Retirement Can Be Murder

by Susan Santangelo

  Yes, My Beloved was great at emergencies like that.

  But over the years, I’ve realized that there are lots of things that Jim can’t fix, whether he thinks he can or not. Nobody makes terrific choices all the time, but as Jim became more and more disillusioned with his job at the agency, he didn’t seem to care whether the choices he made, especially in his professional life, were good ones or not.

  And the way he was handling Davis Rhodes’s death was unfathomable to me.

  On the other hand, I’d never found a dead body. How did I know if he was reacting normally? Maybe Jim was just protecting himself from what had to be a horrible scene, one that would give most people nightmares for months.

  My mother always told me, “Don’t borrow trouble, Carol. It’ll find you soon enough.”

  I sighed, then said to the dogs, “It’s shower time. I’m going upstairs and wash away all my troubles down the bathroom drain.”

  There’s a meditation I do sometimes when I’m in the shower, which helps center me for the day. In the meditation, as the water rushes over me, I let go of any negative feelings that may be in my head. When I turn off the water, I will them all to be gone, and to stay gone for the remainder of the day.

  If there ever was a day when I needed to practice that meditation, it was today. Even if I stayed in the shower until I wrinkled up like a prune.

  Predictably, three people had called and left messages while I was washing away my troubles: Nancy, Mary Alice and Claire.

  Nancy was the first. “I’ve got to talk to you!” she shouted into the phone. “I was reading the morning paper before I left to go to Realtor open houses, and there’s a small article on the bottom of page one that says Davis Rhodes was found dead at the Re-tirement Center last night.

  The police aren’t releasing any more information right now. All I could think of was Jim going over there to have it out with him. God, did Jim actually see him yesterday? What’s going on? Call me on my pager or my cell as soon as you get this message.” She rattled off a series of numbers and hung up.

  Oh, boy. It had never occurred to me that there would be something in the local paper about Rhodes’s death. At least, not this soon. But that’s stupid, Carol, I chided myself. It was announced on television an hour ago. What made you think it wouldn’t be in the paper too?

  I dressed hurriedly and ran downstairs. Our hometown paper was still sitting on our front porch, beside the blue plastic bag containing The New York Times. It was raining slightly, so the local paper was wet and the pages were stuck together.

  Normally, I would spread the paper out all over the kitchen so the pages would dry before I read it, but today I was in too much of a hurry to bother. I scanned the front page and didn’t see anything about Rhodes. What was Nancy talking about?

  I skipped to the second section, which featured regional news, and there it was, a small news item at the bottom right corner.

  Local Retirement Coach Found Dead

  Davis Rhodes, Ph.D., founder of the Retirement Survival Center and author of the recently published book, Re-tirement’s Not For Sissies: A Baby Boomer’s Guide To Making The Most Of The Best Of Your Life, was found dead at his office in Westfield last night. As of press time, police were releasing no information as to cause of death, but one source, who asked not to be identified, termed Dr. Rhodes’s death ‘suspicious.’ An autopsy has been ordered.

  Well, I consoled myself, it could have been a lot worse. At least Jim wasn’t identified as being the person who found Rhodes’s body.

  But the police were terming the death “suspicious.” That wasn’t good.

  I resisted the urge to call or e-mail Jim about this. He’d probably seen the story already.

  Instead, I listened to my other voice mail messages. The next one was from Mary Alice.

  “I just saw the paper and I’m checking to be sure everything is all right. I’m not working today, so if you want to talk, I’m at home. What can I do to help?” That message was typical of Mary Alice. Ever the caregiver, she was such an ideal nurse. I wished with all my heart that there was something she could do to help, but I was at a loss about what that could be. Except listen to me and hand me tissues when I cried. Or give me drugs to calm me down. Which was probably illegal.

  The last call was from Claire.

  “Carol,” she said, “it’s nine-forty-five and I’m checking in to see how you and Jim are doing today. Did he go to work? When Larry got home last night, he assured me that there was nothing to worry about. But finding a dead body must have been awful for Jim, especially when it was someone he knew. And there was a little squib in today’s paper about Rhodes’s death. Did you see it? Thank God it didn’t mention who found the body. Call me whenever you can talk. I’ll come over if you want me to, but I don’t want to intrude in case Jim is still home.”

  “End of messages,” the automated voice mail said. For now, that’s the end of our messages, I thought. Once word got out about Jim being the person who found Rhodes, everybody in town will be calling here to offer advice, sympathy, or pump us for information.

  I ran my hands through my hair. God, what an awful mess.

  Then the dogs started to bark uncontrollably. And the front doorbell rang.

  I peeked out through the dining room drapes and gasped. There was a police car parked in front of the house, and I could make out the silhouettes of two uniformed patrolmen standing on my front steps.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  Re-tire: verb; to go away or withdraw to a private, sheltered, or secluded place.

  — Webster’s Dictionary

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. I felt like I was going to be sick to my stomach, like I’d taken a body blow which had knocked the air out of me.

  I deluded myself into thinking that the police couldn’t tell I was home. Maybe, if I crept up the stairs to the bedroom with my back pressed against the wall, they wouldn’t see me.

  The dogs, of course, continued to bark wildly and jump at the front door. I knew I couldn’t shush them without giving my presence away.

  Suddenly I realized that if I hid from the police, it would look suspicious. My cowardly behavior could make things worse for Jim. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

  I pasted a false smile on my face and opened the door.

  Lucy and Ethel, sensing an opportunity for unexpected freedom, immediately tried to make a break for the front yard. I grabbed each of them by their collars and said, “Easy, girls.”

  One of the officers, the younger one, flashed a badge and said, “Mrs. Andrews? Hi, I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Mark Anderson. I went to school with Jenny.”

  “Mark?” I repeated. “You’re Mark Anderson?”

  I tried not to react, but if this was really Mark, he’d come a long way from the pimply-faced boy I remembered. In fact, he was downright handsome, reminding me of a younger Brad Pitt. He smiled, and I saw just a flash of that young boy who used to tell jokes at the kitchen table when he and Jenny were supposed to be doing their homework. I remember they seemed to spend more time laughing together than actually studying.

  “Yes, Mrs. Andrews. I guess I’ve changed a little since you saw me last.”

  “Why, Mark,” I said, “I never would have recognized you. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  Then I clapped my hands over my mouth. “Well, it’s not nice to see you. Oh, damn. You know what I mean.”

  Mark laughed and shook my hand. At that exact moment, the dogs took advantage of my lack of vigilance and made a beeline out the door.

  “Oh!” I screamed. “Stop them! The gate’s not closed and if they get out on the street, they could get hit by a car!”

  In less than a second—I swear—Mark had turned and raced after Lucy and Ethel. “Gotcha,” he said, collaring each of the offending canines. “Back inside with you two.” He led them gently back to me.

  “Would you mind
if we all went inside for a minute?” Mark asked, handing the dogs off to me.

  Gesturing to the other policeman, he said, “This is my partner, Paul Wheeler, Mrs. Andrews. He was with me last night when we answered your husband’s emergency call at Dr. Rhodes’s office.”

  Paul Wheeler had to be just about the shortest adult male I’d ever seen. He seemed no more than five-feet tall, was bald, and sported a thin moustache. Rather than say hello like Mark had done, he simply gave me a hard, level stare. I disliked him on the spot. Like a lot of very short men, he overcompensated for his size by trying to appear macho. Nancy calls this behavior Short Stature Syndrome. I decided to ignore him as much as possible during my interview, and concentrate on talking to Mark instead.

  “I’d shake your hand, Paul,” I said with a little laugh, “but you saw what happened the last time I let go of the dogs’ collars. Come on into the kitchen. It’s more comfortable in there.”

  I was feeling less nervous now. After all, I’d known Mark since he was a little boy. Someone can only intimidate you if you let them, I reminded myself.

  We all sat down around the kitchen table, and the dogs settled themselves at my feet.

  “Anyone want coffee?” I asked brightly, ever the perfect hostess. “I can make a fresh pot in just a few minutes.”

  “That’s ok, Mrs. Andrews,” Mark replied, looking around the room.

  “Boy, being here again really brings back memories. Jenny and I sure spent a lot of time doing math at this table. Well, she was tutoring me, trying to knock some smarts into my thick skull.”

  I laughed. I suspected Mark knew I was nervous and was trying to put me at ease.

  Paul the policeman frowned and cleared his throat. “Can we get to the reason we’re here, please?”

  He flipped open his notebook. “Now, Mrs. Andrews, we’d like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with the deceased. How well did you know Davis Rhodes?”

  I leaned back in the kitchen chair and tried to appear thoughtful. I wasn’t sure how to answer this question, because I wasn’t sure what Jim had told them last night. An image of Joe Friday in the old television show Dragnet flashed into my mind. “Just the facts, ma’am,” he would say in every episode.

  I had to be sure that what I said didn’t implicate My Beloved, so I chose my words as carefully as possible.

  “It seems that everyone Jim and I know is talking about retirement these days,” I began. “It’s the favorite topic of conversation with all our friends. Jim and I have talked about it, too. We’ve discussed his taking early retirement from his job at Gibson Gillespie, while we’re both still rel-atively young and in good health, so we could do some of the things we’ve always talked about, like traveling to Europe, driving cross-country, things like that.”

  I looked at Mark across the table, and he nodded encouragingly at me.

  “So one day, just for the heck of it, I went online and did a web search for retirement coaches. Davis Rhodes’s was the most user-friendly, and he had an office in Westfield. Jim checked out the web site, too, and he was intrigued as much as I was. We decided to make an appointment with Dr. Rhodes for retirement counseling.”

  So far, I thought, everything I’ve said has been absolutely true. Even though I wasn’t exactly telling the whole truth.

  Paul Wheeler was writing down every word.

  “Then what happened?” Mark asked.

  “Jim and I went to see Dr. Rhodes for an initial consultation.”

  “When exactly was that, Mrs. Andrews? Can you give me the date?”

  Paul Wheeler held his pen in mid-air, waiting for my response.

  “It was the fourth week of June. I’m sorry I can’t remember the exact date, but I know it was in the very late afternoon. I think we were Dr. Rhodes’s last appointment of the day, because when we got there, the place looked deserted. When we went inside, we met Sheila Carney, Dr. Rhodes’s assistant, and then we met Dr. Rhodes himself.”

  “What did you talk about?” Mark wanted to know. Really, I thought, these questions were getting a little ridiculous.

  “We talked about retirement possibilities, Mark,” I shot back. “That’s what we were there for, after all.” I tried not to appear defensive.

  “Did either you or Mr. Andrews see Dr. Rhodes again after that initial consultation?”

  Careful, Carol, I warned myself. This is where you could get Jim into trouble.

  “I didn’t see Dr. Rhodes again. But Jim had a few more follow-up appointments with him.”

  “How many?” asked Paul Wheeler.

  “I couldn’t say how many times Jim and Dr. Rhodes met. You’d have to ask Jim that. I only met the man at the initial consultation.

  “You know,” I continued, “it was just bad luck that Jim had an appointment with him last night and was the person who found him dead.

  It could have happened to any of Rhodes’s clients.”

  Oops. I suddenly realized that if the police checked Rhodes’s client list for yesterday, Jim’s name wouldn’t be in it. But it was too late to back-peddle now.

  Paul Wheeler snapped his notebook shut. “We’re probably going to question your husband again about last night’s events,” he told me in a not-too-friendly tone. “Some of the information we’ve received from other sources has been contradictory. We may also want to question you again.”

  I was not going to let this little twerp get to me. I stood up and looked directly at Mark. “It was good to see you again. I’ll tell Jenny you were here. Anything Jim and I can do to help you in your investigation, we’ll be glad to do.”

  I gave him a little hug—probably not allowed, but what the heck—and opened the kitchen door to show them both out.

  “We’ll be in touch,” were Paul Wheeler’s last words.

  Great. Just great. At least he didn’t say, “Don’t leave town.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  Q: How many retirees does it take to change a light bulb?

  A: Only one, but it might take all day.

  I was in dire need of my friends that morning after the police left.

  And maybe a stiff drink too, but it was a little early for that.

  Time to return all their phone calls.

  I started by phoning Claire, because I also wanted Larry to know that the police had been here to ask me questions.

  Claire answered on the second ring. “I was sitting here waiting for you to call me back. How’re you doing? How’s Jim? Did he go to work today?”

  “I am literally shaking right now. The police just left here.”

  “Oh, Carol! How awful.”

  “I guess it could have been worse. One of the policemen was Mark Anderson, remember him? He went to school with our kids and now he’s on the Westfield police force.”

  “Just like his father,” Claire reminded me. “I think his dad is chief of detectives now. Unless he’s already retired. At least Mark was someone you felt comfortable with. But it still must have been awfully scary for you.”

  “Is Larry home? I need to talk to him. I don’t know if I handled myself all right with their questions. I wasn’t sure if I should even have talked to them without Larry there, but I didn’t want to make it look like I had something to hide. Am I making any sense? If I’m saying stupid things, just tell me.”

  “You’re making perfect sense,” Claire responded. “But you just missed Larry. He’s gone to the gym to work out. I don’t think he’ll be home for at least two hours.”

  I started to cry. The stress was really starting to get to me.

  “Carol, please don’t cry.”

  I continued to sob. I couldn’t seem to help myself.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Claire said. “How about if I call Nancy and Mary Alice and we all come over and bring you lunch? We can have a council of war about how to handle all this. I can get takeout from Maria’s Trattoria. And I’ll leave a note for Larry to call you as soon as he ge
ts home.

  I’ll also leave a message on his cell phone. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

  I was pathetically grateful.

  “That would be wonderful. I can’t stop my imagination from working overtime, and the police visit really freaked me out.”

  “I’ll call Nancy and Mary Alice, and be over with lunch in less than an hour. Meantime, do something to take your mind off your worries. Clean out a closet or something.”

  I pressed the “off” button on the portable phone. The cavalry was on its way, with food, yet. And Claire was absolutely right. I needed to do something mindless so I could put the brakes on my overactive imagination.

  Cleaning out a closet held no appeal whatsoever for me. In my opinion, doors were invented to throw stuff behind them and then close quickly before the stuff could fall out all over the floor. How many times had Jim opened the front hall coat closet to hang up a guest’s coat and had tennis racquets, hats, and other assorted junk come crashing down on his head?

  Thinking of My Beloved made me wonder what he was doing right now. Had he called Sheila Carney at the Retirement Survival Center?

  God, I hoped not.

  I wasn’t sure if I should let him know the police had been here this morning. There was nothing he could do about it from New York City, and the news would just upset him. No, it was much better to wait and tell him in person when he came home.

  I decided to kill a little time by organizing the drawers in my desk.

  The bottom two were so full that I had trouble opening and closing them.

  It wasn’t that long ago that I used my desk and computer every day, when I was doing freelance editing for local magazines. But I had to admit that I spent more time on the computer these days looking for web sites on retirement planning than I did doing editing. I hadn’t received an assignment from my usual sources in over a month. Not that I’d solicited any, either. I needed to send out some e-mails soon reminding editors of my availability. But not today.