Murder at Harbor Village

by GP Gardner

  “Keep this information to yourself for a few days, Emily. We don’t know who’s involved in this. I haven’t even met Cynthia Quarles, except to wave at her. I’ll talk with her right away and see what the rental operation looks like from her end. I don’t want anybody to know what we’ve discovered, in case they try to cover it up.”

  Emily pantomimed zipping her lips. “Do you want to go over the other financial data now?”

  “I don’t look forward to this part, so let’s get it over with. You may have to explain things.”

  She giggled and plucked a thick blue folder from her stack of materials.

  We spent the next thirty minutes going over printouts. I asked about bank accounts and she produced different folders, with in-house reports and official statements from the bank, and showed me certain points of agreement between them.

  “So there are no discrepancies in the bank account?”

  “Absolutely not. I’ll stake my life on that.”

  “That’s good. And I see the bank name here. Is this the only account we have?”

  “The only one I know about.”

  “And who can sign checks? Do you do that?”

  She laughed and her face turned red again. Apparently I had made a blunder she was too polite to point out.

  “You never have the bookkeeper signing checks. Technically, I shouldn’t be handling both revenue and expenses—that’s inflow and outgo—but we’re a one-person office.”

  “So, who signs the checks?”

  “Jamie, so far as I know, and it’s always been a pain to run her down. She didn’t keep regular hours. We can ask the bank if anybody else is on the account. They usually want a couple of people, for a big operation like this. Otherwise, what happens if someone is out sick?”

  I nodded. “I’ll check on that. In fact, let’s do it right now.” I got the phone number off the statement.

  A woman answered and I gave her my name and title and a bare-bones statement of what I wanted to know.

  She put me on hold and, after a long pause, a man answered and asked me to repeat my question then put me on hold again. Bad music with a poor speaker.

  Finally he picked up again. “Ms. Barnes, are you calling about the Ferrell account, or Harbor Village?”

  “No, Ms. Barnes is gone. I’m Cleo Mack and I replaced her. I want to know who can sign checks for Harbor Village in her absence, until I can get added to the account.”

  “Oh, Ms. Mack, yes, I see now. In that case, the names currently on the Harbor Village account are Lee Ferrell—and the bank and I extend our condolences about Ms. Ferrell, so very sad—and Jamie Barnes and Nelson Fisher. And you say Ms. Barnes is leaving?”

  “That’s right. Transferring to another facility within the organization. What will I need to bring in to be added to the account?”

  “Are you a local resident, Ms. Mack?”

  “I just moved in to Harbor Village.”

  “In that case, I hope you’ll do your banking with us. You’re going to be here permanently? Why don’t we go with your letter of appointment, on corporate letterhead, and the usual personal identification? That should be sufficient.”

  An official letter of appointment. Yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? If only I had one. I needed to talk with Travis.

  My phone beeped when I hung up, but I didn’t look to see how many messages had accumulated during the morning. Emily was showing me the balance in the bank account and its trends over the last year.

  “Is there ever any problem making payroll or paying the bills?”

  “Corporate handles payroll and does everything by direct deposit. We do everything else locally and have plenty of funds for insurance and maintenance and such. I suppose corporate might like to transfer some funds out of here occasionally. I mean, that’s the whole idea, isn’t it? But they haven’t done that, not since I’ve been here.”

  “Now what about the annual budget? Are we meeting projections?”

  She pursed her lips and then pressed them together, tightening her cheeks until she looked like a red-haired chipmunk.

  “The annual budget.” She blinked a couple of times.

  “Well, that’s what I would call it. Maybe you know it by a different name. How much money is allocated for different expenses, how much we’re supposed to have left over at the end of the year.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen one here. Houston must prepare it.” She was listlessly paging through documents. “I do a monthly summary for Ms. Ferrell.”

  “Can you make copies for me?”

  “Sure. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Don’t skip lunch. It’s about that time now. I think I’ll eat here since it’s raining. And I’ve got another project to attend to after lunch, so let’s get together about two or three.”

  Emily was stacking folders.

  “Let me make a note about that vacancy figure.” I got a card out of my pocket and found a pen. “Twenty-three percent vacant out of two hundred twenty-four units. Right?”

  “Right,” Emily said.

  There was already one note on the card. I turned it around to read, in my handwriting, “pets for AL.” I tapped the card on the table as I thought.

  “How old are your kittens, Emily?”

  “Eight weeks. Ready for new homes.”

  “And what colors do you have?”

  “Any color you want. One solid black, one tuxedo, one gray striped with white feet, one orange tabby.”

  “Maybe you could bring them to the Assisted Living unit one day. I think the residents there would enjoy seeing them.”

  “They’re the cutest things in the world. Just beginning to play. And those little tails sticking straight up—oooh!”

  She nearly swooned.

  Chapter 12

  I checked phone messages when Emily left and saw half a dozen, including three from Travis. I hit call back and he answered on the first ring.

  “Any problems?”

  “Yes, several, but I’m working on them. I filed a police report and called for a drug test of all employees in the Assisted Living building.”

  “There are state laws about employee testing. And some people may quit.”

  “We want them to, don’t we? I checked to be sure the policy was in the handbook and a notice was posted in the unit office. We’ll have the results tomorrow. I haven’t found a budget yet. Would someone in Houston have a copy? And I need an official letter of appointment from you so I can get added to the bank account. We need to issue some deposit refunds in a couple of days, and there doesn’t seem to be anybody to sign checks except Nelson Fisher. Are you in the office, and can you send an appointment letter today? And just so you know, I’m in the process of checking out a little discrepancy in rentals.”

  “Great, great.” He didn’t seem to be hearing me.

  I tried again. “What can you tell me about Nelson Fisher? He doesn’t seem to do anything, but he’s listed as office manager.”

  “No, that can’t be right. You’re looking at an old roster. Are you coming for the memorial service?”

  “No. But Stephanie will be there.” I made a note to ask Patti if the employee roster she’d given me was up to date.

  “Good, good,” Travis was saying. “And I’ll take care of…now what was it? Listen, you’d better talk to my assistant. Tell her what you need and she’ll take care of it. You’re doing a great job, Cleo, and I’ll be back there soon so we can talk. Let me give you Yolanda’s number.”

  He gave me the phone number and said he’d tell Yolanda to get me whatever I needed. Hmmm. Nothing like a blank check.

  I waited fifteen minutes and called Yolanda at the Houston number Travis had given me. We made the usual polite comments and then I repeated the items I’d mentioned to Travis, starting
with a formal letter of appointment on corporate letterhead.

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said.

  “And a copy of this year’s budget for the Fairhope facility.”

  “You don’t have that? Well, it’s probably in Ms. Ferrell’s files, but I’ll send you a copy, certainly.”

  “And if there’s any company policy concerning employee bonuses, for things like initiating leases, I’d like a copy of that.”

  “I don’t know about that but I’ll check.”

  “And finally, a copy of the message Lee sent, naming Jamie Barnes director of the Charleston facility. I understand it was sent last Thursday night, but I don’t know if it was a text message or e-mail, or maybe voice mail.”

  “Yes, Ms. Mack. Anything else?”

  “No, not right now. I don’t have a computer in the office yet, so you’ll have to use my home e-mail.” I gave her my address. “And I suppose I may need to call you back if I have any other problems while Travis is involved with the memorial service.”

  “Of course. Use this number and there’s voice mail if I’m not available. And welcome to Harbor Health Services, Ms. Mack.”

  Patti was waiting to give me a report on the drug test memo, which she had delivered to all the Assisted Living staff.

  “I assume we have some way to screen out job applicants with a history of drug use.” I was angling for an opening to explore Stewart’s wariness around the cops.

  “Oh, absolutely. That’s sort of my job.” She wiggled her brows at me. “The small-town grapevine, you know. Plus we have Stewart. He’s a sponsor.”

  “A what?”

  “You know, clean and sober and obsessive about it. Are we having lunch in the dining room? If we are, we’d better go.”

  We were walking out when my glance fell on the receipt book. I moved a file folder to cover it and closed the office door behind us.

  I assumed the day’s continuous rain would cut back on business for the dining room, but the opposite was true. There was a full house when we arrived, and Lizzie was clearing dirty tables.

  “Nobody wants to go out in the rain,” Ann told us. “We may just sit here all afternoon. You got any coffee, Carla?”

  The food tray still had a good selection, and I took a little sample of each of the vegetables, plus a bowl of hot, cheesy potato soup and a wedge of cornbread, with actual corn kernels visible.

  “This is perfect for a rainy day,” I told Carla. And then I ate every bit. It was perfect for any day.

  Patti told me about her visit to assisted living and the reaction of staff members to being drug tested. “I think Michelle was upset but, oddly, everybody else seemed happy about it. Now why would they be happy about having their pee tested?”

  “Maybe they’re happy because Michelle’s not happy.”

  “That’s mean.” She giggled.

  I asked about progress on finding me a computer. “I could give you mine, but there doesn’t seem to be one that’s working and not being used.”

  “Well, then, how about office supplies? I don’t even have a notepad, or a telephone, except my own.”

  “I’ll take care of supplies as soon as we get back. There’s a supply closet. I should’ve done that already. I guess we can make a purchase order for a computer. Do you know what kind you want?”

  I told her what I had at home. “But it might be more expensive.”

  “What about Jamie’s?”

  “We can’t leave assisted living without one. I’m sure they submit reports online and look up medications.”

  “Check their e-mail, read movie reviews.”

  People in the dining room were talking about Mr. Levine’s political forum, just two days away. He had assigned several of them the job of making up questions, and they wanted ideas from everybody. But in the midst of that, the topic suddenly shifted to Lee Ferrell’s death.

  “I heard she didn’t drown,” someone said.

  Ann looked at me. “Is that right?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  Everyone began to talk at once.

  “Was it an accident, or wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe she was on drugs.”

  “Homicide?”

  “Is she married? Check out the husband.”

  “What does Jim Bergen say about it,” a man asked. “He’s out there patrolling every night. He ought to know.”

  “Better check him out, too,” was followed by laughter.

  “Carla, this soup is excellent. Have you got a little container so I can take some home with me?”

  Curiosity had its limits. Everything revolved around food and, when the subject came up, everyone got involved. They were busy getting containers for soup and plastic bags to carry the containers in. They divided up all the cornbread in the tray.

  I gave Patti a signal and we signed for our lunches and returned to the office, leaving the same group of residents still holding court.

  * * * *

  Cynthia Quarles was on the phone when I got to her office after lunch. I took a chair and eavesdropped. She didn’t seem to be talking with a prospective resident, but she seemed in no hurry to hang up. She was a pretty woman, a blond version of Lee Ferrell. Same age, same gold jewelry, same Pilates’ trainer, no doubt. I imagined the two of them pledging the same sorority at some expensive little women’s college on the Atlantic seaboard. And now who was prejudiced? I gave myself a demerit and walked over to take a look at the key box, which was standing open.

  It was a large, shallow, metal box attached to the wall, with black felt covering its interior. A vinyl grid marked the surface into sections representing the apartment buildings, each section containing rows of numbered pegs from which keys dangled. There was a colored tag on each peg: yellow, green or red. At the bottom center was a section representing the big house, with keys for the rooms and apartments on floors two and three. Three other sections ran along each side of a central space that represented Harbor Boulevard, I supposed. I identified the section corresponding to my building and saw that apartment eight, my unit, had a red tag, one of a dozen or more on the entire grid. Assuming the codes were up to date, red must mean a special category of rental, since there were relatively few red tags.

  Cynthia’s conversation sounded much like my side of a call from Stephanie. Since I showed no signs of leaving, or perhaps because I was examining the key box, she was trying to get off the phone.

  Finally she said, “I must run, sweetie. Call you later.” She hung up, came around the desk and attempted to push me out of the way so she could close the cabinet.

  I stood my ground. “I’ve been admiring your system here. Makes it so easy to keep everything up to date.”

  She swung the door toward me. “Yes. It’s something I brought with me from real estate. This is the way we organized keys for listed properties. But now electronic lock boxes have replaced the key system.” She pushed at the door again.

  I could be as stubborn as anyone. “Tell me what the colors mean and let me see if I’ve guessed correctly.”

  “It’s just an indication of the status of each unit.” She was annoyed but also a little nervous.

  I moved to stand in front of the rectangle I had identified as Nita’s building and put a finger on what appeared to be their apartment. It had a green tag. “Green means what? Rented?”

  “Right.”

  “I thought so, since that’s the most common color. And yellow indicates a unit is available, I guess.” There were a lot of yellow tags. I ran my finger up to the next row of keys and stopped on one of them.

  “I think you’ve got it.” She grasped the door again.

  This time she swung it partly closed, but I stayed put, right in the way, so the door bumped my arm. Cynthia might think she was going to dislodge me, but I wanted to establish a proper relationship
with her from the outset.

  “Oh, sorry.” I looked at my arm and then at her. I didn’t budge from my spot in front of the key box. “I want to take a good look at this. Do you mind? Part of my orientation.” As I eased the door back to the open position, I saw a flash of anger in Cynthia’s eyes.

  Confrontations weren’t unknown in the academic world, and I’d had my share, but this one felt different somehow. I actually felt a physical threat. Cynthia had an ugly expression and took a half step toward me. I didn’t back down.

  “And red—what does a red tag mean, Cynthia?” I locked gazes with her.

  She looked away after a couple of seconds. Thank goodness. I saw a slight tremor as she swallowed.

  “Just…whatever.” She exhaled and seemed to deflate emotionally. “Different things, depending on the circumstance.”

  I felt emboldened. Cynthia was clearly evasive, and her natural arrogance was now at war with nervousness. I turned and walked back to my chair. As I did, I heard the key box click.

  “You may need that open, Cynthia. I want a count of available units.” I sat down and unfolded my copy of Emily’s rental register. “I need to compare your figures to the list I have.”

  She started forward with a look of panic and stuck her hand out for the list. I ignored her and clicked my pen, preparing to write in the margin.

  “But I keep the official list.”

  I pressed harder. “Oh, then that’s the answer. A copy of your list will be fine.” I folded the paper. “How often do you update it, once a month? The one from July will work for my purposes.”

  She was frowning, unable to decide on a cover story. “I’m not sure…I’ve been so busy lately. I just use the key box mostly.”

  “Surely you turn in a report to Houston. Or to Lee Ferrell? That’s probably how they evaluate your annual performance, isn’t it? How long have you worked here, Cynthia?”

  “There’s about twenty,” she said, abruptly.

  I looked at her. She clasped her hands together and twisted them.