Getting Old Is Criminal (26 page)

and Barbi’s wearing a long, flowing skirt. I’m waiting for one of them to address the other as husband or wife, and then all bets are off. The girls 2 5 8 • R i t a L a k i n

will spread that piece of news like cream cheese on a bagel.

“What have we got that you would want?”

Sophie asks in surprise.

Barbi smiles. “Ida makes the best pecan pie in Florida.”

Ida beams. “Anytime you want one, just give me an hour’s notice.”

“What else?” Bella wants to know.

“That’s it,” says Casey.

The girls think for a moment.

Bella says, “I sew very good. As long as I can use a magnifying glass.”

“You don’t really have to throw that in,” says Barbi. “However, thanks. Anything that needs repair we’ll come to you.”

“I make a great matzo ball chicken soup,” adds Sophie. “The secret is that you have to use parsnips.”

“I didn’t know that. Sure, add that to the pot,”

Casey says, laughing at her pun.

“I suppose I should contribute something, but I don’t know what,” I say.

Barbi shakes her head. “We’re good. Chicken soup, pecan pie, and free sewing work. Sold.”

Casey adds, “However, we’d be interested in hearing how you solved the last case and played bingo at the same time.”

“Dinner and the story. My apartment at your convenience,” I say.

“Great,” says Casey. “Negotiations finalized.”

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 5 9

She is now all business. “What can we do for you today?”

Ida, stepping easily into Evvie’s position, reports,

“As Gladdy mentioned, we have a new case.” She fills them in about Alvin Ferguson, his mother, Esther, and Romeo—a.k.a. Philip Smythe—living at Grecian Villas in Fort Lauderdale.

Barbi and Casey listen avidly.

“So the son thinks Romeo could be a killer?”

Casey rubs her hands in anticipation.

Ida adds, “His wife doesn’t think so. There’s no motive. He gets nothing from Esther’s dying.”

“I’m not sure.” I shudder, thinking of Evvie alone with him.

“Start with a couple of facts. When did Philip meet Esther?”

“The manager, Rosalie Gordon, and her assistant, Myra, at Grecian Villas said they lived together three months. They met the first week after he arrived in May.”

“When did Mrs. Esther Ferguson die?”

I look at my notes from our meeting with Alvin and Shirley Ferguson. “July twenty-seventh.”

“And he moved out when?”

“July thirty-first. Apparently, he was too heart-broken to stay any longer.”

“What do you know about him?”

I relate how popular he was wherever he went.

“Name of the last residence before Grecian Villas?”

“Seaside Cliffs. Sarasota.”

2 6 0 • R i t a L a k i n

“And where he is now.”

“Wilmington House. Palm Beach.”

And they’re off, sliding their moveable chairs across the room to their individual computers.

They type and type and type. Then exchange information with each other, talking a kind of high-tech jargon, as we sit and share the one Lipton’s tea bag at the little white table at the side of the room.

The two of them finally turn and grin at each other and do high fives. “Yes!” they say in tandem.

They slide back, beaming.

“Easy,” says Casey.

“Piece of cake,” says Barbi.

Casey starts. “We checked this year. All three of the facilities you mentioned are within this year.

Here’s something interesting.”

Barbi continues. “Three months at each residence. One month off to get installed in the next place and maybe time for a little vacation.” Barbi whips a sheet of actual paper (the first I’ve seen here—white, of course) out of the printer and hands it to us.

We read. January through March, Smythe was at Seaside Cliffs in Sarasota. April he took off. And seemingly traveled. No actual address. Then May through July he was at Grecian Villas. No known address in August, but he showed up at Wilmington House on September first.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

“Yeah,” says Ida. “I don’t get it.

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 6 1

“A very organized man, this Mr. Smythe,” says Barbi. “It looks like he’s following a plan. Three months in one place, then he uses the next month to resettle. Then three months in the next, etc.”

“In other words he’s planning ahead to leave regardless of how good his life is there? How very odd.” I am surprised.

“That’s what it looks like,” says Casey. “Let’s take a giant leap here.”

Barbi speaks. “You tell us he met Esther at the beginning of May and she died at the end of July.”

“You aren’t saying . . . ?” Ida looks stricken.

“How do you feel about coincidences?” Casey grins. “Any bets on his having done it the same way the previous time as well?”

Sophie and Bella shake their heads vigorously.

Casey’s back at the computer. “Okay. Point one.

Esther Ferguson died July twenty-seventh. Give or take a day for funeral arrangements and good-byes.”

“Right on schedule.” This from Barbi.

“Well, we know two things about this man already. He is compulsive about keeping to a schedule. And he plans everything in advance.

“But what’s he really up to?” I wonder.

“Up to no good, I would guess.” Casey leans back on her desk chair, relaxing. “Interesting case you guys have.”

“Okay. What about Seaside Cliffs?”

“All we know is he had a lady friend named 2 6 2 • R i t a L a k i n

Elsie Rogers. When she died of natural causes, he moved again.”

“Any bets on the dates?” Barbi asks sarcastically. Barbi slides back to her desk and types once more. After a few moments she turns. “He met Elsie in January. She died at the end of March. He left right afterward, and one might guess, crying crocodile tears. Off on another month’s vacation.

A mourning period, hey? This man is some piece of work. Let’s go back even further. Let’s try last year.”

Again the typing. Casey reports. “Roman Villas, Tallahassee. September, October, November, last year. And again December off for good behavior.

Hmm. Nobody died. He had an affair with a Pearl Mosher, but that’s all it says.”

Ida is perturbed. “How can your machines tell you that?”

Barbi answers for her. They like to take turns.

“If it’s in writing somewhere, we can pick it up.

The retirement communities have in-house newspapers. Just check the gossip columns.”

Now Casey again. “Before that, Savannah, Georgia, then Macon, Georgia. Our boy has been moving his way down south.”

“And no doubt the same pattern,” says Barbi.

“Wonder why nobody ever checked all the other retirement communities before they let him in?”

I stare at the sheet of paper in my hand, more and more worried. “Because, as I’ve said, he’s charming, and because he had the money to get in.

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 6 3

As long as he had no police record, why not take him in? He always gets great recommendations from the previous facility. After all, they describe him as a ‘saint.’ ”

Casey asks, “In Wilmington House, has he picked a new lady friend yet?”

I say, choking on it, “Yes, he has.”

“Anyone wanna place bets that he’ll be out of there by November thirtieth?” says Barbi to Casey.

They laugh.

I shudder. Will it be Evvie who dies of an “accident” before the end of November? Ida is thinking the same thing. She looks at me, eyes wide in fright. But then, it’s still early September, I think; she’s still safe. They only just met.

“Wow!” All this time Barbi continues typing.

She turns and faces us. “Wow!”

“What?” Casey says, “Spit it out.”

“He’s followed exactly the same pattern for ten years previously, plus this year, making it eleven.

And . . .”

We all react nervously to her excitement. “And what?” I ask.

Barbi looks at us with an expression of disbelief on her face. “Before that, there is no residence for a Philip Smythe. As far as I can tell—there is no record anywhere of this man named Philip Smythe.”

FORTY

TEARS IN THE GARDEN

I
t was one of those days when wise people
stayed indoors. Seniors especially didn’t dare
venture out. The heat in Tallahassee was oppressive, the humidity breaking records. But for the
Cuban laborers excavating dirt for the new swimming pool, the weather didn’t matter; a job was a
job. Roman Villas, a sister to the more southern
Grecian Villas, was putting in a lap pool. Their
gardens, which lay at the extreme border of their
property, were considered a waste. Nobody bothered to walk that far just to smell the flowers. And
over the years their questionnaire asking “What
would you like added” yielded many requests for a
lap pool. Business was good; Roman Villas could
use the tax break. Thus the new pool.

The laborers dug. Beautiful flower beds were
G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 6 5

being transferred by wheelbarrows to other areas.

The clods of dirt spewed dust into the workers’

nostrils.

Pedro Reyes angled his shovel deeper down below the hydrangeas he had just lifted out. The
shovel was stopped by something odd. Surprised,
he bent down to check it out. His shovel had hit
plastic sheeting. His eyes suddenly met other eyes,
Dead eyes. Attached to a body. A dead body, seeming to stare accusingly at him through the plastic
covering. Pedro jumped up and gasped, his shovel
flying through the air. “Madre mia, es muerto!”

He moved hurriedly from the offending sight and
crossed himself.

Immediately the other workers ran to see for
themselves. Ninety-year-old Pearl Mosher, who
had been a chaste woman all her life, was now
stared at by workers horrified at seeing what was
left of her dead, naked body.

FORTY-ONE

AT THE MOVIES

T
hey sit in the last row of the theater so they
won’t disturb anyone else—or be seen, for
that matter. They eat popcorn sloppily and whisper and giggle and kiss and touch each other playfully.

“We’re behaving like teenagers.” Evvie feeds
Philip a handful of popcorn. She has never had so
much fun with a man before, she thinks. Every day
she falls more in love with him.

“Did you ever behave like this as a teenager?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s about time.”

“We should be ashamed of ourselves.”

He nuzzles her neck. “No, we shouldn’t. We’re
making up for all we missed in the past, and besides, we’re more fun than the movie.”

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 2 6 7

They are watching a romantic French classic,
Belle de Jour.

She pushes him playfully. “Stop it. I can’t read
the subtitles.”

He nuzzles her again. “You want to know what
they’re saying?
Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.”

Each word punctuated with a tiny kiss.

The “client” in the brothel on screen puts his
hand on Catherine Deneuve’s breast. Philip does
the same to Evvie.

She smacks his hand. “You’re shameless.”

“I’m only following the plot, step by step.”

“You are so naughty.” Evvie looks around, wor
-

ried someone is watching them, but it’s the late
show and few people are in the audience. She even
hears snoring wafting from somewhere down
below.

“Okay,” she says. “Pay attention. I’ve got one.

A Kiss Before Dying.
Author?”

“Ira Levin, from his novel of the same name.”

“Actress? The original, not the remake.”

“Joanne Woodward.”

“Leading man?”