Chapter 25 Inside Job?

 While I applied tape to the baseboards in the bedroom, Louise set to work masking the window. “Tell me about your neighbors,” she said.

“Let’s see. The manager, Romy, lives in one-oh-one. He’s single, around sixty, and seems to be a real sweetheart once you get past his gruff exterior. He takes care of the grounds and swimming pool, and does odd jobs as needed. He helped me hang my paintings.

“Vee-oh-lette, spelled V-I-O-L-E-T, lives in one-oh-two. Picture leopard-print leggings on an anorexic body, sun-damaged skin, spiky bleached blonde hair, gaudy jewelry, and an affected southern accent. She’s a shameless gossip.

 “In one-oh-three is a lovely Hawaiian woman named Kaulana. She wears triple-X mu‘umu‘us and fresh flowers in her hair, plays the ukulele, and sings like an angel. She bakes Bundt cakes obsessively and constantly tries to pass them off of on everyone.”

“Are her cakes so bad?”

“Not at all. They’re delicious, but how much cake can a person eat? I’ve got one in my freezer that you can take home to Freddy if you want.”

“He’d love it.”

“My only real friend here so far, is Esther, two doors down in one-oh-four. She’s an oversized black woman with a contagious sense of humor. Her daddy was a Baptist preacher and she leads the Bible studies in her condo on Saturday nights. She’s the only one who’s allowed to abstain from poker night, because of her religious beliefs.

“In one-oh-five is a Japanese woman named Mae. I haven’t quite figured Mae out. Her moods change at the drop of a hat. One minute she’s quiet—almost shy—and the next she’s on a rant. She’s so overly feminine, at first I thought she might be a lesbian. But the other day as I passed her kitchen on the way to visit Esther, I smelled cigarettes. Mae doesn’t smoke. From inside her condo I could hear her conversing with a man Japanese.

“On my other side, in one-oh-seven, is a German woman named Francesca. She has a deep voice and a heavy accent that makes her difficult to understand. She’s tall and built strong, with a no-nonsense attitude. I have no idea if it’s true, but it’s rumored that when Francesca was just five years old her mother made her strangle kittens so she’d be tough enough to survive the war..”

“Oh, how horrible!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the other women made it up. They may dislike her for being German, though I see no evidence of that. She seems to get along well enough here.”

I taped the last baseboard and brought a can of paint over so I could start on the wall. “I caught Francesca tilting painting in Esther’s condo,” I continued. “And I’m sure she’s done it here in mine, too.”

“That’s strange. I wonder what that’s about.”

“I’ve wondered myself. Maybe she’s disturbed by symmetry? And—this is giving her some benefit of the doubt—it could be that her vision is a bit skewed. She might believes she’s straightening them. But that’s not the strangest thing Francesca’s done. She’s on Ambien and it makes her sleepwalk. One night I woke to find her standing over me in the dark, with a life-sized baby doll clutched to her chest. I screamed and she ran out.”

“How terrifying!”

“You’re telling me.”

“How did she get in?”

“That’s the thing. I have no idea..”

“What a bunch of characters.”

“Oh, there’s more.” With a small brush I swiped the ‘sea glass’ paint above the baseboards. “In one-oh-eight is a woman named Tiare Māhoe”

“The name’s familiar.”

“Apparently she was some kind of entertainer, back in the day.”

“A singer, I think.”

 “She has lovely bone structure, had to have been a very attractive woman when she was young. Tiare and Kaulana lead our kanikapila gatherings on Tuesdays. They sing beautifully together. Tiare is the self-appointed ringleader here. Everyone defers to her. No one does a thing without her blessing. She seems to disapprove of me, but I’m trying to do everything I can to get on her good side and stay there.

“Coralee, in one-oh-nine, leads our aqua jogging on Mondays. According to Vee-oh-lette, Coralee had gastric bypass surgery and lost more than half her body weight. She certainly looks amazing now for a woman near eighty.”

Louise said, “Aqua jogging must be good exercise.”

“It is, if Coralee is anything to judge by. I’m planning to give it another try tomorrow. One-ten is where Pearl—the woman who was murdered—lived.

“I saw the crime scene tape.”

“Pearl taught country western line dancing here on Thursdays. From what I gather, the women all enjoyed her class, but no one seems to have liked Pearl very much. At sixty-five, she was a good fifteen to twenty years younger than the rest of them. Why she wanted to live here, I can’t imagine.”

“The only place she could find with a mirrored ceiling in the bedroom?”

 I laughed. “You might be right. It seems Pearl was quite sexually active and liked to brag about it. I suspect it made the others jealous. I imagine Pearl as a rebel. Brash, flashy, someone who did she wanted without a care about what others might say. Which makes me think I might’ve gotten along well with her. I’m truly sorry I never got a chance to know her.

“Sylvie, a retired stewardess, lives in one-eleven. She’s the only resident who dates back to Kon-Tiki’s heyday in the sixties. According to Sylvie, there were a lot of wild goings-on here, though I don’t know how much of what she says can be believed.” I tapped the side of my head.

“Not quite all there?”

“She wears her panties on the outside of her swimsuit. When the police officer gathered us in the clubhouse after Pearl’s body was found, Sylvie thought he was a priest. She tried to make confession to him.”

“She wanted to confess to the murder?”

“Not at all. At that time everyone believed Pearl had simply drowned, though I’m not sure Sylvie fully understood that Pearl was dead. No, she wanted to confess that Pearl was not a natural redhead. Sylvie helped her dye her hair.”

“Okey dokey.”

“Sylvie’s always blurting out the most outrageous things. I don’t know if it’s the booze, the pills, dementia, or if she does it for shock value. Probably a combination of all those things. Tiare polices Sylvie, trying to keep her language in check. Thursday the two of them almost came to blows with their canes.

Louise, who’d been holding back a grin, let loose with a full-on belly laugh. “I can just see it.”

“The only man in the building, aside from the manager, is Arnie. He lives in one-twelve. Arnie’s very sweet, but the poor man has short-term memory loss. According to Esther, Arnie’s meds didn’t agree with him so he’s stopped taking them. Arnie forgets his own name and which unit he lives in. When he’s swimming laps he even forgets to breathe. Romy stands by the pool calling out, ‘Breathe!’ at regular intervals, and in general looks out for Arnie. Needless to say, Arnie gets a lot of attention from the women. They’re quite competitive about cooking for him. Friday night while the others were at TV night, I stayed home and cooked myself a broccoli casserole. I nearly died of fright when I turned around and there was Arnie, sitting at my dining table like he was waiting for dinner. Arnie’s Jewish, and since it was Shabbat I didn’t feel I could very well ask him to leave. I shared my dinner with him, and now I’m afraid the women believe I have my eye on Arnie too.”

We worked until the bedroom was done, then cleaned up and stored the leftover paint in the hall closet. After washing up, we sat in the living room with a bottle of wine and slices of cheddar.

I was about to tell Louise about our first Neighborhood Watch patrol, when she said, “So do the police have any idea who killed Pearl?”

“As far as I’ve heard, they have no evidence at all.”

“You say no one could’ve gotten inside the complex without Romy being aware”

“So he says. He does seem a bit lazy and I’m not sure how diligently he keeps an eye on things at night. Pearl’s body was inside the pool fence, which Romy insists was locked.”

“So somebody needed to get past Romy, and also needed a key to get into the pool area.”

“That’s right.”

“You say Pearl wasn’t well liked by the other women.”

I had a feeling I knew where Louise was going with this.

“Is there any chance,” she said, “that it was an side job?”

 

C