by GP Gardner
“How smart you are, Barry.” Nita turned to me. “And speaking of animals, any progress with our feline friend?”
“She’s in the apartment and seems right at home. I woke up with her sleeping on the foot of the bed.”
Nita broke into a big smile. “Oh, that’s a relief! And do you like her? Is she friendly?”
“Mom?” Stephanie’s eyes were wide. “A cat?”
“I’ll tell you all about it. She came last night after you went to bed. Nita, I’ve had an idea about her. What was the name of the woman who lived in my apartment? I thought I’d call the vets and see if I can learn the cat’s name.”
She liked the idea. “I’m no good with names, but Jim will know. Or he can look her up in the directory. There’s a vet in the shopping center around the corner. Maybe she went there.”
We walked back across the street to my apartment. Stephanie took Barry to my bedroom and introduced him to the cat, but they were wary of one another. Then she packed up her bags and a box of lead crystal I had saved for her and began taking things to the car. Barry and the cat moved to the living room, where they inspected an empty box.
Stephanie returned and stood watching them. “Maybe he’s old enough for a pet. I’m hoping he’ll sleep through the drive. Got anything for snacks?”
I was already washing grapes and had zip bags filled with sliced cheese and crackers.
Stephanie grabbed a grape and looked around the apartment. “I hate leaving you with all this work.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” I added some chocolate covered almonds and put all the snacks into a plastic bag from the grocery store.
She went out and returned after a couple of minutes, arms full of bed linens. “Any idea where the detergent is?”
“I bought some yesterday. But just leave everything on the washer.”
I kept busy after they left, trying to avoid thinking about poor, soggy Lee. She seemed to have been living a charmed life. So why had she been at the swimming pool last night, still dressed for the office? Even a good swimmer might be in trouble if she took an unexpected plunge while wearing a tight dress.
Soon I had worked myself into a snare of imagination and speculation. But the energy went to good use. I unpacked books and arranged them in the bookcases. Then I emptied the last of the kitchen boxes and arranged the small appliances on the counter. While I was putting the iron on the shelf in the laundry room, I put Stephanie’s sheets in to wash and kept watch as the machine filled with water and began to churn. No leaks, and everything seemed to work properly.
The Wi-Fi man showed up and had to knock loudly to get my attention. “The modem can go anywhere.”
“I don’t want blinking lights in my bedroom. And I don’t think my guests would like that either.”
We settled on a shelf in the living room bookcase and chatted while he worked.
“Heard you had some excitement here this morning. Looks like they’d keep the pool locked at night.”
I cut open more empty boxes and stacked them flat, ready for recycling. At one point I made a trip to the bedroom and found the cat curled up in her spot on the bed, yellow eyes narrowed sleepily but watching the door. I made up the bed without disturbing her and gave her a few rubs. Got to get that brush today.
I was seeing the Wi-Fi guy off when I spotted Chief Boozer and a female officer trudging up the sidewalk.
I waved and called out, “Are you looking for me?”
The chief was frowning. “Maybe we’d better go inside.” He introduced his officer, Mary Montgomery, a large woman who didn’t smile but gave me a tough-guy nod.
The apartment was looking good, if you ignored the flattened boxes stacked beside the dining table. Boozer sat on the couch, and Officer Montgomery and I took chairs.
He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Where is your husband, Ms. Mack?”
I hadn’t expected that. “He died four years ago. Why?”
“Let me rephrase that. I mean Travis McKenzie, your daughter’s father.”
I gasped and popped out of my chair. My hands flew to my mouth. “Is Stephanie all right? What happened?”
“Your daughter’s not here?”
I glanced at Montgomery then sat down again, heart racing. “She left for Birmingham this morning. Chief, what is this about?”
“Did you know Travis McKenzie and Lee Ferrell were married?”
I stared at him. When I tried to speak, I could only stammer. “Travis …Lee…I…” I closed my eyes and at last got another word out. “Ohmygod.”
Mary Montgomery sounded bored. “You okay? Need some water or something?”
I drew a deep breath, suppressing the comment I’d almost blurted out.
“I’m okay. Of course I didn’t know. But it does explain a couple of things.” I told them about Lee Ferrell’s comment when we met in the lobby yesterday. “She knew about our connection, but I didn’t. I thought she was just rude.”
“And? What was the other thing?”
I needed a moment to dredge up my second thought. “Oh, yes. It explains why she looked familiar to me.”
“You met her before.” Officer Montgomery sounded accusing.
“No. But I saw a photo. Let me get my phone.”
I had to scroll through several weeks of messages from Stephanie.
While I looked, the Chief asked, “When did you last see Mr. McKenzie?”
I shook my head. “It’s been a while. Years. I’m not even sure where he lives now. New Orleans, I guess. Stephanie went there for the wedding.”
“He’s here,” the Chief said.
I dropped the phone in my lap and looked at him to be sure I’d heard right. “Here? In Fairhope?”
“Did your daughter see him while she was here?”
“You don’t mean he lives here!”
“No, staying in a motel. Came to the station this morning, looking for his wife. He drove through Harbor Village and found her car.”
I slouched against the back of my chair and my earlier, repressed thought came back with a vengeance. This time I didn’t bother to suppress it. “I wonder if they had a prenup.”
Mary Montgomery let out a snort.
“I don’t mean to suggest anything,” I backpedaled, embarrassed. I picked up the phone again and scrolled for the photo. “Just an impulsive thought. Here it is.” I looked at the photo before I handed the phone to Chief Boozer.
He took it and was looking at the wedding photo when the phone rang. He passed it back to me.
It was Stephanie calling, saying she was at Prattville, almost home. “Dad called.” She sounded agitated. “You’re not going to believe this, Mom. I don’t really believe it myself—”
I cut her off. “Chief Boozer is here now, honey. He just told me.”
“I can’t come back, Mom. I don’t have any more clean clothes for Barry. I’ve already changed him twice today.” Her voice was close to a wail and I couldn’t help smiling at the way she could focus on the trivial details. Just like her mother.
“Are you driving now?”
“I’m stopped at Cracker Barrel.”
“Let me see if Chief Boozer wants to talk with you.”
He nodded and I put the phone on speaker and held it so all three of us could hear.
He asked Stephanie for her last name and phone number and Officer Montgomery made notes.
“When did you last see your father?”
“At his wedding in New Orleans. In July,” she answered.
“What about his new wife—did you know her well?”
Stephanie was still talking when Chief Boozer reached for his own buzzing phone and passed it to Officer Montgomery, who went out to the porch to answer.
“If we’d just been a little faster last
night,” Stephanie said, “I would’ve recognized her, and this might not’ve happened. Oh, I just can’t believe it!”
Boozer was staring at me. He told Stephanie he would talk with her later and disconnected the call.
Officer Montgomery returned and spoke quietly to the chief. I couldn’t hear most of what she said, but one phrase came through and claimed my attention—inconsistent with drowning.
Boozer nodded and his gaze slid back to me. “Want to tell me about last night?”
It seemed insignificant, but I couldn’t avoid feeling guilty, as though I’d concealed something. “The three of us—Stephanie, Barry and I—went out to dinner with a friend who lives here. When we got back about eight, all the lights were on in the lobby. And Lee was sitting on the couch.”
“About eight?”
“I can check the time on my charge slip to be sure, but it was close to eight.”
“Who was with Ms. Ferrell?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t see anyone. I wanted Stephanie to see her—I’d told her how rude Lee had been earlier—so we got out of the car and walked around the corner. And in just that couple of minutes, the lights had been turned off and the lobby was totally dark.”
He was silent for a few seconds. “Who was with you, besides your daughter?”
I gave him Riley Meddors’s name. “He lives in the next building.” I pointed toward the two-story building next door.
“You didn’t go into the lobby?”
“No. We said good night to Riley in the parking lot and came home. When I saw Lee earlier in the afternoon, she was looking for Stewart, the handyman. So when I saw the lights on and Lee looking at them, I just assumed Stewart was in the building somewhere, working on them.” I felt terrible about pointing a finger at Stewart. “He seems like a nice guy.”
All at once, Boozer was in a hurry to depart. He stood. “That receipt from last night—is it handy?”
I got my purse and found the receipt in the outside pocket. “Seven fifty-six. We were at the restaurant on the pier. I signed this at the counter and we walked out and back to the car—not rapidly, we had a two-year-old—and we drove straight here, so…what? Another twenty minutes, maybe, until I saw her in the lobby? That makes it about eight twenty. Do you want this?” I held the receipt out to him.
“Not now, but hang on to it.”
* * * *
A couple of hours passed before Stephanie called to say she and Barry were at the quilt shop and she would talk with me again at bedtime.
I asked her, “How’s your father?”
“Okay. More angry than grieving so far. He doesn’t like the way the police are treating him.”
“I suppose that’s natural. He didn’t have anything to do with it, did he?”
“Oh, Mom. Don’t be silly.”
I went back to unpacking the printer and hooking it up, and another visitor arrived.
“They ran us out.” Patti Wagon’s eyes were wide, her curls shaking. “Nobody knows what’s going on! The police have been in and out all afternoon. What do you think it’s about?”
Another young woman was with her, and I invited both of them inside before I recognized the friend.
“Emily’s our bookkeeper,” Patti said.
“Oh, yes. We met at the pier a couple of month ago. Nita Bergen introduced us.”
“Of course. And it’s part-time bookkeeper.” Emily had gotten a summer haircut, short on top but reaching to her shoulders in back, with stray bits standing out to give her a fuzzy red aura.
“I was about to get something to drink,” I said. “I have Diet 7 Up and bottled water.”
We all chose 7 Up and I opened three cans and poured them into short glasses with a few ice cubes, while the girls examined the apartment.
“Very sophisticated, and it looks so comfortable already.” Patti strolled around looking at everything.
“Have you heard the news?” Emily asked.
“I’ve heard nothing but news since I arrived. I expected life here would be simple and peaceful.”
“Jamie’s leaving,” Patti announced.
I stared at her. “Well, no, I haven’t heard that. It’s a shock, actually.” I set out a basket of napkins, plus coasters for cans and glasses, and sat on the couch.
Patti and Emily took the chairs.
“She’s going to Charleston, promoted to Executive Director.” Emily clapped her hands.
Patti said, “Lee finally does something good for someone and immediately drops dead.”
“Don’t say that.” Emily giggled.
“No, I shouldn’t. That was ugly of me. I’m really sorry she’s gone. I’m sorry anybody has to die, especially like that. But why did they put us out of the building? We’ve been there all day. If they were afraid we were going to destroy evidence, why did they leave us in there for hours?”
“They put you out?”
“Yes! The cops came in, told us to take our purses and anything else we needed and wait on the porch. We’ve been out there an hour already.”
“I don’t get it,” Emily said. “The pool is its own little fenced-off area. They could seal it off without disrupting our entire operation. I’ve got work to do.”
“And the phone is ringing constantly. Did you see the body?” Patti asked me.
“Yes.”
“Was it all—you know. How did it look?”
“Wet.” I left it at that. “Don’t some residents live in the main building? Did the police put them out, too?”
“They wanted to,” Emily said, “but we told them it wasn’t possible. Right at naptime, with wheelchairs and walkers? No. No way.”
Patti added 7 Up to her glass. “They’re down there right now, putting up yellow tape that says crime scene, posting official notices on the doors and telling people to come and go through the dining room entrance. I guess we’re free to leave, aren’t we? It’s early, but we’re just standing around, and they didn’t say anything about letting us back in today.”
“Do they know how to get in touch with you?”
They disagreed on the answer to that, and finally Patti proposed, “What if we give you our phone numbers? You’re going to be here anyway, and you can call us if we need to come back for something.”
“In the next hour or two,” Emily cautioned. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got plans tonight.”
“Why don’t you talk to Jamie?” I proposed. “Be sure she has your contact information where she can access it. The Assisted Living building isn’t closed off, is it?”
They glanced at each other, suddenly hesitant.
“Tell her,” Emily said.
Patti squirmed in her chair and looked around the apartment, stalling. “Well, here’s the thing.” She looked nervous. “You may not like this, but Jamie says she’s leaving. Like, immediately. Today, maybe. I think you’re going to be in charge here.”
I laughed.
Patti and Emily looked at each other.
Emily shrugged. “Well, think about it.”
Patti twisted one of her curls absently. “What we mean is, you’re what they call ‘professional staff.’ That’s what Lee was, and Jamie, and Nelson, even though he’s out of the picture. Then there’s the vacant position for a Resident Services person—vacant until Monday, anyway—but for somebody with degrees and certifications and all that. The rest of us are just office staff or aides or maintenance—not in charge of anything.”
“I haven’t even started to work officially.” I felt a little less certain of my interpretation of the facts. The ohmygod chorus was beginning to whisper in my head again. “Is there somebody we can call? Where is Jamie?” I reached for my phone and searched for her number.
Jamie was curt when she answered. None of the cheeriness she had dished out in recent phone calls. I put her on speak
er and told her what I’d just heard.
“I’m really sorry if it puts you in a bind, but I’m not giving this up. I’ve already talked to Charleston and they want me there Monday.”
“Jamie, I haven’t had orientation yet. I don’t know procedures. And when I do start, I’ll be part-time. You can’t run a big facility with a part-time, just-off-the-bus administrator. I don’t even have a lease for this apartment I’ve moved into.”
That quieted her for a minute, after which she sounded resigned. “Yeah, we might need to do something about that.”
Patti and Emily were quiet, too, frozen in position but listening to every word.
Jamie said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll write up the lease and leave it in the office. There’s another one I need to do, too.”
Emily looked at Patti and I heard her mutter something.
I asked Jamie, “You know they’ve been put out of the building, right?”
“Who has?”
“The office staff. Patti and Emily are here with me right now, and the police have closed the main building. I suppose the other staff members have gone already.”
“Oh holy . . .” After a moment of silence, she added, “Look, I’ve got to go.” And she hung up.
“What are we supposed to do with leases?” Emily whined.
My thinking was a bit disorganized at the moment, but slowly Emily’s question came into focus as the most sensible topic in play. But why wasn’t the answer obvious to a bookkeeper? “You’ll add me to your list of payments that come in each month. And put the paperwork into an official file. It’s no different because I work here. Handle it like any other new resident.”
Emily shrugged. “I just post to the accounts. We get in trouble if we think.”
I walked down the sidewalk with Patti and Emily. At 3:30 on a Friday in the middle of August, forty miles from the white sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico, it was hot in the sun but not unbearable as people might think. A breeze carried the smell of earth and vegetation, and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. We counted seven police cars parked around the main building, plus a box-shaped white van at the side door. The van was unmarked, but there was a definite police look about it.
Yellow tape was strung across every entrance to the porch.