Murder at Royale Court

by G. P. Gardner

  “You’re twenty-one now?”

  “Almost. Twenty and a half.”

  “How much does it cost you to live a year?”

  Todd stared, his gaze flicking to me and then back to Riley, like he’d just sensed a trap. After a minute, he asked, “A year?”

  Riley nodded. “That’s what I said.”

  Another shrug. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I’ve been living free.”

  “No, you certainly have not,” Patti blurted out.

  I’d forgotten she was there, leaning against the worktable behind Todd, her arms folded.

  “You’ve cost me plenty. And you’re paying it all back, Todd. I don’t have a trust account waiting for me. And you owe Stewart, too.”

  Riley jumped in before Todd could answer. “If I were going to write you a check to cover living expenses for a year, which is hypothetical and highly unlikely, you understand, how much would I need to write it for?”

  After a confused pause, Todd shook his head.

  “Do you expect me to figure it out for you?” There was a note of incredulity in Riley’s voice and in the way he shook his head. “When you know the answers, how much you need and what you should pay for the privilege of using someone else’s money, we’ll talk.”

  “I’m paying Patti interest,” he said.

  She snorted.

  Riley looked at his watch again. “We’re going to have to wrap this up. We’ve got people waiting for us. We’ll get together tomorrow if you’re interested in assistance. Bring me a list. What are your assets? You say you’ve got four million dollars. Where is it? Who’s managing it now? How is it invested? I ask because I want to know if there’s likely to be anything left in four-and-a-half years, if there’s any chance you might be able to repay me. Some managers actually lose trust funds, you know. Sometimes all of it.”

  Todd was instantly agitated. “So, who does have it now? The guy that did is dead. Where’s my money?”

  Riley shrugged.

  Jeez, I thought. He was being hard on the boy.

  “We’ll find out, but you can’t come in empty-handed. You have trust papers? An attorney? A guardian? Bring all that information to show me. Make a list of how much money you need for a year, and what you’ll do with it. What does an apartment cost? What’s the deposit for utilities? What does it cost you to eat? Do you have a car? How much are your payments, maintenance, and operating expense? Tuition? Health insurance? When you know where you stand, you can start figuring out what to do about the problem.”

  Todd made a feeble attempt at protest. “You eat. You know what it costs.”

  Riley grinned at him. “You don’t get the senior discount.”

  He tried again. “I’ve got a house, I don’t need an apartment.”

  “A house you can’t afford,” Patti snapped at him. “You’re about to have a claim filed against you for overdue fees.”

  Todd gradually sank into a limp and defeated posture. He sighed and looked at Patti. “You going to help me?”

  Riley stood up and pulled out his wallet. He peeled off five twenties and tossed them onto the worktable beside Patti. “Write me an IOU, sign, and date it. Patti can be a witness. Then take her out to dinner and beg her for help, because you’re going to need it. What time will you be ready tomorrow?”

  Todd looked from Riley to Patti.

  She stood up straight, fists on her hips, and cocked her head at Todd. After a pause, she threw him a lifeline, employing more authority than I knew she possessed. “Two? I’ve got plans for the evening.”

  “Two,” Todd repeated.

  “Two,” Riley agreed. “I’m having lunch in the dining room tomorrow and I’ll be in the lobby at two.” He looked at me. “You ready to go?”

  The two of us laughed all the way to my apartment.

  “You were wonderful,” I told him between giggles. “That sneer disappeared in about two seconds. And he’s already trying to impress you. That never would’ve happened with me.”

  Riley smiled, enjoying the afterglow. “I had two boys, remember.”

  “Patti was good, too. Did you see how she stood up to him? Priceless! I’ll call and tell her.”

  Riley shook his head. “Wait until they’ve had dinner. You don’t want him to know you’re enjoying this.”

  I fed the cat and changed clothes, and we crossed the street to Nita and Jim’s apartment, where four of us—Nita, Dolly, Riley, and I—played Mexican Trains for three hours every Friday night. After the first hour, we always took a break for food and Jim joined us then. Sometimes a fifth person played with us, but never Jim; he met us as we arrived, said hello, and retreated to his study until Subway delivered the sandwiches at six thirty.

  Same routine, every Friday night. Unless something else was going on.

  “Come in, come in,” Jim called out as he threw the door wide for Riley and me. He closed and locked it behind us and shook Riley’s hand in that two-handed thing they always did. “People, we’ve got a murder on our hands!” He almost crowed. Jim Bergen meant to enjoy whatever life brought, up to and including murder.

  Nita didn’t really disagree with him, but she wanted more decorum in her world. She rolled her eyes at him and gave me a hug. “Are you getting enough rest, Cleo? Late nights all week, plus a murder and now this car show.”

  “I’m feeling it.” That was an understatement. “I’m going to take it easy this weekend.”

  “But you’ve got the gala.”

  I hadn’t forgotten. “Maybe we’ll slip out early.”

  “Hello, Riley dear. How are you?” She gave him a kiss and whispered something that left him smiling.

  I spoke to Dolly, who waved back as she headed around the corner, aimed for the dining table. I admired her hair, white as Nita’s but cut short and turned under all around. She’d spent her entire career in Washington, she’d told me, working in a windowless basement. I liked to imagine her as a spy or code breaker or something romantic, but like Jim with his naval career, the past was past for Dolly, never to be thought of again. Maybe that was the secret to a happy retirement.

  As usual, I drank in details of the Bergen apartment. “It’s so pretty in here, Nita. The lighting is perfect.” There was a brass lamp on the mahogany secretary, two pharmacy lamps and a tall, translucent stone lamp in the seating area, plus a crystal chandelier and sconces in the dining area, where an illuminated painting hung in the little nook with the buffet. And as always, I admired the angled, plush carpet, woven in muted shades of red and acid green. The clock chimed the half hour.

  “You must see Dolly’s apartment.” Nita waved us toward the dining table. “She’s having it painted.”

  “You’ll have to come see, Cleo.” Dolly picked up the box of dominoes. “But wait until Wednesday when everything gets put back together. The color’s called burnished shrimp, and there’ll be an accent wall in dark cinnamon.”

  I always admired Nita’s weeping fig tree, covered with white twinkle lights. It stretched upward almost to the skylight and one branch draped gracefully across the pass-through to the kitchen. “It looks like Christmas in here.”

  The tree had looked just about the same since July, lights and all, but with Christmas only a few weeks away, the tree assumed more prominence now, giving the apartment a festive, happy look. The dining table, oval and mahogany, had some special transparent coating that kept it looking new and glossy, in spite of all the sliding and scraping of dominoes.

  Jim followed us. “We’ve all had a busy week. I’ll bet we didn’t get to bed before ten a single night.”

  “No,” Nita shook a finger at him, “but we had a nap every afternoon while Cleo worked.” She glanced at Riley and me. “Did you two get to the car show before it turned cold?”

  I shook my head, Riley nodded yes, and we laughed at the lack of agreement.


  “We got there, but the temperature was dropping.” I gave a little shiver that wasn’t entirely pretend.

  Nita asked, “Is it warm enough in here?”

  I said it was. Nita had known Riley’s wife, too, I remembered as I sat down at the table. I wondered if she knew about Diane’s new marriage. And had she learned yet about Riley’s proposal, or proposition, or whatever I’d received? Probably not. I looked at her. She wouldn’t keep something like that to herself.

  “The sandwiches will be here in an hour.” She offered us coffee or wine or water in the meantime. Nobody wanted anything.

  Dolly had dumped out the domino tiles and now she began turning them facedown. “I’ll tell you what I want. I want to know who murdered that stockbroker and why nobody’s talking about it. I almost put my money with that man. Has anybody lost anything?”

  “Whoa there.” Jim held out both hands like a traffic cop, one toward Dolly, one toward Nita. “We don’t want to start this discussion until the food gets here. Talk about the car show, if you need a topic. Or the weather. It’s getting cool out there, did you notice?”

  “The moon’s almost full,” I said.

  Jim nodded approval of the topic. “A waxing gibbous moon. Good night for a murder, if we hadn’t already had it. But don’t talk about it yet.”

  The four Mexican Train players settled in at the dining table. Riley held Nita’s chair for her, then set up to keep score, as usual. Dolly and I got all the tiles turned facedown and then made a lot of noise stirring them before everyone began to draw out their fifteen starters.

  We always played off the double twelve first and worked our way downward during the course of the evening. We’d completed four rounds when the food arrived, a few minutes late.

  Nobody had said a word about the elephant in the room, the late Devon Wheat, but I had heard the landline, Jim and Nita’s only phone, ring while we were playing the first round. Jim had answered in his office and talked for a few minutes, but he hadn’t come out until the doorbell sounded.

  “Forty dollars.” He set several plastic bags on the table. “I adjusted the tip to make it come out even. Eight dollars each.”

  “Why do we never pay for drinks?” Dolly asked. “You’re shortchanging yourself, Jim.”

  Nita and I went to the kitchen to prepare the food, while Riley and Dolly cleared the table, moving the game pieces to the center and freeing up the perimeter for dining. Jim got out wineglasses and brought them to the kitchen, where he filled them from a bottle on the counter. I put ice cubes into two tall glasses and topped them up with Coke.

  “I called Subway a few days ago and they told me they don’t deliver.” Dolly spoke loudly so we could hear her through the pass-through. “Now how do you explain that? They’ve been coming here every week for a year or two. Is it just on Fridays?”

  Nita smiled at me and told Dolly, “Ask Jim.”

  Dolly did. “Jim?”

  He laughed, too, as he delivered wineglasses to the table and was brought the fifth chair from beside the buffet. “I’m a good customer, Dolly. Piggly Wiggly delivers, too. Did you know that?”

  “No. Are you sure? Nita, is that true?”

  Nita winked at me as she unwrapped the last sandwich, lined them up on the cutting board, and began slicing them into quarters. She arranged the pieces on two platters of the desert rose pattern.

  My aunt Jo had the same china pattern when I was a child and she was a newlywed. I always loved it. Aunt Jo was hard on dishes, and other things. She gave me her last surviving desert rose soup bowl as a dog food dish when Stephanie got T-Bone Pickens. That was the second time I’d thought of T-Bone this week, but I thought of my aunt every time I saw Nita’s dishes.

  “Jim stays on good terms with all the managers around here.” Nita handed me a platter and we went to the dining room.

  Someone had moved my chair to Riley’s side of the table so Jim could have his usual place at the end.

  “It pays off,” Jim was saying, about his cultivation of good relations of the local shop managers.

  I laid out small plates, forks, and pink napkins. Jim put another stack of napkins on top of the mound of dominoes.

  “The barbecue is going to be messy,” Nita warned us.

  We sat down and began passing food. Something smelled delicious.

  “Before I forget…” Jim was looking at me. “Lieutenant Montgomery will be here at eight thirty. She said you aren’t answering your phone tonight.”

  “Is that phone quitting on me?” I got up again. “It didn’t work at the car show today but we thought it was a lack of service down there.”

  I wanted to get my bag and check the phone, but it wasn’t on the floor beside the secretary, where I usually dropped it. And it wasn’t in the desk chair, or beside the couch. Nowhere in the dining room.

  I looked at Riley. “I didn’t bring my purse. I’m locked out.” It was such a helpless feeling.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” Nita said. “It’s overwork.”

  “Sorry,” Riley echoed, with a sweet smile and a pat on my shoulder. “Does someone have a spare?”

  “Mary says you know something,” Jim said.

  I sighed and looked at Nita. “You have my spare key, don’t you?” I’d left one with her when I moved in. “I knew this would happen sooner or later.”

  “Certainly,” she said. “I’ll get it when we finish. Now eat and don’t worry.”

  Riley held the platter and I took one segment of a barbecue sub. “Don’t you want more than that?” He still held the platter beside my plate.

  I took a second segment, this one with hot, sautéed Mediterranean veggies spilling out.

  “What does Mary Montgomery want?” Dolly reached across the table and took the platter from Riley. She took two sections of barbecue sandwich and ignored Jim’s scowl of disapproval. “I hope you’re helping her solve this murder. Seems like nobody’s the least bit concerned about it.”

  “No, I’m not helping her. I have no connection to this investigation, except for being there when the body was discovered, just like Nita. I never even heard of the man when he was alive.”

  Dolly picked up her fork. “I knew about him but never met him face-to-face. But you’ve got the right equipment, Cleo. Not many people understand the criminal mind like you do.”

  Riley made a funny noise, like he’d inhaled some of his wine. I looked to see if he needed me to pound on his back, but he was grinning and avoiding my look.

  Jim grinned, too. “I’m not sure I’d take that as a compliment, Cleo.”

  I looked at Dolly, thinking she might be kidding.

  She was holding her fork sideways, cutting off a bit of sandwich. “This is messy.”

  I shrugged. “Ann said something similar, about me being experienced with the cops. Made me sound like a criminal. Did you hear she got an invitation to join a consortium to purchase some expensive car?”

  “Hold on.” It was unusual for Jim to ignore food, but he did. “Mary said you’ve got something for her but she didn’t know what. This is it?”

  I described the invitation Ann had given to me. “It’s a square envelope and matching card. Expensive-looking card stock, with a gold lining inside the envelope, but there’s no address on it. No return address, nothing written on the line that’s supposed to tell you who to contact.”

  “How do you know where it came from? Or who it’s meant for?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t.”

  “And how’d you get it?” Dolly asked.

  “Ann got it somehow. She thinks the people at the Grand Hotel gave it to her by mistake. She met with Marjorie Zadnichek about a retreat Royale Knit Shop is sponsoring in February, and the invitation has the word Royale in the headline. Ann thinks the two things ran together for Marjorie. And the invitation mentions the Type Forty-One Handl
eman talked about.”

  “Is that so? Did you call Marjorie and confirm?” Jim asked.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not involved. Remember?”

  Nita nodded approval. “Don’t let them rope you into something.”

  “I didn’t see Ann at the lecture last night,” Dolly said.

  “She wasn’t there. That’s why she didn’t know Handleman talked about this very thing,” I said. “But she thought he’d know about the invitation. And since she’s busy with her brother, she gave it to me to take care of.”

  “What’s wrong with Usher?” Nita asked.

  Jim ignored her. “I don’t know if Handleman had any hard evidence of how they operate. What did he say when he saw this invitation?”

  I chewed and swallowed before answering. “That’s an awkward point. I was going to give it to him and took it to the guest suite this morning. But he’d moved out. The only thing left was a note with Devon Wheat’s name and directions to Royale Court.”

  Four forks went down onto plates. Four people stared at me, blinking, heads tilting quizzically. They looked at one another.

  I laughed. “I thought I’d give both items to Mary, just in case—the invitation and the note. But she asked me about it right in front of Handleman. Put me on the spot, and I couldn’t think what to say. I hope Handleman didn’t notice anything.”

  Jim whistled softly and squirmed in his chair. “Well, that’s interesting. You’re sure it’s Handleman’s handwriting? If it is, you’re doing the right thing.” He began eating again but looked at me and gave a thumbs-up.

  “We know Handleman tried to see Wheat.” Riley glanced at me, perhaps recalling my duplicity. “He told us about it this afternoon. Said he went to Wheat’s office and no one was there, but I don’t know if anyone can confirm that.”

  Jim chewed and swallowed. “We’ll leave the investigation to the authorities, of course. But Handleman isn’t stupid. If he strangled somebody, he’s not going to go around saying he paid the man a visit.”