Thirteen Diamonds

CHAPTER 30

“You owe us some explanations, Lil,” Tess said. She had collapsed into one of my chairs, having spent the day helping me move back into my apartment at Silver Acres. It was Saturday, exactly one week after I had moved out. The last two days I had talked to the police, rested and recuperated from my wounds.

My descendants were there, too, all three generations of them, plus Mark. We were drinking beer or coffee, according to personal preference. Winston practiced climbing onto his favorite chair. King walked from one person to another, putting her head in laps and asking to be petted.

“For example,” Sandra said, “how did you manage to communicate the locking code for the Mercedes to Mark. When I ask him he says it's a military secret.”

“That's easy,” I said. “Remember the game of nim Mark and I played in the bar the night we met?”

“What's nim?” Albert and Tess asked together.

“I'll tell you later,” I said. “But for Sandra's edification, the first move Mark made in that game was to remove three toothpicks from the five-row, leaving 7-2-3-1. That is the combination that locks the transmission in Carol's Mercedes for 30 minutes to prevent theft.

“How on earth did you both remember the details of that game?” Sandra asked.

Mark and I grinned at each other. “Great minds think like,” he said.

“Maybe you'd rather be dating Gogi than me,” Sandra aid, flipping her blond hair.

“If only I were 50 years younger,” I said.

Tess turned to Sandra. “And why did you and Mark turn up at precisely the right moment?”

“I was at Sandy's place sponging a meal,” Mark said, “when my beeper started going off, over and over again, always with the same number. I called the number, but I got an out-of-service message.”

“It was Gogi's former number here,” Sandra said. “We figured she was trying to tell us something…”

“We called Albert to see if she was with him,” Mark continued, “and he said she was with Carol at Silver Acres, but when we called there we got Carol's voice mail.”

“We called Tess' apartment, but she hadn't seen Gogi for an hour or so,” Sandra said. “So we decided to drive the route from Silver Acres to Dad's house. Fortunately, Silver Acres is almost on the way from my condo to Dad's place. We didn't see Gogi's car in the main parking lot there…”

“Or Carol's car,” Mark cut in.

“Then we drove directly to the farm and ran into Lillian and Carol on the road. It's a good thing you carry a cell phone, Gogi.”

“Modern technology is sometimes useful,” I said, remembering that Carol had said the same thing about forging my signature. I was gratified that Sandra had been cooking a meal for Mark. Nowadays, if a woman sleeps with a man, it means little. But if a woman cooks for a man, it can mean a lot.

“I still can't picture Carol as a murderer,” Albert said, shaking his head.

I don't know whether Albert was more upset by the fact that Carol was a murderer or that she was two-timing him. She was in jail, without bail. Ellen had also been arrested, but she had already bailed herself out. Apparently, she wasn't a danger to the community. At least, she should be ejected from Silver Acres, like I was. In any case, I wasn’t planning to eat dinner with her any time soon.

“One more question, Lil,” Tess said. “Why didn't Joe carry out the plan to kill you?”

“Joe was going to kill me on orders from Carol because he was in love with her,” I explained. “So I put a doubt into his head; I told him a lie-I told him that Carol had slept with Albert.”

“A lie?” Albert asked. Then he looked around the room and decided not to say any more. Instead, he said, “Well, Mother, now that you're back here I hope you're going to act more like a retired person.” But he said it somewhat defensively. After all, he had cooperated in getting me thrown out.

“Cross my heart,” I said, making the motion, but of course I crossed my fingers also.

Wesley poked his head in the open door and said, “May I come in?”

I invited him to join us and introduced him to the people he didn't already know. When he had a cup of coffee in his hand he said, “I now have the proof that Carol was embezzling money. The figures she was feeding the bookkeeper don't match the actual bank balances.”

“Joe may have gotten some of that money too,” I said.

“Poor Joe,” Wesley said. “He was a good man. I think Carol corrupted him.”

“He died for me,” I said, suddenly choked up. I almost added that in a vote between him and me I would have voted for him to live.

“The Board will have to hire a new director now,” Tess said.

“They're already working on that,” Wesley said. “And they have commissioned a complete audit of the books. It's about time.” He turned to me. “I had to get Angie transferred to the skilled nursing building. I couldn't take care of her any longer. We don't know…how long she's going to last.”

“Oh,” I said. I was always shocked to hear that one of the residents had deteriorated or died, even when I had expected it. “I'm sorry.”

“So I don't have a dinner companion. Perhaps you and Tess would like to join me for dinner in the dining room once in a while.”

I didn't say anything. Tess glared at me and said, “Of course we will.”

Of course we will. Anyone who can manipulate numbers the way Wesley can isn't all bad.