Menu for Murder

By Janet Go

This is a mystery novel about shocking murders that take place during one week at Paradise Palms, a retirement community in Hawaii. The book is part mystery, part irreverent social commentary, and fascinating Hawaiiana. The narrator is Grace Hill, an 84-year-old resident of the Palms. She and her Clue Crewthree sharp and funny ladieswith the help of two Hawaiian policemen solve the mysterious deaths of five elderly residents. The week in hell culminates when Grace discovers the naked body of a man at the bottom of the swimming pool. Among the murder suspects are the Palms head chef, his wife, the sous chef, a saleswoman, a swimming pool cleaner, and even Grace. As the author raises the lid on retirement home living, beware, there may be an unpleasant odor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503575431

Janet Go

The author’s first article appeared in the Washington, D.C. Star at age eleven. After graduating from the University of Colorado, she moved to Honolulu, then to Guam. In 1969, she wrote the first tourist guidebook to Guam and Micronesia and was a staff writer for daily newspapers. Upon retirement from U.S. Civil Service in 1991 as a technical writer/editor for Navy publications, she returned to Colorado. When not skiing moguls, she wrote travel articles for magazines and newspapers and published four books. She has sailed the seven seas on freighters and luxury liners. She lives on Maui.

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Copyright © 2015 by Janet Go.

ISBN:      Softcover      9-7815-0357-544-8

                eBook           9-7815-0357-543-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/05/2015

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

One Pō’alua (Tuesday)

Two Pō’akolu (Wednesday)

Three Pō’ahā (Thursday)

Four Pō’alima (Friday)

Five Pō’aono (Saturday)

Six Lāpule (Sunday)

Seven Pō’akahi (Monday)

Eight Pō’alua (Tuesday)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Mahalo nui loa to Joyce and Duane Howard, Janet and Bob Walker, Ron Williams, Roger Brown, Rick Olson, Sachiko Fujii, Cecilea Boden, Joyce Lahl, and Evelyn R. Macintyre, M.D., whose friendly advice and encouragement made this book possible.

The Hawaiian legends and events in the book are true. The retirement community and characters are fiction; any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

When I raise the lid on retirement home living, beware—there may be an unpleasant odor.

As American politician Roscoe Conkling said in 1880, Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may.

Books by Janet Go

Micronesia Visitors Guide, 1969, Hawaii Business Publishing Corp.

Dance of Desire, Tragic Passion Behind New Orleans’ Mask, a novel, 2000, Xlibris Corp.

Where America’s Day Begins, jungle journalism on Guam, 2001, Xlibris Corp.

Waltzing on the QE2, a novel, 2001, Xlibris Corp.

Alpenglow, Romance in the Rockies, a novel, 2003, Xlibris Corp.

Don’t Miss the Boat, a world voyage on the QE2, 2007, Lifetime Chronicle Press

FOREWORD

My name is Grace Hill. By my 80th birthday, I had outlived my family and most friends. I was surprised that I hadn’t drowned in the many rogue waves that have washed over my life.

After six years in Honolulu, Civil Service jobs took me to the Western Pacific and back to the U.S. mainland. When I retired at age 61, I bought a condo in the Colorado Rockies, where I spent the next decade skiing, hiking, and writing books.

I believed in Little Annie’s theme in Aspen: If you’re walking on thin ice, you might as well dance. So, at age 80, I danced on a month’s luxury cruise around South America. When we stopped at Ilhabela, Brazil, the seaside resort reminded me of Lahaina and made me homesick for Hawaii. In 1958 I took a Matson Line freighter from San Francisco to Honolulu to visit my mother, and a year later I moved there, the same year Hawaii and Alaska became States.

Back in Colorado, I inquired about retirement facilities in Hawaii. I crossed the Pacific to inspect Paradise Palms, an independent retirement community in Maui, 2,500 miles from anywhere in the North Pacific, with the best climate on the planet.

While inspecting the Palms, I fell hook line and sinker for its slogan: Just like living on a cruise ship. The rent included three meals a day, housekeeping service, and transportation to shopping, medical appointments, and occasional holoholos (pleasure trips). I was ready to set sail for the easy life, so nine months later I moved to Paradise Palms.

I was adjusting slowly to group living in a sea of octogenarians and nonagenarians until the week in hell, during which five residents mysteriously died, and I found the naked body of the sous chef at the bottom of the swimming pool.

PARADISE PALMS

Lū’au

10-Year Jubilee Celebration

Ianuali (January) 2013

Appetizer

              Mushrooms Leilani*

Main Course

              Lū’au Pork

              Island Fried Rice*

              Hawaiian Sweet Potato Casserole*

              Poi

              Mac Salad

Dessert

              Haupia*

       Living at Paradise Palms is like living on a ship.

ONE

PŌ’ALUA (TUESDAY)

Another perfect Hawaiian day, I thought that morning as I stepped out the back door of Paradise Palms. The sun was slowly peeking over the volcanic peaks of Haleakala, and the sun’s orange rays were dancing on the West Maui Mountains. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the warm salty mist from the ocean and the sweet aroma of plumerias. My thoughts were echoed by the mynahs squawking and wrens chirping as they hopped on the grassy slopes.

The Palms certainly deserved its name, I thought. Lining the path were white and pink plumeria trees and gaudy bougainvillea bushes, and a light breeze rustled the fronds of the banana trees and coconut palms. A Tongan gardener and his crew kept the shower trees trimmed and removed the unsightly brown fronds from the stately palms.

I picked a white Plumeria and, since my hair was too short to hold it, I stuck it behind the right earpiece of my trifocals. In flower language, that meant I was single, or looking. A flower over a woman’s left ear meant she was either married or spoken for.

Wait up, Grace. I’m so mad I could strangle somebody. Anybody.

I turned to see Vicki Valentina slam the door of her car. She stomped out a cigarette butt on the pavement and ran to catch up with me, her orchid-patterned midi-skirt trailing behind her like the wake of a ship.

Not me, I hope. What’s wrong? We walked up the path towards the Atrium, the central hall or agora, of the Palms.

Vicki was a saleswoman hired by Corporate, Paradise Palms’ home office, to find new residents. These marketeers, as I called them, received minimal salaries, but earned lucrative commissions for each couple or resident who moved in for more than three months. If marketeers didn’t produce renters, they quickly and quietly disappeared, with the stipulation that they could not set foot on the premises for one year. Business was about supply and demand, and promotional events took place frequently to fill empty apartments.

Her five-foot-nine frame boasted wide hips and a well-endowed bosom. I almost believed the story that she had smothered a man with her boobs when she hugged him as he sat on a sofa in the Atrium. Today she wore a sheer white blouse with sequins lining the low-cut V neck, giving a view of her purple push-up bra.

I didn’t think Vicki’s attire was appropriate for work as a saleswoman; she dressed more like the madam in a house of pleasure on Hotel Street in Honolulu. She wasn’t the only person at the Palms who ignored the dress code printed in the 50-page residents’ handbook. Some people came to the dining room in bathing suits, nightgowns, terry cloth robes, short-shorts, undershirts, and skimpy dresses barely covering their yin-yangs. Management didn’t enforce their own rules, even for employees.

Vicki’s getup might have looked good on a teenager, but not on a thirty-five-year-old business woman. Undoubtedly somewhere inside Vicki, was a thin, fashionable women begging to get out. I admired her tenacity.

Grace, remember the couple who moved in here last week?

I nodded. Haven’t seen them lately.

Well, this weekend they moved to their daughter’s house in Kula. I tried to persuade them to stay at the Palms, but their daughter said her parents didn’t like living here, especially the meals. So, Corporate denied my commission. Vicki was ready to explode, like the rumbling volcanoes that had raised these islands out of the prehistoric sea.

Bummer.

I lost another commission when the man in 307 died during his first week here. Damn Corporate.

At the Palms, anything that went sour was blamed on Corporate, which dictated menus, activities, budgets, policies, and decor of its hundred-plus properties. This reminded me of the Colorado high country, where we blamed everything that went wrong on the altitude.

By the time she was twenty, Vicki was on her own, following in the footsteps of those crazy sixties and seventies flower children, who wore tie-dyed T-shirts and love beads, and believed in free love. Like many haoles, or white persons, I felt at home in Maui, an island noted for its free spirited way of life, like the flowing breezes that swayed the coconut palms along the shores.

Vicki was recovering from an abusive marriage. Her ex-husband emptied their bank account three years after they were married and ran off with a sixteen-year-old Wet Seal model to Bali, never to be heard from again.

I sympathized with Vicki. My marriage didn’t last long; in fact, I ran away from my husband after he tried to strangle me to death. After my divorce, I moved to New Orleans, where I should have made a wax effigy of my ex-husband and stuck pins in it to put a hex on him, as the voodoo queens did in the French Quarter.

Vicki needed every dollar she could scrape up. She dreamed of opening a bistro in Ma’alaea, a marina where fishing boats and whale-watching cruise boats moored. The resort complex, which included shops, restaurants, and a 750,000-gallon ocean aquarium, was popular with visitors and residents. Vicki was looking for a male executive cook to share the start-up costs of the enterprise and, probably, some personal services as well. She pictured herself as a flamboyant hostess full of aloha, even though her only culinary experience was waiting tables in her parent’s hoagie shop in South Philadelphia.

Like members of the Mummer’s clubs, a tradition in the City of Brotherly Love, Vicki’s family were hard-working middle class people. It’s hard for me to imagine how and when Horace Greeley’s advice Go west, young man caught her fancy and she ended up in Hawaii. Most people in South Philly never ventured as far as West Philly.

At least I had a wonderful weekend. In fact, I’m so tired I could hardly get out of bed this morning.

What did you do? I looked up at Vicki. I felt like a midget beside her, having shrunk an inch and a half in the last decade. I’m still getting used to being vertically challenged.

My honey and I went upcountry, she said, tossing her long bleached blonde hair over her shoulder.

What did you do besides wandering around the meadows?

Oh, we drove around a while and visited Kaumahina Wayside Park on the road to Hana. We walked through bamboo and eucalyptus forests. And the mushrooms were sprouting five inches high from cow pies in the pastures.

You caught them right after the heavy rains. Shrooms are only out for a few days.

Who was her honey? Could he be Richard Crenshaw, the head cook at the Palms? I heard on the coconut wireless that Vicki and Richard were an item, even though he was married and probably lacked the necessary seed money for her restaurant venture. If Richard’s possessive wife ever found out about their affair, he and Vicki would be dead meat.

We wandered around some shops upcountry, she said, clearing the phlegm from her throat. She smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.

I’m surprised at the number of nurses, caregivers, and other staff members who took cigarette breaks in the parking lots. In this day and age, you’d think they would know the disastrous consequences of this nasty habit.

Did you stop at any of the art galleries and smoke shops? These mom-and-pop stores sold water pipes, cool gifts, and, of course, Maui Wowie.

Vicki smiled and rasped, Oh, yes. I bought a hand-blown blue glass vase in one shop. After we smoked some dope, we went to the Stupa.

Did you spin the prayer wheel? I asked.

She nodded. And walked around it three times.

During his 2007 visit to Maui, the Dalai Lama blessed the Stupa and prayed for peace, love, and non-violence.

I saw a book drop out of Vicki’s tote bag. What are you reading?

"Fifty Shades of Grey. She picked up the book and stuffed it into the bag.

Oh, I’ve heard of that. It was once on the New York Times’ best seller list.

She sighed deeply. Yes. Love it. Full of lust, sex. I can hardly put it down. I’ll let you read it when I’m done. She looked at her watch. Oops. Gotta go.

Running late, eh?

I have a tour for prospective residents this morning, and I volunteer at the Food Bank this afternoon.

Besides her sales duties, Vicki called Bingo games when the activity director was busy. I was surprised she had the time or inclination to do volunteer work.

No rest for the wicked. I winked at Vicki as we turned right at the swimming pool.

Hi Rick. Vicki smiled at the pool cleaner. Are you getting any? In Hawaii, getting any meant surf, not sex.

Rick looked at her as he was rolling up the hose after cleaning