Thirteen Diamonds

CHAPTER 7

It was too hot to play croquet, but Thursday afternoon was the only time all members of the foursome were available simultaneously, perhaps for weeks. I wore a large straw hat and put sun block on my exposed arms. My light skin doesn't take kindly to too much sunlight.

I drew the line at wearing shorts to beat the heat. I was not about to put my varicose veins on display outdoors, without stockings. It was bad enough that I had to do it in the pool.

My partner was a married man named Jesse; his wife didn't play croquet. Jesse was tall and thin and moved slowly, but his hands were amazingly steady for his age, which was on the north side of 80. He played the same kind of game-steady and conservative. I played a more wide-open game than he did, taking the high-risk shots, but together we made a good team and we had won the tournament the year before.

Ellen Tooner had a female partner. I didn't know how good they were, but I had always pictured Ellen as being well coordinated because of the deft way she shuffled the cards when she played bridge, so I warned Jesse against being over-confident. Ellen was dressed neatly and conservatively with a short-sleeved blouse and long shorts. I noticed, enviously, that she didn't appear to have any varicose veins.

Ellen went first and sailed her ball through the first two wickets with a standard between-the-legs shot. Going for the side wicket, she pulled her approach shot off the mark, but she got fairly close on her last shot.

This flat surface with the manicured lawn was heaven compared to the bumpy and irregular backyard croquet courts I had played on before. Standard procedure when I was a child and going for the side wicket had been to blast the ball into the flower bed. When I brought the ball a mallet's-head in from the tulips, with luck it would be right in front of the wicket. In the present case, I hit my ball cleanly through the first two wickets and used my next two shots to hit Ellen's ball.

“Sorry,” I said as I placed my ball a mallet's-head length from hers. When I play I take no prisoners. My own son won’t play with me.

She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. Up close she looked younger than many of the other residents of Silver Acres. Her hair was still a reddish-brown color, but I'm sure she dyed it. She was still good looking in a well-preserved sort of way.

“Did Carol Grant talk to you about Gerald?” I asked her as I uncharacteristically tapped my ball to stop in front of the wicket instead of trying to hit it through.

She nodded and said, “You too, eh? She asked me if I knew about Gerald's allergy to shellfish. How could I? We played bridge together but we weren't close friends.”

I hit my ball through the wicket. “Same here. I take it that you weren't the one who put the shellfish in the casserole.”

“Of course not. Why would I do a sneaky thing like that?”

I knocked my ball toward the center wicket. Before following it I said, “Do you think the shellfish was put in at Harriet's apartment?”

“It could have been. Harriet stayed behind for a few minutes after we left, then brought the casserole. Maybe she knew about Gerald's…problem.” She asked, breathlessly, “Do you think Harriet had it in for him?”

Ellen's partner walked toward us, following her ball, so I went to mine. I wasn't learning much.

Ellen languished at the first wicket as we all used her ball for target practice to gain extra shots and then went on. I didn't get another chance to talk to her since I continued to hold the lead. I finished first, but instead of hitting the stake I stayed in the game to help my partner, who didn't really need my help; he was well ahead of Ellen.

She was dying at the far end of the court, all alone. I was surprised, but everybody had bad days once in a while, even me. I knocked my ball in her direction so I could have another word with her.

“I hope you're here to help me,” she said with a little smile, “because this ball doesn't like me.” Her words were light, but her body language showed stress. Her poor performance was getting to her. I suspected that she was not a good loser.

“Of course,” I lied. After a pause I continued, “One thing that is ironic is that Gerald should get the best hand of his life just as it ended.”

“Yes. Thirteen diamonds. A dream hand. But everybody gets lucky once in a while.”

“But not usually that lucky.”

“No. But I saw a hand like that once before.”

“No kidding. Was it legitimate?” That slipped out.

“Yes, I'm sure it was. But it was a long time ago.”

“All right, Tess, I'm going to tell you what I've found out and you're going to tell me whether Gerald was murdered or not.” I paced the floor of my living room while Tess sat comfortably on the couch, saving her feet. I can't sit still for long periods of time like old people are supposed to. I still have too much nervous energy.

“I'm ready,” Tess said. “I even brought a pad so I could write all this stuff down.” She flourished a yellow pad. “But I hope we end up proving that a murder wasn't committed.”

Good old Tess. She was very organized, unlike me. I had everything in my head, and my head was starting to betray me. I said, “Let's start with Gerald.”

“That's a good place to start.” She wrote the word Gerald and underlined it.

“Gerald had a deadly allergy to shellfish so he was very careful about what he ate. He also had a mild heart condition, but probably no worse than half the residents here.”

Tess made a couple of notes.

“Before the lunch was served, Gerald asked Harriet what the casserole contained and she told him, to the best of her knowledge-or what she claims was the best of her knowledge.”

“Harriet is such a nice lady; I don't see how she could have killed anybody.”

“We're not making judgments now; we're just stating the facts as we know them.” I spoke somewhat irritably because I agreed with Tess and knew that my feelings also clouded my objectivity. I decided not to tell her that Ida had accused Harriet. “Gerald ate some of the casserole. Immediately afterward, the first bridge hand was dealt. Do we know who dealt the hand?”

“Why is that important?”

I hadn't told Tess what I had found out about the cards, hoping to keep that information confined to as few people as possible, but if she was going to help me she needed to know. “Because it was a phony deal.”

“What? How can you say that?”

I told her.

“The one time I ever see a perfect hand and it's not real. That means I'll never get one.”

“Probably not. So we come back to the question of who dealt the hand. That may be important. I should have asked the people I talked to.”

“It's not too late to find out,” Tess said, reaching for my phone. She punched in a number.

“Who are you calling?”

“Harriet.”

“Ask her where everybody was sitting. I don't remember.”

Tess had a short phone conversation, during which she murmured, “Is that a fact?” at one point, but her face didn't give anything away.

After she hung up she started writing. I said, “Well?”

She looked up, smugly. “Gerald dealt the hand, himself. Harriet was his partner. Ida sat to his left. Ellen sat to his right.”

“Interesting.”

“Does that mean that Gerald intentionally dealt himself the 13 diamonds?”

“Not necessarily.” But I didn't have any better explanation at the moment. “Anyway, Gerald dealt the hand and barely had time to look at his cards when he started choking.”

“Dora tried to help him and you called the clinic.”

“And 911. But nothing could be done to save him. So much for Gerald.”

“So much for Gerald. Is that what detectives say about the victims?” Tess made a face.

“I guess they have strong stomachs. To move on, the three women at his table plus Dora were involved to some extent in putting together the casserole at Harriet's apartment. The recipe called for tuna, not shellfish. Nobody will admit to putting in the shellfish and nobody saw it done.”

“Harriet had the best opportunity-although I still can't picture her as a murderer-because it was her apartment, and because she was alone when she carried the dish to the recreation room.”

“Right, but let's say it wasn't Harriet. Then most likely the shellfish was put into the dish after it got to the recreation room.” I said this partly to ease Tess' mind about her friend.

“Which means that any of the other three could have done it, if they had a minute, undisturbed.”

“But when could they have gotten that minute? After the fire alarm went off!” I exclaimed. “Remember? It happened just as we were about to eat lunch. Everybody had to evacuate the building. We were outside for maybe five minutes.”

“So somebody could have snuck back in before the others.”

“Right. Or just stayed in the room. I didn't count noses, so I don't know whether anybody was missing.”

“Me either,” Tess said. “But that relieves my mind. It means that Harriet isn't the only possible suspect.”

“In fact,” I said, “it means that anybody in the bridge club could have done it.”

“Or anybody at Silver Acres.”

I laughed. “Now we have too many suspects.”

“Then we have to figure out who had a motive,” Tess said.

“We have potential motives for Harriet and Ida-jealousy. I don't know of any motives for anybody else.” We pondered in silence for a while. Then I said, “I'm willing to bet that whoever switched the decks is the killer.”

“Unless Gerald did it, himself, as a joke.”

“Now we have to investigate his sense of humor. But, assuming he didn't deal himself 13 diamonds on purpose, the two who had the best opportunity to switch the decks are Ida and Ellen, because they sat on either side of him.”

“But not Harriet,” Tess said. “Good.”

“The switched cards looked new. Maybe we should check for fingerprints on the 13 diamonds.”

“At a minimum, there would be Gerald's and yours-and the murderer's.”

“And Wesley's. Darn. I took them to the art gallery to be framed, so there are several more sets on them by now.”

“You know, Lil,” Tess said, “maybe it's time we turned this over to the police. You've had your fun playing detective, but we're at a standstill. And if there has been a murder, it's our duty to tell what we know.”

“As usual, you're the sensible one,” I said. “But I suspect that if we don't want to get on Carol's bad side we'd better go through her, since she's in charge here. If I were younger I'd pursue this more vigorously. But as it is, I seem to get a new ache or pain every week.”

“Growing old is not for sissies.”