Rhythm & Clues

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I?” Teri asked, eyeing me with suspicion. Touché.

  “Mom’s at my place and couldn’t sleep,” I told Teri. “She was worried about her place and wanted a couple of things, so I dashed over to get them to ease her mind.” People say I’m not a good liar. I beg to differ.

  “But Grace’s place is over on the other side,” Teri pointed out. Teri Thomson appeared to be pulling eighty, rather than pushing it. She was tiny and slightly bent, with puffy white hair like her dog’s, but there were clearly no flies on her when it came to her faculties. In a show of comfort, she slipped the knitting needle into the deep right pocket of the pants of her lightweight blue tracksuit. I could just see the top of it jutting out.

  “Mom also wanted me to check on Art’s place,” I quickly answered, keeping to a whisper and holding up Art’s key as evidence. “He’s been gone a day or two, and Mom wanted to make sure everything was good over here.” I glanced back at Art’s. Willie and Buzz were nowhere to be seen. “Mom thinks he took off on one of his little jaunts, but he didn’t say when he’d be back.”

  “Did you check with his girlfriend?”

  I looked at Teri with surprise, which caused her to chuckle. “Please,” she said with a sly smile, “my dog may be blind, but I’m not. I know there’s a woman who pretends to visit Grace but who spends the night at Art’s.”

  “Yeah, Mom told me about that. Seems Mona D’Angelo keeps tabs on Art for his daughter.”

  “Mona’s a fool,” the old woman quipped without hesitation. “Treats us all like naughty, out-of-control children, then wonders why we don’t respect her.” She leaned closer. “That woman has her own secrets, believe me.”

  Do tell!

  I looked around, worried that even whispering might catch the attention of someone in one of the nearby homes, someone who was a light sleeper. Across from us was a greenbelt with a bench. It was far enough away from the private homes to give us some privacy if we continued to keep our voices low. “Would you like to sit down, Teri? I’d like to ask you a few questions about all this, if you don’t mind.”

  She nodded and put the dog down. The three of us walked across the quiet street to the bench. Lucy, blind or not, trotted along happily, letting her nose guide her.

  “I love this place at night,” Teri said once she was seated with Lucy in her lap. “Especially this time of year after the heat of the day cools off. Lucy and I often take walks when there’s no one around. Makes no difference to Lucy if it’s night or day.” She stroked the animal’s ears as she spoke, and Lucy snuggled into her. “I can only sleep a couple of hours at a time,” she explained, “so often we come out for a short walk at night, sometimes two.”

  As tired as I was, my senses went on alert. “Did the police speak with you about the night of the murder?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I believe they spoke to all of us who live in this section, but I had nothing to tell them.”

  “Were you out walking that night?” I asked her. “You know, the night of the murder?”

  She nodded and stopped petting Lucy as she thought back. Not to be denied, the dog nudged her hand with its muzzle, and the hand continued the petting on autopilot. “Yes, I was.” Teri turned to me, her lined face full of sudden brightness, as if she’d turned on a lamp. “Goodness, can you believe that happened just two nights ago? It seems like a lifetime ago.” I nodded back. It did to me too.

  “Like I told the two policemen who talked to me,” she continued, “we did go for a walk that night, but it was a very short one because I was a little tired. So we came back and sat on the patio for a while. I didn’t see anything or anyone unusual when I was walking or sitting.”

  No one unusual. “Did you see any of the other residents or maybe one of their guests? You know, someone like yourself who is up at night.” I glanced over at Shankleman’s home. “What about Boaz’s neighbors on either side?”

  She gave it some thought. “No, the Whites live in the home that’s attached to Boaz’s place on the right, and they’ve gone gallivanting in their RV. They do that every July and August.” She pointed to another home, one to the left of Shankleman’s. “Kenneth Lowe lives in the one on Boaz’s other side, the one not attached, but he hasn’t been well lately and is deaf as a post.”

  She stopped petting the dog and brought the hand to her lips. “But I did see someone last night—I just remembered now! I forgot to tell the police.”

  My brain snapped out of its exhaustion. “Someone who didn’t belong, like a stranger?”

  She shook her head. “No, I saw Art Franklin. I remember thinking how strange because he’s not much of a night owl like I am.”

  “Did he see you?” I asked with interest.

  “No, I don’t think so. He was fussing with his car. It was out in front of his place, not in his assigned car port, and he was putting something into it—a bag, I think. I couldn’t see well because he was fiddling with the passenger’s side, the side facing his house, not me.” She shrugged. “I’ll bet he was getting ready to go on one of his little trips.”

  “What happened after that?” I encouraged.

  “Why, nothing. I went inside. I was barely in bed when the whole place started buzzing with police.”

  “What time do you think it was when you saw Art?”

  Again she gave my question thought as the memory returned. “About the same time as now.” She paused and scrunched her brows together. “Actually, I believe it was a little earlier, maybe around eleven or so. Around the time I usually take my first walk.”

  My tired brain did some math. It would have been shortly before Mom and Lorraine went on their fact-finding mission. Mom had said that they had gone to Shankleman’s after the news, and I knew Mom always watched the eleven o’clock news. “And you didn’t tell the police about Art?”

  Teri shook her head slowly. “No. I just remembered I saw him this very minute, and the police were more focused on the night before, the night that poor woman was murdered.” She looked at me with eyes full of horror. “You don’t think Art Franklin killed that poor woman, do you? I can’t imagine such a thing myself. He’s so sweet and always concerned for others.” She laughed softly. “Grace once called him a wussy because he wouldn’t kill a big spider we found in the game room. He gathered it up on a piece of paper and took it outside instead.”

  I couldn’t imagine Art killing Cydney Fox either, although I could easily imagine my mother calling him a wussy. So Art wasn’t a night owl, but he had taken off in the middle of the night. What would have made him do that, especially without telling my mother or even leaving her a message the next morning? Did he see the murder and the murderer? But Art disappeared last night, the night after Fox was supposedly killed. He disappeared the night my mother and Lorraine broke into Shankleman’s.

  “Teri, I can’t imagine Art doing such a thing either—or anyone around here. Did you by chance see my mother or my niece last night? They were at Boaz’s about the time you would have taken your walk or maybe a little later.”

  She shook her head. “No, but according to the scuttlebutt, they entered by the back bedroom window. In that unit’s case, that window faces the back wall of the property. Once they were back there, no one would have seen them from the street. And Kenneth certainly wouldn’t have heard him.”

  Between Lorraine and Craig Buck, it seemed a lot of people were shimmying through bedroom windows in the dark these days. I turned my attention back to Teri. “What about strangers hanging around, day or night? Certainly if a stranger entered the front gate, the guard would have seen them?”

  Teri let out a very unladylike snort, causing her to quickly cover her mouth with her free hand out of mild embarrassment. In her lap, Lucy lifted her sleepy head. “Not if Milt was on duty, which he probably was. He works every night during the week.” She shook her head. “It
’s a wonder we’re not all slaughtered in our beds with him out front.” She leaned in and dropped her voice even more. “Fortunately, the bad people don’t know he’s incompetent.”

  “Is that why you carry a knitting needle?” I asked.

  “I’ve never had to use it in all the years I’ve lived here,” she said with a smile, “but you never know. Lucy isn’t much protection. Even her hearing isn’t great now that she’s gotten older. She’s as bad as Kenneth some days.”

  “Tell me, if Milton is so incompetent, why does Seaside keep him on duty?” I asked. “Maybe he’d be better on day shift?”

  “Because he’s Mona’s uncle, and the night shift doesn’t include much work.” When she saw my surprise, she added, “Didn’t you know his connection to Mona? I would have thought Grace might have told you. His name is Milton D’Angelo. A couple of months ago the late-night guard left, and Mona brought Milt in to replace him. A mercy job, if you ask me. All any of us know is that he’d been gone for a long time and had just returned.” She leaned in closer. “Some think he was in prison. Others think he was in some sort of home, like an asylum. Mona simply said he’d been traveling overseas for a long time and finally came home.”

  I shook my head. “Mom didn’t tell me any of this.” I filed the information away to be used later, in case it was needed when defending my mother against eviction, and wondered if this was the secret Teri had referred to earlier.

  I took a moment to take several deep breaths of night air and caught the scent of night-blooming jasmine. Teri was right: it was pleasant sitting outside in the middle of the night. The complex was quiet and peaceful, like sitting in your own private garden. Dotted around the property were small stylish streetlamps that gave off warm yellow light. It was enough to light your way without blinding nearby homeowners. I took another deep breath and held it a few seconds. It was much cooler than during the day, and I was starting to get a little chilly. That’s one of the great things about Southern California, especially near the ocean. It can be hot as blazes during the day in the summer, but it usually cools down at night. I wanted to stay on the bench until morning, the dew settling on my body until the sun came out to burn it off.

  My moment of Zen over, my brain skipped back to a short time earlier and how Milt barely gave me any notice when I entered the gate. “So it would have been easy for both Cydney Fox and her killer to slip in unnoticed after dark the night of the murder?” I asked Teri.

  “If they have the front gate code, Milt wouldn’t care,” she told me. “The only time he pays attention is if it’s a guest without the code. But I’m pretty sure the Fox woman had the code.”

  My tired brain snapped to attention. Kevin Wong had said something similar. “Do you know if she was a frequent guest?”

  “I saw her here quite often in the past few months,” Teri reported, “especially in the evening. I think she and Boaz were an item because sometimes her car was here overnight.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I know they were friends a long time ago.”

  “She wasn’t around during the day that I could see, just at night. And I live just over there.” Teri pointed to the right of us. “Just two doors down. I have a pretty good view of this entire area from my patio. Sometimes Lucy and I don’t walk at all but sit outside enjoying the evening.” She hesitated a heartbeat, then tacked on, “Not that I’m nosy or anything, mind you.”

  I gave her a warm smile. Of course not. No nosier than me or my mother.

  I looked over at Shankleman’s house. From where we sat I could see one side of it. From where Teri lived, she would have a better view. “I’m surprised the police don’t have anyone posted at the house since the murder happened so recently.”

  “They did until just after suppertime,” she answered. “Maybe they thought no one would go near it.” She continued stroking the small dog, who’d woken up enough to wag her tail. “There was even a small crowd of reporters out front earlier, but they’re gone now too. Probably everyone is focused on that horrible incident in Los Angeles.”

  Nosy reporters had been a concern of mine when I’d arrived earlier with Buzz and Willie, but when we got here there was no sign of anything. Earlier this evening there had been a report on the news of a bomb going off in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of Los Angeles. No one, thankfully, had been hurt, but there were rumors of an ISIS connection—that the warehouse was being used as a bomb-making center by locals connected to the terrorist group, although so far there was no hard evidence of either the ISIS link or that bombs were being manufactured in the place. Still, in a global, fast-paced news cycle world, terrorists always trumped missing aging rock stars, even if murder was involved. Even Willie had made a comment about it when we easily entered the property without notice.

  “Odelia,” Teri said, her sweet face clouding over, “should I call the police and tell them about Art?”

  Now there was a million-dollar question. I ran it around in my tired mind, quickly weighing the options. “No,” I answered quickly, “at least not yet. I don’t believe he killed Cydney Fox any more than you do. Let’s give it a day or two for the police to do their digging. If nothing comes up, you can say you just remembered seeing Art that night.”

  “And I did just remember,” she assured me.

  “Did you see anyone else that night?” I asked her. “Try to remember. Something might come to you, like remembering about Art.”

  She screwed up her face and closed her eyes. “No, just Art. I didn’t even see the Fox woman, just her car parked in visitor parking.” She pointed to the left of us to an area with about a half dozen visitor parking spaces. Visitor parking was scattered throughout the complex. None of these were filled tonight. “The police towed it away after her body was found.”

  “Did you tell the police that you thought Boaz and Cydney were seeing each other?”

  “Yes, I did. I’m sure they now think that Boaz killed Cydney, and I feel bad for that. He isn’t sweet like Art, but he’s always very considerate and fun to be around. He doesn’t strike me as a killer.” She sighed. “But you never really know, do you?” She paused, then shook her head. “My mind really is slipping.”

  “Do you remember something else?”

  “Yes, but not about that night. It’s nothing really, just something about Mona D’Angelo.”

  “What about Mona? You know, she’s suggesting that my mother move out of Seaside.”

  Teri looked surprised. “Why?”

  “Because of last night,” I told her. “Because Mom and my niece entered Boaz’s home without his permission. Mona and Seaside’s management have already banished my niece from the property.”

  “But they were just checking on him,” Teri said, coming to my mother’s defense. “He’s been gone quite some time without a word to anyone.”

  “That’s what my mother told me. She and Art are quite concerned.”

  “Seems like that Mona should be more concerned herself, considering, except that she’s a hard-hearted one.” Teri said the words with barely disguised anger.

  “Why did you say considering?” I asked as my curiosity rose again. At this rate I might stumble upon something juicy to use on Mona as blackmail to get her to back off on Mom.

  “It’s what I just remembered that I forgot to tell the police.” Teri looked both ways, as if expecting to see eavesdroppers hiding in the bushes. “She’s had a big crush on Boaz—probably something left over from when she was a star-struck teen listening to rock and roll. I don’t know if the interest was ever returned. I never saw anything to indicate that it was. But Mona was always making excuses to go over there.”

  This news woke me up fast, like cold water flung into my face. “Teri, think hard. Did you see Mona around here the night of the murder?”

  The old woman closed her eyes and thought about my question. A full minute must have passed, an
d I wondered if she’d dropped off to sleep. The dog had and snored gently on her lap. Just as I was about to touch her shoulder, her eyes popped open and fixed on me like two blue clouds. “I’m sorry, but I never saw Mona that night. I went back over every move I made, but I only saw Art last night and Milt the night before.”

  Milt? Except for his incompetence on the job, I was sure Teri hadn’t mentioned seeing him either night. “Milt?”

  “Yes, he was making his rounds,” she replied as if it was a piece of information I’d forgotten she’d mentioned. I knew I was exhausted, but I was sure she hadn’t said anything about it. “I always found that odd,” she continued, “because everyone knows that Kevin makes rounds right before he leaves for the evening, but Milt had gotten into the habit of walking the property himself shortly after. I guess it kept him awake.”

  I thought about the guard in the shack, his chin heavy on his chest with sleep, and couldn’t imagine him moving much farther than the TV.

  nineteen

  After I walked Teri and Lucy back to their home, I headed back to my mother’s. There I found Buzz and Willie standing at her kitchen counter. Each held a fork and were feasting on something from a plastic container. Upon closer inspection, I spied Mom’s turkey and veggie meatloaf with mushroom gravy.

  “We found this in the fridge,” Willie said with his mouth half full. “I hope Grace doesn’t mind, but we were both hungry.”

  I shrugged, knowing she wouldn’t. “Mom makes a great turkey meatloaf, but it’s better heated up.”

  “I nuked it for a minute or two,” Buzz said. He turned and opened a kitchen drawer, pulled out a fork, and held it out to me.

  “You could get some plates, you know.” I took the fork.

  “More fun this way,” Buzz said with a smile. The kid with the missing middle finger was growing on me. Enrique had been mostly silent as he stuck close to Willie as his bodyguard, but Buzz was showing a lot of personality. “Using plates when raiding the fridge is sacrilegious.”