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I pulled out the lavender piece of paper and showed her the number.
She shook her head. “Elyse Woodley, huh?” she scoffed, reading the name at the top of the page.
“You know her,” I stated more than asked.
“I certainly do. She used to work here. Don’t tell me she had the nerve to give my name as a reference.”
“Your husband’s name, yes.”
“You’re thinking of hiring her?”
“Actually, we already have. Last spring.”
“And yet, here you are, checking up on her. Things not going so well?”
“There are a few red flags,” I said.
“I’ll bet there are. Let me guess. Everything started out swimmingly. You thought you’d died and gone to heaven. Then little things started happening. Small things went missing. Then more expensive items. Stories didn’t quite add up. She got a tad too friendly with, I’m guessing…your father?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“With us, it was my father-in-law. She actually talked him into putting her in his will without our knowledge. Walked away with fifty thousand dollars, and we couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Stay away from that one, if you know what’s good for you.”
Too late,I thought. “Thank you for your time,” I managed to spit out before hurrying down the walkway to my car.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I swore, banging my hand against the steering wheel.What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I drove directly to the apartment building on St. Clair, just east of Yonge Street where, according to Elyse, she’d help care for her elderly neighbor, Alice Kernohan.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Kernohan,” the balding building manager said with a smile that emphasized the substantial gap between his two front teeth. “I remember her. Lovely woman.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore?”
“No. Her daughter moved her into a home a few years ago. She couldn’t really manage on her own anymore.”
“I understood that she had someone looking after her. A neighbor in the next unit?”
The frown on the building manager’s round face told me I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear. “Elyse Woodley. Yes. A real piece of work, that one.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, I don’t like to tell tales out of school…”
“Please,” I urged. “She’s applied for a job, and she gave the daughter’s name as a reference.”
The building manager laughed. “I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams Susan ever giving her one.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, from what I understand, Mrs. Woodley ingratiated herself with poor Mrs. Kernohan, made herself virtually indispensable, and then proceeded to rob her blind. Nothing the family could prove, of course. She even talked Mrs. Kernohan into giving her a sizable amount of money. Family was furious. She actually had the nerve to give Mrs. Robertson’s name as a reference?”
I nodded, feeling sick to my stomach. “Thank you for your time.”
“You won’t tell her I said anything, will you?” the building manager asked timidly.
“No, of course not.”
“Thank you. Like I said, she’s a real piece of work. I hate to think what she might be capable of.”
