Alpaca My Bags

by Violet Patton

  “Yes, I am. I need to buy a suit.” Most hostages succumb to brainwashing eventually, but I’m easily swayed and went over with little torture.

  “We have a swim shop across from the golf cart shop. Out in the shopping arena,” she said pointing to nowhere.

  Arena? Are there wild mustangs that need breaking? Where are the cowboys?

  “That’s right,” Judy said. “You don’t need to go out... anywhere.”

  I felt trapped in this rodeo, my heart slipped into its regular, irregular rhythm. “Is there a doctor’s office?” Wasn’t panic a disease?

  Amelia grimaced. “Not yet, but we’re working on it. Other communities have satellite clinics.”

  “Sunny City does,” Judy said.

  She glared like Judy used a dirty word. “Yes, we’re working on it.” I enjoyed Amelia’s peevish smugness.

  “Where’s Sunny City?” I asked. If they had doctors, I could get Philly to move. I hadn’t unpacked my bags.

  Madonna smartly moved off the topic. “Did you tell her about the dances? And the clubs?”

  “I did. Have you seen Dan?”

  “No. He wasn’t around this morning. He’s usually watching us dance.” Judy flexed a tricep that wasn’t there. “Dan’s a former body builder. All the women are in love with him.”

  Amelia chuckled, but a tinge of color traced her cheeks. “Judy, be nice.”

  I’m betting she has a crush on Dan.

  Madonna ignored Amelia’s retort and squeezed my shoulder. “You ready? Can I show her the pool and spa area? It’s getting late. It’ll be too hot soon.” Madonna was smarter than I figured, she came to get me and made sure I didn’t get lost.

  “Good idea—”

  I reached for the binder and my photo ID again, but shrieks sounded from out beside the pool.

  Amelia went white and whirled. “What the hell?”

  More screams reverberated against the glass. Someone was in deep trouble. Madonna gasped. Judy ran over to the window. “What are they pointing at?”

  Amelia scurried, slipping in her clacking shoes as she ran to look out the window. I followed her flowing polyester skirt. Outside the window, ladies gathered at the edge of the pool, pointing and crying. One woman went to jump into the pool; another jerked her back fiercely shaking her head. A woman turned to the windows because she knew we were watching and shrieked. “CALL 911.”

  Chapter Three

  11:37 a.m.

  Amelia ran from the room, somewhere along the way she lost her shoes. We watched through the window as she ran barefoot across the pool deck, her floral dress flying as she took a leap into the pool. Water splashed, she either cannon balled or needed to lose a few pounds, onto the women standing beside the pool and they backed up gasping, wiping water from their eyes. After Amelia hit the pool, Madonna moved, running from the room. Judy followed Madonna, and I came in last getting poolside.

  “Help me.” Amelia shouted, floundering trying to bring Dan to the surface. Madonna jumped in but wasn’t much help. Weighted by two heavy exercise weights, water and bloat Dan was unmanageable, akin to bringing a sunken barge up from the bottom of the Bay.

  Yonna huddled near the pool’s steps heaving. “Ralph... Ralph... Ralph.”

  Several Oasis dudes came to the rescue, jumped in fully clothed in nice golf outfits and group floated Dan’s body to the shallow end. Two sixty-year-old tennis pro types hauled his blue body up onto the pool deck.

  Amelia attempted CPR. Nothing happened.

  Another lady got onto her knees beside him. “Let me try.”

  I swear, I’ve seen plenty of raunchy French kisses before but that one took the cake.

  “Get off.” Amelia shoved her away and went back to uselessly pounding his chest.

  “Let me.” A man shoved Amelia back and rolled Dan over, straddled him and pounded on his back. Nothing again, but his attempt at resuscitation was better than French kissing a dead man.

  One big thing is for sure, those women took their water exercise seriously. Before, during and almost after the class, not one of them noticed Dan’s bloated and waterlogged body held down by a two twenty-pound exercise weights in the pool.

  The tennis pros and golfers grouped around Amelia and Dan, offering advice and patting her shoulders until the cops arrived to break up the social gathering.

  Miffed, a detective barked about how we’d—they’d disturbed the crime scene. I’m not an investigator, but I’ve watched plenty of CSI. I didn’t want to be a buttinski and as hostile as the kid acted; they didn’t need my input or would appreciate it. Everyone who watched television knows you can’t get fingerprints off a waterlogged body.

  I stretched out on a shaded cabana chair and police lights flickered in my loaner sunglasses.

  Soon the aerobics class ladies gathered in shady spots around the pool deck. Amelia sat draped in a beach towel like a wet, long-haired Persian cat. Beside her, Yonna sat with her elbows on a table, shivering and dazing into space.

  The cops questioned the entire aerobics class, and me, even though I had only stood beside the pool gaping. They milled about, trying to look like they were looking for clues, glaring at the clustered Oasis residents who watched through the fence around the pool’s perimeter.

  Philly and Wayne sat in his golf cart drinking beer, talking or staring into space locked out of the area.

  Ann hung on the fence ogling the scene. Why wasn’t she in the class this morning?

  Dan’s dead body lay covered with two matching Oasis beach towels and his wrinkled white toes poked out one end.

  Madonna sat on a lounge next to mine, drying her hair with a towel. “I’m shocked”

  “Me too.” I hadn’t known or loved Dan, but his death caused my first day of living in Arizona blues to morph into incurable melancholia.

  Technically, this was my first murder. I heard whispers of suicide around the deck. But even as a novice, I knew he didn’t tie those weights with wire coat hangers around his neck and jump in the deep end. If he was a bodybuilder, like Judy said, he could tread water wearing the weights.

  Tiptoeing around the possibility of Dan killing himself wasn’t in my playbook, so I asked, “Do you have a clue about who killed him?”

  If all the ladies loved Dan, someone hadn’t loved him that much.

  Madonna lay back and covered her face with the towel. “Maybe.”

  That was a lame answer, and she knew it. Did she think someone murdered him, too? She muttered softly. “Dan was my friend. I was crazy about him.”

  I hadn’t expected that answer. “But not crazy enough to kill him?”

  She peeked out from under the towel. “No. I wish they’d let us go. My suit’s chapping my...”

  “Right,” I said, watching her shade her eyes from the high noon sun. She hadn’t broken the rules; she didn’t have a hat or a bottle of water because she had given me both.

  Judy plopped onto the end of my chaise lounge. “Yonna puked. She could’ve saved him.”

  “I doubt it. He was too far gone.” Watching someone puke makes me gag. I had to turn away or puke too. I nodded understanding the gravity of puke, but wasn’t certain Yonna wanted to save Dan. I glanced in Amelia and Yonna’s direction. They wore big downer frowns and didn’t look to be in a cheery place.

  Judy followed my gaze. “She’s strong, she could’ve done it.” She looked at me. “I don’t mean, done it, done it. I meant get him out of the pool.”

  “I know what you mean. Sounds like she lost it.”

  Amelia lost it too. She was in a big hurry to rescue him or maybe herself. A dead body on the bottom of the pool wouldn’t bode well for the Oasis’ fine reputation.

  “Yeah, she did.” Judy sat for a second more and got up without saying goodbye.

  I glanced at Madonna, but she had recovered her face with a towel. She hadn’t bothered to interject about Yonna’s puke.

  Across the complex silence settled. The tennis courts were empty. The lights were off
in the sewing room. No golf carts whirred past. Not even a dog barked.

  But the quiet felt ominous. The word got out. Nobody said murder, but lemme tell ya, Dan hadn’t tied an exercise weight around his neck and jumped into the deep end.

  A few minutes later, an officer said something to Amelia. She stood, shrugged off the wet towel, squared her shoulders and walked toward the office complex. Her fancy floral dress clung to every lump and bump she possessed. He nodded at Yonna and spoke; she looked up and nodded, but sat back.

  The other officers guided the witnesses—I wasn’t a witness, only a gawker—toward the exits, reminding them to keep quiet about the ongoing investigation.

  Madonna and I filed out with the rest of the aerobic ladies, and Ann met us at the gate.

  “I knew somebody would get him.” I noted Ann’s knee-length pants. At least she knew how to dress for a poolside drowning party.

  Madonna grimaced and walked stiff legged toward the cart. “Let me give you a ride.”

  “I better wait for Philly.” I glanced about looking for him, but Wayne’s cart wasn’t parked outside the gate.

  “He left with Wayne,” Ann said. She climbed into the back seat of Madonna’s golf cart. “Let’s ride.”

  “Oh, okay.” I climbed in the passenger seat. Finding my way back alone wasn’t a good idea.

  Ann leaned in between us. “I told Margo, Dan was unfaithful. He’s had a dozen girlfriends since I moved in.”

  I didn’t ask about Margo. I had too many names and faces running through the gray matter to care.

  Madonna drove without responding, twisting through the one lane streets until it thoroughly confused me.

  “Lover’s quarrel?” I asked over my shoulder. The hot dry air whipped between our heads. Which lover, though?

  “Probably.” Ann huffed back. “I hate this. Dan was divine.”

  Divine didn’t describe him accurately; dead did. If he wasn’t faithful, he got his just reward. There’s nothing worse than a scorned woman, unless it’s a dozen scorned women.

  Finally, we made it back and Madonna pulled up outside our park model. Philly sat on our veranda, sipping scotch much too early.

  Ann got out. “See you later. I gotta take a chill pill.”

  Madonna blinked, nodding me out of her cart. “Me too. I’ll check in later.”

  I took off the visor. “Keep it,” she said. “It’s your welcome to the Oasis gift.”

  Wasn’t an oasis a place of refuge? After traveling across long stretches of waterless barren desert, an oasis welcomed the weary with water, safety and sun visors. Madonna had offered all three, but I didn’t feel safe.

  “Thanks.” She battery powered it and swung the cart into her covered carport. She didn’t look back before going inside.

  My man stood, smiling and greeting his bride. “Bout time you came home.”

  “Shut up and get outta my way.” I climbed one step, and he didn’t move. He towered over me, as always, but this time I clutched his knobby knees. He was my safety net in this sea of murder and lover’s quarrels.

  “I wanna go home.”

  He squeezed my shoulders. “Hunny Bunny, we are home.”

  Chapter Four

  1600 Hours

  After my shower to wash dead Dan and pool water muck off my skin, I looked in the bathroom mirror at the awful wallpaper. It belonged in a granny cottage by the sea, not in a desert oasis. Whoever lived in this park model must’ve been a real fuddy-duddy.

  Refreshed and dressed in clean shorts and a T-shirt, I joined Philly on the veranda, the coolest place in the entire state. A table sat between our two plastic patio chairs, and he had put a full bottle of scotch and an ice bucket on it. Someone had left a Jesus fan on the porch. Weathered and faded, Jesus looked up at a light shining through clouds. I fanned myself with him even though this afternoon wasn’t as warm as yesterday if it were possible.

  “Why are you sitting out here?”

  He looked over the rim of his reading glasses. “The AC is busted.”

  “Thought so. I need a scotch.” I don’t drink anything stiffer than sarsaparilla.

  He smirked, lifting the bottle. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I saw a dead body. Gimme.” He poured a shot into his glass and set it on the table. I had to work up to scotch, so I fanned both of us.

  Philly spent nearly a quarter century working as a pressman for the San Francisco Chronicle. Times had changed over the years and when the new digital presses arrived, the Chronicle phased Philly out. No longer were huge rolls of newsprint strung through a printing press the size of a small river barge. The digital presses didn’t require 55-gallon drums of wet ink, everything went to dry powdered ink. Now, his job was done by pressing a button. Paper rolled in one end of a digital press, the machine monitored itself and a newspaper spit out the other end.

  To quote him, he said, “It wasn’t a good gig while it lasted.”

  His new knees were titanium. They fused together his broken little finger bones, and they poke out in the oddest direction at the most inopportune moment. He’s battling high blood pressure and a bum prostate, but what the hey, he’s still ticking.

  He handed me a folded brochure. “They have alpaca hiking trips.”

  Philly’s all about roadside brochures and pamphlets. Back in Odessa, he ran several four-color printing presses. If you have ever picked up a rack card at a Texas rest stop, he probably ran the press that printed it.

  “Good Lord. What’s an alpaca hiking trip?” I took the brochure even though I knew better than to draw him into a full-blown conversation about hiking. Like swimming, I won’t walk anywhere there’s a taxi.

  “A group thing.” He drank the dash of scotch he poured for me. Now that we sold our San Fran house for boocoo bucks, my man must think we’re rich. As fast as he drank that expensive bottle of booze, we might just end up in the poorhouse.

  “What’s a group thing?” After witnessing a drowning/murder scene, I don’t have the patience to read his mind. Since the day after we were married, he hasn’t finished a thought or a sentence. Somewhere in the unwritten rules of marriage, a bride must have the ability to understand a babbling, incoherent husband in the same way she understands how to boil water.

  “Ever’body does things together. Like a big family. I signed up for it.”

  He hates family, especially mine, but not more than I hated his mother. Bless her dead soul. I hope she didn’t go to Hell. Oh wait. I’ve moved to Hell, and she better not be one of my new neighbors.

  “You did what?”

  “It’s only overnight. We need a couple sleeping bags. They provide everything else. There’s a shrine on top of the mountain. You’re supposed to pray and give God your worries. Buy us a prayer flag to hang.”

  I fanned furiously with Jesus. “Who pray tell are they? What prayer flag? Why?”

  “The hiking guides. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”

  “Isn’t hiking against the Oasis’ rules?” Bringing up the rules made me realize I left my binder and my photo ID on the table in the orientation room. I’ll ask Madonna to take me back tomorrow.

  He gave me one of his looks. “It’s in the mountains. I think they pack with alpacas? Or maybe it’s a llama. Or both. I don’t know right now.”

  “You’re outta your mind.” Sleeping in a sleeping bag, in the open, on a mountain with alpacas and hanging flapping prayer flags sounded crazy.

  I’ve told Philly he was out of his mind since day one, not since our adventure here in fifty-five plus living started yesterday, but since we married. We never had children, a tilted and deformed uterus kept us from procreating. I spent my life spoiling the dickens out of him, and he has enjoyed every bit.

  He grinned. “Maybe. Is that a news flash? I’ve sounded crazy before. It’s a week from Saturday. Go shopping for sleeping bags and hiking boots.”

  “What day is this?” I licked at the teensy drop of liquor left in the glass. It took my breath away.<
br />
  “Monday. You got twelve days to get us ready.”

  “Us?” The noxious liquor dried my tongue, and I set the glass on the table. He must drink so he can put up with my unruly behavior. “Us?”

  “You’re in charge of us.”

  “Yeah, but I seriously doubt we’ll get permission to leave the premises.”

  He mushed his lips, poking out his bottom lip. “Not to worry. I’ve already posted our itinerary to the calendar online. They’ll let us out on good behavior.”

  “What itinerary? What calendar? Online?”

  “I signed up online,” he said. “Everything is on the Oasis website. Search for whatever you want.”

  “No binder?”

  My man was computer and internet savvy. I still counted on my toes, wrote with pen and paper, and until the phone company made my rotary dial phone obsolete, talked on a phone hard wired into the system. In many ways, I wasn’t willing to leap forward into this century.

  “What binder?” he asked grinning. He missed orientation on purpose.

  I huffed, shaking my head. “Get your photo ID done.” I didn’t explain the binder.

  “Okay. Online you can see what everyone is doing and when. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Deaths.” His brows knitted.

  “I’m not hiking or packing a thing. No alpacas. No prayer flags.”

  Our neighbor lady in San Fran was a Buddhist. At sunrise every friggin’ morning, she rang a prayer bell. I bought a BB gun to shoot at her prayer flags. I’m not a good shot and accidentally shot one of the other neighbor’s windows. They never knew I shot the window, and Philly got rid of the gun. Behavior like that might be the reason no one brought broccoli salad to the going away party we didn’t have.

  “No llamas either. I ain’t religious.”

  “That’s not a Dalai Lama.”

  “No matter, I ain’t going. I need a paper calendar. One I can hang with a thumbtack.” I picked up the glass of scotch, sniffed it and set it down.