Murder at the Villa Maria-Sedona Retirement Home Read online

MURDER

  at the Villa Maria-Sedona Retirement Home

  BY

  BLISS ADDISON

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2008 Bliss Addison

  First Electronic Publication 2008

  Second Electronic Publication June 2012

  *Previously Titled Murder Most Wanted and

  Previously Published by Club Lighthouse Publishing*

  This book is a work of fiction based entirely on the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental. Real places mentioned in the book are depicted fictionally and are not intended to portray actual times or places. All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  * * * *

  Other Books by Bliss Addison:

  A Battle of Wills (Shannon Murphy – Book I)

  With Malicious Intent (Shannon Murphy – Book II)

  Restless Souls

  Wolfe, She Cried

  Deadly Serum

  A Waning Moon

  Prophesy

  One Millhaven Lane

  An Equal Measure

  Sleight of Hand

  Watching Over Her

  A Silver Lining (The Monahans – Book I)

  A Little Rain Must Fall (The Monahans – Book II)

  A Mistaken Belief (The Monahans – Book III)

  Summary:

  Genre: Humor/Spice of Life

  Sometimes destiny needs a little push.... Eighty-year-old Calliope Fenwick's best friend since grade school is living in misery at the hands of her abusive husband. Calliope will do anything - anything - to help her....

  And sometimes destiny needs a swift kick.... Noah Madill, a homicide detective investigating a series of grisly murders, is suffering through a divorce he doesn't want but initiated...

  Or sometimes destiny needs a helping hand... And Calliope and her friends of The Saving Grace Brigade figure a way to give fate the push it needs, which indirectly sets off a string of events that ends with two deaths, one expected, the other quite unexpected.

  * * * *

  Contents:

  Chapter One – Plan of Attack

  Chapter Two – Harold Dunn and Surveillance

  Chapter Three – Lily O’Ree-Fenwick

  Chapter Four – One Dead Lawyer

  Chapter Five – Dinner with Dallas

  Chapter Six – Calliope, Wilson and the Big City

  Chapter Seven – Scoring Drugs

  Chapter Eight – Calliope’s Arrival at the Villa after her Arrest

  Chapter Nine – Noah and the Voice of Reason

  Chapter Ten – Dallas Re-examining her sister’s murder

  Chapter Eleven – Ambushed

  Chapter Twelve – Loose End Disposal

  Chapter Thirteen – Dust off yer cowboy boots, Pard’ner

  Chapter Fourteen – The Hall Family Tree

  Chapter Fifteen – The Soirée

  Chapter Sixteen – Defaced Corpses

  Chapter Seventeen – Ayaiiieeya

  Chapter Eighteen – Calliope and The Crucifix Killer

  Chapter Nineteen – All’s Well That Ends Well

  * * * *

  Chapter One

  No one could wind up Calliope Fenwick like Frederick Q. Thornhill III, known around the villa as ‘The Third’. In her eighty years, she’d never encountered anyone as insufferable. He taxed her patience on any given day, but today he seemed particularly obnoxious.

  “You could have thanked her,” she said. It wasn’t too much to ask. “Ol’ coot.”

  “Why? She’s a criminal,” he said in a huff, “and doing what she’s been ordered by the court to do.”

  Calliope looked at the pigtailed sixteen-year-old and doubted the girl knew what she was in for when she chose to do her two hundred hours of community service at the retirement home.

  The Third shot the cuffs of his monogrammed white shirt. "Can we play cards now, or does her royal highness have more insults to sling?"

  “Royal highness?” She glowered at him, barely managing to hang on to her temper. She couldn’t resist an insult though. "You pompous ass. Why don’t I—"

  Wilson, her husband, coughed into his hand — his polite way of telling her to shut up and forget about it.

  She swallowed the comeback and took the deck of cards in her hand. “High card deals,” she said, flipping the top card, an Ace, in front of Wilson. "Your deal, hon."

  The Third smiled at her, a grin that said: I’m too smart for you, Calliope.

  The man never let up. He acted as though he wanted her to kill him. "Frederick, has anyone ever told you—"

  Wilson yawned, widely and noisily.

  Again, Calliope understood her husband’s subtle suggestion. She bit her tongue, thinking she would make up her lapse to Wilson later with a fine Merlot, a porterhouse steak and…well…she’d see where that took them.

  The Third plucked a chocolate-iced brownie from the plate, popped the square in his mouth, and chewed slowly.

  “That’s your fourth brownie today, Frederick," Grace said. "Remember what the doctor told you?"

  "How can I not when you constantly remind me?” He shoved another one in his mouth.

  "She's just looking out for your health." Calliope didn't mean to spit the words. Oh, all right, she did.

  Why Grace wanted her sorry excuse for a husband to live a long and healthy life mystified Calliope. Placed in Grace's shoes, she'd make sure the man had a cholesterol level to the moon.

  Grace patted Calliope's hand. "It's okay, dear. He didn't mean to snap at me."

  The Third jerked his head toward Grace. "Stop apologizing for me!"

  Why Grace insisted on playing down her husband's nastiness was another mystery to Calliope. He did mean it. In fact, he meant every snide, condescending remark that spewed from his bird-like mouth.

  The man should be shot.

  Oh my.

  God would punish her for such thoughts. She'd say three extra Our Fathers at rosary tonight.

  "Shh, Frederick,” Grace said, glancing around the room. “You're creating a scene. People are watching."

  He peered over his shoulder and scowled at the residents staring at him. "What're you looking at?" He turned, smoothed his perfectly coifed silvery hair and smiled at Grace, obviously enjoying her embarrassment, then sneered at Calliope.

  She returned the rude gesture with equal enthusiasm and did so without Wilson noticing, she happily noted. Or maybe he saw but had given up on her. That could be too.

  "Get me a coffee, Grace,” he said, jerking his head toward the refreshment stand in the gathering room. “And I don't want any of that damn sugar substitute or whatever you put in it. It makes the coffee taste funny."

  Calliope curtained her chuckle behind a yawn. She thought the curmudgeon hadn’t noticed. When Grace and The Third went grocery shopping last week, she slipped into their apartment and laced his dark roast arabica coffee with a concoction witch Esmerelda had whipped up. Belladonna, if memory served.

  It upset Calliope that Grace took the blame for something she didn’t do. But if the potion sweetened him, though she had yet to see any sign of it, it would make up for the discomfort Grace suffered in the interim.

  “Now, woman!” he said and pounded his foot against the floor.

  Calliope had all she could take. "Get it yourself, Frederick. God gave you legs, spindly, though they are.” She drew a deep breath hoping to quell the desire to swat the toupee off his bald-as-a-baby's-ass head.

  "Mind your
business, you old—"

  "Please, Frederick, don't make another scene." Grace looked at Calliope and smiled. "It's no trouble, really. It's my job to see to my husband's wants."

  “No, it’s not!” Something solid hit Calliope’s shin. She massaged her leg and looked across the table at Wilson, who peered around the room and whistled a ditty beneath his breath. He didn’t need to kick her so hard. It was sure to bruise. Wilson might not get such a fine Merlot with dinner tonight. She turned her attention to her BFF.

  Grace, full of grace. For the life of her, Calliope couldn't understand why Grace stayed in a marriage that caused her such pain and heartache. ‘Til death do us part, she had quoted when Calliope asked her why she stayed with him. I made a promise before God, before my family and friends. Promises are meant to be kept.

  Calliope was certain God would understand if Grace left The Third.

  The man deserved to die a slow tortuous death for what he put Grace through all these years. Her friends agreed with her too.

  Unfortunately, The Third did not appear destined for the great beyond any time soon. Not even God wanted him.

  Often, Calliope devised ways of putting the Almighty’s plans for The Third into force, but as much as she would like to see the cantankerous man dead, she couldn't take a life. For one reason, she was one of those people who always got caught in the act of doing something she shouldn’t. For another, she didn’t have the chutzpah to kill, and even if she did, bragging about it from a jail cell seemed a partial victory.

  She watched The Third belittle Grace. He enjoyed making her life miserable. The man needed an attitude makeover, that's a fact.

  Short of killing him, how was Calliope to do that?

  Drugs, perhaps. They would need to be potent, though. He obviously had the constitution of a horse.

  In idle talk with her son Abbott, he had told her drug pushers filled the streets of downtown Bracebridge. She could easily convince Wilson to make the forty-five minute drive from Hampstead. While he browsed the bookstores, she could check out the streets and back alleys for people selling drugs.

  "Calliope, it's your move."

  Distantly, Grace's voice broke into her thoughts. "My move?"

  "It must be Alzheimer's," Grace said and laughed.

  Going along with the joke, Calliope stared at Wilson and asked, "Who are you?"

  Wilson cleared his throat. "Your ... your husband."

  "Oh." She examined his portly frame and studied his blue eyes and bushy brows, as though seeing him for the first time. In the silence that followed, she peered around the room. Streams of light from the setting sun shone through the windows. Golden-agers lounged on sofas and recliners watching television or chatting. "Where am I?"

  "Don't you remember?"

  The worry in Grace's voice spurred her to tell the truth. She laughed. "Of course, I remember. I was just pulling your legs." Lately, though, there were times when Calliope mistook the day of the week. Just last month she had forgotten her granddaughter Maya’s birthday.