“I’m going to find a place to park. Then we’re going to hoof it. Our first stop will be to find Gentry Lomax or Bessie Love to see what they can tell us. Most of these buildings look like town houses to me,” Jack said, eyeing the dwellings in front of him.

“They are. Three floors to each building. Six apartments to each floor, so that means the buildings extend into the back. Eighteen residents to a building. Ten of those buildings in all, which translates into one hundred and eighty residents. Assuming all the apartments are occupied. In addition to those buildings, as you can see, there are four blocks with small ranch houses on them, three on a side, including the corner houses, which adds another thirty-two residents, bringing the total to two hundred and twelve.

“Apparently Cosmo figured that some people would prefer living in a small house rather than an apartment and took that into consideration when he decided to put up this complex. That had to be a pretty massive undertaking on Cosmo’s part to have all this built. Unless he did it slowly, a little bit at a time, and this is the end result. All the apartments are one-bedroom, one-bath units. To discourage coupling, I assume. The houses are only slightly larger but still only one bedroom.” Dennis giggled.

“According to the floor plan, the rooms in the apartment are a good size and they have eat-in kitchens. The bathrooms are all those walk-in kind for the safety of older people. The houses have a larger living room and a dining area separate from the kitchen. I suppose the people who live in the houses figured they would have guests over, maybe their kids and grandkids, and wanted to be able to sit down comfortably for a meal. It’s a good, safe environment as far as I can tell. If Cosmo is responsible for the design, then I’d say he did a good job.”

Jack nodded as he parked the car and turned off the engine. “He put his father here, so yes, I would have to agree. Lizzie said that Zack Meadows’s mother was here also, so I guess that’s why the two of them partnered up. I know that Cosmo’s father passed away a year or so ago, but I don’t know about Zack Meadows’s mother. No one said, or if they did, I missed it.”

The blistering heat immediately attacked the two men after they exited Lizzie’s air-conditioned car. Dennis immediately started to fan himself as sweat beaded on his forehead. The sky overhead was clear blue, and the sun was a bright golden orb in the sky as a flock of scrub jays swarmed down to nestle in a large oak tree at the end of the street before they squawked and descended to a patch of lawn that had a sprinkler throwing water in all directions. “I have this crazy urge to run through that sprinkler,” Dennis admitted, grinning.