“Excuse me.” The middle-aged woman holding a menu beckoned to Val.
Val hurried to the table. “What would you like to order?”
“Are you the granddaughter the newswoman mentioned?”
“Yes.” Val saw disapproval in the woman’s pursed lips. “I went to the station to visit the police chief and give him some muffins. He’s a family friend.”
“I think we’ll skip lunch.” The woman stood up and tugged her male companion out of his seat. “We’ve got lots to eat at home.”
Val groaned. If the publicity over Scott’s death chased away customers, she could kiss good-bye to the café.
Chapter 8
Bethany’s sweet mutt curled up in the backseat for most of the ride from the Bayport Racket and Fitness Club to Ambleside Village. Muffin resembled a cocker spaniel more than any other breed. The long hair on her droopy ears framed her face and matched Bethany’s ginger-colored drapes of hair. On the off chance that anyone missed the resemblance between them, Bethany emphasized it by putting a pink bow on both their heads—her ribbon with white polka dots, Muffin’s with images of little ivory bones.
The guard at the entrance to the Village glanced at the card Bethany held up and waved her car through the gate. Muffin popped up and thrust her head between Bethany and Val.
“Can you get into the Village without a pass?” Val said.
Bethany slipped the card into her wallet. “Sure. The guard asks who you’re visiting and signs you in.”
“Once I’m in the Village, can I check a directory to find out the unit where someone lives?”
“There’s no directory. You go to the receptionist in the Village Center, the large building, and ask for the resident. The receptionist calls the person to find out if you can visit.”
Too bad. Val would rather take Lillian by surprise. She studied the small houses along the winding street, all one-story in the same simple style, but painted in different shades of gray and brown. “This looks like your typical suburban community. I didn’t realize there were individual homes here. I expected only apartments.”
“These are all cottages. They have a bit of land around them and appeal to retirees who like to garden. There’s more privacy here than in the apartments, but the activities are farther away in the Village Center.”
Val wondered whether Lillian lived in one of these cottages or an apartment. “I’m going to look for my grandfather’s friend Lillian while your pet-a-pet session is going on.”
“That’s fine. We have the pet-a-pet in the sunroom and usually run out of seats. Muffin is popular, aren’t you, sweetie?” Bethany patted the dog. “Officially, the session lasts forty-five minutes, but I stay until everyone has played with Muffin.”
Val seized her chance to pet Muffin while she had no competition. Muffin reciprocated with a warm lick.
They parked in the lot outside the Village Center, a four-story building with wings angling out on either side. Val followed Bethany into the sunroom off the lobby. The cheerful room had large windows on three sides. Striped chintz valences above the windows matched the pillows on the green sofas and the upholstery on the armchairs.
Val spotted Ned sitting on a sofa, reading the Treadwell Gazette. Though close to Granddad’s age, Ned looked younger. He had more hair on top, and his dark eyebrows, unlike the hair on his head, hadn’t yet grayed.
Val wasn’t surprised to see him at the pet-a-pet session. Shortly after his wife died last year, his dog did too. Those two losses had prompted him to move from the house where he’d lived most of his life to the newly opened retirement village. The last time Val had talked to him, when he came to dinner in June, Ned had seemed happy enough, though not as jolly as she remembered him from years ago.
She sat on a chair nearest the sofa. “Hi, Ned.”
He looked up from his newspaper, startled. “Oh, Val. What—what are you doing here?”
Not his usual warm welcome. “My friend Bethany brought her dog, and I came along.”
He eyed the pet of the day and smiled. “Muffin. Nice dog.” He rustled his newspaper and adjusted his reading glasses.
She couldn’t miss the body language that told her he’d rather put his nose in the paper than talk to her. “Granddad told me he talked you into investing with Scott. He gave you bad advice and feels awful about it. I hope you don’t hold it against him.”
“Investments go in cycles. If they’re down, you hang on until they go up again. That’s not what I hold against him.” Ned’s eyebrows slanted downward toward his nose forming a V. “He didn’t invite me to his dinner after all the years we’ve known each other.”
Val was tempted to tell him he’d caught a lucky break. All the dinner guests except for the dead one might end up murder suspects. “You heard what happened at—I mean, after the dinner?”
“About Scott passing away? Yeah, I feel sorry for Thomasina.” Ned took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses on his polo shirt. “I introduced your grandfather to her and Lillian one day in June when he was visiting me here. Now he invited them to dinner and left me out.”
“He didn’t mean to slight you. He was trying to help. Give him a chance to explain.” Nothing Val could say would matter. Granddad had to soothe Ned’s feelings.
Tail wagging, Muffin trotted to Ned and greeted him.
A grin transformed Ned’s face as he hugged the dog. “You can always depend on a mutt.”
A woman with a walker hobbled into the sunroom and looked around. Not many unoccupied seats.
Val motioned to the woman and stood up. “I don’t want to take a space that the residents here need. Good talking to you, Ned. Do you know Lillian Hinker’s unit number?”
Ned gazed into Muffin’s dark eyes. “No, but it’s on the fourth floor in this building, the south wing.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Val waited nearby until the woman with the walker settled into the chair. Then she left the sunroom and approached the counter in the lobby.
She smiled at the receptionist and said, “I want to visit Lillian Hinker. I remember she lives on the fourth floor, but her apartment number escapes me. Which unit is she in?”
The receptionist asked for Val’s name and picked up the phone. “I’ll check if she’s in her room.” Half a minute later, the woman shook her head. “No answer. She might be at afternoon tea in the garden. Oh, wait. Here she comes.” The receptionist pointed to the building’s entrance.
Lillian strolled into the lobby, dressed for a tee, not a tea. Her pastel-blue golf skirt matched the blue pom-poms at the back of her athletic anklets. Val hoped to look as slim and fit when she was Lillian’s age, but she’d do without the pom-poms.
Lillian’s eyes widened. “Hello, Val. Is your grandfather here with you?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes?”
“A few. Come up to my place.” She headed toward the elevators.
Val read the activities list posted in the elevator as she rode to the fourth floor with Lillian and two other women. In addition to the pet-a-pet, today’s activities included a bridge game, a trip to the outlet mall, and a current-events discussion.
Lillian pointed to a notice that this week’s Brain Game would be canceled. “Too bad. That’s one of my favorite activities here.” The elevator doors opened.
She led the way down a long corridor. Chair rail molding divided the painted lower half of the walls from the upper half covered in floral wallpaper. Names on the doors identified the resident living in each unit.
“What do you do at the Brain Game?” Val said.
“Activities to exercise the mind. Word games, trivia, picture puzzles, math quizzes. It varies each time. I guess the Brain Dame, the woman who runs it, can’t make it this week and couldn’t find a substitute.” Lillian stopped by a door identified with her name and inserted a key. “Thomasina never misses a Brain Game, though this week I’m sure she would have skipped it because of Scott.”
V
al went inside as Lillian held the door for her. “Did Granddad tell you about Scott’s autopsy?”
“No, but his mother must have told someone here. The news spread as fast as a norovirus would in this place. Have a seat.” Lillian gestured toward a barrel chair upholstered in tan synthetic suede. It looked showroom new. She stepped toward a kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, and sink, but no stove. “Can I get you something to drink? I’m having ice water.”
“That’s fine for me too.” Val sat in the barrel chair. The compact living room had just enough space for a chair on either side of a love seat. She swiveled the chair toward the love seat and then toward a flat-screen TV on the opposite wall. A half-closed door off the living room gave her a view of a four-poster bed.
Six months ago, if she’d stayed in New York after breaking her engagement with Tony, she would have been happy to find an apartment of this size. But now, after spreading out in a two-story Victorian with high ceilings, she’d hate to live small again.
The drinks Lillian set on the glass-topped coffee table looked more like watery ice than ice water.
She sat in the chair exactly like Val’s on the opposite side of the table. “I’m a bit tight on time this afternoon. What do you want from me?”
Val could match Lillian’s brusqueness. “Your impressions of the people at the chowder dinner, starting with Scott.”
“Whenever I saw Scott here in the Village, he oozed charm.” She made it sound like slime. “That night he looked ill at ease. I suspect he felt sick even before he ate the chowder.”
An opinion she hadn’t voiced the night of the dinner. “His stomach problems didn’t keep him from wolfing down the creamy chowder,” Val said.
“I think he was distracted. He fixated on Junie May the whole time. I’m surprised it didn’t make her uncomfortable.”
“My grandfather thought Scott recognized Omar and was trying to place him. Maybe Scott’s eyes weren’t fixed on Junie May, but on the man sitting next to her.”
“No. Scott was at my end of the table. I could tell where he was looking.” Lillian crossed her tanned legs. “I think Irene recognized Scott, but not vice versa. She obviously disliked him.”
“She obviously dislikes a lot of people.” Val counted herself among them. Lillian had done a good job of turning the focus from Omar to Junie May and then to Irene. But Val wouldn’t be put off. “How do you know Omar?”
“His father was an old friend.”
“I’d like to get his take on the dinner. What’s his last name and how can I reach him?”
Lillian stiffened. “Your grandfather told me you solved a murder not long ago. I gather you’d like to solve the mystery of Scott’s death too. So would Junie May. She asked me for the same information. I didn’t give it to her, and I won’t give it to you. You’ll both pester Omar with questions.”
“Junie May wants information to broadcast it. I want it to protect my grandfather.”
“Does he need your protection? Or do you need his?”
Val felt the blood course through her veins fast and hot. Even the frigid water her hostess had given her couldn’t cool her down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Young people in their twenties often move back home with their parents. You’re past thirty, and you’ve taken refuge in a grandparent’s house. If you plan to leave and go back to some high-powered career, you should do it sooner rather than later. The longer you stay, the more dependent he’ll become on you.”
“I don’t plan to leave anytime soon, Lillian.” Or be sidetracked by a personal attack. “You told Granddad that Scott was a swindler. How do you know that?”
Lillian looked at her gold watch. “Before deciding to move here, I visited other retirement communities. At one of them, I heard about a man who’d given financial seminars and cheated the residents who invested with him. Scott fit that profile.”
She’d slandered him without proof. Yet, Val couldn’t rule out Lillian’s conclusion about the man. “What was the name of the retirement community where you heard about this?”
Lillian jiggled the leg that was crossed over her knee. “I can’t remember. That was months ago, and these communities all blend together.”
Val might have believed her, except for the jerky-leg motion that betrayed Lillian’s discomfort with her own answer. “Why did you decide to move here?”
Lillian drew a circle in the air with her foot. “Ambleside stood out from the pack because of the golf courses nearby.”
That didn’t set Ambleside apart. She could have chosen almost any retirement community in the Mid-Atlantic states and found a nearby golf course.
Val caught Lillian looking at her watch again. No time for personal questions then. Focus on the dinner that ended so badly. “Did you throw away the creamy chowder or did Granddad?”
Lillian’s eyes widened in surprise. “I did.”
A quick answer. Granddad had hesitated before saying he’d tossed the chowder, possibly because he wanted to shield her from a charge of destroying evidence.
Lillian stood up. “I really must go.” She ushered Val out the door.
As Val waited for the elevator, she ticked off all the things she still didn’t know about Lillian—where she’d come from, if she had children, what type of work she’d done before retirement, and whether she cared a fig for Granddad.
Back on the ground floor, Val joined Bethany in the sunroom. Ned had already left. Bethany made one more sweep through the room so everyone could shake Muffin’s paw a final time.
Once outside the building, she led the dog toward the shrubs edging the parking lot. “Muffin needs a short break before we climb in the car.”
“She deserves it. Everyone really enjoyed petting her.” Val followed her friend and Muffin to the plantings at the side of the parking lot. “They also liked talking to you.”
“They need to talk, especially the ones who don’t have family or friends in the vicinity.”
Val glanced through the shrubbery at the institutional building and felt sorry for anyone living there who had no one nearby to visit. At that moment, Lillian emerged from the building. Dressed in casual slacks instead of a golfing outfit, she crossed the parking lot, walking fast, and climbed into a white sedan. Where was she going? Probably shopping or to a doctor’s appointment, but maybe to meet with the mysterious Omar.
Val pointed to the white car backing out of a parking space. “See the sedan with the yellow ball on the antenna? Can we follow that car?”
Bethany’s face lit up. “I’ve always wanted to do that. Let’s go.”
Chapter 9
Val peered out the windshield of Bethany’s silver Hyundai. Up ahead, Lillian’s car rolled past the guard gate and turned onto the two-lane road that skirted the Village. Bethany caught up with the white sedan at an intersection with a stop sign.
Val put on sunglasses. “Don’t get too close. I don’t want Lillian to see me in her rearview mirror.”
Bethany slowed down, glanced at Val, and laughed. “You’d better cover your curly mop too. Check the pocket behind my seat for a baseball cap.”
Val reached into the pocket and pulled out the cap. Muffin chomped on the brim and wrestled her for it.
“Down, Muffin!” Bethany said. The dog relinquished the prize and lay on the car floor in the back. “Why are we following Lillian?”
Good question. Val tucked her hair under the cap and pulled the brim down low. “I’d like to know where she’s going because I don’t trust her. She invited a man to Granddad’s dinner at the last minute and won’t even tell me the guy’s last name. Did anyone at the pet-a-pet session know her or Thomasina?”
“A few people knew them, not many. They both moved in within the last few months. The ones who knew Thomasina talked mainly about her son’s sudden death.” Bethany turned onto the two-lane road that led from the Village to the main artery. “One person said Lillian must have money to burn. She rents her place month to month. You have t
o pay a lot more that way.”
“What do the other people in the Village do?”
“The ones who don’t own their units lease them on a yearly basis. Either way, they pay lower fees than the month-to-month renters.”
Maybe Lillian planned to stay only long enough to find a widower like Granddad to take her in. “What about Thomasina?”
“She lives in a cottage. They don’t allow short-term leases for those. She moved into the place in the spring, April or May, about a month before Lillian arrived.”
The two women had moved into the Village around the same time, one committing to stay, the other arranging for a quick exit.
Val focused on the white car twenty yards ahead and the intersection between it and Bethany’s Hyundai. A farm truck approached the intersection from the right, made a rolling stop, and kept going into a right turn.
“Watch out for the truck!”
“I see it.” Bethany leaned on her horn and sped up.
Val cringed. “Stop!”
Bethany swerved left around the truck.
Val’s heart thudded against her ribs. Somehow the car hung on to the road. She gaped in amazement at Bethany. “You just missed that truck.”
“We’d have lost Lillian if that pokey truck came between us.” Bethany gave Val an apologetic smile. “I don’t usually take risks on the road.”
“I know why you took them now.” Val punctuated her syllables with a raised index finger. “Because of the caveman diet. It’s making you aggressive. You are what you eat.”
Bethany laughed. “That’s silly.”
“More intersections are coming up. I’ll keep Lillian’s car in sight. You focus on the road, and please don’t try to outrun any more mastodons.”
For the next ten minutes, every time Val spotted a strip mall or a big intersection, she expected Lillian to turn off the road. The white car kept going straight.
“Look, Val. She’s turning onto Route 50.”
“We should probably give up. We’re going to hit heavy traffic.”
“That’ll make it easier to tail her without her noticing us.”
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