Rosa couldn’t ignore her growing thirst and dared to drink her lemonade. “Can you elaborate more on your history with the polio charity?” she asked after a sip.
Shirley crossed her legs and sighed. “Let me see, where should I begin?”
“When did you join the organization?” Rosa asked.
“Oh, I think it was now over five years ago. I was on the board long before your Aunt Louisa got involved. Melvin and I had both supported various polio foundations over the years, but when we found this one, right here in Santa Bonita, we focused a lot more of our efforts here close to home.” She glanced between Rosa and Gloria with somber eyes. “I lost an uncle to the horrible disease.”
“I’m sorry,” Rosa said. Globally, polio was a devastating disease. Any advancement made by science was welcomed. “Aunt Louisa says you were involved in promoting the charity?”
“Yes, I work a lot with Rod Jeffers. I think you met him at the party. He’s the man with the leg braces.” Rosa remembered the man casually looking on from a patch of lawn while Miguel and Melvin Philpott examined the body on the beach. “He helps me relate to the press for any events we are doing,” She took another sip of her drink.
“What kind of connection did Mr. Jeffers have to Florence?” Rosa asked.
Mrs. Philpott pursed her lips. “Within any organization, there can be tensions among the members. Rod is amiable enough, albeit a bit shy sometimes, which is odd for someone who works with the press, I know. But Florence, well, she could be a bit testy, and that’s certainly not a secret. What was secret though, was the fact that she had a heart condition. Not everyone knew that. She was being treated for it.”
Mrs. Philpott’s gaze drifted to the palm trees out the window, their fronds blowing lightly in the wind. “She told me it was in control, but I found myself constantly watching her for signs of a heart attack or something, especially because she was so irritable at times. I was always the one trying to calm her down when the stress got too much. Earlier, on the evening she died, she was terribly upset. She had overheard somebody talk about her. I tried to calm her down, but she’d had a few drinks so . . .” Mrs. Philpott sighed. “But now, from what the police and Melvin have told me, it wasn’t her heart that got her, it was poison.”
Gloria looked into her glass again. Shirley shook her head and chuckled somewhat ruefully.
“Goodness, child. How long have you known me?”
Gloria straightened up and finally took a sip. “How long has Rod Jeffers had those braces on his legs?”
“I’m not sure. I think since he was very young. He seems to get on quite well, and his condition is not as bad as many others we’ve seen.”
“Do you have other polio survivors on the team?” Rosa asked.
“Not at the moment. Did you know that the latest statistics show that polio is in decline?” Mrs. Philpott’s demeanor brightened. “They say it’s largely due to breakthroughs in vaccine therapy and the programs for mass vaccinations. There’s still no cure for someone who already has the disease, as you know, although I’ve heard that in some cases, it can still lessen the symptoms if the subject is young enough.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that too,” Rosa replied. “It’s good news. Organizations like yours have had a lot to do with the decline in polio cases.”
Mrs. Philpott smiled. “Yes. It’s gratifying.”
Rosa inclined her head. “What did you mean by ‘at the moment’? Did you, at one point, have someone else on the team who was a polio victim besides Rod Jeffers?”
“No, not really. But Raul Mendez had a cousin, Juan Mendez, who died last year from issues related to polio. Raul and Juan were fairly close. Rod Jeffers also knew Juan well.”
“Exactly how did Juan Mendez die?” Rosa asked.
“His lungs gave out, or more specifically, his diaphragm and the involuntary muscles that control breathing stopped working. If it’s left unchecked, the disease eventually paralyzes those muscles and death comes by asphyxiation.”
A hunch that something important had just been disclosed hit Rosa, and she felt a faint buzzing of her nerves. “And there’s no way to prevent that from happening?”
“Well . . . yes, there is,” Mrs. Philpott answered. “A polio victim can be kept alive with an iron lung, a machine that supports muscles necessary for breathing.”
“Was an iron lung not available for Juan Mendez?”
“All the machines in the Greater Los Angeles Area were being used at the time. They’re very expensive and take a long time to show up after being ordered. One iron lung machine could cost the same as a small house.”
“So,” Rosa began, “even though your charity focuses on raising money for polio, you couldn’t get a machine for a relative of one of your own members?”
“We never really found out if we could’ve managed to raise the money. Time ran out on us. The subject had been debated ad nauseam at our board meetings, mind you, but polio is in such rapid decline nationally that, it was argued, we should focus our efforts on other, more inexpensive initiatives.” Mrs. Philpott shook her head. “I don’t know if any of us realized the full extent of the immediacy of Juan Mendez’s situation. Anyways, by the time the motion was passed to focus on an iron lung for Juan, he’d passed away. It was rather sudden.”
Rosa’s heart beat just a little faster, and she leaned forward on her chair. “Who were the ones on the board that were most reluctant to buy a machine?”
Shirley Philpott sat back in her chair. “At first the board was in favor of the purchase, but it was Flo who campaigned against it. In the end,
