Kate pulled the van into the parking lot.
“Don’t tell me someone you know works in this joke of a ‘retirement home’,” Aunt Amelia said. “Millicent was here until I rescued her and made her move into the caretaker’s cottage. I supposed it could have changed from when she was a resident, but from the looks of the outside, I doubt it. I’ll never forget the horrible smell when I first came to visit her. At the end of my days, I’d rather walk out into the ocean than stay at a place like that.”
“Auntie, Dad and I would never put you anywhere but right by our side.”
“Some people don’t have a choice, if it’s all that their retirement benefits will pay for. Tell your friend, I can give her the name of a wonderful place to work, right on our island.”
“Will do,” Liz said. “Be right back.”
Liz got out of the van, avoiding the potholes on the blacktop as she made her way up the driveway. She walked into the dingy lobby and was immediately hit with an awful odor. It was so bad she put her nose to her sleeve to inhale the scent of fabric softener on her blouse. In a small TV room to her right, four elderly people sat in wheelchairs. Each wheelchair was positioned to match the four directions of a compass. North, South, East, and West were slumped over, chins on chest, not cognizant of the television or anything else going on around them. Liz thought it was a sad state of affairs to be reduced to living in these conditions after a life of vibrancy and autonomy.
Security was pretty lax at the Sundowner. Liz wasn’t asked for ID or whether or not she was a family member. They probably wondered who would want to steal one of the residents anyway? But Liz knew someone who would love to—Aunt Amelia.
The sleepy-eyed woman at the registration desk told Liz that, indeed, Greta Kimball was a guest at the Sundowner. Then she pointed at the person in the wheelchair Liz had designated as North. Liz walked up to Iris’s mother. When Liz put her hand on Greta’s soft, wrinkled hand, her head shot up and her eyes opened wide. Greta didn’t have the filmy, highly medicated gaze Liz would have thought; instead her hazel eyes were sharp and alert. Her long white hair looked unwashed. Her face had few wrinkles; with a good haircut she would be an attractive woman.
“Yes? Can I help you?” Greta said. “If you are trying to get me to take a sedative, I told you I refuse. If you have a pill for the pain in my hip, I will also tell you nay. If you need to talk to my daughter, Iris, I will give you her number. She’s my designated advocate. So there!”
“Oh, I am sorry. I have the wrong patient.”
Greta Kimball replied, “We are not patients, we are residents. As soon as my daughter gets enough money for my operation, I’m out of this dump.”
“Again. I apologize.”
“Let me give you some advice. Lean down.”
Liz crouched next to her.
“Whatever resident you are here to see, get them out as soon as possible. This place stinks. The food is the best of it, if that tells you anything.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Liz said as she stood up. “I hope your daughter comes through for you real soon.”
Greta smiled and gave Liz a thumbs-up, hope shining bright in her eyes.
Liz hurried out of the Sundowner.
When she got back in the van, Aunt Amelia asked, “How was it?”
“Just as you said.”
“Did you tell your friend what I said about finding another place to work?”
Liz didn’t want to lie, so she said, “My friend wasn’t there.”
“Good. Maybe she found a better place of employment.”
Traffic was light on the way back to Melbourne Beach, people hunkering down for the forecasted storm scheduled to hit after midnight. Kate dropped Aunt Amelia at the Indialantic and Liz at the beach house. Liz made a quick dinner of sautéed shrimp in mango chutney and a green salad, then went to her office and turned on her laptop. It was only the second time since she’d been home that she’d turned it on. The first was to type out the synopsis her publisher had requested for her supposed next novel. Once she’d pushed the button and sent the synopsis off into cyberspace, she’d never thought of it again. She started a new document with the simple headline of Notes, filling the page with everything she’d learned from Ryan yesterday and ending with what she’d discovered today. Liz printed it out, stuck it in her pocket, and took off for the hotel, wanting to fill Betty in on the day’s events.
A few minutes later, Liz was sitting on Betty’s sofa, holding a cup of chamomile tea.
“We can’t rule out Iris completely,” Betty said. “She does need money for her mother’s operation. However, I would put her at the end of the list because, as she has been telling Amelia, she does have an ailing mother. I did a little research on my own, let my fingers do the walking. Iris was honorably discharged from the navy ten years ago. She’d been a navy diving specialist, which explains the wet suit.”
“And the water depth chart Iris took from Captain Netherton’s room. It still points to her as being a thief, though.”
“Perhaps. But not a murderer. Time for assignment number two. Namely, David Worth.”
“How could David be his wife’s killer? Are you saying he stabbed himself?”
“Crimes of passion by family members are one of the top reasons for homicides. And many people have been known to stab or shoot themselves as a way of creating an alibi. You will have to wait
