Getting Old Is Murder Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction to Our Characters

  Map of Lanai Gardens

  Gladdy’s Glossary

  Death By Delivery

  Chapter 1: Gladdy Gets Going

  Chapter 2: Walking

  Chapter 3: Swimming

  Chapter 4: The Designated Driver

  Chapter 5: Going into Town, Or Trying to

  Chapter 6: Supermarket Shuffle

  Chapter 7: No Rest for the Weary

  Chapter 8: Library and Liberation

  Chapter 9: Dinner at the Deli

  Chapter 10: A Waltons’ Good Night

  Chapter 11: Death by Chocolate

  Chapter 12: Getting Old Is Murder

  Chapter 13: Funerals on the Run

  Chapter 14: Murder Will Out

  Chapter 15: Making a Decision

  Chapter 16: Keystone Kops and Nosy Neighbors

  Chapter 17: Canasta

  Chapter 18: Old-Timer’s Disease

  Chapter 19: Gladdy’s Gladiators

  Chapter 20: Job Descriptions

  Chapter 21: Kronk Strikes Again

  Chapter 22: Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe

  Chapter 23: Lust in the Heat

  Chapter 24: Death by Dumpster

  Chapter 25: Sing Gypsy, Cry Gypsy, Die Gypsy

  Chapter 26: Death of a Poet

  Chapter 27: Digging up the Dirt?

  Chapter 28: Where Did Everybody Go?

  Chapter 29: My Worst Nightmare

  Chapter 30: Nobody’s Talking

  Chapter 31: The Dating Game

  Chapter 32: Back to Reality

  Chapter 33: The Living Dead

  Chapter 34: Back in Business Again

  Chapter 35: Warning the Victim-to-Be

  Chapter 36: Double Feature

  Chapter 37: Stuck in the Minimall

  Chapter 38: No Way to Treat a Mother

  Chapter 39: Death by Poppy Seed

  Chapter 40: The Cop and the Private Eye

  Chapter 41: M Is for Mothers and Murder

  Chapter 42: Feeling the Blues

  Chapter 43: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

  Chapter 44: Poor Denny

  Chapter 45: Scavenger Hunt

  Chapter 46: Book Soup

  Chapter 47: The Very Sad Story of a Very Foolish Mother

  Chapter 48: Now What Do We Do?

  Chapter 49: Poor Harriet

  Chapter 50: The New Old (Not an Oxymoron)

  Chapter 51: All’s Well . . .

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Preview of Getting Old Is the Best Revenge

  Copyright Page

  For

  MY BELOVED MOTHER, GLADYS,

  Who coulda, woulda, shoulda

  been Gladdy Gold

  and

  MY DEAREST AUNT ANN

  Who inspired me all my life

  You know that old trees just grow stronger

  And old rivers grow wilder every day

  But old people just grow lonesome

  Waiting for someone to say,

  “Hello in there. Hello.”

  Hello in There

  BY JOHN PRINE

  “Let’s face it.

  We all have the same five relatives.”

  Billy Crystal

  If one life matters

  Then all life matters

  A Christian meditation

  “The golden years have come at last

  Well, the golden years can kiss my ass.”

  Hy Binder, taken from the Internet

  Introduction

  to Our Characters

  GLADDY & HER GLADIATORS

  Gladys (Gladdy) Gold, 75 Our heroine, and her funny, adorable, sometimes impossible partners:

  Evelyn (Evvie) Markowitz, 73 Gladdy’s sister. Logical, a regular Sherlock Holmes

  Ida Franz, 71 Stubborn, mean, great for in-your-face confrontation

  Bella Fox, 83 “The shadow.” She’s so forgettable, she’s perfect for surveillance, but smarter than you think

  Sophie Meyerbeer, 80 Master of disguises, she lives for color-coordination

  Francie Charles, 77 Always optimistic, Gladdy’s best friend

  YENTAS, KIBITZERS, SUFFERERS:

  THE INHABITANTS OF PHASE TWO

  Hy Binder, 88 A man of a thousand jokes, all of them tasteless

  Lola Binder, 78 His wife, who hasn’t a thought in her head that he hasn’t put there

  Denny Ryan, 42 The handyman. Sweet, kind, mentally slow

  Enya Slovak, 84 Survivor of “the camps” but never survived

  Harriet Feder, 44 “Poor Harriet,” stuck with caring for her mother

  Esther Feder, 77 Harriet’s mom in a wheelchair. What a nag

  Tessie Hoffman, 56 Chubby, in mourning for her best friend

  Millie Weiss, 80 Suffering with Alzheimer’s, and

  Irving Weiss, 86 Suffering because she’s suffering

  Mary Mueller, 60 and

  John Mueller, 60 Nosy neighbors

  ODDBALLS AND FRUITCAKES

  The Canadians, 30ish Young, tan, and clueless

  Leo (Mr. Sleaze) Slezak, 50 Smarmy real estate broker

  Greta Kronk, 88 Crazy like a fox

  Sol Spankowitz, 79 A lech after the ladies

  THE COP AND THE COP’S POP

  Morgan (Morrie) Langford, 35 Tall, lanky, sweet, and smart

  Jack Langford, 75 Handsome and romantic

  THE LIBRARY MAVENS

  Conchetta Aguilar, 38 Her Cuban coffee could grow hair on your chest

  Barney Schwartz, 27 Loves a good puzzle

  AND

  Yolanda Diaz, 22 Her English is bad, but her heart is good

  Gladdy’s Glossary

  Yiddish (meaning Jewish) came into being between the ninth and twelfth centuries in Germany as adaptation of German dialect to the special uses of Jewish religious life.

  In the early twentieth century, Yiddish was spoken by eleven million Jews in Eastern Europe and the United States. Its use declined radically. However, lately there has been a renewed interest in embracing Yiddish once again as a connection to Jewish culture.

  a choleria

  a curse on you (get cholera)

  a klog iz mi

  woe is me

  aleha ha-shalom

  rest in peace

  alter kuckers

  lecherous old men

  chozzerai

  a lot of nonsense

  dreck

  dirt, filth

  fahputzed

  overly done

  farbissener

  embittered person

  farblondjet

  bewildered

  gefilte fish

  stuffed fish

  geshrei

  uproar

  gonif

  thief

  Gott im Himmel

  God in heaven

  Kaddish

  mourner’s prayer

  kasha

  buckwheat groats

  kasha varnishkas

  groats & bowtie noodles

  kibitz

  someone offering unwanted

  advice

  knish

  meat or potato filled

  wonton

  kreplach

  like a wonton

  kurveh

  whore

  kvetch

  whining & complaining

  maven

  someone who knows

  everything

  meeskite

  ugly one

  meshugeneh

  crazy

  mitzvah

  a blessing

  ongepatshket

  over
done, cluttered

  oy

  an exclamation for

  emotions

  oy gevalt

  an anguished cry

  pisher

  a squirt, a nobody

  putz

  penis

  rugallah

  pastry with fillings

  schlep

  dragging a load

  schmaltz

  fat

  schmear

  to coat with butter or

  cream cheese

  shayner boychik

  darling boy

  shayner kindlach

  beautiful children

  shikseh

  non-Jewish girl

  shmegegi

  a fool

  shnapps

  whiskey

  shpilkes

  on pins and needles

  vantz

  bedbug

  vay iz mir

  woe is me

  yenta

  busybody

  Death by Delivery

  T he poison was in the pot roast.

  In a few hours Selma Beller would be dead. This was regrettable because tomorrow was her birthday and she was so looking forward to it. Her husband, Ernie, had keeled over at seventy-nine. Having beaten him at gin rummy and shuffleboard, she had gleefully intended to beat him yet again, this time to the big eight-oh. Alas, poor Selma.

  While she was waiting to die, Selma was dusting.

  Dust was her enemy. And she battled mightily. No fragile feather duster for her. And forget that sissy stuff like lemon Pledge. She used good old-fashioned Lysol, confident that neither dust nor germ escaped its lethal dose. Death to dust, she thought and then laughed, dust to dust.

  Looking up, Selma glanced at the clock. Where had the afternoon gone? It was nearly dinnertime. Too bad her best (and only) friend, Tessie, was busy tonight with out-of-town visitors. She should have gone shopping this morning. Oh, well, there was always cottage cheese, with a piece of cut-up peach and some sour cream. She wrinkled up her nose. What she really craved was red meat. Bloody and rare.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Selma groped around for her glasses, misplaced, as usual. Giving up, she moved as quickly as she could manage toward the door, automatically straightening the doily on the arm of her emerald green recliner. Glancing toward the array of grandchildren’s photos on her foyer table, she blew a kiss at the smiling faces.

  “Who is it?” she trilled. She would never open the door to a stranger.

  “Delivery. Meals on Wheels.”

  Squinting through the peephole, Selma, though her vision was blurred, identified the familiar shopping bags with the Meals on Wheels logo. A volunteer wearing jeans, a windbreaker, a baseball cap, and sunglasses stood there, arms full.

  “Wrong apartment,” she said wistfully.

  “Mrs. Beller? Apartment two-fifteen?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t order—”

  “Happy birthday to you from Meals on Wheels. A special introductory order.”

  “Really?” Selma was feeling the beginnings of hope. “Something smells wonderful. What’s in the bags?”

  The volunteer consulted a piece of paper. “Pot roast. Stuffed cabbage rolls. Mushroom and barley soup, potato pancakes with sour cream, and apple strudel for dessert.”

  Practically drooling, Selma unlocked the deadbolt her son, Heshy, had installed, then the other two safety locks.

  She squinted again as the volunteer entered with the packages. “Don’t I know you? You look familiar. . . .” But Selma was distracted as she sniffed the air in appreciation. “I can’t wait,” she said as she took the bags and carried them into her spotless kitchen. She quickly unwrapped the containers and began setting them out on her best Melmac dishes on her small white Formica dinette table.

  “I just hope the soup isn’t too salty. My blood pressure, you know.”

  A wrought-iron chair was pulled out for her. Smiling, she let herself be seated.

  “At your service, Mrs. Beller.”

  “What a way to go.” Selma giggled, tucking her napkin in.

  Those were Selma Beller’s final words. The last thing she saw as she was starting to lose consciousness was the logo on the Meals on Wheels shopping bags as the killer calmly refolded them, and her last fading thought was that the pot roast had been a little stringy. . . .

  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.

  2

  Walking

  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.