Out of it flowed a swath of deep purple, a silk monster ready to swallow him up. He spied a tiny head peeping out from the great folds of fabric, gaunt but regal in its bearing. The woman, with high cheekbones and a straight nose, was covered in long scarves of varying purple hues. She stretched out the tips of her fingers to greet him.
“Hello, my dear.” She extended the syllables, singing the words. With a wave of a hand, she fluttered a scarf away, exposing an arm. The bony hand, bejeweled in rhinestones, dangled in front of his nose. “I’m Anastasia Templeton.”
He decided to play along with her ladylike persona. He brushed his lips against her twig-like fingers. “Pleased to meet you, Anastasia. My name’s Winston.”
“Pray tell, what are you doing in our fine home? I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I’m a private investigator, hired by Eve Solsti— are you all right?” The woman had flopped one hand against her forehead, emitting a theatrical sigh.
“Eve Solstice.” Anastasia spat the name out with disgust. “That woman is trouble, and she doesn’t belong here with us more capable residents.” She tapped her own head with emphasis. “Anyway, do go on.”
Winston cleared his throat. “I’m actually here by her granddaughter’s request to look into the death of Joseph Sawyer.”
“Nonsense. Whatever for?”
He was taught to never lie to his elders. “You see, Joseph reminded Eve of her husband. I need to look into the affair, verify the natural cause of death, and calm her nerves.”
Anastasia made a dismissive noise. “Eve hounded the gentle soul. Joe was a saint with that crazy woman. He played along with her antics, talking and spending time with her at all hours. I even caught him patting her hand once or twice. Sometimes I think she exaggerated her memory problems just to get closer to the poor man. She drove him to the grave.”
Winston spluttered. “Do you think there’s something unusual about his death?” Anastasia fiddled with her amethyst earring, squeezing it between her thumb and forefinger. She yanked it loose by accident. Winston peered at her earlobe.
“I’m fine. It’s just a clip-on.” Anastasia opened her hand to show him, and he noticed that a cracked purple gem lay on her palm.
“Did Joe’s death upset you?”
“No, no.” Anastasia shook her head hard, and the massive pearl strand on her neck jiggled. “He was ninety, and that’s knocking at the gates of heaven.”
Loud, insistent piano music broke up their conversation. “It’s Jazzman,” Anastasia shouted over the playing, before she waltzed over to the upright.
While conversing with her, Winston had failed to notice a resident enter the center space. Now a black man sat on the polished bench, hunched over the ivory keys, running his fingers along the piano’s spine. The man was dressed up, dapper in a white button-down shirt and a gray silk vest. No sheet music before him. Only a black top hat rested on the piano lid. Winston watched, amazed, as the music swirled around him, filling the room with its pulsing notes. Several times, the melody paused but then resurrected again. In the end, the man swiveled around, a blinding grin stuck on his face. He bowed with a flourish of the top hat. A hearty clapping came from behind Winston. He turned to see the nurse Kristy entering the room, and he echoed her sincere applause.
“Ladies, what did you think?” Jazzman’s cool bass voice penetrated the room.
“Marvelous,” Anastasia said. She sidled up to the player and her body half-rested against the piano, leaning in toward him.
“Wonderful as always, Jazzman,” Kristy said.
His dark eyes glinted at the women’s compliments. Then he looked at Winston. “What does the gentleman think?”
“I’m not a connoisseur of jazz music,” Winston said, “but I really enjoyed it.”
“Fair enough,” Jazzman said. “Not everybody is blessed with the gift of musical appreciation.” Winston wondered what Jazzman would say if he knew that Winston liked old love ballads circa Johnny Mathis.
“I take it that Rob approved the investigation,” Kristy said to Winston. She introduced the two men to one another, explaining Winston’s presence in the facility. “I’ll leave you two alone to chat.”
Jazzman watched Kristy walk away. “That lady’s one hotsy-totsy dame. It’s a shame she’s still single.”
Winston corralled his thoughts. “Jazzman, tell me about Joseph.”
Jazzman snorted. “He was a piano hog. It’s good to have this baby to myself now.” He ran his fingers along the zebra keys, conjuring a soft hiss of music. “The man wouldn’t stop butting in and playing the only song he knew, the same intro melody to ‘Für Elise’ over and over again.” Jazzman shrugged. “Besides that, Joe was all right. Not a snazzy dresser, though, always walking about in sweats and such. Don’t know what the ladies saw in him.”
“You mean Eve Solstice, right?”
Jazzman shook his head. “No, all the women chatted with him. He’s so ‘nice and friendly,’ they said. Eve, of course, clung to him, claiming that he was her husband. Anastasia followed him, too, trying to work her charms on the guy. Of course, she does that to any male who breathes.” Anastasia sniffed at Jazzman and moved away from the bench. “Kristy, too, had a soft spot for Joe. It must have been all those bags they hooked him up to for dialysis.”
“He does sound like he was pretty sick and up there in age…”
“I know where you’re going with this,” Jazzman said. “His death was all natural. You’ll be done with this case by the day’s end. So you want to hear me play some more? I do a mean Chick Corea.” Jazzman stretched his fingers and wiggled them.
“How did you learn to play?” Winston asked. “It’s inspiring to watch, especially since you don’t use sheet music.”
“You follow your soul in jazz. All those papers just mess with the beat in your mind.” He smoothed one hand over his hair, its curly white mass shorn short. “I can’t remember a time I didn’t play. My parents started me the minute I could sit down at the bench. You know, I was named after the great Count Basie.”
“Who was he?”
Jazzman shook his head. “Count Basie did everything in the world of jazz. Pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. What couldn’t that cat do? He led his jazz orchestra for almost fifty years. My legal name’s Basie Jones, but Jazzman’s the name I adopted for radio.”
Winston studied Jazzman’s neat appearance. A natural performer. “I can picture you doing that, though I think TV would have worked even better.”
Jazzman chuckled. “If only. I wanted to be famous, a great jazz pianist, but my hands were shot. I blame it on genetics, getting arthritis at an early age. I couldn’t play professionally—too hard on the joints—so I got a job spinning records at the radio station. Soon I headed up the night show for the local jazz station. And voilà! Jazzman. Ooh, the ladies loved the sound of that. I worked until the station ran out of funding.” He sighed. “Nobody appreciates good music anymore.”
Jazzman turned toward the piano and played a bluesy tune.
Kristy walked back into the room then and paused before the piano. “You sound like you need a hug, Jazzman.” She gave him a quick embrace, and his melody shifted to an upbeat version.
She turned toward Winston. “Now it’s my turn. I can take a quick coffee break and answer any questions you might have.”
CHAPTER 4
Kristy and Winston settled themselves in a tiny alcove. He bet it’d been a closet in the house’s original floor plan. The room held a card table, two folding chairs, and a coffeemaker. On the wall a flyer written in legalese talked about cutbacks in employee benefits. A burnt coffee aroma filled the small space.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you were going on a coffee break, huh? That’s all the food you seem to have here.”
“The coffee’s not as bad as it smells. You just need to add lots of creamer.” She took a foam cup from the stack on the table—those must be everywhere in this place, in Rob’s o
ffice and now in the break room. She lifted up the coffeepot. “Want a cup?”
“Nah, I swore off the stuff.”
“Really?” She poured one for herself. “I couldn’t survive a day without this miracle worker.”
“I used to drink caffeine all the time, in various forms—tea, coffee, energy shots—in my previous life. Now it’s only the occasional cola.”
Kristy pressed her fingers against her temples, like she was a carnival mind reader. “The picture’s clearing for me. You used to be a vending machine mechanic. That’s how you got all the caffeine perks. I wouldn’t mind having one of those fancy machines here, piping out hot cappuccinos.”
“I only wish,” Winston said. “At least, I would have gotten some exercise, checking all those machines.” He gave his stomach a love pat. “Nope, I chose to stare at monitors and test video games.”
She didn’t shudder, like most women who heard about his past profession. Maybe she’d grown up in the Bay Area and was used to computer geeks. “You’re not running out the door. Are you impressed by my mad skills?”
“I can understand going into computer games,” she said. “I still have my vintage Atari system at home, complete with Frogger and Pitfall. My Granny and Grampa got it for me.” A flicker of sorrow passed across her face. She put some creamer into her coffee and took time swirling it around. “I work with seniors because of my grandparents. I didn’t like the way they were treated at their nursing home, so I make sure I take quality care of my patients.”
“Like Joseph Sawyer?” Winston asked. He didn’t like seeing sadness etched on her capable face, even in passing. Plus, he really did need to know more about the dead man.
“I can’t believe Joe’s gone. Just the other day he mentioned how his hair was starting to cover his eyes and how he was looking forward to our monthly salon outing.”
“I’m sorry,” Winston said. “Can you tell me a little bit about the day he died?”
“Yes, I was the one who found Joe’s body. I stripped his sheets down. Bagged everything and placed it in the dumpster outside.” She shivered and warmed her hands around her steaming beverage. “Joe had a hard time here. He was on peritoneal dialysis because of his kidneys, but he took it like a champ.”
“What does peri-whatever mean?”
“Well, kidneys do a lot for your body: they excrete waste, secrete hormones, control your pH, and regulate blood pressure. Since Joe’s kidneys didn’t work well, he had to have those things done for him. Peritoneal dialysis means that he had a permanent tube placed in his abdomen. A special solution was given to him via that tube, which his body processed, and then the waste got drained out. I exchanged the bags four times a day.”
“Wow,” he said. Winston decided she must be one tough woman. “Props to you.”
“No, the accolades go to Joe. The man was a real sweetheart. He was the genuine article, and there was not one mean bone about him.”
Winston remembered what Anastasia had said about Joe putting up with Eve’s delusion that he was her husband. “What about with Eve? Did he seem overwhelmed by her need for him? Anastasia mentioned that it was Eve’s persistence that ‘drove him to his grave.’”
Kristy snorted. “That Anastasia sure is something. She’s probably still jealous of Joe’s attentions toward Eve. Anastasia wants the focus of any man to be on her. Do you know she thinks she descended from royalty, from the original lost Russian princess herself?”
“I didn’t know that, but it would explain the swaths of royal purple and the inordinate amount of jewelry weighing down her body.”
Kristy finished her brew of creamer disguised as coffee with a satisfied slurp. “Everyone liked Joe,” she said. “Except for Pete Russell, of course.”
“Who’s that?”
“Our loveable grump-in-residence,” she said. “Pete hates everybody here. It probably has to do with his experience in the Vietnam War. Want to meet him?”
Better sooner than later. “I’m game,” Winston said.
CHAPTER 5
Winston saw Pete Russell covered up with a wool blanket despite the eighty-degree weather outside, sitting rigid against the back of his hospital bed. The humongous contraption stood out—modern and ugly—against the rest of the room’s ornate elegance.
Slender-legged thrones with velvet upholstery flanked a tiny pedestal table balancing on clawed feet. An ancient vanity hid in the corner. Winston noticed Pete had flung a cargo jacket across its mirror, hiding the reflecting surface. Rich redness characterized every corner, from the soft fabric surfaces to the ruby grain of the wooden furniture. Even the wallpaper boasted a scarlet hue.
Kristy sat down in one of the refined chairs, and Winston took the other. Afraid of breaking it, he hovered above its expensive surface. Kristy leaned forward. “Pete, may we interrupt you for a minute?”
The man didn’t look up. Spread along his brown blanket was a game of solitaire. Pete had stacked up three piles from ace to king already. He finished the fourth set before he turned his attention toward the nurse.
“I’m done now, Nurse Blake. What do you want?” The man glared at Winston, his coal black eyes a sharp contrast to his buzz-cut snow-white hair. “What’s he doing here?”
“You know you can call me Kristy. We don’t use formalities at Sweet Breeze. This man’s Winston Wong, a private investigator. He’s here to look into Joe’s death and soothe Eve’s mind.”
“Everybody made an uncalled for fuss over Joe’s death. Especially that Eve woman, what with checking his vital signs and sobbing over the body.” Pete’s thin lips seemed to disappear into his stolid, square face. “Well, good riddance, I say.”
Winston saw Kristy’s jaw tighten, but in a sweet voice, she asked, “Why would you say that, Pete?”
“Call me Mr. Russell.” He seemed like the kind of man who would prefer titles. “Everybody thinks that Joe was some sort of saint. I don’t think so. Why else would his wife leave him? Everyone’s got secrets if you dig deep enough.”
Kristy clutched the sides of the antique chair until her knuckles turned white. She didn’t seem to want to talk anymore, so Winston said, “Why don’t we let Nurse Blake finish her duties with the other residents?” He gestured to Pete’s blanket. “It’s warm outside, Mr. Russell. We can take a walk to the back garden and discuss things man-to-man.”
The veteran’s eyes grew even darker, and he clipped out his words. “Are you making fun of me?”
“What?” Winston looked to Kristy for help as she let out a soft moan.
Pete threw off his blanket to reveal two stumps where his legs would have been, and his blue-backed bicycle cards scattered all over the room. Pete gestured to the vanity table, where underneath the massive cargo jacket a pair of plastic toes peeped out. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go run a marathon while we’re at it.”
Prostheses. “I really didn’t know,” Winston said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Get out!” Pete tossed a remaining card from his bed at Winston. It sliced through the air, like a martial arts trick, and nicked Winston’s neck. He felt a sharp stab of pain.
Winston and Kristy both retreated out of the room. With the door closed, she turned toward him. “I’m sorry about that. I should have told you he was a double amputee. He’s really sensitive about his legs.”
Winston didn’t tell Kristy that when he had noticed the prostheses, he had seen something else in Pete’s cargo jacket. A slender black handle sticking out of the coat pocket. The slim, deadly outline of a stiletto under the fabric. Pete could have tossed that, instead of a paper card, at him.
Winston must have looked shaken, because Kristy placed one hand on his shoulder. It felt soft and comforting. “Pete gets these fits of rage sometimes, but they pass. It’s related to his PTSD.”
Heavy footsteps rang down the spiral staircase, and Kristy stepped back from him. His shoulder felt bare without her hand on it. Rob called out to Winston as he walked down.
“Oh,
there you are. Have you solved our mystery yet?” He winked at Winston.
“It’s pretty much cut and dried. The only snag in the day was being chewed out by Pete Russell.”
Rob laughed. “That happens to the best of us. I guess you’re ready to head home now to write up your official investigation.”
“Which reminds me, do you have any written documentation on Joe? I should look over his record to be thorough.”
Rob ran a hand through his snarled hair. “Of course, we do. There’s a file on each of the residents. You can read it at your leisure in the break room. I’m going to get some dinner at the taco joint around the corner. Kristy, want me to bring anything back?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll eat my meal here.”
“You’re such a trooper,” Rob said. “Winston, I advise you to take a break after skimming the file and get some food. I don’t think you want to eat the dried-up chicken and mushy vegetables they give to the seniors.”
Rob whistled the Super Mario Brothers theme song as he walked out the front door.
“I didn’t know you guys served food here, Kristy. Don’t tell me you cook it in the coffeepot?”
“Ha! No, we have it delivered. It’s through the Meals on Wheels program. Have you heard of them?”
Winston shook his head.
“All across the nation, there are agencies that deliver meals to frail seniors in their homes or at centers. Actually, the entrees look pretty good, but I do have to cut items up or blend things on occasion for the residents. I don’t really eat their food, of course, though Rob pretends otherwise. I bring a good ol’ PB and J sandwich to work for dinners when I’m staying in.”
“Staying in?”
“Yes. With a staff of two, somebody has to stay overnight with the residents. I usually take five nights in a row, and Rob takes the other two.”
“That’s a lot of commitment to your work. What about your home life?” Winston asked.
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