A Body on Fitzgerald's Bluff

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Midge, look out your sliders, will you? Do you see the golf cart parked on the path? The driver’s taking pictures.”

  “And so am I,” Midge responded. “I’m going to hang up and take more. Call Neely, will you? She’s got the best head on view of that cart. The club tags them. We might be able to find out who’s using it today if she can get a good enough picture of the tag.” She didn’t even wait for a response from me before she ended the call. I didn’t hesitate, either. Like Midge, I had Neely on speed dial, along with half a dozen residents with whom I spoke often.

  “Neely,” I said the second she said hello. “It’s Miriam. Go to your sliders and look at the guy in the golf cart.”

  “So?” She responded.

  “Shoot!” I said when I realized he’d climbed back into the cart and had started moving. I was about to say “never mind” when he stopped again. Closer to me this time, he got out of the cart, did that furtive scan of his surroundings, and started snapping photos.

  “Well, I’ll be a blue-nosed gopher! If he’s a killer hunting us down, he’s a brazen one, isn’t he?”

  “Midge wants you to try to get a picture of the tag on the front of the golf cart. Can you do that? Does your phone take photos?”

  “I can do better than that. I’ve got my trusty camera right here with a telephoto lens. I use it for birdwatching. Let’s see if it can help nail us a jailbird. I’ll transfer the photos to my phone and bring them along with me to dinner at Charly’s.”

  “Don’t take any chance that he’ll see you. There’s no reason to add your face to his collection if he’s the killer who nabbed the rest of us snooping around out on the bluff,” I warned.

  “I will. I’m not anxious to become strangler bait. Bye!” Neely responded in an excited tone, followed by a low chuckle. I couldn’t believe she was enjoying this.

  Then, like a moth to the flame, I found myself drifting closer to the back door. Neely’s comment about the boldness of the fellow suddenly irked me. I moved close enough to the glass sliders that I could almost have left a nose print on them. I quietly opened the screen a few inches to get the clearest view possible of the stranger and snapped away.

  “Take that!” I said in a whisper as if I were firing buckshot at him rather than capturing his dubious character in pixels. When he began to move again, I kept clicking away until he screeched to a halt and peered directly at me. I shrank back from view, flattened myself against the wall. Domino, who had been observing my strange behavior, jumped up. She ran to the door put a paw into the opening of the screen door, slid it wide open, and bounded out into the backyard barking wildly.

  “Good job, Miriam,” I said. “You, crafty sleuth!” Even if the killer hadn’t seen me clearly at Fitzgerald’s Bluff, there’s no way he could have missed Domino. If the guy in the golf cart’s our strangler out on the prowl, he now knows where the big spotted dog and its owner live.

  “Domino, come here, sweetie!” I said in a hushed tone and then peeked out. The cart was gone—moving at a good clip heading toward the Bogart Cottage in the “Cinema Circle.” Domino was celebrating her rout of the fellow by bounding from one side of the yard to the other. When she heeded my call, she stood at my feet wagging her tail furiously.

  “Good girl!” I said as I bent down, took her head in both hands, and rubbed her soft ears. “You sent that bad man running, didn’t you?” She pointed her nose skyward and woofed as if bursting with pride at my praise. Then I had a good laugh, hoping it hadn’t been some poor golfer after all. Our resident realtor, Greta Bishop, would be furious if Domino and I had just chased off a would-be homeowner. Her job couldn’t be an easy one given the challenges facing our community.

  “I bet you scared the living daylights out of that guy! That’ll teach him to roam the grounds without Bishop Greta at his side.” “Bishop Greta” was another of Midge’s snarky pet names for people. It fit. Greta’s offer to shake my hand when we met had been made with her hand held at an angle that suggested I might want to kiss her ring.

  “Strangler bait,” I harrumphed. If that’s what I’d become, I wasn’t going to stand idly by and watch while the rat planned his next move. “I choose Death by Chocolate,” I said in a loud voice suddenly realizing what I was going to bake for dessert tonight. “Come, Domino. A brave dog like you deserves a treat. My brave friends do, too.”

  That statement brought me up short. Despite my plan to remain standoffish given all the secrets I was keeping, I really had made quite a few friends, hadn’t I? Quirky, with foibles, but funny and feisty—just the way I like them. They’d appreciate the idea of Death by Chocolate Cake as a twisted take on the events of the day.

  “Wait until they taste it, Domino,” I murmured. “They’ll be tempted to believe they’ve died and gone to heaven!” Domino’s tail thumped the floor where she’d plopped down.

  I hit play on my mini-stereo system. It’s set up on display shelves that serve as a divider between the kitchen and the living area. I like the open design of the cottage, but I’m not the neatest person when I bake. The shelves make it harder for someone who comes to the door to see if the kitchen’s covered in a dusting of flour.

  I used a big wooden spoon as a microphone to sing along with Annie Lennox as she raged about the loss of sweet dreams. That song had been almost too poignant the first time I belted out the words after Pete died. I’d started playing all sorts of music to keep the house from seeming too quiet. If Domino’s any judge, I’m not much of a singer.

  I took a couple of quick steps, sidled up to the oven, turned it on, and set the temperature. Then I began pulling items from the fridge and cupboards, moving with the beat. When I did a quick spin, Domino woofed, stood up and mimicked me. She loves my dancing.

  As the cottage filled with delightful aromas, my mind bounced back and forth between worry and anticipation. While the cake layers baked, I mixed the frosting, and then cleaned up my mess. When I pulled the chocolatey layers of cake from the oven, I felt a wave of anticipation about the evening.

  What did Charly have in mind when she suggested we get together and talk things over? We’ll have even more to talk about now that we had photos to share of the cagey gentleman in the golf cart we’d caught spying on us. If that’s what he was doing. He sure had taken off in a hurry once Domino barked at him. Would we learn anything useful about him from those photos? Even if Neely got a good enough picture of the tag the golf club had put on the cart, could we get someone to tell us who had used that cart today?

  That’s when it dawned on me I hadn’t even examined the pictures I’d taken with my phone. A tingle of excitement ran through me. What if the guy in that golf cart was a resident? Maybe I could find him in one of the Seaview Cottages online photo albums. As a member of the HOA Finance Committee, I also have access to archived files that include more photos. The cake needed to cool before I could slather it with ganache and then frost it, so why not take a few minutes to see if I could I.D. the guy?

  After setting a timer and fortifying myself with another cup of tea, I settled in at the kitchen table with my laptop. I was so focused on identifying the man in those photos, I forgot all about the alarm I’d set to tell me the cake was cool enough to frost. When it pinged, my heart raced. It wasn’t just the sudden sound of the alarm that had my heart revved up; I’d found the guy in the golf cart!

  “He’s a good-looking man,” I said. Domino lifted her head and did this cute thing she sometimes does—tilting her head to one side as if she didn’t quite understand or believe what I was saying. “Oh, stop! I’m not over Pete yet, you know that.”

  Was that true? I wondered. I’d caught myself looking at men a few times lately. Mostly, when I’d encountered a man wearing a friendly smile or commenting on a subject I found intriguing. Still, the very idea of anything like dating was too overwhelming to consider. Especially after the disastrous surprise blind date my sister sprang on me one night at dinner in a last-ditch effort to keep me in Ohio. That h
ad been awkward and embarrassing for me and for the guy with whom it became apparent I had nothing in common.

  “Besides, he’s way too young for me. Couldn’t you tell that when you sent him packing, Domino?” I asked as I examined the photos again. My sweet girl tilted her head the other way and then woofed. “You’re absolutely correct! He’s not too young for the dead woman you discovered this morning, is he?”

  I’d read somewhere that women are most often murdered by a spouse or a boyfriend. Was our all-too-curious golfer an angry boyfriend who’d strangled her in a fit of jealousy or after a bad break up? Given my guess that he was barely in his forties, I doubted he was a resident. Nor would he be eligible to purchase property in here anytime soon. He could have gained admission to the community by using the public golf course.

  What was he doing then? Was he checking the cottages, Circle by Circle, searching for us? Why? Surely, he wasn’t a mass murderer planning to kill us all.

  “Not very stealthy for a strangler hunting his next victim,” I murmured, suddenly feeling silly about my unwarranted suspicion of a man I’d never met. In my defense, it’s not every day you stumble upon a dead body. “Enough! It’s time to put the icing on the cake.”

  4 Dinner and a Murder

  Charly’s cottage is a well-organized version of a “hoarder’s” home. She admits she has a hard time throwing things away. The woman has lots of hobbies that include reading, watercolor painting, crocheting, and who knows what else? Brazilian jiu-jitsu if Midge wasn’t joking this morning.

  I’m sure having Emily around didn’t help either. The energetic dog met me at the door with a toy for me to toss. When I did that, she was back in a flash, but with a different toy, the other one still where I’d thrown it.

  “I spent the afternoon cleaning up,” Charly said when I stepped into the foyer and followed her past the cozy living room to the kitchen at the back of the house. It really was more orderly than I’d seen it on my two previous visits. Bookshelves stood in every room, loaded not just with books, but also with souvenirs acquired during her travels around the world.

  I’m curious, but I have no idea what Charly did before she retired two decades ago. Many of the retirees in the Seaview Cottages community prefer to talk about what they’re doing now rather than reminisce about their pasts. That’s fine with me. Given my reluctance to disclose much about my background, I don’t press anyone about anything.

  My cottage is a study in Midwest comfort with a few coastal touches I’ve added trying to get in sync with the seaside setting. By contrast, Charly’s house is exotic. Not only in the visual sense exuded by African masks hanging on the walls, ornate brass figurines of Indian gods and goddesses, or oddly shaped drums and other musical instruments tucked away in one corner of her den. Fragrances floated through the air conjuring up fanciful images of spice-filled marketplaces and ancient temples. Patchouli incense, maybe. Leather-bound books neatly lined up in one bookcase cast their scent, too, as did a basket full of wood that must have included chunks of cedar and some other aromatic wood.

  Charly didn’t broadcast her taste for the exotic in her grooming or attire. Her dark brown hair, streaked with gray, was clipped short. The bob framed her face, drawing you in to an adventurous sparkle in her dark eyes. The black teardrop earrings she wore, with a black embroidered poetess blouse over tan ankle length pants, conveyed a hint of vintage romance—like that in her beloved Brontë sisters’ books.

  “Ah, there it is!” Charly exclaimed as we took a quick detour into a guest room she uses as her study. She grabbed a tall glass half full of ice. “I need more lemonade. Let me pour you some, too, okay?”

  “Sounds wonderful,” I said as I eyed the inviting brew that had a rosy pink color. “What gives it that color?”

  “Opal basil. I enjoy it, but it’s sweetened with basil syrup. You can have fizzy water if you’d prefer.” Her eyes dropped to the cake carrier in my hands. “You have no fear of sugar, do you?”

  “Maybe I should, but I can’t imagine life without it. After all the years I worked at The Pastry Palace, I developed a real sweet tooth.”

  “You only live once. Why not enjoy life? So long as no one gets hurt and you can get away with it.” She gave me a conspiratorial look that I hope was about whatever she had planned for this evening. Could she be on to me about my age or the fact that my husband was no longer alive? No one had asked me for proof of age when I moved in since Pete had done that when he closed on the house.

  The HOA rules are clear about occupancy being restricted to those fifty-five or older. In the case of married couples, only one member must be fifty-five and both our names are on the deed. No one has asked any questions about the fact that I now pay the HOA dues and Peter Webster is nowhere to be seen.

  When I followed Charly into the kitchen to get the lemonade, I was engulfed in a spicy aromatic cloud. From the chili, no doubt, bubbling in a pot on the stove. I detected a hint of allspice—a dead giveaway that this was no ordinary chili.

  A wave of nostalgia hit me. Pete loved Skyline’s Queen City Chili so much, I’d searched the web and practiced until I came up with a reasonably good copycat recipe. I wish he were here to enjoy Charly’s version with me.

  The doorbell jolted me out of my reverie. Charly handed me a glass of lemonade as she ran to answer the door. Emily zoomed ahead of her, making little clicking sounds with her toenails as she ran to greet the new arrival.

  “Please put dessert on the breakfast bar. There’s room right next to the dessert plates.” She paused as she left the kitchen and pointed to a stack of small gold-rimmed dessert plates in a brightly colored paisley print.

  When Charly returned, she had Midge and Marty in tow. They all stopped when they saw the cake I’d unveiled. Their mouths fell open.

  “What is that?” Marty asked.

  “Three layers of chocolate cake with ganache filling sandwiched in between the layers. It’s all covered with a fudgy frosting before topping the iced cake with chocolate chips, and then drizzled it with melted chocolate chips.”

  “Layers upon layers of chocolate,” Charly said. “I could swoon.”

  “That’s why it’s called Death by Chocolate,” I said with a wicked grin on my face.

  “What a way to go!” Midge proclaimed.

  “Better than what happened to Diana Durand, that’s for sure.” We all turned to see Neely standing there. Apparently, the discussion about that cake had released enough endorphins that Neely’s stealthy arrival didn’t trigger a yelp from any of us. “You left the door unlocked, Charly. That’s not a good idea under the circumstances.”

  “Sorry. I’m not used to being strangler bait,” Charly replied.

  “Neely’s not just concerned about what went on this morning. Wait until we tell you what happened this afternoon,” Midge added, glancing at me as she said that. Charly and Marty both stared at us.

  “We had a mysterious visitor,” I said. “Midge, Neely, and I will tell you all about him.”

  “How interesting,” Charly commented. “Let’s eat before we get down to the business of discussing murder most foul and mysterious visitors.”

  “Interesting to you, maybe, but I’ll take my boring life back, thank you very much.” Marty sighed.

  “I love the idea of fortifying ourselves with food first. Chili and chocolate—yum!” Neely, her unruly curls held in check with an ornate cloisonné hairpin, swished past me. The brightly colored caftan she wore swirled about her. I hadn’t seen women wearing those since the 1970s, but this is California.

  In Neely’s case, it’s most likely a holdover from her time in the theatrical community. She’d been an actress in her younger days and then moved into the business of costumes and makeup. That had included stints behind the scenes in regional theaters and in a few big screen Hollywood productions. She has a flare for the dramatic whether she’s in a silk caftan or her PJs and slippers.

  Dinner was enjoyable even though I deflected the convers
ation onto others a couple of times when I feared someone was getting close to asking me questions about my marriage. At one point, I caught Charly staring at me with an arched eyebrow making me worry once again that she was somehow on to me. Perhaps, she’d detected that I was purposely being evasive.

  The chili was delicious, served with the cornbread Neely had brought, and a salad Marty had whipped up. Even though we were already full, we dug into the cake. With a cup of decaf coffee, the rush of sugar and chocolate set the perfect mood to tackle the day’s events.

  “According to this news story, Diana Durand is the dead woman’s name. Here’s her photo, see?” Neely turned her tablet around, so we could all get a look at the image.

  “That’s her!” I said. “It’s the woman Domino found this morning.”

  “Yes, it is,” Midge agreed. “I bet she’s not more than twenty-five in that picture.”

  “The photo must be a recent one. It’s from her employee’s badge at the Blue Haven Resort,” Neely said. “In the article with this picture, it says she was a saleswoman at the resort’s Blue Moon Boutique.”

  “‘Was a local woman’s Siren’s Song her undoing?’ What does that headline mean?” Midge asked as she peered over Neely’s shoulder and read that title aloud.

  “One of Diana Durand’s coworkers said that’s probably what got her killed and the reporter ran with it, I guess. According to the loquacious former ‘friend,’ who asked to remain anonymous, Diana was a nightclub singer from the Bay Area who used her skills as a songstress to lure men to their ruin.”

  “Swan song’s more like it,” I muttered.

  “Who needs enemies with friends like that?” Marty added. “If I were the police, I’d have that nasty so and so at the top of my list of suspects. Envy’s as good a reason as any to kill someone.”

  “Catty remarks, yes, but they don’t sound angry or threatening,” Charly said in an authoritative way. “Besides, if the coworker’s right, there could be more than one man out there with a motive to silence the songbird.”