A KILLING AT THE BEAUSOLEIL
By
TERRIE FARLEY MORAN
Published in ELLERY QUEENS MYSTERY MAGAZINE, November 2015
“Mr. Reynaud left specific instructions as to how the apartment is to be kept.”
Just above the red embroidered Beausoleil on his gray work shirt, the balding man wore a
rectangular plastic name tag that read K. Dooney, Building Manager. He pushed a key into the
lock and snapped it open with a quick turn.
“Detailed directions.” He held out an envelope, which hovered in the air between
Bridgy’s right hand and my left until I finally snatched it from him. Only then did he swing the
door open and usher us inside.
I crossed my fingers wishing that the sight-unseen beach rental would come close to the
pictures and description on the realtor’s website. My wish was granted. This was no kitschy
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sublet with miss-match furniture and oversized seashells stained with cigarette ash proving the
previous tenants violated the no smoking rule.
Bridgy and I were swivel-headed trying to see everything at once. The spotless pastel
furniture, positioned with strategic casualness here and there, sat on a highly polished tile inlay
floor. The center of the living room was covered with an area rug in shades of beach sand from
sun-bleached white to wave-darkened tan.
Bridgy leaned in. “Sassy, what a gorgeous place to start our new lives.”
Pleased with her comment, K. Dooney went for super-wow. He tugged on one cord of a
wall’s worth of creamy vertical blinds and like a well-trained platoon they made a snappy left
turn. Florida sunshine streamed in between the slats and danced all around the room. I fell into
an instant fantasy of sipping my morning coffee while sitting on the terrace drenched in sunlight.
Mr. Dooney yanked another cord and the slats marched in unison, half column left, half column
right.
Below us, great white birds with wing spans measured in feet, rather than inches circled
lazily around fishing boats bobbing in the Gulf of Mexico. The horizon pushed on forever.
A view that might seem nice enough standing on the beach, appeared majestic from the
fourth floor window. I let out a deep sigh of contentment.
Usually the bouncy one, Bridgy was more restrained. She tapped K. Dooney on the arm.
“Who is that man, sleeping on our terrace?”
Now it was his turn to be a swivel-head.
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“Impossible. Mr. Reynaud assured me that the premise would be vacated yesterday.” He
shook his head and his few strands of loose hair danced back and forth in the sunlight. “The
cleaning crew was here yesterday afternoon to prepare for your arrival.”
Then his eyes lit on the man reclining on a pillowed turquoise chaise lounge tucked in the
far corner of the terrace. Most of his face was covered by a green baseball cap that blended in
with the wide, leafy plant just behind him. He was clutching some sort of blue wool fabric,
perhaps a shawl or a blanket. Odd, on such a warm day.
K. Dooney pulled the handle of the sliding glass door. He stuck his head through the
opening.
“Mr. Reynaud, what are you…?”
And we watched him crumble like a stack of bricks broadsided by a Payloader. Bridgy
dropped to her knees and touched his neck until she found a pulse.
“Steady and strong.”
I swear she sounded disappointed that we weren’t going to have a chance to use our
recently renewed CPR training.
I stepped around her, my eyes on the sleeping man who hadn’t so much as twitched at the
clatter of K. Dooney hitting the deck.
I didn’t have to get much closer to see a mauve knitting needle protruding from his neck
in the exact spot I would have felt for his pulse. Rivulets of blood trailed down the chaise lounge
and pooled on the tile floor. It seeped along the grout in every direction. Long shot though it may
be, I still felt compelled to try for a pulse. His left wrist was covered by a gold watch with a wide
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band, so I grabbed for his right hand, but the blue wool was tangled in his fingers. From my
knitting days back in the college dorm, I recognized it as a work in progress, more than a dozen
finished rows hanging from a knitting needle that matched the one in his neck. I wrapped the
wool around the needle and slipped it under my arm. My fingers searched his wrist. No pulse.
K. Dooney was sitting on the floor and shaking his head. Bridgy was trying to force him
to sip from her bottle of Zepherhills water.
I punched 911 into my phone and said, “There’s been a murder.”
I pushed the phone toward Dooney. “Tell them where.”
He gave the address and apartment number but not before assuring the dispatcher that
there had been an accident. There could never be a murder in so fine a building as the Beausoleil.
We helped K. Dooney to his feet and guided him back into the building hallway. The
window overlooked the swimming pool, had a partial Gulf view and a wide sill. Putting Dooney
securely in the middle we sat in our own version of hear no evil—Dooney with his hands over
his ears, shaking his head and muttering to himself; speak no evil—Bridgy with one hand to her
mouth stifling back her sobs; and see no evil—I had my eyes tightly closed trying to erase the
sight of the man on the patio.
Sirens were getting louder, coming closer. The elevator door opened revealing a portly
man wearing khakis and a bright green Save the Dolphins tee shirt. He was carrying square cloth
brown and green shopping bags, overloaded with groceries. A large baguette of French bread
threatened to tumble out of the bag in his left hand.
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He took one look at Dooney then his eyes wandered back and forth between Bridgy and
me. “What’s wrong?”
He turned his gaze back to K. Dooney. “You look like death.”
“Mr. Costas, there has been a terrible tragedy. Mr. Reynaud…” Dooney’s voice
weakened.
“Is that pollution-hugging, animal-hating self-centered jerk gone? Alleluia! Don’t need
the likes of him around.”
“Mr. Costas, please. The young ladies.”
Costas gave a little bow. “Sorry ladies. A man like Reynaud, no respect for our ecology.
Why, he thinks we should allow construction of houses, resorts and the like in the Everglades.
The very idea. The man is a devil. I’m glad he moved out.”
I actually took a deep breath. When he said “gone” I was wondering how he knew Mr.
Renauld was dead. Apparently, he didn’t.
The elevator door whizzed open again and revealed a scrawny kid in a navy blue work
shirt, which, like Dooney’s gray shirt, had Beausoleil embroidered in bright red above the flap of
his left breast pocket. He was undeniably intimidated by the two uniformed deputies with Lee
County Sheriff shoulder patches on their sleeves who followed him out of the elevator.
The kid was visibly relieved when he saw K. Dooney.
“Mr. Dooney, these deputies are looking for you and they won’t tell me why.” He bleated
like a sad lamb.
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The taller, broader deputy had skin the color of burnished copper and a commanding
attitude. He stepped in front of the young man, rendering him invisible.
“I’m Deputy Lyons.” He waved in the direction of the other deputy. “This is Deputy
Kowalski.”
At the sound of his name, Kowalski disappeared through the open door of the apartment
for a few seconds, came out and tossed Lyons a brief nod. That’s when Lyons begin asking
questions.
“You Dooney? You call this in?”
K. Dooney nodded.
“Then who’s Mary Cabot? Brooklyn, New York? You used her phone.”
Lots of accusation in Deputy Lyon’s tone. To save K. Dooney, I raised my hand.
“I’m Mary Cabot. Everyone calls me Sassy.”
His expression said he didn’t care what anyone called me, so I hurried on.
“I dialed 911 and handed the phone to Mr. Dooney. I wasn’t sure of the building
address.”
“And what, Mary Cabot of Brooklyn, New York, are you doing in Fort Myers Beach?”
“Bridgy and I…”
He raised his eyebrows, so I pointed to Bridgy and he acknowledged her with a tight nod.
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I figured he didn’t want the whole messy story of Bridgy’s bonehead ex-husband
cheating on her with a cougar who played Mahjong with his mom. He probably wouldn’t care
that Howard Accounting moved to Connecticut taking my job with it. So I kept it simple.
“We’re subletting this apartment. At least we were before…”
The elevator door opened. A man and a woman, dressed in golf shirts declaring them to
be on the Medical Examiner’s staff, were the first to exit. Behind them three more deputies piled
out. Lyons motioned one to stand beside our window ledge, uncomfortably close to me. I
squirmed, managing to add an extra inch between my bare knees and the deputy’s dark green
uniform pants. Deputy Kowalski led the M. E. staff to the body in apartment 4A. Then he came
back to the hallway and Deputy Lyons went into the apartment.
Bridgy, K. Dooney and I just sat. And sat.
When Lyons came back, he asked us a few more questions about the sublet, how it had
been arranged, who we would pay each month, like that. Tedious, but I guess important to him.
Suddenly bored with us, or confident that he had enough cohorts to keep us from fleeing,
Lyons turned to Mr. Costas, who’d been shrinking against the wall, trying to be invisible.
“You are…?”
“A neighbor, nothing more.” He waved his cloth supermarket bags. “Just back from
Publix.”
Lyons offered Dooney an inquisitive look. Dooney bobbed his head in the affirmative.
“Okay.” Lyons signaled the deputy nearest the elevator. “Deputy Bradley will take your
statement.”
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Panic stricken, Costas froze, then he nodded to the inevitability of it all and led the
deputy into apartment 4C.
Lyons swung back toward us and asked, almost too casually. “So which one of you
discovered the body?”
Easy question, right? But while Bridgy and Dooney were each taking credit, I sat silent.
“And you, Ms. Cabot? Where were you when they discovered the body?”
“We were all together.” I admitted.
He folded his arms across his chest and the bulges formed by his biceps were both
threatening and mildly attractive. He stood there giving me the silent treatment. I wasn’t about to
cave. Then, all of a sudden, I did.
“We just happened to sublet this apartment. Really. Anyone could have found him.”
Deputy Lyons nodded. And he waited. His silence urging me to say more.
“The three of us entered the apartment. Mr. Dooney opened the verticals to let in some
light and, well, there he was.”
Each time I stopped talking, Lyons’s silence deepened. When I got to the part when I
dialed 911, he turned to Bridgy asking if she remembered everything the same way. I started to
wonder why he didn’t separate us the way they do with suspects on television. This could be a
good sign. We might not be suspects.
The hallway was busier than rush hour in Grand Central Station. The elevator door
opened again. A sleek looking couple a few years older than me—early thirties maybe—stepped
out. Quickly deciding she wanted no part of the chaos in the hallway, the woman, a dazzling
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blonde with perfectly subtle make-up, grabbed the man’s arm. She attempted to pull him back
into the elevator but a deputy reached over and stopped the door from closing.
The couple stood, she in the elevator doorway, he in the hall by no more than a cat’s
whisker. They both looked confused but managed to wear their confusion with elegance, the
same way they wore their cropped lambskin shorts, hers white, his black. Did I say cropped?
Even for cropped, they were on the extra short side. But God had gifted both of them with such
long and shapely legs, I suppose it would be a shame to hide them in full-length and baggy. The
man’s pricey Dunning multi-striped golf shirt was very like the one I bought my father for his
birthday last month.
The blonde touched her chin with her left hand just long enough to give everyone in the
hallway a chance to see the stunning multi-karat diamond ring on the third finger. The plunging
neckline on her barely-pink, barely-there tankini showed off an emerald tear drop above the
plunging neckline and a multi-diamond belly-button ring below the snug, abbreviated hem. Her
outfit would have looked brazen on, say, me, or any other woman I know, but she carried it as if
it were the height of exquisite taste. On her right wrist, a perfectly linked infinity bracelet
nestled between two glittery tennis bracelets. As if she wasn’t bedecked enough, her husband
was carrying a tiny shopping bag in that distinctive shade of Tiffany blue. More jewelry? I could
only imagine.
It took a minute but, recognizing that retreat wasn’t possible, the man stepped forward
with the woman straggling a step or two behind. He spoke loudly to no one in particular, his
British accent clipping each word sharply.
“What IS going on here?”
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Then he saw K. Dooney and lit into him like a starving mosquito demanding blood.
“Mr. Dooney, what are you doing with all these . . .?” He waved his arm to the room in
general.
That was as far as he got. In two giant steps Deputy Lyons was toe to toe with him. The
deputy’s cordial tone belied his hulking demeanor.
“May I ask your name, sir? And what business you have here?”
I could see that steam was about to come out of the Englishman’s ears. His shoulders
scrunched half way up his neck and his face tightened. Then, just as suddenly, he deflated.
“Evan Delancy.” His right arm snaked around the woman, hugging her closely to his
side. “This is my wife, Sarah Lee. We live here.” He pointed to apartment 4D.
Cakes and pies never quite off her mind, Bridgy sang sotto voce, “Nobody doesn’t like
Sara Lee.”
I would have reached behind K. Dooney and given Bridgy a sharp tap to the back of her
head, Jethro Gibbs style, but this didn’t seem the place.
Lyons nodded and gave the Delancys the same silent treatment he’d given me a few
minutes ago.
“May we enter our flat?” Mr. Delancy’s attitude was a bit less difficult but he was far
from asking politely.
When Deputy Lyons didn’t answer instantaneously, Delancy threw a hissy fit.
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“Just tell me. What is it? Have we been burgled? Oh dear God, my new Wedgewood and
Bently chess set. It is irreplaceable. Simply irreplaceable. We’ll have to get on to the insurance
people right away.”
“Sir, as far as we know there hasn’t been any burglary, at least not in your apartment. I’m
afraid it’s more serious than theft.”
Delancy shrugged. Apparently nothing was as important as his fancy chess set. Still good
breeding required that he ask.
“Surely there has been some kind of mishap? With all of you here...”
His wife pushed forward a petulant lower lip, tilted in and whispered, her lips nearly
touching his ear.
“Perfectly right, darling.” He looked directly at Deputy Lyons. “My wife reminds me that
whatever happened has nothing to do with us, so mightn’t we just go into our flat?”
“Would you mind telling us where you’ve been for the past few hours?” Lyons’ tone
didn’t offer much choice.
“Shopping. Down in Naples. Bits and bobs, you know.” He held out the blue bag from
Tiffany. And he made the mistake of taking his wife by the elbow and pushing her toward their
apartment door.
Before Lyons could say “just a minute,” a deputy stepped in front of the door to 4D.
“Officer, I’m losing patien—“
“It’s deputy. And I am afraid your neighbor lost far more today than his patience.”
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Lyons had his back to me but his eyes must have slued toward Reynaud’s apartment.
Delancy stopped.
“No. Can it be? Is the randy old codger hurt? Dead perhaps?” He looked at his wife.
“Now that would be quite an occurrence, wouldn’t it, Sarah Lee? Horrid man that he was.”
She lifted her left hand, the one with the large and lovely diamond, and smacked her
husband straight across his face.
“Nothing horrid about him.” And she slipped into a deep southern drawl that was
startling compared to her husband’s upper-class Brit tenor.
“Y’all could start an argument in an empty house. Barnyard pigs are better behaved. I’ve
a mind to go on home to Sharpsville. Mama tole me marrying a foreigner would come to no
good.”
Sarah Lee had stunned to entire hall into dead silence.
Lyons recovered first.
He signaled two deputies still guarding the hallway and directed them to take the
Delancys into their apartment and take their statements in separate rooms.
My butt was numb from sitting on the windowsill, so I wiggled forward trying to find a
comfortable spot. Hard to do when you are sitting on polished marble. The movement must have
caught Lyons’s eye. He looked at me and then past me.
“What’s that? Your sweater?”
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I looked in the corner right behind me and there was the knitting needle covered with
wool. I picked it up. When I held it out to him, my first real look told me there was something
wrong. All Lyons saw was that the knitting needle in my hand matched the needle in Mr.
Reynaud’s neck. He had a total melt-down.
“YOU TOOK THAT FROM THE CRIME SCENE?” He modulated his voice from a
roar to a yell. “And you didn’t think to mention it until NOW?”
“I’m sorry.” I began, knowing that was hardly good enough. “I was trying to find a
pulse.”
He opened his mouth clamped it shut. I could almost see him reordering his thoughts. He
tried again.
“Exactly where was this needle and wool when you found it?”
Uh, oh.
“The wool was sort of wrapped around Mr. Reynaud’s hand and wrist, but listen…”
I tried to point to the place on the woolen swatch where I saw the discrepancy but Deputy
Lyons was too angry to listen. He babbled on about evidence and chain of custody. I couldn’t get
a word in if I tried.
Naturally the elevator door opened again. Out came an elfin woman with white hair and a
cherubic face. She was wearing a palm frond splattered muu-muu that was much too large.
Lyons turned toward her but she ignored him and pointed directly at me.
“That’s the start of a triangle for Mandy Garcy’s baby blanket. Where did you get it?
Blue is the fourth floor’s color. You don’t live here.”
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Deputy Lyons couldn’t care less that she was talking to me, he jumped on her instantly.
“Who are you? And what about this wool?” He instinctively touched the handcuff case
on his belt. I imagined that, if he didn’t like her answer, he’d have the old woman cuffed in
twenty seconds flat.
“Mandy and Joel Garcy down on two are having a baby. Every floor is knitting triangles
in different colors for a blanket. I developed the pattern myself. Geometric, colorful. We’re
doing light blue, third floor has buttercup yellow and so on. Each apartment here on four is
contributing a triangle.” She ticked off a finger as she said each name. “Mr. Costas, Mrs.
Delancy, Mr. Renauld—”
Lyons doggedly tried another tactic. “Excuse me, m’am. I’m Deputy Lyons, Lee County
Sheriff’s Department. We have a situation.”
“Well, son, if you make her return our knitting…that will resolve my situation.”
Clearly this was not going to be easy. I tried to intervene.
“Was Mr. Reynaud knitting his own piece or did he have someone do it for him?”
Lyons started to raise his arm as if to cut off all conversation between the two of us but
he dropped it when the woman answered.
“Of course, he was knitting his own piece. Men of breeding often like to knit. King
Edward the Eighth was a knitter. So was Charles Dickens. Mr. Reynaud fit right in. Unlike Mr.
Costas, no breeding there.” She shook her head. “All he cares about are his endless causes. Still,
his mother taught him to knit the summer he broke his leg, so that came in handy.”
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She paused for a breath and I watched Lyons lean over her ready to pounce but I quickly
slipped in another question.
“Was Mr. Reynaud a left handed knitter by any chance?”
Deputy Lyons, patience exhausted, had had enough.
“Ladies, if we could get back to the case at hand.” He moved his bulk between me and
the knitting expert and began to ask the routine who are you, why are you here questions,
although clearly she lived in Apartment 4B, the only one unaccounted for. Her name was Lavinia
Whelan and when Lyons told her about Mr. Reynaud, she was genuinely upset.
I leaned toward Bridgy, held up the swatch suspended from the knitting needle.
“Remember Miss Marigold?”
Bridgy stared at the length of wool and then her eyes got big.
My whisper got Deputy Lyon’s attention back in my direction.
“What now?”
“It’s the stitching.” I held the light blue swatch up so he could see. “Here. Where the
knitter started to decrease. And from that point forward. It’s just the way the R.A. in our dorm
used to knit her decreases and she—”
Lyons cut me off with a roll of his eyes. Then he glared at me and crossed his arms,
showing off those biceps once again.
I was vindicated when the cherub lady saw what I was talking about.
“Of course. The curve of the decreased stitches. That’s the work of a left handed knitter.”
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Deputy Lyons took over from there.
He took Mrs. Whelan by the arm and they spoke in hushed tones near her front door.
Still, it’s a small hallway so we all heard her confirm that Reynaud was a right handed knitter.
Lyons asked if anyone on the fourth floor was a left handed knitter.
I gasped when I heard the name.
Lyons told Mrs. Whelan she could go into her apartment. I will say he broke it to her very
gently that she would be short one blue triangle for the blanket, as he would need it as evidence.
I was sure that, when she got over her shock, she’d knit an extra one in a heartbeat. She didn’t
strike me as the type to let anything get in a way of her plan.
Lyons stepped just inside the doorway of 4A and called Kowalski. While they conferred
we could hear murmurs but no clear conversation.
When Lyons came back to the hallway, he signaled Deputy Bradley and told him to
escort the three of us to the lobby.
“Pull a couple of deputies in from the perimeter so that you’ll have a female should the
ladies need to use the facilities.” Which was the first sign we had all day that Lyons was human
and recognized that we were, too.
Earlier, I hadn’t paid much attention to the lobby but when we stepped out of the elevator
on the ground floor Bridgy and I were impressed with the high glass walls and large spacious
seating area. The rear outdoor deck overlooked the Gulf of Mexico. We were pleased when the
deputy said we could wait there. We stood at the rail marveling at the variety of palm trees and
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dune plants that edged the startling white sand. The sun was taking it’s time meandering to the
horizon, and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore was all the music we needed.
When we inquired, Dooney told us that there were discreet “residents only” restrooms
next to the swimming pool. Deputy Wei, a young Asian female lead the way, while Deputy
Bradley went with Dooney to the office so he could have a measure of privacy while he called
his wife to explain he was going to be late for dinner.
Walking along the pool deck on the side of the building, Bridgy said, “Sassy, what are we
going to do? We’re officially homeless.”
Deputy Wei pulled a card out of a pocket on her belt.
“Don’t worry. There are lots of places to stay on Fort Myers Beach. If it gets late or you
can’t find anything, give me a call. My mom lives right on Estero Bay about a mile south of here
and has a room she rents B and B. I’m sure she’d give you a break given the circumstances.”
We were still thanking her profusely when we walked back into the lobby. Dooney had
moved to the indoor lounge area with Deputy Bradley standing by his chair. When we joined
them, K. Dooney said, “I’m so sorry that you have had this inconvenience ladies. I spoke to the
building owner. We have a turn-key furnished two bedroom for sale on the fifth floor…”
“Fifth floor?” I hadn’t noticed.
“Top and final floor. It only exists on the beach side of the building. From boats out on
the Gulf kinda looks like a turret on a castle. You can stay there until 4A is spic and span again.”
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When I felt Bridgy shudder next to me, I realized I’d never be able to walk through the
door of 4A without seeing a murdered corpse on the patio. I thanked Mr. Dooney. At least we
had a solution for tonight and Deputy Wei’s mom as a back-up.
Every time I heard the elevator “ding,” I turned toward it. Eventually I wasn’t
disappointed. Kowalski and another deputy escorted Mrs. Delancy out of the elevator. Her makeup was smeared and she was wearing jeans topped by a baggy black sweatshirt. The diamond
bracelets were replaced by sturdy metal handcuffs. Since her hands were secured behind her
back, I couldn’t see if she was wearing the mega-diamond ring. Her husband was nowhere to be
seen.
Deputy Lyons came down alone in the next elevator. He thanked us for our cooperation
and asked what would be a convenient time for him to send someone to pick us up and drive us
to the Sheriff’s office the next morning so that we could make our sworn statements.
I couldn’t resist asking, “What did she say? Why did she kill Mr. Reynaud?”
Lyons smiled, “I see why they call you Sassy.”
Then he tipped an invisible hat and walked out the door.
We gratefully accepted the key to the turret apartment from K. Dooney who was far more
anxious to get home than he was to show us still another apartment that was supposed to be
vacant.
He directed us to a nearby restaurant for dinner.
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We were deciding on dessert—Key Lime Pie or New York Cheesecake, when someone
in the bar asked that the sound be raised on the television. The evening news had just started. I
nearly fell off my chair when the anchor said:
Mrs. Sarah Lee Delancy, resident of the Beausoreil Apartments, has confessed to
stabbing her lover in the throat with a knitting needle. According to the Lee County Sheriff’s
Office, Ferdinand Reynaud, who also lived in the Beausoreil, died within minutes. Mrs. Delancy
confessed to stabbing him when he tried to end their affair. Reynaud and Mrs. Delancy belonged
to a community knitting group. She always brought her wool and needles to his apartment as a
cover for their romantic rendezvous.
We sat silently as the newscaster moved on to a fatal collision on I-75.
“An affair? Who kills over an affair?” Thoughtlessly, the words flew out of my mouth.
Bridgy smiled ruefully.
“I’m sure the thought has crossed many a mind. I know it crossed mine. I just couldn’t
decide whether to kill the cougar or the bonehead.” She threw back her shoulders and lifted her
water glass. “Here’s to our new life. Now let’s order take-away Key Lime Pie and check out this
so-called turret.”
We clinked our glasses to new beginnings.
END