For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Henry pushed the button on the Mercury's built in garage door opener and pulled into the large garage at his home on Mel Avenue. He pushed the button again and the door closed behind him. He got out of the car and headed for the door that led directly into his kitchen when he smelled the unmistakable odor of onions and garlic.

"Heeeey, you were gone early this morning!" Henry's housemate Charles greeted him while cooking an omelet at the kitchen stove.

"Yeah, I met Wayne for breakfast and then ran over to the Coachella Real Estate office." Henry replied looking at Charles' creation in the large skillet and realizing that it was nearly two o'clock and he had not eaten since his bagel breakfast with Wayne early that morning.

"There's plenty here for you if you want some." Charles said.

"Sure, that sounds good. I'll grab a couple of plates." Henry said, making his way to the kitchen cabinet.

Henry bought the house on Mel Avenue, a small street of older homes between Indian Canyon and Via Miraleste two blocks north of the hospital, shortly after moving to Palm Springs. The house was a single story on a large lot and was more or less a large U shape with a pool in the middle. There were two master bedroom suites, one in each wing, in addition to two other bedrooms, each with their own bathroom.

The layout of the place suited Henry perfectly; all of the bedrooms had French doors that opened up to the backyard pool, lawn area, the barbecue and a small pool cabana. Henry knew that the house was much larger than what he needed when he first saw it, but he liked it, so he used the money that he had from the sale of the home that he and Irma had shared for so many years in Eagle River and some of her life insurance to pay cash for it.

Henry set one of the bedrooms up as his office. There was a comfortable chair and a good lamp for reading, a large desk with Henry's computer which he used to pay his bills and do his research on the Internet, and a bookcase that reached to the ceiling with a locked drawer where he kept his weapons and their ammunition. Even though there were no children in the house, he kept his guns unloaded and locked up. There was no need to expose them to potential accidents. There were also some things that he wanted to keep private from his housekeeper Juanita. Not that she would have a problem with the weapons, Henry thought, but he didn't want her to think that he was a violent person, which he wasn't. In Henry's way of thinking, once a cop always a cop and he thought of his Colt and the Glock the same way a carpenter would think of a favorite hammer and a nail puller.

Right after Henry moved into the house, he met Charles at the Senior Center where Henry had been going to meet people and socialize since he arrived in Palm Springs. He ran into Charles while playing pool at one of the center's tables on afternoon. Charles Knightly III was a fairly good pool player and they hit if off right away. Henry discovered that Charles' longtime partner Jonathan passed away of AIDS a few months before and Charles moved to Palm Springs from Northern California after his death.

Charles was a retired High School teacher from San Francisco and had spent a year caring for Jonathan full-time before he died. After moving down to Palm Springs with his dog he couldn't find a place to rent that allowed pets. Henry had this huge house and empty rooms so he offered Charles the other master suite. The layout of the house was perfect for their arrangement; Henry had a master suite and a separate office on one side of the house with direct access to the pool. Charles and Pierre, his dog, had moved into the master bedroom on the other side of the house. The fourth bedroom was set up for guests and had only been used once when Henry's daughter Claire came out for a brief visit a year ago.

Two months after he moved in, Charles sort of stopped looking for another place to live and he had been Henry's housemate for the past two and a half years. He paid Henry a few hundred dollars a month in rent, and they split most of the utilities. Henry liked having someone around to talk with, didn't mind the dog and it had suited them both well.