Deadly Gamble

Chapter 4 - Part 2

 Deadly Gamble: The First Charlie Parker Mystery

By Connie Shelton

© Connie Shelton. All rights reserved

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Chapter 4 – Part 2

Motive, means, opportunity. The three key words in finding a criminal. What I needed at this point were more facts. I called Stacy at home, suggesting lunch. She recommended the club, and I said I'd come by her house to pick her up. She gave me directions. I wasn't sure what had prompted my offer to come to her house. I'd never had the least curiosity about her life with Brad but now I wondered. Maybe I'd gain some insight into the friend I hadn't seen in so long.

I organized my desk and watered all the plants in the office before leaving. Rusty stayed behind to keep Sally company. I dashed home to change clothes before starting the trek to the far northeast heights. I'd never been inside the Tanoan Country Club, and hoped that an emerald green dress with soft wool draped flatteringly across the bodice would be appropriate. The color set off my auburn hair nicely anyway. I chucked the down jacket for a calf length wool coat that I hadn't worn in ten years and hoped it wasn't too far out of style.

The temperature was in the fifties, with a clear sky the color of a robin's egg. I was no sooner in the car than I decided the wool coat would have to go. I couldn't handle the bulk or the warmth. Outside, I could stand it but not in here.

The Tanoan community is just about as far away as one can get from the side of town where I live—geographically and mentally. Surrounded by white walls the observer gets glimpses of what would probably be stately homes if they weren't packed so tightly together. From the outside the impression is lots of earth tone stucco, windows, balconies, and Spanish tile, jammed into a conglomeration that makes it difficult to know where one house begins and the other ends. Each of these architectural delights needs a minimum of two acres to show it off properly. Instead, they are crammed onto regular city lots. And to think they pay extra for this coziness.

I turned left at the first break in the big white wall. A matching white guardhouse was planted into the middle of the drive, with hefty-looking black iron gates on either side. The gate leading in stood open, but a guard with folded arms waited, daring me to drive through without stopping. On the other side, the exit, fearsome tire spikes awaited any who might attempt gate running through the "outie." I wasn't sure I wanted in at all, certainly not badly enough to pay for four flat tires.

I pulled to a stop beside the guard. On closer inspection, he was at least seventy, with a big toothless grin that wasn't the least bit scary. I told him where I was going and he waved me through. His smile remained the same throughout, and I wondered whether he even heard my words.

The North home was about three blocks into the rabbit warren of curving streets. Stacy had given good directions. I found the three story wonder, despite the fact that style wise it was very much like three-fourths of its neighbors. Light tan stucco, broken by two balconies across the front, long windows, curved at the top, and a mahogany door inset with beveled glass. Every window was curtained in white sheers, which appealed to my sense of neatness, but they also gave the place a sense of separation, of being locked away from the world. I tried to imagine these people having a pathway through the hedge to the elderly neighbor with whom they'd had a lifelong grandmotherly relationship. But their hedges were made of unyielding block walls, perfectly stuccoed to match their perfect houses. Most of the people were high powered two-career families who worked ninety hours a week to afford their affluence.