Getting Old Is Murder

by Rita Lakin

  “The New Year’s Eve parties were the best,” says Sophie. “Everybody got snockered and a little farblondjet.”

  “Evvie jumped into the pool naked one year!” says Bella, giggling.

  “I told you a thousand times, I was wearing a body stocking!”

  “You couldn’t tell from where I was standing, dearie,” says Ida. “You shoulda seen the men’s eyes bugging out.”

  “I got drunk. That was when I knew Joe was going to dump me for that blonde. He dumps me the week before New Year’s Eve, that bastard.”

  “Everybody was alive and healthy then. . . .” says Bella. “My Abe looked like Valentino in a tux.” The tears start to well up.

  “Remember, Evvie, how your choir used to sing for us?” This from Sophie.

  Evvie shakes her head. “Gone. All of them gone.”

  “Now the pool is always empty. None of the kids come down anymore,” says Ida bitterly. “We’re lucky if we even get a letter.”

  “We only got each other,” Bella says.

  Uh-oh, I think, this trip down memory lane is taking us up the garden path. I pick up a piece of chalk and tap it sharply on the board. “OK, my gladiators, enough with the food and gabbing. Time to get down to business. For Francie’s and Selma’s sakes.” With the rustling of the cleaning up of packages and such, and a few last sniffles, they pull themselves back into the present.

  I draw a diagram on the chalkboard dividing up the six buildings in our phase. Each building has thirty-six apartments, so that’s a lot of ground to cover. I suggest we each pick a building and go by ourselves, but Bella says she’s too scared to go alone, so she insists on going with Sophie and that’s OK.

  We agree on what to ask. We are looking for any suspicious behavior. Or any people seen hanging around who don’t belong here. Especially anyone seen near Francie’s or Selma’s apartment on the days they died. A discussion evolves about what to tell people as to why we are asking.

  I say we should tell the truth.

  Sophie is afraid of scaring everybody. And she has a point.

  Ida believes in being devious. “Let’s tell them we’re thinking of hiring a security guard and we want to find out if we need one. Like if we’ve seen any weird characters around.”

  Harriet is afraid that will backfire and I think she is right.

  Bella is nervous. “We can’t just out-and-out say we think Selma and Francie were offed.”

  We all stare at her. She giggles. “I heard that on the TV last night.”

  Evvie, who loves lawyer shows, says it should be on a “need to know” basis. “We’ll say we’re doing a survey, but if they ask, we tell them more. If they don’t, we don’t.”

  Harriet agrees, but is dubious. “Evvie has a point, but suppose someone should want to get into it? What do we say is the motive? Who would kill them and why? And how? You think poison. How can we be sure? We have no proof. We have nothing. We don’t want to make fools of ourselves.”

  Evvie speaks. “Listen, my sister Glad has intuition. I remember when we were kids, once she was out shopping with our mother and she insisted they rush home. And there I was lying on the floor sick as a dog. Glad just knew!”

  “That sounds more like ESP,” says Ida.

  “Whatever,” says Evvie. “I trust it. And we have to start somewhere.” Evvie puts her arm around me to show her support.

  I thank her. “I’m hoping we’ll get lucky and someone will have seen or heard something. For now, let’s agree to try what we’ve been talking about and see how that works.”

  Evvie and I volunteer to start with the P building, her building.

  Harriet volunteers to take Q, the building where we live.

  Ida volunteers the R (for Rose) building around the corner where Francie lived. Since Selma lived in Q, these two are the key buildings, and we want to tackle them first.

  Sophie and Bella will tackle S (Sweet William) across from where Francie lived. That way, we are dealing with all the apartments closest to the murder scenes.

  “Do you think anybody will talk to us?” Bella worries.

  “Everyone but crazy Kronk,” says Ida. “She never opens the door to anyone.”

  “Probably Enya won’t talk to us, either,” says Harriet.

  “Well, do the best you can,” I say. “But I have to impress upon you very strongly what Detective Langford said. We have to be very careful. We are playing with matches here. Stay cool and calm and don’t do anything foolish.”

  There is a knock on the door. I quickly turn the chalkboard around. It has a lot of our ideas written on it. Evvie goes to unlock the door. Hy is standing there in a bathing suit and a towel around his neck. Like some fierce bantam cock, he struts aggressively into the room.

  “So, what’s with the locked doors and secret meeting? You girls planning a revolution?”

  “Yeah,” says Ida, “we’re planning to get rid of the few men who are left. Especially those who tell stupid jokes.”

  “Geez,” he shouts, “it’s loud in here. Why don’t you turn down the hi-fi?”

  “Because we don’t know how to work the PA, Mr. Know-it-all,” says Evvie.

  Hy looks around the room briefly, then walks over to the panel, selects a switch, and turns it to Off. There is silence. Glorious silence. He shrugs and starts singing, “Oh, it’s nice to have a man around the house. . . .” wiggling his butt as he does.

  “Didja hear the news this morning?” Hy asks.

  “No,” we chorus. “And not interested.”

  “CNN announced that senior citizens are the leading carriers of aids.”

  “What!” Ida hollers. “You nutcase!”

  “Yup. Carriers of hearing aids, Band-Aids, Rolaids, walking aids, medical aids, government aids, and especially monetary aids to their children!”

  Evvie picks up a volleyball and throws it at him. “Get out, you vantz . . . you bedbug, you!”

  He grins, covering his head with his arms. “I’m going, I’m going.” He runs out the door. A moment later he’s back. “I forgot. I came to deliver a message. Glad and Evvie are wanted at Irving’s. He’s interviewing and needs your help. Hey, so don’t kill the messenger!”

  Hy starts out the door again.

  “Hey, Hy,” Evvie calls, “you make out your will yet?”

  He gives her a dirty look. “None of your business, yenta.”

  “Yeah, right, we know—you’re not going.”

  “I’d be glad to help you go,” says Ida maliciously, lifting up a heavy ashtray.

  Sophie joins in. “You’re so ugly now, I hate to think what you’ll look like when you’re a hundred and fifty.”

  “Yeah, you and Mel Brooks, the thousand-year-old man,” says Evvie nastily.

  Hy gives us all the finger and walks out again. Everybody laughs.

  I quickly erase the board. “Meeting adjourned,” I say as Evvie and I hurry to the door.

  20

  Job Descriptions

  We can see them as far away as the path to the pool. A sizeable group of women milling about the Weiss apartment. The ad we wrote must have been better than I thought, or a lot of people need work. Even from where we are, I can see they are quite an assortment of ages. Different heights. Different skin tones. The few seats on the bench are taken; the others either stand or lean against the wall. Most of them carry worn purses, shopping bags, or lunch sacks.

  We hear shouting from inside the apartment and we quicken our pace.

  In the living room, three people sit rigidly, not looking at one another. Irving is sitting ramrod-straight on a dining room chair, staring into space, his face red from anxiety. A thin woman who looks fortyish also sits on a dining room chair. She is speaking very gently to Millie, who is on the couch, her fingers tearing away at a bit of thread on the hem of her sundress and her head turned toward the window. Millie is shouting, “No, no, go away. I hate you.”

  The woman must be from Haiti. She speaks in that wonderful lilting way, trying t
o calm Millie.

  “But I don’t hate you, hon. Not at all. You and me, we could be friends.”

  “Never,” screams Millie. “You make the children angry.”

  The woman smiles at us when we come in. “I must have said something to anger her, but I don’t know what.”

  “It’s just her sickness,” Evvie says.

  “Maybe she’ll get used to me?”

  “No. No—get out.” Millie, with little strength, manages to pick up a pillow and weakly throws it at the woman. The woman gets up.

  “I think maybe she won’t,” she says, and starts out. “Good luck to you, Mr. Weiss.”

  Irving can’t speak so we say his good-byes for him.

  “What’s going on out there?” I ask. “Didn’t you set different appointment times when they called?”

  Irving shrugs. “I just said come.”

  Millie tosses another pillow to protest this conversation.

  “I thought maybe she’d watch TV in the sunroom . . .” Again he shrugs helplessly.

  Millie cackles. “Trying to put one over me, heh, old man? Millie is too fast for the old man.”

  “This won’t work,” he says. “Tell them to go home.”

  We attempt to get Millie to go into the bedroom to take a nap, but she sits as if glued to the couch. She knows what’s going on and no one is going to get any job without her approval. My heart sinks. She isn’t going to approve of anyone.

  The afternoon drags on with painful slowness. One after another the women come in, give their resumes, and try to enchant the little princess who behaves more like the wicked queen. Haughtily the petitioners are each and every one rejected. The “children” whisper in Millie’s ear, goading her into shamefully cruel comments.

  Evvie and I exchange glances. We are getting nowhere, fast. Irving left us six women ago to take a nap. “You pick,” he said, turning the thankless job over to us.

  Finally, the last woman is gone. Millie has defeated us. She seems to be dozing on the couch by now.

  Evvie whispers to me. “Next time we do this upstairs.”

  I start gathering up the paper cups from the many coffee and water offerings and bring them into the kitchen. Evvie goes off to the bathroom.

  I think back on that god-awful day when we all faced Millie’s doctor together and heard for the first time what we suspected anyway. Millie started to tell the doctor how terrified she was of the possibility of having Alzheimer’s. This doctor, who, I suspect, along with too many others, came down to Florida to suck the money out of the elderly, didn’t even bother to look at her. “What are you worried about, lady? It takes about ten years for Alzheimer’s to kill you. You’ll be dead long before that, anyway.”

  We were all too shocked to say anything.

  Later, I cursed him and hoped he’d die horribly and soon.

  I’m pulled out of my reverie. “Come in, come in,” says a high, pleasant voice. “Don’t be a stranger.” I turn, startled to see Millie through the kitchen pass-through window, beckoning to someone at the front door. I turn again and there is a very young Hispanic woman standing uncertainly on the threshold.

  Millie walks to her with ease and graciously reaches out to shake hands. The princess has returned. The young woman smiles a wide, gold-toothed, lopsided grin. Millie pulls her into the living room and whirls her around. Then she proceeds to do a right-on-target parody of husband and two closest friends. Evvie returns to my side and we both watch this bizarre scene. Millie has our voices down pat.

  “And my dear, do you have experience? No, never mind, I don’t care about that. The important thing is can you dance?”

  The woman, by now introduced as Yolanda Diaz, is enchanted by Millie and says, pretending insult, “Qué mujer de Guadalajara no puede bailer?”

  “La rumba? Cha-cha? Lambada? Tango?” asks this expert of the salsa scene.

  “Naturalmente,” says Yolanda.

  “Perfecto,” says Millie, who has never before uttered a word in Spanish. With that, she drags Yolanda by the hand over to the ancient hi-fi, which hasn’t been used since Millie took sick years ago. She tosses records every which way until she comes up with an old Pérez Prado album. Millie pulls it out of its sleeve, dusts it off by blowing on it and unerringly manages to get it onto the record player.

  Evvie and I are beyond dumbfounded.

  And then, there they are, the usually catatonic eighty-year-old woman doing a mean rumba with this very young, puzzled, yet willing applicant, to “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.”

  Irving comes out of the bedroom in his stocking feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What’s this racket?” he asks.

  “Irv, come meet Yolanda,” Evvie says, smiling. “We just hired her.” With that, Millie collapses to the floor and falls asleep.

  21

  Kronk Strikes Again

  Yolanda—the Spanish dancer, as Irving refers to her—seems to be working out. Sort of. Millie is thrilled with her. Irving is less than thrilled. He is finding all kinds of things to nitpick about. Too many taco-and-refried-bean dinners instead of his favorite cholesterol killers, steak and potatoes. Too much hot salsa in everything. Suddenly Millie, who never ate Hispanic food in her life, is scarfing down any food whose name has an a or o at the end of it. Irving now lives on Tums. I try to calm him, promising I will give Yolanda a weekly menu to follow. “But, isn’t it worth it? Millie is better than she’s been in a long time.”

  “Ulcers, I’m getting,” Irving whines.

  He grudgingly agrees, but he doesn’t understand why he is upset. Suddenly Yolanda is telling him to go outside and get some air and smoke his cigars, or go play cards, she’ll watch Millie. So used to being tense every moment of every day, how can he let down his guard?

  We all like Yolanda. She smiles a lot and hums when she works. And takes time to talk to Millie. She doesn’t speak much English, so her communication skills are part Spanish, part English, part pointing, and part miming. Millie thinks this is all being done to entertain her. Yolanda makes her laugh. We haven’t heard Millie laugh in a long time. Millie was right to make her own choice.

  The Gladiators are hard at work. Carrying their newly bought clipboards with attached pens, they are canvassing the buildings. Dutifully making notes when people aren’t home, so they’ll remember to call back. In protest, because we wouldn’t let them have T-shirts, Sophie and Bella are wearing their bingo shirts.

  So much for the lecture on keeping cool. Pandemonium has struck. Everyone wants to know everything. The suggestion of two murders churns up all the neighbors, either with fear or excitement, and everyone is comparing birthdays, wondering who will be next—even though we try to assure them that probably no one will be next. I think we are spreading hysteria more than gathering information. Eileen O’Connor in the R building is having a birthday next week. She has suddenly decided to leave tomorrow for a visit to her sister in Boca Raton. She has not made any plans for returning.

  Esther Feder’s birthday is in two weeks. She has been quoted as saying, “I have only one word to say to that killer—he better not mess with me!”

  More and more, I feel guilt-ridden about having opened this Pandora’s box. We haven’t seen this much excitement since the uproarious Florida election of 2000.

  “Who could forget?” Ida comments. “It took thirty-seven days! We got a president, and by then, who cared?”

  Sophie scowls. “They didn’t have to insult us in the newspapers.” She mimics: “If you think we can’t vote, wait ’til you see us drive!”

  “I never did get what ‘electile dysfunction’ means.” Bella says, mutilating the pronunciation.

  Evvie puts an arm around her. “Don’t even ask!”

  I am sitting in the kitchen doing my least favorite chore—the monthly bills—before going outside for our morning workout. It already feels like another scorcher. Suddenly I hear a piercing shriek and my heart starts pounding. I remember Detective Langford’s warning. Has o
ur snooping forced the killer to strike again? Running out onto the walkway I see Ida, first one out, leaning over the rail and pointing, her hand shaking. Following its direction, I see my car. Its windows are covered in soap.

  As Ida and I hurry downstairs, the other girls are not far behind us.

  “That damned crazy Kronk!” swears Evvie.

  I sigh. I guess it was finally my turn.

  We stare at the words that are soaped on the windshield. You know. I know two.

  “I’ll get water and a rag,” Sophie volunteers, hurrying back to the elevator.

  “That miserable pain in the neck. When will we ever get rid of her?!” Evvie asks angrily. “I’m taking it up at the next board meeting again. Enough is enough!”

  “Oh, hell.” The others react to the tone of my voice. I am looking down at my front right tire. It’s been slashed. Too late, I remember needing to replace the faulty spare.

  “What does she mean?” Ida says, trying to decipher this latest Kronk poetry-in-code. “‘You know’? Know what?”

  Sophie adds, “Maybe crazy Kronk’s really the killer and she’s confessing. Like ‘I killed two.’”

  “How come no one ever sees her!” Bella cries, stamping her feet in frustration.

  When the tow truck arrives, I convince the girls that since there is only room for one person alongside the driver, I’ll go alone. I decide that since I’m taking the car in, besides buying a new tire, I might as well get it lubed and attend to all the other things I’ve neglected to fix. Maybe I’ll even splurge and detail it.

  “Who did that to your windows?” the driver asks after practically ripping my arms out of their sockets as he pulls me up into the seat next to him.

  “It’s a very long story,” I tell him.

  The girls wave as we head out.

  In all the excitement I didn’t give any thought to the meaning of Greta’s scribblings on my car. I would be very sorry later.

  22

  Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe

  The repair department said give them a couple of hours. Usually I have a book in the trunk. All I need is a coffee shop and the time will fly by. Hmm. No book. I guess I forgot to leave one.