Retirement Can Be Murder (A Jake Russo Mystery) Page 6

  “Driving around with your friends.”

  “I often drive around by myself,” he said.

  “That’s close enough.”

  He leaned back a little and tested his weight on the windshield. It held. He leaned back and looked up, Mel’s shape just a silhouette.

  “Why didn’t you want this job?”

  She looked at the windshield and leaned back on it.

  “Are we off the record?”

  “Mel, of course.”

  “It’s a good job. I like it. I like meeting the residents. Simeon can be…interesting. But he’s a fair boss.”

  “But why didn’t you want it?”

  She paused. Her dress was shining.

  “I guess, I don’t know. I just don’t enjoy all the bad parts.”

  “Like what?”

  “The paperwork. Collecting fees. Scheduling common spaces. Being an enforcer.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just not my personality. I get emotional about it.”

  “You can’t help that.”

  “I wish I could.”

  She sighed.

  “I really just thought I’d find something with less paperwork by now. But I haven’t yet.”

  “Yet. There’s a lot of time.”

  “Like you. You just decided to come down here. You picked up and moved. I don’t think I could do that.”

  He looked over at her. She was staring at the sky, shaking her head slowly, barely. He touched her arm.

  “I don’t know if it’s like that.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I would have stayed, if I could have.”

  “If you could have?”

  “I was told to come here. I was sent here by my boss.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m just saying that…I understand.”

  “I know.” She sat up. The back of her dress had stayed totally clean. He sat up beside her and realized he’d probably wrinkled his new suit. He clapped his hands together.

  “Well.”

  “Well.”

  “So,” he said. “It was nice, again.”

  “It was.” They stood up. This was it. This was the time. She had asked him to dinner for a reason. He knew it wasn’t a risk to ask her to stay with him longer. Just a little. She spoke first.

  “What are you doing now, for the rest of the night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I could use a drink—it was like being at work with Simeon around.”

  Just ask her. She touched her hair. Smiled. She wanted him to.

  “Well,” he said and tugged at his sleeve. “I should probably get going.”

  “You should?”

  “Just tonight.” Thompson was right. He couldn’t push it when he needed to. And now he was stuck. Too late to change the story.

  “I have a deadline. And my editor, he’s just—”

  “I understand.”

  “I did have a nice time.”

  “So did I.”

  “I’ll see you. Soon, I guess.”

  “Of course.”

  This was it. He turned around. Then he turned back. But she was already walking to her car. He let her drive out first and then he followed behind her.

  He had to watch her from his car, fifteen feet away. The road to leave Sunset Cove was a long one, but it eventually turned. His headlights followed and at the foot of the driveway she stopped. She signaled and waved at him. He waved back and she turned left.

  He turned the other way. Again.

  CHAPTER 12:

  He waited until he got home to eat it. He’d driven to the convenience store on the way back to the apartment. Picked it up, paid, and left. And when he got home, as soon as his feet were through the doorway he unwrapped it. A simple Hershey’s bar. Nothing special.

  He peeled away the plastic wrapper and set the chocolate on his desk. Be aggressive. He grunted. Right. It had been a long drive home. Each turn he rethought what he should have done. He could have asked her to have a drink. He needed to do it. But he saw her there. Heard her voice. It didn’t seem like she could want him. How could someone like her…

  He broke off a rectangle and smelled it as he tried to take off his tie. Trying just made the knot tighter. He put the rectangle on his tongue and let it sit. It wasn’t melting yet. His fingerprints had a brown dust on them. He licked the tips of his fingers and waited for the chocolate to dissolve. He’d have to make it last. He felt it drip off the sides of his tongue. Water over a dam’s edge. It flowed to the back of his cheeks and stayed there, a singed sweetness. He broke off another square. Then another. Then two more after that.

  When it was done, he looked in the mirror. He had chocolate on the corners of his mouth. It made it look like he was smiling. He wasn’t. He pulled the buttons of his suit jacket close to his stomach and stood in profile. Then he faced the mirror again. Why hadn’t he asked her to have a drink? What had stopped him?

  He sat down at the computer and decided to get to work. Two e-mails. One from Gary and one from Thompson. He draped his jacket on the chair and started reading Gary’s e-mail first.

  Dear Jacob,

  I was going through some old things today and I saw something wonderful. A pair of 3-D glasses! And I was thinking, why not have the newspaper give out 3-D glasses? We could show the pictures of Sarasota in one more dimension than we do now! Three Dimensions! I was thinking that you could—

  He wished he had another candy bar. He stopped reading and clicked on Thompson’s message.

  Russo—what’s next? Remember our talk. I want to hear about something good. A really strong story.

  The time stamp was from only a minute or two before. He was at the office late. Jake typed back frantically.

  Sorry—had a late night. Went to banquet at a big local place. Have a great story. You wouldn’t believe it—a mad environmentalist stormed the stage. Threatened local developer, would like to do piece on tension between two parties. Condos: March of progress? Or environmental destruction? Violence or dissent? Freedom of speech, or chaos? Etc…great stuff.

  He clicked send and went to the bathroom. When he came back, Thompson had already replied.

  I like it.

  Jake was surprised. Then he read on.

  Good idea. People love banquet spaces. Bar mitzvahs, anniversaries. All that crap—give me a write up on the top places where retirees can throw a party. And get some good pictures, too. If possible, find a party with a celebrity host.

  He wasn’t surprised anymore. He made the window disappear and went to the refrigerator for the two-liter bottle. He didn’t bother with the shot glass. He got out a mug.

  The cream soda almost tasted sour. His body wasn’t used to the carbonation and the bubbles. He started burping. He took off his suit pants and put on a pair of shorts. As long as he was indulging, he might as well keep going. He went back to the computer.

  He hadn’t done it in a while. He’d had self-control. But he pulled up the site now without thinking about it. All the old feelings rushed back. The excitement, the simple comforts. Relaxing and engaging at the same time. He signed in and looked over his shoulder, as if someone might see what he was doing.

  It was like riding a bike. He went to a thread about an episode in season three and corrected a classic troll’s interpretation. Why had he been hiding it? No one understood Buffy The Vampire Slayer like he did. None of them could grasp the nuance or understand the hidden meanings. He belonged on the message boards, writing fan fiction and summarizing episodes.

  He fixed a quote about Oz. His eyes glazed and he was almost calm again. He asked for a citation for a statement about season two. He argued that a character on the television show didn’t deserve their own biography. He felt full again and leaned back in his chair while he looked at the windows and exhaled.

  Then he saw himself in the mirror, sitting there with his shirt and tie on, wearing shorts, the chocolate still staining the corners of his mouth. And the
Buffy message boards open. He’d sworn he wouldn’t do it again. Any of it. And there he was. It was late, but he wouldn’t be going to bed soon. He could tell.

  Why had it been so hard? Why couldn’t he ask her to have a drink? He looked in the mirror and had the answer. It was because of this. This was who he was. He wasn’t the person in the new suit, a person who deserved Mel. He was still this guy. Answering e-mails late at night. Eating chocolate. Drinking cream soda. Debating the impossible. He put his head against his arms.

  Then the phone rang. It was her. He picked it up and started talking as quickly as he could.

  “Mel! I’m so glad you called. I had been meaning to call you and I just didn’t feel like I could. But about tonight, I just wanted to say—”

  “Jake,” she said. He stopped. Her voice sounded deeper and quieter.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m back at Sunset Cove. I drove home and got a call to come here. I thought you should know.”

  “What is it?” Here it was. The boyfriend. He wiped the corners of his lips. “Is there…someone else I should know about?”

  “Yes,” she said, almost whispering.

  “What? Who?”

  “Jake, I just can’t say it.”

  He waited. She spoke again.

  “I got the call and drove back here. It was a pair of teenagers. They were walking along our beach, by the concession building. They aren’t supposed to be here. They aren’t…”

  “Are you OK?”

  “The teens sneak on to the beach though. They can kiss behind the building. You can’t blame them. They were the ones who found her there. They thought she was asleep at first. But then she didn’t wake up.”

  “Who? Who didn’t wake up?” He closed the laptop and looked into the mirror, waiting.

  “It looks like it was peaceful. No convulsions. It was just her time.”

  “What happened?”

  “They found your friend Charlotte on the beach tonight.”

  “My Charlotte?”

  “Yes.” She exhaled into the receiver. “Charlotte’s passed away.”

  CHAPTER 13:

  He’d thought the heat made sense at night. But now the cool seemed cruel. All the shadows were jagged and the water seemed too large. Near the beach, the winds were too strong. All of it was loud. How could he think that the heat made sense? Nothing made sense. Not now. He felt his feet sink into the sand. He’d be walking for a while.

  He’d hung up after telling Mel he’d drive by in the morning. But he knew better than that. Everything would be changed in the morning. At night, he might have some idea of what the beach looked like when Charlotte had died. He’d put on a pair of jeans and started driving out to Sunset Cove. He stopped a full mile from the concession building where they found Charlotte. He hadn’t told Mel that he was coming. But Mel didn’t know that Charlotte had received a threat.

  He walked quickly, first near the road and then closer to the shore where the sand was firm and wet. Ruined tennis shoes didn’t matter now. As he started to splash through the sand, he tried to trace everything in his head. When had it happened? And how had Charlotte died?

  He ran past a sign to his left. The beach officially closed at 7:00, and he knew they flattened the sand at the end of the day. From the tracks he ran past, he could tell that a few people had walked along the beach since 7:00. One of them had been Charlotte. Except she never left.

  So she had died at some point after seven, but before Mel had called him. Judging by the time of her phone call, it had happened before 10:00 PM. Somewhere in that three hour interval, Charlotte had died. Now he needed to know why and how it had happened. Had Charlotte actually been right? He tripped in the sand and almost fell down. He’d have to find out.

  As he approached the concession building, he slowed his pace to a walk. Sand had stuck on the soles of his shoes, and his prints were just sloppy ovals in the sand. He pulled out the digital camera he’d brought and kept his notebook in his pocket. He could see it in the distance—the concession building where two teenagers found her body.

  It was a concrete rectangle with an overhang. Two large windows were closed up with metal shutters. An old printed sign said “Snacks” on it, but the way the light hit it, only the last two letters showed. The k sliced up the s. No one else was on the beach. Or at least he couldn’t see them.

  He walked closer slowly, moving carefully in the dark. The waves were at his back. They crashed loudly and then softened as he walked further up the beach, gradually muting to help him focus. He crouched down and looked at the ground. There were too many prints to be useful—more people than the teenagers had walked by. He took a picture, even though all the footprints meant nothing meshed together in a grid.

  But he could see that it had happened near there. Big tire tracks came in from one side, sunk in, and then led off in the other direction. He guessed it was the ambulance they’d picked up her body in. He took another picture. So it had been here.

  It was dark by the concession building. The perfect place to hide. He took a picture of it. Even at night, the structure cast a shadow. He started to shiver from the wind. If there’d been any other artifacts, the police or workers would have found them. Or they would have disappeared before anyone arrived. He’d have to ask Mel.

  He was starting to shiver when he heard a noise behind him. A hollow noise, like when he’d sat on his car hood. He stopped and didn’t move. It happened again. It was coming from the shutters on the other side of the building. Again. The metal sound died out quickly. There was no echo in a space like this. Just a thump and a pause, abrupt as a challenge.

  He turned around slowly and stared at the wall. The door to the building was on the right side, where he was standing. He looked around and only saw the beach stretching out. No one was around to see what happened to him. He got out his keys and put them in his left hand, arranging them in a star between his fingers. It was all he had—his only defense was a trick he’d seen on an old TV show. He put his other hand around the doorknob and started to turn. He gripped tightly on the cold metal.

  It was locked.

  He breathed out and relaxed his grip. The keys loosened. Then he heard it again. Thump. No echo. Just the sound of something hitting metal. He’d have to walk to the front of the concession building, the side with the shutters. He crept against the wall, staring at the water. He pressed his fingers to the concrete, pocked with tiny holes, and turned the corner.

  Seagulls. They’d found a piece of bread stuck on the ledge. He saw one fly into the shutter while trying to retrieve it. Thump. He walked forward and they scattered.

  “Stupidest birds on the planet,” he whispered and threw the bread to them. They all gathered around it gratefully. He laughed that they’d scared him. But then he remembered Charlotte.

  He leaned against the shutters and thought about it. It didn’t make sense—why had this happened now, to Charlotte? He hadn’t believed she was in danger. She was just a harmless old woman, afraid of her shadow. But maybe she had actually taken a wrong turn. Maybe something had gone sour. And then one night, tonight, she took a walk and didn’t come back. He was supposed to be aggressive, but when she died, he’d been drinking cream soda.

  He looked around again. The empty beach was large and dark. She’d been crazy. She thought the threats were all about a bridge game. If she’d told him aliens wanted to abduct her, would he have believed that too? She was a good woman. A kind woman. It was like she’d died in her sleep. To think that he was scared, that he still had his keys splayed out in his hand. He laughed to himself.

  He decided to take the street back to his car. He put his head down and turned the corner. More seagulls. Then he looked up. Someone was at the edge of the beach, a silhouette with their hands raised to their eyes.

  “Hey!” Jake yelled. “Can you help me?”

  Silence.

  “Do you know what happened here?”

  The shadow ran away. It didn’t look bac
k.

  CHAPTER 14:

  He was glad Mel didn’t look good the next morning. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing a tank top and faded jeans. She had bags under her eyes and her skin looked dry. He couldn’t have handled beauty, and she didn’t hide her grief.

  “It’s not that this doesn’t ever happen. People die. But to have a few teenagers find her body on the beach. And to have it be so sudden. It’s just…”

  He nodded. She’d taken him to the concession building once he drove in that morning. All the footprints he’d seen the night before were gone. He was glad he’d gone. Near the water, a couple walked hand in hand, their canes pressing periods into the sand. They didn’t even know what had happened a few feet up shore. He reached forward and touched Mel’s shoulder.

  “You’ve done a good job.”

  “No I haven’t. I just answered the call.”

  “That’s all you could do.”

  “I know.” She turned around. “Still.”

  They started walking along the beach in the direction of Sunset Cove.

  “Do you know if they found anything else back there? Any other possessions or evidence?”

  “Jake.” She stopped and looked at him. Her eyes still looked pretty, even when they were inside dark circles.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know if I should.”

  “Should what?”

  “I don’t know if I should be giving you material like this. I just know that Simeon will come around and tell me that I should be talking about our managed care options. Instead of our deaths.”

  She held her hands to her eyes. He pulled them away.

  “Mel, I’m still a reporter. But I’m asking about Charlotte as her friend.”

  She looked up.

  “I just imagine you writing something gloomy about how we should have had a nurse with her, so she wouldn’t have gone walking alone.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I wish we had.” They walked up wooden steps off of the sand and toward Mel’s office.

  “You couldn’t have known her condition.”