Murder at Royale Court

by G. P. Gardner

  “Well, eventually. Haven’t you invited him to some event?”

  Oh, crap! Travis is coming for the car show?

  “This is Monday. The show doesn’t begin until Friday.” My voice sounded whiny, but Yolanda, the perfect professional, ignored it.

  “I hope his visit wasn’t supposed to be a surprise. You did know he’s coming?”

  I took a breath. “Not really. I didn’t know he had any interest in old cars, I only mentioned it when he asked what’s going on here.”

  Yolanda gave a little bubble of laughter. “Yes, that was it, an automobile exhibition.” She switched to an amused, confidential tone. “He’s following up on a hot tip from his investment advisor, I understand. But he’s not going directly to Fairhope. He’s visiting other facilities along the way. I’m sure he’ll phone you later.”

  I was sure he would, too. I told Yolanda good-bye and hung up. Travis had been a big help when I first took this job, but that seemed only fair since it had all been his idea.

  I looked around my desk and settled back into the routines of work. Numbers would never be my favorite part of any job, but I needed to do a little digging into the budget soon, in preparation for the new fiscal year. And there were sample decals to evaluate with security. We’d decided to order them for all the cars belonging to residents and staff, and there were lots of decisions: how large, what color, inside or outside adhesive.

  I jotted a note to myself about opening the dining room for the weekend. I’d need to let Carla know about that right away.

  But first, I decided, reading over Charlie Levine’s note, I’d walk to the front of the complex and inspect the screening project Stewart was working on. And while there, I could take a look at the guest suite.

  Patti was back at her desk when I walked out. She swiveled around with a surprised look on her face.

  “Oh! I didn’t know you were back.”

  Patti was tall and slender with a halo of shiny curls, and today she was wearing red glasses, little round ones that reminded me of John Lennon and matched her shark-bite tunic.

  “Cute,” I said. “They look good on you.”

  Everything did. She had a rainbow collection of eyeglasses and matched them to her outfits and nail polish like flavors of the day. Patti tilted her head, making her curls bounce, and batted her lashes.

  “Stephanie called. Is she really thinking about moving down here? That would be so fun!”

  “Stephanie? Moving? She’s got a business to run in Birmingham. Why do you ask that?”

  Patti shrugged. “I just wondered. She asked about Royale Court.”

  I drew a blank. “Which is…?”

  “You know. That cute little shopping area Ann owns.”

  I shook my head. “Is that where the knit shop is? I guess I’m about to see it. Who handles reservations for the guest suite?”

  “That would be moi.” She placed spread fingers against her chest and I got a glimpse of barber pole nail polish before she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a red notebook. “When do you want it?”

  “Right now, if it’s available. For the rest of the week.”

  She showed me a calendar that was mostly empty. “One night at the beginning of the month and now nothing until Thanksgiving week,” she griped. “Then everybody wants it, naturally. And December is totally booked. Shall I put your name down?”

  “No, Mr. Levine wants it for the speaker. What’s his name?”

  She reached for a flyer on the corner of her desk and read aloud. “Reg Handleman. From Indiana but I don’t have the address. Are we comping him?”

  “I guess. We’re giving him an honorarium but it’s a pittance. Let’s charge both to the publicity account. Travis wants us to make a big splash in the community and this can be a start.”

  Community visibility was another bone he’d picked with me on the phone, along with my ignorance of the property tax bill. I still smarted when I thought about it. I looked at Patti.

  “What do you think about a contest to name the giraffe? Might be fun, get the grandkids involved. Great-grands, I mean. And these car lectures ought to draw some community people in. Have you sent out notices?”

  She nodded. “I fired the hot blast.” That was Patti-speak for contacting all the social media, radio, TV, and newspapers. She would’ve hung posters in the usual spots and distributed flyers to the Chamber and the Welcome Center, too, as well as to all Harbor Village residents.

  “I’ll do a follow-up before I leave today and email our residents again in the morning.”

  I thanked her, even if I wasn’t optimistic about attendance. “We’ll see if anybody wants to hear from a car expert. Are you coming?”

  She wrinkled her nose and gave her curls a shake.

  I told her where I was heading and turned to go.

  “Can I go, too? Emily can answer the phone for a few minutes.”

  She buzzed the business manager and told her how long we’d be out, then hopped up and rolled her chair under the desk.

  “You had a visitor earlier,” I said as we walked to the door. “Todd. He said you’d know.”

  “Todd Barnwell? What did he want?”

  I shook my head. “Apparently something out of your desk. I saw him open a drawer.”

  She looked startled and glanced back over her shoulder. “Do you think I should lock up while we’re out?”

  “I think you should always lock up when you’re not here.”

  It was a topic we’d covered before, when Stewart put up the iron security gate. Somehow, making security fun had removed any awareness of its true purpose.

  Patti grimaced but went back, took a set of keys from her purse in the bottom drawer, and locked the desk. Then we headed for the exit again.

  “He said he was looking for paper to leave you a note.”

  “I don’t think he’d steal anything.” She giggled. “Not since he just inherited four million dollars.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Four million? And I thought he looked like a vagrant.” I led the way through the automatic door.

  “Well, he tries. Stewart and I saw him Saturday night. He’s staying at his grandfather’s house on Andrews Street, back behind you, and hanging out with the bikers at L’Etoile.”

  Its full name was L’Etoile Bistro and it was located on Fairhope Avenue, at the center of town. I drove right past it whenever I went to the bay, but it was a nightspot and I was a lunch customer.

  We crossed the driveway and took the wide sidewalk that ran behind my apartment building.

  “You and Stewart go to a biker bar?”

  “Bike as in bicycles. Most of them are health nuts. A bunch of trustifarians trying to figure out how to get their hands on money their grandparents left. I should have such problems.” She giggled again. “You don’t think Stewart’s too old for me, do you?”

  I looked into my lovely little screened porch at the corner of the apartment building and wished I were there on the wicker lounge, dozing in the sunshine with a cup of vanilla chai steaming on the corner table. I looked at the heron lamp with its square shade and thought about the pelicans at the pier. Was it possible to find a pelican finial?

  “Do you?” Patti demanded when I didn’t answer promptly. “Think he’s too old?”

  I grinned. “I don’t know how old Stewart is.”

  Too mature to be interested, I would’ve thought, but people surprised me all the time.

  From a resident’s perspective, Harbor Village consisted of sixty-some privately owned houses and condos, plus two hundred and twenty-four rental apartments offering an array of prices and luxury features, and an Assisted Living program that could accommodate twenty-six individuals.

  Prior to my arrival some of the apartments had fallen into disrepair and remained vacant. Others had been rented to inappropriate tena
nts who didn’t fit the community profile. But we had a good team now, and everyone was focused on correcting those problems. Stewart and his crew were renovating vacant apartments, our new rental agent had several prospective tenants lined up, and Patti and the other staff treated every resident like a favorite aunt or uncle or grandparent. No doubt this was the way back to profitability, but it wasn’t going to happen overnight, no matter how hard Travis pushed me.

  It had been Patti’s idea to turn the second-floor walkways into nicely furnished screened porches, one running down each wing of the L-shaped building, tying upstairs apartments together with a shared outdoor living area. The building known as One South had the highest vacancy rate and we’d selected it as our test case.

  We waved to Drew, who worked from the grassy lawn, passing batten strips up to Stewart, who reached down from the top of a ladder. Patti and I stopped to watch for a minute. The new screen panels were in place and Stewart was using a battery-powered drill, attaching thin wooden strips to cover their edges.

  “Look at that,” Patti whispered.

  I looked at her instead. “I assume you mean the screens.”

  She giggled.

  Stewart saw us, finally, and took a few screws out of his mouth before calling down, “Hello there. Y’all come on up.”

  “We’ll use the elevator.” I turned toward it.

  He came clanking down the ladder and followed us. “Patti’s got some furniture to arrange.”

  Patti squealed and pivoted, curls bouncing, to look in all directions. “It came? Stu-wart! Why didn’t you call me? Where is it?”

  Stewart was a wiry man in his early thirties, wearing a wide-brimmed hat to work in the sun. Tattoos peeked out under his rolled-up sleeves. He jerked a thumb upward. “The driver helped us get everything upstairs. I didn’t figure you wanted to get involved with the lifting.”

  Patti gave him a starstruck look as we entered the little lobby and took the world’s slowest elevator to the second floor. We stepped out and I saw the light-filtering effect of the screens for the first time.

  “It’s dark!”

  “Just think how much cooler it’ll be next summer,” Stewart said confidently. “No sun, no heat.”

  I took a closer look. “I guess it’s a good trade-off. Now that my eyes are adjusting.”

  “Now, remember.” Patti was looking up at square, recessed lights, centered flush with the ceiling, one in front of each apartment door. “These lights will be gone and we’ll have some bling instead.”

  Stewart put hands on hips and looked up, frowning. “I still prefer wicker. It’s outside, Patti.”

  They quibbled. Maybe it was a new form of courtship.

  Rattan love seats and chairs and tables were stacked against the apartment wall, legs wound with protective strips of brown paper for shipping. A little farther down the porch, I noticed a stack of big boxes.

  Stewart whipped a utility knife out of his tool belt. “Better let me take that paper off the legs.”

  “What’s in the boxes?” Patti asked. “Open them first.”

  He stabbed through the tape and slit the flaps loose. The first box was packed tight with colorful cushions that plumped up as Patti pulled them out.

  She didn’t need help from me. “Where’s the guest suite?”

  “That way,” they answered simultaneously, pointing toward the other wing of the building.

  “The last unit,” Stewart said. “Watch your step around there.”

  I walked back past the elevator. The opposite walkway was also newly screened and held another stack of furniture, plus several rolls of carpet in blue and green patterns.

  I picked my way through the congestion, stopped at the last door, and knocked before using my passkey.

  The guest suite was a furnished two-bedroom, two-bath apartment, clean but totally without charm. The walls weren’t quite yellow and the carpet not quite white. Mini blinds on all the windows were angled downward, casting patches of sunlight across the floor. I readjusted the blinds to throw light to the white ceiling, but faded streaks remained on the carpet, probably from years ago.

  I did a quick walk-through, checking everything.

  Yellow-and-white striped kitchen towels lay on the counter, and the holder had half a roll of paper towels. There was yellow Fiestaware in the upper cabinets and a starter set of cookware and some standard cleaning supplies in the base cabinets. The fridge was empty but cold. In the bathrooms, pairs of white towels were laid out beside the sinks, topped with a new bar of soap still in its box. The beds had inexpensive floral spreads.

  The only eye-catcher in the whole place was a paperback book of Sudoku puzzles on the nightstand. I was addicted to Sudoku in the difficult versions, but this was a drugstore purchase, easy to solve and printed on heavy newsprint. I picked it up and flipped through. Someone had worked a couple of puzzles at the front and started a few more that weren’t finished. Most of the book was unused.

  “There you are!” Patti flounced into the bedroom. “Did you see the carpets for the porches? We got two big ones for each side and some little round ones, to go with the round tables. People are going to be eating outside all the time. I can’t wait to get everything set up. What’ve you got?” She looked over my shoulder.

  “Sudoku. Ever try it?”

  “No. Where’re the clues?”

  I folded the book and ripped out the used pages, then dropped the book back beside the lamp. “There aren’t any clues. You use the numbers one through nine. No repeats in rows or columns or inside the nine small boxes.”

  “That sounds simple enough.” She gestured to the soiled pages. “There’s a trash can downstairs by the elevator. Did you notice how dreary this place is? I thought maybe you could put something in the new budget for a little makeover next year. Think about it, okay? I came to tell you not to wait for me. I’m going to stay here and put the new furniture in place, while Stewart can help. Come back later and see it set up. It’s going to be awesome.”

  “Okay.” I checked the thermostat before locking the door.

  I called Mr. Levine when I got back to the office and told him the guest suite was ready for Reg Handleman. “Patti will have the key.”

  “He just called Eloise. Says he’ll be here by lunchtime tomorrow. I guess we have to feed him, too.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting him, Charlie. I know you two will have a nice visit.”

  “Hmph.”

  Apparently, Emily had gotten involved in some project and forgotten she was supposed to be filling in for Patti. The phone kept interrupting my efforts to look up costs and assess the financial side of opening the dining room for the weekend.

  It was always hard to predict how many residents would eat there on any given day. People had visitors and appointments and travels. Adding in the car show confounded things more than usual—some people would want to hit the local restaurants in spite of crowds. In fact, waiting in lines might be part of the fun.

  And even if the numbers were the same as on a normal weekday, with the additional staff costs, we’d do well to break even. But there was another important factor. Change was good at a retirement community. Opening the dining room on Saturday and Sunday was a minor thing, but it brought a bit of excitement to Harbor Village, and that was always valuable.

  I tried to call Carla to give her the go-ahead, but no one answered in the kitchen. When I looked at the time, I understood. Emily and Carla had left long ago. I got my purse, turned off the lights, locked the door, and saw Patti swooping down the hall.

  “Can you come see it now? It’s gorgeous! Beautiful! If I say so myself.” She spun about in a circle, arms angled out like a ballerina taking a bow. “Everyone’s so excited. Now the first floor wants theirs done, too. But I think it should be a little different, don’t you? Not cookie-cutter.”

  Another
hour passed before I finally got to my apartment. I had admired Patti’s arrangements of furniture, rugs, and potted plants, and talked to all the residents who’d come out to see the changes. People from other buildings walked over as the word spread, and the poor little elevator got quite a workout. Finally I took the stairs and walked home.

  Tinkerbelle was waiting inside my door.

  “Did you think you’d been abandoned again?” I scratched her chin and rubbed both ears. “Have you been sleeping on the bed all day?”

  She looked smug and rubbed against my legs, leaving a swath of calico fur on black fabric. I went to the bedroom closet for a sticky roller and cleaned the pants before I hung them in the section reserved for clothing that got another wearing before it was laundered. I put on jeans, a long-sleeved sweater, and the suede moccasins I wore indoors. There was leftover vegetarian chili in the fridge and I stuck it in the microwave and washed up for dinner.

  The phone rang as soon as I put my bowl on the table. It was Travis, and he was in a talkative mood. “Sorry it’s so late. You wanted me?”

  “You left me a couple of messages. And I’ve learned all about the Henry George Utopian Tax Colony.”

  “Shoot,” he said.

  Papers rustled. He was probably multitasking. For some reason it irritated me but I gave him a rundown of the facts I’d collected.

  “The Henry George Utopian Tax Colony is a nineteenth-century relic and Harbor Village is built on property that belongs to it. We pay an annual rental fee, which is what the current invoice covers, and they pay the property tax. The bill is high because we pay for all the houses and condos, not just the apartments. And we recover the costs through rents and monthly fees.”

  “Boy, Alabama’s got some weird ideas.”

  “No argument there, but the Colony follows Henry George principles and he lived in New York. Never even came here.”

  “Really? Tell me more.”

  “Don’t tempt me. I listened to ninety minutes of economic theory and now they expect me to take a class.” I relayed a few details I’d gotten from Terry Wozniak and worked my way around to the Harbor Village perspective again.