Dirty Tricks: A Kate Lawrence Mystery (10 page)

BOOK: Dirty Tricks: A Kate Lawrence Mystery
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She tried out a small smile on May
but got no response.
Strutter
and I took pity on her
and jumped in to fill the void.

“My son Charlie plays a ton of
sports, so I know just what you mean,” she sympathized.

“My kids are grown and gone, but
my daughter played a lot of soccer until her knees couldn’t take the strain any
more, thank heaven, so I was spared all of that championship driving,” I joked
mildly.

“Anyway, that’s just an
explanation, not an excuse, but I do hope you’ll accept my apology.”

“Of course,” May said civilly
enough. “I realize my many years
livin
’ in the South
have been coloring my expectations, and things are done differently here in the
North.”

“Not that differently,” Carla
hastened to say. She gestured at the circle of houses. “This is really a very
nice neighborhood. I’m sure you’ll like it once you get to know us. Most of the
people who live here have been on Wheeler Road for years and years. There
aren’t a lot of other children on this street, but Beth and Rudy have friends
all over the neighborhood.” She gestured at the network of residential streets
fanning out from Wheeler. “We all get along fine.”

A gray SUV pulled around the
circle and stopped in front of Carla’s house long enough to allow a boy of
perhaps ten to leap out and dash for the front door after waving a quick
goodbye to the other riders. As soon as he was safely inside, the SUV moved on,
presumably to deliver another occupant.

“There’s Rudy’s soccer car pool,”
Carla explained. “I’d best get on home, or he’ll wonder why I’m not there, or
more likely, why dinner isn’t ready. He’s always starving after a game.”

May’s smile was a bit thin. “Yes,
I can imagine. You will ask him about the dog situation?”

“First thing,” Carla promised,
“and again, I’m very sorry. I can’t imagine how Duke wound up in your house,
but we’ll get to the bottom of it if I have to question every one of our
neighbors myself.”

Thus
reassured,
we bid Carla a quick farewell and plodded back up the garage stairs and into
May’s dining room. Once inside, we were properly stunned by the transformation
her contractor had wrought on the Cape’s interior and
oooh-ed
and
ahhh-ed
our way through the downstairs rooms.

“It’s mostly
paint
and wallpaper and new appliances,” May demurred modestly, “but it does make a
difference, doesn’t it?”


Openin

up the living room by
knockin
’ out that wall makes a
huge difference,” Margo confirmed.

“It lets in so much more light to
have windows on three walls of that space, but it doesn’t spoil the basic
coziness of the house,”
Strutter
agreed, “and I love
your color scheme.”

I returned to the dining room for
another peek and let my hand trail along the chair rail May had added to the
walls. “This royal blue under the rail and the tiny floral print above it pick
up the pattern in your sofas perfectly without being too match-y,” I approved
and stepped into the kitchen to admire the new countertops and modernized
appliances. “Can I move in with you?”

May laughed, her good humor
restored as she pointed out all the conveniences she had added to the tiny
kitchen.
That done, she returned to the dining room and
straightened one of the chairs around the table.
“Whoever put that dog
in here tied the poor animal to this chair. Can you imagine anything so mean? I
wonder how long he was stuck in here.”

“Not to mention how he wound up in
your house.” Margo and
Strutter
had rejoined us, and
Margo was still visibly concerned. “Auntie May, who else has keys to your
house
?”

She thought about that for a
minute. “Nobody except Tommy at the moment, which reminds me, I must get it
back from him. Anyway, I absolutely cannot imagine that nice boy pulling a
stunt like this.”

“That’s what you said about the
bat incident,” I reminded her.

“And he’s brawny enough to have
stacked those pumpkins in your driveway,”
Strutter
added.

May’s stubborn refusal to consider
Tommy as the culprit momentarily wavered, but she shook off the possibility of
his guilt in seconds.
“No, not Tommy.
Not any of my
workers. For one thing, none of them would have any kind of a motive to harass
me. I think I remind Tommy and one or two of the others of their mamas.
Besides, I bake them cookies.”

Margo snorted, and
Strutter
and I exchanged doubtful looks.

“Oh, stop your nonsense. I bake
really good cookies. Nobody would want to cause me any trouble after a few of
my chocolate chip peanut butter brownies.” May’s grin was sly. “At least,
that’s what my Douglas used to say.”

Margo apparently came to a
decision. “Okay, then, where’s your phone book?” she demanded, looking around
the kitchen.

“Right there in the drawer next to
the dishwasher. Who are you planning to call at this hour?” May glanced at the
clock on the wall, which indicated that it was nearly seven o’clock.

Margo plopped the Yellow Pages on
the counter and riffled the pages expertly. “An emergency locksmith,” she
announced. “
Ahh
, here we go.
Twenty-four-hour
on-call service to handle your every emergency.
Residential work our
specialty.
Bonded, local references on request.”
She
plucked her cell phone from purse and punched in the number.

“What on earth?” May looked as
confused as
Strutter
and I felt.

“We’re
gettin

the locks changed, that’s what. After the week you’ve had, you won’t feel safe
in this house for one minute until you know for a fact that nobody can get into
it but you.”

 
 
 
 

Eight

 

By the time we left
May’s house that evening, we all had peace of mind knowing
that the sturdy deadbolts installed by an accommodating emergency locksmith
would keep out unwanted intruders. Although this necessitated May’s carrying an
extra key to her exterior doors, she had taken the locksmith’s advice and left
the original locks in place. Deadbolts should have been installed long ago, but
doing so now would create the added assurance that no one lacking both keys
could enter her home, even if May lost or misplaced one, “not to mention it
will be about half the price of replacing the existing locks,” he added as the
final inducement.

“All things considered, I think
you need a break from the routine tomorrow,” I told May as we shrugged into our
sweaters and collected purses at the end of the evening. “How about coming with
me to Vista View to meet some of our cronies there and check the place out? If
you come home and find another large, drooling dog leashed to your dining room
table, you might want to consider a nice third-floor unit in one of our secure
buildings,” I teased.

“Don’t even think it,” she
groaned, “but yes, that sounds like fun. Maybe we could even get a real, cooked
lunch in the dining facility there instead of slurping
microwaved
soup in the middle of the day.” She brightened visibly at the thought.

“You’ll love the dining room at
Vista View. Dominick’s food is the best part of our days there,”
Strutter
concurred.

“And you can give those old hens
some competition for the few
remainin
’ roosters,”
Margo twitted her, “not that you’d want any of ‘
em
.”

“Never mind,
May.
I’ll introduce you to Bert Rosenthal myself. He’s wonderful company
and can give you the inside scoop on all the latest goings-on,” I promised.

“Goings-on at a
retirement village?
What’s the current hot scandal, somebody cheating at
bridge?” May laughed.

My partners and I exchanged
glances. “Oh, you’d be surprised,” I told her, “and anyway, don’t you write mysteries
about naughty activities in a retirement community?” On that note, we said our
goodnights.

When I got back to The Birches, I
was disappointed to find that Armando wasn’t at home yet, but he’d warned me
that morning he might be very late. There was a big strategy
pow
-wow after normal work hours at
TeleCom
,
and he didn’t know how long it might last. It seemed to me that there was
always some long, unnecessary meeting going on at
TeleCom
,
which was part of the reason I’d left the company years ago. Corporate life
with its incumbent empire-building and power plays had been of no interest to
me, so I’d left a marketing management role to return to my administrative
roots at a huge Hartford law firm, which was where I’d met Margo and
Strutter
. That environment turned out to be a whole other
can of worms, but at least the three of us had made our escape and created Mack
Realty. Our strong friendship made everything that had gone before worthwhile.

By ten o’clock I couldn’t keep my
eyes open. I left Armando’s dinner plate in the microwave and put a note on the
kitchen table, saying I hoped all had gone well at the meeting, and we’d talk
in the morning. I barely had enough energy left to brush my teeth and wash my
face before crawling into bed, where sleep claimed me almost instantly.

Friday morning, the alarm woke me
at seven-thirty, as usual. I was surprised to find Gracie snoring at my feet,
Armando being her preferred nighttime companion, and I jumped out of bed to
bring him coffee in atonement for my abandonment of the previous evening. The
house was quiet, and I debated waking him with coffee or allowing him to sleep
in after his late night. A page from the grocery pad lay on the kitchen table,
and I went to crumple up what I assumed was my note from the previous evening
for the recycling bin as I waited for the coffee brewer to do its thing; but to
my surprise a note from Armando had replaced mine.
 
Cara, I
did not wish to wake you, as you and Gracie were sleeping so peacefully, but I
needed to return to
TeleCom
very early this morning
to prepare some documentation for the ongoing negotiations. We will talk later
today.
XO.

It was a message that reassured
and disconcerted me simultaneously. Well, at least Armando was alive and
kicking, I comforted myself. No doubt I would learn more this evening. In the
meantime, Vista View beckoned, so I made my way to the shower.

I picked up May and pointed the
Jetta
toward the retirement complex on the Wethersfield-Rocky
Hill border, and it took us there. After years of weekly round-trips, the car
needed only an occasional reminder from me to stop at red traffic signals, it
seemed.

I was a bit concerned that May
might be aghast at the idea of mature homeowners, many younger than she,
abandoning their houses in favor of communal living. As feisty and independent
as she was, I felt certain she would consider it a comedown in life. Worse, she
might decide I was giving her a hint in light of recent events at her present
abode.

To my relief, she was enchanted
with her first glimpse of Vista View. I had to admit that the grounds and
gardens my friend Ginny had worked so diligently to plan and maintain had never
looked better. From the blazing reds and yellows of the foliage to the late
blooming asters, knock-out roses and ornamental grasses, everything was in full
autumnal glory.

Since we had a few minutes to
spare before I needed to staff the sales desk, I made a leisurely circuit of
the meandering roads of the complex, pointing out the various facilities
designed to meet every need of Vista View’s residents. They, too, were in
contented evidence as they jogged, walked well-mannered dogs or tidied up the
community vegetable garden at the rear of the property. Many lifted a hand in
greeting, and I waved back, happy in the knowledge that Mack Realty had helped
more than a few of them make the transition here over the past few years.

May listened to my sales patter
with a big smile on her face and made the occasional appreciative comment.
“What a good idea,” she said about the vegetable garden, and “You’d never guess
which units are for assisted
livin
’ residents, would
you?” regarding the Phase II buildings.

At length I parked in the visitors’
lot by the administration building, and May helped me lug my laptop and
briefcase full of sales literature inside. As I’d hoped he would, Bert
Rosenthal appeared as we were setting up the sales desk.

“Hi, Gorgeous,” he greeted me with
his customary enthusiasm. “How’s my favorite nonresident this beautiful
morning? Please tell me this lovely lady with you will be joining us for
coffee.” He gave me a big wink and ogled May. Coming from the dapper elf in his
thick spectacles, his open admiration came across as merely friendly, not lecherous.


Maybelle
Farnsworth,” May introduced herself, holding out her hand, “and you must be
Bert. Kate’s told me all about you.” She twinkled almost girlishly as Bert bent
low over her hand in a courtly bow.

“Has she now? That ought to save
us a lot of time then.” He straightened his bow tie and crooked an arm in her
direction. “May I introduce you to our dining facilities? I promise you won’t
be disappointed.”

May threw me an amused look and
took his arm. “I can smell cinnamon pastry and fresh coffee from here, so I’m
sure I won’t be. Coming, Kate?” This last floated over her shoulder as the two
strolled toward the dining room.

“Be with you in a minute, not that
you’ll miss me,” I called back, but they were already deep in conversation.
Bert had that effect on women, I’d noticed, which made him a very popular
rooster in the Vista View hen house.

By the time I got to the dining
room, Bert and May had formed the nucleus of a sizable group of residents who
were enjoying Dominick’s sticky buns and hot drinks while catching up on the
latest gossip. I found myself in the cafeteria line behind
Ada
and
Lavinia
Henstock
,
longtime friends and clients who had moved into one of Vista View’s assisted
living units the year before. After collecting my coffee and visiting with them
for a few minutes, I caught May’s eye and tapped my watch, indicating I really
had to return to the lobby and would see her there.

As I left the dining room I
narrowly avoided colliding with Isabelle
Marchand
,
who was hesitating in the entryway.

“Hi, Isabelle, anything
wrong?”
She was obviously reluctant to enter the busy room, and I
wondered why. Her smile was a little on the forlorn side, I thought.

“No, nothing.
It’s just that I hate to spoil the party.” She gestured toward Bert’s table
from which yet another peal of laughter emanated.

“It would be hard for anyone to
spoil that party,” I assured her. “Why do you think you would?”

She looked genuinely perplexed.
 
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining it, but it
seems as if every time I walk into a public room here, things get very quiet
all of a sudden.”

As if on cue, two women at the
table caught sight of us at the entrance, flapped their hands and made
none-too-discreet shushing noises. May
glanced
across
the room at me, confused. I knew how she felt, but then I remembered Bert’s
less than flattering characterization of Isabelle at our earlier meeting. I
waved at May to come and join us.

“I brought a friend with me today,
and I’d like you to meet her. Why not grab a cup of whatever and come drink it
with us at the sales desk?” I improvised. Despite Bert’s apparent
protestations, May was extricating herself from the coffee klatch and
apologizing her way across the room to where we stood. Isabelle smiled with
something like relief.

“I’d love to, thank you. Be with
you in a minute.”

In the few minutes before Isabelle
joined us in the lobby, I filled May in on Isabelle’s suspicions.

“I got that impression, too, when
those ladies caught sight of Isabelle coming into the dining room. They all
seemed so fun-loving and friendly up to that point. What on earth do you think
could be causing their reaction? Even Bert, who strikes me as the soul of
kindness, got a sour look on his puss.”

We tabled our discussion as
Isabelle reached us. I made the introductions, and May made a special effort to
exude welcoming warmth, I noticed. After a few minutes of chitchat, I
remembered Isabelle’s comment during our earlier conversation about this job
giving her more time for reading.

“What kinds of things do you enjoy
reading, Isabelle? I’m an avid reader myself, and May here is even more
involved in the novel business. She wouldn’t tell you herself, but she’s quite
a well-known mystery author.”

“Not really!” Isabelle exclaimed
in delight. She leaned forward eagerly. “I read mysteries addictively, but I’m
so bad with authors’ names. Do you have a series?”

May blushed just a bit. “The
Ariadne
Merriwether
series about
an old lady who lives in a retirement community and …” She paused and looked
around guiltily. “Of course, it’s not nearly as chic and sophisticated as Vista
View, nowhere as nice.” Her blush deepened.

“Oh, my goodness, I just love
Ariadne
,” Isabelle gushed. “I’ve read every single one of
those titles. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize your name instantly.”

My phone rang, and I reached to
pick it up, turning away to speak to the caller over the chatter of the two
women at my desk.
 
Realizing they were
interfering with my ability to hear, May and Isabelle picked up their coffees and
headed to Isabelle’s office, giggling and nattering away like old friends. I
couldn’t help smiling at how each had managed to distract the other from her
problems. Inviting May to visit Vista View had been a good idea.

When May didn’t reappear by lunch
time, I took my growling stomach into the dining room alone and scanned the
room for possible congenial company. None of my regulars were present, so I
collected one of Dominick’s excellent chicken salad plates and retreated to my
car to enjoy lunch, the latest edition of
Fresh
Air
on public radio, and the autumn sunshine, which continued to be
glorious. If it weren’t for the fact that Armando and I might have to move to
Florida in the near future, severing my ties with everything here that I loved;
Emma forging a romantic connection with a man who lived on the opposite coast;
and May being harassed by a person or persons unknown for who-knew-what reason,
life would be pretty darned good, I reflected.

Shortly before two o’clock May
finally returned to the sales desk, where I was busy with a couple of
prospective buyers. I was explaining the amenities of the variously phased
units. It was a speech I could have given in my sleep, but I dutifully injected
the appropriate amount of enthusiasm into my voice. Out of the corner of my eye
I saw May sink into one of the visitors’ chairs. Her face was troubled as she
retrieved her laptop from her tote bag, plugged it into a handy outlet and
booted it on the corner of my desk.

“You and Isabelle seemed to hit it
off,” I fished delicately when my prospects finally packed up their brochures
and left, chattering with excitement.

May was engrossed in catching up
with her e-mails but looked up when I spoke. “We seemed to this morning,
chatted like old pals right up until the middle of lunch, but now I’m not so
sure.” Her brow furrowed as she removed her computer spectacles.

BOOK: Dirty Tricks: A Kate Lawrence Mystery
9.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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