was easy, she mused. Other names may take a bit more finesse to extract.
Then she went for a quick stop to her room to change into flip-flops before heading to the beach. However, she had another visitor.
The woman at her door introduced herself as Emilia Munoz and said, “I’m the maintenance director. I supervise housekeeping and maintenance staff.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Emilia was dressed in a black pantsuit and kept her long hair pulled away from her face in a neat bun. The woman seemed to live and breathe authority.
She stated, “The housekeepers clean your room and bath once a week, and the maintenance people are responsible for repairs, upkeep, and they’ll assist you with hanging pictures, carrying large packages to your studio, and so forth.”
“I’ve met a couple of the maintenance employees when I selected furniture from your storage room. They did a great job of moving them for me.”
“Good to hear. If you find fault with the way your place is cleaned, or if there is any other problem with housekeeping or maintenance, you go through me.”
“Understood.”
The maintenance director then asked, “Are you planning to do your own laundry, or shall my staff take care of it?”
“I’ll do it myself, using the convenient laundry room on the ground floor.”
“What about sheets? We have a linen service for that.”
“Thanks, but I’ll also wash my own sheets.”
“As you wish.”
Ms. Munoz left and R. A. thought, I wouldn’t want to cross that woman if working under her supervision.
The maintenance director decided to take the stairs down to the next floor rather than riding the elevator. She liked to make unannounced spot-checks on her domestic staff. At the moment, they were cleaning the third-floor apartments. As she descended the stairs, she pulled a white glove from her pocked, slipped it over her right hand, and then glided it over the stair railing. Inspecting her gloved hand, she thought, just as I expected: a layer of dust. Someone messed up! I’ll see to it, she vowed, and hurried down the last few steps before hunting down her culprit on the third floor.
R. A. noticed a video surveillance camera as she passed through the beach access doors. On the previous day, she had been too preoccupied chatting with Andi to pay attention. This time she did not walk along the path, but headed straight to the ocean. Once on the sand, she slipped off her flip-flops, and carried them barefoot down to the water’s edge. She spotted a few surfers farther south, but except for an occasional seagull flying overhead, there was not a soul to be seen at the stretch of beach immediately parallel to Shore Haven. She rolled up her jeans and carefully walked on the strip of rocks between sand and water, and then waded in the shallow ocean. The water felt ice cold. She immediately thought of Mrs. Ralph and that the Pacific had certainly not been any warmer at the beginning of March. Shaking her head, she walked back toward the community grounds.
She sat down on an empty bench and gave her assignment some serious thought. The best way to start her investigation was with old Mrs. Ralph. She mulled over the profile Andi had given her of the lady: age 74, widowed, former columnist for a local paper, in good physical health, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Her late husband was president of a major bank. Kirk is her only child.
About the drowning, she deduced the following: It stood to reason that Mrs. Ralph left the premises of the community alone. Otherwise, the security camera would have caught another person in her company. If she was killed, the murderer was either not a resident or staff member of Shore Haven, or if so, met her at the beach. Her dead body was discovered a few days later, clad in a bathing suit. She must have planned to either lay out on the beach or bathe in the ocean. Both prospects would have made her adventure pretty chilly at the beginning of March. According to her son, the lady did not know how to swim and was afraid of any large body of water, be it a pool, lake, or sea. The theory that she had forgotten that she couldn’t swim would have been plausible had Mrs. Ralph suffered from severe dementia, but her son assured Andi that the mental illness was in its early stage.
The whole thing made no sense. Huber sighed and told herself, this is only the first day of my investigation; I’ll get at the truth eventually. Then she breathed in the fresh ocean air, listened to the gentle sound of the surf, and enjoyed the idyllic moment.
CHAPTER 6
Lunch on that first day was not productive. Huber found the dining room two-thirds empty. Either she came after the rush, or else most people ate their mid-day meal elsewhere. Whatever the reason, she sat alone at her table. Spending the afternoon in the lounge might have better results, she decided. After all, Mr. Beaulieu had indicated that the lounge was where all the action took place. This was where Andi’s idea came into play.
She first went to her room and started her knitting project by casting about 35 stitches onto one of the knitting needles and then created a few rows, to make certain she had not forgotten how. The last time she had knitted was at least 30 years ago when making Peter a sweater. Apparently, the activity was like riding a bike: One never forgot.
In the lounge, she settled into a couch in a strategic position, so that she could watch people coming and going, then knitted away. Amused at Andi’s advice to “live the role,” she thought, old ladies have come a long way since doing needlework, crocheting, and knitting. By mid-afternoon, the lounge was filling up with folks eager to use the computers, play games, or socialize. A caregiver guided two assisted-living residents - - a man leaning heavily on a walker and a fragile woman on shaky legs - -into the large room, then helped them to chairs at a game table, where she got them started on a game of Dominos.
A woman with short, salt-and-pepper hair and a general air of frailty, walked in, glanced around, and then seated herself on the sofa next to Huber, smiling at her.
“I’m R. A. I moved in yesterday.”
The woman smiled again and kept silent, then took a notepad and pen out of her jacket pocket, scribbled on it, and handed it to Huber. It read: “I’m deaf, but can read lips. My name is Rose. Sorry, I could not make out yours.”
Huber wrote down, “It’s really not a name, just the initials R. A.” Then she made sure to face the other and said slowly, “Nice to meet you, Rose,” pronouncing every word carefully.
Rose nodded and smiled again, then responded with sign language, which Huber assumed meant “likewise” or something to that effect.
“You’ll have to teach me sign language one day when there are less people around.”
Rose seemed overjoyed with that prospect and nodded several times. The conversation had run its course and Huber continued knitting, well aware that the other was watching every newcomer to the lounge with interest and appeared to know exactly what went on around her.
Several minutes later, Rose nudged Huber and then showed her the notebook with a new question, “Where are you from?”
“Merida. Located in the San Fernando Valley.”
Rose shook her head and wrote, “I mean, originally?”
Huber was flabbergasted! Without hearing, Rose was obviously unable to pick up an accent. She also had no idea about a first
