Page 78 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“Actually…”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You said Bobbie was litigious, right? Is there a way to find out if she was suing anyone else?”
“Uh… you didn’t read the whole file I sent you, did you?”
Oh crap.
“It was a lot of paper.”
“What brought this about?”
“I found out Bobbie fell in the shower of the RV she was living in. Broke her fibula. It occurred to me she might be suing over it.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so. The suit against Three Friends is the only one that concerns a broken bone.”
“Right. Okay, well, I guess it’s nothing then.”
“Read the rest of the file.”
And then he hung up. I reached over onto my desk, grabbed the Three Friends file, settled in on the bed with my sister tucked onto my lap, and I began to read to her: “Once upon a time there was a horrible old lady who liked to sue people…”
Look, it’s not like she’s going to remember.
“State of Michigan, Wyandot County Municipal Court. Plaintiff, Roberta LaCross vs. Three Friends Winery. That one we know all about.” I shuffled more pages. “State of Michigan, Wyandot County Municipal Court. Plaintiff, Roberta LaCross vs. Windemere Apartments.”
I skimmed it.It seemed that Bobbie was suing her former landlord for not accepting a state subsidy plan she wanted to use to pay part of her rent. I checked the date, which suggested this was why Bobbie moved out of her apartment while she was convalescing at Patty’s house. She wasn’t saving money, she was homeless. I moved forward.
“State of Michigan,Wyandot County Municipal Court. Plaintiff, Roberta LaCross vs. Buford Campbell; Hal Buckwald, et. al.”
Okay this was interesting.I skimmed the suit and then summarized for my sister.
“Defendants,Buford Campbell and Hal Buckwald, pressured plaintiff into relinquishing her financial interest in the property at 165 Lakeview Terrace in Masons Bay. Defendants used knowledge of plaintiff’s struggle with controlled substances to coerce her into signing documents while plaintiff was under the influence of said substances. Plaintiff demands return of her property.”
I haveto say I was a little bit impressed. Bobbie used her drug addiction to her advantage. Take it from me, opportunities like that don’t happen often.
Buford and Hal had a motive. Hal. It had to be Hal. He hated his mother, that was obvious. That might not have been enough for him to kill her, but add the lawsuit and you’ve got murder. How to prove it though? Obviously, I couldn’t pop over to the sheriff’s office and tell Detective Lehmann I had a new killer in mind. Not twice in one day. He’d never believe me.
And… all I really had was the lawsuit. Which was a motive, but not as good a one as revenging a death caused by Bobbie. Maybe I was wrong, maybe Hal had nothing to do with it. I needed to find some actual evidence. Honestly, I had no idea what that might be.
I must have fallen asleep, because sounds downstairs woke me and I was suddenly terrified that I’d done something stupid and rolled over on the baby and suffocated her. Or let her fall off the bed and end up with lifelong brain damage. But no, she was sitting up straight—something she was getting good at—and chewing on Bobbie LaCross’ file. I got out of bed, took the file away from her, and then went downstairs. Happily, I’d managed, once again, to not kill my sister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lunch was grilled tuna fish sandwiches and tomato soup. Barbara insisted it was her turn to feed Emerald, which was fine with me. I had no real desire to end up covered in spit out Gerber baby food. Bev and Barbara had brought a selection of baby food for Emerald to try: apple, pear, sweet potato, peas. I was eating my lunch as quickly as I could to avoid the coming disaster.
Barbara had mentioned an article about the intelligence failures that led to the Bush administration claiming there were weapons of mass destruction when there weren’t. That was not a great topic. Nana Cole bristled, and said, “People need to stop talking about that. I’m sure they had good reasons to invade Iraq. For security reasons, they just can’t tell us.”
That led to an uncomfortable pause. It was pretty naïve, and certainly something she would never say about a Democrat.
Finally, Barbara said, “Oh my, she certainly doesn’t like peas.” Emerald had just spit a spoonful all over herself, the high chair and even the table. “I’ll try something else.”
Bev steered the discussion away from politics by asking, “Have you been watchingThe Apprentice?”
This was the perfect question. Nana Cole lovedThe Apprentice—or rather she loved to complain about it.
“Trump wants the women to win because they’re pretty. Typical man,” Nana Cole said. “But they really should give the guys a chance. Otherwise, it’s simply not fair.”
