Engaged to Die

by Carolyn Hart

  “Oh, I wish. But she can barely see now.” A quick indrawn breath. “Macular degeneration. She doesn’t even watch TV anymore. She’s living in a retirement place called Snug Harbor. Do you know it?”

  “Yes. It’s really nice, isn’t it?” Annie knew the building, a red brick hexagon. The unusual design offered a central recreation and dining room with residents living in the five remaining segments that angled from the entrance. Each room faced out with a view of the marsh or maritime forest. It was the island’s newest retirement home, designed for people who were able to function without assistance.

  “I guess.” Denise’s tone was doubtful. “They acted like everything would be taken care of for Gran. You know, all her meals provided and her room kept tidy and her laundry done and lots of activities. It costs…” A sigh. “The manager’s all bright and perky. Her name’s Stephanie. She burbles on and on about how much fun they have. I guess some of them do. They play bridge and bingo and have people come and speak. Annie, I thought it was swell. Anyway, Gran’s been there almost a year now. I call her once a week. At least, I try to, but things have been”—just for an instant Denise’s voice quivered—“real hard. I called last night and Gran sounded funny. I’ve been thinking for a while that she wasn’t like herself. I asked her what was wrong, and real quick she told me everything was fine, she was just a little tired. But I know her voice. Gran has a real sweet voice, like children singing. I swear she sounded”—a thoughtful pause—“oh, God, I think she sounded scared. Now what could she be scared about? Anyway, she whispered that she was all right and she had to go. She hung up on me. I thought about it, and it didn’t seem right to me. But this morning Dave was really hurting. I just got a minute to get away. I called Grandma’s doctor and they kind of gave me the runaround, but they said she’d been in for a regular checkup a few weeks ago and she was just fine. I started to call Grandma, then I thought it wouldn’t do any good. Maybe she’s just blue and lonely and doesn’t want me to know because of Dave. But if you could go and see about her, make sure she’s all right, I’d really appreciate it. She’s in room seventeen. I don’t know how much Max charges, but one of these days I’ll get back to work, and I can sign a note—”

  “You won’t do any such thing.” Annie was crisp.

  “Of course I’ll go see your grandma. It will be fun for me. You aren’t to say a word about money—or you’ll make me mad. And I’m ferocious as a tiger when I get going.” She made a deep-throated growling noise.

  Denise’s laughter was shaky, but she laughed. “Oh, Annie, thank you.”

  The headlights scarcely pierced the tufts of cottony fog. Annie drove slowly, peering at the dimly seen glisten of the asphalt road, almost indistinguishable from the dusk-shrouded trees. Winter’s early sunset combined with the fog to alter the landscape, hide familiar vistas.

  A shiny white sign to her right marked the entrance to St. Mary’s by the Sea. Annie’s grip on the wheel eased. She was almost there. Around this bend…She strained to see, made a sharp turn at the last minute. She’d not realized that Snug Harbor was so remote from island traffic. Not that Broward’s Rock teemed with vehicles even at the height of the tourist season. Accessible only by ferry, the island was just right, Annie thought with satisfaction. Not too big, not too little. Broward’s Rock would never suffer the bumper-to-bumper congestion of Hilton Head.

  The road ended in a circular drive that curved beneath a porte cochere at the entrance to Snug Harbor. Annie pulled into a parking lot to the right. She didn’t bother to lock her car. Another advantage of island living. When she reached the entrance, she pulled on the door. It didn’t budge.

  Annie glanced at a sign posted next to a doorbell:

  Main door locked after business hours

  9 to 5, M–F; 9 to noon weekends

  Business hours? People lived here. Did they get to see visitors only in the daytime? She glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes after five. Annie pushed the bell, held it for several seconds. She waited a moment, rang again.

  The door swung open. “Coming, coming.” The overhead lighting in the entryway was muted, casting a bluish light. A moon face stared down at her, ghostly in the dim illumination. Overlong black hair flowed onto his shoulders. He filled the doorway, a hulking figure in a wool plaid shirt, bright swaths of red against black, and baggy gray trousers. “Yeah?” The single word was faintly insolent. Dark eyes stared at her. The big face offered no welcome.

  Annie smiled, the kind of smile automatic in common social interchange. “Hello. I’m Annie Darling. I’m here to visit a resident.”

  He didn’t move. “It’s almost time for their dinner.” His voice was uncommonly high and soft. “You plan to stay for dinner? You have to have a reservation.”

  “No. This is a surprise visit to an old friend. I’ll just pop right in and right out.” She took a step forward, almost butting up against his chest.

  Grudgingly, he stepped back.

  Annie stepped into an oval reception area with shining parquet floors and a machine-made Oriental rug. Red and green balls glistened on a huge artificial Christmas tree. Silver swags festooned the branches. Hallways opened to the left and right. Straight ahead was a commons area with several sofas and easy chairs occupied by a half dozen old women and one bent and wizened man. Their wrinkled faces passive and weary, most silently watched the images flickering on an oversize television screen. Small Christmas trees decorated with popcorn balls and handmade paper chains dotted the room. Beyond the commons was a large dining room. White cloths covered round tables. Place settings gleamed in the lights of two chandeliers. Murals of the Low Country covered interior walls: sea myrtle blossoming with a November mantle of feathery ivory flowers, swarms of fiddler crabs crossing steamy mud flats, the rotting weathered wood of a bateau abandoned on a marsh hummock, a majestic purplish blue Louisiana heron in a willow swamp.

  The only sounds were the muted murmur of the television, the thunk of a cane on the parquet, the rattle of dishes behind a service doorway into the dining area, and piped-in music from a recording of “Begin the Beguine” by Tommy Dorsey.

  Annie skirted the big man, glancing to her right and left, trying to determine which way to turn to find room 17. She didn’t want to ask directions of this oaf.

  “Lady.” His high voice was sharp, like the shriek of wind in telephone lines.

  Annie looked back.

  A meaty hand pointed toward a curved reception desk. “You got to sign in.”

  Annie gave him stare for stare. But rules were rules, even if she didn’t like his attitude. Annie walked to the desk. A ledger lay open, the ruled columns labeled: Visitor, Resident, Time In, Time Out, Date.

  Annie wrote her name. She hesitated for a moment, then scrawled an indecipherable squiggle in the Resident slot. It most certainly did not read Twila Foster. What business was it of moon face whom Annie visited? She flipped the cover shut and veered to her left into a broad hall. She felt eyes following her. She walked briskly as if she knew her way. The room numbers in this hall were in the fifties. Annie did some quick figuring. Each segment of the hexagon held ten rooms. She passed a cross hall and glimpsed the dining room to her right. As she walked, the numbers lessened. She found room 17 on the far side of the building. It would have been much quicker had she turned to her right from the main entry.

  She looked behind her. The corridor was empty. Quickly she stepped to the door, knocked softly.

  In a moment, it opened. A tiny woman peered through thick glasses, her gaze uncertain. A soft cashmere shawl hung from thin shoulders. Her green silk dress was shabby but had once been lovely. A cameo brooch was pinned, a little lopsidedly, to the bodice.

  “Mrs. Foster? Do you remember me?” Annie held out her hands, clasped cold, clawlike fingers. “I’m Annie Darling, a friend of Denise’s. I’ve come to—”

  A gong sounded, once, twice, three times.

  Doors opened, up and down the hallway. Old people, some leaning on canes
and walkers, a few in wheelchairs, moved slowly toward the nearest cross hall.

  Mrs. Foster fumbled near the door, picked up an aluminum cane. “Oh, I wish I could stop and see you,” she said breathlessly. “But I have to get to dinner. I mustn’t be late.” And she was out in the hall with Annie, pulling shut her door. She stopped, looked up at Annie. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I mustn’t be late.”

  Annie was puzzled. She’d had a most casual acquaintance with Denise’s grandmother, scarcely more than saying hello in passing. Annie understood that old people in retirement homes look forward to their meals. Meals punctuate days reduced to aimless conversation and bouts of bingo and sing-alongs and long somnolent hours perhaps filled with happy memories, perhaps not. But there was no eagerness in Twila Foster’s soft voice. There was fear.

  They stood in the hall amid the lemminglike movement toward the cross hall and stared at each other.

  Twila Foster’s old face suddenly crumpled. “I’m sorry.” A hand plucked at the lace collar at her throat. “You must think I’m rude. But I mustn’t be late.” She ducked her head and followed the others.

  “I’ll walk with you.” Annie kept slow pace. She bent over and said softly, “I’m just here to check on you. Denise is worried that something’s wrong.”

  The old lady stumbled to a stop. “Oh, no. Please. Tell her everything is all right. Please.” It was almost a sob. A trembling hand clutched at Annie’s arm. Her head poked forward as she looked toward the dining room. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

  “Him?” Annie, too, looked toward the dining room.

  Mrs. Foster’s words were hurried, desperate. “He’s in charge at night. Please don’t tell him. Please.” And she lurched away from Annie.

  Annie placed her cup and saucer on the mantel, held out her hands to the fire, but the cheerful warmth didn’t touch the core of coldness in her mind. Despite a wonderful dinner—Max loved to cook, and tonight’s beef fillets with stuffed artichokes had been spectacular—Annie felt hollow. She stepped away from the fire, began to pace. “I’m going over there tomorrow and find out what’s what.”

  Max frowned. “We need more information, Annie. Why don’t you call Mrs. Foster? That protects her from anyone knowing she’s spoken to you. It seems pretty clear she’s scared of the guy who’s there at night. Let me get the number.” He strode to the breakfast room, reached for the telephone book drawer.

  Annie picked up the cordless phone.

  Max scanned the directory. “Okay.” He read off the numbers. Dorothy L., her white fur winter-thick, jumped up on the kitchen counter, batted at Max’s fingers. He picked up the chunky white cat, nuzzled her ruff.

  Annie punched the phone. It rang twice, then a faint voice answered, “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Foster?” Annie spoke fast. “This is Annie Darling, Denise’s friend. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to the people in charge there—”

  Max cradled Dorothy L. in his arms, listened.

  “No.” The cry was so sharp, Annie held the phone away. She reached down, clicked on the speaker, and the frightened voice spilled into the peaceful room. “Please, Mrs. Darling, don’t do that. Tonight after dinner, he demanded to know who you came to see. No one answered. He said that when he found out”—her voice broke—“he’d have a little talk with that person. When anybody does anything he doesn’t like, he comes to your room late at night. No one knows he’s there and—oh, it’s so awful. Don’t do that to me. Please.”

  Annie held the receiver so tightly her fingers hurt. “Mrs. Foster, that’s dreadful. He can’t get away with hurting you.”

  “You don’t understand. He doesn’t hurt anyone. But he talks”—there was a shudder in her voice—“and he makes you listen. One night I went to dinner and I forgot my key. I had to ask him to open my door. You see, he has a master key. He can go in any room whenever he wants. I knew what would happen, but I had to ask. I didn’t have anywhere to go. When I asked him, he waited and waited, and then he said in this awful voice that he’d open my door, but I had to stop being so careless. He walked with me back to the room and he held onto my arm”—there was a sob in her voice—“and I hated the feel of his hot fingers, tight on my skin. He came into my room and closed the door and he started talking. He said I must apologize. I did, and he said I had to say I was sorry again. And he made me go stand in a corner, and he kept talking in that soft voice, and he said I was nothing but trouble, that I’d been trouble ever since I moved there, and people who caused trouble, sometimes they died in their sleep. And he rattled his chain with the keys, and he said he could come in my room any time. When he left, I couldn’t stop shaking.” There was a choking sob. “Don’t you see, there’s nothing to be done. It doesn’t sound like anything, but you don’t know how he acts or hear his voice. Sometimes I wake up in the night and he’s standing there at the foot of my bed. Once, I screamed, and the next morning they told me I’d had a nightmare. There’s nothing anyone can do. Please leave me alone. Don’t tell anyone what I told you. Especially not Stephanie. She’d ask him about me. And it will be night again….” She hung up.

  Annie juggled the folder under her arm as she unlocked the front door of Death on Demand. She reached out, flicked on the lights, welcomed the cheery bright colors of book jackets, heard Agatha’s irritated yowl.

  “Okay, okay. Coming.” She moved down the center aisle, heading for the coffee bar. Where was Chloe? She should have opened the store an hour ago. She certainly couldn’t have picked a worse morning to be late. Annie plopped the green folder on the coffee bar. Agatha jumped up, spat out a series of querulous meows.

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Damn Chloe. Annie shook her head. To be fair, she hadn’t called the store to report she was running late. Annie filled Agatha’s bowl, and the imperious black cat, still meowing, leaped to the floor, hunched over the food, and began to eat in a fury of impatience.

  “Chloe?” Annie didn’t try to keep the irritation from her voice. There was no answer. Annie grabbed the phone, hesitated, loosened her hold. Max would be glad to take over, but he was busy. For her. She touched the folder. It was amazing how much information about Snug Harbor, its owners, employees, and residents he’d retrieved on the Internet from government records and articles that had appeared in The Island Gazette. If Chloe didn’t show up, Annie would simply hang out the Closed sign. She had no intention of being late for her appointment at Snug Harbor.

  The phone rang.

  Annie snatched up the receiver. Chloe better have a good excuse. “Death on—”

  “He was known to have written a novel over the weekend.” Henny sounded as satisfied as if she were sipping a Singapore sling created especially for her by Madeline Bean, Jerrilyn Farmer’s sleuth in Dim Sum Dead, a catering mystery featuring a Chinese New Year banquet.

  Annie’s reply was equally smooth. “Oh, sure. Edgar Wallace.”

  “Oh. Yes. Right—” Call waiting clicked.

  “Talk to you later.” Annie ended Henny’s call, took the incoming call. “Death on Demand, the best—”

  “Annie.” Chloe’s husky voice dragged. “I’m sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I overslept.”

  Annie frowned. “Can you hurry? I’ve got an important appointment at eleven.” Annie glanced at her watch. A quarter after ten.

  “Yes.” Chloe’s voice sounded as if she were at the far end of a cellar. “I’ll be right there.” The connection ended.

  Annie glared at the phone. Up to now, Chloe had been utterly dependable. Of course, anyone could oversleep….

  As Annie brewed her favorite smooth Kona, she opened Max’s folder and began to read the information Max had gathered:

  Snug Harbor

  Opened three years ago, the Broward’s Rock retirement home is a franchise granted by Warman Corporation of Atlanta, Miami, and Chicago, a holding company for retirement, assisted living, and nursing homes, which operates in eleven states. The local franchise is held by Crispus Markham of Charl
eston. Markham visited the island when the community opened. The local manager is Stephanie Hammond. Snug Harbor has twenty-four employees, including a cook, kitchen help, custodians, and aides.

  Annie highlighted the name of the manager. She scanned the text impatiently. Ahh. Here’s what she wanted:

  Joseph J. Brown, 62, is a resident assistant in charge of the premises after hours.

  Brown was the big moon-faced jerk. Annie was impressed. Max had certainly found out buckets about the retirement home’s bad apple, proving once again that the Internet, assiduously searched, could provide more than most people would want revealed about their lives.

  Brown, 62, is a native of Butte, Montana. Married three times. Each marriage ended in divorce. No children. Has lived in Washington, Texas, California, Alaska, Illinois, Michigan, and Florida. Work history includes stints as a stevedore, night watchman, photographer, radio ad salesman, nurseryman, trucker, and bartender. Has lived on Broward’s Rock for two years. Was employed by Morgan’s Diner until accepting the position as night manager of Snug Harbor. Free room and meals and a small salary in exchange for overnight supervision of the facility. Snug Harbor brochures emphasize that guests are assured of security because assistance is available twenty-four hours a day.

  In the margin, Max had written, “Got a call out to the owner of Morgan’s Diner, but he’s down in Cozumel scuba diving. I’ll see what else I can dig up.”

  Annie’s gaze moved to the paragraph on Stephanie Hammond. In the margin, Max’s red pencil had noted, “See photo on next page.” Annie lifted the sheet. Stephanie Hammond beamed from the color photograph, blue eyes bright, lips curved in a cheerful smile. Tawny hair in stylish tangles bushed to a crest. She looked wholesome and forthright, energetic and eager. In a postscript, Max had added, “Got this from their web site. Full color. Fancy. Everybody looked happy.”