The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove by Minna Lindgren Read Free Book Online

was an angel, it was Tero Lehtinen, with his long hair and dimples.
    ‘Do you think he shaves his head?’ Irma asked in a too-loud voice. ‘He doesn’t look naturally bald.’
    ‘Nowadays even very young men want to be bald,’ Siiri whispered, and Irma shot back, ‘Yes, when they’re not wearing a topknot.’
    This made them start to laugh and then feel immediately ashamed of themselves because it was very inappropriate to whisper and giggle at a young man’s funeral.
    When it was their turn to go up to the coffin, a considerable operation commenced. Canes clattered against the floor, Siiri dropped her cushion, Zimmer frames got stuck between the pews and
Margit Partanen’s hearing aid started to beep, but she couldn’t hear it, of course. The handsome man who talked about angels helped them, pulling Anna-Liisa’s Zimmer frame loose
from the flower ribbon and picking Siiri’s cushion up off the floor.
    ‘A thousand thanks,’ Siiri said, taking her green cushion from him with some embarrassment.
    ‘Don’t mention it,’ the angel man said and looked at her with soft blue eyes. ‘Nice pillow.’
    ‘The residents of Sunset Grove want to thank our cook, Tero, for the moments of pleasure he gave us,’ the Ambassador read in his quavering men’s-chorus tenor, making the
moments of pleasure sound so indecent that some of the funeral guests had to hold back laughter instead of tears. Irma nudged Margit Partanen with her elbow and told her to do something about her
beeping hearing aid. Margit took the gadget out and stuffed it hurriedly in her handbag. It stayed there beeping throughout the service, competing with the snores of the Hat Lady.
    Director Sundström and Nurse Hiukkanen weren’t at the funeral and so they weren’t able to witness the Sunset Grove residents’ condolences for Tero’s loved ones. It
was also a great disappointment that Pasi, the social worker, wasn’t there either. As soon as the coffin was in the hearse, Irma walked briskly up to Tero’s mother, introduced herself,
and talked about all sorts of things. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get any useful information out of the woman because she was so deranged by grief and strong medication.
    ‘Why did he do it? Why?’ she sputtered.

Chapter 7
    On Wednesday Irma had a book-club meeting at her daughter-in-law’s house in some godforsaken place, probably East Helsinki or Espoo. She was supposed to have read George
Perec’s
Life: A User’s Manual
for the meeting but she’d found it so tiresomely long-winded and convoluted that she had stopped reading. It was definitely intended for
someone younger than ninety.
    ‘You didn’t finish it? How are you going to participate in the discussion, then?’ Siiri asked nervously, but Irma just waved her hand with her jangling golden bracelets and
laughed.
    ‘I’m sort of their mascot. They invite me because they’re afraid I’ll be lonely. They think I’m senile and they don’t expect me to understand what
they’re talking about anyway. The fun thing about being my age is that I can act however I like and no one’s surprised. My daughter-in-law always serves the most wonderful goodies.
That’s why I go. Of course, I have to remember to bring my pillies.’
    Irma hopped into a taxi in front of the Japanese restaurant at Laajalahti Square and Siiri went to catch the tram, taking a few running steps to make the nearest one. First the number 4, then
one and a half times around the loop on the number 3. When the number 3 got to the last stop, at the Zoological Gardens, she had to sit in the tram and wait for several minutes. It felt awkward to
just sit and watch the driver smoke his cigarette. A proper last stop has a little turnaround, like the number 4 has at Munkkiniemi. She particularly liked the little loop on Arabianranta, where
the number 6 and the number 8 had their last stops. When the tram was going at a good clip it made her stomach do a lovely flip.
    The driver