by Rita Lakin
“What’s chai?” Bella asks.
“Why is everything white? It looks like an operating room in a hospital.” Sophie wastes no time digging into a scone.
“It’s only tea.” Bella winces as she tries a few tentative sips. “It’s spicy and too sweet.”
Ida is astounded. “Do you believe those outfits?”
Casey is wearing a man’s navy blue pinstriped suit, matching tie, and brown leather oxfords. Barbi is wearing what I see a lot of young girls wearing today: layers of unmatched tops with a long flowery skirt and straw sandals. Whatever happened to the jeans and sundresses? Their backs are to us. They are busily typing.
Bella asks, “Why is she wearing a man’s suit?”
Evvie gives me a look. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I nod and look around the room. Three of the walls have low, attached white shelves. Most of the space is covered with machines. The only furnishings in the entire room are our table and chairs and two black desks with two matching rolling chairs that the women are seated on.
Evvie is glancing in the same direction. “I know those are computers,” she says, pointing to the women working. “And that’s a fax machine and a copier and a lot of phones. I don’t know what the rest of that stuff is. This looks like state-of-the-art high tech.”
“Have you ever in your life seen a business office,” I say, “with not one single piece of paper anywhere?”
Except for the diplomas hanging on the wall above our table. They inform us that both women graduated with MBAs from USC in California. Both have degrees in law and computer science.
“You girls doing okay?” Casey says to us from across the huge room.
“Just fine,” I answer.
So this is the future. All machines. No paper. Everything on computers. No books. I was right to fear technology. It will completely take over our lives, and this sterile environment is what it will look like. God help us.
Barbi and Casey wheel back to us, sliding over on the two black chairs.
I hear Ida stifle a cough as she stares and indicates to me her ring finger. I follow her stare. Barbi and Casey are wearing rings they don’t wear around the condo. Wedding rings—identical gold bands with silver edges.
The two “cousins” seem not to notice. Casey takes charge. “What can we do for you? Ida suggested the other day that you might need access to information. That’s what we do.” She points to the banks of machines. “Whatever you want to know, HAL will tell you.”
Evvie claps her hands in delight. “2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick.”
The women smile. “Exactly,” says Barbi.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as the old saw says. I’m here. I might as well jump in and see what they have. “You know I’m trying to investigate some murders.”
They nod and listen intently. My girls, of course, can’t take their eyes off our hosts.
“I’ve been to the library and microfiched.” All of a sudden I’m talking their language? What a hoot.
“Names?” Casey interrupts me and whizzes back across the white tile floor on her movable chair. She starts hitting the keys of a computer.
I nearly jump, taken aback. I manage to stutter out, “Margaret Sampson, Josephine Martinson, Elizabeth Johnson.”
Barbi snaps out at me, “Cities?”
I have to think for a moment. Casey and Barbi are in superspeed mode, but my old gray cells need warming up. “West Palm Beach, Boca Raton…”
Evvie helps me out. “Sarasota Springs.”
Barbi slides away to another machine. And we see two sets of hands typing and typing and typing. “What do you want to know?”
Now I get up and move closer to the two typing virtuosos. They remind me of a concert I went to in Carnegie Hall once with two amazing pianists dueling one another musically.
Naturally the girls all follow.
“I know some information about the women, their upbringing, their first husbands, their families’ histories, their charity work. But what I thought interesting is that there wasn’t very much about their second husbands. I assume Mrs. Johnson was remarried, too. I didn’t have a chance to look her up.”
The typists are typing away. It is fascinating watching their fingers.
“Okay,” says Casey, swinging around to look at us. “What do you want to know about the second husbands?”
“Everything,” says Evvie, fascinated by it all.
“You want to know everything about them since the day they were born? Parents? Entire family tree? Schools? Playmates? Hobbies? Higher education? Careers? Former relationships? Bank accounts? What kind of cars they drive? Where they buy their clothes? Clubs they belong to? Magazines they subscribe to? Legal difficulties? Were they ever in jail?”
“Whoa,” I say. “Can we narrow it down? Specifically to their marriages to the women I named?”
Casey starts up again. Her hands never stop moving as she speaks. “Margaret Dery married Richard Sampson, June 10, 2001. They went to Bermuda for the wedding. Private ceremony, St. Paul’s church rectory. Sampson was born in San Diego, California, April 5, 1960. Background? Parents owned a small mom-and-pop grocery…”
“Hold on,” Evvie interrupts, counting on her fingers. “That makes him—”
Casey interrupts her. “Aha. I see you want the math, got an instant calculator. He’s forty-five years old. Mrs. Sampson is sixty-four.”
Was. Poor Mrs. Sampson will never see sixty-five. Twenty years difference. Now I’m intrigued. “Anything on his business background?”
The fingers keep tapping. “Sampson’s last known business address five years ago was with Pipes Are Us, a plumbing establishment in West Palm Beach.”
Barbi chimes in as her fingers keep clicking away. “Josephine Dano married Robert Martinson of Little Rock, Arkansas, August 17, 2002. She is sixty-one, Robert is thirty-seven. His last place of occupation, The Dance Palace in Miami Beach.”
And I think about that gorgeous thirty-seven-year-old mourning at her graveside. Hmm.
“What about the lady in the cave?” Since Sophie found that ring, she feels Elizabeth’s case should have first priority.
Casey types more. “Elizabeth Hoyle married Thomas Johnson, formerly of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”
“Cut to the chase. So how old are they?” Sophie sees where we’re going and she’s impatient.
Type, type, type. “She’s fifty-nine, he’s forty-two.”
Evvie can be as rat-tat-tat as the cousins. “His line of work?”
“He was a nurse at the Sarasota Golden Years Assisted Living Home. That was four years ago. No other work references since then.”
I’m excited. “This is a real link. At last. All the women married younger men. Younger men. No money. If ever there was a great motive for murder.”
“Happy we could be of help,” says Casey.
Ida has obviously been pondering this for a while. “Are you blackmailers?” she blurts. “I mean, what do you do with all this information?”
“I beg your pardon,” says Barbi. “We are lawyers, not crooks. We specialize in legal research.”
“How can you know all this stuff?” Now Evvie jumps on the bandwagon.
“Anyone can get these facts. Don’t let the name ‘Gossip’ fool you. That’s for PR. Every single piece of information about you that is recorded somewhere can be accessed. By anyone. At any time.”
Ida jumps in again. “So, if that’s so, what does anyone need you for?”
“Good question,” Casey says, not the least bit insulted. “We sell to law firms, magazines, writers, law enforcement, private parties—yes, and private detectives like yourself—who don’t have the time or personnel to do all this research. Much of what we do takes a lot of digging. What you wanted was easy to access.”
I glare at the girls. “I apologize for my friends’ rudeness.”
“No apology needed. A lot of people don’t understand what we do.”
&nb
sp; I take a breath. Now that I’ve seen what they do, the price must be exorbitant. Their machinery alone must cost a fortune. “About what we owe you…?”
Barbi tells us they charge five hundred dollars an hour. Now there is a collective gasp of horror. Evvie manages to whisper, “Any senior rate?”
“Yeah,” Ida says, still hostile. “We were only here about twenty minutes and I’m not counting the tea.”
Barbi and Casey laugh. “No charge to our good neighbors. This first consult is free,” says Barbi.
There’s a group sigh of relief. We start to leave. They walk us to the door.
“Thanks for all your help,” I say.
As I begin to step outside, Barbi asks, “What about prenups?”
“What about what?” Ida asks, confused.
“Most wealthy people draw up irrevocable premarital agreements called prenuptials. Especially when they marry someone with fewer assets than they have. Documents that can’t be broken.”
With shoulders slumped, I turn around and walk back inside. I am getting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Can you check that out?”
Barbi is back at the console in a flash. I listen to the tap-tapping with dread this time. More tap-tapping. The girls move in closer. Casey is at the other console. Those two sure are compatible. I think the tapping will never end. But it does and the two turn to us, frowning.
Barbi starts. “Margaret Sampson’s prenup agreement with her husband, Richard, gives him the house in West Palm Beach, the yacht, and a huge monthly stipend for the rest of his life should they divorce.”
I am getting a picture and I don’t like it. I urge her on. I want all the bad news over fast. “Josephine Martinson?”
Casey reads, “Prenup gives Robert the beach house in Key West, the estate in North Carolina…”
“Stop,” I say. “Spare me the details. I suppose the Johnsons have one, also.”
Tap-tap-tap. “Yup,” says Barbi. “Basically the same. These women have been more than fair, settling amounts over a million with each of them if they ever divorce. Very lucky guys.”
I pace. This is not what I expected. I whirl around. “They must have separate wills.”
And they do in each case. Barbi shrugs, looking at her screen. “They are written up in different ways, but basically the husbands inherit it all when each woman dies.”
“That’s it,” Evvie says. “They were greedy. They wanted everything. So they killed them.”
“Greedy is right,” adds Sophie. “I sure would have been happy with what they had already.”
Something doesn’t sit right. “Why now?” I ask. “Margaret’s been married five years. Josephine, four.” I look to Barbi—she scans her screen. “Seven years married for Elizabeth Johnson.”
“Why didn’t any of them kill their wives before? Or just get a divorce? Suddenly all three men, living in different cities, get greedy at the same time? Doesn’t make sense.”
Unlucky me, I’m thinking. I just lost my motive. And my prime suspects. Older rich women, young husbands. I thought I had a slam dunk. Miss Marple would have been proud of me. But these husbands are rich enough without killing their wives. Why risk it? And if it’s not the husbands, who’s left? Nobody. And even worse, then Morrie is right. They weren’t murders, after all. I have no case.
When we get outside, the girls want to eat at Moishe’s. All that information has made them hungry. They’re looking forward to some really good gossip of their own about Casey and Barbi. Not me. I’ve lost my appetite.
28
Bon Voyage
Twelve minutes more.” Bella announces the time yet again. She hasn’t stopped looking at her watch since we got to the clubhouse this morning. She’s terrified about being late, even though I told her we had all day to board the ship.
Phase Two gave us a bon voyage party. Naturally we are eating the Sunday brunch staples of bagels, cream cheese and lox, and egg salad and orange juice. We’ll be sorry later when our thirst kicks in from the salty lox.
The girls are all dressed up. Everyone had to buy a special going-to-the-ship outfit. Very nautical. Blues and whites and white canvas deck sneakers. The obligatory sunglasses. Blue sailor caps. I am the only one dressed as I usually am. Sol Spankowitz is snapping photos for posterity.
It’s Bella’s turn to open her farewell gift, and just like all the others, it’s Dramamine.
Evvie, who put herself in charge of getting information for us, exclaims, “But the brochure says with those modern stabilizers, you never even know you’re on a boat.”
Ida worries. “I sure hope that’s true, since I’ve only been in the water in a rowboat thirty years ago and I did get seasick.”
“Well, I’m not worried,” Sophie announces. “My darling Stanley took me everywhere on cruises. Miami Beach. Key West. Everywhere. I never get sick. Let those winds blow as hard as they want.”
Sophie is referring to this third day of high winds we’ve been having. No one dares mention the H word. Hurricane season isn’t due for a month yet.
“I got another joke for you,” says Hy. The rest of us groan. “What has seventy-five balls and makes women smile? Bingo!” He playfully gooses his giggling wife, Lola.
“What about the Peeping Tom?” May asks.
“It’ll keep ’til we get back,” Evvie answers.
My mind is not on these festivities. I keep looking toward the door, but there is no sign of Jack and we have to leave in about ten minutes. I can’t believe he hasn’t called me, and I stubbornly refuse to call him. Our first fight and neither of us will give in. I guess I thought he was perfect, but he’s not. But then again, neither am I.
Sol sidles up to Evvie and hands her a small bouquet of daisies. “Bonnie voyagee,” he says, mutilating the phrase. “Maybe when you come back, a little date?”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Evvie says, looking pointedly at Sol. “I’m allergic.”
“I’m not,” says Tessie, who is standing next to them, chomping on a huge egg salad sandwich on a kaiser roll. Evvie shoves the flowers at her. Tessie grabs them, spilling egg salad all over her ample front as she does. She actually blushes. “Thanks, Sol,” she says. “How nice of you.”
Sol looks confused. “Don’t mention it.”
“Don’t forget to send postcards,” Mary Mueller says.
“Bring me back something. Anything,” says Barney. He and Conchetta came from the library to join in the send-off.
“Five minutes more,” Bella says, getting more antsy by the minute.
I’m still staring at the door. He’s not coming. Should I call him? I can’t just leave this way, with both of us angry.
When we hear the loud honking of horns, everybody is on the move. We are followed along the pool path back to our parking area, where two drivers wait for us. Denny Ryan has his old Ford Fairlane at the ready and Casey Wright waits by her small lavender VW. They’ve volunteered to drive us down to the pier. When I reach her car, Casey winks at me. She now shares a secret with my team of private eyes. Much as I’m not looking
forward to this cruise, I am looking forward to putting my imaginary murder case behind me. I feel like such a failure.
Our luggage is already stacked in the two open trunks. Bright Day-Glo identification tags proclaim that we are on the Heavenly cruise ship and have our names and stateroom numbers written on them.
Evvie obsessively counts each one to make sure nothing has been left behind.
There is much hugging and calls of “Bon voyage” and “Have fun” and “Win a lot of money” as we pile into the vehicles. I am still looking everywhere for Jack.
The girls are giggling and punching one another in excitement, and all I feel is gloom.
29
All Aboard
Such excitement. And chaos. Mobs of people boarding the ship. Suitcases stacked everywhere. The girls are holding on to one another, thrilled and petrified at the same time as they look up and up at their ship. The Heavenly
is awesome. It is gleaming white and incredibly huge. Evvie, clutching our information packet, tells us the ship is ten stories high. We walk up the gangway and the ship’s publicity picture-taking starts. Say cheese. Over and over again.
The interior main deck is gorgeous. Evvie is reading as we stare. “‘The ship weighs sixty thousand tons. It carries two thousand guests and nine hundred staff. The atrium is the Heavenly’s famous white, brass, and glass centerpiece. Our Heavenly personnel stand ready to help plan your day-on-shore tours and offer information on just about anything else you might need to know.’”
We stand inside the atrium looking at the spectacular adjoining staircases and glass elevators. The girls are oohing and aahing.
Two huge placards read Welcome Bingo Tournament Players! and Welcome Bridge Tournament Players!
“That’s us,” Sophie says, pointing to the bingo notice. It informs us that registration opens tomorrow morning at eight.
Finding our rooms is a challenge. If we take the wrong elevator we’ll end up in the wrong section. I foresee much confusion and lost girls in the near future. As if reading my mind, Bella says to all, “Don’t you dare leave me alone. Ever!”
Sophie hugs her. “We would never do that to you, sweetums.”
Evvie is reading aloud from her ship’s instruction sheet. “‘Rooms are found by looking for odd or even numbers. Only two elevators will take you to the front and to the back of your stateroom path. Learn where they are.’”
Sophie takes a turn and proclaims the ship’s slogan from its daily newspaper: “‘You’ve just died and gone to Heavenly.’” She giggles. “Here’s today’s schedule: ‘The rum-and-Coca-Cola party is in the Angel Bar, where pizza slices, sushi, and tiny meatball appetizers will be offered as you stroll. Cocktails at five, first seating for dinner at six. Second seating at eight. And gala midnight buffet every night.’”
Ida says, “Tessie should be here—nonstop eating. She’d be in heaven.” She laughs. “Excuse me, heavenly.”
We finally find the right elevator. When it arrives we get in. A sweet-looking but plain woman in her sixties enters with us. She looks very confused.
