The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove Read Online Free PDF Page A

wine. She
said water was for washing and milk was for growing children. She often had a couple of glasses of wine with lunch, plus the whisky her doctor prescribed in the evening. Sometimes she
couldn’t remember if it was evening, or morning, or afternoon, and the wine and the whisky got mixed up.
    The wine worked wonders. Irma was able to speak again after a couple of swallows.
    ‘It’s just that I was thinking you don’t really need a sleeping pill to fall asleep while the news is on.’

Chapter 4
    A few days later, Siiri and Irma were enjoying a very peaceful, ordinary afternoon at Sunset Grove. Everyone had had their lunch and their midday rest, and around 3 p.m. they
came down to the common room to play cards. The afternoon card game wasn’t one of Sunset Grove’s services; it had sprung up spontaneously when they realized how many of them liked to
play.
    Irma shuffled the deck and dealt everyone eleven cards. It was something she enjoyed immensely; she was a skilful shuffler and a nimble dealer. They didn’t play in teams because it only
caused arguments and there wouldn’t have been a partner for everyone. The ritual they performed after the cards were dealt was always the same: Irma would show her hand and crow over the twos
and jokers, which made Anna-Liisa tense, while Siiri, Reino and the Ambassador calmly and quietly arranged their hands. The Ambassador sat to Irma’s left, so that he could start the play.
    ‘I’m on the table,’ he said, laying down three jacks. Irma praised this achievement and Anna-Liisa coughed nervously – she had probably been hoping to collect jacks
herself. Siiri drew a joker on her turn, tried not to smile, and discarded a four of diamonds.
    ‘Did you get something nice?’ Irma asked. ‘It’s your turn, Reino.’
    But Reino didn’t draw a card. He looked like he wasn’t following the game. He was just staring straight ahead, muttering to himself and holding the cards unsorted in his hand.
Everyone looked at him expectantly.
    ‘Olavi Raudanheimo . . . a war veteran! In a wheelchair! If he hadn’t told me himself, I wouldn’t . . . ! My God! How the hell could this happen?’
    He shook his head and shouted so that the spit flew out of his mouth and his cards flew onto the floor. He waved his arms and wailed, then slumped in a lifeless heap and started to cry. He was a
big man, and usually so happy, but he was crying like a child, sobbing and whimpering, his whole body shaking. It was frightening. Irma offered him her handkerchief. Siiri took his hand, leaned
towards him, and asked him what the matter was. Anna-Liisa pushed her chair half a metre further from the table and watched him sniffle and sputter with a severe look on her face.
    ‘Speak up,’ she said. ‘Articulate. We can’t understand you.’ She was right, of course. His weeping had grown to a howl, and no one could make out a word he was
saying.
    Olavi Raudanheimo was Reino’s neighbour in C wing. He lived in a studio apartment and got around in a wheelchair, but they rarely saw him. Sometimes Reino took him out to the nearest park,
but he didn’t participate in the Sunset Grove activities. Olavi was more of a bookish man who kept himself to himself. He enjoyed solving crossword puzzles and listening to the news on the
radio. He had lost both legs in the war and lived in Sunset Grove on a state pension.
    ‘Is Olavi dead?’ Irma asked excitedly.
    ‘No, no. If only . . .’ Reino said, blowing his nose loudly into her lace handkerchief. ‘That’s something an old man could take, damn it.’
    ‘That’s my mother’s old handkerchief,’ Irma said, looking worriedly at the wet wad in his hand. ‘But it doesn’t matter,’ she said, smiling. ‘Just
an old rag.’ She always tried to keep her spirits up, whatever the situation. ‘It seems we’ll never die!
Döden, döden, döden
. Now what was that card . . .
drat, it’s a king! Did Olavi have a fall in his apartment? Did he have