Murder at Harbor Village

by GP Gardner

  When all that was done, I filled my cup with leftover coffee and heated it in the microwave then read through the Sunday Times I’d just paid six dollars for. When I started on the crossword, I recognized how nice a quiet, peaceful day at Harbor Village could be. It was exactly what I had expected when I arrived a few days before.

  Eventually I moved to the computer and checked e-mail. There were notes from friends in Atlanta, which I answered, and some accumulated messages about the approaching new semester, which I trashed without even a glance. Stephanie had sent new photos of Barry, and I admired each one before transferring them to my photo file.

  And then while I was online, I typed in a string of related words. Harbor Village Fairhope Houston corporate. I hit enter and, after a few seconds, got a long list of potentially relevant sites. I scanned down and recognized what I was looking for.

  Harbor Health Services was described in glowing terms. One of the leading operators of senior living facilities in the US, the site boasted; 26 facilities in nine states, with a capacity of 9,200 residents. Independent living, assisted living, continuing care and dementia care. I was amazed. Seventy-nine percent occupancy.

  Twenty-six facilities? That wasn’t exactly the little family business I had envisioned.

  The website also had a small box with a thumbnail summary of financial data, and it showed that half a million shares of Harbor Health Services stock had traded on the stock market Friday, with a closing price of $10.50 a share. It sounded like a lot of shares, but that part didn’t mean much to me.

  I wished for someone knowledgeable to explain this to me and thought immediately of Riley. A banker—that was what he’d been in his working life, and a banker would understand the stock market. And he’d agreed to review the financial side of Harbor Village for Jim. I clicked on a couple of pages and hit print, so I’d have something to show him the next time we met.

  Next, I clicked on the “About Us” tab and nearly jumped out of my chair. Travis McKenzie was smiling back at me from a large photo.

  The text beneath the picture gave his name and title: President & CEO. He had assumed that position three years ago, his bio revealed.

  I scrolled and a little farther down found a photo of Lee Ferrell. She was one of several vice presidents and also Director of Senior Living, according to the caption.

  So, I’d had it all wrong. Travis didn’t work for his new wife; it was the other way around. Travis McKenzie ran a large, publicly traded, health care corporation and had done so for the last three years.

  I was stunned. Perhaps he had told the truth when he said he wasn’t about to gain a big inheritance.

  Ohmygod, ohmygod, my mental chorus was singing, like crickets in my ears. Travis was a business mogul, and he was trying to make me one, on a minor scale. Well, good luck with that.

  I spent several minutes staring out the window and then did another Google search.

  This time I typed in PBS and the word donor, plus the family name Ferrell, and got three hits, all at a site that expressed gratitude to supporters. Lee was there, along with William Stevens Ferrell and Claude J. Dyer.

  I started with William Stevens Ferrell, added Houston and the word “image” and did another search. The photos that appeared were of a man who was easily old enough to be Lee’s father. He had a fringe of almost white hair, a long, creased, smiling face, and dark eyes. In addition to his name, the text said Harbor Health Services, Houston.

  Putting in Lee’s name got me the same photo I’d seen at the corporate website—Lee in a bright red dress and a gold necklace, with a big smile, bright lipstick and lots of wavy dark hair. And once again the text included a professional affiliation with Harbor Health Services, Houston.

  I figured the third name was a glitch of some sort, especially when the photo revealed Claude Dyer to be young and handsome. Once again, the identifying text cited Harbor Health Services, Houston.

  I copied his name and pasted it into the browser and got several links to explore, but the subject line of the first one answered my question. It was a news item/obituary for Claude Dyer, age fifty-two, dated four years ago. I clicked and read. Dyer was identified as President and CEO of Harbor Health Services. Survivors include his wife, Houston socialite Lee Ferrell Dyer, and daughter, Debra Lynn Dyer, a student at Julliard Conservatory of Music.

  There was more, but no other relatives. Cause of death wasn’t apparent but mourners were invited to make memorial donations to another Houston institution, the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

  So now I was getting the corporate and family history straight. Lee’s family name was Ferrell, and her father had probably started the company. Claude Dyer had been her husband and the company’s CEO and, according to Travis, started the philanthropy tradition that was something of an overreach. Then Claude died and Travis McKenzie replaced him, both as CEO of the business and, two months ago, as Lee’s husband. And now Lee was gone.

  I wondered if her father was still alive, but before I could research that, I looked at the clock. The afternoon had flown by, and now I would have to rush to meet my neighbors at the Goldenrod Grille for dinner.

  I was walking down the sidewalk toward the Grille when my phone rang. It was Travis.

  “I’m at the Crab Shack in Charleston, waiting for Jamie.” Irritation was obvious in his voice. “She was supposed to be here at six fifteen, and I can’t even get her on the phone.”

  “It’s not six yet.”

  “We’re on Eastern Time here, remember. But you’re right, Jamie may not know that. You have any luck finding a nurse?”

  I told him about Ivy Stafford. “She’ll be here tomorrow morning.” I told him the fee she had quoted.

  “Okay, but don’t make her any promises until we know what’s what. Well, let me try Jamie again. I don’t want to sit here all night waiting for her.”

  From the corner of the garage, I could see the sign for the Goldenrod Grille. There was nobody in sight, and all the crime scene tape was gone.

  I crossed the porch and entered at a small foyer. A row of empty coat hooks was mounted on the beadboard wall, and the main body of the restaurant snaked off around a bar. I followed the sound of voices, walking between empty tables arranged against the front windows and empty stools lined up against the bar. About twenty Harbor Village residents were seated in a cozy back room at one long table, with only a couple of empty seats.

  I recognized about half of the people and even knew a few names. Jim and Nita sat across from each other, near the middle. Jim tapped on his water glass with a knife and waited until he had everyone’s attention. Then he introduced me.

  “She begins work here tomorrow, so take all your problems and complaints and go see her.”

  I gave a weak little wave and some people waved back.

  “Tell us about the drowning,” one man called out. “Who was she?”

  A buzz of comments and questions swirled and rippled around the table. Obviously the rumor mill was churning. I stood at the end of the table and delivered the little speech I had prepared.

  “Lee Ferrell worked for Harbor Village’s parent company in Houston. She was the sister of Jamie Barnes, director of the Assisted Living program here. The Fairhope police are still investigating and will announce their findings soon. And there will be a memorial service for Ms. Ferrell later this week.”

  As an afterthought, I tacked on another little announcement. “And if you haven’t heard, Jamie Barnes has been promoted to a management position at Harbor Village in Charleston. She begins working there immediately. I’m sure we all wish her well and extend our sympathy for her loss.”

  That seemed to satisfy everyone. A number of conversations broke out, and I looked for a place to sit.

  Nita asked, “Can you get around to that seat on the back, Cleo? That’s your neighbor Ann back there, and you know Dolly.”

 
“Or she can sit up at the window with me.” Riley was standing at my side. He leaned closer and I got a whiff of sandalwood. “Unless you’d rather sit with the group.”

  “I’d be delighted to join you. And you’re just the person I want to talk with.”

  We moved to the window and a table for two.

  “I can’t hear anything in that big group. I hope you don’t mind.” He held a chair for me.

  I’d almost forgotten about such courtesies and nearly tripped over my own feet as I changed course. I thanked him and he pushed the chair forward. “I’ve brought a financial report I’d like you to look at.” I laid my folder on a corner of the table.

  The Sunday night menu was limited to three items—pasta with meat sauce, salad and garlic toast; an 8- or 12-ounce sirloin with salad and baked potato; or beer-baked kielbasa with sauerkraut and sweet potato rounds. None of them sounded especially healthy, but I didn’t often see kielbasa on a menu, so I chose it and so did Riley. We ordered red wine, which the server said was complimentary for me, since it was my first visit to the Grille after moving into Harbor Village.

  “Ready to begin work tomorrow?”

  “Getting there.” I pulled out my two-page report and laid it in front of him.

  Riley put on skinny little glasses and scanned the pages. “Interesting,” he muttered to himself.

  I recalled Stephanie calling him handsome and tried to see it. I didn’t think I would use that term, but there was something appealing about him. He looked up abruptly and caught me staring at him, but he only grinned and went back to his reading. I minded my manners after that.

  “And all this is available at the push of a button. Sure simplifies research, doesn’t it?”

  Service was slow and our meals were the last to arrive. People ate rapidly and left, some of them with takeout boxes in hand, some stopping to speak to Riley or me. Jim finished his meal and went to work on Nita’s. Riley put the financial report aside, face down, but glanced at it occasionally as he ate.

  A couple of people promised they would see me in the office soon.

  “We need a poker night,” one man said.

  Another asked, “Can you do anything about the mail coming so late?”

  By the time we finished, Nita had moved to a different seat, still at the main table, and still engaged in conversation with other diners.

  Jim pulled a chair up to our table. “Looks like you’ve got some interesting reading there. Anything to share with me?”

  Riley flashed the papers but didn’t give them up. “A financial report on Harbor Health Services. I think you’ll find it interesting. Is this confidential material, Cleo?”

  I shook my head. “I got it off the Internet.”

  Riley took a final glance at each page then pulled his glasses down and looked over their top at me. “Anything special you want to talk about?”

  “I do well to balance my checkbook, Riley, so don’t worry about being too elementary. Just tell us what it says.”

  “It’s pretty simple, really.” With glasses back on, he pointed to the box in the corner. “The stock price was ten and a half at the close of business Friday, down from twelve dollars the day before.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “The company lost ten percent of market value in one day. That’s extraordinarily bad. Losing a top executive may explain it, since the drop was abrupt and not part of an ongoing slide. I don’t know of any other disaster in the market, or in this particular segment. I don’t keep up with legislation any more, but anything that might cause such a loss would’ve gotten the attention of all of us. Now the price may bounce right back tomorrow, but remember, it’s only a paper loss. The way to lose for real is to sell stock right now. And just between us, that group of stockholders includes me. Maybe you, too.”

  I shook my head, but he disagreed. “Lots of pension funds hold Harbor Health shares.”

  That gave it a different spin. “And if the stock dropped ten percent due to Lee’s demise, then the investment community must have seen her as just the management expert Travis thought she was.”

  Riley nodded agreement. “This report gives me some of the information you’ve been asking about, Jim.” He took out his pen and underscored a few numbers in the report. “They claim a seventy-nine percent occupancy rate and a capacity of nine thousand two hundred residents, overall. How many actual residents does that translate to?”

  I pulled out my phone, called up the calculator function and handed it to him.

  “Cleo, you should be getting a commission on all this technology.” He calculated quickly. “So the actual number of residents is seven thousand two hundred sixty-eight, spread over twenty-six facilities.” He entered a few more numbers. “That means the average facility has about two hundred eighty residents. I’d guess we have that many here, don’t you, Jim? Counting all the condos and the houses and assisted living.”

  “More,” Jim said. “I can give you an exact head count tomorrow. Or maybe you have access to that information in an official form, Cleo.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure I will, but not yet. Can you get an idea of the finances? Is the corporation profitable?”

  “Think about it this way. We said over seven thousand people live in Harbor Health facilities nationwide. If every one of them paid a thousand dollars a month, we’d multiply seven thousand by one thousand dollars and that would give us seven million dollars in revenue. Got it?” He jotted that figure on the back of the printout.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what I call profitable,” Jim said.

  “No, it’s not profit at all. It’s income for one month. We have to multiply seven million dollars by twelve to see what they take in during an entire year. That’s eighty-four million, before expenses. Senior citizens are big business.”

  “We pay more than a thousand dollars,” Jim said. “Twenty-two hundred for rent, plus another eight hundred for the dining room. But it’s what we saved for, a little luxury at the end.”

  “That averages fifteen hundred each, but you’ve got one of the nicest apartments. I get by on the cheap side.” He grinned. “You know me.”

  “One person, and no garage.” Jim nodded.

  “And no meal ticket.”

  “This facility has an Assisted Living unit,” I reminded them. “And some of the other facilities offer nursing care. Residents of those units pay considerably more than a thousand dollars a month.”

  Riley agreed. “I just used a thousand to simplify computations. Our eighty-four million is a low figure. The true amount may be twice as much. Or more.”

  “Stick with eighty-four million and tell me how much goes out for expenses.”

  Riley pushed his glasses up and looked at the report again. “Hard to say from the information we have here. They give a couple of margin ranges in the fine print, but those things are difficult to interpret. You can hire a few new employees and change all your figures.”

  That reminded me of Patti’s concerns about job security. “Are you saying that firing staff makes the figures look better?”

  He looked over his glasses at me. “And there’ll be taxes to consider, too. I’d guess, off-hand, that Harbor Health Services clears a few million each year—six or eight, maybe—and pays out probably half that to stockholders in the form of dividends. I can guess that because I know what kind of stocks I buy.”

  He put his glasses and pen back in his shirt pocket and looked around the little restaurant. “This is all very interesting, Cleo. But now, if we’ve answered the pressing questions, we’d better go home so these people can close up. Can I keep this report?”

  I handed him the folder to put it in. “I can print out the whole thing if you want it.”

  He nodded. “Yes, that might be informative.”

  “And Cleo’s got to work tomorrow.” Jim got up slowl
y. “You’ll walk her home, Riley.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary.”

  “I’m going that way,” Riley said.

  Nita and Ann and Dolly joined us and we walked out together.

  Nita asked, “Did you hear us talking about your cat, Cleo? Ann thinks the calico wasn’t named Kitty.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Ann, my neighbor, shook her head with certainty. “Kitty Baby was the male, the white cat. I think he was deaf. She took him with her.”

  “And left this one to fend for herself? That seems heartless.”

  “Yeah, she was a snippy old woman. But I can’t remember what the calico’s name was. I never saw much of them. Inside pets, you know. Maybe it’ll come to me. Or maybe somebody else will know.”

  So much for Jim’s theory that a male cat wouldn’t be called Kitty.

  Ann joined Riley and me for the walk up the back sidewalk. “It’s nice to have a little mystery to solve,” she said. “I’ll talk to the other neighbors tomorrow. If they don’t remember her name, we can hold a lottery to come up with a new one. Can’t have a pet without a name, can we?”

  Ann went in at her apartment and I asked Riley, “Do you want to come in for a minute?”

  He shook his head. “Let’s do it next time. You’ll have things to do, preparing for tomorrow.”

  Chapter 8

  My husband for almost twenty years, Robert Mack, was tall and thin, always happy and a genius. He was a guinea pig for genetic studies and needed frequent blood tests, occasional transfusions, and now and then was hospitalized for a lifelong blood disorder. He told me when we met he wouldn’t live a long life and he did not, but he lived it fully. He was passionate about mathematics, consulted with high tech industries and the military, even the space program, and critiqued the work of colleagues all around the world.