“I’m looking into options for when I move out of my house. I heard the sales pitch and took the tour here yesterday. I liked it so much I wanted Val to see it.”
“It’s a great place. I should know. I work here as the director of community relations. If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them.”
“I just want to talk to some folks who live here and see how they like it,” Granddad said. “You two can catch up while I go to the Lakeside Lounge and get to know people.”
“Great idea.” Fayette checked her oversized watch. “I’m free for the next half hour.”
“I’ll join you in the lounge, Granddad, when we’re finished talking.”
“Okay. Nice meeting you, Fayette.” He left with a wave.
“He’s so darling, Val. That’s where you get your cute genes, and you haven’t changed a bit in the last decade.”
“The extra five pounds don’t count?”
“Not to someone who’s put on fifteen. I get to blame my two kids for that. Let’s go to my office.” Fayette led the way through a corridor to a small room with a big desk and three leather armchairs grouped around a glass-covered wood table.
She sat at the table with Val and talked about her marriage and children. A military wife, she’d worked as a troubleshooter in a variety of volunteer and paid positions over the years. She described her current role in the senior community as a problem solver for residents and their family members.
Val talked about being a cookbook publicist in New York, her move earlier in the year to her grandfather’s house on the Eastern Shore, her current work as a café manager, and her hope of publishing her own cookbook.
“If you publish it, Val, I’ll buy it. It surprises me that your grandfather is looking at a retirement place so far from where he’s been living. Does he have family or friends in this area?”
Val hesitated, hating to lie but seeing no way around it. “He thought two women he knew lived here. Yesterday when he was here, he mentioned them to the receptionist and the other residents. No one had heard of them. Of course, his memory for names isn’t as good as it used to be.”
“I can relate to that. Faces stick in my mind. Names? In one ear and out the other.”
“I have pictures of the women. You mind looking at them?” Val handed her a print of Bethany’s photo of Lillian.
“Looks familiar. Not a resident. A visitor.” Fayette closed her eyes and popped them open after five seconds. “I know who she is. A geriatric care manager. It’s been months since I’ve seen her here.”
“What do geriatric care managers do?”
“They’re hired, usually by the family, to check on elderly relatives. They alert us and the family of any needs that aren’t being met.”
They could also alert con artists about elderly clients with money and no family members watching over the finances. “What kind of background do geriatric care managers have?” Val asked.
“Most come from nursing, social work, or psychology. They usually have training and experience in eldercare.” Fayette waved to a woman passing by her door. “Hey, Nina, got a second? Look at this photo and see if you recognize this woman.”
A fiftyish woman came into the office, donned glasses that hung from her neck, and examined the photo. “Mr. Tunbridge’s care manager.”
Omar’s father-in-law. A surge of excitement shot through Val. At last, she’d found what connected Lillian to Omar.
“Mr. Tunbridge. Right.” Fayette stared at the ceiling as if trying to summon a memory from above. “Didn’t he move here from another retirement community?”
Her colleague nodded. “In Maryland. The family wanted him nearer to where they live. The woman in the photo was his care manager there, and they kept her on for continuity.” She put an index finger on her pursed lips and gave Fayette a pointed look.
Val could interpret the silent message, though it wasn’t intended for her. Don’t talk about the man who killed himself here.
“Thanks, Nina.” Fayette handed the photo to Val as Nina left the office. “Your grandfather may have run into this care manager at that other retirement community in Maryland and mistaken her for a resident there.”
“That’s possible. There was another woman he thought lived here.” Val gave her Thomasina’s photo. “Do you recognize her?”
Fayette studied it, frowned, and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger around Thomasina’s face. “If I block out the hair, she looks like Shawna Maliote, who was a blonde. She moved out a few months ago after being here half a year. If your grandfather knows her, my best advice is to keep him away from her. She was a bit off.” Fayette tapped her temple.
“In what way?”
“Delusional. Paranoid. She claimed people here were stealing from her and trying to kill her. She threatened to sue us. We let her out of her contract, happy to return her money just to get rid of her.”
That paranoia may have led her to change her name to Thomasina Weal. “Did her family support her decision to leave?”
“That I don’t know. It wouldn’t matter anyway. She came here as an independent resident, responsible for her own decisions and finances.” Fayette returned the photo to Val.
“I’ve probably said more than I should have about her, given current privacy laws, but I wanted to warn you. Your grandfather shouldn’t get involved with her.”
“I’ll just tell him she isn’t here anymore. How does she spell her name?” Val jotted Shawna Maliote’s name on the back of the photo. “Thanks.”
“I’m guessing you’re thinking of moving around here. Is that why your grandfather’s looking at this place?”
“He’s just trying to get a feel for different communities.” Enough said about their motives for visiting this community. “At the retirement village near us, a TV reporter recently interviewed residents for a story and embarrassed some of them. Have you had reporters here too?”
“Not lately. We don’t let the media bother the residents, though some of them like the attention.”
“Do you have educational programs, guest speakers, that sort of thing?”
“Occasionally. And we have so many clubs and activities, your grandfather’s bound to find something that interests him.” Fayette glanced at her big watch. “If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to call me.”
Val took the hint and stood up. “Great talking to you, Fayette.”
“I’ll walk you back to the lobby and set you up with a tour. Let me know if you want to visit again. We’ll have lunch.”
For the sake of Granddad’s cover story, Val had to go on the thirty-minute tour. With that out of the way, she checked her phone messages. Only one had come in, a text from Althea with the contact information for three criminal lawyers. On the way to the Lakeside Lounge, Val passed the elevators and the door to a staircase. She opened it and walked up one story, twenty concrete steps in all, with a landing halfway up, where the staircase turned. With a shove from the top of the stairs, Thomasina would have hit ten steps before the landing broke her fall. Ouch. Hard to imagine she could have avoided serious injury, unless she’d grabbed the handrail before falling far. Or maybe, as Granddad suspected, no one had pushed her. She’d just stumbled down a few steps.
Val went into the Lakeside Lounge. Based on the view from the room, Pondside Lounge would have been more accurate, but she was spoiled by living near the Chesapeake. It made bodies of water smaller than oceans, seas, and the Great Lakes look puny.
She found her grandfather on a sofa facing the puny pond. Three women sat in chairs grouped around the sofa.
He gestured with a sweep of his arm toward Val. “This is my granddaughter, ladies. Meet my new friends, Val.”
“He’s been telling us all about you,” the tiny woman with ash-gray hair said. “You’re so lucky to have a grandfather who cooks for you.”
Val smiled through clenched teeth.
“And he’s lucky to have a granddaughter with experience
in book publicity,” the robust woman with yellow-gray hair said. “You’ll make his cookbook a best seller.”
Val felt herself getting steamed, and not just because the temperature in the building was five degrees warmer than she liked. Had Granddad managed to do anything but lie about his cooking? Had he passed around the photos?
The lanky woman with frosted gray hair stood up. “It’s almost time for bridge. So nice to meet you, Don, and you too, Val. Come visit again.”
The other two trailed her out of the lounge, the largest woman commenting, “Maybe he can do a cooking demonstration, and we can sample the food.”
“A cookbook, Granddad?” Val kept her voice low. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? It’s the next step after a recipe column. Stop looking like you just drank battery acid. I got a lot out of talking to those ladies.”
Something besides a boost to his ego? Val sat next to him on the sofa. “What?”
“You first. Your friend tell you anything?”
“I found out the name Thomasina used here.”
“So did I. Shawna. The ladies recognized her from the picture, but didn’t know her last name.”
“Shawna Maliote.” Val could contribute at least something to what he’d learned. “Did they say anything else about Thomasina/Shawna?”
“They said she carried on about being pushed down the stairs. She bought pepper spray and things like that to protect herself. The tall one said Thomasina made up the story about being pushed in order to get out of her contract. The little one swallowed the story and won’t go near a staircase. The third one took Thomasina’s paranoia as a sign of Alzheimer’s. Now I’ve known a few people suffering from that awful disease, and it’s true they did turn paranoid.”
“Yes, but you can be paranoid without having that disease. Alzheimer’s destroys your memory, and Thomasina’s memory worked well for the trivia game.”
“Folks with Alzheimer’s can recall something from fifty years ago, but not from five minutes ago.”
Val thought about the trivia results. Yes, memories from the distant past could have given Thomasina the answers to the Hollywood questions. Random chance could explain her other two correct answers, given that she’d made a stab at every multiple-choice question. “Thomasina is going by a totally different name than the one she used a few months ago. Could someone with dementia change names without getting confused?”
Granddad shook his head. “Nah. Let’s rule out Alzheimer’s. What about the idea that she used her fall on the stairs to wiggle out of her contract?”
“It tallies with what Fayette said. Thomasina’s false name makes me wonder what else is false about her.” Val lowered her voice. “You didn’t like the idea that a mother would murder her son. Suppose she’s not Scott’s mother, but his accomplice? She moves into a retirement community and vouches for his expertise. For that, she gets a cut of the money. She has to move out before anyone catches on to him. Maybe she was tired of the setup, but he wouldn’t let her quit.”
Granddad shook his head. “You only saw her and Scott together for a minute. He was devoted to her.”
“That’s exactly how a con man would behave.”
“I can tell the difference between real and fake affection.”
But could her grandfather tell the difference with respect to Lillian’s affection for him? “Did you show anyone here Lillian’s photo?” Val asked.
“Yup. No one recognized her.”
Not a surprise. Lillian wouldn’t have necessarily met any residents except the one she was hired to visit. “Fayette and another woman who works here recognized Lillian from the photo.” She told Granddad about Lillian’s role as geriatric care manager to Arthur Tunbridge.
Granddad gazed out the window at the pond. “She must have felt terrible when he committed suicide. I suppose she found out that Scott bilked the old guy. That’s why she warned me against investing.”
And also why she’d arranged to confront Scott at the chowder dinner, backed up by someone from the dead man’s family. “She didn’t tell you about Omar’s connection to the man who committed suicide.”
Granddad polished his glasses on his shirt. “I’ll ask her why she didn’t mention it.”
“I want to be there when you ask her.” Not only because Val would like to hear Lillian’s excuse, but also because she didn’t want Granddad alone with a suspect. His girlfriend had two possible reasons to murder Scott—to avenge her client’s death by suicide, or to eliminate her accomplice in scams against the elderly.
Granddad stood up. “We got what we came for. It’s a long ride home.” He held out his hand. “Give me the keys. You drove here. I’ll drive back.”
“There’s a ton of traffic on the beltway.”
“I drove both ways yesterday.” He waggled a finger at her. “Stop treating me like a baby.”
She didn’t baby him, but sometimes she acted like an overprotective mother of a teenager. She surrendered the keys. While he was driving back to Bayport, she would call the chief and tell him what they’d found out. Granddad would have no choice but to listen again to all the things Lillian had kept from him. He might even get past his blind spot about her.
Chapter 21
Val watched the traffic while Granddad drove on the beltway, or more accurately, the speedway around Washington. When he left the urban congestion behind, she relaxed and phoned Chief Yardley. She told him what they’d heard at the Spring Lake Retirement Community.
“Did you drag your granddaddy there this morning to snoop with you?”
She turned her face toward the side window and covered her mouth. “I planned to go alone. He insisted on coming along.”
“It’s bad enough you’re playing detective. Now you’re both at it. You’ll need to tell Deputy Holtzman what you just told me. Go to the county sheriff’s substation outside Treadwell and make a statement.”
“Okay. Granddad and I are in the car and can swing by there on the way back to Bayport. Where exactly is it?”
He gave her directions to the substation. “Go there alone. Your granddaddy shouldn’t talk to the deputy without a lawyer present.”
She clicked off her phone and relayed the warning to Granddad. “Althea sent me the names and phone numbers for lawyers. I’ll copy them for you.” She wrote the information on the outside of the Spring Lake folder the tour guide had given her.
“I’ll call them when I get a chance.”
“You’ll have a chance. When we get to Treadwell, we’ll stop at a coffee shop. You can have lunch there while I go to the substation and tell the deputies what we found out this morning.”
Val rifled through the Spring Lake folder, located an information sheet printed on one side, and turned it to the blank side.
Granddad glanced at her. “What are you doing?”
“Making a diagram of the dining-room table, showing where everyone sat Saturday night and the type of chowder they first requested and eventually ate.”
“What’s that going to tell you?”
“Possibly nothing, but I won’t know until I finish it.”
It was late morning by the time Granddad stopped at a coffee shop. Val drove his Buick to the county sheriff’s substation. As she backed into a parking space, a neatly dressed man with dark hair walked out of the barracks-like building and donned sunglasses.
She jumped from the car. “Omar!”
He stopped and frowned as she approached him. “Yes?”
“Remember me? I’m Don Myer’s granddaughter, Val Deniston.” She met him at the edge of the parking lot, where a large tree provided shade even at noon.
The lines in his forehead deepened. “Yes. How is your grandfather?”
“He’s good.” No thanks to Omar and his crony Lillian.
Omar took off his designer sunglasses. “Please tell him I’m deeply sorry for taking advantage of his hospitality and not explaining my presence at his dinner.”
“I assume your pre
sence at the dinner—” His formal way of speaking was contagious. Val started again. “You were there because of Scott. Why did you want to sit at the same table with him when his actions may have brought on your father-in-law’s death?”
Omar jerked back as if she’d hit him, apparently surprised at what Val knew about his family. “I wished to shame him in the presence of his mother, appeal to his conscience, and possibly prevent another family from suffering what mine did. He was worse than a killer, Ms. Deniston. Murdering a man takes away his life. Driving him to suicide takes away his life and his soul.”
“Are you sure Scott was responsible for that?”
“My father-in-law left my wife a rambling voice mail, full of despair over money he’d lost on risky investments. He gambled his entire life savings, hoping to bequeath more to our sons. My wife was distraught at not receiving his message until it was too late. He didn’t realize we all valued him for himself, not for his money.”
Such a sad story. Val’s eyes stung. “I’m sorry for your family’s loss. After your father-in-law’s death, did you go to the police?”
“With what?” Omar held out his hands with his palms up. “He’d lost the early account statements that showed gains and prompted him to invest more and more money. The latest ones, which came after he requested some money back, showed losses. I left several phone messages for Scott. He never returned my calls.”
But he’d probably listened to them. “Scott must have recognized your voice at the chowder dinner. He was afraid of you. He pulled away when you offered to help him.”
Omar shrugged. “He had the chance to avoid me. Shortly after we sat down, his mother said she didn’t feel good and wanted him to take her home. He didn’t do it. When he got sick, I assumed they’d both eaten something earlier in the day that gave them food poisoning.”
“But then it came out that he was deliberately poisoned.”
“And I didn’t care if his killer was caught. Now I fear the same person murdered the woman reporter. Her death convinced me to tell the authorities what I know. I suspect you are here for the same reason.” He took car keys from his pocket. “My best to your grandfather.”
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