Seniors Sleuth

by Jennifer J. Chow

  Eve’s eagle talons seemed to slice into his big toe as she spoke. “They’re all pawns to me: Rob, Joe.”

  “Tell me something. How do you even get a batch of suicide tree?”

  “Connections from past customers.”

  “That reminds me. Tell me about your daughter, Doris.” Eve’s hand slipped then, and Winston tried to pull away, but she held onto the teeniest fraction of his heel. “You let her grow up in a whorehouse, use drugs, even OD.”

  “No, not true. Dragon drove her to her death.”

  “But Doris was the one using drugs.”

  “It’s a rough life,” Eve said with a sigh. “You never grew up in the projects. It’s so hard to get out of there.”

  “But didn’t you marry Teddy and leave?”

  Eve spat at him and missed his face by a few inches to the left. “That was all a ruse.”

  “How did you have a daughter then?”

  “The same way Doris did. Who do you think would ever marry a whore?”

  “But the photo at Joe’s funeral?”

  “The sample picture that comes with the frame.” Anastasia had been right about that. “No husbands for us. Although we didn’t have anybody but ourselves to rely on, Doris still insisted on having the baby. Stubborn girl.” She said the words without malice, and a tiny smile even appeared on her face.

  “So then you raised Doris’s daughter, Carmen. Like grandmother, like granddaughter, huh? You and Carmen did Joe in together.”

  Eve snarled at him then. “My granddaughter’s innocent of murder. I told you before. Family is everything to me.”

  “Carmen’s the only family you have. Do you mean you killed Joe for her?”

  “In a way. I knew Dragon owned some sort of residential care facility near downtown—somebody Facebooked about it—but couldn’t figure out the exact name. He doesn’t deserve to be a successful businessman, rich only by ditching my daughter and marrying up.

  “It was a two-for-one deal. With a murder on his hands, his reputation would falter. And my granddaughter’s always wanted a grand home like this.” Winston thought back to the day on the back patio when he discussed Carmen’s modeling career and what she wanted to buy with the money. “I managed to get her the exact one she wanted. With his Chinese superstitions, I realized he’d sell a house where there had been a murder.”

  “Carmen must have known something.”

  “Winston, my granddaughter may be well-endowed, but it’s not in the brains department. All she did was follow my suggestion of getting a fake dementia diagnosis. That was so she could get the grant money.”

  “She was scouting out old people’s homes with you, though, looking for a victim.”

  “No, I couldn’t afford Life Circles much longer. My savings was going away, and I knew Carmen couldn’t support me. Besides, a senior home would make my dementia story even more believable.”

  “You two came together to see me at my office, so that I could eventually frame Rob.”

  “Right. I wanted to create a huge scandal. But keep Carmen out of this. I told her that I suspected some foul play. She knew nothing about how it actually happened. All she did was find your sorry name in the Pennysaver.”

  Eve dropped her grip on his foot then and lunged at his throat. He contorted his body in a twist and kicked out. Startled by the movement, she fell backwards. Meanwhile, Winston landed facedown and army-crawled through the hedge. He made it to the back patio and clambered over a side gate.

  Winston puffed his way to his car and sped off to Life Circles. There, Kristy stared in surprise at his crazy state. While she bound his big toe, bleeding from a deep gash, he relayed his exploits at the Solstice home.

  After he finished talking, Kristy said, “I keep thinking about that wrecked room.”

  “Pete did mention that he saw Carmen scrutinizing the floor the day of Joe’s death. Probably looking for that missing DM-160 tube.”

  “If Eve hasn’t found it yet, there might be someone else who spotted it first.” She tapped against the box of bandages, forgotten in her hand. “Let me take some time off and join you on a little trip.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Harold Meekings lay motionless on his hospital bed in the crowded living room. Bookshelves towered above him, filled with a wide array of books, from beach reads to yawn-inducing tomes. A curio display holding exquisite chinaware stood to one side. A bubbling fish tank in another corner covered the strain of his labored breathing.

  Tubes seemed to run at all angles around Harold, entombing him in curlicues of plastic. His eyes were closed, his cheeks sunken, and his lips parched. Winston saw that his skin had turned an odd yellowish tinge. Harold’s relatives stood on the periphery of the room or peered from the kitchen through the cut-out archway. A hospice nurse flitted in and out of the scene.

  Winston edged closer to the bed. “Hello, Mr. Meekings. It’s Winston from Sweet Breeze. Do you remember me?” The faintest rise of Harold’s chest answered Winston. “I’m still working on that case that Kristy told you about. Did you find anything odd in the room where you stayed?”

  No emotion crossed Harold’s face. Winston tried several times, and even touched the man, but shrank back as his hand brushed against the coldness of Harold’s fingertips.

  Winston felt a touch on his shoulder from Kristy. He moved back to let her try.

  “Harold? It’s me, Kristy. I’m glad that you’re able to be with your family now, and I know that the nurses from Serenity Hospice are all very sweet and professional.” Winston saw Kristy hold Harold’s hand without a shiver at its iciness. “It would really help us if you could give us any information. Remember, I told you about poor Joe who used to be in the same room as you?” Harold’s eyes blinked, and his mouth seemed to move a tiny fraction. Kristy leaned closer, her ear brushing against his dry mouth. She looked back at Winston with a frown. He knew she hadn’t been able to decipher any words.

  “How about this, Harold? If you want to say, ‘yes,’ you can blink. Otherwise, remain still. Did you find anything in Joe’s room?”

  A quiver of the lids.

  “Is it still at Sweet Breeze?” Nothing.

  “Is the item here?” A tremble of an eyelash.

  “Where is it?” No movement from the eyes, but then a gnarled finger rose, slowly, to point in the direction of the bookcase.

  Harold seemed spent from that small physical exertion. “It’s in a book?” Kristy moved toward the open shelves. Winston joined her and saw her run a finger across the titles, inviting a trail of dust to cover her hand. “He loved mysteries, especially by Agatha Christie. I think And Then There Were None was his favorite.” She picked up the tome and flipped through it. Nothing fell from the pages. Kristy rapped on the spine and tried to peek underneath the covers, but even from his angle, Winston could see that the book was solid. A grim line surfaced on Kristy’s face. “I thought we were onto something.”

  Winston felt frustrated that he’d wasted his time. He looked at the rows of books and wanted to knock over the whole tower.

  Something caught his eye during his mental rampage. A glint of silver. He reached into the hollow behind where the book had rested and seized upon an object in its shadows. A tube, labeled DM-160 with the name “Eve Solstice” printed in bold black letters. He tilted it from side to side and could hear the slosh of a few precious liquid drops inside.

  * * *

  Kristy contacted Officer Gaffey, and they met at The Jukebox Café. Three orders of coffee, but only the cop asked for the meatloaf special. Winston couldn’t find the stomach to eat, excitement for once overtaking his need for food. Kristy, he could see, kept spinning her cup around, a sign of her nervousness.

  Officer Gaffey spooned a forkful of moist meat into his mouth. “So what are we here for?”

  Winston and Kristy started talking over one another, but Officer Gaffey interrupted them. “The same case? You two work on this as a team?”

  Kristy looked at Winston and
gave him a little smile. She placed her hand on top of his on the sticky dining table. “Yes, we did it together.”

  Winston watched Officer Gaffey’s lips quiver before he cleared his throat. Winston: 1, Officer Gaffey: 0. “Okay, then. Tell me what you found out.”

  They led him along the investigative trail. They talked about Eve faking her dementia diagnosis, hunting for elderly housing, using Rob as a scapegoat, and injecting a combo dosage of DM-160 and suicide tree into Joe’s body, all to exact revenge on her daughter’s old lover.

  Officer Gaffey dropped his jaw and pushed his nearly full plate of food away. “Are you serious?”

  Winston pulled out the customized DM-160 container and handed it over. “Have the fancy police lab run some tests.”

  Gaffey touched the tube with an outstretched finger and shook his head. “That poor Joe Sawyer.”

  “What do you think will happen at the trial?” Winston asked.

  “Hopefully, justice will be served.”

  CHAPTER 49

  One week later…

  Winston looked at the front page article. “Grandmother Charged with Murder,” the headline read. The poison found in the DM-160 tube and Eve’s subsequent confession had given the jury no doubt about her involvement. He heard from Kristy that Harold had passed shortly after providing the crucial evidence. Harold’s family said that he’d died with a broad smile across his face.

  Winston studied the photo attached to the newsprint. Eve, even through the camera lens, seemed to emit ice through her eyes. He shivered and put the newspaper away.

  After Eve’s arrest, Rob had been released from jail. The last he’d heard, Rob was the spokesperson for Space Domination, his famous face gathering even more players to the massive online game. He was well on his way to breaking into the industry for sure.

  Carmen started going steady with his friend Alex and had moved into his apartment. Alex told Winston that he was inundated with calls for her voice acting. She’d even been offered a role in the latest eroge. This new income would help her pay off the large fine she’d gotten from the local nonprofit for taking their dementia grant under false pretenses. Alex also informed Winston that she had started on a memoir entitled, My Nana the Murderer.

  A stack of phone messages lay in Winston’s “To Do” tray. Gossip of his brilliant sleuthing had already made the rounds in the various senior centers the Sweet Breeze residents had eloped to. He thought about his Sweet Breeze friends:

  Anastasia liked her time at Silicon Valley Skilled Nursing. All the other residents treated her with respect, and she even shed some of her gauzy princess wrappings to move around with greater ease.

  Jazzman found a surprise waiting for him after Eve’s arrest—an upright piano delivered to Gentle Pastures. He kept his fellow residents happy with jazzy tunes. Sometimes he’d get a faraway look, though, and play a classical piece.

  Pete joined a support group at the veterans’ hospital. He befriended some folks there, dropped solitaire, and organized enormous card-playing events.

  Winston flipped through the notes from the potential clients in the tray but chose to let them sit there. The cases would have to wait. He whipped out his pocket comb and straightened his remaining hair strands. He patted his belly and sighed. His sister Marcy had teased him again during their recent videoconferencing session, the first in a series of planned monthly virtual meetings.

  He blamed his enduring pooch on Kristy and their eating out together. Today he would take his girlfriend out for real this time, sans any casework, to a local barbecue place. It boasted peanut shells on the floor and an oven the size of a truck to smoke their famous ribs.

  Before he left the office, Winston snatched one of his new business cards from his faux gold holder to show Kristy. The order had arrived yesterday. The crisp cardboard pieces with an emblem of a magnifying glass read, “Winston Wong, Seniors’ Sleuth.”

  ###

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First off, to you readers: A very big 7h4nk y0u! If you enjoyed this book, please leave a kind review.

  Warmest wishes to San Jose natives and residents who let me stage a murder in their city and rearrange their streets.

  Also, my gratitude goes out to a superb editor, Alicia Street, for attention to major and minor details. I am extremely indebted to the lovely writers who supported me through their blurbs: Sarah M. Chen, Gay Degani, Hannah Dennison, Naomi Hirahara, and Lois Lavrisa. (A very special thanks goes out to Hannah who first took me under her professorial wing.)

  Thank you to first readers, Ekta Nair and Christine Su. A hearty round of applause for my SB Writers’ Group. I also want to give a shout-out to the members of Team Jen: Carol Early Cooney, Rosa Fontana, Monica Frazier, Enna Lee-McNeil, Jane Ann McLachlan, Emma Mejia, Joy Weese Moll, Janice Sheridan, and Julia Tomiak.

  And, of course, to my fantastic husband, Steve, who not only gave me technical advice, but also read through multiple drafts of this novel: I <3 you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J.J. Chow writes Asian-American fiction with a geriatric twist. She has a gerontology specialization from Cornell University and a Master’s in Social Work with geriatric field experience. She lives in Los Angeles and is a member of Sisters in Crime.

  You can follow her blog and find more about her other writing at www.jenniferjchow.com