Thirteen Diamonds

don't know. He made the call, himself, and I didn't hear him say a name. After he hung up he went out to the parking lot and I didn't see him again. So at least he didn’t set off the alarm, if that’s what you’re fishing for.”
    I wasn’t sure what I was fishing for. “Do you know what restaurant he came from?”
    “He said it was in Durham—some seafood restaurant—but I don't remember which one.”

CHAPTER 3
     
    As I drove out of the woods at the end of the mile-long, unpaved road, the expanse of the Morgan estate lay before me, with its green acres of neatly-mowed lawn. My son Albert had a sit-down mower and mowed the lawn himself when he couldn't convince anybody else, Tom Sawyer-like, of the pleasures of bouncing around and being deafened for several hours.
    The purple of the flowering crepe myrtle bushes contrasted with the green of the lawn and the trees. Albert's small red barn completed an idyllic scene that any landscape artist would love to paint.  But an artist I'm not.
    Our family's regular Sunday dinner gave me an opportunity to enjoy my family for the afternoon—and then to go and live my own life. Today I also wanted to forget about Gerald Weiss choking while holding a perfect bridge hand. I resolved not to talk about it, even though I had been thinking about Gerald, against my will, and wondering what had really happened.
    I parked my 15-year-old Mercedes beside Albert's pickup truck, near the garage of his modern two-story house, which was large enough to give shelter to many more people than one. My granddaughter Sandra's little red Toyota was already there—she had driven over from her nearby condo—as well as an unidentified fourth vehicle. I only knew that it didn't belong to Winston, my great grandson; he was one year old.
    Albert's yellow Labrador retriever came bounding up to the car so I opened the door and released my own dog, a part-husky named King, who immediately ran off with him, glad of the opportunity to romp with her buddy. I had named King after the great lead dog of the fictional Sergeant Preston, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, even though she was a female. She had been fixed, so she wasn't going to produce any mixed-breed puppies.
    Winston came toddling along the sidewalk from the front door, babbling words that only he understood. Since he had recently learned to walk, I was afraid he might fall on the concrete, but he navigated it with surprising ease.
    I scooped him up—he was almost too heavy to scoop—and said, “Hello, Darling, how's my big boy?”
    Winston had elevated my status at Silver Acres, where many of the residents were great grandparents. He babbled some more and showed me the ball he carried. He pointed to Sandra, who followed him. “Is that your mommy, Sweetie?” I asked him. I can talk to babies with the best of them. I gave Sandra a hug.
    She said, “You look great, Gogi.”
    She's a good liar.  She called me Gogi when she first learned to speak, and it stuck. She's also a single mother, having divorced the no-good bum she married almost before the ink dried on the certificate. I warned her about him, but who listens to grandmothers.
    I said, “Thanks, Honey, so do you.” At least I told the truth. Sandra had the family blond hair and blue eyes and still wore her hair long, down to her waist. “Summer vacation agrees with you,” I continued, seeing her tan legs below her shorts, shaped by her daily runs. “Would you like to help take in the pies and rolls?”
    Sandra and Albert both liked to cook, thank goodness, so I usually contributed baked goods to our traditional Sunday dinner. The heavenly aroma of baking bread reminded me of my own little grandmother, who could turn out perfect loaves from the imperfect heat of an oven in a wood stove.
    On our way to the front door, with Winston toddling ahead again, I asked, “Who else is here?”
    “A colleague of Dad's from the university, a certain Dr. Maria Enriquez. She specializes in one of the sciences, as I understand it. Just so that you won't be surprised, she's a bit, uh...darker than we are. But she is gorgeous. Dad sure has good taste in women.”
    “I don't care if she's chartreuse, as long as she's good to him.” Why is it that young people suspect all of us oldsters of being prejudiced? Albert was also single, making our family zero spouses for four generations, and he played the field. I wished nothing more for Albert and Sandra than that they become well