by GP Gardner
Had Travis stayed in the field? I hadn’t kept up with him, personally or professionally, for at least a decade, and Stephanie wasn’t concerned with such things. The suit he was wearing made him look like a salesman, maybe pharmaceuticals. Or a hospital administrator.
I took out my phone and dialed Stephanie.
“I saw your father.”
“And? Did they arrest him?”
“Of course not. What does he do now, professionally? Is he still a social worker?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You should’ve asked him. Hospital administration? No, that was a few years back. I think it’s clinics now. Or hospice, maybe. Is that the same thing?”
She didn’t seem to know he was connected with Harbor Village.
“Honey, do you ever listen to your parents? For instance, would you know where to find your mother now?”
She giggled. “My father never talks to me, and my mother tells me everything. It’s about noon right now, so I imagine she’s sitting in a trendy little restaurant, looking out at flowers and water. Maybe a short, handsome man is sitting across from her. How am I doing?”
“Close enough.” So she thought Riley was handsome. I’d have to take another look. And she actually thought I told her everything. “Does Travis live in Houston?”
“Oh yeah, he’s been there forever. Remember he couldn’t come to my wedding because a hurricane was aimed at Houston?”
That wasn’t exactly the way I remembered it, but I didn’t go there. I asked about Barry and Boyd and, after she reported all was well, she said she needed to get back to work, unless there was news about Lee. I told her I hadn’t learned anything.
A trio of pelicans flapped by, over the water, but since I was on the bluff, they were at my eye level and looked almost close enough to touch. It was easy to forget how big they were until you saw them up close. They flapped their wings a few times and then floated out of sight, looking like prehistoric mechanical devices.
Two people came up the steep flight of wooden steps from the park down below. They were panting and gasping and giggling. I recognized the desk clerk again.
“Hi there,” he called out. “Are you staying with us?”
“No. I live here now.”
“Oh, congratulations. Welcome to Fairhope.” Then he hurried to catch up with his friend.
I sat a few minutes longer before I decided my mood was sufficiently improved and I could go home. I still wasn’t crazy about the idea of working with Travis, but we’d be in different states, and he probably wasn’t involved in daily operations of the company. The Harbor Village problems were actually intriguing and I found myself looking forward to solving them.
But before I could leave my bench, the motel clerk came back.
“Mind if I join you for a minute? I’m on duty in an hour, but no sense in getting there early.”
“Oh, I’d love company.” I slid down the bench to give him more room.
“I would ask if you come here often, but you might take it the wrong way.”
“I intend to come here often—does that count? My name’s Cleo, if you don’t remember.”
“I’m Hunter. So you got moved?”
“Yes, to Harbor Village. It’s a place for old people.” I grinned, wondering if he’d remember his slip of the tongue a few weeks ago.
Hunter reddened and flung his head back. “Oh, please!” He had a prominent Adam’s apple and a nasty-looking pimple beside it. He sat upright again and shook his head from side to side. Even while sitting still, there was something of the marionette about him. “For retirees, retirees! I’ll never make that error again!” He looked at me. “They had some excitement up there yesterday. Did you hear about it?”
“The drowning? I heard she was staying with you.”
He nodded. “I’ve known her a long time. She comes every month or two. Drives from Texas and stays two nights. Always gets a suite and has a pizza sent in. Funny how predictable people are.”
“I met her yesterday and she wasn’t very friendly.”
“Yeah, well, some people are like that. Still, it’s too bad she drowned.”
I wondered if he’d consider motel business private and decided to find out. “And the man who came with her—Travis. Is he a regular, too?”
He hesitated but followed the “in for a penny, in for a pound” rule. “He wasn’t really with her this time, not at first. She came on Wednesday. I wasn’t on duty, but I looked it up.”
“I was there Wednesday night, too,” I said. “That was the day I moved. I looked for you.”
“I usually work Wednesdays, but somebody needed to trade days. That’s why I’m working today.” He looked at his watch. “I need to leave pretty soon.”
So Lee and I had stayed in the same motel Wednesday night. If I’d been there Thursday, I could’ve run into Travis, too. In fact, I hadn’t seen either of them there, but maybe the suites were separated from the regular rooms.
Hunter was still reflecting. “She called Thursday night, must’ve been about eight. Told me to let him into the room, to tell him she’d be there in an hour. But I guess she never came.”
“You guess. Would you know if she did?”
He nodded. “Probably. There’s only one door open after eight, so she had to come right by the desk. It’s so sad to think she’s dead.”
This was probably his first brush with the death of someone he knew.
Maybe I should distract him. “Where are the suites located?”
“There’s really just one, on the second floor. And several double rooms we can join together for families or whatever. Liaisons.” He laughed.
“So Travis got there Thursday—about nine, did you say? And he was there all night?”
He nodded. “The police asked that, too. I’ll tell you what I told them. I think he went to sleep. He came down to the desk about five in the morning and asked if she’d been there or called. And then he went out.”
“And didn’t come back?”
He shrugged. “I left at seven. He’s still staying with us, but the police had him move to a different room. So they could go through her stuff, I guess. He’s her fiancé or something.”
“Married two months ago, I understand.”
He looked at his watch again. “Too bad. I’d better go now, I guess.”
I got up to go, too. “You need a ride?”
“No thanks. My car’s right here.”
We walked together across the grass. “And just what were you and your friend doing down at the fountain earlier? You looked like puppets dancing.”
He laughed and his mood lightened. “We were dancing! We’ve been doing it every weekend this summer. Sometimes her friends come, too. They’re all staying at Harbor Village, you know. Well, no, maybe you don’t. I think it’s sort of a secret. They’re from Ukraine, working at the hotel for the summer. Not the Holiday Express. I mean the Grand Hotel, at Point Clear. Her family gets up in the middle of the night, goes online and calls up the Fairhope pier cam so they can see us doing Ukrainian folk dances. They go home in another week.”
“And the pier cam focuses on the fountain.”
“No, not necessarily. Viewers can take control of it and move it around. That’s just the spot we use.”
“What a great idea,” I said. “Skyping on a grand scale. Saves the cost of an international phone call but lets the parents see that their kids are okay. Maybe I’ll get my grandson to look for me sometime.”
Now I understood the jerky movements of the camera I had seen on my first visit to the park. It had probably been under the control of someone in Ukraine.
Traffic was heavy on South Mobile Street, with congestion backing up from the stop sign at the corner. Southbound cars zipped around the curve without warning, so I didn’t dare back across to the other lane. Instead, I left th
e park going in the opposite direction from Harbor Village. At the next intersection, I turned onto an unfamiliar street that twisted through a nice residential area. Large, new homes were mixed in with small, old cottages. The contrast was a little jarring, but the neighborhood seemed like a good place to walk, with huge trees and dark shade and lots to entertain the eye, especially now, with colorful campaign signs in many of the yards.
After a few blocks, houses gave way to commercial buildings, and at the transition point, there was a children’s playground with a splash pad. It appeared to be the same one I’d seen in photographs from Barry’s first visit, the weekend of Travis’ wedding. Several wet kids were making good use of it today.
I drove a few more blocks, gaining a sense of direction that told me I needed to turn left, but before I could do that, a sign caught my eye. All Pet Vet was a big clinic, with people and cars moving around in the parking lot. I pulled in.
There was a nice waiting room and one woman at a counter.
“I need a cat brush.”
“Right behind you.”
There was a good assortment of brushes and combs on a shelf and a hanging rack, everything from a window squeegee type to a hard plastic device that looked like fangs and several brushes with needle-sharp wire bristles. I chose one that looked similar to my hairbrush and promised on its label “no pain, no scratch.” With tax added, it came to a few cents under twelve dollars.
I handed over my credit card. “I’m surprised you’re open on Saturday.”
She scanned the sticker on the brush and then recorded my name and address and phone number in her client register. “We’re the emergency clinic this weekend.” She didn’t seem too happy about it. “We’ll be here until five.”
“I wonder, if you’re not too busy—” I looked around and saw one couple with a poodle waiting. “I just moved into an apartment and a cat came with it. I wonder if she might be one of your patients. Can you look up her name?”
A woman came out of the examining room and called the poodle back, and the clerk helping me frowned and pointed to the credit card machine. I swiped, but it wanted to read the chip, so I stuck the card into the slot.
“It’s slow today. Now, what were you asking? How in the world would I know the name of your cat if you don’t?”
“Go to the client register and search for the address,” the second woman said. “Want me to do it?”
“I guess you’d better.” The original clerk stepped away from the computer and rolled her eyes like I was a nut job. “You need a bag for this?” She held up the brush.
“No.” I pushed it into my purse with the sales slip and recited my address a second time for the woman who took over the computer.
“Let’s try just the apartment eight part and see if that works.”
The computer coughed up a list of clients, including my just-entered name and address. The assistant scrolled down the list. “Harbor Village, you said? Here it is. The owner’s name is Flowers and the cat’s name is . . . well, this was hardly worth your effort. The cat’s name is Kitty.”
We laughed.
“Sometimes it doesn’t pay to go to a lot of trouble,” the original clerk said.
I went home and found the cat rolled in a ball on the bed, sleeping. I began brushing her, and she uncoiled and stretched and purred. Then she stood and turned from side to side, getting every little spot groomed, even her chin.
I had to clean the brush several times and wound up with a ball of hair half as big as the cat. “Kitty,” I called several times while I brushed. No reaction. Once she narrowed her eyes and blinked then demanded more brushing. She turned her head one way and another, exposing her neck and chest and purring like a chainsaw.
“Kitty.” I left the bedroom and took the ball of hair to the kitchen trash. “Kitty!” No response. Had Ms. Flowers just never bothered to think up a name?
While I was getting lunch, I came across Gloria’s, aka Mrs. Santa, empty plate and set it out. My mother had a rule that dishes that came into the house bearing food could not be returned empty. What did I have to put on a plate? There wasn’t much food in the larder, but there was a container of biscotti in assorted flavors like lemon, chocolate, or almond with sea salt. I could take some of those.
Nita phoned while I was eating. “Cleo, I feel like I’m neglecting you. Are things going well?”
I invited her to come see the furnished apartment. “Would you and Dolly like to come tomorrow? Any time is fine with me.”
“I’d love that, but it’s the third Sunday, you know. That’s the night a group of us go to the Goldenrod Grille for dinner. At my age, I try not to schedule too much in one day, so I’d better take a rain check. And I hope you’ll go to the Grille, too. But I do want to talk with you when it’s just the three of us. We wondered if you’d consider coming to dinner tonight. I’ve got lasagna in the freezer. It’s from the dining room and they always do a good job.”
“May I bring a bottle of wine?”
“That would be lovely, dear. Five thirty, shall we say? Or about then. We don’t have to be too precise when it’s just us. And don’t dress up. Anything except blue jeans will be fine.”
* * * *
I stuck to my long-time routine and did the usual Saturday chores. I emptied all the trash cans into the kitchen container and tied the bag then walked out to the garages and tossed the full bag into one of the big green containers. The top was big and heavy. Some residents—Nita, for instance—wouldn’t be able to lift the bag and hold the container open simultaneously. Did they just let garbage accumulate until the housekeeper came, every other week? Should management offer other options?
Back in the apartment, I got the ironing board out of the laundry area. As I tugged and steamed and smoothed a couple of linen shirts, the work to be done at Harbor Village occupied my attention. I hated to cancel the rotation Jamie had proposed—using my first week to work a day in each of the five departments—but things had changed, and I didn’t have a week for a leisurely start. Find a nurse, find out what was going on with income and costs and if young people from Ukraine were actually living here, and why.
In spite of my intentions to make full-time employment into a brief commitment, questions were already eating at me. Why was the food bad, and why did the night staff fail to answer resident calls? Find out and fix it.
I assumed the police would make the main building accessible again by Monday, and whatever they had been looking for probably didn’t concern Harbor Village. Lee’s death had cast a pall over my arrival, but the residents didn’t know her and the staff—even her sister—didn’t like her. I was moving past it already and hoped that was true for everyone.
I put the ironing board away, and the fretting with it, and made up a shopping list for tomorrow’s trip to the grocery.
I showered and dressed for the evening and then, since I had a little time left, I put six individually wrapped biscotti on the neighbor’s bread plate, wrapped it with plastic wrap and went around the outside of the building to her apartment. She didn’t answer my knock, but the lady next door came out on her porch.
“Gloria’s out.”
“Oh, thank you. I was just returning her plate. I’ll try again later.”
“Her kids are in town. Just between you and me, they’re looking at that place up in Spanish Fort. They may move her out.”
“Oh? Do you know why?” Might as well start the snooping.
“Probably the dining room. She goes every day and never has anything good to say. I tell her, do like I do. Open a can of soup and make some toast.”
“That’s not what I like to hear when I’m just moving in.”
“Well, that’s just my opinion. You may like it fine. Do you hear your neighbor’s television at night?”
“No, I haven’t noticed it.”
“Oh, well, I just wonde
red. If mine ever bothers you, let me know.”
I walked back thinking about Gloria. Nothing to do all day but watch TV, so she went to the dark little dining room, where there weren’t many people to talk with and only mediocre food. I’d probably be moving, too. Now what could we do about it?
I took Gloria’s plate and the biscotti back to my kitchen, put my phone on the charger, closed the blinds and locked up, leaving a light on. It would be dark when I got back. As I walked across the boulevard to the Bergens’ apartment, with no phone, I felt almost like a limb was missing.
Jim met me at the door. “Come in, come in. You look well rested, for someone who’s just moved.”
“She’s been here three days.” Nita came in behind him to give me a hug and a pat. “I think that’s past the moving-in stage, isn’t it?”
“It smells wonderful in here,” I said. “And it always looks so festive. Like a holiday.” The little lights on the fig tree sparkled in the glass tabletop.
“When you reach eighty-three, every day is a holiday. Right, Nita?” Jim took the wine I’d brought, removed the bottle from the bag and read the label aloud. “We don’t usually drink wine with dinner, but I think we might like a little glass of this.”
“I always like a glass of wine.” Nita inspected the label. “Good choice. Merlot goes well with lasagna.”
Jim went to the china cabinet and got out stemmed glasses.
“I’d better help him. Just have a seat on the couch. We’ll eat in fifteen minutes. Jim, you’ll need the corkscrew. Let me get it.”
It turned out it was Jim, more than Nita, who wanted to talk with me. In fact, he had a yellow legal pad full of notes in a large, heavy script. He even had an almost-blank page ready, with my name and a couple of topics written at the top.
“Now, about this drowning.” He paused to take a sip of wine before setting the glass on the table beside his recliner. “That’s good stuff, Cleo. I see you know your wine.”
“Not really. It’s just what the grocery store had.”
Nita sat at the other end of the couch, took a little sip from her glass and cooed approval.