Murder at Royale Court

by G. P. Gardner

  Jim looked sheepish but shook his head. “Not the right type. I don’t picture Usher strangling anybody.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “I saw him crush a soft drink can with his bare hands.”

  Jim grinned but shook his head again. “Showing off. Look for a physical type. Macho.”

  I left my apartment key with him and walked through the parking lot, which was crowded with the vehicles of shuttle riders. At the pool house I spoke with a few swimmers and continued on to Assisted Living, where two residents were working a jigsaw puzzle at a card table in the sitting room. An aide stood by to kibitz, and a couple of cats slept coiled together in one chair. We chatted for a minute and I tried, without success, to help with the puzzle. When I returned to the big house. Riley, Patti, and Todd were already at work.

  “I own the house,” Todd crowed when I walked up.

  “And he can sell it,” Patti said, “as soon as it goes through probate.”

  “Subject to probate,” Riley corrected absently, jotting a note on a legal pad.

  Todd looked at him. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  Riley looked up. “It means you can sell now if you find a buyer who agrees to let the title transfer at a later date, after the court is satisfied that all conditions of the will have been met.”

  “I can sell now? So what are we waiting for? Let’s do it!” Todd bounced forward eagerly, grinning. “How much? I need sixteen thousand.”

  Riley’s eyebrows shot up. “For what?”

  “Next year.” Todd tapped the budget folder.

  “Plus…” Patti reminded, flipping the folder open and pointing to a lower section of the budget page.

  “Oh, yeah. Right. I’ve got some loans to repay, too. Say eighteen thousand. Maybe nineteen. Let’s just make it twenty. That’s easy to remember.”

  Riley nodded, his attention moving on to another document. “That takes care of year one. What do you do for the next three and a half years, until you turn twenty-five?”

  “Hmm.” Todd shrugged. “Bust the trust, I guess. But here’s what I don’t understand. How can there even be a trust, with Devon Wheat gone? If I sell the house and hire some lawyers—oh, yeah. I need money for lawyers, too. Is that what you were thinking?”

  Riley laid a document aside, laced his fingers together, and looked over his glasses at Todd. “Why not take your time and sell the house for what it’s worth, which may be substantial. You said your grandfather was a smart man. Maybe he made some good decisions for you—what do you think? Leave the trust in place, take all that money the lawyers would charge you, and put it in your pocket.”

  Todd whined, “But I’ve gotta live.”

  Riley frowned and shook his head. “The house money should tide you over for a while.”

  “Years?” Todd didn’t buy it initially but he appeared concerned that he might look foolish. “Okay. Yeah, either way. Whatever makes sense.”

  Riley nodded and looked at me, eyebrows raised. “You know any good Realtors, Cleo? Todd needs one.”

  “Well, he’s in luck. I do, actually. Want me to call her? She probably won’t be in on Saturday afternoon, but we can see.”

  It took me a minute to find her number in my contact list, and Vickie Wiltshire answered immediately. She was in her car, on her way back to the office after a showing. Since her office was in the shopping center next to Harbor Village, it’d be no trouble to zip by and talk with us in person. She could be with us in five minutes.

  I relayed her offer. Todd nodded. Patti shrugged and nodded.

  “Sure,” Riley accepted. “Does she know where we are?”

  I told her to come to the lobby.

  Vickie Wiltshire was a friend of Nita’s. She’d shown me a few houses and condos last summer when I was trying to decide if I wanted to move to Fairhope. She was a pretty young woman, and smart, but what my aunt Jo would’ve called skin and bones.

  Vickie was also a hard worker and very good at her job, but she complained about it constantly. I’d felt so bad for her that, when the rental agent’s position at Harbor Village came available, I’d called immediately to offer her the job.

  She’d laughed at me. The pay was far too low, she loved her job, the real estate profession was ideal for someone who worked as hard as she did.

  But she’d found Wilma Gomez for the Harbor Village job. I suspected they had some arrangement to direct listings to Vickie when local residents began the process of moving to Harbor Village, but that didn’t seem to violate any licensure rules. It paid to have friends.

  While we waited for Vickie to arrive, Patti and I went to get drinks for everyone.

  “Do you have time to look at some photos for me?” Patti asked. “We’ve got hundreds and need to select some for publicity—for the newsletter, the website, the bulletin board. Ann usually helps but she’s tied up with family stuff right now. You were there all three nights, weren’t you?”

  “I was. And I’d enjoy looking at your photos. They’re on your phone?”

  “I made SD chips. Can you use those?”

  I nodded. “Am I looking for anything special?”

  We started back to the lobby, Patti carrying two Cokes in red plastic cups. I had two mugs of coffee, each one with a dab of sweetener and some half-and-half. I took a sip from one to keep it from spilling.

  “Remind me to give you the chips. They’re in my car. And just look for anybody who was entertaining. I’ve got a really good one of you and Todd and Mr. McKenzie playing that game, but Todd refuses to let it go on the bulletin board.” She dropped her voice as we turned toward the table where Riley and Todd sat talking. “He thinks people are laughing at him.”

  “Probably right.” I smiled, remembering.

  “What’s funny?” Patti asked.

  I wiped the smile away.

  Riley was summarizing Todd’s financial position. I heard thirty thousand and saw Todd do a couple of fist pumps.

  Patti snapped her fingers. “Napkins.”

  Vickie arrived, wearing red lipstick and a swingy black outfit that echoed straight, swingy blond hair, cut longer in front so that it accentuated her heart-shaped face. I introduced her to Riley and Todd, verified that she knew Patti, and offered her something to drink.

  “Just water, if you have it.”

  “Water,” Patti repeated. She headed back to the dining room.

  Vickie took Patti’s chair. “Now, who’s the client?”

  She looked at Riley and raised her eyebrows expectantly. He pointed, and Todd raised his hand. Vickie swung toward him like the arrow on a compass, catching him in the middle of a sip.

  He downed half his Coke in the one big gulp. Vickie seemed to make him nervous.

  I got the real estate ball rolling. “Todd is inheriting his grandfather’s house. The will hasn’t been probated yet, but he’d like to sell it.”

  “Aren’t you lucky?” Vickie gave him a big smile. “So, you’d like to sell now with a pending title. And where is this house?”

  He swallowed and blinked but managed to mumble an address on Andrews Street.

  “Good location. And how large is it?”

  He was stumped. He cut his gaze to me and shook his head vaguely.

  “How many bedrooms?” Vickie clarified.

  “Uh, two, I guess. One for him, one for me.”

  “How many baths?”

  He inhaled and shook his head. “It doesn’t have a shower. Well, it does, but there’s a tub. You know?”

  “Do you have a half bath?” She was nodding at everything he said and jotting notes on a printed form.

  Poor Todd. So naive.

  Patti returned and set a bottle of water and a napkin in front of Vickie, then dealt out cookies and napkins for everyone. Todd got two, I noticed.

  Patti leaned close to my ear. “Do
you need me for this part?”

  “Did you look at Todd’s house?”

  She nodded, looking puzzled.

  “Maybe you can help with the description.” I got up and gave her my chair and Riley intercepted me on the way to fetch another one, apologizing for not anticipating it. Mr. Courtesy today.

  “How many bathrooms, Patti?” Todd asked.

  “Hmm, three? No, that one by the pantry is a half bath. And there’s another one out in…what do you call that, a laundry? The back of the house, where the garage is.”

  “Two baths and two half baths, then? Plus a laundry.” Vickie jotted a note. She looked at Patti. “Is it furnished?”

  “Yes. Full of stuff.”

  “Old stuff,” Todd said. “Junk.”

  “Antiques,” Patti corrected.

  “Any other heirs? Maybe some of the antiques were bequeathed to family members?”

  “No.” Riley tapped the stack of folders in front of him. “Todd gets everything.”

  Vickie patted Riley’s arm, either in thanks or to shut him up, and gave Todd another entrancing smile. “Have you decided which items you want to keep? What about an estate sale?”

  “Sell everything. As soon as possible.” He didn’t seem to misunderstand intentionally. He was just totally out of his depth and eager to get this process completed. And smitten with Vickie, of course.

  She smiled at him and pushed the swingy blond veil back over one ear. “I’m thinking we should go look at the house.”

  “Okay.” He stood up abruptly. If she’d proposed jumping in a lake, he’d be wet already.

  Riley sorted documents back into folders.

  “You want to keep this stuff?” Todd shoveled documents toward him. “I don’t need any of it.”

  “Yes you do!” Riley took rubber bands off his wrist and placed them around groups of folders. “This is all vitally important to you right now. But I would like to take another look through it, if you don’t mind. How about I get it back to you tomorrow? And I’ll keep the IOU.”

  He pulled out a single page with large printing and held it for me to read. IOU was printed in big letters followed by one hundred dollars in numerals. Todd’s signature was in the same handwriting on a line beneath the amount. At the bottom, the word Witness was followed by another line with Patti’s small, tidy signature. Riley nodded to Todd, folded the page, and stuck it in his pocket.

  There was no reason for me to go along on the house tour, especially since the hour was later than I’d imagined, but I was curious about the private residences on the street behind my apartment.

  “I’m going home,” Patti said. “I need to get ready for tonight.”

  “Don’t forget your tickets,” I reminded.

  She smiled. “Stewart has them.”

  “I’d like to see the house.” Riley surprised me. “Just out of curiosity.”

  Vickie said, “I’m going to drive so I won’t have to come back here. Anybody want to ride with me? There’s room for one.”

  “I will,” Todd said immediately.

  Riley and I walked. He carried the stack of folders under one arm.

  “I want to talk with Todd if there’s an opportunity,” I told him. “You saw the reference to a Type Forty-One in that invitation last night? I think he and Wheat talked about it.”

  A shout came from behind us. “Cleo! Cleo!”

  Patti was running after us. She waved her hand and quickly caught up. “Don’t forget the photos.” She gave me two small plastic cases with SD chips inside. “Mark the ones you like best.”

  I stuck the little cases into my pocket. “I’ll bring them to you Monday.”

  She turned back toward her car but shouted again, “What’re you wearing tonight?”

  “A blue dress. Long.”

  “Oh, Cleo! A dress?” She threw her head back and laughed delightedly. “Are you sure? You really want to wear a dress?”

  “Why not? Is there something wrong with a dress?”

  “You’ll make me lose a bet. I told Stewart you’d wear black pants.” She didn’t wait for a reply but danced toward her car, still laughing.

  I turned back toward Andrews Street and saw Riley hide a smile. “And what are you wearing, smarty?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Black pants.”

  The walk to Todd’s house took us past two handsome jelly palms at the corner beside the mail kiosk. The old leaf stems created a crisscross pattern up the trunk of the palms, which were ten or twelve feet tall. Their sweeping fronds reached almost to the ground, where the grounds crew had used pine straw to mulch large, interlocking circles around the trunks. It looked very attractive.

  “I’m thinking about the Type Forty-One,” I resumed. “That’s another name for the Royale, and Patti says Todd badgered Devon Wheat about investing in something like that.”

  “Todd didn’t seem to know much about cars Thursday night.”

  I agreed. “I suppose it was Wheat’s idea, but that’s what I want to find out. I can’t imagine Todd knowing about it otherwise. He came to just the last Handleman lecture, right?”

  Riley shook his head. “I wasn’t there Tuesday and didn’t see him Wednesday.”

  I checked a house number. We were almost there.

  “Think it was a coincidence, his showing up the only night Handleman talked about investments? Maybe that was all he cared about.”

  Riley shrugged. “You’ve thought about it more than I have. Maybe he just went because his friends did. Patti and Stewart, I mean.”

  That was a possibility I hadn’t considered. “Well, I’m going to quiz him a little, if the opportunity arises.”

  We got to Todd’s house and he met us on the porch. Vickie wasn’t visible but I heard odd noises coming from inside the house.

  We entered directly into a large, dark living room with a brick fireplace, old rosy-beige wall-to-wall carpeting, a musty smell, and too much antique furniture. Some of it had intricate carving that made me think German, although the name Barnwell didn’t sound very German. Family photographs hung on every wall.

  “Who are these people?” I asked Todd as I moved slowly around the room.

  He shrugged and looked at the photographs as if he’d never noticed them.

  Riley had stopped in front of a mirrored sideboard. On top, a brass tray held a collection of half-empty booze bottles. An enormous cuckoo clock hung on the wall above scotch and bourbon and Irish whiskey, its weights shaped like pinecones, sprawled on the floor.

  “Wonder what it sounds like,” Riley said.

  I looked at the sideboard instead. It was oak, unlike the rest of the furniture in the room. Everything felt dirty. I swiped a finger across the wood and left a clean streak.

  “Does housekeeping come here?”

  Todd shook his head. “They wanted to. At, like, eight in the morning. I didn’t need that.”

  Vickie was in the kitchen, beeping an electronic measuring device, writing down dimensions, and snapping photos. “Nice big rooms. I assume you’re selling as is?”

  Todd looked at me. I nodded.

  “Um, I guess,” he told her.

  Vickie laughed. “I didn’t think you’d want to do any updating. Even if it’d gain you some money.”

  Was she chiding him for avoiding the work or congratulating him on not being greedy? Whatever her intent, it caused him to reconsider.

  “What would I have to do?”

  “Just pay, mostly.” She laughed again. “And it would add a few months to the process.”

  “No,” he decided immediately.

  There was a large master bedroom with more of the oversized, dark furniture, including a king-size bed stripped to the mattress. The master bath was big enough to hold a party, and a big closet was jammed with men’s clothing and boxes, many of them bea
ring marks from QVC. It didn’t appear that anything had been disposed of, not even medication bottles lined up on the bathroom counter.

  What Vickie called a Jack-and-Jill bath was shared by two bedrooms at the opposite end of the house. One of the small bedrooms was set up as an office. I breezed through it and the basic bathroom to the third bedroom.

  “This is my room. Sort of messy.” Todd looked around with me. I saw a single bed, an electric treadmill draped with clothing, and a large TV on a dresser. We moved on.

  The kitchen was unusually large, with an extra row of cabinets in the middle of the room. Some builder probably thought it was a great idea but it looked cluttered and rather like a barrier, just something to walk around between the stove and refrigerator.

  There was a pantry full of food and household supplies and, beside it, a powder room with black fixtures and striped metallic wallpaper. I debated the era. Eighties? I didn’t know Harbor Village went back that far.

  A separate dining room at the back of the house was light and bright with one wall of windows and another mirrored, but it was oddly proportioned, long and narrow with barely enough room to push chairs away from the oversized table. A big china cabinet on the mirrored wall displayed lots of china and fancy glassware.

  I was wondering what the dishes would bring in an estate sale when I heard my name called. Riley stood in the hallway, motioning for me to follow him. We backtracked to the office and he stopped beside the big, messy desk.

  “Did you see this?” He pointed.

  A white envelope with a square flap and gold lining stuck out of the clutter of paperwork. The envelope was empty and blank.

  I looked at Riley. “Aha!”

  “I don’t see a card,” he said.

  I looked around, pushed a few papers aside, even stuck a finger into the paper sprawl at the same geologic level as the envelope, lifted slightly and leaned over for a close look. I didn’t see a card, either.

  “Do you think it’s the same thing?”

  He shrugged. “Might be a wedding invitation.”

  We caught up with Vickie again in the kitchen.