “What about you?” I asked Greta. “What about your husband?”

  The car was quiet. I had definitely gone into the “what not to ask” category this time.

  “It’s complicated,” she said, turning back to the front seat.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” Grandma said to her, reaching over and putting a hand on her arm.

  I felt bad. This was obviously a part of Greta’s life that still caused her pain. I tried to think of what I could talk about instead. Maybe bring up my own failures? That was definitely a lengthy list that would get us almost all the way to Alabama.

  “I was married for forty years,” Greta said, to my surprise. “Forty long years to a man who only knew I existed if I didn’t have dinner on the table at the same time every night. And for the most part, I tolerated it. I had my house and my kids, my charities, my church. I had enough in my life that brought me joy. I didn’t need a husband for that. But one day, I snapped.”

  Uh oh. Was this the part in her story where she says she chopped off his head and fed it to the neighbor’s dog? I cringed, waiting for a gruesome story to unfold and then to be threatened with my life if I told a single soul.

  “It was my sixtieth birthday and do you know what he did on that day? He went golfing with his friends! All day! He came home that evening, walked in the door and said, ‘What’s for dinner?’ I stood there in my dress, my hair all done and my makeup on, and I smiled at him and reminded him that it was my birthday. He looked right at me and said, ‘Well, we still hafta eat so what are you cookin?’” Greta was quiet for a minute. “Normally, I would’ve gone into the kitchen and made him dinner, crying quietly here and there and trying to thank the Good Lord for my nice house, children, and grandchildren—trying to count each and every blessing. But not that time.”

  Oh dear, here it comes.

  “Instead, something snapped. My good heart pulled up anchor and I stood up tall and told him to make his own darn dinner. I went in our room, packed up my things, and knew then I was never coming back.”

  I hated to admit it, but her story was kind of a letdown. I was expecting much worse. I clearly read too many mystery novels.

  “When I came back in the living room, he just glared at me,” Greta sniffled a little. “I held my head high and tried to walk past him. He tensed his shoulders and puffed out his chest, and brought his elbows out just enough that they hit me when I walked by him. It was the first time he ever physically did anything to show force and I wanted to make sure it was the last. I glanced down and saw the mail sitting on the table in the entryway. Without thinking, I picked up the letter opener and stabbed him in the neck.”

  I gasped. After the initial letdown, I didn’t see that coming!

  “It was a sharp little thing and it caused a lot of blood, but thankfully, it wasn’t anything serious. I heard later he got a stitch or two, but he never called the police. Instead, he let me walk out of his life. That was over fifteen years ago and we haven’t talked since.”

  “You did what you had to do,” Virginia said. “In my opinion, he’s lucky that’s all that happened to him.”

  Greta pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “I’m not proud of it. And even though the kids have never brought it up to me, I feel like they know what happened. Every time I go up there to visit for the holidays, they make sure to have a meal with me and a separate one with him. Maybe they’re afraid I’ll stab him with a fork or something.”

  “Well, as sad as that is,” Virginia said, “I think Geraldine still holds the title of saddest breakup.”

  Grandma shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. I could see her face go red, but Greta and Virginia didn’t seem to notice.

  “I agree,” Greta said sadly. “Breaks my heart every time I think about it.”

  Since Grandpa Glenn had died several years ago and they had a wonderful marriage, as far as I could tell anyway, I knew they weren’t talking about him. She had met him when she was nineteen. He was her agent and they fell in love instantly. When they met, my grandmother had a daughter, my mother, with another man. When my mother was just eighteen months old, Grandma Dean left her with her own mother so she could start her acting career in Europe. Greta and Virginia must have been talking about my mother’s father. Grandma has always been tightlipped about him and, other than seeing a picture that fell out of a photo album that could possibly be him, no one in my family knew anything about him. I held my breath, waiting, hoping, that maybe she would share the story.

  “That’s a story for another time,” she said sternly. Greta and Virginia turned to look at her and then Virginia glanced over at me. “Of course,” she said, concerned. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  Grandma shrugged and let out a forced laugh. “Enough about all of these depressing matters! Let’s talk about something fun!”

  We each tried to bring up a lighthearted topic, but each one quickly fizzled out. It wasn’t long before we heard Greta snoring, so we all settled into our own quiet thoughts as we watched the fields fly by in a blur.

  Chapter 12

  Since we pulled in at night, I didn’t get a good look at the town. But now that it was morning, I could see that it was the most charming town I had ever seen. Our bed and breakfast gave us a view of Mobile Bay and the sight was breathtaking.

  The morning air was humid as we headed out, our bellies full of the delicious homemade breakfast the owners had made for us. I had a thought that maybe once I got my life together and left Grandma Dean’s apartment, maybe I would just move here instead of going back to Illinois. There was something about that little town that just felt…special. It was the kind of place Les Moore would love. He could write a million poems here and still not run out of things to write about. I’d have to tell him about it.

  That last thought raced back through my mind. Was I actually looking forward to talking to him again? I inwardly scolded myself. Les seemed like a nice guy—not the kind I would want to end up in my “web” as Irene had put it. But still, even if I didn’t pursue things romantically, he could still be a good friend. Of course, I had to find out first what was up with that condo thing.

  We drove through the cutest little downtown area I had ever seen. Flowers lined the street, sat in bunches at the corners, and hung from lamp posts. An old-timey-looking clock sat in the middle of a brick sidewalk, giving the downtown charm and character.

  Virginia kept driving, following the directions of the GPS, and we ended up in a little neighborhood. Small, unassuming houses sat close to the street, their yards littered with children’s toys. We pulled in front of a gray one-story with a little white porch. The yard, though toy-free, was unkempt and the bushes were tall enough to nearly block the entire large, front window.

  “This is it,” Virginia said, turning off the vehicle. “You gals ready?”

  We took a collective deep breath and unbuckled our seatbelts. “Let’s do this,” Grandma Dean said, grabbing her purse.

  We walked up the creaky steps with Grandma leading the way and me bringing up the rear. Grandma knocked on the door and we waited. We didn’t hear any sounds from the inside and were about to turn and leave when we saw movement through the small window in the door.

  A young blond woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, opened the door. “Hello,” she said with a big smile. “Can I help you?”

  We froze for a second, surprised to see someone so young
at the door. We knew then that Stan was going to be in for a big surprise. “Hello,” Grandma finally said. “Is your mother here?”

  The girl’s face dropped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “She died several years ago. She had a brain aneurism.”

  “Oh my,” Greta said. “I’m so sorry.”

  The girl looked at us a little confused. “Were you friends of hers?”

  We looked at each other, not sure what to say. This was not how we thought this visit was going to go.

  “We knew her a little,” Grandma lied. “We just thought we’d come for a little visit.”

  The girl gave us a perplexed look. “Where are my manners,” she said, the smile returning to her face. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Oh no,” Grandma said. “We don’t want to impose. We should get going anyway.”

  We turned and walked back to the car, leaving the bewildered girl in her doorway. Once we got inside the SUV, she finally went back inside and closed her door.

  “How do you think Stan is going to take the news that he has a daughter?” Grandma asked.

  “I don’t know,” Greta said. “But when you call him, put him on speaker so we can all hear!”

  Grandma dialed his number and he answered right away, his voice laced with worry.

  “Stan,” Grandma said to him. “We have some news.”

  “Okaaaay,” Stan said slowly. “What is it?”

  “Well,” Grandma said. “I hate to tell you this, but Sydnie…has passed. She had a brain aneurism a few years ago.”

  “Oh my gosh,” Stan said. This was obviously devastating news. “It runs in her family. I just can’t believe it though.” His voice cracked.

  “But,” Grandma continues. “That means she isn’t the one who either tried to kill you or hired someone to kill you.”

  Stan was silent on the other end except for a muffled sob.