Chapter 1
Gladdy Gets Going

Hello. Let me introduce myself. I'm Gladdy Gold. Actually, Gladys. I'm a self-proclaimed P.I. That's right, a private eye. Operating out of Fort Lauderdale. When did I get into the P.I. biz? As we speak. My credentials? More than thirty years of reading mysteries. Miss Marple and Miss Silver are my heroines.

In case you were expecting someone like what's-her-name with her "A" is for this, "B" is for that—you know who I mean, working her way all the way to Z—well, that's not me. I'll be lucky if I make it to the end of this book. After all, I am seventy-five.

You think seventy-five is old? Maybe, if you're twenty, it's ancient, but if you're fifty, it doesn't seem as old as it used to. And if you're ninety, well, seventy-five seems like a kid. You ought to see those spry ninety-year-old alter kuckers trying to hit on me for a date. When I look in the mirror, I don't see that older, faded, wrinkled stranger who barely resembles someone I once knew. I see a gangly, pretty, eager seventeen-year-old, marvelously alert and alive with glistening brown hair and hazel eyes.

Did you know that when you get older, and the brain cells start to turn on you, the nouns are the first to go?

For example, "what's-her-name" I just threw at you. I meant Sue Grafton, and this time it only took about two minutes for my brain synapses to make the connection and pull her name out of the cobwebs of my mind. Sometimes it takes days. All the while, it was on the tip of my tongue. My poor tongue must be exhausted from all the information I keep stored there.

Hey, you young ones—laugh. Wait 'til you get to be my age. Then the laugh will be on you. You'll ask the same questions we all ask: Where did the years go? How did they go by so fast? And even worse—where did all the money go?

Enough with all the philosophy. The question for now is how did I get into this private-eye racket? Before I retired, I was a librarian, so if you say this is a strange career move, I would certainly agree.

I was minding my own business in Lanai Gardens, Phase Two, building Q, apartment 317 on West Oakland Park Boulevard, Lauderdale Lakes, when a few of my neighbors died suddenly. Considering that the youngest of us is seventy-one and the oldest eighty-six, this is not something unexpected. I mean, everybody is on the checkout line. For example, we used to have five tables of canasta: now we're down to one. The Men's Sports Club used to fill four cars on Sunday for their trip out to Hialeah: now the only members left are Irving Weiss and his pal, Sol, from Phase Three. Even the nags that broke the guys' wallets have gone to thoroughbred heaven.

As I started to say—I was beginning to suspect foul play.

I am convinced that these deaths to which I am referring are not natural. There is a killer stalking Lanai Gardens. Nobody believes me, certainly not the police, but I intend to prove it. But first you need to meet the rest of the gang.

It's seven A.M. on a beautiful, very typical Friday morning in paradise. As usual I wake up a minute before the alarm goes off. I start my coffee perking—a vice I will not give up. I take out my one slice of whole wheat bread, pop it in the toaster. Get out my one teaspoon of sugar and my one-percent low-fat milk and I am ready to "seize the day."

I allow myself twenty minutes to work on the unfinished Sunday crossword that never leaves my kitchen table. I used to do the puzzle, in ink, on the morning it arrived. Now, it can take as long as a week to dredge up answers from my disobedient brain. Frustrating, but you do not give up anything that affords you pleasure at this time in life.

Lanai Gardens is situated in one of the many sprawling apartment complexes in this part of southeast Florida. A lot of people think of Fort Lauderdale as this ritzy community on the water, or the place made famous by all those college kids who take their clothes off on Spring Break—but that's not where we live.

Our condo isn't fancy, but it's pretty nice with its peach stucco buildings (just beginning to peel), swaying palm trees (look out for the falling coconuts), well-tended lawns (when the gardener shows up), pools and Jacuzzis, shuffleboard courts, duck ponds (watch your step!), and recreation rooms.

Now, into a pair of sweats, and I'm ready to begin the morning workout, such as it is. It's eight A.M. and my fellow residents are coming to life.

We used to go to the air-conditioned malls for our morning stroll, but not after reading those articles in the newspapers about older women being killed. Now we've decided to exercise at home. Exercise? Fast walking, slow walking, shuffling, barely moving at all; whatever the body will endure.

I'm the first one out on the third-floor walkway to warm up. And that's the signal for all the others to rush out.

My sister, Evvie Markowitz, is always the next one out. While I am in the Q building (Q for Quinsana), she lives across the way in apartment 215 in P building (P for Petunia. The builders were big on flowers). She refers to herself as my kid sister. Seventy-three to my seventy-five. We don't look anything like each other. I am taller. She is heavier. (We're both shorter than we used to be.) Before we turned gray, she was a redhead; I, a brunette. I was the scholarly one; she the dynamic, dramatic one. I was the plain one; she was the beauty. This dictum came down from our well-meaning but unsophisticated immigrant mother who didn't understand what damage such labels could cause. It set the course for both our lives. We never really became friends until I moved down here.

Evvie starts her own warm-ups. She always says the same thing every morning, calling out to me over the tops of the cars parked between our buildings. "Glad, how did you sleep?"

"Pretty good," I call back.

"I only had to get up three times last night," she says.

"Don't complain. Five times for me!" This from Ida Franz, our whirling dervish, who pops out of apartment 319 in my building and fairly leaps into pace with me. Ida is seventy-one, with a body that's compact and wiry. Her salt-and-pepper hair is always in a tight bun which threatens to pull her face off her head. Her back is ramrod straight, which Evvie says is so she won't drop the chip on each shoulder. "And the last time was at three A.M. It didn't pay to go back to bed after that."

"So what did you do?" Evvie calls out from across the way, knowing full well what Ida will say.

"I called my son in L.A. He's still up at midnight."

Evvie makes a familiar disgusted gesture, flapping her arms. We are all used to Ida trying to make her children love her, a lost cause. She's the one who calls them; they never call her. And because her children make her crazy, Ida makes us crazy.

I hear what I hear every morning: Sophie, calling from her kitchen window. "Yoo-hoo, I'm coming. I'm coming. Wait for me!" Trust me. She'll be last one out.

Routine is very important to us. Ida, the perpetual wet blanket, says it's because we're all in our second childhood. Except for Sophie, who she insists never grew out of her first one.

Copyright © 2005 by Rita Lakin