by Alan Cook
Tess had a disapproving frown on her face so I changed the subject. I asked, “Does Gerald have family?”
“He doesn't have any children. And of course Mrs. Weiss has been dead for a number of years. In fact, he had no close relatives. I'm told that his will leaves most of his money to charity. By the way, Lillian, I understand you were the one who discovered that Gerald's bridge hand when he was stricken was 13 diamonds.”
“Yes, that's right.”
“I hope it was fitting to include that hand on Gerald's memorial display in the main hallway. I'm not sure. Some people might think it's a bit unfeeling.”
I kept quiet. I have been accused of being insensitive on occasion and I'm sensitive about it.
When I didn't say anything, Carol said, “Don't worry about it. I know Gerald was an avid bridge player. I'm not a bridge player myself, but I'm aware that a hand like that is very unusual.”
“Very unusual.”
***
As we walked out of Carol's office, Ophah, the Silver Acres receptionist, was briskly returning to her desk from some errand. “Hi Ophah,” I said, “is the mail ready yet?”
“About 30 minutes,” she said with a southern accent that I could at least understand, as opposed to those of some people, including the housekeeper who cleaned my apartment.
Ophah had a commanding presence and controlled everything within her sphere of influence, which included the mailroom, with unmatched efficiency. “You were talking to Carol about Mr. Weiss, weren't you?” she said. “That was a terrible thing. He was such a nice man. He always winked at me.”
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing that can be done for him now,” Tess said. “But how is your son? Is he playing baseball?”
“Oh, Lord yes, he's playing in a summer league. He hits the ball so far. Hank Aaron is his idol. I watch Mark play every chance I get.”
“I bet he'll play in the major leagues some day.”
Since Ophah knew everything that went on she might be able to answer a question for me. I asked, “Were you here when the fire alarm went off on Wednesday—the day Dr. Weiss died?”
“I was at lunch. It must have happened just after I left. I went to lunch a little early.”
“Did anything unusual happen that morning?”
“It depends on what you mean by unusual. A young man came in and said he had a delivery from a restaurant. He asked to use my phone to call one of the residents. He had a package, all wrapped up. I remember because he was real handsome and he said his name was Mark, just like my son.”
“Who was the package for?” I asked.
“I don't know. He made the call, himself, and I didn't hear him say a name. After he hung up he went out to the parking lot and I didn't see him again. So at least he didn’t set off the alarm, if that’s what you’re fishing for.”
I wasn’t sure what I was fishing for. “Do you know what restaurant he came from?”
“He said it was in Durham—some seafood restaurant—but I don't remember which one.”
CHAPTER 3
As I drove out of the woods at the end of the mile-long, unpaved road, the expanse of the Morgan estate lay before me, with its green acres of neatly-mowed lawn. My son Albert had a sit-down mower and mowed the lawn himself when he couldn't convince anybody else, Tom Sawyer-like, of the pleasures of bouncing around and being deafened for several hours.
The purple of the flowering crepe myrtle bushes contrasted with the green of the lawn and the trees. Albert's small red barn completed an idyllic scene that any landscape artist would love to paint. But an artist I'm not.
Our family's regular Sunday dinner gave me an opportunity to enjoy my family for the afternoon—and then to go and live my own life. Today I also wanted to forget about Gerald Weiss choking while holding a perfect bridge hand. I resolved not to talk about it, even though I had been thinking about Gerald, against my will, and wondering what had really happened.
I parked my 15-year-old Mercedes beside Albert's pickup truck, near the garage of his modern two-story house, which was large enough to give shelter to many more people than one. My granddaughter Sandra's little red Toyota was already there—she had driven over from her nearby condo—as well as an unidentified fourth vehicle. I only knew that it didn't belong to Winston, my great grandson; he was one year old.
Albert's yellow Labrador retriever came bounding up to the car so I opened the door and released my own dog, a part-husky named King, who immediately ran off with him, glad of the opportunity to romp with her buddy. I had named King after the great lead dog of the fictional Sergeant Preston, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, even though she was a female. She had been fixed, so she wasn't going to produce any mixed-breed puppies.
Winston came toddling along the sidewalk from the front door, babbling words that only he understood. Since he had recently learned to walk, I was afraid he might fall on the concrete, but he navigated it with surprising ease.
I scooped him up—he was almost too heavy to scoop—and said, “Hello, Darling, how's my big boy?”
Winston had elevated my status at Silver Acres, where many of the residents were great grandparents. He babbled some more and showed me the ball he carried. He pointed to Sandra, who followed him. “Is that your mommy, Sweetie?” I asked him. I can talk to babies with the best of them. I gave Sandra a hug.
She said, “You look great, Gogi.”
She's a good liar. She called me Gogi when she first learned to speak, and it stuck. She's also a single mother, having divorced the no-good bum she married almost before the ink dried on the certificate. I warned her about him, but who listens to grandmothers.
I said, “Thanks, Honey, so do you.” At least I told the truth. Sandra had the family blond hair and blue eyes and still wore her hair long, down to her waist. “Summer vacation agrees with you,” I continued, seeing her tan legs below her shorts, shaped by her daily runs. “Would you like to help take in the pies and rolls?”
Sandra and Albert both liked to cook, thank goodness, so I usually contributed baked goods to our traditional Sunday dinner. The heavenly aroma of baking bread reminded me of my own little grandmother, who could turn out perfect loaves from the imperfect heat of an oven in a wood stove.
On our way to the front door, with Winston toddling ahead again, I asked, “Who else is here?”
“A colleague of Dad's from the university, a certain Dr. Maria Enriquez. She specializes in one of the sciences, as I understand it. Just so that you won't be surprised, she's a bit, uh...darker than we are. But she is gorgeous. Dad sure has good taste in women.”
“I don't care if she's chartreuse, as long as she's good to him.” Why is it that young people suspect all of us oldsters of being prejudiced? Albert was also single, making our family zero spouses for four generations, and he played the field. I wished nothing more for Albert and Sandra than that they become well married.
Upon entering the kitchen, hot with summer and cooking, I saw that we were having scallops. I searched my mind, trying to remember whether scallops were shellfish, but then told myself: Lillian, quit being silly. You aren't the one with the allergy to shellfish. Again I tried to banish the picture of a choking Gerald from my mind.
Dr. Enriquez was younger than Albert and casually dressed. She wore a tennis outfit—Albert was an avid tennis player—with a shirt that buttoned at the top; however, she had forgotten to button the buttons. But our dinners were casual. Pretty soon they might become clothing optional.
“Albert has told me so much about you, Mrs. Morgan,” Dr. Enriquez gushed, after he introduced us.
“Nothing good, I hope,” I said, glancing at him. I doubted that he was in the habit of talking about his mother to his girlfriends.
She continued, “I love your hair. What do you use?”
“She pours ink on it,” Albert said, probably jealous because his own hair was thinning. “That's what gives it the blue tint.”
“I don't want to look like everybody else at
Silver Acres,” I said.
“Well I think it's beautiful,” Maria said. “And you're so slim. I need to get your secret.”
“You have to be thin to live long enough to get into a retirement community,” Albert said. “The fat ones die off too soon.”
Albert could stand to lose a few pounds. I said to Maria, “You obviously don't need any of my secrets.”
She bowed her head slightly and said, “Thank you.”
“Don't praise Mother too much,” Albert said. “She taught at Duke, you know, not UNC.”
Maria laughed. “I think we can forgive her
that—especially since she mothered a UNC professor and grandmothered a UNC graduate. And I assume Winston will attend UNC.”
I didn't want to get into that discussion. Albert was a professor of history at the University of North Carolina. Duke and UNC, located in adjoining cities, are big rivals, especially on the basketball court. I said, “Both are great universities.”
“Yes,” Maria said. “With distinguished professors. Helping to improve the world.”
“Another center of great universities is Boston,” I said, “with Harvard and MIT, among others. And yet, with all their brains they haven't been able to make the roads of Boston driveable.”
I saw Albert frown, a signal that I was being too free with my opinions, so I shut up. We sat down to eat, three blonds, a brunette and a bluehead.
I had kept my promise to myself not to talk about Silver Acres, when Albert said to me, “I understand there was some excitement at your bridge club last week. I heard a man choked to death.”
Sandra and Maria gasped. Where had Albert heard that? Once a bomb has been dropped people don't go quietly on about their business so I had to explain about poor Gerald Weiss. After they calmed down I gave a short lecture on what I had learned about food allergies.
“My girlfriend gets hives from eating peanuts,” Sandra said, but I've never heard of anybody dying from a food allergy.”
“The human body—in fact, all animal bodies—are marvelous things,” Maria said, “but sometimes the body's defense mechanisms go overboard in defending against perceived predators and destroy what they are trying to protect.”
I couldn't have said it better myself. I mentioned that Gerald had been holding a bridge hand of 13 diamonds when he died.
“That's like winning the lottery,” Sandra said, “except that it doesn't pay as well.”
“In fact,” I said, “the odds against being dealt 13 diamonds are much greater than the odds against winning a lottery, where you have to pick, say, six numbers out of 51. With the bridge hand you have to pick 13 correctly out of 52.”
“No wonder I've never been dealt more than eight cards of one suit,” Albert said. “Of course I've never played the lottery because a professor friend of mine wrote a book showing that the expected return from playing the lottery is much worse than what you get in Las Vegas.”
“If the odds against being dealt 13 of one suit are prohibitive,” I said, “what do you think the odds are against being dealt a perfect hand and then promptly dying?”
“Maybe not so great because of the shock factor,” Albert joked.
“I'm serious. Everybody seems to have dismissed this, but I think it bears looking into.”
“Looking into for what reason?” Maria asked.
“Leave it alone, Mother,” Albert said, showing alarm. “The reason you're in a retirement community is because you're retired. When you're retired you're supposed to have fun: play bridge, play croquet, chat with your friends...”
“All that is boring, boring, boring. I need some mental stimulation.”
“What do you think may have happened, Mrs. Morgan?” Maria asked.
“Don't egg her on,” Albert said.
“Daaad,” Sandra said. “I'd like to hear, too.”
Winston added a series of dadas from his highchair.
“Well, of course I don't know what happened,” I said, “but I think there may be more to this than meets the eye. Suppose somebody at Silver Acres did know about Gerald's allergy to shellfish. Suppose that person had it in for Gerald...”
“What motive could there be?” Sandra asked.
“Well, as you know, single men are at a premium at Silver Acres. Gerald did have his groupies, and as nearly as I could tell he played the field, not settling on just one. Perhaps Susie Smith decided he wasn't paying enough attention to her, and if she couldn't have him no one else could either. The shellfish was well disguised. Maybe it was made that way on purpose.”
“Sounds weak,” Albert said.
“Jealousy weak?” Maria said, her eyes wide. “Jealousy is one of the most violent emotions. In Mexico many people have been murdered by men—and women, in jealous rages.” She looked meaningfully at Albert, but he busily speared a scallop with his fork.
“What about the 13 diamonds?” Sandra asked.
“Well....” I hesitated.
At that moment the microwave timer sounded and Winston, who was very microwave-oriented, pointed to it. This distraction gave me a few seconds to think while Sandra pulled my rolls out and served them. Then she asked me about the 13 diamonds again.
“Maybe the deal was fixed. Maybe they were a signal of some kind,” is all I could come up with.
“Then there would have to be at least two people involved,” Albert said. “Besides, it was too late. He had already eaten the shellfish.”
“I'll have to think about it.”
“I admit, the idea of murder intrigues me,” Albert continued. “Historically, poisoning has been a favorite way of killing rulers. And feeding a person something they're allergic to is a sophisticated form of poisoning. In Italy, the Borgias were always poisoning people. But you keep out of it. Remember your high blood pressure.”
“My blood pressure is under control. And what if I'm right?”
“Then tell the proper authorities.”
“I have nothing concrete to tell them.”
“Then forget about it.”
After dinner, everybody pitched in to wash the dishes. Albert called me into the living room while this activity proceeded and said, “Mother, I wanted to let you know that I'm going to the modern dance recital with Carol Grant next Saturday night.”
I raised my eyebrows. “When did you ask her?”
“Friday afternoon.”
That's how Albert had heard about Gerald. He had talked to Carol after Tess and I did. Albert had first met Carol when we were looking at retirement communities a number of years before. She had been married then but her husband had died of some rare disease. Recently, Albert had come to a reception at Silver Acres and I remembered he had chatted with Carol briefly. But he hadn't indicated any interest in her, at least not to me. And of course there was Maria.
Before I could say what I was thinking, Albert said, “Maria is just a friend—a tennis partner.”
I wondered if Maria knew that. But I liked Carol and felt that she and Albert would be a good match. It wasn't politically expedient to actually say that, so I said, “I hope you two have fun together.”
CHAPTER 4
Having suspicions that Gerald had been murdered was one thing. Being able to confirm them with some tangible evidence was another. And I didn't know where to start looking. Silver Acres was like a small village, where everybody took an interest in everybody else's business. If I nosed around there would be repercussions.
Some people picture retirement communities as accumulations of hearing aids, false teeth, inch-thick glasses, wigs, canes, walkers, wheelchairs and electric carts. All this is true, but many of the residents were as alert and mentally active as any teenager, and they had accumulated a heck of a lot more knowledge. And they lived a long time because of the good care they received.
Resident committees gave advice on running Silver Acres. Some residents did volunteer work for local organizations; a few still had paying jobs. I tutored math pupils; there were plenty who needed tutoring.
Which leads me to my alternate theory: If women don't take over the world it will be because dummies do—the ones who can't read or do math. They won't know how the modern technological world works and it will collapse on them. Again, I'm glad I won't be here to see it.
But to get back to my point, I had to be careful what I did, because residents of Silver Acres would be watching.
I broached the subject of murder to Tess on Monday, a typical hot summer morning, as we walked to our water aerobics class at the Silver Acres indoor pool. Tess was less than enthusiastic about me conducting an investigation. “You mean you want to go nosing around like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple? Or the detective with the funny name in those alphabet books? A is for...awful acts, B is for bad people. Those books are too gory for me.”
“I'll be discreet,” I said. “But I need you to help me. You have a certain savoir-faire that I lack, which helps in social situations, at least when you don't forget to wear your hearing aid. And you're so much better at small talk than I am.”
“So you want to make me your sidekick, eh? Well, I'm no Dr. Watson. And you're no Sherlock Holmes.”
“Don't blow this out of proportion, Tess. I just want to satisfy my conscience. For example, Dora is in our aerobics class and she tried to help Gerald. I'd like to talk to her. She might have some insight.”
Water aerobics is good for people who suffer from arthritis and other joint problems—or just plain old age. Even wheelchair-bound residents could be lowered into the pool, which was only four feet deep, by mechanical means. The buoyancy of the water made it easy to stand; Tess, who had chronic sore feet, was pain-free in the water. The resistance the water provided helped to strengthen arm and leg muscles as we went through our exercise routines. Even 90-year-olds could improve their muscle tone.
After the workout Tess and I approached Dora in the locker room next to the pool, where she was drying off. Her small body didn't look bad in a bathing suit. She seemed to have been spared some of the ravages of old age, such as varicose veins.
I was debating what to say when Tess opened the conversation. “Dora, it's wonderful what you did to help Gerald. I feel a lot better living here, knowing that people like you are available in an emergency.”
